'They belong to her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin, sire.'
'What, that woman? Ha! you took her to Mömpelgard, I hear! Ridiculous things, women—want the lash, the whip. Do you hear, old comrade?—every woman wants the lash. Look at my daughter now—absurd hussy! will not marry. I ought to lash her, but she hides behind her mother's petticoats. Ridiculous things, women.'
Serenissimus endeavoured to lead the shouting monarch from the orangery, but he was not to be outdone.
'Come to Berlin, boy; fine uniforms, good beer, and tobacco. Come, you will love me like your father!' he yelled at the tallest gardener, bestowing a heavy blow on the youth's shoulders with the stout cudgel which he always carried. The end of it was that Eberhard Ludwig made him a present of the Landhofmeisterin's gardeners, and the King in high good humour retired to take an hour's nap before starting to enjoy some wild-boar sticking in the forest.
All that day the Landhofmeisterin did not see Serenissimus, only in the afternoon she received a billet from him in which he forbade her to attend the supper in the state banqueting-hall. 'The Erbprincessin will be the only lady; she, being the King's cousin, must attend, but I command you to remain away. You will understand my reasons when you consider the events of this morning.—E. L.'
The letter was short, formal, cold in tone, and the Landhofmeisterin was deeply wounded. She had known that Friedrich Wilhelm would be unfriendly to her; his rough virtue, and hatred of illicit relationships, were famous throughout Germany, and she was aware that he would view with displeasure the magnificence and the French manners of Ludwigsburg. Had he not stamped, beaten, and roared out of existence every trace of the elegance and pomp of the Berlin court as it had been under his father, Friedrich i.?—that monarch who, by the way, had granted the Grävenitz that Letter of Royal Protection twenty years ago.
Still, though Friedrich Wilhelm had refused to ratify or acknowledge this document when begged to do so by the Duke of Zollern, the Landhofmeisterin had counted him as more or less bound by it, and the idea that he could utterly ignore her had never entered her head. Moreover, she thought she would not need the protection of Prussia. She had prepared a vast fortune out of Wirtemberg, and if death claimed Eberhard Ludwig before her own demise, she intended to retire to Schaffhausen and finish her days in magnificent seclusion. Yet it was infinitely galling to be hidden away in this manner. She raged at the thought of the courtiers' sneers. Not attend the supper? She, the ruler of Ludwigsburg and Wirtemberg, to be hidden like a common mistress! And then how coldly Eberhard Ludwig wrote to her. 'Alas! all things pass,' she said, and wept bitterly. The day wore on. She tried to read, to occupy herself, but she could not fix her mind on anything; her thoughts reverted to her humiliation. At last she heard the noise of the sportsmen's return, and Friedrich Wilhelm's loud voice shouting and laughing. Would Eberhard Ludwig come to her now? But no; she waited, and no one disturbed her solitude.
At length Maria brought her a tray covered with dishes of delicious viands.
'If her Excellency refuses to be served properly in the dining-room, as usual, she must at least have a mouthful to eat,' the honest soul declared, and she hovered round the Grävenitz, imploring her to taste this or that, to drink a little wine; but the Landhofmeisterin pushed away her plate, saying that the food choked her, and Maria, grumbling, carried away the untasted supper.
Once more, Wilhelmine fell to listening. She heard the noise of a crowd gathering in the courtyard. She rang her handbell, and when Maria appeared she questioned her on the reason of a crowd being admitted to the palace precincts. His Highness had commanded the gates to be thrown open, she was told; it was the Prussian King's custom to permit the populace to see him eat.