Note 226 — Chapter XXIV · THE RUIN OF THE PRINCESS.

We have the following evidence of how a portion of them were rescued, even at the eleventh hour. In the Memoirs of Countess [Aurora] Königsmarck, Auditeur Rüdiger, a confidant of Königsmarck’s, states that Metsch, one of the intermediaries employed by the lovers in their secret correspondence, was with Secretary Hildebrand after Königsmarck’s disappearance on July 1. Hildebrand asked him if he knew of any letters that might incriminate the Count. “As I answered in the affirmative,” proceeds Rüdiger’s statement, “and added I had seen a packet of letters in the small box on the Dresden journey, tied together with a yellow ribbon, of which the Count took especial care, the secretary requested me to take the box with me to my room and when the packing up was done to send it unopened by the lackey Mickel to Celle.” Aurora and her sister we know were at Celle soon after, and we are justified in surmising that these letters reached them by the hand of some trustworthy person, and thus ultimately came to hand with the other letters.