Sadly the cortège left Freudenthal. Only once did the Grävenitz break down. As she passed the orchard gate where Eberhard Ludwig had so often stood on summer evenings calling 'Philomèle beloved,' she bent her head, and, sobbing bitterly, murmured: 'Change is Death.'
The fortress of Hohenasperg stands about half a league from Ludwigsburg. In the midst of rich orchards this gaunt rock rises abruptly from the plain like some huge fist of a heathen god, threatening the peace of the fruitful land with sombre menace. From heathen days it was named Asperg, after the Aasen or Germanic gods, whose sacred mountain it was. Round this stronghold men fought for centuries: naked barbarians against Roman legions; rebellious knights of old against Imperial troops; Protestant generals against the armies of the Holy Roman Empire; later, Wirtembergers against the invading Frenchmen. Asperg, impregnable in war time, was a prison in times of peace; from its dark walls and giant ramparts escape was impossible for the prisoner. The very name of Asperg was a terror, its shape was awe-inspiring. And hither they brought Wilhelmine von Grävenitz on that smiling October afternoon. Slowly her coach rumbled up to the grim gate over which a sinister lion's head frowns down at those who enter this stern prison. The arms of Wirtemberg are emblazoned on each side of the lion's head, surmounted by that ducal crown for which the Grävenitz had made so audacious a struggle.
Her coach drew up before this gate and Roeder bade her descend. Here his charge ended, he had conveyed the Land-despoiler to durance vile. The governor of the prison met his prisoner at the gate. A bluff-mannered Wirtemberger, short of stature, red of visage, and with fiery little twinkling eyes beneath heavy, bristling eyebrows. A fierce bull-dog man he looked, but his appearance belied him; for he was a tender-hearted gentleman, and received his prisoner with a courteous consideration which many a polished courtier would not have offered to the fallen tyrant. Up the steep, dark, well-like road to the inner courtyard he led the Grävenitz, followed by Maria, who wept bitterly.
'I have orders to lodge you safely, Excellency. Safe you will be here, and I do not purpose to restrict your liberty greatly,' he said as he ushered her into a small chamber with a door leading on to the ramparts. Two sentries stood on either side of the entrance to her apartment, but for the rest the room was clean and pleasant, and commanded a fair view of the plain beneath.
'I thank you, Monsieur, for your kindness,' she said, approaching the barred window. Then she gave a little cry, like to the moan of one wounded when a fresh agony is inflicted.
'Give me a cell, Monsieur—a dungeon; only not that—not that—if you have mercy in your heart!' she pointed tragically through the window. In the dying sunlight lay the great palace of Ludwigsburg, the rounded roofs, the terraces, and the Château Joyeux of La Favorite in the midst of flowering parterres.
'I regret, Madame, believe me. I regret infinitely, but I have not another apartment to offer you. Do not look from the window overmuch, Madame.' The old man's voice broke and he put out his strong rough hand to draw her away from the beautiful, peaceful view. But how inconsistent is the human heart! She waved him away, and stood as though rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed upon the scene of her passed happiness.
At first the tumult in her heart shut out the peace which was silently waiting for admittance; the peace of seclusion bringing those calm thoughts which wait upon the fevered soul of man in Nature's vast aloofness. Gradually the beauty of the fruitful plain with its cornfields and rich orchards, the mystery of the far-off hills on the horizon, the poetry of the distant, dark-blue line of the forests, the song of the wind murmuring through those few trees which had sprung up on the fortress terraces and ramparts unabashed by warfare; gradually this peace came to the Grävenitz, and she grew calm. True, she agonised when her eyes fell upon Ludwigsburg, and she raged when the prison governor told her of the march of events in Stuttgart; but still she knew a greater peace, a more equable inner life than had been hers in the day of her power.