ded I can secure the King's favor by my obedience, I will do
all that is within my power.

"Nevertheless, in making my bargain with the Duke of Bevern, manage that
the CORPUS DELICTI [my Intended] be brought up under her Grandmother
[Duchess of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, Ludwig Rudolf's Spouse, an airy
coquettish Lady,--let her be the tutoress and model of my Intended, O
General]. For I should prefer being made a"--what shall we say? by
a light wife,--"or to serve under the haughty FONTANGE [Species
of topknot; so named from Fontange, an unfortunate female of Louis
Fourteenth's, who invented the ornament.] of my Spouse [as Ludwig Rudolf
does, by all accounts], than to have a blockhead who would drive me mad
by her ineptitudes? and whom I should be ashamed to produce.

"I beg you labor at this affair. When one hates romance heroines as
heartily as I do, one dreads those 'virtues' of the ferocious type [LES
VERTUS FAROUCHES, so terribly aware that they are virtuous]; and I had
rather marry the greatest--[unnamable]--in Berlin, than a devotee with
half a dozen ghastly hypocrites (CAGOTS) at her beck. If it were still
MOGLICH [possible, in German] to make her Calvinist [REFORMEE; our
Court-Creed, which might have an allaying tendency, and at least would
make her go with the stream]? But I doubt that:--I will insist, however,
that her Grandmother have the training of her. What you can do to help
in this, my dear Friend, I am persuaded you will do.

"It afflicted me a little that the King still has doubts of me, while I
am obeying in such a matter, diametrically opposite to my own ideas. In
what way shall I offer stronger proofs? I may give myself to the Devil,
it will be to no purpose; nothing but the old song over again, doubt on
doubt.--Don't imagine I am going to disoblige the Duke, the Duchess or
the Daughter, I beseech you! I know too well what is due to them, and
too much respect their merits, not to observe the strictest rules
of what is proper,--even if I hated their progeny and them like the
pestilence.

"I hope to speak to you with open heart at Berlin.--You may think, too,
how I shall be embarrassed, having to do the AMOROSO perhaps without
being it, and to take an appetite for mute ugliness,--for I don't
much trust Count Seckendorf's taste in this article,"--in spite of his
testimonies in Tobacco-Parliament and elsewhere. "Monsieur! Once more,
get this Princess to learn by heart the ECOLE DES MARIS and the ECOLE