Chapter C: A. F (4)

At nightfall he put up at an inn on the road, where he had to rest a day on account of the great fatigue of his horses, and as he plainly saw, that with a troop of ten men (such was his force now), he could not attack a place like Wittenberg, he drew up a second mandate, in which, after strictly narrating what had happened to him, he called, to use his own words, “Upon every good Christian to espouse his cause against Squire von Tronka, the common enemy of all Christians, with the promise of a sum of money down, and other advantages of war.” In a third mandate he called himself a “Sovereign, free from the empire and the world, subject to God alone;” a morbid and disgusting piece of fanaticism, which nevertheless accompanied as it was with the chink of money and the hope of prey, procured an accession to his numbers from the rabble, whom the peace with Poland had deprived of a livelihood. Indeed his band amounted to upwards of thirty, when he turned back to the left bank of the Elbe to lay Wittenberg in ashes. With his men and horses he took shelter under the roof of an old ruined shed in the depth of a gloomy wood, that in those days surrounded the place, and he no sooner learned from Sternbald, that the mandate, with which he had sent him into the town disguised, had been made known, than he set off with his band--it was Whitsun eve,--and while the inhabitants lay fast asleep, set a-light to the place at many corners. He then, with his men, plundered the suburbs, affixed a paper to the door-post of a church, in which he said that “He, Kohlhaas, had set the city on fire, and that if the squire was not given up to him, he would lay it in ashes in such sort, that he would not have to look behind a wall to find him.” The terror of the inhabitants at this unparalleled atrocity was indescribable, and the flames, which in a particularly calm summer’s night, had not consumed more than nineteen houses, including a church, being extinguished in some measure about day-break, the old governor (Landvoigt), Otto von Gorgas, sent out a company of about fifty men, to capture the fearful invader. The captain of this company, whose name was Gerstenberg, managed so badly, that the expedition, instead of defeating Kohlhaas, rather helped him to a very dangerous military reputation; for while he separated his men into several divisions, that he might, as he thought, surround and curb Kohlhaas, he was attacked by the latter, who kept his men close together at the different isolated points, and was so beaten, that on the evening of the following day, not a single man of the whole band was left to face the aggressor, although on that band rested all the hopes of the country. Kohlhaas, who had lost none of his own men in the encounter, fired the town anew on the following morning, and his criminal plans were so well laid that a number of houses, and nearly all the barns of the suburbs were reduced to ashes. He then again posted up his decree, and that in the corners of the town-house, adding an account of the fate of Captain von Gerstenberg, whom the governor had sent out against him, and whom he had demolished. The governor, greatly enraged at this defiance, placed himself with several knights at the head of a band of a hundred and fifty men. To Squire von Tronka, who had sent him a written petition, he gave a guard, to protect him from the violence of the people, who wished him to be turned out of the city without more ado, and after he had posted guards in all the villages around, and also had garrisoned the walls of the city to defend it from a surprise, he set out on St. Gervas’s day, to capture the dragon that was thus laying waste the country. The horse-dealer was cunning enough to avoid this troop, and after he had, by his clever retreats, lured away the governor five miles from the city, and had made him believe by various preparations that if pressed by numbers he would throw himself into the Brandenburg territory, he suddenly faced about at the approach of the third night, and galloping back to Wittenberg for the third time to set it on fire. This frightful act of audacity was achieved by Herse, who had entered the city disguised, and the conflagration, through the action of a sharp north wind was so destructive, and extended its ravages so far that in less than three hours, two-and-forty houses, two churches, several schools and convents, and the governor’s residence were levelled with the ground. The governor, who believed that his adversary was in Brandenburg, at break of day, found the city in a general uproar, when having been informed of what had passed, he returned by forced marches. The people had assembled by thousands before the house of Squire von Tronka, which was fortified with boards and palisades, and with the voices of maniacs were demanding that he should be sent out of the city. In vain did two burgomasters, named Jenkens and Otto, who appeared at the head of the whole magistracy, clad in robes of office, show the necessity of waiting for the return of a courier who had been sent to the chancery to ask permission to send the squire to Dresden, whither he himself, for many reasons, wished to be removed; the mob, deaf to reason, and armed with pikes and staves would hear nothing, and they not only ill-used some members of the council, who were urging too severe measures, but they were on the point of tearing down the squire’s house, when the governor, Otto von Gorgas, appeared in the city at the head of his troop of horse. This venerable nobleman, whose presence alone had usually awed the people to respect and obedience, had succeeded in capturing three stragglers from the incendiary’s band at the very gates of the city, as if by way of compensation for the failure of his enterprise; and as, while these fellows were loaded with chains in sight of the people, he assured the magistrates, in a seasonable address, that he thought he was in a fair way to capture Kohlhaas himself, and in a short time to bring him in, also enchained, he succeeded in disarming the rage of the assembled multitude, and in appeasing them, in some measure, as to the squire’s remaining among them, till the return of the courier from Dresden. He alighted from horseback, and with some of his knights, the palisades being removed, he entered the house, where he found the squire, who was continually fainting, in the hands of two physicians, who, by the aid of essences and stimulants, were endeavouring to restore him to consciousness. Herr Otto von Gorgas, feeling