The dawn was breaking through the deep blue of the night sky when Wilhelmine started on her journey to Schaffhausen. The cavalcade rattled down the Graben, Wilhelmine's heavy coach in the midst of the famous Silver Guard. They passed out of the town-gate and gained the open country, where the fields sent forth a fragrant breath, and the woods were pungent, sweet, and fresh from the cool night. It reminded Wilhelmine of that May morning a twelvemonth since, when she had entered Wirtemberg, and yet, though Nature smiled then as on that day, how different it had seemed to her. Then everything had been radiant with Spring happiness, and her heart had responded gladly, though she was but a solitary stranger venturing into an unknown country. Now she felt half angry with the woods and fields for their peaceful joyousness, and her soul gave forth no answering note of gladness, though she rode at ease in a fine coach surrounded by a brilliant escort as though she were a queen. Her thoughts were bitter, poisoned with disgust, for she realised that, in spite of her great prosperity, she was in truth a fugitive before 'la canaille,' and, as she journeyed, she took no pleasure in the gracious loveliness around her. Her mind was busy with plans for revenge upon the brutal mob and the hostile burghers who thus drove her forth, and she vowed to herself that her enemies should repent their insolence, that the canaille should weep tears of blood and tremble before her they had insulted.
CHAPTER XI
THE MOCK MARRIAGE
Maréchal le Duc de Villars was no brilliant, victorious hero, judged by the standard of a century which had seen such military geniuses as Turenne, as the great Condé, as Marlborough and Eugene of Savoy. Villars was essentially a wily tactician, and his exploits were useful, but he lacked the dash, the verve which characterise the great commanders of that epoch. It was his system to overrun an invaded country, skilfully avoiding actual combat with the defending army, which pursued him impotently along the ghastly trail of ravage. Thus Villars, with no loss to his troops, spread famine through the land, for he plundered and devastated wherever he passed. He conducted the brief invasion of Wirtemberg in 1707 on these lines. Crossing the Rhine during the night of May 21st, he plunged unopposed into the very heart of the Swabian land. Eberhard Ludwig, who, along with the Elector of Hanover, commanded one portion of the Imperial army, executed a turning movement mighty like a retreat, but Villars had so overpowering a majority of men that an attack upon their united strength would have been more than hazardous. Thus the whole country lay at the Frenchmen's mercy, and they swarmed over town, village, and farm, harrying, burning, pillaging, and always disappearing ere the would-be defenders came up. Eberhard Ludwig followed hotly, hoping to engage separate columns of the huge army, but it was too late, and after a futile pursuit round the entire country, he had the chagrin of seeing the French enter Stuttgart. Here Villars remained but a few days. Wilhelmine said afterwards that 'l'ennui de Stuttgard' had proved a greater defence than the entire Imperial army! Be this as it may, Villars evacuated Stuttgart in an amazingly short time, and retired eastwards to the ancient town of Schorndorf. Now the Duchess-mother emerged from her dower-house at Stetten, and craved a meeting with the Duc de Villars, who, as a gentleman, could not refuse the ancient dame's request.
There is a popular tradition that they met in a field between Schorndorf and Stetten, neither being willing to accept the hospitality of the other, and that here they discussed and settled the terms of the evacuation of Wirtemberg and the sum of the indemnity, all of which was afterwards solemnly ratified by the Geheimraths of Stuttgart, who, willingly, permitted the Duchess-mother to bear nearly the entire cost of the indemnity, a matter of some two hundred thousand gulden. Villars, upon payment of this sum, half of which he is reported by German historians to have retained for his own uses, now left Wirtemberg, and marched towards the French frontier, leaving, however, six thousand men under General Vivant in the country.
The Imperial army under command of the Elector of Hanover was at Heilbronn in Wirtemberg, a mediæval Imperial free town. Eberhard Ludwig, in command of the Wirtemberg contingent, was with the army. His Highness had taken up his quarters in the ancient Abbey of Maulbronn, between which and Heilbronn spread the encampment of the Imperial army. Eberhard Ludwig had chosen Maulbronn for his quarters, thinking that the peace of the Monastery, with its shadowy, highly vaulted cloisters, and its old-world garden, might soothe the restlessness which had devoured his being since his absence from Wilhelmine. In Maulbronn's garden stands the haunted tower where legend says that Doctor Faustus, the frenzied searcher for the elixir of eternal life, bartered his soul to Satan in return for a span of youth and love. The Faust tower faces the great cloister, and they say the Doctor, when sealing his pact with the devil, was disturbed by the monks' chanting.
Eberhard Ludwig revelled in the garden and its fantastic legends, but his yearning for Wilhelmine only grew the stronger. Why was she not with him to dream in the cool silence of the cloister? How she would love the garden with its luxuriance of old-world flowers—the fragrant roses planted by some long-dead monk—the huge tree-peonies. The very breezes seemed legend-laden. Wilhelmine! beloved! It was a futile thing indeed for this poet-prince to endeavour to forget the woman he loved! In a garden so wondrous beautiful, in this place of dreaming, he could but dream the more. So, when the news came that Villars had retired, his Highness decided he must follow Wilhelmine to Switzerland forthwith. Forstner was summoned, and the Wirtemberg troops placed under his command. Of course he protested he was not efficient, but, as usual, Eberhard Ludwig the impetuous overruled him.
The news of his Highness's departure caused angry consternation in Stuttgart. Johanna Elizabetha wept, but the Duchess-mother raged. She had fancied that her son, deeply obliged to her for her generous action of the war indemnity, would listen to her reasonable voice as a reward.