Read Ebook: The Youth of the Great Elector by M Hlbach L Luise Smith Mary Stuart Harrison Translator

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Ebook has 2850 lines and 172296 words, and 57 pages

"Now, if you take it so, you might give to me also what I desire and demand, and I would have the citizens of Berlin and Cologne to know through you that I am not minded to abate in the least my requisitions for the payment of the expenses of my bodyguard, and the tax for the maintenance of my Electoral court. You must and shall pay, and in any case it must be preferable, to your desperation, to give your last thing to your Elector and Sovereign, rather than have it stolen and extorted from you by the Swedes. So, there you have my decision, and be off with it and convey it to the citizens of Berlin and Cologne. Attempt not to say anything more now, for I will hear nothing more. You are dismissed, go then!"

"Your Electoral Highness," the spokesman ventured to begin, "I--"

But the Elector would not allow him to proceed. He took up his silver whistle, and with its shrill call overpowered the sound of the burger's words. The door of the outer chamber opened immediately, and the lackey appeared upon the threshold; on the outside, beside the door, were to be seen two of the Electoral lifeguardsmen, standing with shouldered weapons.

"The burger deputation is dismissed," cried the Elector shortly. "Have the doors opened, and let them go out."

The delegates from the oppressed cities ventured not to make opposition; sighing and with heads bowed low they strode through the room. Arrived at the door, they turned once more and bowed deeply before his Electoral Grace. But George William saw it not, for with an adroit jerk he had again turned his armchair toward his writing table. Meanwhile, although he affected to read the document which he took from the table, his attention was in fact wholly concentrated upon the departing burgers. He listened with a satisfied air as they slowly moved away, and, when the door of the antechamber closed behind them, with a deep-drawn breath deposited the document upon the table.

"May we come in?" asked a pleasant voice behind the Elector, interrupting him in his melancholy reminiscences.

"Yes, Lady Electress," he replied, painfully rising from his armchair--"yes, come in and be heartily welcome to your spouse."

The Electress Charlotte Elizabeth closed the little side door which led from her private apartments, and with a friendly nod of the head and tender glances approached her husband, who advanced slowly to meet her.

"Elizabeth," he said, thoughtfully shaking his head, "I see from your countenance that you have something special to say to me. Your brown eyes shine to-day unusually bright and clear, and on your lips rests a happy, tender smile, such as, alas! I no longer observe often in my wife."

"Gladly would I have smiled and looked cheerful, George, but have lacked the opportunity. You know well that we have seldom seen a blue sky above us; it has been always over-cast by gloomy clouds. But I beg of you, my lord and husband, to resume your seat, for I see, alas! that your foot is paining you sadly. The fatigues of travel have injured it, and it would indeed be wise if you would at last determine to resort to active remedies, and to that end allow a couple of the learned Frankfort doctors to be sent for."

With an expression almost of alarm the Elector looked upon his wife, who had seated herself on a stool beside him, and soothingly and tenderly laid her hand upon his cheek.

"You have something on your mind, Elizabeth, something surely," he said, "and it is nothing which can give me pleasure, else you would not use so much circumlocution; but speak it out frankly."

"How?" asked the Electress, "must I have some special object in view, when I smile upon you, and fondle you a little? Know you not that my soul is full of tenderness toward you, and that my heart is ever speaking to you, even when the lips utter not aloud what the heart is whispering within?"

"Ah! what an acute observer you are, George, and how well you understand how to read my countenance! Well, now, you shall have it in all candor. I have news from our dear Electoral Prince."

"He notifies us, I trust, that he has followed our instructions strictly and to the letter, and is now on his way home?" asked the Elector, gazing upon his wife with anxious, inquiring glances.

But Elizabeth avoided his look.

"What!" cried George William angrily, "you do not answer me! You can not, therefore, respond to my questions with a joyful Yes! Can it be possible, then, that the Electoral Prince has disregarded my commands, that--"

"Do not allow yourself to be so excited, George," interrupted the Electress. "First hear his motives and excuses before you grow angry with our son."

"From all those motives and excuses I shall only gather that he will not come," cried the Elector.

"Say rather that he can not come," returned Elizabeth, while she gently forced back her husband, who in his excitement and impatience had made an effort to rise. "Yes, I have letters from The Hague, my dear husband, letters from both our uncle, the Prince of Orange, and my mother, and I dare affirm that these letters have given me heartfelt joy, inasmuch as my uncle the Stadtholder, as well as my mother, write of our dear son that he is an accomplished Prince, in whom one may reasonably rejoice, and whom we may be proud to call our son. You know, George, that during these three years of his sojourn in Holland, we have ever had good and complimentary accounts of him. His tutor, von Kalkhun, has often reported to us with what diligence our son applied himself to his studies at Leyden, and that he had become quite a learned Prince, in whom even the professors themselves took peculiar delight. Then when he had finished his course of studies at Leyden and went to Arnheim, where he met with the Princes William of Orange and Maurice of Nassau, they could not sufficiently laud the handsome appearance, lofty spirit, and noble heart of our young Electoral Prince."

