“To me?” asked the Princess, and her beautiful face expressed the most undisguised astonishment.

“Yes, to yourself, most gracious Princess.  And does your highness know why?  Because our spies here, as well as the gentlemen of the French embassy to Holland, had reported that the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg was smitten with the most glowing love for your highness.”

The Princess blushed with pleasure, and a wondrous smile lit up her radiant countenance.  “But,” asked she, “how does it concern the court of France whom the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg loves?”

“It concerns the court of France very nearly, your highness.  I can not avoid now burdening your highness a little with hated politics, while I explain to you how it comes that the love of the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg is a state affair for the European courts.  It comes from this, your highness, because the Electoral Prince, however small and insignificant his house, however inconsiderable, too, his future realm of Brandenburg, is still a very important personage.  Three crowns are hovering in the air above his head, and if he obtains all three he will be a mighty Prince, and his sword may turn the scale in the balance of peace and war.”

“What three crowns are those which hover thus above the Prince’s head?”

“There is first the crown of the dukedom of Prussia, with which the King of Poland has to invest the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, and which the Elector of Saxony would be too glad to see fall upon his own head.  Then, in the second place, there is the crown of the duchy of Pomerania, which belongs to the house of Brandenburg by right of inheritance, and which the Swedes are struggling for; and finally, in the third place, there is the crown of the duchy of Cleves, Juliers, and Berg, which the Emperor of Germany has indeed adjudged to that house, but which is so torn by Hessians and Spaniards, by the States, by the Swedes and various robbers, that probably hardly anything at all of it will be left.  But nevertheless, there it is, and if the future Elector of Brandenburg actually succeeds in uniting upon his own head these three crowns, besides the electoral hat of Brandenburg, then he will be mighty and influential, and have a full sounding voice in the concert of the European princes.  But now you must know that the Elector of Brandenburg is sickly, and has not many more years to live.  Then the Electoral Prince Frederick William becomes his successor, and it is only needful to have seen the Prince for a few hours, to have looked into his fiery eyes, to be made aware that he will not tread in his father’s footsteps, that he will not be the submissive vassal of the German Emperor, a mere tool in the hands of his minister, but that his efforts will be directed to making himself a free, independent Prince, and his country a strong, powerful, and self-sustaining state.  The Minister von Schwarzenberg, the almighty representative of the present Elector,