The Youth of the Great Elector

by L. Mühlbach

VI.—THE HARDEST VICTORY.

The Electoral Prince had returned home, but he did not sleep the whole night through. The chamberlain, whose room adjoined the Prince's sleeping apartment, had heard him restlessly pacing the floor all night long, at times talking to himself half aloud, and then even weeping and lamenting. In his anguish of heart he had wakened Baron Leuchtmar and the private secretary Müller, in order to impart to them the melancholy news. Both gentlemen had immediately risen and dressed themselves, and softly approached the door of the princely chamber. They, too, had heard the restless steps, the loud groans and lamentations of the Prince, and his grief had passed into their own hearts. As they looked at each other, each observed tears in the eyes of the other, and with quivering lips both whispered, "Poor young man! he must have some great grief! He suffers a great deal!"

"You must go to him, Leuchtmar," whispered Müller. "You must ask what ails him, and try to comfort him."

The baron mournfully shook his head. "My dear Müller," he said, "have you ever been in love?"

"No, never!" replied Müller, in astonishment. "Why do you ask such a question?"

"Because you would then know, friend, that there is no consolation for disappointment in love."

"You think, then, that the Prince is disappointed in love?"

"Certainly, I think so. What other grief can a young Prince of hardly eighteen years have, especially when his heart is engrossed with a glowing passion. The Prince was last night in the Media Nocte, and something peculiar must have occurred there, for he came home unusually early, his custom having been of late not to return home until daybreak, singing and rejoicing."

"Only hear, Leuchtmar, how he sobs and groans! And now! Hush! what does he say?"

Both gentlemen held their breath, and quite distinctly could be heard within the wailing, tear-choked voice of the Prince:

"It is impossible—it is impossible. I can not. No, I can not. The sacrifice is too heavy! My heart will break!"

"Hear him well," whispered Müller, amid his tears; "he can not make the sacrifice. He will die of grief. My God! go to him, baron. Tell him he need not make the sacrifice. No one can require of him the impossible. Go to him, man! Be humane. My God! only hear how he laments and groans!"

"I hear it, but I can not go in. I do not know his sorrow, and if the
Prince needs me he can call me."

"You are a savage," said Müller desperately. "Well, if you will not comfort him, then shall I go to him."

He stretched out his hand for the door knob, but Baron Leuchtmar held him back, and led the good private secretary back to his own room.

"Let us go to bed, friend," he said; "even if we can not sleep, as is probable, yet we can rest, which is needful for our aged limbs. We can not yet help the Prince; and, believe me, he would never forgive us if we were to go to him unsummoned, thereby betraying that we have been privy to his suffering and his pain. He has a grief, there is no question about that; but he is retiringly modest, and at the same time has a stout heart that will admit no one to share with him a burden he has perhaps imposed upon himself. I am glad of this, Müller, and I tell you such hours of solitary grief purify the manly heart; in them the old myth is verified, from the fire and ashes of spent sorrows springs up the new-fledged phoenix. Should we prevent our Prince from passing through his purgatory, that he may emerge from the flames as a phoenix and a victorious hero?"

"You may be right," sighed Müller, "but I only know that he is suffering bitterly."

Baron Leuchtmar smiled sadly. "May these sufferings steel his heart," he said, "that he may be armed against greater and bitterer trials! Come, Müller, we will to bed, and to sleep."

But, however composedly and resolutely the baron had opposed himself to the suggestions of his soft-hearted colleague, sleep that night forsook his eyes, and ever he heard in imagination the Prince's groans and laments. At times he could hardly repress his longing to get up, to creep to the Prince's door and listen, that he might discover whether he were still awake. But the baron forcibly restrained himself, and finally, as day already began to dawn, he actually fell asleep. He might possibly have slept a few hours, but his servant approached his couch and roused him.

"Baron," he said, "some one is here who urgently desires to speak to you."

"Who, Frederick, who is there?" asked Baron Leuchtmar, quickly rising.

