rch, 1743. "MY DEAREST BROTHER,--I know not if it is
not too bold to trouble your Majesty on private affairs: but the
great confidence which my Sister [Amelia] and I have in your kindness
encourages us to lay before you a sincere avowal as to the state of our
bits of finances (NOS PETITES FINANCES), which are a good deal deranged
just now; the revenues having, for two years and a half past, been
rather small; amounting to only 400 crowns (60 pounds) a year; which
could not be made to cover all the little expenses required in the
adjustments of ladies. This circumstance, added to our card-playing,
though small, which we could not dispense with, has led us into debts.
Mine amount to 225 pounds (1,500 crowns); my Sister's to 270 pounds
(1,800 crowns).

"We have not spoken of it to the Queen-Mother, though we are well sure
she would have tried to assist us; but as that could not have been done
without some inconvenience to her, and she would have retrenched in some
of her own little entertainments, I thought we should do better to apply
direct to Your Majesty; being persuaded you would have taken it amiss,
had we deprived the Queen of her smallest pleasure;--and especially, as
we consider you, my dear Brother, the Father of the Family, and hope you
will be so gracious as help us. We shall never forget the kind acts of
Your Majesty; and we beg you to be persuaded of the perfect and tender
attachment with which we are proud to be all our lives,--Your Majesty's
most humble and most obedient Sisters and Servants,

"LOUISE-ULRIQUE; ANNE-AMELIE [which latter adds anxiously as Postscript,
Ulrique having written hitherto],

"P.S. I most humbly beg Your Majesty not to speak of this to the
Queen-Mother, as perhaps she would not approve of the step we are now
taking." [_OEuvres de Frederic,_ xxvii. i. 387.]

Poor little souls; bankruptcy just imminent! I have no doubt Friedrich
came handsomely forward on this grave occasion, though Dryasdust has not
the grace to give me the least information.--"Frederic Baron Trenck,"
loud-sounding Phantasm once famous in the world, now gone to the
Nurseries as mythical, was of this Carnival 1742-43; and of the next,
and NOT of the next again! A tall actuality in that time; swaggering
about in sumptuous Life-guard uniform, in his mess-rooms and
assembly-rooms; much in love with himself, the fool. And I rather think,
in spite of his dog insinuations, neither Princess had heard of him till
twenty ye