“A fine surname for a sovereign! Your Inflexible ancestor, I am very sure, never lacked either cash or courtiers. Your Highness has perhaps done wrong to leave the state-prison untenanted. A prison requires to be inhabited, like any other building; and the first act of the authority with which you have been pleased to invest me, will be a salutary measure of incarceration. I presume the Castle of Zwingenberg will accommodate a score of prisoners?”
“What! you are going to imprison twenty persons?”
“More or less. I do not yet know the exact number of the persons who composed your late court. They it is whom I propose lodging within the lofty walls constructed by the Inflexible Rudolph. The measure is indispensable.”
“But it is illegal!”
“I crave your Highness’s pardon; you use a word I do not understand. It seems to me that, in every good German government, that which is absolutely necessary is necessarily legal. That is my policy. Moreover, as prime minister, I am responsible. What would you have more? It is plain that, if we leave your courtiers their liberty, it will be impossible to perform our comedy; they will betray us. Therefore the welfare of the state imperatively demands their imprisonment. Besides, you yourself have said that they are traitors, and therefore they deserve punishment. For your own safety’s sake, for the success of your project—which will insure the happiness of your subjects—write the names, sign the order, and inflict upon the deserters the lenient chastisement of a week’s captivity.”
The Grand Duke wrote the names and signed several orders, which were forthwith intrusted to the most active and determined officers of the regiment, with instructions to make the arrests at once, and to take their prisoners to the Castle of Zwingenberg, at three quarters of a league from Karlstadt.
“All that now remains to be done is to send for your new court,” said Balthasar. “Has your Highness carriages?”
“Certainly! a berlin, a barouche, and a cabriolet.”
“And horses?”
“Six draught and two saddle.”