"The chamberlain, Baron von Marwitz, has arrived from Berlin."

"Marwitz, the Elector's first chamberlain?" cried the baron. "Quick, my clothes, quick! Help me to dress myself. Run and tell Baron von Marwitz that I will be at his service directly. But first tell me whether his highness is already visible. Has he already ordered his breakfast?"

"No, baron, I believe all is still quiet in his highness's apartments."

"God be thanked! God be thanked! Now present my compliments to Baron von
Marwitz, and then come quickly and help me."

Ten minutes later Baron Kalkhun von Leuchtmar entered the Prince's reception room, where the chamberlain, Baron von Marwitz, awaited him. The two had a long conversation together, Leuchtmar listening with thoughtful mien to Marwitz's narration of the state of affairs at home.

"Marwitz," he said, at the close of their conversation, "we have been good and tried friends from our childhood; I know that the electoral house and our fatherland lie as near to your heart as to my own, and that I can trust you. I therefore tell you, you have come at a fortunate hour, and God sends you! The heart of the Prince is wrung by a mighty sorrow, and he probably knows no way out of his griefs. You will show him one, and if he is actually the aspiring and noble-hearted Prince, whom God has sent for the blessing of his house and the hope of his country, then will he appreciate this way and walk in it. Go to him now, Marwitz, and lay before him candidly and without reserve, as you have done before me, the deplorable condition of things in our native land."

"You will come with me, Leuchtmar, and present me to the Electoral Prince?"

"No, baron. You must suffer yourself to be announced by the chamberlain, for the Prince dismissed me yesterday in wrath. Hush, my friend! say not a word, it is not so bad! The heart of the Prince has reached a crisis in its history which will soon be past, and then, well then, he will call me of himself again. But I shall wait for that. I can not intrude upon him now."

"My friend," sighed Marwitz, "I begin to be afraid. If you do not support me, I will surely fail in my errand, and, like Schlieben, be forced to return disappointed to Berlin."

"I think not. Only be of good courage and speak boldly, as your heart and your love of country dictate."

"Is the Electoral Prince already up?" he asked of the man in waiting, and, as he received nothing but a shrug of the shoulders in reply, Leuchtmar beckoned to him to come nearer, and retired with him into a recess of one of the windows.

"Well, what is it, old Dietrich? You have seen the Electoral Prince already, have you not?"

"Yes, baron. He has not been to bed at all, but still has on the clothes he wore when he went away last night. He is just as pale as a sheet, and his eyes which usually shine so gloriously are to-day quite dim. He called me, and I thought he was about to order breakfast, but no! Something quite different he wanted, and it struck me as peculiarly strange. The Electoral Prince asked me who was on duty this week, I or the second valet, Eberhard? I told him Eberhard, for his week began yesterday. Then said the Electoral Prince: 'Well, Dietrich, I want you to exchange with him this time, for I would like to have you to wait upon me this week, and Eberhard shall have a holiday the whole week. I only want to see your old face about me!' Is not that strange, Sir Baron? Until yesterday Eberhard stood in such high favor, and my gracious master always preferred being dressed by him. Only yesterday evening Eberhard must accompany him to the feast, and now, all at once, my gracious master will not see him! Something must have happened, for last night Eberhard came home much later than the Electoral Prince, and asked, as if bewildered, whether his highness had been back long; and when I told him that the Electoral Prince had bidden me change with him, he turned deadly pale, trembled in every limb, and said, 'It is all over with me!' Baron, something surely happened last night."

"Probably Eberhard has been guilty of some negligence," said Leuchtmar carelessly. "He has often been negligent of late, as it seems to me. He has some love affair on hand, has he not?"

"Yes, Sir Baron, he has gotten in with that artful chambermaid of the
Princess Ludovicka, out there at Doornward, and they are engaged to one
another. But people do not say much good of Madame Alice: she is a cunning
French girl and—"

"Do not trouble yourself about what people say," interrupted the baron. "Do your own duty and rejoice that for this week the Electoral Prince gives you the preference over Eberhard. Go, now, and announce to his highness the chamberlain, Baron von Marwitz, from Berlin."