"Truly," muttered the Elector, "one could infer from your discourse that you are the mother of this highly praised lad. It is an old experience that mothers always find something remarkable in their sons, and if they were to be believed, then would the son of every mother be no ordinary specimen of mankind, but a phoenix among all other men."

"But, my well-beloved Elector, I have nevertheless told nothing but the truth. Our son has been very successful in his studies these last three years in Holland, and has become a very learned and accomplished young man, who is well skilled in Latin and Greek, besides speaking German, French, and Italian in a masterly way. But most especially has he cultivated himself in a knowledge of the science of war, and the Princes of Orange and Nassau certify that he will assuredly become hereafter a great general and warrior, so learnedly and wisely does he even now discourse upon the subject."

"Why do you say all this, Elizabeth?" asked the Elector. "Why do you praise our son, but that you are conscious that he is deserving of censure, and has sinned grievously against us in not having so hastened his return home as to be here now instead of his letters? But that he has already set out on the journey home I can not for a moment doubt, and bitterly should he experience my fatherly wrath if it were not so. Just tell me in short, concise words, when does my son, the Electoral Prince, come?"

"My dear lord and husband," said the Electress with reluctance and visible embarrassment, "would it not be best for you to speak on this subject with the chamberlain, Balthazar von Schlieben--"

"What!" cried the Elector, springing from his seat--"what! Is Schlieben here again--Schlieben, whom we sent to The Hague in order that he might conduct our son hither? He has come back without the Electoral Prince?"

"Yes, my husband, he has come back," replied the Electress, winding her arms tenderly around her husband's neck. "I entreat you most earnestly not to be angry before you have heard the reasons why the Electoral Prince does not come. I entreat you to admit Balthazar von Schlieben, and have an account rendered to you by him."

"Yes!" exclaimed the Elector, vehemently--"yes, I will see him. He shall render me an account. Where is he? They must send for him directly; he must be summoned to me immediately!"

"It is not necessary, George; he stands without there in the little passage leading to my apartments. I shall cause him to enter immediately. You must promise me first, though, my beloved husband, that you will listen to him without reproaches and anger, and that you will say nothing in his presence against the only son given us by Heaven."

"I shall make no promises that I can not keep," cried the Elector warmly. "I will speak with Schlieben. He must come in. Ho! Chamberlain Balthazar von Schlieben, come in, I charge you to come in."

The little arras door opened and disclosed to view a slender, tall young man, in gold-laced blue uniform, with red facings.

"At the command of your Electoral Grace," he said, making a reverential obeisance.

"Come hither, Schlieben," cried George William, "close up to me, that I may see if you are actually he who dares to return here without the one after whom I sent him. So! Look me straight in the face, and tell me why I sent you to Holland three months ago, and what was your errand there?"

"Your Electoral Highness, I was sent by your grace to Holland, in order that I might conduct hither his Highness the Electoral Prince."

"Well, then, where is the Electoral Prince?"

"Your Electoral Highness, he is at present still at The Hague, and most urgently and most submissively he beseeches your Electoral Highness through me that he may be permitted to remain there at least for the winter."

"He is yet at The Hague!" cried the Elector. "He ventures thus to brave me--to oppose himself to my strict injunctions? Or have you not handed him my letter, Schlieben? Or have you not repeated to him all that I said and urged you by word of mouth to convey to him? Did you not inform him that I ordered him, under penalty of my princely and fatherly displeasure, to set out and journey hither in the speediest manner possible?"

"Your Electoral Highness, I carried out exactly every command given me by your highness, and the Electoral Prince surely would not have delayed an instant gratifying the demands of his revered father, if many concurring circumstances had not made it impossible for him. The Electoral Prince has himself more narrowly pointed out and explained these in this letter, which he has charged me to deliver to your highness."

And with a deep inclination the chamberlain extended a large sealed packet to his Sovereign.

George William took it with angry impatience, and so curious was he to read the contents of the packet that he hastily tore off the cover, the sooner to arrive at its purport. A closely written sheet of fine paper was within the cover, and the Elector unfolded it with eager hands. But after looking at this a long while, he shook his head passionately, and the flush of anger on his countenance grew yet darker.

"What sort of new-fashioned, disrespectful handwriting is this?" growled George William. "This is not at all as if it had been written by a prince's son, but by a scholar who had carefully sought to crowd as many lines as possible into one page in order to save paper. A prince should never renounce or be unmindful of his own dignity. But it is unbecoming, indeed, and unworthy of a prince to write such a fine hand, as if he were a scholar or a writing master. I can not read these small intricate characters. Read the letter to me, Electress, in short, share it with me from the first."

