Hon. Marie Hay

'Life is but a vision—what I see

Of all which lives alone is life to me,

And being so—the absent are the dead,

Who haunt us from tranquillity, and spread

A dreary shroud around us, and invest

With sad remembrances our hours of rest.

The absent are the dead—for they are cold.'

Byron.

Freudenthal was full of ghosts for the GrÄvenitz: Madame de Ruth, her dead friend; Zollern, who had bade her farewell for ever; and Eberhard Ludwig, the unfaithful lover of her vanished youth. She walked in the gardens, listening involuntarily for the voice which had so often called 'PhilomÈle beloved' from the orchard gate. There was no consolation on earth for her, she knew that; all she had loved, all she had achieved, her power, her great honours, were dead things. The forced inaction of her future tortured her. How would she pass the long dreary hours of the rest of her life? True, the Jewish community of Freudenthal had greeted her with enthusiasm; they were faithful, these despised Israelites. For a moment it had warmed her heart back to a little interest in living. She busied herself with the affairs of the village, but she was used to a press of work, of governing, of vital interests; how could these minor matters occupy her for long?

She tried to read, but though her eyes followed the lines her thoughts flashed away to Ludwigsburg. She struck a few chords on the spinet; unconsciously her fingers glided into a melody Eberhard Ludwig had loved, and only a sob broke from her lips when she would have sung. Ghosts at Freudenthal? She was the ghost herself; she was the shadow of bygone days—the poor, yearning, broken-hearted ghost.

They came and told her that Serenissimus had returned from Berlin, and that he had been greeted by the news of the Erbprinz's serious illness. Prince Friedrich had fallen ill of a nervous fever, they said. Ah, yes! she told herself she had caused it; in her morbid sadness she took the blame of every untoward occurrence upon her shoulders. She had caused Friedrich Ludwig to fall ill, for great emotions must perforce shatter so frail a being as he was, and she had tortured him, tempted him.

One day two travelling coaches rolled into Freudenthal—the Sittmann tribe arrived. It was but ill received by the GrÄvenitz. Why had they come? she asked. Her sister informed her that Serenissimus had broken up the court of Ludwigsburg; he was to reside henceforth at Stuttgart. Had she not heard? Oh, yes! His Highness was reconciled with the Duchess, and it was disagreeable for former members of the Ludwigsburg court nowadays. This latter was said in a whiny tone of reproach.

'Get you gone to your own apartments, my sister and my sister's brats! If stay you must at Freudenthal, then stay, but leave me now,' the GrÄvenitz said; and though she was no longer the all-powerful Landhofmeisterin, still there was that about her which made the parasites shrink back. But they had done enough, had they not? in telling her thus roughly that the woman she had loathed and despised with all jealousy's venom during twenty years, had triumphed over her at last.

The GrÄvenitz stood before one of the most galling of life's lessons, she had to bow to the inexorable commonplace. Her whole being was agonised; she was breasting the dark waters of despair, she was living a tragedy, but everyday life had to go on as usual: the necessary routine of it, the dressing, the eating, the lying down to rest at night. She heard the village children singing on their way home from school, and the harvesters driving merrily to the fields. Sometimes she would cry out in protest against Nature, against the unalterable, indifferent working of the universe: the smiling sun, the peace of summer evenings. All things went their way heedless of her tragedy.

Summer blossomed gloriously; then the long, weary days grew shorter, and autumn brought endless nights to the stricken woman. Once, twice she had written to Serenissimus, but no answer came to her.

The Erbprinz still battled with death. Eberhard Ludwig and Johanna Elizabetha watched together at his bedside, and the Erbprincessin sat stonily silent in the darkened room whose gloom seemed deepened by the poor girl's overshadowed mind.

Then in October came the news that Death had conquered; the Erbprinz had passed away, and the Erbprincessin, half-mad already, had fallen into such despair that her clouded soul grew utterly black, and she raved in hopeless insanity. Truly God's hand was heavy upon Wirtemberg.

A few days after this terrible news the GrÄvenitz, wandering moodily in the Freudenthal garden, heard the rattle of an approaching troop of horse. He was coming to fetch her, of course—her lover, her trusted one. She had known he must come! And she hurried away to her tiring-room to don her finest raiment. She would meet him like a bride. Was it not fitting that she should be gorgeously attired on this great day of triumph—this renascence of joy in her life?

The gown of golden cloth lay spread out for her; she always kept it ready, for she knew he would come.

'Quick, Maria,' she called, as with trembling hands she began her toilet; 'quick! His Highness comes!' She seemed young again, with flushed cheeks and shining eyes. Then her sister Sittmann burst into the room.

'Wilhelmine, I hardly know how to tell you—it is——' she said, but the GrÄvenitz interrupted her.

'You need not—for I know—I always knew.' She stood before the mirror fastening a diamond ornament into her hair, and her glowing eyes met her sister's reflected in the glass.

'Good lack, sister! what ails you?' she cried, for the Sittmann's face was ashen, and she gazed at the GrÄvenitz in terrified bewilderment.

'Who do you think has come, then? Wilhelmine, you are mad! It is a troop of horse, headed by Roeder, with a warrant for your arrest.'

The diamonds slipped from the GrÄvenitz's fingers, and fell unheeded on the floor, while all the glow and youth faded from her face.

'What are you saying? It is you who are mad—I know—it is his Highness,' she stammered hoarsely, seemingly incapable of comprehending the meaning of her sister's words. Suddenly her vigour returned, her courage, and that perfect grip of startling events which had stood her in good stead for many years.