A few minutes later the gentleman announced entered the Prince's drawing room. Frederick William advanced into the middle of the room to meet him, and greeted him with grave courtesy.

"I was expecting you, baron," he said coldly.

"Your highness was expecting me?" asked the baron, astonished. "Your highness knew already that I would come?"

"Yes, I knew it, baron. My mother's court painter, Gabriel Nietzel, arrived yesterday, and through him my gracious mother informed me that the Elector would send you to me with a very serious and angry message. You see, I am prepared. Deliver your message now, baron. Let us be seated."

The Prince sat down in the armchair and made the baron sit opposite him. His large eyes were fixed upon Marwitz, and burned with a strange, sad light. His noble pale countenance was of touching beauty.

"You hesitate?" asked the Prince quietly, after a pause. "What you have to say to me is, then, very bad?"

"No, your highness, not therefore did I delay," cried the baron, with feeling. "Your appearance bewildered me, because it pleased me so much. I have not seen your highness for three years. You were then hardly fifteen years old, a noble, promising boy, and now I behold you with rapture and delight, seeing that all our expectations have been fulfilled, and that out of the boy has grown a strong, noble, and serious young man. Yes, Prince, I read it in your countenance, your unhappy fatherland, your unhappy, much-to-be-pitied Brandenburgers, may look with trust and confidence to the future, for you will save and rescue them."

"Save them from what? Rescue them from what?" asked the Prince, in cold and measured phrase. "Why do you call my fatherland unhappy, and why do you say that the Brandenburgers are to be pitied? Is not my fatherland, for doubtless you do not mean Germany, but my special fatherland, in which I have been born and reared, is not the Mark Brandenburg now quite happy and peaceful, as it has been for some years past, since it is again under the Emperor's protection and favor, in pleasant neutrality between the two inimical parties? And as to my good Brandenburgers, I can not imagine how you can call them so much to be pitied when Count Adam von Schwarzenberg is still Stadtholder in the Mark—Count Adam von Schwarzenberg, who certainly must have the good of Brandenburg at heart, since he knows how much my father loves him and trusts to him. He will always show himself worthy of confidence, I doubt not, and I have the highest respect for my father's great and wise minister."

"Ah! your highness mistrusts me," cried Marwitz with an expression of pain. "Your highness takes me for one of Schwarzenberg's adherents."

"No, I take you for what you are, the messenger and emissary of my father, the Elector of Brandenburg."

"Your highness would thereby say that this messenger and emissary has consequently received his orders from Count Schwarzenberg, because the count is really lord of the Mark and the Elector's right hand. I read in your countenance that you do so, and that therefore you mistrust me. But I swear to you, Prince, you may believe in my honest, upright intentions—you may believe that what I say is in solemn earnest."

"I believe it, certainly I believe it," said the Prince. "You have undertaken the commissions of the Elector and his Minister Schwarzenberg; naturally you will be in earnest in executing them."

"Prince, I have undertaken the commissions, the behests of the Elector; but from himself and not from his minister did I obtain them. I have sworn to execute them, and do you know why?"

"Why? Simply because you are your master's obedient servant."

"No, Prince, because I am a faithful servant of my country, and because I have a heart to feel for her affliction and distress. The Elector has commanded me to travel to The Hague, and to convey his strict injunction to the Electoral Prince that he shall immediately set out and return home to Berlin. The Elector bids me say to your highness that he has committed to me five thousand dollars to defray the expenses of your journey back and for the liquidation of the most pressing debts. Should this sum not suffice, then am I empowered, in the name of his Electoral Highness, to give security for the payment of the other debts, and your highness is so to arrange your journey that your suite may follow in the least expensive way possible. I was to urge on you seriously and decidedly the propriety of departure, and your father bids me state to you that he has his own peculiarly strong reasons for esteeming a further sojourn in Holland neither safe, profitable, nor reputable. I was to assure your highness that you were not to be recalled, in order to be forced into a repulsive marriage. At the same time, the Elector desires that you return unembarrassed by engagements, and that you by no means entangle yourself by marriage without his knowledge and consent, for to such a union would the Elector not agree, nor ratify it."[18]

"Is that all you have to say to me?" asked the Prince, when Marwitz was silent.

