Historic Oddities and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

At the time that Volkmar took her out of the lockup, and carried her off to his mansion in his carriage, she was absolutely without money, in threadbare black coat, stockings ill darned, and her hair very much in want of powder.

Hitherto her associates had been of the lowest classes; she had been superior to them in education, in morals, and in character, and had to some extent imposed on them. They acknowledged in her an undefined dignity and quiet reserve, with unquestioned superiority in attainments and general tone of mind, and this they attributed to her belonging to a vastly higher class in society.

Now, all at once she was translated into another condition of life, one in which she had never moved before; but she did not lose her head; she maintained the same caution and reserve in it, and never once exposed her ignorance so as to arouse suspicion that she was not what people insisted on believing her to be. She was sufficiently shrewd never by word to compromise herself, and afterwards, when brought to trial, she insisted that she had not once asserted that she was other than Karl Marbitz the armourer. Others had imagined she was a prince, but she had not encouraged them in their delusion by as much as a word. That, no doubt, was true, but she accepted the honours offered and presents made her under this erroneous impression, without an attempt to open the eyes of the deluded to their own folly.

Perhaps this was more than could be expected of her. "Foolery," said the clown in "Twelfth Night," "does walk about the orb, like the sun; it shines everywhere"—and what are fools but the natural prey of the clever?

Sophie had been ill, reduced to abject poverty, was in need of good food, new clothes, and shelter; all were offered, even forced upon her. Was she called upon to reject them? She thought not.

Now that Volkmar had a supposed prince under his roof he threw open his house to the neighbourhood, and invited every gentleman he knew—except the von Günthers. He provided the prince with a coat of scarlet cloth frogged and laced with gold, with a new hat, gave him a horse, filled his purse, and provided him with those identical boots in which a century later a Cossack marched into Paris.

She was addressed by her host and hostess as "Your Highness," and "Your Serenity," and they sought to kiss her hand, but she waived away these exhibitions of servility, saying, "Let be—we will regard each other as on a common level." Once Volkmar said slyly to her, "What would your august father say if he knew you were here?"

"He would be surprised," was all the answer that could be drawn from her. One day the newspaper contained information of the Crown Prince's doings in Paris with his tutor and attendants. Volkmar pointed it out to her with a twinkle of the eye, saying, "Do not suppose I am to be hoodwinked by such attempts to deceive the public as that."

In the mornings when the pseudo prince left the bedroom, outside the door stood Herr Volkmar, cap in hand, bowing. As he offered her a pinch of snuff from a gold tabatière one day, he saw her eyes rest on it; he at once said, "This belonged formerly to the Königsmark."