'Where are they? Maria, bolt all the doors—quick, girl! In the court, you say? Tell them I am in the garden, send them round, then shut and bar each window.' She gave her orders clearly and calmly, like some general, the practised commander in a hundred sieges. By this time all the inmates of Freudenthal had gathered at the door of her apartment: Baron Sittmann and his sons, the brothers Pfau, a horde of serving men and women. Once more the GrÄvenitz seemed to be the great Landhofmeisterin whose lightest word was law, and they did her bidding without question or comment.

'Back, all of you, I will speak with Baron Roeder.' She moved to her bedchamber window which looked upon the garden. Below, on the terrace, stood Roeder and another officer consulting together in low tones, while through the garden tramped the soldiers, seeking her whom they had treated with royal honours for twenty years. She flung open the window and stood before the two officers.

'Monsieur le Baron Roeder,' she said slowly, 'to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit? I am rejoiced to see you; but kindly desire your men to spare my garden—they are ruining my flowers.'

Roeder looked dumbfounded.

'Certainly, your Excellency,' he stammered, 'but I must crave a word with you immediately.'

'I regret, Monsieur, that illness confines me to my room. I cannot receive you. Tell me your business from where you are.' She spoke mockingly, looking down at the man below.

'Impossible! Madame, I must speak with you face to face,' he said angrily; and indeed it was an absurd situation.

'We are face to face, Monsieur de Roeder, and I pray you tell me your mission without delay. I am fatigued with standing so long. Come, I am not in the habit of waiting, Monsieur.'

'Then, Madame, I arrest you in the Duke's name. You are my prisoner, and if you will not come quietly, I shall be obliged to use force,'—this with a gesture towards the soldiers, who had formed into line behind him.

'I am Countess of the Empire, Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg, and none but my superior can arrest me, Monsieur. Also, this house of mine is on free territory, subject only to the authority of the Emperor. I refuse to be arrested, I refuse to give you admittance, and I command you to withdraw.' She spoke perfectly calmly, with the tone given by the habit of command, which she had wielded for nigh upon a quarter of a century.

Roeder hesitated; what she said might be true, and he greatly feared her, but he had his orders from the Duke. He recalled his Highness's words when he had intrusted him with the GrÄvenitz's arrest: 'I have not done enough. God's vengeance is not fulfilled. The witch-woman, the Land-despoiler is still at large in my country, and God has taken my only son from me. I must purge my land of this sinner—punish her—break her in atonement,' his Highness had said. The Duke was firmly persuaded that so long as the GrÄvenitz remained free, God's wrath would be on Wirtemberg, and the notion was fostered by her enemies. No one spoke of her now save as the 'Land-despoiler,' that name which the peasantry had called her in secret for many years.

'Madame, give yourself up peaceably, or I shall force my way in,' Roeder called to her; but she had gone from the window, and the house was shuttered, and with closed doors.

Then began the work of breaking into the manor of Freudenthal. Twenty soldiers hacked in the doors with axes, while the rest stood sentry keeping the Jews at bay, for the members of the Jewish settlement gathered round, eager to protect their friend; but they were unarmed, and the inherited submission of their oppressed race made them poor protectors. The soldiers poured into the house. Roeder was received before the GrÄvenitz's door by Madame de Sittmann. She implored him to spare her sister, who, she assured him, was really ill. The door leading from the GrÄvenitz's apartment was bolted from within. He knocked loudly, but there being no response, he summoned the soldiers to break it in.

With a crash the door yielded, falling inwards. And then he saw his quarry. She stood in the middle of the room, erect, vigorous, a very flame of hatred burning in her eyes. She was clad in the golden gown which she had donned in honour of joy's return; on her breast was the order of St. Hubertus, and the jewels of Wirtemberg gleamed on her neck and in her hair. Never had she looked more beautiful, more magnificent than in this hour of her defeat, and even Roeder stood silent and abashed before her.

'Well, Monsieur le Baron de Roeder,' she said, 'so you have defied me again? See here, I curse you; you have called me a witch, and you are cursed by me. It will not bring you happiness.'

'It is my duty, Madame,' he replied steadily. Her face changed.

'You are right, man; I grow petty in my old age. See, I forgive you. Alas! my hour has struck.' She held out her hands towards him. 'Do not bind my wrists, I will come. It is useless to fight Fate. Ah, Roeder! Roeder! whither are you dragging me?' Her potent charm was alive in every word. After all, it was a greater weapon than curses; she knew that, and used it now.

'I thank your Excellency for aiding me in my terrible task,' said Roeder huskily. 'Is there anything in which I may serve you before we start?'

'No, Monsieur, I am ready; only permit my maid Maria to accompany me, and to bring such things as are necessary for my comfort,' she said quietly.

'It is against his Highness's orders, Excellency,' he began; but she smiled at him, la grande charmeuse, and as usual she conquered.

Sadly the cortÈge left Freudenthal. Only once did the GrÄvenitz break down. As she passed the orchard gate where Eberhard Ludwig had so often stood on summer evenings calling 'PhilomÈle beloved,' she bent her head, and, sobbing bitterly, murmured: 'Change is Death.'

The fortress of Hohenasperg stands about half a league from Ludwigsburg. In the midst of rich orchards this gaunt rock rises abruptly from the plain like some huge fist of a heathen god, threatening the peace of the fruitful land with sombre menace. From heathen days it was named Asperg, after the Aasen or Germanic gods, whose sacred mountain it was. Round this stronghold men fought for centuries: naked barbarians against Roman legions; rebellious knights of old against Imperial troops; Protestant generals against the armies of the Holy Roman Empire; later, Wirtembergers against the invading Frenchmen. Asperg, impregnable in war time, was a prison in times of peace; from its dark walls and giant ramparts escape was impossible for the prisoner. The very name of Asperg was a terror, its shape was awe-inspiring. And hither they brought Wilhelmine von GrÄvenitz on that smiling October afternoon. Slowly her coach rumbled up to the grim gate over which a sinister lion's head frowns down at those who enter this stern prison. The arms of Wirtemberg are emblazoned on each side of the lion's head, surmounted by that ducal crown for which the GrÄvenitz had made so audacious a struggle.