"Prince, it is all I have to say to you in the Elector's name, and I have herewith executed the commission intrusted to me. But I have something still to add. I have still to execute the commissions given me by your future land, by your future subjects. I have to transmit to you the tears of the wretched, the sighs of the impoverished, the cries of the despairing, the agonized shriek of all the provinces, all the towns, all the villages, houses, and huts in the Mark. Prince, from the depth of their affliction all hearts uplift themselves to you; in the midst of their despair, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the tormented all venture to hope in you, and in spirit they kneel before you and with outstretched hands entreat you, as I do now, 'Pity our distress, future Elector of Brandenburg, have compassion upon the lands and provinces which shall one day constitute your state. Turn not a deaf ear to the prayers, the hopes of your future subjects.'"

Marwitz had sunk upon the floor, and stretched his clasped hands out to the Prince, who looked thoughtfully into his excited face.

"And what would my future subjects have, what do they desire of me?"

"That you forthwith, without delay, return to the Mark by the speediest way possible."

"I?" cried the Electoral Prince, with a mocking smile. "Your wishes and entreaties, and those of the Brandenburgers, coincide very exactly with my father's orders!"

"Yes, they do coincide, but spring from different motives. Prince, we implore, we entreat you to return; no longer give us over to the caprice, the villainy, the tyranny and avarice of Count von Schwarzenberg. He is the evil demon of your father, of your country. Come home and frighten him away!"

The Prince started, and for a moment a deep glow suffused his pale countenance. His look penetrated deeper into the baron's uplifted, beseeching eyes, as if through them he would read into the very depths of his heart.

"Stand up, Marwitz," he said, after a long pause—"stand up, for you are too old and too venerable to kneel before so young a man as myself. Else, sit down near me, and explain your words more clearly. What good can my return home do, and how think you that I can benefit the land? And first and foremost, why do you call Count Schwarzenberg the evil demon of my father and his country?"

"Permit me, your highness, to answer the last question first, and thus will you understand the rest. Count Schwarzenberg is answerable for all the distress, wretchedness, and misery which envelop the Mark, Prussia, indeed all parts of your devastated and distracted land, for he acts contrary to the true interests of the Elector and his land, being wholly devoted to the interests of his own master, the Emperor of Germany. To this end all is worked and manoeuvred, with this aim all efforts are undertaken, to ruin Brandenburg, and take from it all power and consideration, yea, all hope, in order that it may be rendered dependent upon the Emperor and empire, and become less dangerous. For the benefit of the Emperor, and to the detriment of the Elector and his land, has Count Schwarzenberg concluded the treaty of Prague. Up to that time Brandenburg was the ally of Sweden, now it is neutral—that is to say, it is the prey of both parties; it is visited, laid under contribution, and plundered by the Swedish and Imperialist troops, and can apply for redress to no one, expect aid from no one. With each day the misery increases more and more. All trade and commerce languish; in the country the fields remain untilled, in the towns the artisans are unemployed, nobody finds work or wages. Hunger and want, and in their retinue sickness and death, daily demand hundreds of victims. The Swede has possession of your rightful heritage, Pomerania, and the Imperialists press to invade the Pomeranian towns and lay them under contribution, without thinking of leaving the vanquished cities wherewithal to pay tribute to their Sovereign, the Elector of Brandenburg. Imperialist is to become the whole Mark, the whole of Pomerania and Prussia, Westphalia and the duchy of Cleves. Imperialist and Catholic—that is Count Schwarzenberg's plan, and with cruel consistency he puts in motion everything that can conduce to its accomplishment. To prevent the recovery, the prosperity of Prussia and the Mark is the aim of all his policy. He exhausts the land, and yet more than the enemy plunders and taxes the towns, enriching himself through the blood and tears of the tortured citizens and hungry peasantry, living in luxury and splendor, while the Elector is suffering want, while his land is starved and unproductive."