that this was not the moment to bandy words with the squire about his bad conduct, merely told him, with a look of silent contempt, to dress himself, and for his own security, to follow him to apartments in the prison. When they had put him on a doublet, and set a helmet on his head, and he appeared in the street with his breast half open for want of air, leaning on the arm of the governor and his brother-in-law, Count von Gerschau, the most frightful imprecations ascended to the skies. The mob, kept back with difficulty by the soldiers, called him a blood-sucker, a miserable pest to the country, the curse of the city of Wittenberg, and the destruction of Saxony. After a melancholy procession through the ruins, during which the squire often let the helmet drop from his head without missing it, and a knight as often set it on again from behind him, he reached the prison, and vanished into a town under the protection of a strong guard. In the meanwhile, the city was thrown into new alarm by the return of the courier with the electoral decree. For the government, having listened to the applications of the citizens of Dresden, would not hear of the squire taking up his abode in this the chief city, till the incendiary was conquered; but charged the governor to protect him, wherever he might be, and remember he must be content with such forces as he had. He, however, informed the good city of Wittenberg, to allay uneasiness, that a troop of five hundred strong, under the command of Prince Frederic, of Misnia, was advancing to protect it from further molestations by Kohlhaas. The governor plainly saw that a decree of this kind would by no means satisfy the people, since not only had the many little advantages which the horse-dealer had gained at different points before the city, caused most alarming reports to be spread as to his increase of strength, but the war which he carried on in the darkness of night, with pitch, straw, and brimstone, aided by a rabble in disguise, might, unexampled as it was, completely frustrate a greater protective force than that which was coming with the Prince of Misnia. Therefore, after a short reflection, the governor resolved to suppress the decree. He merely posted up against the corners of the city, a letter, in which the Prince of Misnia announced his arrival. A covered cart, which left the prison-yard at break of day, accompanied by four guards on horse-back, heavily armed, passed along the street to Leipzig, the guards causing it to be vaguely reported that it was going to the Pleissenburg. The people being thus appeased as to the ill-fated squire, to whose presence fire and sword were bound, the governor himself set off with a troop of three hundred men, to join Prince Frederic of Misnia. In the meanwhile, Kohlhaas, by the singular position he had taken in the world, had increased his force to a hundred and ten persons; and as he had procured a good store of arms at Jessen, and had armed his band in the most perfect manner, he was no sooner informed of the double storm, than he resolved to meet it with all possible speed, before it should break over him. Therefore, on the following night he attacked the Prince of Misnia, by Mühlberg, in which encounter, to his great grief, he lost Herse, who fell by his side on the first fire. However, enraged at this loss, he so defeated the prince, who was unable to collect his force together, in a three hours contest, that at break of day, on account of several wounds, and likewise of the total disorder of his men, he was forced to retreat to Dresden. Emboldened by this advantage Kohlhaas turned back upon the governor, before he could have received intelligence of the event, fell upon him in an open field near the village of Damerow in broad daylight, and fought with fury till nightfall, suffering terrible loss, but still with equal advantage. The next morning unquestionably, with the remainder of his force, he would have again attacked the governor, who had thrown himself into the church-yard at Damerow, if the latter had not been informed of the prince’s defeat by Mühlberg, and therefore held it advisable once more to return to Wittenberg, and await a better opportunity. Five days after the dispersion of these two forces, Kohlhaas was before Leipzig, and fired the city on three sides. In the mandate which he distributed on this occasion he called himself, “Vicegerent of Michael the Archangel who had come to avenge, with fire and sword, the villany into which the whole world had fallen, on all who had taken the squire’s part in this struggle.” At the same time from the Lützen Castle, of which he had taken possession, and in which he had established himself, he called upon the people to join him, and bring about a better order of things. The mandate was signed, as if by a sort of madness: “Given at the suit of our provisional world-government,--the Castle of Lützen.” Fortunately for the inhabitants of Leipzig, the fire did not catch on account of the continual rain, and moreover the means of extinguishing being used with great promptness, only a few shops about the Pleissenburg burst into flames. Nevertheless the alarm of the city at the presence of the violent incendiary, and his notion that the squire was at Leipzig, was indescribable; and when a body of a hundred and eighty troopers, who had been sent out against him, returned to the city in confusion, the magistracy, who did not wish to endanger the property of the place, had no other course left them but to close the gates, and set the citizens to watch day and night outside the walls. In vain did they post up declarations in the surrounding villages, that the squire was not in the Pleissenburg; the horse-dealer in similar papers affirmed the contrary, and declared that even if the squire was not in the Pleissenburg, he would nevertheless proceed just in the same manner, until they informed him where he actually was. The elector, instructed by a courier of the peril in which the city of Leipzig stood, stated that he was collecting a force of two thousand men, and that he would put himself at the head of it, to capture Kohlhaas. He severely reproved Otto von Gorgas for the indiscreet stratagem he had employed to remove the incendiary from the neighbourhood of Wittenberg, and no one can describe the alarm which arose in Saxony in general, and in the capital in particular, when the inhabitants learned that an unknown hand had posted up in the villages near Leipzig, a declaration that Squire Wenzel was with his armies at Dresden.

