court, Marie Susanne Loysa von Degenfeld, daughter of one of the
partisans of the Thirty years' war, a person according to all accounts
of great loveliness and much gentleness, mixed with firmness, excited a
passion in the Elector which made him regardless of all considerations.
After many angry quarrels he divorced his wife and at once married his
love, on whom the title of "Raugraefin" was bestowed by the Imperial
Court. The castoff Electress turned in vain to the Emperor Leopold, to
effect a reconciliation with her husband. This petition is here given
according to Luenig, from the rolls of the German Empire, 1714.[43]

"We, by the grace of God, Charlotte, Electress, Countess Palatine of
the Rhine, born Landgravine of Hesse, offer to the most august Prince
and Sovereign of Sovereigns, Leopold, by the grace of God, father of
the fatherland, our most dutiful, obedient, and submissive greeting and
service.

"Although the manifold and weighty business of the Empire with which
your Imperial Majesty is troubled at this time, might well frighten us
from disquieting you with our private affairs, yet we presume with
profound humility to set before your Imperial Majesty our most pressing
distress, and the mighty injuries inflicted upon us at this time
without any fault on our part, because it is well known to us that your
Imperial Majesty is at all times assiduous in helping most graciously
the injured to their rights.

"It is not, I hope, unknown to your Imperial Majesty that we have, for
nearly eleven years, been united in matrimony with his Most Serene
Highness Prince Karl Ludwig, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Elector of
the Holy Empire. At that time his Princely Highness, in frequent
discourse, both before and after marriage, promised us by the highest
oaths, an ever-enduring faith and conjugal love; and we on our part did
the like. Being then animated by such reciprocal love, we have served
his Highness in all conjugal obedience to the best of our power, so far
as our womanly weakness permitted. We have also, by the grace of God,
reared two young princes and a daughter in all love, so that his
Princely Highness ought in justice to have abstained from divorcing
himself from us.

"We submissively beg your Imperial Majesty to understand that, after
three very severe confinements, we clearly traced by many tokens, no
slight alienation in the feelings of our lord and husband, which would
justly have given rise to suspicion