Once on the spot, judge if the Konigsberg Domain-Kammer had not a stiff muster to pass; especially if Schlubhut's drill-exercise was gentle! Schlubhut, summoned to private interview with his Majesty, carries his head higher than could be looked for: Is very sorry; knows not how it happened; meant always to refund; will refund, to the last penny, and make all good.—"Refund? Does He (ER) know what stealing means, then? How the commonest convicted private thief finds the gallows his portion; much more a public Magistrate convicted of theft? Is He aware that He, in a very especial manner, deserves hanging, then?"—Schlubhut looks offended dignity; conscious of rank, if also of quasi-theft: "ES IST NICHT MANIER (it is not the polite thing) to hang a Prussian Nobleman on those light terms!" answers Schlubhut, high mannered at the wrong time: "I can and will pay the money back!"—NOBLE-man? Money back? "I will none of His scoundrelly money." To strait Prison with this SCHURKE!—And thither he goes accordingly: unhappiest of mortals; to be conscious of rank, not at the right place, when about to steal the money, but at the wrong, when answering to Rhadamanthus on it!
And there, sure enough, Schlubhut lies, in his prison on the SCHLOSSPLATZ, or Castle Square, of Konigsberg, all night; and hears, close by the DOMANEN-KAMMER, which is in the same Square, DOMANEN-KAMMER where his Office used to be, a terrible sound of carpentering go on;—unhappiest of Prussian Noblemen. And in the morning, see, a high gallows built; close in upon the Domain-Kammer, looking into the very windows of it;—and there, sure enough, the unfortunate Schlubhut dies the thief's death, few hours hence, speaking or thinking what, no man reports to me. Death was certain for him; inevitable as fate. And so he vibrates there, admonitory to the other Raths for days,—some say for weeks,—till by humble petition they got the gallows removed. The stumps of it, sawed close by the stones, were long after visible in that Schlossplatz of Konigsberg. Here is prompt justice with a witness! Did readers ever hear of such a thing? There is no doubt about the fact, [Benekendorf (Anonymous), Karakterzuge aus dem Leben Konig Friedrich Wilhelm I. (Berlin, 1788), vii. 15-20; Forster (ii. 268), &c. &c.] though in all Prussian Books it is loosely smeared over, without the least precision of detail; and it was not till after long searching that I could so much as get it dated: July, 1731, while Friedrich Crown-Prince is still in eclipse at Custrin, and some six weeks after Wilhelmina's betrothal. And here furthermore, direct from the then Schlubhut precincts, is a stray Note, meteorological chiefly; but worth picking up, since it is authentic. "Wehlau," we observe, is on the road homewards again,—on our return from uttermost Memel,—a day's journey hitherwards of that place, half a day's thitherwards of Konigsberg:—
"TUESDAY, 10th JULY, 1731. King dining with General Dockum at Wehlau,"—where he had been again reviewing, for about forty hours, all manner of regiments brought to rendezvous there for the purpose, poor "General Katte with his regiment" among them;—King at dinner with General Dockum after all that, "took the resolution to be off to Konigsberg; and arrived here at the stroke of midnight, in a deluge of rain." This brings us within a day, or two days, of Schlubhut's death, Terrible "combat of Bisons (URI, or AUEROCHSEN, with such manes, such heads), of two wild Bisons against six wild Bears," then ensued; and the Schlubhut human tragedy; I know not in what sequence,—rather conjecture the Schlubhut had gone FIRST. Pillau, road to Dantzig, on the narrow strip between the Frische Haf and Baltic, is the next stage homewards; at Pillau, General Finkenstein (excellent old Tutor of the Crown-Prince) is Commandant, and expects his rapid Majesty, day and hour given, to me not known, Majesty goes in three carriages; Old Dessauer, Grumkow, Seckendorf, Ginkel are among his suite; weather still very electric:—
"At Fischhausen, half-way to Pillau, Majesty had a bout of elk-hunting; killed sixty elks [Melton-Mowbray may consider it],—creatures of the deer sort, nimble as roes, but strong as bulls, and four palms higher than the biggest horse,—to the astonishment of Seckendorf, Ginkel and the strangers there. Half an hour short of Pillau, furious electricity again; thunder-bolt shivered an oak-tree fifteen yards from Majesty's carriage. And at Pillau itself, the Battalion in Garrison there, drawn out in arms, by Count Finkenstein, to receive his Majesty [rain over by this time, we can hope], had suddenly to rush forward and take new ground; Frische Haf, on some pressure from the elements, having suddenly gushed out, two hundred paces beyond its old watermark in that place." [See Mauvillon, ii. 293-297;—CORRECTING by Fassmann, p. 422.]
