It was with mingled feelings that Wilhelmine at Schaffhausen heard of Eberhard Ludwig's reconciliation with his wife. Anger and scorn of the man's weakness predominated, but despair and humiliation tortured her as well, and a profound discouragement, which the sound of the rushing, foaming Rhine falls had no power to sooth this time. The enforced inaction was terrible to her. It was her strategy to leave his Highness's passionate letters of excuse and explanation unanswered, and thus she had little wherewith to fill the long summer days. Madame de Ruth was a delightful companion, but Wilhelmine was unresponsive and seemed absorbed in some intricate calculation. She would sit for hours, brooding sombrely. Her eyes, narrowed and serpent-like, gazed at the rushing waters, but when Madame de Ruth remarked on the beauty of the scene she would answer irritably that she was occupied, and only begged for quiet in which to think. Towards the middle of August Schütz arrived from Vienna. He brought with him a document which he prayed Wilhelmine to consider, and to sign if she approved. It was entitled 'Revers de Wilhelmine, Comtesse Grävenitz,' and set forth that she undertook to relinquish all claims upon the Duke of Wirtemberg and his heirs forever. That she recognised any child, born of her relationship to his Highness, to be a bastard, and that she undertook never to return to the court of Wirtemberg. If she bound herself to these conditions, the Emperor, in return, promised to cancel her exile from his fiefs with the sole exception of Wirtemberg. The right to hold property would be given back to her, and she would be released from suspicion of murderous intent. His Majesty even promised her twenty thousand gulden as compensation for any wrong done to her in Wirtemberg.
Wilhelmine hesitated, pondered, and finally despatched Schütz to Stuttgart with a copy of the imperial document. He laid it before the Privy Council, and stated that his client, the Countess Grävenitz, was prepared to accept these proposals, on the condition that Wirtemberg paid her a further sum in compensation for her loss of honour, property, and prospects.
The Privy Council fell into the trap. Anything to be finally rid of the dangerous woman, done with the whole noisome story. They had the example of Mömpelgard before them, and they feared for Wirtemberg to be involved in a similar tangle.
Now Mömpelgard, or Montbéliard, as the French-speaking court named it, was a small principality ruled by Eberhard Ludwig's cousin, Duke Leopold Eberhard of Wirtemberg, a liegeman of Louis xiv. of France, and a man of strange notions. He had been reared in the religion of Mahomet, and with the faith he held the customs of Islam. Thus he had married three women at once, legally, as he averred; and in any case, the three wives lived in splendour at Mömpelgard's castle. These ladies had had issue, and the succession to the Mömpelgard honours was complicated.
Naturally Stuttgart's Geheimräthe, with this cousinly example in their minds, longed for the Grävenitz to renounce all future claims upon the Dukedom of Wirtemberg, both for herself and for any issue of her 'marriage' with Eberhard Ludwig.
Thus when Schütz conveyed her demand for money as a condition to her renouncement, they listened to the preposterous request, and declared themselves ready to pay the favourite compensation. Schütz returned to Schaffhausen with this news, and was immediately re-despatched to Stuttgart with a demand for two hundred thousand gulden as the price of her renouncement.
The Geheimräthe were aghast. Twenty thousand, nay, even forty thousand, gulden they would pay, but two hundred thousand! This vast sum to be wrung out of the war-impoverished land! Impossible! Besides, it was as much as the marriage-portion of six princesses of Wirtemberg.
The Duke was approached. He retorted that the Countess of Grävenitz was perfectly justified in any demand she chose to make. The Duchess-mother arrived, and spoke, as usual, plainly to her son; but he had not forgotten how his mother had dragged him, like a repentant school-child, from Urach to be reconciled to Johanna Elizabetha. He owed the Duchess-mother a grudge, and paid it by remaining firm concerning the justice of Wilhelmine's claim.
The Privy Council offered her twenty thousand gulden. Then forty thousand. Both sums were refused. 'Two hundred thousand or nothing,' she answered. So the negotiations were broken off.
Meanwhile, had the Geheimräthe but known it, the 'Revers' had long been signed, sealed, and despatched to Vienna.
