ABSTRACT
A man who possessed a carriage, horses and liveried flunkeys found himself at home forced to eat soup and potatoes spiced with the hope of soon being able to enjoy a more succulent repast at the prince’s table. The Prince of Hildeburghausen, whose lands were hardly more than five miles square, boasted a Marshal of the Household, Master of the Royal Hunt, Master of the Horse, an Officer of the Hunt, a Grand Forester and an equerry in charge of the sovereign’s travelling escort, etc. In the eighteenth century she acquired an ascendancy she had never known in Germany. Before the Reformation the princes concealed their amours. Lauremburg said of a Prince of Baden who lived without an accredited mistress: ‘That is unaristocratic and only fit for the common Germans.’ The Princess, who obviously found the adventurer ‘very amusing and resourceful’, insisted that he should accompany her to Ems and Frankfort for the coronation of the Emperor Charles VII.