Her coach drew up before this gate and Roeder bade her descend. Here his charge ended, he had conveyed the Land-despoiler to durance vile. The governor of the prison met his prisoner at the gate. A bluff-mannered Wirtemberger, short of stature, red of visage, and with fiery little twinkling eyes beneath heavy, bristling eyebrows. A fierce bull-dog man he looked, but his appearance belied him; for he was a tender-hearted gentleman, and received his prisoner with a courteous consideration which many a polished courtier would not have offered to the fallen tyrant. Up the steep, dark, well-like road to the inner courtyard he led the GrÄvenitz, followed by Maria, who wept bitterly.

'I have orders to lodge you safely, Excellency. Safe you will be here, and I do not purpose to restrict your liberty greatly,' he said as he ushered her into a small chamber with a door leading on to the ramparts. Two sentries stood on either side of the entrance to her apartment, but for the rest the room was clean and pleasant, and commanded a fair view of the plain beneath.

'I thank you, Monsieur, for your kindness,' she said, approaching the barred window. Then she gave a little cry, like to the moan of one wounded when a fresh agony is inflicted.

'Give me a cell, Monsieur—a dungeon; only not that—not that—if you have mercy in your heart!' she pointed tragically through the window. In the dying sunlight lay the great palace of Ludwigsburg, the rounded roofs, the terraces, and the ChÂteau Joyeux of La Favorite in the midst of flowering parterres.

'I regret, Madame, believe me. I regret infinitely, but I have not another apartment to offer you. Do not look from the window overmuch, Madame.' The old man's voice broke and he put out his strong rough hand to draw her away from the beautiful, peaceful view. But how inconsistent is the human heart! She waved him away, and stood as though rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed upon the scene of her passed happiness.

At first the tumult in her heart shut out the peace which was silently waiting for admittance; the peace of seclusion bringing those calm thoughts which wait upon the fevered soul of man in Nature's vast aloofness. Gradually the beauty of the fruitful plain with its cornfields and rich orchards, the mystery of the far-off hills on the horizon, the poetry of the distant, dark-blue line of the forests, the song of the wind murmuring through those few trees which had sprung up on the fortress terraces and ramparts unabashed by warfare; gradually this peace came to the GrÄvenitz, and she grew calm. True, she agonised when her eyes fell upon Ludwigsburg, and she raged when the prison governor told her of the march of events in Stuttgart; but still she knew a greater peace, a more equable inner life than had been hers in the day of her power.

A commission waited upon her, demanding the restitution of the jewels of Wirtemberg. Some she had carried with her to Hohenasperg, some had been already found at Freudenthal. It cost her a pang to part with the jewels. Had not Eberhard Ludwig given each one to her with a lover's vow, a passionate word?

They demanded also that she should give up certain locks of his Highness's hair which she had unlawfully retained for purposes of detestable magic. She made answer that she had but one strand of his hair in a diamond locket. She said that she had worn this on her heart for twenty years. 'Is that magic, Messieurs?' she asked. Had they known it, they had indeed touched upon one of her sorceress secrets—the charm of a woman who can love a man with undying poetry and romance. They told her that she must give up this pathetic lock of hair, that she retained it to brew love potions and such abominations. They took it from her, leaving her the empty crystal locket with its encircling diamonds.

'How you fear me, Messieurs!' she said with a flash of her old defiance. Then they left her with her empty locket and her empty life.

Yet her atonement was only beginning; 'the wages of sin is death,' and worse than death a long-drawn agony of humiliation and loneliness. Abasement, shame, defeat, fear, inaction, loneliness, yearning—all these she had drunk in her cup of suffering, but in the dregs there remained one more drop of gall—jealousy.

Now, in the spring before she left Ludwigsburg, she had been annoyed by a rumour which had caused much commotion among the Wirtemberg peasants, and even the courtiers had been infected with a wave of superstitious interest. In the house of Wirtemberg there is a legend which tells how Count Eberhard the Bearded, in humility and repentance of his youthful sins, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem accompanied by twenty-four noble youths bound by sacred vows to purity and godly life. When Count Eberhard was praying before the Holy Sepulchre, of a sudden a withered whitethorn-tree quickened and blossomed in token of God's grace, and a priest in Eberhard's following prophesied that so long as the world lasted, this thorn-tree should flower whenever the noble race of Wirtemberg should bloom anew. Piously the pilgrims bore the thorn-tree back to their native land, and set it in a fair and sheltered spot near to the abode of a venerable hermit. Here Count Eberhard instituted an order of prayerful monks, garbed in fair blue habits, and for many generations these holy men tended the thorn-tree, building giant supports beneath its spreading roots and vigorous branches. In Protestant days the poor thorn-tree was forgotten, save by the peasants who clung to their old legends and vowed that, whenever an heir was born to the house of Wirtemberg, the aged thorn put forth a flowering branch.

