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338
HIRSCHHOLM.
Chap. XXII.
her father and mother’s portrait enriched with diamonds,
and a pension of four hundred dollars yearly till their
death, when she went down with a run, and became
maid-of-all-work to an apothecary; she then sold her
diamonds to come to Denmark. The Council examined
her claims, and pronounced her an impostor. It was
not likely during the life of Madalena her claims, if
true, would be allowed. She was condemned to be
scourged as an adventuress, and branded with a B as
an impostor (Bedragen). Her sentence was, however,
remitted to perpetual confinement in the prison of
the island of Møen, one hundred dollars yearly being
allowed to procure her better food. So much for
claiming a royal descent.
And now Madalena is growing old ; her palmy days
are over; she makes her will and a list of her jewels
in a red-morocco-bound book. I have seen it in
Rosenborg,—plain, clear, fair German characters, no blots,
and, what is more rare, correct spelling into the
bargain. Her house was now in order: she must resign
her palaces, her plaisaunces, and her pomp ;* she dies
in her castle of Christiansborg, 27th March, 1770, in the
seventieth year of her age, two years before the story
of Caroline Matilda. By her will she bequeathed her
jewels to the country, and begs her descendants to
preserve the buildings she has erected, as such works of
art add to the glory of the nation who possesses them.
Hirschholm increases in beauty, and queens love it
much. Louisa, our English princess, the darling of
* This she kept up in her widowhood, for when she visited Slesvig,
in 1751, to meet her brother the margrave, her suite consisted of 300
carriages.
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