"Well, and what may that be?"
"A marriage, your highness. A marriage with the daughter of the widowed
Electress of the Palatinate—with the fair Ludovicka Hollandine."
"That would indeed he a fine, plausible marriage!" cried the Elector, starting up. "A Princess of nothing, the daughter of an outlawed Prince, put under the ban by the Emperor!"
"But this Prince was the Electress's brother. It would be very pleasant to her grace's tender heart to exalt her prostrate house once more and bring it into consideration again, and she would therefore gladly see her brother's daughter some day a reigning Princess. Besides, the future Electress would then owe her mother-in-law a lifelong debt of gratitude, and the Dowager Electress might exert great influence and share in the government of her son."
"Yes, indeed, they all count upon my death," groaned the Elector; "they all long for the time when I shall be gathered to my fathers. They grudge me life, although, forsooth, it is no light, enjoyable thing to me, but has brought me trouble, deprivation, and want enough. But still, they grudge it to me, and if they could shorten it, would all do so."
"But I, my beloved master and Elector—I stand by you. I have placed it before myself as my sacred aim in life to guard you as a faithful dog guards his master, and to turn aside from you all that threatens you with danger and vexation. The Emperor, too, as your supreme protector, keeps his benignant eye fixed upon you, his much-loved vassal, and his wrath would crush all that should endeavor to injure you. There are, indeed, many here who think that the Elector of Brandenburg ought to make himself free and independent of that very Emperor, beneficent though he be, and, because your highness stands in their way, they attach themselves to the son, and, placing him at their head, wish to constitute him an opponent of the Emperor and empire. The Electress has probably not yet forgiven and forgotten that the Emperor put her brother under the ban of the empire, and banished him from country and friends. And the Prince of Orange, and the Sovereign States, the Swedes and all the enemies of his Imperial Highness and your Electoral Grace, would all unite their efforts to render the Electoral Prince a pliant tool in their hands. Therefore they wish to detain him yet longer at The Hague, and so to bind him there that he shall be wholly theirs, linked by an indissoluble chain. On that account they wish to bring about this marriage with the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine. I must confide to your highness the information that report has already bruited it abroad, and that it is spoken of at the imperial court. I have to-day received dispatches from Vienna which apprise me that the Emperor is very much opposed to this matrimonial project, and will never give his consent to it."
"And I, too, shall never give my consent!" screamed the Elector. "I will not again be brought to feud and strife with Emperor and empire. I will not range myself on the side of the Emperor's foes, and neither shall my son. I have always said that the Electoral Prince was staying far too long in foreign parts, and that he would return an alien. But you would never agree to it, Adam Schwarzenberg; you always thought that the Electoral Prince was much better off in his place than here, where the malcontents and disturbers of the peace would, throng about him, and that he could only learn what, was good and profitable there, while here he would learn much that was evil. And now it proves that the air there is much worse for him still, and that the tempters have more power over him there than here."
"I was blind and short-sighted when I fancied myself wise," replied Schwarzenberg, in a tone of contrition; "I was presumptuous enough to suppose I knew better than my Elector and lord, and now acknowledge in deep abasement how very wrong I was, and how far superior to myself my noble and beloved Electoral Lord is in penetration and foresight. I crave your pardon, most gracious sir, crave it in penitence and humiliation."
The proud Count von Schwarzenberg bowed his knee before the Elector, and with a glance of earnest entreaty pressed his lips to his Sovereign's hand. George William, flattered and enraptured by this humility on the part of his almighty favorite, bent forward and imprinted a kiss upon his lofty forehead.
"Rise, my Adam, rise," he said tenderly. "It does not become the grand master of the German orders, the rich and distinguished count of the empire, to kneel before the little Elector, who is not master of an army, but so poor that he knows not how he shall live and pay his servants; who has nothing of his possessions but the name, and nothing of his position but the burden! Stand up, Adam Schwarzenberg, for I love to see you erect and stately at my side, and to be able to look up to you as to a staff on which I may lean, and which is strong enough to bear me."