THE SINNER'S PALACE
Forstner's fate worked marvels in the outward behaviour of the Wirtembergers. The strange scene upon the market-place lingered in their minds, and the actual loss which Forstner sustained in confiscated properties, monies, and titles, made the sober burghers careful even in the private expression of their hatred of the Landhofmeisterin. They still spoke of her as the Landverderberin (Land-despoiler), but they greeted her with reverential demeanour when she thundered through town or village in her coach.
Of her witchcraft there was no longer any doubt, in all opinions. Forstner had suffered from a grievous disease, they had heard, since the witch-woman had practised her horrid magic upon his effigy. True, Prelate Osiander had spoken openly of the natural and inevitable effects of such cruel misfortunes upon a man, already weakly in health, but they argued that the churchman was obliged to take this view, and his Reverence's opinions were rejected.
Yet the fierce hatred only smouldered under this calm and respectful demeanour, and the Landhofmeisterin knew this right well, for his Highness's Secret Service reported many things. The vigilance was unceasing; through the whole country the spies wandered, and many were the fines they levied for careless words which they called treason. 'Treason to whom, great God!' wailed the wretched people. 'Treason to his Highness's honour,' they were told, and knew her Excellency, his Highness's mistress, was meant under this respectable appellation.
There was no denying it: Wirtemberg belonged to the Grävenitzin. Eberhard Ludwig was a mere shadow at her side, but a loyal shadow which approved, or affected to approve, her every action.
The doings at Ludwigsburg were always brilliant, often gay: masques, banquets, music, play-acting, dancing; and even foreign travellers repaired to the South German court to view the brilliancies which equalled those of Versailles before the pious, wanton Maintenon had turned the palace into a house of prayer-meeting, strangely enough almost Calvinistic in its gloom.
At Ludwigsburg the months flew by in a whirl of gaiety and elegant revelry. The groans of an oppressed peasantry, the curses of an overtaxed burgherdom, could not pierce through the chorus of merriment. Smaller stars waxed and waned, favourites of a day disappeared, but the Landhofmeisterin's power grew greater, and her ambition became each day more tremendous. She was treated with royal honours, and the court customs were so arranged that her kin should take precedency of all.
The news of Count Würben's death caused fresh alarms at Stuttgart, for it was expected that the Countess would again endeavour to remove Johanna Elizabetha and marry the Duke. But she had learned her lesson, and now contented herself with her towering position as ruler and mistress. To such a personage the minor detail of legal marriage seemed unimportant, though Madame de Maintenon's example rankled in the mind of every royal favourite.
The Landhofmeisterin believed her position to be unassailable, and if a thought crossed her mind that all this power and pleasure depended upon the will of a man and a Prince, that will which is so often better spelled caprice, still she could not doubt that this one man, one Prince, was constant and stable. From the force of love, of trust, of habit, and of fear he would remain hers till death. And after his Highness's death? For that she was prepared also. 'Gold is power,' she had said to Monsieur Gabriel long ago at Güstrow, and she did not forget this precept. She spent freely and magnificently, but she amassed an enormous fund in reserve. No year passed without some beautiful property becoming hers—broad acres of field and forest, entire villages, old and lordly castles. To name but a few of these: Gochsheim, Welzheim, Brenz, Stetten (the Duchess-mother's dower-house), Freudenthal, the Castle of Urach, and the Château Joyeux La Favorite. Her treasury was well filled, for she levied taxes in the Duke's name, and they flowed into her privy purse: gold heavy with the curses of a people. Her dream of an empire where she should hold secret dominion over the wealth and enterprise of a vast Jewish community had been realised in a modified fashion. She had caused the stringent laws against the Jews to be relaxed; they were permitted to worship openly; a synagogue was erected in Stuttgart, and Jews could acquire civil rights. At her village of Freudenthal she had founded a Jewish settlement. Old Frau Hazzim died there in peace, blessing the name of the friend of Israel. The Jews, in return, served the Grävenitz well, and she had great sums safely awaiting her out of Wirtemberg. All this in preparation for the death of the man she loved! Yet, after all, the most loving and perfect wives make these arrangements if they can: the dower-house filled with linen and silver, and the jointure; but it will ever be regarded as a heinous offence for the mistress to provide for herself. These condemnations of ours are a part of the spontaneous human judgment, and it would not be entirely human were it not gloriously inconsistent.
Freudenthal was the place she loved best of all her possessions, and here she gathered together the most beautiful objects: pictures, Italian inlaid cabinets, graceful French furniture, wonderful silken hangings, carved ivories, many rare books. The gardens were laid out by her own design. Freudenthal lies sequestered from the world at the edge of a little valley, and close behind the village rise long, low, wooded hills—the Stromberg, dark with fir-trees, whose sombre tone is relieved by groves of beeches. Below Freudenthal verdant fields sweep away in soft undulations, broken here and there by beautiful orchards. The Grävenitz knew that an elaborate garden would be a false note in this rustic serenity, and her Freudenthal garden was designed in a simple style. She had found there a peasant's orchard, with many ancient fruit-trees; these she left untouched, merely sowing fine grass instead of the corn which waves beneath the apple- and pear-trees in every Wirtemberg orchard. The actual garden she planted with bowers of roses and beautiful flowering borders along broad grass pathways. The only artificial embellishments were two flights of stone steps leading to simple fountains with large stone basins, where the water gurgled and splashed lazily. 'Frisoni, build the house not in the new style, I pray you,' she had said, 'some graceful Italian simplicity were better here'; and he built a very pleasant mansion, unturreted, without tortured elegancies—a long, low, broad-windowed country retreat, each proportion perfect, each line harmonious. What a wealth of flowers bloomed in the Freudenthal garden! How fragrant were the roses, the lilacs, the jasmine!
