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A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg
by Marie Hay
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'Death to the person found affixing such a placard. Imprisonment to those who speak of these handbills. Fines to each householder upon whose house or door such a paper is found.' Thus Eberhard Ludwig decreed; and one miserable wretch was actually hung for nailing up one of Forstner's placards; while innumerable fines were imposed upon the burghers whose houses had been thus decorated.

The burning in effigy of Baron Forstner was fixed for the 15th of February. The arrangements for this strange function were elaborate, and entirely supervised and in part designed by the Landhofmeisterin. Her aim was to make this mock execution not merely a symbol of the criminal's degradation, but a truly awe-inspiring ceremony, calculated to strike terror into the minds of the onlookers.

She caused every town and village of Wirtemberg to send their chief men accompanied by their wives (the Landhofmeisterin knew the power of womanly gossip in a country, or indeed in any community) to witness the sham holocaust. The members of the court were commanded to be present, and the Stuttgart burghers were informed that non-attendants would be fined.

The 15th of February dawned clear and frosty, and in spite of the burghers' hatred of the Landhofmeisterin and all she did, there was a certain amused anticipation in Stuttgart regarding the strange ceremony which was to take place.

For days carpenters, joiners, and builders had been at work in the market-place erecting a huge platform and a giant gibbet. The well-to-do burghers hired rooms in the houses looking on to the square. As they dared not refuse to attend, they desired at least to make this mock execution an occasion for popular entertainment.

At nine of the clock the bells of all churches in Stuttgart began to toll for the dead, and the tramp of soldiers proceeding to the market-place warned the compulsory sightseers that it was time to repair thither and they would not be crushed in the mob. Many set out in a jocular humour, but quickly this gaiety changed; there was something inexplicably sinister in the atmosphere, a menace to freedom, an appalling sense of relentless tyranny.

Round the market-place the soldiery formed a double line, and the people soon saw that this mock ceremony was a grim threat; for the soldiers carried matchlocks, and the whisper ran round the assemblage that these were primed and loaded, and that the soldiers had orders to fire if any group of sightseers indulged in undue hilarity.

The newly erected platform was draped in black, and in the middle of the market-place stood a circle of stakes round a large centre pillar. This circle contained a huge pile of tar-soaked wood.

A brooding stillness fell on the people. The market-place was densely packed, each window of the surrounding houses held its complement of men and women. The church bells still tolled the solemn death tones, otherwise the silence was unbroken.

At length a flourish of trumpets sounded. The court was approaching. First came the officers of State and the members of the nobility, then a detachment of Silver Guards rode up, and formed into line before the black-draped platform. Another fanfare of trumpets and the Landhofmeisterin's gilded coach thundered into the market-place, the mob crushing back to avoid the flying hoofs of the escort's horses. Several coaches followed, containing the red-robed privy councillors and richly bedizened courtiers. Serenissimus sprang from the Landhofmeisterin's coach and assisted her Excellency to alight. She took her place beside his Highness in the centre of the platform, and the privy council and the court gathered round.

Then appeared a file of soldiers and officers, and in their midst was a rigid figure lashed between two condemned criminals. One a murderer, particularly odious to the Stuttgart burghers, for he had stabbed his employer, a well-known lady, the much-esteemed widow of a popular town councillor. The other a notorious horse-stealer, whom the law-abiding Stuttgarters had stoned but a few months past.

The rigid figure was ridiculous enough: the great waxen head sculptured to an unmistakable, though grotesque, likeness of the well-known features of Baron Forstner; then the long, emaciated limbs and even the man's noticeably narrow, flat feet had been reproduced, and they shuffled stiffly along the frost-dried cobble stones. It was a masterpiece of ridicule, yet there was something furiously cruel in the whole absurd travesty of a human being, something terrible in this association in ignominy, between the stiff, swaying waxen thing and the condemned criminals. Slowly this strange procession passed through the crowd, and the three figures—the two living, and the gruesome, inanimate parody of life—were pushed into the circle of faggots in the centre of the market-place and bound all three to the tall middle pillar. Then the common hangman, a huge, heavy-featured Swabian—a butcher by usual occupation—stepped forward and demanded in the accustomed formula: 'If by the will of God and His representatives of law and order on earth, these miserable men were to be sent to their eternal punishment?' The chief officer of law made answer that such was the 'will of Heaven and of the very noble Prince, our Lord Eberhard Ludwig, Duke and Ruler of Wirtemberg.' Then a member of the privy council rose, and in solemn tones read the indictment of Friedrich Haberle, the murderer, and Johannes Schwan, the horse-stealer, condemned to be burned at the stake, together with the effigy of the detestable traitor and purloiner of State monies, Christoph Peter Forstner.

In spite of the threatened penalty, a murmur ran through the onlookers. They had expected to see a lifeless thing burned, but could they indeed be forced to witness the burning of two living men? The execution of a witch was another thing—they enjoyed that; but in cold blood to watch two human beings, not horrible magicians but merely sinners—to see these creatures burned along with that ghastly, lifeless, waxen thing,—that was awesome! A woman in one of the windows screamed, a child in the crowd below lifted a wailing cry. Perhaps the whole thing was inconsistent! What difference between the holocaust of a witch and that of two vile criminals? What matter to the dying men that an absurd image should be burned with them? yet there lay some indescribable horror in it.

The hangman advanced and applied a flaming torch to the tar-smeared faggots, which began to hiss and splutter in the still, frosty, winter air.

'Hold!' cried the privy councillor, 'unbind those men! Friedrich Haberle and Johannes Schwan are reprieved from death, their sentence is commuted to flogging and banishment. Beside Christoph Peter Forstner's crimes these men have hardly transgressed. It is the will of his Highness that they should go free, in token of his wise mercy and to let you see how sure is his justice! And against so lenient a Prince has this odious traitor Forstner conspired! Hangman, do your work upon his image in symbol of his well-deserved punishment, from which the unjust protection of a foreign monarch shields the actual person of this criminal. But let this symbol of death be ever present in the souls of all beholders. Such will be the bodily fate of all those who conspire against his Highness or his Highness's government.'

The flames sprang upwards, licking round the waxen figure and scorching the arm of one of the criminals who was being released from the cords that bound him.

Every eye was upon the beauty of the woman seated beside the Duke Eberhard Ludwig. In abject submission and deadly hatred they gazed on the face of her who thus threatened them, for they read her threat against themselves in every word of the privy councillor's discourse, her menace in each flame which consumed the waxen figure of her enemy, Baron Forstner.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE SINNER'S PALACE

FORSTNER'S fate worked marvels in the outward behaviour of the Wirtembergers. The strange scene upon the market-place lingered in their minds, and the actual loss which Forstner sustained in confiscated properties, monies, and titles, made the sober burghers careful even in the private expression of their hatred of the Landhofmeisterin. They still spoke of her as the Landverderberin (Land-despoiler), but they greeted her with reverential demeanour when she thundered through town or village in her coach.

Of her witchcraft there was no longer any doubt, in all opinions. Forstner had suffered from a grievous disease, they had heard, since the witch-woman had practised her horrid magic upon his effigy. True, Prelate Osiander had spoken openly of the natural and inevitable effects of such cruel misfortunes upon a man, already weakly in health, but they argued that the churchman was obliged to take this view, and his Reverence's opinions were rejected.

Yet the fierce hatred only smouldered under this calm and respectful demeanour, and the Landhofmeisterin knew this right well, for his Highness's Secret Service reported many things. The vigilance was unceasing; through the whole country the spies wandered, and many were the fines they levied for careless words which they called treason. 'Treason to whom, great God!' wailed the wretched people. 'Treason to his Highness's honour,' they were told, and knew her Excellency, his Highness's mistress, was meant under this respectable appellation.

There was no denying it: Wirtemberg belonged to the Graevenitzin. Eberhard Ludwig was a mere shadow at her side, but a loyal shadow which approved, or affected to approve, her every action.

The doings at Ludwigsburg were always brilliant, often gay: masques, banquets, music, play-acting, dancing; and even foreign travellers repaired to the South German court to view the brilliancies which equalled those of Versailles before the pious, wanton Maintenon had turned the palace into a house of prayer-meeting, strangely enough almost Calvinistic in its gloom.

At Ludwigsburg the months flew by in a whirl of gaiety and elegant revelry. The groans of an oppressed peasantry, the curses of an overtaxed burgherdom, could not pierce through the chorus of merriment. Smaller stars waxed and waned, favourites of a day disappeared, but the Landhofmeisterin's power grew greater, and her ambition became each day more tremendous. She was treated with royal honours, and the court customs were so arranged that her kin should take precedency of all.

The news of Count Wuerben's death caused fresh alarms at Stuttgart, for it was expected that the Countess would again endeavour to remove Johanna Elizabetha and marry the Duke. But she had learned her lesson, and now contented herself with her towering position as ruler and mistress. To such a personage the minor detail of legal marriage seemed unimportant, though Madame de Maintenon's example rankled in the mind of every royal favourite.

The Landhofmeisterin believed her position to be unassailable, and if a thought crossed her mind that all this power and pleasure depended upon the will of a man and a Prince, that will which is so often better spelled caprice, still she could not doubt that this one man, one Prince, was constant and stable. From the force of love, of trust, of habit, and of fear he would remain hers till death. And after his Highness's death? For that she was prepared also. 'Gold is power,' she had said to Monsieur Gabriel long ago at Guestrow, and she did not forget this precept. She spent freely and magnificently, but she amassed an enormous fund in reserve. No year passed without some beautiful property becoming hers—broad acres of field and forest, entire villages, old and lordly castles. To name but a few of these: Gochsheim, Welzheim, Brenz, Stetten (the Duchess-mother's dower-house), Freudenthal, the Castle of Urach, and the Chateau Joyeux La Favorite. Her treasury was well filled, for she levied taxes in the Duke's name, and they flowed into her privy purse: gold heavy with the curses of a people. Her dream of an empire where she should hold secret dominion over the wealth and enterprise of a vast Jewish community had been realised in a modified fashion. She had caused the stringent laws against the Jews to be relaxed; they were permitted to worship openly; a synagogue was erected in Stuttgart, and Jews could acquire civil rights. At her village of Freudenthal she had founded a Jewish settlement. Old Frau Hazzim died there in peace, blessing the name of the friend of Israel. The Jews, in return, served the Graevenitz well, and she had great sums safely awaiting her out of Wirtemberg. All this in preparation for the death of the man she loved! Yet, after all, the most loving and perfect wives make these arrangements if they can: the dower-house filled with linen and silver, and the jointure; but it will ever be regarded as a heinous offence for the mistress to provide for herself. These condemnations of ours are a part of the spontaneous human judgment, and it would not be entirely human were it not gloriously inconsistent.

