The Landhofmeisterin had intimated her intention of accompanying his Highness on this official journey, and there had ensued a sharp quarrel, by letter, between the lady and her brother in Mömpelgard. She won the day, of course, as usual, yet her heart was heavy in this hour of her greatest triumph, for the Duke grew colder to her each day. Madame de Ruth, her wily counsellor, had died a few months after the Duchess Johanna Elizabetha's visit to Ludwigsburg, and the courtiers had marvelled at the Landhofmeisterin's passionate grief. She had followed the old courtesan's coffin to Neuhaus, and had seen her laid to rest beside the little mound of the child's grave. And the Grävenitz had refused to be comforted.
Zollern almost deserted Ludwigsburg after his old mistress's death. He withdrew to his castle, and only at rare intervals could he be persuaded to visit the Duke and the Landhofmeisterin.
Yet the Grävenitz's power was unabated; in point of fact, it seemed to grow more absolute; but the courtiers noticed her melancholy, and while some put it down to her grief at Madame de Ruth's death, others observed the Duke's colder manner, and predicted the Landhofmeisterin's downfall. It was a blow to these prophets when the news was confirmed that the Grävenitz was to accompany Serenissimus on his state entry to Mömpelgard. There were various intrigues to prevent her Excellency from carrying out the project. Chief among these was a riot at Mömpelgard, which was entirely organised and stirred up by discontented Wirtembergers. It required little to enflame the Mömpelgarders, for they hated the very name of Duke's mistress from past Espérance experiences, and the Landhofmeisterin's doings in Wirtemberg were well known.
Friedrich Grävenitz wrote at great length to his sister (he always wrote lengthily, and the most trivial letter he alluded to as 'my business,' saying pompously, 'I have been working'). So he wrote at enormous length to Wilhelmine, advising her to refrain from journeying to Mömpelgard, but the Landhofmeisterin only laughed, and hurried on the preparations for the official entry.
Shortly before this time a new body-guard had been enrolled at Ludwigsburg. It did not oust the famous Silver Guard from favour, and the Cadets à Cheval also retained their proud position, but the new body-guard was a most resplendent corps, composed entirely of gentlemen of noble birth. One of Madame de Ruth's last witticisms had been to compare this 'Chevaliergarde' to the French and Austrian Chanoinesses.
'Really, Monseigneur,' she had told Serenissimus, 'you should make it compulsory for the gentlemen of the Chevaliergarde to have sixty-four quarterings and pure morals!'
Of course there was jealousy between the Silver Guard and the Chevalier troop, and the young Cadets à Cheval looked with displeasure at the new guard. But the Landhofmeisterin settled that as she did all things; she decreed that when the Cadets reached the age of twenty-one years it should be open to them to serve in the permanent Chevaliergarde, or to apply for officers' commissions in the Silver Guard, and the latter appointments being perforce limited in number, it soon became the recognised thing for the Cadets who wished to remain in the military service to enter the Chevaliergarde. The Landhofmeisterin ruled even the army.
Her Excellency had instituted an Order. His Highness had his St. Hubertus to give, and she desired to have an Order of her own to distribute. Everybody laughed covertly, but the insignia of the Order of the White Trefoil were much coveted nevertheless, and the white riband and beautifully designed three-leaved badge of the Grävenitz's Order were proudly worn by the highest dignitaries, and at Ludwigsburg the courtiers who were fortunate enough to possess the decoration were careful never to appear without it.
On a glowing July morning a splendid cavalcade started from Ludwigsburg: the Silver Guard, the Cadets à Cheval, the Chevaliergarde, the dignitaries of the Wirtemberg court, and his Highness Eberhard Ludwig riding at the door of the golden coach, wherein throned the Landhofmeisterin and her sour-visaged sister Sittmann.