'
It is quite true that from the first dawn of his preference for Madame
Walmoden, the king wrote circumstantial letters of fifty or sixty pages
to the queen, informing her of every stage of the affair; the queen, in
reply, saying that she was only _one_ woman, and an old woman, and
adding, 'that he might love _more and younger women_.' In return, the
king wrote, 'You must love the Walmoden, for she loves _you_;' a civil
insult, which he accompanied with so minute a description of his new
favourite, that the queen, had she been a painter, might have drawn her
portrait at a hundred miles' distance.
The queen, subservient as she seemed, felt the humiliation. Such was the
debased nature of George II. that he not only wrote letters unworthy of
a man to write, and unfit for a woman to read, to his wife, but he
desired her to show them to Sir Robert Walpole. He used to 'tag several
paragraphs,' as Lord Hervey expresses it, with these words, '_Montrez
ceci, et consultez la-dessus de gros homme_,' meaning Sir Robert. But
this was only a portion of the disgusting disclosures made by the vulgar
licentious monarch to his too degraded consort.
In the bitterness of her mortification the queen consulted Lord Hervey
and Sir Robert as to the possibility of her losing her influence, should
she resent the king's delay in returning.
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