Note 126 — Chapter VIII

The Count de Bernsdorffe was a Hanoverian. He had large estates in Mecklenburg, but had sought fortune in Denmark, where at that time foreigners were warmly welcomed, and raised to high posts. He had been Foreign Minister to Frederick the Sixth. His reputation and influence were considerable in the northern courts. Walpole describes him elsewhere (Letters to Sir H. Mann, vol. i. p. 400) as a grim old man, bowing and cringing at every word of the King with eastern obsequiousness—indeed a Mentor and Telemachus have never yet been seen in real life. Bernsdorffe died in 1772, aged sixty. His nephew, Count Andrew de Bernsdorffe, also an eminent name in the later history of Denmark, was Prime Minister in 1784, and died in 1797.—E.