However, I did not despair. What would happen to innocent prisoners if they were deprived of the pleasures of Hope?
Ah, I well remember that autumn day when I first saw the sun of liberty appear on my horizon, and with its advent those chances of truth, reparation and happiness which my imagination pictured all too quickly!
It was delightful weather. The splendour of the sun illumined the Saxon countryside. It touched with gold the sombre forests that covered the hill near which I loved to walk. This sandy desert planted with fir trees was enlivened by a little hotel called "The Mill on the Crest of the Hill," and it was one of my favourite drives. On this particular day I was driving myself, accompanied by my companion and a groom. Suddenly a cyclist appeared coming in the opposite direction, and who actually grazed the wheels of my carriage as he passed. He looked at me. I knew who he was—it was the count!... I had the presence of mind not to betray myself. He was, then, free! I believed that I, too, should regain my liberty on the morrow.
Three years were destined to pass before I escaped.
The alarm had been raised in the enemy camp! It was known that the count had left Vienna. A search for him was at once instituted at Koswig.
My companion, who, influenced by some kindly feelings or by some hope of gain, had allowed the count and myself to have two brief interviews in her presence, securely hidden in the forest, was not long in changing her mind and repenting her leniency.
The count was obliged to desist from any further attempts to see me. The countryside swarmed with police. I was not allowed to leave Lindenhof. My saviour went some distance away in order not to prevent my taking those drives which allowed me a few hours' freedom and comparative happiness away from the horrors of the madhouse.
There now remained only one way to free me. This was first to proclaim, and then to establish my sanity, and to appeal to public sympathy and public meetings in order to achieve my liberation.
A book appeared in which the count demonstrated his own innocence and described the cruelty of which I was the victim. The entire Press re-echoed his indignant outcry.
And the hoped-for help came at last from that generous land of France where my misfortunes were so keenly felt. A French journalist, a writer equally well known and respected (whose name I should like to mention with gratitude, but whose reserve and dislike of publicity I am forced to respect), had gone to Germany in order to prepare some political work. At Dresden he was told about my sufferings. He went at once to see the head of the police, who, greatly embarrassed, acknowledged that I was the victim of Court intrigue. In order to see me personally, this gentleman visited Lindenhof in the character of a neurasthenic. But either from mistrust, or the impossibility of tampering with the diagnosis, he was not accepted as a patient. He returned to Paris, and through his influence Le Journal, the powerful daily paper whose independence is so well known, took up my cause. From this moment the count found the support which this paper has extended to so many other deserving cases.