It happened that, shortly before the GrÄvenitz was banished from Ludwigsburg, Eberhard Ludwig, in the course of his wood wanderings, came to Einsiedel where stood the ruined monastery and the fateful thorn-tree. An old peasant woman, who was gathering sticks for her fire in the deserted monastery garden, told him of the legend, and, pointing to the whitethorn, exclaimed: 'You who are a traveller, go to the palace and tell the Duke that the thorn has blossomed. Tell him to leave the wanton Land-despoiler, and go back to his true wife. God has caused the thorn to bloom anew in token of pardon, and there will be an heir born to Wirtemberg to take the place of the dying Erbprinz.' Now the Erbprinz was not dying when the old crone spoke these words, but Eberhard Ludwig, always feverishly anxious for his son's welfare, hurried back to Ludwigsburg in an agony of fear and related the peasant woman's prophecy, and the strange fact of that ancient thorn-tree putting forth a spray of white blossom. Her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin had been much offended by the story, and had mocked Serenissimus for his credulity.

Of course when, shortly after this event, Eberhard Ludwig repudiated his mistress and returned to his neglected Duchess, popular report immediately had it that the whitethorn had prophesied the happy occurrence, and that her Highness Johanna Elizabetha was to become a mother. This the GrÄvenitz had heard during her sojourn at Freudenthal, but it was in November at Asperg that she heard the Duchess was indeed with child. At first she vowed she did not believe it; it was an absurd story started by the believers in that ridiculous thorn-tree; but when the fact of her Highness's pregnancy could be doubted no longer, the GrÄvenitz fell into an agony of jealousy. She paced her small room like some tortured tigress; she cursed all men; she sobbed in a passion of anger. Waking or sleeping the thought never left her. Her dreams were for ever of Eberhard Ludwig and the woman she hated. God, how she despised her! How she shuddered at the thought of her motherhood. She told herself that it was disgust, and even as she formulated the thought she knew that it was envy—cruel, aching envy which tortured her. She was jealous, then? She? The very supposition was an abasement. Could she be jealous of that dull, heavy woman, with her reddened eyes? But she would be the mother of his child. . . .

They told her that prayers for her Highness's safe delivery were offered up in all the churches in Wirtemberg, and that there was immense rejoicing in the land. There was no doubt then, and the GrÄvenitz's dreams were unending of the Duchess holding out a beautiful man-child to Eberhard Ludwig, who smiled in happiness and peace.

At length one day in December Maria told her that there were exciting rumours in the village which nestles at the base of the fortress rock of Hohenasperg. The Duchess was sick unto death, they said, and the doctors were entirely puzzled. Into the GrÄvenitz's heart there crept a ray of hope. God forgive her! she prayed for death to visit Stuttgart's castle.

Daily she sent Maria to the village to learn the news. One day the governor came to her and told her he had a terrible thing to communicate. Good, honest man, he often spent an hour with his prisoner telling her news of the outer world.

'The Duchess has suffered a cruel disappointment, Madame,' he said; 'all Wirtemberg will condole with her. Her hopes are ended, the doctors have been mistaken, there will be no heir to the Dukedom. Her Highness suffers from dropsy. Great heavens! what ails you?' he cried, for the GrÄvenitz had flung herself back into her chair, convulsed in a horrible paroxysm of mirthless laughter.

The plain below Hohenasperg was white with snow—a light fall, which lay thinly on the even ground but had failed to whiten the fortress rock, where only patches clung, emphasising the sombre colour of the stone hill. The sky was leaden, lowering, sinister, pregnant with unborn snow. A company of horsemen took its way up the steep road leading from the village of Asperg to the fortress. Following this cavalcade was a coach drawn by four horses. The GrÄvenitz, standing on the west terrace, watched the horsemen approach. She wondered idly if another State prisoner was being conveyed to Hohenasperg. She saw the leader of the troop parleying with the sentry. He showed a document to the man; then the outer gate swung back and the cavalcade was hidden from her sight between the gloomy walls of the steep, dark lane leading up to the second or inner gate. She turned away; after all, these things were of no account to her. That was one of her agonies; she to whom all things had mattered, the much occupied, the ruler, the indefatigable administrator—she was forced into lethargic quiescence. Every hour was empty for her. She turned away listlessly. The afternoon was drawing to a close. It would be a white world to-morrow, she reflected, for those swollen clouds could not hold the snow longer.

The prison governor was coming along the terrace towards her. She greeted him in friendly fashion; but at first he spoke no word, only took both her hands in his.

'I have bad news, Madame,' he said, after a pause.

'Ah! tell me; I am used to sadness now. What is it? O God! but it is not some accident to Serenissimus?' she said. The old man shook his head.

'No, Madame, but you are to be removed from my care. And I fear——' he began.

'Death? Would he dare? After all, perhaps, it were better,' she said calmly.

'No, not that; you are to be moved to Hohen-Urach. . . . Madame, they will try you for your life. Alas! his Highness believes you have cast a spell upon the Duchess and caused her misfortune. Asperg is too close to Stuttgart.'

She smiled at him. 'It does not signify, dear friend. One prison is like another, I suppose; but I shall miss my jailor! Let me thank you, Monsieur, for your great courtesy to the fallen Land-despoiler.' She spoke almost gaily, and the governor turned away his head.

'I would help you, Excellency; pray God I may be able to serve you one day,' he said huskily.

'Tell them I shall start to-morrow, when the snowstorm is over. I shall be prepared.'

'I regret—Excellency—In truth, I scarce know how to tell you—It is ordered that you shall travel to-day—immediately,' he said.

'A prisoner has no choice, Monsieur,' she answered bitterly.

As the cortÈge passed out of the Hohenasperg gate, the first snowflakes fell, and when they reached the village at the foot of the hill there was a whirling storm.

