Old Frau von Grävenitz was invited by her successful daughter to repair to Wirtemberg but the harsh old lady responded by a bluff refusal and a command to Wilhelmine to return to virtue. She never visited Wirtemberg, and though she condescended to receive small sums from Friedrich Grävenitz, regardless of the fact that the money actually came from Wilhelmine, she remained sternly disapproving to the end of her days.
It was but a small court, and Wilhelmine found it all insufficient, so she selected from among the Tübingen students half a dozen youths of undistinguished birth but undoubted intelligence, and caused them to be given minor court appointments. Stafforth was dismissed; his wife was Johanna Elizabetha's friend, and the Countess disliked him. Knowing him for an unscrupulous adventurer himself, she judged him capable of gauging the small social standing and slightly veneered vulgarity of Sittmann, Schütz and company. So Stafforth's Oberhofmarshall's baton was conferred on Friedrich Grävenitz, together with a considerable income. Sittmann was made a baron (of Wirtemberg, not of the Empire); Schütz became Geheimrath and personal secretary to his Highness; Madame de Ruth was Oberhofmeisterin—'Dame de Déshonneur,' Wilhelmine called her in private—and the two ladies laughed much at the recollection of this, poor Johanna Elizabetha's solitary witticism. The Sittmann was Dame du Palais, her stepsons were Kammerjunker (equerries) to the Duke. Pages were chosen from among the younger Tübingen students, and any chance visitor was given a high-sounding title and a sham office. The only work of the whole heterogeneous collection was to be gorgeously attired; but this was easy, as the Duke paid all expenses; to be young and gay, or you were even permitted to be old, could you be witty; and before every other duty came the obligation of treating the Countess of Urach with all the ceremony and adulation which the world is accustomed to offer to queens.
The Duke's own guard was commanded to Tübingen, and so much silver was added to their uniforms that the regiment now thoroughly earned its appellation of Silver Guard. Many Tübingen students were enrolled in the corps; indeed, it was imperative there should be a leaven of Wilhelmine's adherents in the troop, for Zollern said that he did not trust the old guard where she was concerned.
An erstwhile strolling company of Italian comedians was installed as court play-actors; a number of French fiddlers and singers arrived, and were officially entitled 'The Countess of Urach's Musicians.'
It was all very absurd, without doubt; a mock court, but gay, brilliant, lavish, and gradually various members of the legitimate court filtered in to Tübingen and were swept into the festive stream.
Eberhard Ludwig was supremely happy. If at moments he shrank a little from the Sittmanns, or Schütz plebeian airs and insolences, still he was really entertained and amused. Never a hint of dullness at Wilhelmine's court. The witticisms were atrocious, the comedies lewd, the dancing a trifle indecorous perhaps, but her real gaiety, her innate knowledge of limits, and above all, her unfailing admiration for her 'husband,' made life delightful at Tübingen. Towards the beginning of September the 'court' moved to Urach, where the Duke wished to enjoy some shooting and stag-hunting.
There was but one small cloud on Wilhelmine's sky at this time, and this was the silence maintained by the Emperor and his advisers. Eberhard Ludwig had informed his Majesty of his marriage, craving his suzerain to ratify its legality, and permit him to raise the Countess of Urach to the rank of Duchess of Wirtemberg. He set forth that, during ten years, his former wife Johanna Elizabetha had been sterile, and therefore, as reigning Prince, he was at liberty to declare that alliance null, and for the good of his country take to wife another woman capable of bearing children. He undertook to provide for Johanna Elizabetha according to her royal position, and declared he would accord her all honours due to an ex-Duchess of Wirtemberg, viz. residence, monies, guards, privileges, titles, etc. The Duke's epistle was an astounding document enough, especially coming from a Prince whose repudiated wife had presented him with an heir, albeit that heir, the Erbprinz Friedrich Ludwig, was but a sickly specimen of mankind—a youth unlikely to live long enough to succeed his father or to provide successors to his House. In this imperial silence lay the opportunity of Zollern and the Catholic party, who believed that if the Emperor proved obdurate, it would be possible to obtain from Rome a decree of annulment of Johanna Elizabetha's marriage, on the pretext of State necessity. Of course, the price of this papal concession was Eberhard Ludwig's conversion to the Roman faith, and the reinstalment of Catholicism as the State religion of Wirtemberg.
Zollern fully realised that Wilhelmine was playing a dangerous game; he knew that any day an imperial edict might crush her, branding her as a bigamist. The brunt would fall on her, for Eberhard Ludwig, as reigning Prince and valuable ally of Imperial Vienna, would escape with a reprimand. But for her an Austrian prison was on the cards, or at best perpetual exile and outlawry, which would make it difficult for any State to befriend her. He bethought him of his kinsman, Frederick i. of Prussia, an amiable monarch, and Zollern's personal friend and cousin. If Austria proved obdurate, and Rome objected to entering into a dispute with Vienna, at least Wilhelmine could find powerful protection at Berlin. Zollern wrote to his cousin of Prussia, praying him to grant the Countess of Grävenitz, Countess of Urach, a perpetual Schutzbrief, or Lettre de Sauvegarde—an official document binding the King of Prussia to protect the lady and her property, if she appealed for aid. Frederick i. granted this without ado.
Still the imperial answer tarried. It behoved Eberhard Ludwig to announce his marriage formally to the officials at Stuttgart. Wilhelmine enjoying the prospect of the scene urged Serenissimus to summon his Geheimräthe, or Privy Councillors, to Urach immediately. They were to arrive at the castle in the afternoon, she decided; the marriage was to be announced, then a State banquet was to take place in the ancient tilting-hall beneath the castle. This latter, of course, she would not attend; but it would be followed by a grand ball in the Golden Hall, where all should greet her as Queen of the Revels, as legal wife of their Duke, as Countess of Urach and future Duchess of Wirtemberg.
Thus it befell that on the 15th of September 1707, eight pompous gentlemen, Geheimräthe of the Dukedom, arrived at the castle of Urach. They were met with much ceremony at the gate and conducted to the Golden Hall. A delightful quaint place this: picture to yourself a large apartment, three sides of which open out in lattice windows through which, if your eye wanders, you see the rounded Swabian hills densely clad in beech and pine. On the summit of one of the nearest of these hills stands the grim fortress of Hohen-Urach, an impregnable stronghold of mediæval days turned prison in the eighteenth century. The Golden Hall is decorated, as its name portends, with gilded devices on the wall, with stately golden pilasters and formal green-painted trees, whose branches meander quaintly over one entire wall of the room, that wall unbroken by the windows. Over the two heavily carved doors the tree-branches twine and twist into the word 'attempto,' the proud motto of Count Eberhard 'the Bearded,' a great gentleman of the Cinque cento, whose nuptials with a Princess of Mantua were celebrated in the same Golden Hall. In memory whereof their nuptial bed still stood in the hall where Eberhard Ludwig assembled his Privy Council for the announcement of his marriage with Wilhelmine von Grävenitz, the Mecklemburg adventuress. The councillors kept waiting in the Golden Hall guessed the preposterous demand their Duke would make to them. They were in a fine quandary. What to say to a Prince who answered questions of legal right by: 'I am above the law, alter the petty phrase in your code-book.' A Prince, mark you, who could punish resistance with death. And yet at Vienna was a suzerain who might chastise the official participators in a crime against the Empire's laws.
