Tales from the German, Comprising specimens from the most celebrated authors

by Unknown

The elector, when the prince and the high chancellor answered this discourse of the cup-bearer merely with an angry glance, and the discussion seemed to be at an end, said that he would by himself reflect on the different opinions he had heard till the next sitting of the council. His heart being very susceptible to friendship, the preliminary measure proposed by the prince had extinguished in him the desire of commencing the expedition against Kohlhaas, for which every preparation had been made. At all events he kept with him the high chancellor, Count Wrede, whose opinion appeared the most feasible; and when this nobleman showed him letters, from which it appeared that the horse-dealer had already acquired a force of four hundred men, and was likely, in a short time, to double and treble it, amid the general discontent which prevailed in the land on account of the chamberlain’s irregularities, he resolved without delay to adopt Dr. Luther’s advice; he, therefore, entrusted to Count Wrede the whole management of the Kohlhaas affair, and in a few days appeared a placard, the substance of which was as follows:

“We, &c., &c., Elector of Saxony, having especial regard to the intercession of Dr. Martin Luther, do give notice to Michael Kohlhaas, horse-dealer of Brandenburg, that, on condition of his laying down arms, within three days after sight hereof, he shall have free conduct to Dresden, to the end that his cause be tried anew. And if, as is not to be expected, his suit, concerning the horses, shall be rejected by the tribunal at Dresden, then shall he be prosecuted with all the severity of the law for attempting to obtain justice by his own might; but, in the contrary case, mercy instead of justice shall be granted, and a full amnesty shall be given to Kohlhaas and all his troop.”

No sooner had Kohlhaas received a copy of this notice, which was posted up all over the country, through the hands of Dr. Luther, than, notwithstanding the conditional manner in which it was worded, he dismissed his whole band with gifts, thanks, and suitable advice. All that he gained by plunder—money, arms, and implements—he gave up to the courts of Lützen, as the elector’s property, and after he had sent Waldmann to Kohlhaasenbrück, with letters to the farmer, that he might, if possible, re-purchase his farm, and Sternbald to Schwerin to fetch his children, whom he again wished to have with him, he left the Castle of Lützen, and went to Dresden, unknown, with the rest of his little property, which he held in paper.

It was daybreak, and the whole city was still sleeping, when he knocked at the door of his small tenement in the Pirna suburb, which had been left him through the honesty of the farmer, and told his old servant, Thomas, who had the care of the property, and who opened the door with amazement, that he might go and tell the Prince of Misnia, at the seat of government, that he, Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer, was there. The Prince of Misnia, who, on hearing this announcement, thought it right immediately to inform himself of the relation in which this man stood, found, as he went out with a train of knights and soldiers, that the streets leading to the residence of Kohlhaas were already thronged with an innumerable multitude. The intelligence that the destroying angel was there, who pursued the oppressors of the people with fire and sword, had set all Dresden, city and suburbs, in motion. It was found necessary to bolt the door against the pressure of the anxious multitude, and the youngsters clambered up to the window to see the incendiary, who was at breakfast. As soon as the prince, with the assistance of the guard, who forced a passage for him, had pressed forward into the house, and had entered Kohlhaas’s room, he asked him, as he stood half-undressed at a table, “Whether he was Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer?” Whereupon Kohlhaas, taking out of his girdle a pocket-book, with several papers relating to his position, and handing them over, respectfully said, “Yes!” adding that, after dismissing his band, in conformity with the privilege which the elector had granted, he had come to Dresden to bring his suit against Squire Wenzel von Tronka, on account of his black horses. The prince, after a hasty glance, in which he surveyed him from head to foot, and ran over the papers which he found in the pocket-book, heard his explanation of the meaning of a document given by the court at Lützen, and relating to the deposit in favour of the electoral treasury. Then, having examined him by all sorts of questions about his children, his property, and the sort of life he intended to lead in future, and having thus ascertained that there was no occasion to feel uneasiness on his account, he returned to him his pocket-book and said that there was nothing to impede his suit, and that he might himself apply to Count Wrede, the high chancellor of the tribunal, and commence it immediately. The prince then, after a pause, during which he went to the window and saw, with wonder, the immense multitude before the house, said: “You will be obliged to have a guard for the first days to watch over you here and when you go out!” Kohlhaas cast down his eyes surprised and was silent. “Well, no matter!” said the prince, leaving the window, “whatever happens you will only have yourself to blame.” He then moved towards the door with the design of quitting the house. Kohlhaas, who had recovered, said, “Do as you please, gracious prince! Only pledge me your word to remove the guard as soon as I desire it and I have no objection to make against this measure.” “That is not worth speaking of,” said the prince, who after telling the three soldiers, who were appointed as guards, that the man in whose house they were placed was free, and that when he went out they were merely to follow him for his protection, took leave of the horse-dealer with a condescending wave of the hand and departed.