Under these circumstances, Dr. Martin Luther, supported by the authority which he owed to his position in the world, took upon himself by the force of words to call back Kohlhaas into the path of order, and trusting to a suitable element in the heart of the incendiary, caused a placard, worded as follows, to be set up in all the towns and villages of the electorate:

“Kohlhaas--thou who pretendest that thou art deputed to wield the sword of justice, what art thou doing, presumptuous one, in the madness of thy blind passion, thou who art filled with injustice from the crown of thy head to the sole of thy foot? Because thy sovereign, whose subject thou art, hath refused thee justice, dost thou arise in godless man, the cause of worldly good, with fire and sword, and break in like the wolf of the desert upon the peaceful community that he protecteth. Thou, who misleadest mankind by a declaration full of untruth and craftiness, dost thou believe, sinner that thou art, the same pretext will avail thee before God on that day when the recesses of every heart shall be revealed? How canst thou say that justice hath been denied--thou, whose savage heart, excited by an evil spirit of self-revenge, entirely gave up the trouble of seeking it after the failure of thy first trivial endeavours? Is a bench of beadles and tipstaffs, who intercept letters, or keep to themselves the knowledge they should communicate, the power that ruleth? Must I tell thee, impious man, that thy ruler knoweth nothing of thy affair? What do I say? Why that the sovereign against whom thou rebellest doth not even know thy name, and that when thou appearest before the throne of God, thinking to accuse him, he with a serene countenance will say: ‘Lord to this man did I no wrong, for his existence is strange unto my soul.’ Know that the sword that thou bearest is the sword of robbery and murder; thou art a rebel and no warrior of the just God. Thine end upon earth is the wheel and the gallows, and thine end hereafter is that condemnation which threateneth the worker of evil and impiety.