The journey to Urach through the snow was terrible. For hours the cavalcade wandered in the snowdrifts between NÜrtingen and Urach, and when at length the unhappy woman was housed for a few hours' rest in a village inn, her slumber was broken by the sounds of rude merriment in the hall below her sleeping-room, where the peasants were dancing. She was wont to say afterwards that this trivial episode had been one of her most painful experiences. Her nerves were on the rack, for she expected that some cruel trial awaited her at Urach. She was terribly weary from the long hours of wandering, and from cold and exposure; her pride had been galled by the gaping, laughing, jeering, mocking crowd of peasants which had stood round her while the captain of the guard made arrangements for her night's lodging. Then her sensitive ear was tortured by the peasants' music, which beat on and on in monotonous, inharmonious measure all through the night.

If suffering is atonement for sin, certain it is that the GrÄvenitz agonised at Urach. Her imprisonment was infinitely more rigorous than it had been at Hohenasperg. The governor treated her with scant consideration, and answered her questions shortly. He forbade the faithful Maria either to go to the town or to speak with the other inhabitants of the fortress prison. Thus the GrÄvenitz had no knowledge of the doings in the world. She tasted real imprisonment, the torture of being entirely cut off from human interests. Also she was left in ignorance of her future. Death, banishment, perpetual imprisonment? She knew nothing. She penned passionate appeals to his Highness, but the governor informed her that he could forward no writings from a prisoner awaiting trial.

'When shall I be tried, and for what offences?' she demanded.

'I am not at liberty to say,' he returned, and left her.

She fell ill, or feigned to do so, and when the apothecary tended her she offered him vast sums if he would tell her what had occurred in Stuttgart. The man reported this to the prison governor, who further restricted the GrÄvenitz's liberty in punishment. She was no longer permitted to walk on the ramparts. She grew really ill after this. For many days she lay upon the rude pallet, which was called bed at Urach, and, turning her face to the wall, refused to take nourishment. Maria, in an agony of fear, sought the governor and told him her Excellency lay dying.

'A very curious coincidence,' said the governor musingly.

'How, sir? I do not understand,' inquired Maria.

'It is said that his Highness lies dying also; there can be no harm in telling you that,' replied the cautious official. Maria, burdened with her sorrowful secret, returned to watch over her beloved mistress. For weeks the GrÄvenitz pined in hopeless sadness and physical illness, then her old spirit returned, and she faced life again. Maria had not told her that Serenissimus was sick unto death, dead perhaps by this time; she knew not, for none at Hohen-Urach would answer the witch's serving-maid.

Spring came, and the GrÄvenitz petitioned the prison governor to permit her to walk on the ramparts as before. Unwillingly the man acceded to her request, and once more she was at liberty to breathe the air of heaven, and to feast her eyes upon the majestic view of the hill-country. But there was pain for her, even in this her one enjoyment, for from the rampart she looked down upon that little hill-town of Urach which had seen her in the heyday of her youth and love. She could even see the windows of the Golden Hall where she had held high revel on that summer night so long ago, and whence she had fled before the Emperor's stern decree. Remembrance was pain, and yet her thoughts lingering in the past brought her echoes of joy and laughter. What matter if the echo was softened by a sigh?

At length, in August, an attorney waited upon her in her prison. He was charged to defend her in her trial, he said. A semblance of justice was to be meted out to her; she should benefit by the pleadings of a man of law. This personage was a village notary, and all unfitted by knowledge or experience to battle against the skilled prosecutors. And yet she was grateful; for, at least, she would thus learn of what she was accused. The list of her crimes was appalling. Firstly: treason. Secondly: purloining of lands and monies. Thirdly: witchcraft and black magic. Fourthly: bigamous intent. Fifthly: attempted murder. It is characteristic of the age that the fifth indictment should not have been the first.

Her treason consisted in having grasped the reins of government from the hand of their rightful wielder, his Highness Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg; in having kept back from his knowledge many facts in the administration of the country, and destroying documents addressed to him. Also in having been untrue to him in word and deed. Almost comic this last—a sort of topsy-turvy adultery charge!

'Purloining of lands and monies.' She replied that if his Highness's presents were accounted to her as peculation, she had been guilty. For the rest she, having governed the country in his name and with his sanction, had made free use of the revenues for legitimate and public official purposes, exactly as do other rulers, be they kings, dukes, or ministers of state.

To the charge of witchcraft and black magic she refused to make answer, save that she denied harming man, woman, child, or beast. She was still hoist with her own petard: the pitiful belief in the potency of her absurdities.

Bigamous intent she repudiated proudly. She had been married in all legal form, and according to the ancient privileges of ruling princes to take to wife whom they chose, provided they, by open and public decree, declared any prior union null and void. It had pleased the Emperor as over-lord to decide otherwise, and she had bowed to this decision, thus forfeiting her just rights. For this she could not be punished, she averred.

The attempted murder she denied absolutely. It was an absurd story founded on the indiscretion of an insane servant, whom she had dismissed from her service.

For the rest, she referred her accusers and her judges to the first, and only competent witness on her side, viz. his Highness Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wirtemberg.

Such in few words are the contents of the massive dossier of her trial, and her dignified answers.

The details these gentlemen of the law permitted themselves to prepare are numerous, and unfit for publication to-day. Her alleged misconduct (she being mistress, not wife—the term seems strangely applied!) is accompanied with a dozen disgusting stories, which it must be said were entirely fabricated for the trial; and, as she herself pointed out, the chief and only competent witness on her side was the man she had loved and lived with for over twenty years,—who, however, was the very person to permit the commencement of this trial, and must have read and approved the accusations in all their revolting details! He also, and he alone, could prove that the woman had governed, purloined, etcetera, with his sanction. He alone could say whether he had made free gifts to his beloved mistress of lands, jewels, and monies; or whether she had appropriated them without his consent.