Pillau, Fischhausen,—this is where the excellent old Adalbert stamped the earth with his life "in the shape of a crucifix" eight hundred years ago: and these are the new phenomena there!—The General Dockum, Colonel of Dragoons, whom his Majesty dined with at Wehlau, got his death not many months after. One of Dockum's Dragoon Lieutenants felt insulted at something, and demanded his discharge: discharge given, he challenged Dockum, duel of pistols, and shot him dead. [7th April, 1732 (Militair-Lexikon, i. 365).] Nothing more to be said of Dockum, nor of that Lieutenant, in military annals.
CASE OF THE CRIMINAL-COLLEGIUM ITSELF.
And thus was the error of the Criminal-Collegium rectified IN RE Schlubhut. For it is not in name only, but in fact, that this Sovereign is Supreme Judge, and bears the sword in God's stead,—interfering now and then, when need is, in this terrible manner. In the same dim authentic Benekendorf (himself a member of the Criminal-Collegium in later times), and from him in all the Books, is recorded another interference somewhat in the comic vein; which also we may give. Undisputed fact, again totally without precision or details; not even datable, except that, on study, we perceive it may have been before this Schlubhut's execution, and after the Criminal-Collegium had committed their error about him,—must have been while this of Schlubhut was still vividly in mind; Here is the unprecise but indubitable fact, as the Prussian Dryasdust has left us his smear of it:—
"One morning early" (might be before Schlubhut was hanged, and while only sentence of imprisonment and restitution lay on him), General Graf von Donhof, Colonel of a Musketeer Regiment, favorite old soldier,—who did vote on the mild side in that Court-Martial on the Crown-Prince lately; but I hope has been forgiven by his Majesty, being much esteemed by him these long years past;—this Donhof, early one morning, calls upon the King, with a grimly lamenting air. "What is wrong, Herr General?"—"Your Majesty, my best musketeer, an excellent soldier, and of good inches, fell into a mistake lately,—bad company getting round the poor fellow; they, he among them, slipt into a house and stole something; trifle and without violence: pay is but three halfpence, your Majesty, and the Devil tempts men! Well, the Criminal-Collegium have condemned him to be hanged; an excellent soldier and of good inches, for that one fault. Nobleman Schlubhut was 'to make restitution,' they decreed: that was their decree on Schlubhut, one of their own set; and this poor soldier, six feet three, your Majesty, is to dance on the top of nothing for a three-halfpenny matter!"—So would Donhof represent the thing,—"fact being," says my Dryasdust, "it was a case of house-breaking with theft to the value of 6,000 thalers and this musketeer the ringleader!"—Well; but was Schlubhut sentenced to hanging? Do you keep two weights and two measures, in that Criminal-Collegium of yours, then?
Friedrich Wilhelm feels this sad contrast very much; the more, as the soldier is his own chattel withal, and of superlative inches: Friedrich Wilhelm flames up into wrath; sends off swift messengers to bring these Judges, one and all instantly into his presence. The Judges are still in their dressing-gowns, shaving, breakfasting; they make what haste they can. So soon as the first three or four are reported to be in the anteroom, Friedrich Wilhelm, in extreme impatience has them called in; starts discoursing with them upon the two weights and two measures. Apologies, subterfuges do but provoke him farther; it is not long till he starts up, growling terribly: "IHR SCHURKEN (Ye Scoundrels), how could you?" and smites down upon the crowns of them with the Royal Cudgel itself. Fancy the hurry-scurry, the unforensic attitudes and pleadings! Royal Cudgel rains blows, right and left: blood is drawn, crowns cracked, crowns nearly broken; and "several Judges lost a few teeth, and had their noses battered," before they could get out. The second relay meeting them in this dilapidated state, on the staircases, dashed home again without the honor of a Royal interview. [Benekendorf, vii. 33; Forster, ii. 270.] Let them learn to keep one balance, and one set of weights, in their Law-Court hence forth.—This is an actual scene, of date Berlin, 1731, or thereby; unusual in the annals of Themis. Of which no constitutional country can hope to see the fellow, were the need never so pressing.—I wish his Majesty had been a thought more equal, when he was so rhadamanthine! Schlubhut he hanged, Schlubhut being only Schlubhut's chattel; this musketeer, his Majesty's own chattel, he did not hang, but set him shouldering arms again, after some preliminary dusting!—