Freudenthal was the place she loved best of all her possessions, and here she gathered together the most beautiful objects: pictures, Italian inlaid cabinets, graceful French furniture, wonderful silken hangings, carved ivories, many rare books. The gardens were laid out by her own design. Freudenthal lies sequestered from the world at the edge of a little valley, and close behind the village rise long, low, wooded hills—the Stromberg, dark with fir-trees, whose sombre tone is relieved by groves of beeches. Below Freudenthal verdant fields sweep away in soft undulations, broken here and there by beautiful orchards. The Graevenitz knew that an elaborate garden would be a false note in this rustic serenity, and her Freudenthal garden was designed in a simple style. She had found there a peasant's orchard, with many ancient fruit-trees; these she left untouched, merely sowing fine grass instead of the corn which waves beneath the apple- and pear-trees in every Wirtemberg orchard. The actual garden she planted with bowers of roses and beautiful flowering borders along broad grass pathways. The only artificial embellishments were two flights of stone steps leading to simple fountains with large stone basins, where the water gurgled and splashed lazily. 'Frisoni, build the house not in the new style, I pray you,' she had said, 'some graceful Italian simplicity were better here'; and he built a very pleasant mansion, unturreted, without tortured elegancies—a long, low, broad-windowed country retreat, each proportion perfect, each line harmonious. What a wealth of flowers bloomed in the Freudenthal garden! How fragrant were the roses, the lilacs, the jasmine!

Here the Landhofmeisterin was wont to linger if his Highness were forced to leave her for a few days. Here she would live a short span of peaceful hours, ambition banished awhile, affairs of State forgotten. Here she would sing again the songs she loved so well.

'Let us go to Freudenthal, et chantons les romances d'autrefois,' she would say to Madame de Ruth and Zollern. Then his Highness would come riding down the long, straight, narrow road from Ludwigsburg. He would dismount at the orchard gate and call to her: 'Wilhelmine! Philomele!' and for an hour the glamour of youth and an echo of the early days of a great passion would return to them. Sometimes he would pray her to sing again the melody which she had sung in the Rothenwald when they had first loved; but alas! her voice was not the same. The beautiful notes were there, the consummate art, but the world-hardness had laid its touch upon her very music. True, Wilhelmine singing was always a being much more tender, more pure than Wilhelmine woman of the world, still her voice registered the hardening of her soul. Zollern said that when she sang 'she expressed all she was not,' and it was a cruel truth. Sometimes there rang for an instant an infinite yearning, but it vanished, and the cold, perfect, artificially passionate utterance resumed sway.

Now and then Eberhard Ludwig still wandered in the forest. He would leave the company of hunters, and followed by faithful old Melac, the wolf-hound, he escaped to revel in the silence and beauty of the beechwood. Often he was terribly sad in those days. Wilhelmine perplexed him; it was the hardness in her heart which made him suffer. He winced when he heard even her glorious voice fraught with this new soul of harshness. Often he endeavoured to tell her of his sadness, but she laughed at him.

What more could he crave from her, indeed? She loved him, she was true to him. Alas! he could not explain that it was the essence of her love which had changed. She had no time to be sad, no time therefore to be tender. Poor Eberhard Ludwig! poor brilliant, successful Wilhelmine! And yet, who could blame her if she was greatly occupied? She was chief minister de facto of a country; she was finance minister of a queen, she was herself queen; she was Master of the Ceremonies to a court; she was purveyor of amusements to a great prince; yet she had lost the faculty to understand that this prince agonised because she was too occupied to give him tenderness. Passion she gave him, and brilliant gaiety; she tyrannised, flattered, charmed, cajoled him, what more could he desire? Only, he dreamed of the impossible; he dreamed of the love and friendship which remain, of the roses and kisses which do not fade and lose their savour. Of course, it was impossible; but from a dream's non-fulfilment a tragedy was preparing. The tragedy of satiety and inevitable disappointment.

* * * * *

All Wirtemberg was in the Landhofmeisterin's grasp, but two things disturbed her entire enjoyment of power: the continued residence of Johanna Elizabetha in Stuttgart, and the unrelenting disapproval of the Evangelical Church towards the unholy court of Ludwigsburg.

The Catholic Church, through Zollern, coquetted with the Landhofmeisterin in the hope of winning Wirtemberg's allegiance by her influence. But the Protestant community, headed by Prelate Osiander, was openly hostile. The Landhofmeisterin, piqued by this, made overtures offering to endow orphanages, schools, and to repair churches; but though the Church, after the manner of Churches, swallowed the gold greedily, still it refused to swallow the Landhofmeisterin so long as she remained in deadly and open sin.

To oust the Duchess was impossible; therefore it was deemed sufficient that she should be deserted and apparently forgotten, and surely in time the Church would permit itself to be mollified, and if cajolery failed, the Graevenitz dreamed of using the well-worn threat of Roman conversion. Meanwhile she was ruler of the land, and she thought it preposterous that in the State Church services her great name went unmentioned in the prayers to God for the salvation of Wirtemberg's ruler. The Duke was induced to intimate to Osiander his wish that the Landhofmeisterin should be prayed for when they interceded for himself. Osiander treated this request with contempt, and returned no answer. Then the matter rested for two years, and it seemed as though both the Duke and his mistress had forgotten it.

One day Osiander was summoned to Ludwigsburg. He could not refuse to obey the ruler of his country, and though he suspected the summons to be in truth from the Landhofmeisterin, it was signed and sealed by Eberhard Ludwig. So the Prelate rode to Ludwigsburg.

It was as he had feared, and he was conducted to her Excellency's reception room in the Corps de Logis. Bowing deeply, the page ushered the Prelate into the large apartment and retired, and Osiander found himself alone in the presence of the great Landhofmeisterin.

She came forward graciously and greeted the churchman with a profoundly reverential courtesy. He returned her salutation coldly and turned away his eyes, for her beauty was dazzling still, and he feared he might be influenced.

'I think, your Excellency,' he said quietly, 'I think his Highness the Duke wished to speak with me?'

'Monseigneur Osiander, I have ventured to request your presence concerning a matter which has been long in my thoughts,' she said in her most sonorous tones, and with that smile upon her lips which few could resist; but Osiander observed her coldly and gravely.

'I pray you be seated,' she continued, and pointed to a large red-cushioned chair, one which Zollern had brought from Rome, the typical dignified, high-backed chair of the Roman Cardinal. To Osiander its very shape was Papistical.

She flung herself down upon a gilt tabouret which stood near. It was much lower than the Prelate's seat, and he could not fail to look down into the deep decolletage of her bodice. He moved away a little, while a faint flush rose to his cheeks.

'I am listening, Excellency,' he said; 'but you will pardon me if I urge you to be brief, for I have much business to transact this afternoon.'

'Ah! Prelate, it is so difficult to be brief with those who do not comprehend!' She leaned towards him. 'I have ever—respected you, Monseigneur.'

The Prelate drew back from her. In his mind he repeated over and over again, as though the phrase were an incantation against some evil spirit: 'The Jezebel flatters me, the Jezebel flatters me,' but man, he could not remain insensible to the woman who thus appealed to him, though priest, he abhorred her. All her charm was in her eyes, her smile; there was a fragrance about her—an exhilaration.

'Madame, it were better if you respected God's laws,' he said sternly. His severity seemed to him as a barrier which he raised between his human weakness and her evil fascination. She sprang up; actress that she was, she meant to convince this man by a grand and tragical scene. She knew him to be too simple, too unsubtle, to detect the art which lent power and pathos to her words. Besides, she was well in her role, it amused her.

'Ah! you priest of God! I appeal to you, not concerning the necessarily unjust laws of men, but concerning the law of God and Nature. See, it is no law of God's that I have transgressed. Remember, I am truly the wife of Serenissimus, blessed by prayer. My second marriage is nothing—merely a political arrangement. And my sin, what is it? I found a good man dragging out the days of his youth in sadness beside a woman who could not understand him—a woman only his wife in name. I gave my life to him, I am true to him. The law of man refuses me justice, but God does not, cannot; and I appeal to you, as God's representative on earth, to give me my spiritual right: to include me in your prayers.' She sank back upon the tabouret. The Prelate was astounded. The question of the Landhofmeisterin's being mentioned in the public prayers for the head of the State came back to him, but it was incredible, preposterous. No; this woman surely sought the grace of God. She was earnest, repentance had come to her. She desired his prayers. Thus well had Wilhelmine gauged the Prelate's character, his incapacity for detecting the play-actress in the passionate, imploring woman.

The pastor of souls was softened immediately by the vision of rescuing this strayed spirit.

'My daughter,' he said solemnly, 'if you indeed desire my prayers, I will intercede daily for you. I shall pray that your heart shall be steadfast, pray for God's pardon for your evil life. But I ask you to combat temptation with all your strength. May Christ in His mercy help you.'

The emotion of his great earnestness rendered the good man's voice tremulous.

'I thank you, you are generous to me.' She reached him her hand, and he held it gently between both of his. 'But, Prelate,' she continued, 'is it not written in the Bible that when two or three are gathered together God will grant their requests? I would fain have prayer offered for me in church.'

