"You have a home, a foot of earth to call your own.

Make yourself a name, that you may be of consequence in the world.

You are clever and beautiful, and with your prudence and beauty you can win a glorious future! Remember the Marquise de Pompadour, neglected and scorned as you, until a king loved her, and she became the wife of a king, and all France bowed down to her.

Even the Empress Maria Theresa honored her with her notice, and called her cousin.

I am also the favorite of a future king, and I will also become the queen of my king!" Wilhelmine had remained standing in the midst of the great drawing-room, which she was passing through, listening to these seductive voices, to these strange pictures of the future.