The Electress took the sheet held out to her, and read it over with hurried glances. "The Electoral Prince uses the most humble, submissive words," she said, finally. "It is just the letter of an obedient and respectful son, who is all anxiety to obey the commands of his father, and who is deeply grieved that he must nevertheless go contrary to them."

"Must?" cried George William. "Be pleased to tell me why he must."

"Only hear, my lord and husband, what the Prince writes about it," said the Electress, and with loud voice she read:

"'There are various circumstances which compel me to prolong my stay in this country. In the first place, Admiral Tromp is here, and he is very useful in aiding me to arrive at a more perfect knowledge of nautical affairs, as, also, the condescension and kindness of my uncle, the Prince of Orange, that great general, affords me a glorious opportunity of perfecting myself in the science of war. And I think that, the more I learn and study here, the more capable will I become of serving hereafter under your highness. But, apart from these things, it would be exceedingly difficult at this season of the year and under the present conditions, to make the long journey from The Hague to Prussia; most probably it would consume a half year, and the expenses would be enormous, while next summer I might easily accomplish the journey in two months. The voyage by sea would be next to impossible during this present winter on account of the violent storms, which might occasion tedious delays. Moreover, I dread the privateers of Dunkirk, against which the Dutch convoy could hardly protect me. But yet more formidable seems the journey by land in the existing state of the times. In Westphalia the Hessians and Swedes rove about, rendering the roads unsafe. Even should I take my way over the flats, along the strand, yet the Swedish and Hessian troops could easily catch up with me, and overpower the escort promised me for safe-conduct by the counts of East Friesland and Oldenburg and the Bishop of Bremen. Or should I bend my course through Upper Germany and Franconia, there, again, other hindrances present themselves, for throughout all these provinces reigns the greatest wretchedness--men even devouring one another for hunger. On that account my uncle, the Prince Stadtholder himself, has opposed my undertaking the journey, considering it too dangerous. A deputation from the duchy of Cleves has also come and begged me to postpone my departure, since they had petitioned your grace anew to leave me in the duchy of Cleves as their stadtholder. And if all this were not so, there is yet another reason which must prevent my departure from here. But this I dare not commit to writing, for a letter may be so easily lost, and to read such a thing would furnish our enemies an occasion of rejoicing and triumph. Therefore I have told all to young Balthazar von Schlieben, and he will in my name faithfully and most reverentially communicate to you, your Electoral Highness and my most gracious father, the true and principal cause which prevents my setting forth from Holland.'"

"Well, speak then!" cried the Elector impatiently. "Speak, Schlieben--what is it?"

"Will not my lord and husband first hear the Electoral Prince's letter to the end?" asked the Electress. "Here follow some cordial, affectionate words, and assurances of the most filial respect and most submissive love."

"Can I value them, yes, can I value any of them all?" answered George William passionately. "When we will prove nothing by deeds, then we make speeches, and when we are disobedient in act, then we asseverate with words of love and reverence. Speak, then, Balthazar von Schlieben, since you have been thus commissioned by the Electoral Prince. What is this most weighty of reasons which forbids the departure of the Electoral Prince from Holland?"

"Your Electoral Highness, it is debt, it is the total want of money."

The Elector started up as if an adder had stung him. "Debts!" he cried in thundering voice. "Want of money! Will this litany never, never cease? What a wild, extravagant life the Electoral Prince must lead to be for ever and ever wanting money, and no sooner are his debts paid than he contracts new ones!"

"Husband," said the Electress soothingly, "it does not reflect upon the life our son leads that he is out of money, but proves that he has not received a sufficiently ample allowance. Just reflect that three years ago, when he undertook this journey to Holland, you did not give him a red cent, and that I had to give him from my little savings three thousand dollars that he might be able to travel at all. A considerable portion of this must have been expended during the tedious journey, with his retinue."

"If any one were to listen to you, Electress, he would really suppose that the Electoral Prince had lived upon those three thousand dollars lent him by you from that time up to the present. You forget, however, that, already in the year 1636, therefore the very next year after the Electoral Prince set out upon his journey, the states at the diet of K?nigsberg voted the large sum of seven thousand dollars to the Electoral Prince for the prosecution of his studies, over which they made a great outcry even then, since the owner of each rood of land must be taxed five groschen to pay for these acquirements, bringing down, no doubt, many a curse upon his Latin and Greek. From these two sources alone, then, he has had ten thousand dollars to disburse in three years, which for so young a gentleman would surely seem sufficient. Besides, just half a year ago, on his repeated application to me for money, I sent him again one thousand dollars, insomuch as he felt himself compelled to purchase a stately equipage."

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