The next day, December 11, 1779, the king issued the following protocol in the newspapers:
“The king’s desire always was and is that every body, be he high or low, rich or poor, get prompt justice. Wherefore, in respect to this most unjust sentence against the miller Arnold, pronounced in the Neumark, and confirmed here in Berlin, his majesty will establish an emphatic example, to the end that all the courts of justice in the king’s provinces may take warning thereby, and not commit the like glaring unjust acts. For let them bear in mind that the least peasant, yea, what is still more, that even a beggar, is, no less than his majesty, a human being, and one to whom due justice must be meted out. All men being equal before the law, if it is a prince complaining against a peasant, or vice versa, the prince is the same as the peasant before the law.
“Let the courts take this for their rule; and whenever they do not carry out justice in a straightforward manner, without any regard of person and rank, they shall have to answer to his majesty for it.”
The discarded judges were arrested, imprisoned for a year, and fined a sum of money equal to the supposed loss of the miller. In this case the judges had heard both sides of the question, and the king but one side. The question had been justly decided. The case was so clear that the new judges appointed by the king, being conscientious men, could not refrain from sustaining the verdict. Still the king, who would never admit that he was in the wrong, ordered no redress for those who had thus suffered for righteousness sake. After Frederick’s death the court compelled the miller to refund the money which had been so unjustly extorted for damages.
On the 29th of November, 1780, Maria Theresa died. The extraordinary character which she had developed through life was equally manifested in the hour of death. She died of congestion of the lungs, which created a painful and suffocating difficulty of breathing. Her struggles for breath rendered it impossible for her to lie upon the bed. Bolstered in her chair, she leaned her head back as if inclined to sleep.
“Will your majesty sleep, then?” inquired an attendant.
“No,” the empress replied; “I could sleep, but I must not. Death is too near. He must not steal upon me. These fifteen years I have been making ready for him; I will meet him awake.”
For fifteen years she had been a mourning widow. Her husband had died on the 18th of August. The 18th day of every month had since then been a day of solitary prayer. On the 18th of every August she descended into the tomb, and sat for a season engaged in prayer by the side of the mouldering remains of her spouse.
MARIA THERESA AT THE TOMB OF HER HUSBAND.