The fool saluted, in the fashion of a minister closing an interview. Zaklika took the hint, and left the room.
It was a strange idea to seek help from a fool, but his strong love for Countess Hoym had put it into his head. He wished to enter the service of the woman, to look at whom was his greatest bliss. He desired nothing further than to look at his goddess. He never dreamt of anything else. He wished to be her guard, her unknown defender; he guessed that she must have many enemies, he feared for her safety, and he longed to lay down his life in her service. The youth had a strange disposition; although apparently slow, he had an iron will. He had determined to gain a place nearer that lovely woman, and it was for her sake that he had gone to ask protection of the fool, and for her sake he was ready to bear still greater humiliation.
Cosel, intoxicated by her love for the beautiful Augustus, had not forgotten the boy who, when she was at Laubegast, used to stand up to his neck in the water in order to catch a glimpse of her. She smiled at the reminiscence, about which she had never said a word to any one. He excited her curiosity, that was all, and she frequently looked after him as he stood among the crowd.
Augustus' love for the beautiful Lady Cosel did not cause him to give up drinking with his friends. For many reasons this became more necessary to him. Amidst his drunken courtiers he could sow discord, which he used as a tool to support his own power.
That day was a day of revelry in the castle. Augustus was in an excellent humour, and was planning how he might best surround his favourite with entertainments, magnificence, and luxury.
Hoym, who still retained his position as Secretary to the Treasury, and whose tears for the loss of his wife the King had dried by a present of fifty thousand thalers, was again among those who came to drink with the King. Hoym was more necessary to Augustus than any of the others, for money was necessary to him, and the secretary knew how to provide it.
But the most clever methods of obtaining it had been almost exhausted, and now they would be obliged to employ some extraordinary means by which they might obtain the required gold. Augustus, like many of the rulers of his day, believed in alchemy. They did not doubt but that there existed some marvellous mixture which could change any metal into the gold that was so necessary to happiness.
At times no other subject was mentioned at Court than how gold could be made. Every one had a laboratory. Chancellor Beichling would not have been sent to Königstein had not Fürstenberg persuaded the King that he could find a man capable of making gold, and much more gold than Beichling could squeeze out of the country.
The savant on whom Fürstenberg depended was a simple apothecary, by name Johan Friedrich Bottiger, born at Schleiz, in Saxony. He had been manufacturing a gold-making mixture in Berlin, and Frederick I. had wished to keep him for himself, but Bottiger succeeded in making his escape, and came to Saxony, where he received a warm welcome, and was shut up in a castle and ordered to make gold for King Augustus II.
Fürstenberg was working with him, and the King firmly believed that any day they might produce as much gold as they wanted.