About noon, Kohlhaas, attended by his three guards, and followed by a countless multitude, who, warned by the police, did him no manner of injury, proceeded to the chancellor’s. Count Wrede received him, in his anteroom, with kindness and affability, discoursed with him for two entire hours, and after he had heard the whole course of events from the beginning to the end of the affair, he directed him to a celebrated advocate in the city, who was attached to the court, that he might favourably draw up his complaint. Kohlhaas without further delay went to the advocate’s house, and after the complaint was drawn up, which, like the first rejected one, required the punishment of the squire according to law, the restoration of the horses to their former condition, and a compensation both for the damage he had sustained, and for what his servant, Herse, who had fallen at Mühlberg, had suffered (for the benefit of his mother), he again returned home, still followed by the gaping multitude, resolving not to go out of doors any more unless urgent necessity demanded it.

In the meanwhile Squire Wenzel von Tronka was released from his confinement in Wittenberg, and after he had recovered from a dangerous erysipelas in the foot, was peremptorily summoned by the tribunal to appear at Dresden, and answer the complaint of the horse-dealer, Kohlhaas, respecting certain horses, which had been unlawfully detained and spoiled. His relations, the brothers von Tronka, (the chamberlain and the cupbearer,) at whose house he put up, received him with the greatest indignation and contempt; they called him a wretched and worthless person, who brought disgrace on all his family, told him that he would infallibly lose the cause, and bade him prepare to bring the horses, which he would be condemned to feed, amid the general derision of the world. The squire, with a weak trembling voice, said that he was more to be pitied than any one in the world. He swore that he knew but little of the whole cursed business, which had plunged him into calamity, and that the castellan and the bailiff were alone to blame, inasmuch as they had employed the horses in the harvest without the remotest knowledge and wish on his part, and had ruined them by immoderate work in their corn fields. He sat down as he uttered these words, and entreated his relations not to plunge him back again into the illness from which he had recovered, by their reproaches. On the following day, the brothers von Tronka, who possessed property in the neighbourhood of the destroyed Tronkenburg, finding there was nothing else to be done, wrote to their farmers and bailiffs, at their kinsman’s request, to obtain information respecting the horses, which had disappeared on the day of the calamity and had not been heard of since. But the whole place having been laid waste, and nearly all the inhabitants having been slaughtered, they could learn no more than that a servant, driven by blows with the flat of the incendiary’s sabre, had saved the horses from the burning shed, in which they stood, and that on asking where he was to take them, and what he was to do, he only received from the ruffian a kick for an answer. The gouty old housekeeper, who had fled to Misnia, stated, in writing, that the servant on the morning that followed that dreadful night had gone with the horses to the Brandenburg border.

