A crowd of peasants from neighbouring villages had gathered outside the gates of Ludwigsburg; they raised a shout when they saw their Duke. He bowed, and the Landhofmeisterin also bent her head in dignified salutation. Immediately the shouting ceased, and a low ominous groan went up, intermingled with sibilant hissings. Wilhelmine grew pale, and shot a glance of hatred towards the peasants. His Highness spoke rapidly in a low tone to the cadet who rode at his elbow. The youth galloped back along the line of the cortège, and delivered an order to the captain of the 1st Regiment of Wirtemberg Cavalry. And as the gilded coach rolled in at the palace gates, Wilhelmine heard with satisfaction the howls and curses of the peasant crowd, which was being dispersed by the soldiers' swords.
When the Landhofmeisterin entered the palace of Ludwigsburg, the military brass instruments and drums in the courtyard ceased playing, and as the lovers passed over the threshold a strain from graceful, delicate, stringed instruments greeted them.
'Welcome to our house of harmony!' whispered Serenissimus, bending to kiss his mistress's hand.
Slowly and with dignity they were led by Frisoni through the beautiful rooms—the huge, gilded banqueting hall, the ball-rooms, the withdrawing-rooms, the picture-gallery, the audience-chamber, the card-rooms, the theatre. The little Italian caught the note of Wilhelmine's ceremony, and he showed Ludwigsburg to her as though she were a princess bride, entering for the first time the palace of her new dominions, instead of an enterprising mistress, part designer and wholly inspirer of each nook and corner of a nation's ruin in stone and marble.
They passed up the broad white marble staircase, and Frisoni solemnly conducted them to his Highness's private apartments—the antechamber, the audience-closet, the writing-room, and the sleeping-room.
'The apartments of her Excellency are situated in the west pavilion. If your Highness wishes to inspect them we must pass downstairs once more, to gain the entrance to the pavilion,' he said gravely.
Eberhard Ludwig, smiling, bade him lead the way, though, of a truth, he knew a shorter way by a small door leading through the statue gallery directly from his apartments to the decorously closed pavilion.
In solemn procession, Serenissimus leading the Landhofmeisterin, preceded by Frisoni as guide, passed down the chief stair, and from the lower antehall to the door of the west pavilion. Here were the apartments of the great Landhofmeisterin. On the ground floor the room for her personal attendant, the wardrobe-room, her Excellency's library and business-room, where the various affairs of the Landhofmeisterin's office were to be transacted. Then up a narrow stair to the first floor to a large antechamber, a sleeping-room, a private writing-room, and above another small stair leading to the powdering-room.
All these rooms were little masterpieces of various arts, chief among which that of the wood-inlayer—the floors, the walls, the doors being profusely inlaid with precious woods. Everywhere the arms of Wirtemberg were interwoven with the Würben and Grävenitz devices, and with the emblems of the chase and of music—symbols of the Duke-hunter and his beloved musician-mistress.
The courtiers who followed his Highness and the Landhofmeisterin expressed their admiration discreetly, Zollern and Madame de Ruth leading the chorus of approval.