The Prelate started; yet the demand seemed too outrageous. He could not credit that this sinner wished for a nation's prayers as though she were, in truth, the Duke's legal wife. No, no; she was a repentant sinner seeking the grace of God. Far be it from him, a sinner, to refuse his help.

'You mean, your Excellency, that you wish me to pray silently for you when the faithful are gathered together?' he said tentatively.

'No, I do not mean that,' she answered quickly; 'I wish a prayer to be said aloud for my salvation.'

The Prelate was overwhelmed.

'Surely you do not wish to make public confession of repentance before the congregation?' he questioned. The woman seemed mad to desire thus to proclaim her shame, and yet he was filled with reverence for the faith which could prompt so proud a being to humble herself in the eyes of all men.

'Monseigneur le Prelat Osiander,' she said after a pause, 'I am the Duke's wife before God, and it is my husband his Highness's command and mine, that my name should be included in the official prayer for the head of this Dukedom. I am ruler I would have you know.'

The preposterous demand was made, Osiander could no longer doubt. It was no repentant sinner with whom he dealt, but the all-powerful mistress who had but stooped for a moment to cajole him in the hope of gaining her aim, and who, finding him uncompromising, had resumed her imperious habit. The Prelate was aghast, indignant. He rose stiffly from his chair.

'Your Excellency cannot have considered this command, or even you, Madame, would not have dared to make it. The only prayer that can be said for you in church is that of intercession for the sinful.'

The Landhofmeisterin approached closely.

'Will you accede to my request? If not, you shall obey my order or it will be the worse for you.' She was beside herself with anger. She hated the word Sin; she always said it represented the bourgeois' criticism of the life of gentlemen.

'No, Excellency, I will not obey you. With my consent the pure service of the worship of God shall never be sullied with your name.' Osiander was the sterner, the more relentless, because of his momentary weakness and credulity.

'You are obliged to pray for me,' she retorted mockingly; 'each time you petition Heaven for the health and happiness of the Duke, you pray for me! For me, do you hear? I am his health and his happiness.'

To Osiander this was rank blasphemy, and, good man though he was, he lost his temper.

'Indeed, Excellency, you say rightly. You are truly included in the prayers of the congregation, for each time we say "Lord, deliver us from evil," we pray for the end of your infamous reign.'

The Graevenitz laughed harshly. All traces of her softer mood, of her fascination, had gone past; she had become once more the cold, proud woman, the tyrant whose statue-like beauty seemed to the Wirtembergers to be some devil's mask of false outward fairness, covering a mass of inner corruption.

'Is this the only answer you have, Osiander?' she asked roughly.

'Yes, your Excellency, and if it were to be my last word on earth.'

The Graevenitz looked at him fixedly for a moment; after all, she rather admired his intrepidity.

'Your audience is at an end,' she said haughtily, and bowed slightly as though she were really some rightful sovereign dismissing a froward courtier.

The Prelate returned her salute equally slightly, and turning away with a sigh, he left her presence.

In later years the estimable man was wont to aver he had never been so near to insulting a woman, yet he would add:

'But she was great in her very wickedness! Surely she must have been one of the angels fallen from Heaven and apprenticed in Hell! for of a truth she was in evil as compared with ordinary sinners, what in holiness is a saint compared with ordinary good people. A wonderful woman, alas!'

Ah, Osiander, did she leave some clinging fragrance, some spark of her subtle charm, to tingle for ever through your pure, simple soul?

* * * * *

In 1716 the Erbprinz Friedrich Ludwig had espoused Henriette Marie of Brandenburg-Schwedt, a pretty and most correct Princess who possessed, among other graceful talents, a perfect genius for tasteful dressing. The marriage festivities had not taken place at Stuttgart, in order to avoid the obvious complications of the meeting of the bridegroom's parents. The Erbprinz hardly knew his father, for Eberhard Ludwig had permitted him to remain chiefly with the Duchess in Stuttgart. At least the unfortunate Johanna Elizabetha was granted the happiness of watching over her gentle, sickly son. The boy had led a dull life enough in deserted Stuttgart, and his natural aptitude for music and study had thus found free scope. Immediately after his marriage, however, he was commanded to reside at Ludwigsburg, where a fine suite of apartments was prepared for him and his bride.

Friedrich Ludwig protested that he desired to remain in Stuttgart, but the Landhofmeisterin willed it otherwise, and Serenissimus enforced her will.

Henriette Marie played her part in this difficult position with dignity and well-bred tact. She was perfectly correct in her demeanour towards the Landhofmeisterin, yet she kept her at a distance and gently rebutted the mistress's friendly advances, and refused to notice her subsequent sneers. Twice during each week the Erbprincessin drove to Stuttgart to visit her unhappy mother-in-law, and she was careful to inform Serenissimus of every intended visit. 'Have I your Highness's permission to journey to Stuttgart?' and 'I thank your Highness, I shall start this afternoon.'

The Landhofmeisterin raged, but she was powerless against the Erbprincessin's quiet dignity and amiable, obstinate coldness. Then, too, Henriette Marie's wardrobe was a source of much annoyance to Wilhelmine; she feared the younger woman had finer gowns than she. In fine, it was the tragi-comedy of that painful jealousy of the woman approaching forty years for the youth of twenty summers.

The Erbprinz, however, could not resist the Landhofmeisterin's charm. She sang him to a very frenzy of delight; she assumed a tender, motherly anxiety over his delicate health—an anxiety which she made charmingly friendly; while she avoided the tiresome questions, the constant open observation, the galling reminders of his weakness in the presence of others, all that which poor, really tender, desperately anxious Johanna Elizabetha had done, wearying her son, shaming him with his physical delicacy.

The Erbprincessin bore a son in August 1718—a weakly child, the picture of his feeble father. The little life's flame flickered and shuddered through one bitter Wirtemberg winter, and in February 1719 passed away into the best sleep the baby had ever known.

Here again the Landhofmeisterin triumphed over Johanna Elizabetha. She knew how to console the Erbprinz with words of hope, how to turn his thoughts away from the empty gilded cradle where had lain that frail little being whom poor Friedrich Ludwig had loved with all his gentle heart. Alas! Johanna Elizabetha was too sad herself to be able to cheer sorrow, and she invariably met her stricken son with floods of tears, doleful questionings, torrents of lamentations, and he went back to Ludwigsburg—and the Landhofmeisterin—for consolation.

Thus things were fairly smooth at Ludwigsburg, and to Johanna Elizabetha it seemed like some wonderful, illicit heaven where her husband revelled and whence she was shut out. She sometimes dreamed of breaking into this Elysium, of expelling the regnant devil and rescuing Eberhard Ludwig. 'Perhaps, if your Highness spoke with Serenissimus things might change,' counselled Madame de Stafforth, and the Duchess prayed for strength to conquer the fortress of vice, Ludwigsburg. For years she hesitated. Indeed, she felt it would be almost immodest to enter the Sinner's Palace, but the day came when she decided to risk herself in the endeavour to turn his Highness's heart back to purity—purity and herself. She dressed herself in her sombre best and ordered her coach. Madame de Stafforth volunteered for service, but the Duchess said she would go alone. She was very brave and terribly afraid.

Through the waving, yellow corn-fields, bordered by fruit-trees for the most part, or else lying like a narrow white riband in the midst of the broad rich valley, the road wound from Stuttgart to the Erlachhof forest and the palace of Ludwigsburg. It was early August when the Duchess journeyed thither, and the corn stood high and golden in the hazy warmth of the sunshine. Far away to the right the hills rose blue and veiled, and to the left the grim fortress of Hohenasperg dominated the smiling, fruitful plain with frowning menace. Johanna Elizabetha's eyes sought the distant mound where she knew lay the prison fort; perchance Serenissimus would answer her pleadings by imprisonment in that dark fastness.

Her coach lumbered slowly on. The Duchess's horses were old and little used to work, and the journey seemed endless. At length the avenue leading to the residence gates was reached, and in the cool shade of the chestnut-trees the Duchess's courage returned. After all, it was her right to enter any Wirtemberg palace, she told herself; yet a chill foreboding gripped her. Should she turn back?

The coach came to a jolting halt, and she heard her outrider explaining to the sentry at the gate that she was the Duchess journeying to the palace. The man seemed doubtful, but after several minutes' parley the little cortege of two outriders, an old shabby coach, two troopers of a Wirtemberg regiment for escort (no Silver Guard here!), and a heart-broken woman, was allowed to proceed.

The palace of Ludwigsburg lay in the August afternoon haze. Her Highness's eyes wandered over the vast pile: the long, low orangery to the south; the numerous rounded roofs of the palace which seemed like the amassment of a group of giant red-brown tortoises; the thousand large windows glinting in the sunshine, the stately gardens. The Duchess sighed deeply as her coach rolled down the broad street which led to the palace gates. She saw the fine houses which bordered this street on one side only, like so many courtiers turning their smiling faces towards the gardens, the palace, and—the Landhofmeisterin.

All this, then, Eberhard Ludwig had raised to honour the whim of a courtesan, of an unknown adventuress from Mecklemburg, while she, the Duchess, legal wife, princess of a noble house—she was shut out, banished to a grim haunted castle in a deserted town! She wrung her hands together. She was helpless, hopeless.

Several courtiers, lingering in the street, stared curiously at the shabby coach. One of the French dressmakers, hurrying from the palace, stood stock still in surprise at seeing so inelegant an equipage in the street of magnificent 'Louisbourg.' The Duchess, with the morbid sensitiveness of a deeply wounded, slighted woman, winced under the scornful inspection of the pert little dressmaker.

Now the coach entered the first gate of the palace, and once more the outrider was obliged to proclaim and assure the identity of the carriage's occupant. This time the sentry flatly refused to believe him, and it was necessary to call the Captain of the Guard. Here the Duchess's spirit asserted itself. She summoned the Captain to the door of the coach and haughtily bid him admit her immediately. But the Captain, a youth appointed by the Graevenitz, feared her Excellency's displeasure more than God or man, and though he was gentleman enough to treat the Duchess courteously, he begged her to wait while he repaired to the Landhofmeisterin for instructions. No one was admitted to the palace without permission from her Excellency, he said.