Nevertheless all inquiries made in that direction proved fruitless, and, indeed, the intelligence did not appear correct, as the squire had no servant whose house was in Brandenburg or even on the road thither. Men from Dresden, who had been at Wilsdruf a few days after the conflagration of the Tronkenburg, said that about the time specified a boy had come there leading two horses by a halter, and that he had left the animals, as they were in a very wretched plight and unable to proceed further, in the cow-shed of a shepherd, who had wished to restore them to good condition. For many reasons it seemed probable enough that these were the horses in question, but the shepherd of Wilsdruf had, according to the account of people who came thence, already sold them to somebody—it was not known to whom; while a third rumour, the originator of which could not be discovered, was to the effect that the horses were dead and had been buried in the pit at Wilsdruf. The brothers von Tronka, who, as might be supposed, considered this turn of affairs the most desirable, seeing they would be relieved by it from the necessity of feeding the horses in their own stable—which they must otherwise have done, as their cousin, the squire, had no stables of his own—nevertheless wished to be thoroughly assured that the circumstances were correctly stated. Accordingly Herr Wenzel von Tronka, in his capacity of feudal lord, wrote to the courts of Wilsdruf, describing very fully the horses which, he said, had been lent to him, and had since, unfortunately, been taken away, and requesting them to try to discover where those animals were stationed, and to desire the present owner, whoever he might be, to deliver them up at the stables of the Chamberlain von Tronka, on an indemnification for all expenses.

In a few days the man, to whom the shepherd of Wilsdruf had sold the horses made his appearance and brought them, lean and tottering, tied to his cart, to the market-place of the city. Unfortunately for Squire Wenzel, and still more so for honest Kohlhaas, this man was the knacker from Döbbeln.

As soon as Wenzel, in the presence of his cousin, the chamberlain, heard an indistinct rumour that a man with two black horses, saved from the flames at the Tronkenburg, had come into the city, they both set off attended by some servants, whom they had hastily gathered together to the castle-yard, where he was, that in case the horses should turn out to be Kohlhaas’s they might pay the expenses and take them home. But how surprised were they when they saw a multitude, which increased every moment, attracted by the spectacle, and assembled about the cart to which the horses were fastened. The people were shouting amid peals of laughter, that the horses which had caused the state to totter had come to the knackers. The squire, who had walked round the cart, and saw with confusion the miserable beasts, who looked every moment as if they longed to die, said that these were not the horses which he had taken from Kohlhaas, when the chamberlain casting upon him a look of speechless rage, which, had he been made of iron, would have crushed him, stepped up to the knacker and asked him, as he flung back his mantle and discovered his chain and order, whether these were the horses which had been in the possession of the shepherd of Wilsdruf, and which Squire Wenzel von Tronka, to whom they belonged, had required. The man, who with a pail in his hand, was watering a stout-bodied horse, that drew his cart, said: “Do you mean the black ones?” Taking the bit out of his horse’s mouth, and setting down the pail he said that the animals tied to the cart had been sold to him by a swineherd of Hainichen, but where he got them, and whether they came from the Wilsdruf shepherd—that he knew nothing about. The messenger of the Wilsdruf court, he said, as he again took up the pail and rested it against the pole of the cart, had told him that he was to bring them to Dresden to the house of the von Tronkas, but the squire to whom he had been directed was called Conrad. After these words he turned round with the remainder of the water, which the horse had left in the pail, and flung it upon the pavement.

The chamberlain, who amid the gaze of the scoffing multitude could not get a look from the fellow, who continued his work with the most insensible zeal, told him that he was the Squire Conrad von Tronka, but that the horses he had with him belonged to the squire his cousin, that they had come to the Wilsdruf shepherd through a servant who had run away, taking advantage of the fire at the Tronkenburg, and that they originally belonged to the horse-dealer Kohlhaas. He asked the fellow, who stood with outstretched legs and hitched up his breeches, whether he really knew nothing about the matter;—whether the swineherd of Hainichen had not purchased them from the Wilsdruf shepherd (on which circumstance all depended), or from some third party, who might have obtained them from that source.