We offer the second of three books written by Kondraty Birkin. It tells about people who, by the will of fate, found themselves close to the reigning persons of the Russian and Western European courts of the 16th–18th centuries - temporary workers, favorites and favorites, who largely determined the policies of states. This book is about the meaning of love in history. LOVE as the strength of the weak and the weakness of the strong, LOVE as a source of goodness and inspiration, and Love that brought down monarchs from the throne, deprived them of human dignity, plunged them into madness and shame.