"Abominable! horrible!" groaned the Electoral Prince, covering his face with both his hands, probably to conceal from Marwitz the tears which stood in his eyes.

"Prince," cried Marwitz joyfully, "you are moved! The afflictions of your country touch your noble heart! Oh, may God be with you in this hour, and strengthen you for noble and great resolves!"

"What do you require of me?" asked the Prince, after a pause, slowly withdrawing his hands from his livid face. "What can I do?"

"You can come home, Prince, come home to the unhappy land whose future lord you are by the appointment of God. Your mere presence will be a comfort to the unhappy, a terror to Schwarzenberg. On you rest the hopes of all patriots. You are the standard around whom they rally, the banner to which they look up in hope and patience, for which, if needs be, they will battle to the last drop of their blood. You furnish us all with a center and support, perhaps even your father himself, who maybe sometimes fears his own almighty minister, certainly your mother, who longs for her son as her stay and support! Prince, one more last word. I say it with hesitation, I would not even intrust it to the air, and yet it must be spoken—Prince, the power of Count Schwarzenberg over your father's heart is great, and—and—Count Schwarzenberg is a believing Catholic! It would be a new pillar to his might if the Elector—"

"Hush, hush!" interrupted the Electoral Prince, jumping up from his seat. "Not another word! You are right, the very air itself may not hear such words! Bury them in your heart and never again utter them! These are fearful tidings, which you have brought me, Marwitz, and my heart is bitterly, painfully moved by them, so that for an instant I—"

"Oh, my beloved young master," entreated Marwitz, "let not your heart be merely touched by them, but be inspired and sanctified. Embrace a high noble decision. Conquer yourself, and—"

With uplifted hand the Electoral Prince beckoned him to be silent, and with rapid step and head sunk he paced up and down the apartment. Then all at once he stopped, and, quickly raising his head, asked, "Where is Leuchtmar? Why did he not come with you?"

"I know not, Prince—he told me he could not dare to appear in your presence; he—"

"Ah! that is true," said the Prince mournfully; "we have not seen each other since—I beg of you, Marwitz, to go and fetch Leuchtmar to me."

The baron made haste to execute the Prince's mandate. Frederick William looked after him until the door closed behind him. Then his large, moist eyes were slowly upraised to heaven, and his trembling lips murmured: "Oh, how young I am yet, and how much I have still to learn! Help me, my God, that I may have the needed strength!"

Again the door opened, and Marwitz entered, followed by Leuchtmar, who remained standing at the door. The Electoral Prince looked at him with questioning glances, and ever brighter became his brow, ever more cheerful his aspect. And all at once he spread out his arms, and in a tone of most heartfelt love, most tender pleading, called out, "My beloved teacher! come to my arms!"

Leuchtmar sprang forward with a cry of joy. The Prince tenderly fell on his neck and pressed him closely to his breast.

"Oh," he murmured softly, "my friend, I have suffered much, and still suffer. Forgive me on account of my pain!"

And he leaned his head on Leuchtmar's shoulder and wept bitterly. A long pause ensued. No one of the three could interrupt it, for speech remained locked upon the trembling lips of all, and only their tears, their sighs spoke. Then the door slowly opened, and the private secretary, Müller, appeared upon the threshold. For a moment he stood still, and looked with quivering lips upon the Prince, who was just slowly extricating himself from Leuchtmar's embrace, then he stepped resolutely forward.

"Your highness," he said, "forgive me for venturing to intrude my presence here, without having been summoned. But old Dietrich dared not take the step which I do now, and so the responsibility rests upon myself alone."