Concerning the witchcraft charge it is difficult to exculpate the GrÄvenitz, seeing she herself refused to deny her magic practices, and there is little doubt that she possessed that magnetic or hypnotic power, the use whereof our ancestors called witchcraft. It is curious to speculate how much of this power, in wonderfully subtle and varied forms, exists in every human being of whom we say: 'They have great personal charm.'

The village notary carried the GrÄvenitz's answers to Stuttgart, and for many weeks the unhappy woman heard no more of her trial. She waited in a fever of impatience, but she dared not make any endeavour to obtain news for fear the governor should see fit once more to restrict her little liberty.

Her pride was not broken; it was terribly sentient, quivering with painful defeat and humiliation. Worse than all was the silence she was forced to maintain. She spoke with Maria, but the good, tender-hearted peasant, though she sympathised passionately and with that noble loyalty of which such women are capable, yet she could not comprehend or respond to the workings of her mistress's brain, could not offer consolation to the cultured mind.

In truth, it was a terrible downfall, a disaster; this gorgeous life, this towering success, which of a sudden had been broken, flung down into the very depths of mortal abasement.

The summer days passed. Autumn came, and still no news arrived from Stuttgart, nor did the notary return to give her information. Suspense deepened to melancholy, and, as the days dragged by, melancholy was supplanted by despair. 'I shall die in Hohen-Urach,' she said to Maria.

At length towards the beginning of November the notary arrived.

'Your trial will take place soon, Excellency,' he said. 'It has been retarded by his Highness's illness; that being over, the matter will proceed.'

The man rubbed his hands in self-satisfaction. He was persuaded that the authorities in Stuttgart had chosen him for his qualities of mind and knowledge of law, and he had become a very important personage in his own estimation and in that of his cronies in the village.

'His Highness's illness, Herr MÄrkle? I pray you tell me what has ailed the Duke?' Her voice shook a little, but the man had spoken so airily that she could not believe the Duke's illness had been serious.

'Ah, Excellency! you were unaware of the sad circumstances? Yes, truly, a long and painful malady; lung trouble it was.'

'It is over then? quite passed? I rejoice,' she returned.

'Yes, Excellency; it ended a week ago. His Highness died in his sleep.'

She looked at him for a full moment as one deaf, who, knowing some one has spoken some word, hears not and wonders pitifully. The notary had turned away and busied himself with writings and documents on the table. Already his thoughts were rehearsing a wonderful oration he would speak, a masterpiece of pleading. What a great man he was, to be sure! Of course, he would move to Stuttgart. His ambition soared—surely a very great lawyer.

A rustle of silken garments in the room behind him, and two hands fell on his shoulders: hands of iron they seemed.

'Say that again; you do not know what you have said.' It was a strange voice which spoke: a voice so hoarse, so toneless, that the fat little man trembled, recalling in a flash the stories of witches' transformation into ravening wolves or terrible demons. He wriggled round. The GrÄvenitz stood over him, her hands upon his shoulders, her eyes like two flames scanning his face.

'Say what, Excellency? I do not know——' The trivial fact of the Duke's death and of this woman's agony had been lost for him in his dream of his own judicial splendour.

'What did you say of his Highness? Tell me, or I will kill you,' she returned in the same fearful voice.

'I said what all the world knows: that the Duke Eberhard Ludwig died from lung trouble, on the 31st of October—a week ago,'—he answered angrily, struggling to remove those gripping hands from his shoulders.

'It is a lie! Another lie to torture me. Go, you lying, cruel devil—the Duke shall punish you.'

She was mad for the moment; sense, dignity, all was swept away in her terrified fury. She pushed the man from the room, her murderous hands gripping and bruising his shoulders with demoniacal force.

'Go, liar!' she cried, as she thrust the little man through the door.

She stood silent and motionless. 'He said that all the world knew,' she whispered hoarsely.

She flung herself face downwards on the stone floor of the prison-room, moaning and biting her hands like one possessed of a devil.

Duke Karl Alexander, successor to Eberhard Ludwig, was a gallant gentleman, hero of a hundred battles. He was received in Wirtemberg with popular enthusiasm, in spite of the damning fact that he was a Roman Catholic. He reassured his people by swearing to uphold the Evangelical Church. This being so, he began his reign with the entire approbation of the Wirtembergers, and in the press of business and rejoicings the trial of the GrÄvenitz seemed forgotten. Still, the mass of carefully prepared accusations remained, and the gentlemen of the law but bided their time.

Meanwhile the chorus of approval in Stuttgart wavered; for if Eberhard Ludwig had countenanced the Land-despoiler, Karl Alexander was also ruled by a favourite, into whose hands he confided the administration of the Dukedom. This favourite was Joseph SÜss Oppenheimer, a Frankfort Jew. To the horror of officialdom, SÜss was made Minister of Finance, and, in point of fact, chief adviser to the new Duke.

Unheard of that a Jew should be admitted into the government! That one of the despised race should appear at court; not only appear, but rule, direct all things, be the familiar friend of a noble Duke!

If money had been levied by the GrÄvenitz, far heavier taxes were imposed by SÜss Oppenheimer. If the court at Ludwigsburg had been brilliant and lavish in the Land-despoiler's day, it was the scene of an unending series of costly festivities under the new rÉgime. And if the late Duke's mistress had been ruinous to the country's finance, the new Duke maintained half a dozen such ladies in the greatest splendour. SÜss was accused of arranging the Duke's relations with these ladies, and of sharing their favours with his unsuspecting patron. It is certain that the Jew led a dissolute life, and that his amours were numerous.

The Wirtembergers were in despair, and murmured more ominously than ever; but they were powerless. SÜss was master of the situation, exactly as the GrÄvenitz had been before.