The Duchess inquired if Madame de Ruth was in the castle. At least, she hoped that for the sake of old memories the grande Maitresse du Palais, 'Dame de Deshonneur,' as she had once named her, would have sufficient humanity to help her now. Madame de Ruth was in the castle, the Captain replied, but she was very old and infirm, and he feared to disturb her afternoon rest. Very old and infirm? The Duchess sighed. Ah! many years had passed since she had seen the garrulous lady. Alas! she was no longer young herself. God in heaven! why did that sinful, triumphant wanton alone retain her beauty? She had been told that the Landhofmeisterin, like some evil giant tree, seemed to grow more beautiful, more resplendent each year. It was not true; for Time had set his cruel fingermarks upon Wilhelmine, but her wonderful health and her complaisant knowledge of success gave her a seeming youth. True, the pert little French dressmaker could have told the Duchess of violent scenes over gowns made to the measurements of former years, which could not fit her Excellency; but the courtesan pays a homage to Venus, offering up the tribute of powder, paint, and gorgeous clothes, and Venus responds by a gift of seeming youth; while the virtuous woman is punished for her virtue and her neglect of the Goddess of Appearance, by a shorter span of beauty and youth. Yet there is an unerring justice in the world. When Time has worked his inexorable will, and powder, paint, and crafty clothing can no longer hide his ravages, then the virtuous woman triumphs, probably for the first time in her life. They are both old, she and the courtesan, but she is sometimes beautiful—old, grey, and sere, but venerable, charming—and little children love her, and younger women bring their troubles—ay, and their joys, reverently to her, feeling a benediction in the touch of the pure, withered hand. While the courtesan—alas! a ridiculous garish absurdity, a grim ghost of past merriment, a horrid relic of forgotten debauches, a painted harridan at whom the boys jeer when she passes down the street. Here is one of God's great judgments and one of Nature's object-lessons.

But Johanna Elizabetha did not think of all this as she sat waiting at the gates of Ludwigsburg Palace; her mind was centred upon the probability of Madame de Ruth's kind heart prompting her to assist her erstwhile mistress. The minutes dragged on. Old and infirm, he had said; perhaps she came slowly down the stairs? Ah! at last! the Duchess heard the well-remembered voice in the distance talking ceaselessly. Then she saw Madame de Ruth, leaning on the arm of the Captain of the Guard, coming slowly towards her.

A deep courtesy, and Madame de Ruth stood at the coach door. In a tremulous voice the Duchess informed her that she would speak with Serenissimus on urgent business, but that the guard refused her admittance and she had therefore begged her to come to her assistance.

'Aha! your Highness craves the assistance of a Dame de Deshonneur? Nay,' she added in a gentler tone, 'I fear I have not the power to admit your Highness save to my own apartments.'

The Duchess bent forward. 'Madame de Ruth,' she said solemnly, 'you are an old woman and so am I; we have not many years before God judges us at His Eternal Tribunal. I pray you, by your hope of His mercy, to have mercy on me, help me this once.'

Madame de Ruth looked at her; indeed, the Duchess's tragic face was enough to soften even a harder heart than beat under the old courtesan's padded, beribboned corsage.

'Well, your Highness, come with me! I will endeavour to summon Serenissimus to my apartments,' she said. 'It will not be easy, and I hope your Highness is prepared to offer me apartments in Stuttgart? I may require them after this! My friend the Landhofmeisterin is averse to any one being admitted to the palace without her permission.'

They passed through a maze of long, lofty, pink marble walled corridors, and up several winding stone stairs, ere they reached Madame de Ruth's apartments. Here the old courtesan left her Highness, while she withdrew to make arrangements for the Duke to be summoned. In truth, she hastily despatched a billet to the Landhofmeisterin informing her of the extraordinary occurrence, and begging her for instructions. Even Madame de Ruth was under the Graevenitz's iron rule and dared not offend her. The curt answer came back written in her Excellency's energetic, elegant writing: 'How is her Highness's appearance?' Madame de Ruth replied equally curtly with the one word 'Hideous!' and a moment after the paper was returned to her: 'Let him see her.—Wilhelmine von Wuerben und von Graevenitz, Landhofmeisterin.'

It was a curious interview between Eberhard Ludwig and his deserted wife; strained, unnatural, terrible, this meeting after long years, and insensibly they fell into their old attitudes: he wearied, irritated, coldly courteous; she tearful, imploring, tiresome. He told her that she was nothing to him, and that she had no further claims upon him; he provided residence, appanage, everything to which she had a right. She responded that she claimed his love, his company, and in answer he bowed deeply and left her presence.

Madame de Ruth returning to her rooms found a fainting woman prone upon the floor, and to her credit be it written, she tended the Duchess gently. When her Highness recovered from her swoon she requested Madame de Ruth to lead her to the palace chapel.

'I would fain leave a prayer here! A foolish fancy, you will say, but the sorrowful are often foolish,' she said bitterly.

Madame de Ruth guided the Duchess through another maze of long corridors, and ushered her into the tapestried room which is behind the palace gallery. Her Highness gazed with displeasure at the luxurious furnishing of the Ducal pew, its gilded armchairs, red silk cushions, soft red silk praying hassocks, and the gilt casement looking down into the church. The church itself, designed by the Italian Papist, Frisoni, showed a wealth of delicate pink brocade and of rich azure hangings, of golden angels, of smiling goddesses whose voluptuous faces bore so unmistakable a likeness to the Landhofmeisterin. With a sigh the Duchess fell on her knees. 'God is everywhere,' she reminded herself, 'even in this frivolous chapel.' She prayed earnestly for some time, and, rising, would have turned to go, when her eye was caught by a finely sculptured medallion, placed high up to the right of the much gilded and ornamented pulpit. Its subject was Truth, and this severe personage stood represented by a charming shepherdess with rose-wreathed mirror, and flower-bedecked, coquettish hat, bare breast, and a skirt which, for no particular reason unless it were the showing of the model's beautiful limbs, suddenly fell on one side from the hip to the ankle of this remarkable figure of Truth. Here again the face was unmistakable, and the sculptor had taken immense pains to make this medallion a masterly portrait of the Landhofmeisterin.

With a gesture of despair and disgust the Duchess turned away and hurried through the corridors. Placing her hand on Madame de Ruth's arm she pressed her guide forward at so rapid a pace that the older woman almost fell.

'Quick, Madame! quick, Madame! take me from this terrible place!' the Duchess repeated. It seemed to her that Wilhelmine's face, her triumphant beauty, pursued her at every yard of the Sinner's Palace. Even in the church she knew that each figure, feigning to beautify the House of God, was in reality merely another homage to the great mistress, another subtle compliment of the architect Frisoni's for the Landhofmeisterin.

Madame de Ruth accompanied her Highness to her coach, and in broken words the Duchess thanked her. 'If Fate turns against you here, Madame, you will find a welcome at Stuttgart in memory of your kindness on this most miserable day,' she said. But Madame de Ruth shook her head. She was of the Ludwigsburg world, and when Frivolity forgot her she knew that she would need no other refuge than six foot of earth beside her dead child.

Wearily the Duchess took her way homeward. There was no spark of hope left in her heart now; she only raged that she had humbled herself, and to no avail. The magnificence of Ludwigsburg smote her as an insult. She shuddered at the remembrance of the endless reproductions of her enemy's features: the whole palace was a marble homage to the Graevenitz, a beautiful, enduring, kingly homage.

But the palace chapel! Ah! that was the worst of all, a very blasphemy. And yet how wondrous beautiful it was, this palace.

She closed her eyes, but in the darkness she saw again the smiling face of the woman who had ruined her life; she saw the graceful figure in the chapel medallion, the voluptuous parted lips of the carven angel who held the canopy over the pulpit, the delicately chiselled features of the Aphrodites and the nymphs which she had been forced to pass in the palace, and each one of which bore a resemblance to the Duke's mistress.

The sun was setting behind Hohenasperg, and a blood-red glow lingered in the sky over the south-westerly hills of the Rothwald. The peasants were going homeward after their day's work; already their sickles had cut great gaping wounds in the waving, yellow beauty of the corn-fields. A fresh north breeze sprang up and sent the white dust whirling in clouds behind the Duchess's coach. And the north wind brought Johanna Elizabetha another pang, for it wafted to her a sound of music from Ludwigsburg. The musicians of the Silver Guards were playing a merry strain in the palace gardens.

To the forsaken, humiliated woman this moment was symbolic of her whole life: she journeying alone down the dusty road towards the gathering gloom over Stuttgart; Eberhard Ludwig and the Landhofmeisterin at their beautiful palace living in music and revelry.



CHAPTER XIX

THE GREAT TRIUMPH AND THE SHADOW

FOR years Germany had gossiped over the so-called 'Persian Court' of Leopold Eberhard of Wirtemberg, Duke of Moempelgard. This prince had been so pampered by his mother, Anne de Coligny, that he reached the age of twelve years without having learned to read or write. When the over-tender mother died, the boy's father, Duke George, took his dunce-son's education in hand; but this gentleman was peculiar in his notions of the training of young minds. French and German he deemed unnecessary trivialities, and the Christian religion a banality. Instead of these prosaic lessons the boy was instructed in the Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian tongues, and, in lieu of the Bible, the Koran was placed in his hands.

A handsome, reckless, passionate youth, imbued with the comfortable theories of polygamy, Leopold Eberhard was destined to succeed his father in the family honours, and achieve a course of Persian living which, while practised frequently under other names at many courts, astounded Germany by this legalised manner of illegality.