“Wittenberg.
“MARTIN LUTHER.”

In the Castle of Lützen Kohlhaas was meditating, in his diseased mind, a new plan for reducing Leipzig to ashes, paying no attention to the notice set up in the villages, that Squire Wenzel was in Dresden, because it had no signature, though he had required one of the magistrates; when Sternbald and Waldmann perceived with the greatest astonishment the placard that had been set up by night against the gateway of the castle. In vain did they hope for many days that Kohlhaas, whom they did not wish to approach for the purpose, would see it. Gloomy and brooding in his own thoughts, he merely appeared in the evening to give a few short commands, and saw nothing, and hence one morning, when he was about to hang up two of his men, who had been plundering in the neighbourhood against his will, they resolved to attract his attention. He was returning from the place of judgment, with the pomp to which he had accustomed himself since his last mandate, while the people timidly made way on both sides. A large cherub-sword on a red leather cushion, adorned with gold tassels was carried before him, and twelve servants followed him with burning torches. The two men, with their swords under their arms, walked round the pillar to which the placard was attached, so as to awaken his surprise. Kohlhaas, as with his hands locked behind him, and sunk deep in thought, he came under the portal, raised his eyes and started; and as the men timidly retired from his glance, witnessing the confusion, he approached the pillar with hurried steps. But who shall describe the state of his mind, when he saw upon it the paper which accused him of injustice, signed with the dearest and most revered name that he knew--the name of Martin Luther? A deep red overspread his face; taking off his helmet he read it twice from beginning to end; then with uncertain looks stepped back among his men as if about to say something, and yet said nothing; then took the paper from the wall, read it once more, and cried as he disappeared: “Waldmann get my horses saddled, Sternbald follow me into the castle!” More than these few words was not wanted to disarm him at once among all his purposes of distinction.

He put on the disguise of a Thuringian farmer, told Sternbald that business of importance called him to Wittenberg, entrusted him, in the presence of some of his principal men, with the command of the band left at Lützen, and promising to return in three days, within which time no attack was to be feared, set off to Wittenberg at once.

He put up at an inn under a feigned name, and at the approach of night, wrapped in his mantle, and provided with a brace of pistols which he had seized at the Tronkenburg, walked into Luther’s apartment. Luther was sitting at his desk, occupied with his books and papers, and as soon as he saw the remarkable looking stranger open the door, and then bolt it behind him, he asked who he was and what he wanted. The man, reverentially holding his hat in his hand, had no sooner answered, with some misgiving as to the alarm he might occasion, that he was Michael Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer, than Luther cried out, “Away with thee,” and added, as he rose from his desk to ring the bell: “Thy breath is pestiferous, and thy approach is destruction!”

Kohlhaas, without stirring from the spot said: “Reverend sir, this pistol, if you touch the bell, lays me a corpse at your feet. Sit down and hear me. Among the angels, whose psalms you write, you are not safer than with me.”

“But what dost thou want?” asked Luther, sitting down.

“To refute your opinion that I am an unjust man,” replied Kohlhaas. “You have said in your placard that my sovereign knows nothing of my affairs. Well, give me a safe-conduct, and I will go to Dresden, and lay it before him.”

“Godless and terrible man!” exclaimed Luther, both perplexed and alarmed by these words, “Who gave thee a right to attack Squire von Tronka, with no other authority than thine own decree, and then, when thou didst not find him in his castle, to visit with fire and sword every community that protected him?”

“Now, reverend sir,” answered Kohlhaas, “the intelligence I received from Dresden misled me! The war which I carry on with the community of mankind is unjust, if I have not been expelled from it, as you assure me!”