"And what is it?" asked the Prince. "What brings you to me, my dear, true friend?"

"He calls me his dear, true friend!" rejoiced Müller.

"All is right again, then—all is in order! We are not dismissed—we are not sent home!"

"You may be, after all, my old friend," said the Electoral Prince, with a feeble smile. "But what would you say to me? What sort of responsibility have you taken upon yourself?"

"Prince, I have taken upon myself the responsibility of admitting into your cabinet the veiled lady who has just come, and of requesting you to grant her the audience for which she has been besieging Dietrich with tears and lamentations. Dietrich, however, would not hear to it, and the lady continually called for Eberhard to come—Eberhard must lead her to the Prince. But, as Dietrich says, this is not Eberhard's week of service, so that he can not enter here. I was attracted to the antechamber by the loud conversation, and now the lady turned upon me, and pleaded so touchingly and so eloquently, that I could not refuse to grant her request. Your highness, I have conducted the lady into your cabinet, and she awaits you there."

"But, Müller," cried Baron Leuchtmar despairingly, "what have you done?
How could you be so inconsiderate?"

The old man drew himself up, and his mild eye grew angry. "Inconsiderate! I was not at all inconsiderate, Baron Leuchtmar. On the contrary, I thought it would be unworthy of a noble Prince to allow a woman to plead in vain, and I thought, moreover, that Hercules would never have become a hero if he had not had the valor to meet the women who greeted him at the crossing of the roads."

"You have done right, Müller," said Frederick William, with a faint smile; "it will be seen whether Hercules was perhaps my forefather. I shall speak to the lady. Wait for me here."

He crossed the apartment hastily, and entered his cabinet. In the center of the room stood a veiled female form. The Prince, however, recognized her, although her face could not be seen, for he knew her by her pretty coquettish costume to be the Princess Ludovicka's French chambermaid, and he stepped quickly up to her.

"I thought that it was you, Alice," he said softly, "and I have therefore come to tell you to—"

With sudden movement she tore back her veil, and before the pale, beautiful countenance thereby revealed the Prince stepped back, as pale as death.

"You yourself?" he murmured. "You, Ludovicka?"

"Yes, I, Ludovicka! I come here in my maid's dress," said she, in a voice trembling with pain and emotion. "I come to you, my beloved, to ask you whether you will desert me, leaving me in despair, affliction, and heart-sickness? O Frederick, Frederick! how fearfully have I suffered this night!"

"And I?" murmured he softly. "Have I not suffered too?"

"No," she cried, "you have not suffered as I did, for you love me not as I love you—you love me not more than your life, your honor, your fatherland! You will abandon and forsake me, because it is France that has offered us aid! Oh, you are a cold, heartless man, as all men are, and yet I love you so much and can not live without you! Frederick William, you will not go with me to France—well then, I will go with you, wherever you will. I cleave to you—I will stay with you! Let shame and ignominy be my fate, let my mother curse me, let all the world despise me and call me your mistress, I will stay with you, for I love you and can not live without you!"

Passionately she extended her arms to him, love flaming in her glances.
But a darker shadow flitted across the Prince's face, and he shrank back.

"God forbid, Ludovicka," he said, "that misery and shame should ever come to you through me, that your mother should curse you for my sake! We are both yet children, Ludovicka. I felt right painfully last night that the first duty of children is to obey and reverence their parents. Let us do our duty, Ludovicka!"

"That is," replied she with swelling rage—"that is to say, you give me up? They have overcome your opposition, they have brought you back to obedience, to subjection?"

"No other than myself has done it, Ludovicka."

"You? You give me up? Voluntarily? And yet you swore that you loved me and me alone of all the world?"

"And I swore truly, Ludovicka. I love you boundlessly!"

"And yet you will forsake me?"

"Yet I must do so, beloved! I must forsake you, but God alone, who has witnessed my tortures this past night, knows what I suffer. My father is solitary, my fatherland calls to me, and the first thing that I sacrifice on its altar is my love for you. I can not marry you, Ludovicka, and God forbid that I should accept your love without marriage!"