One lady was already the wife of Leopold Eberhard. She was the daughter of a baker, and had held the post of housemaid at the small court of Oels in Silesia. Having succeeded in espousing a gentleman of the name of Zedlitz, she turned her attention to the eighteen-year-old Erbprinz of Moempelgard; and her husband, Herr von Zedlitz, not approving of this new relationship, she divorced him and married Leopold. At first this undistinguished alliance displeased the old Duke of Moempelgard, and he endeavoured to disinherit Leopold Eberhard; but when the ex-housemaid bore a fine son, the grandfather relented, and the couple took residence at Moempelgard, the lady being created by the Emperor Countess of Sponeck.

Now, in Moempelgard resided an aged captain of the Imperial army, one Richard Curie, a tailor by trade, who, having enlisted in the army and risen to the rank of captain, changed his uneuphonious name to Monsieur l'Esperance, married a Moempelgard butcher's daughter, and settled in her native town. Four fine daughters were born of this marriage. Leopold Eberhard cast his eyes upon these beautiful girls and remembered his Mahometan principles. At this juncture, Duke George conveniently died, and Leopold Eberhard became Duke. Immediately all four damsels l'Esperance were appointed ladies' companions to the Countess of Sponeck. The eldest, Sebastiane, was the first object of Leopold's affection, but the Countess Sponeck suspected the intrigue and remonstrated with her spouse. To divert her jealousy from Sebastiane the Duke paid sham court to the youngest sister, Polyrene, but the playacting turned reality, and ended in serious passion. However, this episode with the second of the l'Esperances soon came to an end, for Polyrene fell dead during a gavotte at court. Great mourning, and Leopold sought consolation with another sister l'Esperance, Henriette Hedwig, wife of a lieutenant in the Moempelgard guards, Herr von Sandersleben. This gentleman objected, divorced Henriette Hedwig, and left the Duke's service.

The Countess of Sponeck and the two sisters Esperance resided under one roof. We are told that it was hell on earth: they fought, they scratched, they yelled, they bit, till the Duke arrived on the scene, parted the combatants, and usually thrashed—the Countess of Sponeck! All Germany knew, watched, and laughed.

At length it could be borne no longer, and the Countess of Sponeck, with her children, retired to a distant castle. Then Henriette Hedwig died, and the Moempelgard court seemed tidied up a little, although Henriette left five children in the castle, two of whom called Leopold father.

But there still remained a fourth sister Esperance, Elizabeth Charlotte. This lady's ambition soared higher than that of the other three sisters. She made Leopold divorce the Countess of Sponeck. The other sisters had been called the legal wives of the Duke, according to his Mahometan principles, but Elizabeth Charlotte insisted upon a greater surety, and Leopold acquiesced, as usual, when his affections were engaged. The Countess of Sponeck being divorced, he married the fourth and last sister Esperance. He spoke of poor Sponeck as 'The Widowed Lady,' and Elizabeth Charlotte as 'The Reigning Lady.'

Now came the complications concerning the offspring of the Duke's various wives. To annoy poor Sponeck, Leopold in 1715 had entered into a contract with Wirtemberg, whereby he declared his distant cousin, Eberhard Ludwig, heir to Moempelgard; but he soon repented of this admission, and besought the Emperor to legitimatise his children: those morganatically born by the Countess of Sponeck, and the rest of the brood from the Esperance sisters. The Emperor refused.

Then Leopold appealed to Louis XIV., who also proved obdurate. Finally during the Regency, Leopold repaired to Paris in person and prayed the Regent, Duc d'Orleans, to legitimatise his progeny. 'A Lutheran prince was legally permitted to marry whom, when, and as often as he wished,' he averred. This precept being received with mockery, he expatiated on Persian customs, and declared himself a believer in the Koran alone. But Paris laughed at him, and after making himself ridiculous at the court of France during eight months, Leopold returned to Moempelgard. Then he married his son, George Leopold, Count of Sponeck, to his daughter Eleonore Charlotte of Sandersleben; and his son, Karl Leopold of Sandersleben, to his daughter Leopoldine Eberhardine of Sponeck. This double marriage was a magnificent ceremony at Moempelgard, and Duke Leopold was wild with delight at the revival of 'the beautiful old Persian custom.' But Germany, and even France, stood aghast at the horrible affair. To celebrate his four children's nuptials, Leopold gave a grand ball. In the midst of this festivity he was struck down with apoplexy. The sisters Esperance, Sebastiane and Elizabeth Charlotte, fled before the approach of death, but honest Sponeck hastened back from her distant castle, and Leopold died in her arms.

Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg laid claim to Moempelgard, but he was obliged to send troops to seize his inheritance. Then the bastards in a body commenced legal proceedings against the rightful heir, and against each other. Europe looked on, scandalised and amused.

The eldest Sponeck and his sister-bride hurried to Paris—'Prince et Princesse de Montbeliard,' they styled themselves—and as they were young, handsome, and seemingly wealthy, many persons of note espoused their sorry cause.

Eberhard Ludwig, who now added to his titles that of Duke of Moempelgard, waited patiently for some time ere he took possession in person of his new domain. His troops were there, and Friedrich Graevenitz had been despatched to take direction of affairs.

Meanwhile, some of the bastards were raising doleful cries in Vienna and in Paris, but a few remained obstinately at Moempelgard, and to Friedrich Graevenitz was assigned the task of removing them before Serenissimus made his state entry.

The Landhofmeisterin had intimated her intention of accompanying his Highness on this official journey, and there had ensued a sharp quarrel, by letter, between the lady and her brother in Moempelgard. She won the day, of course, as usual, yet her heart was heavy in this hour of her greatest triumph, for the Duke grew colder to her each day. Madame de Ruth, her wily counsellor, had died a few months after the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha's visit to Ludwigsburg, and the courtiers had marvelled at the Landhofmeisterin's passionate grief. She had followed the old courtesan's coffin to Neuhaus, and had seen her laid to rest beside the little mound of the child's grave. And the Graevenitz had refused to be comforted.

Zollern almost deserted Ludwigsburg after his old mistress's death. He withdrew to his castle, and only at rare intervals could he be persuaded to visit the Duke and the Landhofmeisterin.

Yet the Graevenitz's power was unabated; in point of fact, it seemed to grow more absolute; but the courtiers noticed her melancholy, and while some put it down to her grief at Madame de Ruth's death, others observed the Duke's colder manner, and predicted the Landhofmeisterin's downfall. It was a blow to these prophets when the news was confirmed that the Graevenitz was to accompany Serenissimus on his state entry to Moempelgard. There were various intrigues to prevent her Excellency from carrying out the project. Chief among these was a riot at Moempelgard, which was entirely organised and stirred up by discontented Wirtembergers. It required little to enflame the Moempelgarders, for they hated the very name of Duke's mistress from past Esperance experiences, and the Landhofmeisterin's doings in Wirtemberg were well known.

Friedrich Graevenitz wrote at great length to his sister (he always wrote lengthily, and the most trivial letter he alluded to as 'my business,' saying pompously, 'I have been working'). So he wrote at enormous length to Wilhelmine, advising her to refrain from journeying to Moempelgard, but the Landhofmeisterin only laughed, and hurried on the preparations for the official entry.

Shortly before this time a new body-guard had been enrolled at Ludwigsburg. It did not oust the famous Silver Guard from favour, and the Cadets a Cheval also retained their proud position, but the new body-guard was a most resplendent corps, composed entirely of gentlemen of noble birth. One of Madame de Ruth's last witticisms had been to compare this 'Chevaliergarde' to the French and Austrian Chanoinesses.

'Really, Monseigneur,' she had told Serenissimus, 'you should make it compulsory for the gentlemen of the Chevaliergarde to have sixty-four quarterings and pure morals!'

Of course there was jealousy between the Silver Guard and the Chevalier troop, and the young Cadets a Cheval looked with displeasure at the new guard. But the Landhofmeisterin settled that as she did all things; she decreed that when the Cadets reached the age of twenty-one years it should be open to them to serve in the permanent Chevaliergarde, or to apply for officers' commissions in the Silver Guard, and the latter appointments being perforce limited in number, it soon became the recognised thing for the Cadets who wished to remain in the military service to enter the Chevaliergarde. The Landhofmeisterin ruled even the army.

Her Excellency had instituted an Order. His Highness had his St. Hubertus to give, and she desired to have an Order of her own to distribute. Everybody laughed covertly, but the insignia of the Order of the White Trefoil were much coveted nevertheless, and the white riband and beautifully designed three-leaved badge of the Graevenitz's Order were proudly worn by the highest dignitaries, and at Ludwigsburg the courtiers who were fortunate enough to possess the decoration were careful never to appear without it.

* * * * *

On a glowing July morning a splendid cavalcade started from Ludwigsburg: the Silver Guard, the Cadets a Cheval, the Chevaliergarde, the dignitaries of the Wirtemberg court, and his Highness Eberhard Ludwig riding at the door of the golden coach, wherein throned the Landhofmeisterin and her sour-visaged sister Sittmann.

In each town and village the procession was greeted with commanded cheers and with triumphant arches decorated by her Excellency's instructions. The peasants' faces were sombre while they cheered, sometimes a suppressed snarl of hatred mingled with the acclamations. As the travellers proceeded on their journey, however, this hostility abated, giving place to peering curiosity, and at every halt the villagers crowded round asking which of the ladies was the Landhofmeisterin, and commenting on her appearance.

At Kehl on the Rhine there was an official reception by the burgomaster and chief citizens. From Kehl to Strassburg, a distance of several miles, peasants and townsfolk bordered the road, watching the entry of the magnificent Duke of Wirtemberg. The town of Strassburg, in those days only French by a recent treaty, received the German prince with vociferous delight. The Regent d'Orleans, wishful to show courtesy to the new Duke of Montbeliard, had commanded the garrison to render military honours to the travelling prince, and Serenissimus was greeted in Strassburg by some of the finest of France's troops, and by thundering cannon salutes. Then there were white-robed maidens strewing flowers before his horse's hoofs, and from the town-gate to the stately old Cathedral Square the concourse of men and women was so vast as to make the progress slow and difficult; bands played and flags flew, and the Graevenitz was delighted. Eberhard Ludwig was feasted and honoured, and ever beside him was the tall figure of the Landhofmeisterin. In the evening the Duke received the chief burghers at a state banquet, and the Graevenitz sat to his Highness's right.