Of all this the prisoner at Hohen-Urach knew nothing. She succeeded in persuading the governor to forward a letter from her to her brother, Friedrich GrÄvenitz, in which she implored him to visit her; but she received no answer from that estimable personage. In point of fact, he was in an awkward predicament himself. True, he had sided against his sister openly, but the Duke, not relishing a too glaring reminder of the past, had commanded him to retire to Welzheim. At Eberhard Ludwig's death GrÄvenitz waited upon Karl Alexander, who, honest gentleman, disapproved of a brother showing open hostility and ingratitude to a sister, and begged the petitioner to return to his country-seat.

Now GrÄvenitz, to his horror, found that he was implicated in his sister's misdemeanours. Had he not shared in the benefits of her peculations? In vain he protested, denouncing his sister and benefactress in pompous self-righteous words and writings. But the legal authorities paid no heed, and intimated briefly that Welzheim did not belong to him, although he held it in his possession; nine points of the law certainly, but not conferring ownership. He was directed to relinquish Welzheim to the new Duke's representatives. This he declined with many high-flown expressions, which, however, the legal gentlemen considered beside the point at issue; and Count Friedrich GrÄvenitz was lodged in his own palace in Stuttgart, under arrest and well guarded. He was tried for peculation, but the prosecution ceased when Friedrich GrÄvenitz consented to deliver up Welzheim to his Highness the Duke, and to pay a fine of fifty-six thousand gulden. He was liberated and permitted to leave the country, which he did, repairing to Vienna where he appealed to the imperial tribunal for justice.

When he received his sister's letter he was under arrest, and later his own affairs absorbed him. So the GrÄvenitz's appeal remained unanswered. The appointed day came for her trial, and the village notary spoke his dreamed-of oration. The tribunal listened, or appeared to listen, but the sentence was a foregone conclusion. Wilhelmine von GrÄvenitz, Countess of WÜrben, late Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg, was condemned to death. Yet it was written in her book of Destiny, that Vienna should interfere in all the important events of her life. The Emperor intimated that, as Countess of the Empire, she could not be put to death without his consent, and this he withheld. SÜss Oppenheimer[2], Wirtemberg's Minister of Finance, had appealed on her behalf. The sentence was commuted to perpetual imprisonment and forfeiture of all lands, monies, and jewels. This information was imparted to her by the prison governor. She received it calmly, merely remarking: 'Death would have been much shorter.' She had sunk into an apathy since the news of his Highness's decease.

The winter passed without event. Spring found the GrÄvenitz grown white-haired, and she had fallen into the habit of patient, indifferent acquiescence in all things. Maria wished her to walk upon the ramparts for an hour's fresh air? Very well, she would go.

'Your Excellency must eat, must sleep, must rest.'

'Certainly; it does not matter. I will do as you say, Maria.'

It was as though she gave her body into the peasant woman's command; her soul was elsewhere, in that mysterious land into which her eyes seemed to be for ever gazing with painful, straining effort, seeking—seeking and imploring.

Towards the end of May, an official document was brought to the governor of Hohen-Urach. It contained the pardon of Wilhelmine von GrÄvenitz, provided she undertook to leave Wirtemberg for ever, and to abandon any future claims upon land or property of all sorts in the Dukedom. The governor was directed to accompany the lady to the frontier, with an escort of two hundred horse. Further, he was to place in her hand, at the moment of her passing out of Wirtemberg territory, a sum of a hundred thousand gulden, 'in fair compensation for any loss incurred,' it was set forth in the pardon. With this surprising document was a sealed letter addressed to the GrÄvenitz, which was to be delivered immediately.

The governor repaired to the prisoner's apartment, but found it deserted. The GrÄvenitz was taking the air upon the ramparts. He found her leaning over the stone parapet, gazing, as usual, into the distance with those terrible, haunted, unseeing eyes. In vain the valley was radiant with Spring's tender treasury; she gazed unseeing at the wealth of blossom, the feathery green of the beech-trees, and at the rounded hills so rich in sombre firs enhancing the wondrous youth of the beech leaves; at the little hill-town, red-roofed and sheltered, clustering round the old castle. All this peaceful beauty of Nature's renascence was nothing to her. As she had said, death would have been much shorter; this long-drawn agony, this numb pain, was death in life.

'I have the happiness to announce to your Excellency that his Highness the Duke has granted you pardon. When it suits you to travel, I am to accompany you to the frontier under escort,' the governor said coldly.

She turned her eyes upon him, but she gave no sign of comprehension; once only she started and winced, when he said his Highness the Duke, otherwise she remained unmoved and unresponding as one deaf. He waited a moment for her to speak, then slowly repeated his announcement.

'Where am I to go to?' she said at last in a low, uncertain voice.

'Where it pleases your Excellency. Anywhere out of Wirtemberg.'

She turned to Maria who stood behind her. 'Have I a house anywhere? I have forgotten,' she said.

'Surely, surely, Excellency; your castle at Schaffhausen,' replied the peasant woman.

'Very well; we will start to-morrow for Schaffhausen,' the GrÄvenitz answered in her new, broken, docile voice.

'There is a letter for you, Madame,' the governor told her.

'A letter? Who should write to me? The dead do not write.'

'O Madame! Madame! read it; there may be good news,' cried Maria.

'Good news? Good news for me? There can be none. Do you not know that there can be none?' she said tonelessly.

Even the governor's eyes were wet as he handed her the letter. She broke the seal listlessly.

'I send you the best terms I can make for you, in remembrance of the Judengasse of Stuttgart, and in gratitude for your kindness to my race.—Joseph SÜss Oppenheimer.'

