“I think he is called Frederick von Trenck.”
“It is so, and if I do not err, he is your relative?”
“My distant relative—yes, your royal highness.”
“And can you bear to have your relative in chains? Does not your heart bleed for his sufferings?”
“He suffers justly, I presume, or he would not have been condemned.”
“Were he the greatest criminal that lived, it would still be a crime to make him suffer perpetually. A man’s sleep is sacred, be he a criminal or a murderer. Let them kill the criminal, but they should not murder sleep. Look at this picture, general; look at this prisoner lying upon the hard floor; he has been torn from his dreams of freedom and happiness by the rough voice of the soldier standing at his door. Read the verse beneath it—is not every word of it bathed in tears? Breathes there not a cry of terror throughout so fearful, so unheard-of, that it must resound in every breast? And you, his relative, you will not hear him? You will do nothing to free this unfortunate man from his prison? You, the Austrian ambassador, suffer an officer of your empress to remain a prisoner in a strange land, without a trial, without a hearing.”
“When my empress sent me here, she gave me her instructions, and she informed me of the extent and character of my duties. She did not request me to exert myself for the release of this unfortunate prisoner, that is entirely beyond my sphere of action, and I must be discreet.”
“You must be careful and discreet when the life of a man, a relative, is concerned? You have, then, no pity for him?”
“I pity him deeply, your royal highness, but can do nothing more.”
“Perhaps not you! Perhaps another! Perhaps I?”