In Schlettstadt and Belfort, where he entered the Moempelgard territory, the reception was enthusiastic; and, contrary to all expectations, the citizens of Moempelgard itself received their new ruler with expressions of ecstatic loyalty, and even the Landhofmeisterin was loudly cheered. Here again the cannon roared a welcome, children and maidens strewed roses, choirs of youths chanted paeans of homage and rejoicing, and the Moempelgard regiments, which but a few months before had been employed by the bastards to oppose the rightful heir, now greeted their Duke with respect. Banners waved from every house, arches of fresh flowers adorned the streets, the windows were spread with silken hangings, and the church bells rang peal upon peal. It was a scene of rejoicing, of enthusiasm, of pomp and magnificence, and it was the culminating point of the triumph of Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, but her heart was heavy with foreboding.

Serenissimus also, though he played his part in the fine pageant with seeming pleasure, was filled with profound sadness. The Erbprincessin had been brought to bed of a daughter only since the loss of her first child. The Erbprinz was more ailing than ever; true, he fought gallantly against his weakness, seeking to fortify himself and please his father by outdoor exercises; but, though he rode magnificently, with skill and intrepidity, he had fallen fainting from his horse several times of late. The doctors shook their heads, and the cognizance forced itself upon Eberhard Ludwig that he himself would be the last Duke of the direct line.

After spending three weeks of feasting at Moempelgard, his Highness set out for Stuttgart. The Moempelgarders bade him adieu with many expressions of loyal devotion. They found their new Duke and his handsome, decorous mistress, who played so finely the role of legal Duchess, an agreeable change after Leopold Eberhard's 'Persian Court' and its absurdities, and they would fain have induced Serenissimus to tarry in Moempelgard; but the King of Prussia had intimated his intention of visiting Ludwigsburg in September, and Eberhard Ludwig hurried back to receive his royal guest. But on arriving in Ludwigsburg his Highness fell ill, and Friedrich Wilhelm's visit was postponed till the following spring.

The winter passed with little incident at Ludwigsburg. His Highness recovered rapidly from his actual illness, yet he did not regain his accustomed health and spirits, and thus the court festivities were both fewer and less brilliant than heretofore. The Landhofmeisterin's forebodings seemed to be infectious; a cloud hung over Ludwigsburg, and the people murmured ominously: 'His Highness wearies of her, and she has ill-wished him; he will die, and she will disappear with all the jewels and gold.'

Doubtless, the Landhofmeisterin's actions lent colour to these wild reports. She had studied various theories of medicine—quaint, old, forgotten herb lore, absurd mediaeval magic. At first it had diverted her, then she grew credulous, and in the despair of knowing Eberhard Ludwig's love to be waning and his health broken, she resorted to the pitiful puerilities of love potions, life essences, and elixirs. Of course, for the brewing of these concoctions she required some extraordinary ingredients, and it was in the procuring of these that the gossip concerning her witch practices was revived and flourished. This prescription required the blood of a still-born male child; one old black-letter book recommended the heart of a yellow hen; another ordered the life-warm entrails of a black fighting-cock; a fourth prescription commanded the admixture of hairs from a dead man's beard! These ingredients mixed with herbs plucked in churchyards at midnight, or spices brought directly from the East, and with seven times distilled water, and suchlike, made a life elixir, or an infallible love potion, or again a cure for this or that disease. Among the many absurdities of ignorance some of the accumulated wisdom of experience may have crept into the old recipes: a real cure for a fever, or the application of a gold ring to an inflamed eyelid. Superstition said that the ring was the marvel-worker; possibly it was some quality in the gold, some even-as-yet-undiscovered power of certain metals upon the human body, and which experience may have taught the old village woman and the wandering quack. But for the most part the Graevenitz's potions were harmless absurdities, yet she believed, and so did others, in their efficacy.

During the winter the Erbprinz's fainting fits were more frequent than ever, and the Erbprincessin sank into a deep and brooding melancholy, which was varied by attacks of painful excitement and sudden bursts of causeless anger. It was whispered at Ludwigsburg that she was surely going mad.

It was as though some fearful blight had fallen upon Eberhard Ludwig and his family, and the Pietists preached that the avenging hand of God was hovering over the sinner's court. The Secret Service reported these sermons to the Landhofmeisterin, and the preachers were fined or imprisoned, but the stream of denunciation continued nevertheless.

The Graevenitz was very lonely now. His Highness had changed to her, she could no longer blind herself to the fact. Madame de Ruth was dead; Zollern, old and sad, was rarely at Ludwigsburg. Friedrich Graevenitz was covertly hostile to her. In the autumn a serious quarrel had taken place; the brother demanding as free gift the property of Welzheim, which the Landhofmeisterin had lent him. This Wilhelmine refused; she did not relish her brother's way of asking, and she bitterly resented the pompous, self-righteous, disapproving manner which he had adopted towards her of late. After all, he owed her everything, she told herself. Her sister, Sittmann, was a useless parasite. The Landhofmeisterin accounted her as one who would desert her immediately did misfortune come. The Sittmann sons, young men who owed their high position entirely to their aunt's power, not to their own merit or capability, were colourless, insipid youths. Sittmann himself, Schuetz and the rest, she knew to be fair-weather friends; evidently they descried the clouds gathering over their patroness's head, and they were quietly drawing back from her. Only Maria, the maid, remained faithful and admiring, and tended her adored mistress with unfailing patience and devotion. In the early spring the preparations began for the King of Prussia's visit, but Serenissimus himself took the lead in settling the arrangements, and the Landhofmeisterin was constantly met with the answer: 'His Highness has ordered that otherwise, your Excellency,' or, 'that point has been settled by the Duke.' For twenty years she had directed and ruled, and now all things seemed to crumble at her touch.

King Friedrich Wilhelm I. arrived in Wirtemberg towards the middle of April. He was met at the frontier by Eberhard Ludwig and the whole Silver Guard. The cavalcade was very brilliant, the horses magnificent, and the bluff Prussian King greeted the Duke with rough cordiality. They had been companions-in-arms during the Spanish Succession campaigns, and as they rode together through the beautiful spring land of Wirtemberg they recalled old memories, fighting over again the battles of Blenheim, or of Malplaquet, and talking of military matters. It was like a breath of the camp life of long ago, of those young, gay, adventurous days when the Future promised so much!

An official reception had been prepared for Friedrich Wilhelm at Ludwigsburg, and leaving the King at Heilbronn, Eberhard Ludwig hastened home. On the morrow, at the head of his troops, he would receive Prussia's martial ruler at a grand parade, after which the Corporal King was to be feasted at the palace.

Eberhard Ludwig reached Ludwigsburg late in the evening, and retired immediately, commanding a light supper to be served in his apartments. He was told that the Landhofmeisterin and the court awaited him, and that supper was already served, as usual, in her Excellency's dining-room. But Serenissimus sent word that he desired to be undisturbed, and prayed her Excellency to excuse him.

The supper at the Landhofmeisterin's table was partaken of in a constrained atmosphere. Her Excellency spoke with Baron Schuetz of political affairs, but though her lips smiled, there was that in her eyes which banished easy talk in her presence. The Erbprinz was pale and silent; he had ridden much during the afternoon, and had swooned away in the palace courtyard when he dismounted. The Erbprincessin sat crumbling her bread with her long, delicate fingers, a heavy cloud of aimless melancholy on her face. She had been feverishly excited during the day at the prospect of meeting her cousin King Friedrich Wilhelm, but, as usual, her passing brighter mood left her the more depressed. At the repast's conclusion the Landhofmeisterin rose and repaired, according to her custom, to the card-room. She played her hand at l'hombre, winning each game.

'Those who are fortunate at cards are unfortunate in all else, they say,' she remarked, as she noted her winnings in her neat scholarly handwriting. The courtiers murmured some banal phrases, and Schuetz watched the Landhofmeisterin narrowly. Was it time for this Master-Rat to conduct his brood away from the threatened vessel? he wondered.

Earlier than usual her Excellency gave the signal to retire. 'We start to-morrow at nine of the clock for his Majesty's reception. Your Highness will occupy my coach. I trust it will not rain,' she said indifferently as she bade the Erbprincessin good-night. Now, it had been clearly understood that no ladies were to attend the reception. In fact, the Erbprincessin had consented to greet her cousin in private, only in order to prevent the Landhofmeisterin from meeting the mistress-hating monarch. There ensued an awkward pause after her Excellency's speech.

'I do not purpose to be present at the official reception, Madame,' said the Erbprincessin, 'and I had understood that your Excellency also would remain away.'

'Your Highness has been misinformed,' returned the Landhofmeisterin icily. 'We start, as I have had the honour to tell you, at nine of the clock to-morrow morning. I wish you would accompany me in my coach, Prince Friedrich, it would be a happiness to me to have your protection. May I count on you?' She turned to him with her wonderful smile. Friedrich Ludwig had a place in her affection, and though he never visited her at Favorite or Freudenthal, which wounded her deeply, she bore him no malice.

'In truth, Madame, I shall be proud to escort you in your coach to-morrow. At nine of the clock?' And he bade her good rest. He was grateful to her for thus making it seem a courtesy to her that he should consent to drive instead of riding to the review, for the doctor had told him that evening that he could not ride, and he felt so weak and giddy after his swoon that he knew he dared not mount a horse. The Erbprincessin shot a veiled look of hatred at the Landhofmeisterin. How well the evil woman knew how to cajole men to her will!

The Landhofmeisterin repaired to her pavilion, and Maria assisted her to bed. Such a ceremony it was, this retiring to rest of the Landhofmeisterin! Such a profusion of delicious essences; all the perfumes of Araby were used, and she donned the fairest raiment of fine linen. According to custom, Maria left her fastidious mistress ready for sleep and reading a heavy tome of old-world magic by the light of two tall waxen tapers.

