Recently she paid a brief visit to Ansbach in an effort to patch things up with her hostile stepson. Ansbach is within striking distance of Mannheim on the Rhine, and so she and Caroline next went there to look in on some cousins who had shown them charity in the past. They arrived, naturally, at the worst possible moment, a few days ago, just as the French regiments were swarming over the Rhine on the barges built at Haguenau, and bombarding the defensive works. Someone there had the presence of mind to pack them on a boat full of well-heeled refugees, bound down the river. And so they passed quickly out of the area of danger, though they continued to hear cannon-fire for a day or more, echoing up the valley of the Rhine. They reached Nijmegen without incident, though the boat was so crowded with refugees – some of them with suppurating wounds – that she was unable to take more than the occasional catnap. When they debarked, Joachim – who is a Person of Quality in the Palatinate – recognized them as they stumbled down the gangplank, and brought them to me.