Memorials and Other Papers V2

arose upon two points. First, upon the particular means by which they were to pursue an end upon which all were unanimous. Upon that, howeve

merit, hated him; or, as good citizens of Klosterheim, and connected by old family ties with the interests of that town, were disposed to charge Maximilian with ambitious views of private aggrandizement, at the expense of the city, grounded upon the emperor's favor, or upon a supposed marriage with some lady of the imperial house. For the story of Paulina's and Maximilian's mutual attachment had transpired through many of the travellers; but with some circumstances of fiction. In defending M

dious to his generous nature, as it drew upon him a cloud of suspicion. He was sensible that he would be supposed to owe his privilege to some discovery or act of treachery, more or less, by which he had merited the favor of the Landgrave. The fact was, that in the indulgence shown to the count no motive had influenced the Landgrave but a politi

the lives of his subjects, in any case where they lifted their presumptuous thoughts to the height of controlling the sovereign; and, even in circumstances which to his own judgment might seem to confer much less discretionary power over the rights of prisoners, he had been suspected of directing the course of law and of punishment into channels that would not brook the public knowledge. Darker dealings were imputed to him in the popular opinion. Gloomy suspicions were muttered at the fireside, which no man dared openly to avow; and in the present instance the conduct

moment the Count St. Aldenheim was offering his congratulations. The friends to whom he spoke were too confident in his honor and integrity to have felt even one moment's misgiving upon the true causes which had sheltered him from the Landgrave's wrath, and had thus given him a privilege so invidious in the eyes of those who knew him not, and on that account so hateful in his own. They knew his unimpeachable fidelity to the cause and themselves, and were anxiously expressing their sense of it by the warmth of their salutations at the very moment when the city guard appeared. The count, on his part, was gayly reminding them to come that evening and fulfil their engagement to drink his aunt of jovial memory in her own Johannisberg, when the guard, shouldering aside the crowd, advanced, and, surrounding the group of students, in an instant laid the hands of summary arrest each upon the gentleman who stood next him. The petty officer who commanded made a grasp at one of the most distinguished in dress, and seized rudely upon the gold chain depending from his neck. St. Aldenheim, who happened at the moment to be in conversation with this individual, stung with a sudden indignation at the ruffian eagerness of the men in thus abusing the privileges of their office, and unable to control the generous ardor of his nature, met this brutal outrage with a sudden blow at

the officer, almost

were industriously stigmatized as jailers; for which there was the more ground, as their duties did in reality associate them pretty often with the jailer; and in other respects they were a dissolute and ferocious body of men, gathered not out of the citizens, but many foreign deserters, or wretched runagates from the jail, or from the justice of the provost- marshal in some distant camp. Not a man, probably, but was liable to be reclaimed, in some or other quarter of Germany, as a capital delinquent. Sometimes, even, they were act

r whose rank was known to the whole city, and of late most advantageously known for his own interests, by the conspicuous immunity which it had procured him from the Landgrave. In vain did the commanding officer insist, in vain did the count defy; menaces from neither side availed to urge the guard into any outrage upon the person of one who might have it in his power to retaliate so severely upon themselves. They continued obstinately at a stand, simply preventing his escape, when suddenly the tread of horses' feet arose upon the ear, and through a long vista

o this tyrant of dungeons, who has betrayed more men, and cheated more gibbets of their due, than ever

rave of X--. Gentlemen, you are all my prisoners; and you will accompany me to the castle. Count St. Aldenheim, I am sorry that there is no longer

there arose, to call off attention from these less dignified objects of the public interest, a long train of gallant cavaliers, restored so capriciously to liberty, in order, as it seemed, to give the greater poignancy and bitterness to the instant renewal of their captivity. This was the very frenzy of despotism in its very moodiest state of excitement. Many began to think the Landgrave mad. If so, what a dreadful fate might be anticipated for the sons or representatives of so many noble families, gallant soldiers the greater part of them, with a nobleman of pri

Aremberg, who did not vouchsafe to listen, or of occasional explanation and discussion, as it was partly kept up between himself and one of his nearest partners in the imputed transgression. Two or three there might be seen in the crowd, whose looks avowed some nearer acquaintance with this mysterious allusion than it would have been safe to acknowledge. But