Hardly had the maid's footsteps ceased to echo on the stone steps of the pavilion, when the Graevenitz flung aside the book and, rising from her chair, listened attentively. Only the monotonous tramp of the sentries in the courtyard, and, more faintly, the same sound from the guards on the north terrace. Still her Excellency listened. Alas! for how many nights of late had she hearkened in vain for the click of the little key in the door from the statue gallery? Eberhard Ludwig never came to her, and as she stood listening her heart bled in anguish for the love that was no more. Could such love really die? she asked herself. If it could, then the vows Eberhard Ludwig had spoken were mockery. Had she built her life on so insecure a foundation? The whole fabric of her being was shattered. Her anguish was almost physical pain, and she knew why people said 'my heart bleeds,' for, of a truth, it seemed to her as though the strength ebbed away from her heart, leaving an aching, yearning void. Courage! she would try again. She lifted the waxen taper and held it between her face and the mirror. Yes, there were lines beneath the eyes; her cheeks were less full and her chin heavier than of yore, but her lips were soft and red, her eyes as blue, as vivid as they had ever been. She knew her hair was streaked with white beneath the powder, but it was still luxuriant. She was beautiful, desirable—but would he desire her? She replaced the taper, glided into the statue gallery, and opened the door leading to his Highness's room. She listened; Eberhard Ludwig was asleep; she could hear the long, even breaths. Noiselessly she pushed aside the arras and entered. The moon shone into the room, and again she could have vowed that a white-shrouded woman's figure stood in the wan light, but, as before, the faint vision vanished when she looked more searchingly.

'Eberhard, beloved,' she called gently, 'are you ill?' The old witchery was in her voice, and the sleeping man answered to it.

'I come, sweet love; I come, Philomele!' Serenissimus appeared on the threshold of the writing-room. He had flung himself down to sleep without undressing, and was still in his riding-clothes. He looked ghastly in the pale moonlight, and she hurried to him with outstretched arms.

'You are ill and you do not come to me? Beloved, have I not tended you that you should thus flaunt me?' She drew him to her. 'What have I done, my heart, how have I sinned, that you have taken your love from me? See, I come to you to pray you to forgive me!' The old trick of speech, her catchword, 'See,' the low voice—the soft, strong arms.

He had doubted her, and why? She had given him all; it was not her fault if he wearied of her tyranny. No; he alone was to blame, his inconstancy, his weakness. He poured forth a torrent of self-reproach, and words of love, and she responded passionately. Once more they were lovers, thrilling to each other's touch. And the wan moon looked on at their transports, and perchance the pale wraith of the Countess of Orlamuende, the White Lady, watched the lovers and smiled, knowing that love's death, satiety, had them in his chill grip for all their passionate vows.

'I start at nine to-morrow morning for the reception, beloved. The Erbprincessin and Friedrich accompany me in my coach,' the Landhofmeisterin said as she prepared to return to her apartments. His Highness started.

'I pray you, do not go, Wilhelmine. The King is a bear, and if you meet him he will fail in courtesy to you,' he said.

'It is my right to go, and I start at nine,' she repeated.

'You shall not go; it is my right to forbid you,—you shall not go!' he cried. Then ensued a quarrel, bitter, terrible, between two beings who so short a while before had loved so madly. The quarrel ended by the man giving in, as usual, but the wrangle pierced one more nail in his love's coffin for all that.

* * * * *

True to her word, the next morning at nine of the clock the Landhofmeisterin entered her coach accompanied by a very angry-faced Erbprincessin, and the Erbprinz. They drove past Hohenasperg to the plain where the review was to be held, and the Landhofmeisterin's coach took up a commanding position near to Eberhard Ludwig and the officers of his staff. The Prussian King appeared riding with a numerous retinue.

The field artillery spluttered volleys, and the cannon of Hohenasperg thundered a royal salute; the Silver Guard and the Chevaliergarde deployed and went through the series of antics customary at that period of military history. It was a small quantity of men with which to aspire to give a military display to the Soldier King, but under Eberhard Ludwig's zealous care the men were perfectly drilled, wonderfully accoutred, and the cavalry horses were unequalled in Germany. The light field-guns were of the latest invention, the artillery and fort gunnery were carefully distinguished according to the new military rule: in fact, it was all rigidly correct and perfect to the most approved and newest methods of that date; and Friedrich Wilhelm who, if he knew little else, was a past master of the martial art, was delighted at the display. But his face changed when he rode up to the coach to greet his cousin, and became aware of the Landhofmeisterin's presence.

'Why are you here?' he grumbled to the Erbprincessin. 'Women are best at home, looking after the children or cooking the dinner.'

'May I present her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin to your Majesty?' said Eberhard Ludwig; but the King turned a deaf ear.

'Go home, cousin, go home!' he bawled at the Erbprincessin; and putting spurs to his horse galloped away to inspect some new pattern of field-gun which his sharp eyes had espied with the artillery.

Eberhard Ludwig looked at the Landhofmeisterin in genuine distress. He had warned her of the Prussian King's rough manners, but this was more than he had expected. Her Excellency's face was inscrutable.

'I should advise your Highness to follow that most kingly personage. Keep him in view, Serenissimus, or he may steal a tall man or so for his grenadiers from among your favourite guards. It is one of his graceful habits, I am told,' she said coldly.

The Erbprinz had flushed deeply when the martial king ignored the Landhofmeisterin. The Erbprincessin's face, on the contrary, had lightened considerably. It was delightful to see the Graevenitz put down for once! They drove home through the meadows, past the blossoming orchards, and never had the Landhofmeisterin been more charming; even the Erbprincessin could not forbear a smile at her witty sayings, and the Erbprinz laughed gaily. The Prussian King rode past the coach, glaring at its occupants with his protuberant eyes, and the Landhofmeisterin adroitly launched a witticism just as his Majesty was passing, in order that he should suffer the mortification of hearing and seeing their merriment half an hour after his unmannerly slight. Her ruse succeeded admirably, and she had the pleasure of observing the King's brick-coloured face flush to purple with anger.

The Duke and his guest remained together all the morning, His Highness showing the King each detail of the palace. In the orangery they came across two remarkably tall garden boys, and Friedrich Wilhelm immediately offered Eberhard Ludwig three hundred thalers apiece for them. Now, they happened to be her Excellency's own gardeners, and to be proficient in the art of cultivating roses, so Serenissimus prayed the King to let him find other giants for him; these, he said, were not his to offer.

'Whose then? Whose then? What the devil! Why, the houndsdirts must belong to you! Whose can they be? If they are my little cousin's I will soon make her see I will have them,' the Prussian monarch shouted.

'They belong to her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin, sire.'

'What, that woman? Ha! you took her to Moempelgard, I hear! Ridiculous things, women—want the lash, the whip. Do you hear, old comrade?—every woman wants the lash. Look at my daughter now—absurd hussy! will not marry. I ought to lash her, but she hides behind her mother's petticoats. Ridiculous things, women.'

Serenissimus endeavoured to lead the shouting monarch from the orangery, but he was not to be outdone.

'Come to Berlin, boy; fine uniforms, good beer, and tobacco. Come, you will love me like your father!' he yelled at the tallest gardener, bestowing a heavy blow on the youth's shoulders with the stout cudgel which he always carried. The end of it was that Eberhard Ludwig made him a present of the Landhofmeisterin's gardeners, and the King in high good humour retired to take an hour's nap before starting to enjoy some wild-boar sticking in the forest.

All that day the Landhofmeisterin did not see Serenissimus, only in the afternoon she received a billet from him in which he forbade her to attend the supper in the state banqueting-hall. 'The Erbprincessin will be the only lady; she, being the King's cousin, must attend, but I command you to remain away. You will understand my reasons when you consider the events of this morning.—E. L.'

The letter was short, formal, cold in tone, and the Landhofmeisterin was deeply wounded. She had known that Friedrich Wilhelm would be unfriendly to her; his rough virtue, and hatred of illicit relationships, were famous throughout Germany, and she was aware that he would view with displeasure the magnificence and the French manners of Ludwigsburg. Had he not stamped, beaten, and roared out of existence every trace of the elegance and pomp of the Berlin court as it had been under his father, Friedrich I.?—that monarch who, by the way, had granted the Graevenitz that Letter of Royal Protection twenty years ago.

Still, though Friedrich Wilhelm had refused to ratify or acknowledge this document when begged to do so by the Duke of Zollern, the Landhofmeisterin had counted him as more or less bound by it, and the idea that he could utterly ignore her had never entered her head. Moreover, she thought she would not need the protection of Prussia. She had prepared a vast fortune out of Wirtemberg, and if death claimed Eberhard Ludwig before her own demise, she intended to retire to Schaffhausen and finish her days in magnificent seclusion. Yet it was infinitely galling to be hidden away in this manner. She raged at the thought of the courtiers' sneers. Not attend the supper? She, the ruler of Ludwigsburg and Wirtemberg, to be hidden like a common mistress! And then how coldly Eberhard Ludwig wrote to her. 'Alas! all things pass,' she said, and wept bitterly. The day wore on. She tried to read, to occupy herself, but she could not fix her mind on anything; her thoughts reverted to her humiliation. At last she heard the noise of the sportsmen's return, and Friedrich Wilhelm's loud voice shouting and laughing. Would Eberhard Ludwig come to her now? But no; she waited, and no one disturbed her solitude.

At length Maria brought her a tray covered with dishes of delicious viands.

'If her Excellency refuses to be served properly in the dining-room, as usual, she must at least have a mouthful to eat,' the honest soul declared, and she hovered round the Graevenitz, imploring her to taste this or that, to drink a little wine; but the Landhofmeisterin pushed away her plate, saying that the food choked her, and Maria, grumbling, carried away the untasted supper.

