Cosel looked from the window, and noticing that they were digging, she withdrew, thinking that they were making a grave. Only when, after some time, she perceived some flowers there, she smiled at them.
It seemed to her that if, instead of sitting on the stones, she could rest on the earth, she would revive. The flowers could be her confidants and companions; but considering herself a queen, she could not ask for it--she preferred to suffer.
At last, considering that she could not escape from it, old Wehlen told the servant to tell the Countess that she could go there. And when one morning she went down to see her garden, the air seemed to intoxicate her; she was obliged to lean for a while against the wall.
From that time she used to spend whole days in the garden, taking care of the flowers, which she planted herself then.
Thus passed the spring and summer without any change or hope. There was no answer to her letters; nobody came to see her. Out of an immense fortune taken from her, they paid her about three thousand thalers, which she could use as she pleased; but the commandant controlled all her expenses, and she could not transact any business without his knowledge.
Since coming to Stolpen she had been waiting for Zaklika; but month after month passed, and there was no news from him. Once, however, a Jew pedlar, who used to bring her different things, whispered to her that the one who used to break the horseshoes was still alive, and that she should see him. Those few words were sufficient to awaken in her a slumbering hope.
In the meantime Zaklika was working constantly. His plans of facilitating the escape of the Countess from Nossen being ruined, he was obliged to begin anew. He knew that Cosel was imprisoned in Stolpen.
This cruelty they tried to justify by spreading reports that Cosel, when in Berlin, had tried to plot against the King's life, that she had threatened to kill him, that she was mad, and called herself a queen. And they ended in whispers that Augustus was ashamed of the levity with which he had given her a promise of marriage although the Queen was living. That promise, notwithstanding all efforts, they could not find or get back. It was the first time that Augustus had acted with such cruelty, and it frightened even the Countess Denhoff, although she could not flatter herself that she was much loved by the King.
It was true that her court was quite brilliant, but her following had no political weight. Even those who had helped her to rise, in order to get rid of Cosel, kept away from her. Watzdorf alone, who thought through her to overthrow Flemming, was attached to her, and served her by asking the King for considerable sums of money, which she squandered lavishly, sometimes spending 10,000 thalers on a ball. She was then already not counting on the King's long-continued favours, and she looked after Bosenval and the young Lubomirski, who seemed to be fond of her.
Augustus' cold and sometimes cruel treatment of his best favourite warned the others to be armed against the caprices of their lord, who could take everything from them. Thus Hoym, the Countess Cosel's ex-husband, whom the King needed but did not like, remembering the fate of Beichling, Imhoff, and even his ex-wife, had sold his estate in Saxony, sent away the money, and, resigning from the Saxon service, had retired to Silesia.