Fastened in one corner of this short missive glittered a little jewel. The GrÄvenitz looked long at it, not comprehending. Then a scene of her past came back to her—she was in a darkened room, which smelt of strange, sweet essences, and a Jewish boy sang a Hebrew love-song.

Joseph SÜss Oppenheimer, the Jew, had proved himself, in this instance, to be truly what Eberhard Ludwig had called him in pleasantry many years ago—'un preux chevalier.' One who could render homage and service to a fallen favourite.

[2] Joseph SÜss Oppenheimer was the son of Michaele, a famous Jewish beauty, daughter of Rabbi Salomon of Frankfort, a musician of talent. Michaele was not only possessed of wonderful beauty, but God had blessed her with a glorious voice. She married Rabbi Isaschar SÜsskind Oppenheimer, also a singer and musician, and together the couple wandered from city to city, and from palace to castle, discoursing sweet melodies. The lady's morals suffered from this vagrant life, and the Jewish community of Frankfort stood aghast at her amours. Jewish women are usually remarkably virtuous, and Michaele's evil reputation was easily achieved.

There was an ugly story concerning the birth of Joseph SÜss. In brief, he was reported to be a love-child; but the dates do not tally, and it is certain that Rabbi Isaschar accepted the infant as his own. From his mother Joseph SÜss inherited marvellous personal beauty, and from both his parents his musical gift. From the mother too, if we are to believe all the tales, he received a nature of abnormal, passionate sensuality.

At an early age SÜss was sent to his relatives in Vienna, the famous bankers Oppenheimer. Here the boy was reared in splendour and refinement, and instructed in the intricacies of banking, usury—in short, in finance. He repaired occasionally to his family in Frankfort, halting on the road to visit an aged relation in Stuttgart, Frau Widow Hazzim, at whose house in the Judengasse he made the acquaintance of Wilhelmine von GrÄvenitz.

SÜss matured early, and became, not a musician as he had boasted in his childhood, but a very capable financier. He fell in with Duke Karl Alexander of Wirtemberg during a sojourn at Wildbad. His Highness sought a secretary and treasurer, and he was immediately captivated by the young Jew's personal beauty, his fascination, his vivid intelligence, and knowledge of business. The Duchess was interested, attracted, and delighted in SÜss's music and the haunting charm of those ancient Hebrew melodies which his father, Rabbi Isaschar, had taught him. SÜss was taken into his Highness's service, and when Karl Alexander succeeded his cousin Eberhard Ludwig in the Dukedom of Wirtemberg, the Jew accompanied his patron to Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart. He was made Minister of Finance and became, in reality, ruler of the court, for the Duke gave over everything to his trusted favourite. The treasury was exhausted by the GrÄvenitz's magnificence, and SÜss set to work to replenish the empty chests.

It would be too long to recount here the endless money-raising schemes which were put in motion by SÜss; suffice it to say, that never had Wirtemberg been so squeezed even in the time of Eberhard Ludwig. But if SÜss procured vast sums, he spent them as readily. The festivities at Ludwigsburg were more opulently splendid and more numerous than ever, and the Duke had six mistresses and a favourite to enrich instead of one Land-despoiler! SÜss lived like a prince—and a very lavish prince at that—and the money, of course, came from the Duke's treasury. Now Michaele's heritage became noticeable; if the Duke had six mistresses SÜss had sixty. No woman could resist him; they said he was so gloriously handsome, so witty, so 'differing from the rest of mankind,'—not an original statement from amorous dames!

Thus SÜss inherited his mother's nature, and together with his unbridled passion for love came the illimited desire for, and need of, gold.

By the first, he incurred the hatred of those men—husbands, brothers, fathers of the women he took for his pleasure; by the second, the undying animosity of the oppressed taxpayers. The end came swiftly. Four years of debauch and lavish expenditure, and death fell suddenly upon Karl Alexander of Wirtemberg. He died at nine of the clock one evening, and the next dawn saw Joseph SÜss a hunted fugitive. He was caught between Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart, and immediately thrown into prison. Here he languished, a prey to terrible anxiety and remorse; his only visitants were pastors of the Christian religion who tortured him with argument. 'You are a Jew, but you do not even adhere to the damnable tenets of your vile cult,' they said.

'I am a man and no coward, and I will not abjure the faith of my fathers,' he responded. They held out spurious hopes of pardon would he swear to the pure faith of the Crucified, but SÜss remained nobly obdurate. Then the Church—she to whom Christ bequeathed His sweet message of pardon, of tenderness, and of leniency—deserted the faithful Jew, and the law of human cruelty and punishment took hold of him. He was accorded no trial. His sins were as scarlet indeed; besides, he of the despised race had dared to rule. The name Jew was a stigma in itself, and this word the people howled round the tumbril which bore the erstwhile gorgeous favourite to a death of ignominy. A few women in the crowd sighed and shed a tear when they saw the godlike beauty of the man, broken to pathetic ruin by adversity, white-haired, vilified, aged by his degradation; but chiefly the crowd howled and reviled, and the men spat in the Jew's face and covered him with a load of horse-dung and foul ordure. They hung him finally after unspeakable tortures. Then his body was left to rot in Stuttgart's market-place in the sight of all. A hideous carrion dangling in a silver cage, which his judges had caused to be constructed as a terrible warning to those who would profit by the favour of princes.

Tragic enough in itself, this story of the downfall of a superb ruler and courtier, the more appalling, when we consider that it was chiefly a cruel triumph of race hatred. No unbaptized Jew in German history has risen to such official eminence as Joseph SÜss Oppenheimer, and there is little doubt that, had he not been of the race of Israel, even though he had committed the same crimes, he would not have suffered this fearsome death.