372 WETTINthey could maintain their separate interests. As constitutionalists, they could
hope to control a foreign monarch better than a native one, expecting him to
arbitrate with impartiality, or at least with indifference, over the internecine
feuds of domestic politics. For this very reason, in this same era, the English
Parliament invited a Dutchman, and later the Hanoverians, to rule over them in
preference to the native Stuarts. Ramshackle dynastic states were commonplace
in eighteenth-century Europe, and there is no a priori factor which explains why
some of them, such as 'England-and-Wales/Ireland/Scotland/Hanover' should
have thrived, whilst others like 'Poland-Lithuania/Courland/Saxony' should
have floundered. (See Map 20.)
Apart from that, Augustus the Strong was an interesting prospect in himself.
As Duke of Saxony, Meissen, and Lusatia, he possessed the means to live of his
own. As an Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, he wielded influence in the
world, but not unlimited power. As commander of imperial armies in the cam-
paigns of the Holy League he had a distinguished military reputation. As the
father of some three hundred children, including the famous Maurice de Saxe,
Marshal of France (1696-1750), his personal prowess was beyond reproach. He
looked a fitting successor to the great Sobieski.^3
Augustus the Strong's amours formed one of the wonders of the age, attest-
ing no less to his catholic and cosmopolitan taste than to his phenomenal sta-
mina. After a series of youthful adventures in Madrid and Venice, where he had
variously disguised himself as a matador and a monk, he returned to Dresden in
1693 to the charms of his bride, Eberdine, Princess of Bayreuth, to the labours
of the Electoral Office, and to the cultivation of a covey of concubines - official,
confidential, and top secret. Maurice de Saxe was the Elector's son by his one-
time Swedish favourite - Aurora, Countess of Konigsmark. He received his
name, it was said, in memory of the famous victory that was gained over his
mother at the royal hunting-lodge at Mauritzburg. His half-brother, Count
Rotowski, was the son of Fatima, a Turkish girl captured at Buda in 1684. His
half-sister, Countess Orzelska, Princess of Holstein, was the child of Henriette
Duval, daughter of a Warsaw wine-merchant. In Poland, the new King left no
stern unturned. When the Countess d'Esterle, who had journeyed with him to
Cracow to witness his coronation, was surprised in flagrante with Prince
Wisniowiecki, she lost her place to Princess Lubomirska, wife of the royal
Chamberlain and niece of a cardinal. The latter, having changed her name to
Mme Teschen, soon yielded to the businesslike Mme Hoym, who negotiated a
legal contract and a salary of 100,000 RM per annum. This professionalism was
copied by most of her successors, not least by Mme Cosel, who insisted on the
erection of a suitable palace for herself in Dresden, and by Maria, Countess of
Denhoff, daughter of the Polish Crown Marshal, whose interests were astutely
managed by a mother-in-law intent on recovering her family's insolvent for-
tunes. The most extraordinary story of all concerned the abandoned mistress of
the British ambassador to Saxony, who, having turned for comfort to the
Elector-King, scored the only known non-event in fifty years of gallantry.^4