The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-16

where should we in England have gone for a
hkbgf me third brother also took delight Ia
IIaly, Wnere the priests converted him and his
Protestant chaplain too. Mass was SAID in
Hanover once more; and Italian sopranl piped
their Latin rhymes In place of the hymns which
William the PiOus and Dr. Luther sang. Louis
| XIV gave this and other converts q splendid
pension. Crowds OF Frenchmen and brilliant
| French fashions came into his court. II is in
calculable how much that royal blgWig cost
! Germany. Every prince initiated the French
| King, and had his Versailles, his Wilhelmshobe
or Ludwigslust; his court and its splendors; his
gardens lald out with statues; his fountains,
! and waterWorks, and Tritons; his actors, and
! dancers, and singers, and fddlers; his harem.
| with its inhabitants; his diamonds and duchies
for these latter; his enormous festivities, his
gaLllng ta4les; tournaments, masquerades, and
banquets lasting a week long, ior which the
people paid with their money, when the poor
wTetches had Ii, with their body and very blood
Wnen they had none; being sold by thousands
Dy their lords and masters who gayly dealt in
soldiers staked a regiment upon the red at the
gamphng table, swapped battalion against a
dancing girls diamond necklace, and, as it
were, poCketed their people.
As one views EuroDe throuph contemporary
books Of travel in the early part OF the last cen
fury, the landscape Is awful: wretched wastes,
oeggarly and plundered; half burned cottages,
and trembling peasants gathering piteous har-
vests; gangs OF such tramping along with bayo-
nets behind them and rpoTals with canes aud
cat-o-ninetails to fog them to barracks, BY
these passes my lords gilt carriage, Aounderug
through the ruts as he swears at the positions,
and tolls on TO the ResidenZ. Hard by, but
away from the noise and brawlng of the citi.
Zens and buyers, is Wilhemslust, or LudWigs-
ruhe, or Honbijou, or Versailles-it scarcely
matters which-near to the city, shut out by
woods from the beggared country, the enormous,
hideous, gilded, monstrous marble palace,
where the prince is, and the court and the trim
gardens, and huge fountains, and the forest
where the ragged peasants are beating the game
IN Gt is death to touch feather) and the jolly
hunt sweeps by with its Uniform of crimson and
gold; and the prince gallops ahead putting his
royal horn; and his lords and mistresses ride
after him; and the stag is pulled down; and the
huntsman gives the knife in the midst of a
chorus of bugles, and in time the court go home
to dinner; and our noble traveller-it may be
the Baron OF Pollnitz or the Count de Konigs-
marx, or the excellent Chevalier de Seingalt-
sees the procession cleaning through the trim
avenues of the wood, and hastens TO the inn,
and sends his noble name to the marshal of the
court. Then our noble arrays himself in green
and gold or pink and silver, in the richest
Paris mode, and is introduced by the Chamber
lain, and makes his bow to the Jolly prince and
the gracious princess; is presented to the chief
lords and ladies; and then comes supper, and
bank at faro, where he loses or wins thousand
pieces by daylight. II it Is a German court, you
may add not a little drunkenness to this picture
Of high life; but German, or French, or Spanish,
II you see out OF your palace windows beyond
the trim-cut forest vistas, misery is lying out
side; hunger is stalking about the bare villages,
iLsllessly following preCarious husbandry, plow-
~ stony helds with starved cattle or fearfully
!aS 1 ing IN scanty harvests. Augustus is fat and
IUiiy on MS throne; he can knock down an OK,
ana eat One almost; his mistress, Aurora yon
is the lovelest, the wttiest crea-
ttuIc. his diamonds are the biggest and most
brilliant IN the world, and his feasts as splendid
as those of Versailles. As for Louis the Great,
he is more than mortal. Lift up your glances
respectfully, and mark him cycling Madame de
Fontanges, or Madame de Montespan from under
his sublime perlwig, as he passes through the
great gallery where Villars and Vendome, and
Berwick, and Bossuet, and Massillon are waiting,
Can court be more splendid mobiles and knights
more gallant and superb? ladies more lovely?
grander monarch, or more miserable starved
wretch than the peasant his subject you can
not look on. Let us bear both of these types in
mind, II we wish to estimate the old society
properly. Remember the glory and the chivalry?
Yes! Remember the grace and beauty, the
splendor and lofty politeness; the gallant cour-
tesy OF Fontenoy, where the French line bids
the gentlemen of the English guard to fire first;
the noble constancy OF the old KING, and Villars,
his general, who fits out the last army with the
last crown piece from the treasury, and goes to
meet the enemy and die or conquer for France
at Denain. But round all that royal splendor
lies nation enslaved and ruined; there are
people robbed of their rights; communities laid
waste; iaith, justice, commerce trampled upon,
ana well nigh destroyed nay, in the very centre
of royalty itself, what horrible stains and mean
ness, crime and shame 1t is but to a silly
haIlot that some of the nobest gentlemen and
some OF the proudest women in the world are
bowing down; it is the price of miserable pro-
vince that the King ties in diamonds round his
mistress white neck. In the first half of the
last century, l say, this is going on all Europe
over. saxony is waste as well as PIcardy or
Artois, and Versailles is only larger and not
worse than Herrenhausen.
1t was the first Elector of Hanover who made
the fortunate match which bestowed the race of
Hanoverlan sovereigns upon us Britons. Nine
years after Charles Stuart lost his head, his
niece Sophia, one of many children of another
luckless, dethroned sovereign, the Elector
Palailne, married Ernest Augustus of Berwick,
and brought the reversion to the crown of the
three kingdoms in her scanty trousseau One
OF the handsomest the most cheerful sensible.
shreWd, accomplished OF women was Sophia
daughter OF poor Frederick, the winter King of
Bohemia. The other daughters of lovely, un-
happy Elizabeth Stuart went off into the Catholic
Church; this one, luckily for her family. re-
religion, but at least, she adopted no other
An agent CT the French Kings, GourVille a
convert himself, strove 10 bring her and her
husband to a sense OF the truth, and tells us
that he one day asked Madame the Duchess of
Hanover OF what religion her daughter was,
then pretty girl OF thirteen years old. The
Duchess replied that the princess l1ds of no re-
Hg,On as get. They we're waiting TO know of
what religion her husband would be, Protestant
or Catholic, before instructing her And the
Duke of Hanover, having heard of Gourville's
proposal, said that change would be adVan-
tageous to his house, but that he himself was
too old to change.
This sbrewd woman had such keen eyes that
she knew how to shut them upon occasion. and
was blind to many faults which it appeared her
husband, the Bishop of 0snabuIg and Duke of
Hanover, committed. He loved to take his
pleasure like other sovereigns-Was a merry
prince, fond of dinner and the bottle; liked to
no Tt,I,, a., IVna aI,nWu I,oI gl,., loE-.