[i]
A GERMAN POMPADOUR
[ii]
WILHELMINE REICHSGRÄFIN VON GRÄVENITZ.
From a Portrait in the collection of Frau Anna Remshardt at Heilbronn.
[iii]
A GERMAN POMPADOUR
Being the Extraordinary History of
WILHELMINE VON GRÄVENITZ
LANDHOFMEISTERIN OF WIRTEMBERG
A NARRATIVE OF
THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
BY
MARIE HAY
AUTHOR OF 'DIANNE DE POYTIERS' AND
'AN UNREQUITED LOYALTY'
SECOND IMPRESSION
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1906
[iv]
Edinburgh: T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty
[v]
THIS
BOOK OF MEMORIES
IS DEDICATED
TO
A MEMORY
[vi]
[vii]
PREFACE
'The Past that is not overpast,
But present here.'
In a dusty, time-soiled packet of legal papers which had lainuntouched for nigh upon two hundred years, the extraordinaryhistory of Wilhelmine von Grävenitz is set forth in all thecolourless reticence of official documents. And yet somethingof the thrill of the superstitious fear, and the virtuous disapprovalof the lawyers who composed these writings, piercesthrough the stilted phrases. Like a faint fragrance of fadedrose-leaves, a breath of this woman's charm seems to clingand elusively to peep out of the curt record of her crimes.Enough at least to incite the wanderer in History's bywaysto a further study of this potent German forerunner of thePompadour.
To search through the Stuttgart archives, to ferret outforgotten books in dusty old book-shops, to fit together thelinks in the chain of events of the woman's story, to hauntthe scenes of bygone splendour in deserted palace and castle,old-world garden and desolate mansion; such has been thedelightful labour which has gone to the telling of the truehistory of the Gräveni