A ROMANTIC FAMILY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5068, 29 September 1894, Page 1

A ROMANTIC FAMILY.

(By Andrew Lang, in tho Illustrated London Newt.) " After the death of George I. the skeleton of Koenigßtnark was found under the floor of a dressing-room in tho Elector's ' Palace." So says M. Paul de St Victor, on the authority of Horace Walpolo. Now, att incident of this kind is what we may call business. There once, of a verity, was Bomance in Beal Life. This was ih the days of the Koenigsmarks. Perhaps the gentle and learned reader knows all about that family. For myself I know nothing except j from Tbackoray and from what I have been reading in M. Paul de St Victor, who certainly should have been Professor of the Bomance of History. That delightful ohair should be founded in one of our universities. I often wonder how people can be troubled abont pragmatic sanctions and constitutional remarks and the dialogue "De Scaccario," while they leave the romantic side of history alone, and know no more of the Koenigsinarlre than, perhaps, the gentle reader and I do. The House of Koenigsmark rose from obaourity in Sweden, during the seventeenth century, "exploded in the fonr corners of Europe," and faded out " in the blood of a tragic catastrophe," and, in fact, nnder the flooring of a dressingroom. They began to be fampns witu Christopher John, in the Thirty Years' War; for Christopher John, a Protestant, stole a gold saint, weighing eighty pounds, from the church of Paderborn. It was aa if one had looted the gold from the chryselephantine statue of Athene, in Athens. The eldest son of the hero, Otto William, came .too late for the gold of Athene, but he destroyed her house : he it waa who dropped a shell in the Parthenon and blew up the Turkish powder-magazine there* Up to that date the temple of the Maiden was intact, but must we blame .Otto William ? It was the fault of the Turks, • who ahould not have filled the Parthenon with gunpowder, and so caused " the greatest plastic crime in the history of the world." This event occurred in 1687. The angry Athene slew Otto William of fever in Eubcea, as Apollo, at Delphi, killed Otfried Miiller by sunstroke for doubting whether he was a solar deity. I, also, doubt it, but Mr Max Miiller may visit Delphi in safety. Next we come to Charles John, nephew to Otto William* He died at Argoß, after trailing a pretty Counteas of Southampton, disguised as his page, throngh many wars and wanderings. M. Paul de St Victor is responsible for this statement. Of the Countess, I 1 only know that she " had lovely eyes, the most beautif nl mouth in the world, and quantities of lustrous brown hair." From Southampton to Axgos, from the gold aaint of Paderborn to the ruined fane, "the goodly house" of Athene, isa long Odyssey, marked by ceaseless adventure. But, before he found death on Argive shores, Charleß John had d-stinguuhed himself in Pall Mall. He had wooed the rich widow, Eleanor Percy, bnt she preferred "Thomas aux Millions," for so M» Paul de Victor translates " Tom of Ten Thousand," Thomas Thynne, of Longlsat. Consequently, Charles John had Tom of Ten Thousand murdered in Pall Mall, Charles John had to flee, to find his death in Argos. Hiß sister was the famous Aurora, mistress of August the Strong, and bo lovely was she that Charles XII. literally ran away from the splendour of her eyes. Another brother was Philip Christopher; his spectre haunts history, and we follow him by the trail of his dripping blood (St Viotor). Elizabeth von Platen, mistress of the father of Georgo 1., made lore to Philip of Koenigeniark, the captain of the guard. But he made love to Sophia Dorothea of Zell, wife of our beloved i George I. He declared, and she declared that ahe was innocent. But their letters disprove their assertions. To ruin the domestic peace of an Eloctor, his nuuter, and also of the Elector's son, who was to be our King, might satisfy the ambition even of a Koenigsmark. Thesa violent delightß have violent ends, and, on all the romantic house brooded the wrath of the golden saint of the Maiden, tho daughter of Zeus.. Madame von Platen, discovering | that her lover was untrue, caused him to flee to August the Strong, the lover of his sister. But he could not remain apart from Sophia; he returned, in spite of a prophet's warning. Then Madame von Platen forced a lady of the Princess's to write a letter, aßif from the Princess, giving him an assignation. He hurried, by the secret stair, to his mistress's door, she dieavowed the letter. Armed with a note from the Elector, Madame von Platen concealed four bravos behind the statutes of four fauns in the hall, and served the party with a bowl of punch. Tbe burnt punch flickers blue, the four vast shadows fall on the floor ; you hear hurried steps coming and going without. It is Philip, striking against locked doors— for the doors sire all locked — and seeking vainly for an exit. He enters the long darkling hall drawn by the wavering blue lights. From behind the four fauns the four men leap on him. They stab him, they lay him low, he exclaims that his lady is innocent, the Countess von Platen sets her heel on his mouth. The rest is silence. ' Koenigsmark has vanished, like one of the murderers of Jeanne d'Arc, who vanished in a night; like Fethius, the Homeric scholar, after he entered that fuller's shop. Aurora sought for her brother in vain. There came no answer to ' cries like those of the mother of Memnon, the fairest of men. We have only Walpole's story of the corpse under the floor of the dressing-room in the palace of Hanover. Meanwhile, Sophia Dorothea, in face of her letters, denied her guilt on thp Holy Sacrament. Her long imprisonment is matter of history; with George Bhe neither could nor would be reconciled. So ends the great Koenigsmark romance, an affair of the Italian Renaissance breaking out, after date, in that northern Court whither we went to ask for a race of kings. For romance there was, and romance there will be, let the virtuous modern muse of America say what she will. This, also, is an element in the nature of man, and imperishable as youth and life and love and hot blood.