"Words, nothing but words!" cried she indignantly. "You would palliate your unfaithfulness, represent your fickleness of mind as magnanimity! But I hear only one thing in your words—you give me up, you renounce your love?"

"Yes!" he cried with a loud scream of pain—"yes, I renounce my love!"

"Vengeance upon you for it!" cried she, in flaming wrath. "I, Ludovicka
Hollandine, cry vengeance upon you, for you break my heart!"

"And you will have no compassion? You will not see what I suffer? Ludovicka, look! Look in my eyes, they wept out last night the pains of a whole life—see what I suffer! Ludovicka, on my knees I beseech you, if you really love me, then have pity upon me—for the sake of my agony forgive me what you suffer!"

And beside himself with emotion, he fell upon his knees, lifting up to her his clasped hands and his face that was bathed in tears.

But now it was she who shrank back. "No," said she harshly and severely, "no, no compassion, no forgiveness! I do not love you, I have never loved you, for you are a foolish boy, and know nothing of the glow of passion! You are a child! Go away and act like a child, and be an obedient son! Love rejects you! love turns from you!" And waving him off with both hands, the Princess turned and walked to the door. Frederick William, still upon his knees, heard her quickly retreating steps, but did not rise. Ludovicka had already stretched out her hand to open the door; but she turned round once more, and in tones of mingled love and grief cried, "Frederick, will you let me go?"

He did not answer, his head sank lower, and a painful groan forced itself from his breast. She opened the door—he heard it—he saw the streak of light that crossed the room through the open door, it vanished—the door had closed. Then was wrung from the Prince's breast a shriek of agony such as only issues from the lips of man under the pressure of earth's sharpest pangs.

The three gentlemen were yet assembled in the Prince's drawing room, conversing and imparting to one another their fears and hopes. All at once the door of the cabinet opened and the Electoral Prince entered. Pale as death, but with firm, determined features, he stepped up to the three gentlemen, who looked at him with tender, anxious glances.

"Marwitz," he said, "you can this very day set out on your return to
Berlin, for your mission is fulfilled. Say to my father that as an
obedient son I submit to his wishes, and shall forthwith depart for
Berlin."

The three gentlemen only answered him by a single cry of joy, and, animated by one feeling, one inspiration, sank upon their knees and prayed aloud, "Bless, O God! bless the Prince, who has conquered himself!"

"What is going on here?" asked a loud manly voice behind them. "What means this? Three gentlemen on their knees, and my young cousin looking on like the Knight St. George!"

"And so he is, Prince of Orange," cried Baron Leuchtmar, rising and advancing to meet the Prince, who had come in unannounced, as was his wont at the house of his cousin. "Yes, he is a Knight St. George, who has conquered the dragon. You know, Prince Henry, how sweetly they have enticed him, with what magic chains they have been encircling him. You know the Media Nocte and"—added he softly—"the Princess Ludovicka."

"Well, and what more now?" asked the Prince, with eager interest. "Not much, cousin," said Frederick William, with a melancholy smile. "I must bid you farewell. I owe it to my parents, to my honor, and my country, forthwith to leave The Hague!"[19]

"Bravo, cousin, bravo!" cried Henry of Orange. "You flee from danger and escape from temptation. That is to be called heroism, and herewith you have as truly conquered a citadel as when I vanquished Breda!"

"Believe me too, cousin," said Frederick William, while he leaned upon the

Prince's heroic breast—"believe me, that this victory has cost much blood and many tears."

One moment he let his head rest on the shoulder of his fatherly friend, then proudly drew himself up.

"Baron Leuchtmar and you, my trusty private secretary, Müller!" he cried, with loud voice, "to-day we leave The Hague and proceed to Arnheim, and thence we set forth to-morrow on our journey home. Marwitz, you travel in advance. The golden days of our youth are past! Let iron ones follow! I am prepared for all!"