Once more, Wilhelmine fell to listening. She heard the noise of a crowd gathering in the courtyard. She rang her handbell, and when Maria appeared she questioned her on the reason of a crowd being admitted to the palace precincts. His Highness had commanded the gates to be thrown open, she was told; it was the Prussian King's custom to permit the populace to see him eat.

'Disgusting!' quoth the Landhofmeisterin haughtily. 'I can smell the varlets from here. Sprinkle rose-water about the room, Maria.'

The hours dragged on monotonously. The noise of the crowd in the courtyard was drowned by the loud strains of the massed bands of the regiments in Ludwigsburg, who had been commanded to play before the windows of the banqueting-hall. The Landhofmeisterin's musicians with their harps, violins, and flutes were banished during the Prussian King's visit, for he hated all music save that of trumpet and drum. At length the Landhofmeisterin could bear her solitude and suspense no longer. She slipped into the statue gallery, and through a secret door to the Duke's private stairs. The topmost flight led to a small gallery which looked into the banqueting-hall. She had often watched from here the hunting dinners which his Highness gave, and from which ladies were naturally excluded. It was many years since one of these entertainments had taken place, and the staircase had fallen into disrepair; it was dirty and dusty, and creaked under her Excellency's tread. 'Disgraceful neglect! the housekeeper-in-charge shall be fined,' murmured the tyrant as she mounted. The door leading to the gallery was ajar. The Landhofmeisterin's face darkened with anger. Had some serving-maids dared to creep up to watch the doings in the banqueting-hall? But there was no one in the gallery, and she bent down, peering through the stucco balustrade into the hall below. Her attention was arrested by a cackling snigger behind her—a horrid, mocking, wheezy titter in the shadow of the overhanging ornamentation of the banqueting-hall roof, which came low down over the little gallery. She turned quickly and saw the grotesque, ape-like figure of one of the court dwarfs. Her Excellency had introduced these hideous abortions into Ludwigsburg, having read that they were a feature of the Spanish court in its grandest days. Eberhard Ludwig, disgusted at the sight of the puny monstrosities, had refused to permit them to go about the palace, and they had been relegated, poor displeasing toys, to the servants' regions. Here they were kicked and cuffed and made cruel sport of. During the foregoing winter one dwarf had died, and the other roamed around like some miserable outcast cur, lurking in dark corners, hiding from all living things, which he accounted rightly as his tormentors. He cowered before the Landhofmeisterin, laughing his horrible, cackling snigger, which was half mockery, half terror. He expected the Landhofmeisterin to push him brutally aside, but her sorrow had made her suddenly gentle; she felt dimly that this wretched creature was an outcast, and so was she. 'Poor dwarf,' she said gently, 'I had thought you were dead! So you still wander in this vale of tears?' She spoke almost mockingly, and yet there was that in her tone which gave hope to the wretched being.

'O Madame, I am so miserable! They beat me, cuff me, the serving-maids pinch me, scratch me with their bodkins! They say you are hard and cold and cruel, but oh, have mercy on me!'

'I hard and cold and cruel?' she replied incredulously. 'Do they say that?' She had no idea that success and prosperity had thus changed her; the world-hardened never know it themselves.

'Ah, yes, they say that; but, I pray you, have mercy on me.' The poor, distorted figure threw itself down, grovelling at the Landhofmeisterin's feet.

'Go to my apartments in the pavilion and await me, I will attend to you in an hour's time. Stay, here is my ring; show that to the sentry and he will admit you,' she said. She would send him back to his Swiss mountain valley with gold enough to last him for his lifetime. Perhaps, if she did good to this outcast, God would relent, would give her back Eberhard Ludwig's love? The dwarf went, and the Landhofmeisterin turned her attention to the scene in the banqueting-hall.

The banquet was finished, but the guests still sat round the table with wine-reddened faces. The Prussian King loved to drink deep; he said he abhorred the milksop who could not follow him to the dregs of a tankard, and that was indeed no paltry measure. The Erbprincessin sat to the King's right, his Highness himself was on his Majesty's left. The Erbprinz, white and weary, sat opposite. The holders of important court charges were grouped around according to their respective ranks. Friedrich Graevenitz, as Count of the Empire and Prime Minister of Wirtemberg, sat to the left of Serenissimus; Prelate Osiander came next, then Schuetz and Sittmann, and the brothers Pfau. Reischach, the Master of the Hunt; Baron Roeder, Master of the Horse; the Oberhofmarshall, the other Geheimraethe; the generals and officers of his Highness's staff; the colonels of the Silver Guard, of the Chevaliergarde; the young captain of the Cadets a Cheval. Among the Wirtemberg courtiers were seated various members of the Prussian suite: Grumbkow, the powerful favourite; General Doenhoff; and the Austrian Ambassador at Berlin, Count Seckendorff, who always followed Friedrich Wilhelm I., a spy and intriguer in friendship's guise.

It was a brilliant assemblage, but it was well to be seen that deep drinking had been indulged in. Besides the Erbprincessin, only Osiander and the Erbprinz had calm and unflushed faces. The Landhofmeisterin's eyes wandered from Friedrich Wilhelm to Eberhard Ludwig; his face was flushed, and he swayed a little in his chair. His Highness was usually a moderate drinker, and, though during his various campaigns he had drunk and revelled like the rest, the Landhofmeisterin had never seen him with that vacant, sottish look, and her soul sickened at the sight. The Erbprincessin rose and took her leave, Friedrich Wilhelm shouting rough, good-natured pleasantries to her. Then his Majesty's friend, Grumbkow, craving the Duke's permission, called the lackey in charge, who produced the King's huge pipe, and in a few minutes the Landhofmeisterin saw the stately banqueting-hall take the aspect and smell of a tabagie. Dense clouds of smoke rose up, and she saw that the Prussian King was again served with an enormous jug of beer. The banqueting-hall was transformed, no trace of elegance or courtly grace seemed to remain; it had become a pothouse, of which Eberhard Ludwig was the jovial host. The Landhofmeisterin quivered with disgust, his Highness appeared sunken to a different level. She watched and listened; the music in the courtyard had ceased, and she could hear what they said in the banqueting-hall.

'What! Sapperment! you compose fiddling tunes, young man?' Friedrich Wilhelm was roaring at the shrinking Erbprinz. 'Just like my fool of a son. He blows squeaks on a tube which he calls my beloved flute' (the King gave a rough imitation of his son's refined speech). 'No good at all, this younger generation—eh! what, old comrade? A good fight, a good glass of beer, a good pipe, a good wife—that's what a man needs; no French jiggery and music nonsense. Fool's play—eh, what? what?' He spoke in German; such German as it was, too, vitiated by French words which he could not avoid, as he knew no others, adorned with unquotable oaths, short-clipped, rough phrases—the language of the man-at-arms in the guard-room. Yet he possessed a certain breezy charm, and Eberhard Ludwig seemed to respond to it. In truth, the King, when he was not in one of his furious rages, was a boon companion, and appealed to the brutish swagger which lies dormant in every man's being.

At length the company rose from table and gathered in groups of three or four, while the King and his host retired into the embrasure of one of the windows. The Landhofmeisterin saw that Friedrich Wilhelm spoke earnestly to Serenissimus; she noted the embarrassment on the Duke's face, he seemed like a chidden schoolboy, and with dismay the Landhofmeisterin observed that he was evidently impressed by the King's words. Could this rude monarch persuade so polished and refined a being as Eberhard Ludwig? Did he endeavour to separate her lover from her? A presentiment came to her; she knew instinctively that this was what the King essayed. After nearly an hour, the two men came forth from the window's embrasure, and she saw how the King held out his hand to Eberhard Ludwig, and how his Highness gripped and held it, saying something in a low, earnest tone.

She strained her ears, yet she could not catch the words; but she saw Friedrich Wilhelm's satisfied face. He clapped his Highness between the shoulders with a heavy hand. Evidently Serenissimus met with his Majesty's entire approval. The company broke up for the night, and the Landhofmeisterin rose from her cramped, kneeling position and took her way back to her apartments. A cruel foreknowledge of disaster overshadowed her; something unusual, elusively sinister, haunted her.

As she passed his Highness's door she hesitated. Should she go in bravely and speak her fear to him? Pride forbade, and a certain sense of hopelessness. She drew herself up proudly. No, he loved her; how could he change after twenty years? He could not escape her, for she was his life; all his memories were hers, his past, his present; therefore she argued, as a woman always argues, his future too must be hers.

She passed into her apartments and, opening her window, leaned far out. How silent it was in the garden! The moonlight played gently over the terraces, only the splash of the fountains broke the stillness. The air was delicious, scented with freshness, and after the noisome fumes of wine, beer, victuals, and tobacco in the banqueting-hall, she thought the night air was laden with rose fragrance. So it had been on that far-off night in the Stuttgart palace gardens after the theatricals. Time had not played havoc then with Nature. How weary she was! Suddenly a moan in the room behind her attracted her attention. She started nervously, and, as usual, the thought of the White Lady worked in her mind. They said the poor ghost moaned when death drew near to any of her descendants, and she was Eberhard Ludwig's ancestress. The Landhofmeisterin dared not turn her head for fear she should see a tall, white, shrouded figure with bloodstained hands. Again the moan.

'Who is there?' the Landhofmeisterin said tremulously.

'Pardon, Madame, you said I was to await you.' It was only the dwarf, then. Her Excellency almost laughed in her relief.

'Ah! I had forgotten you. Well, tell me your story now. I am listening,' she said. It would serve to pass the time till his Highness came, for he would come, she told herself.

The dwarf stood trembling before her, ridiculous, grotesque, infinitely pathetic. He poured forth the tale of his miserable life, of the taunts, the jeers, the kicks, the cuffs, the lack of food which he had often suffered in the midst of the lavish splendour of Ludwigsburg. Incidentally he let her see how the very servants of the palace spoke of her, and how they mocked her authority when they dared.

His was a pitiful life-history, and the Landhofmeisterin was moved to compassion; her own heart was sore, and already the crust of world-hardness had begun to melt under the tears which were welling up ready to be shed.

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