“Expelled from it?” cried Luther, staring at him, “What madness is this? Who expelled thee from the community of the state in which thou art living? When, since the existence of states, was there an instance of such an expulsion of any one, whoever he might be?”

“I call him expelled,” answered Kohlhaas, clenching his fist, “to whom the protection of the laws is denied! This protection I require to carry on my peaceful trade; it is only for the sake of this protection that, with my property, I take refuge with this community, and he who denies it me drives me back to the beasts of the desert, and puts in my own hand, as you cannot deny, the club which is to defend me.”

“But who has denied thee the protection of the laws?” cried Luther, “Did not I myself write that the complaint which was sent by thee to the elector, is still unknown to him? If his servants suppress suits behind his back, or abuse his sacred name, without his knowledge, who but God shall call him to account for the choice of such servants, and as for thee, abominable man, who has entitled thee to judge of him?”

“Well,” answered Kohlhaas, “then if the elector does not expel me, I will return back again to the community which is under his protection. Give me, as I said before, a safe conduct to Dresden, and I will disperse the band I have assembled at the Castle of Lützen, and will once more bring the suit, with which I failed, before the tribunal of the country.”

Luther, with a dissatisfied countenance, turned over the papers which lay upon his table and was silent. The bold position which this man took in the state offended him, and thinking over the decree which had been sent to the squire from Kohlhaasenbrück, he asked “what he wanted from the tribunal at Dresden?”

“The punishment of the squire, according to law,” answered Kohlhaas, “the restoration of my horses to their former condition, and compensation for the injury which has been suffered both by me and my man Herse, who fell at Mühlberg, through the violence inflicted upon us.”

“Compensation for injury!” cried Luther, “Why thou hast raised sums by thousands from Jews and Christians, in bonds and pledges, for the satisfaction of thy wild revenge. Wilt thou fix an amount if there should be a question about it?”

“God forbid,” said Kohlhaas, “I do not ask back again my house and farm, or the wealth that I possessed--no more than the expenses of burying my wife! Herse’s old mother will bring in an account of medical expenses, and a specification of what her son lost at Tronkenburg, while for the damage which I sustained by not selling my horses, the government can settle that by a competent arbitrator.”

“Terrible and incomprehensible man,” said Luther, gazing at him. “When thy sword hath inflicted on the squire the most frightful vengeance that can be conceived, what can induce thee to press for a sentence against him, the sharpness of which, if it should take effect, would inflict a wound of such slight importance?”

Kohlhaas answered, while a tear rolled down his cheek: “Revered sir, the affair has cost me my wife. Kohlhaas would show the world that she fell in the performance of no injustice. Concede to my will on these points, and let the tribunal speak. In every other matter that may come under discussion, I yield.”

“Look,” said Luther, “what thou askest, supposing circumstances to be such as the general voice reports, is just; and if thou hadst endeavoured, without revenging thyself on thine own account, to lay thine affair before the elector for his decision, I have no doubt that thy request would have been granted, in every point. But all things considered, wouldst thou not have done better, if, for thy Redeemer’s sake, thou hadst forgiven the squire, taken the horses, lean and worn-out as they were, mounted them, and ridden home upon them to fatten them in their own stable at Kohlhaasenbrück.”

“I might or I might not,” answered Kohlhaas, going to the window, “Had I known that I should have to set them up with my own wife’s heart’s blood, then, reverend sir, I might have done as you say, and not have grudged a bushel of oats. But now they have cost me so dear, the matter, as I think, had better take its course. So let the sentence be passed as is my right, and let the squire feed my horses.”

Luther, in the midst of contending thoughts, again returned to his papers, and said that he would himself communicate with the elector on the affair. In the meanwhile he told Kohlhaas to keep himself quiet at the Castle of Lützen, adding, that if the elector consented to a safe-conduct it should be made known to him by means of placards. “Whether,” he added, as Kohlhaas stooped to kiss his hand, “the elector will show mercy instead of justice, I know not, for I understand he has collected an army, and is on the point of seizing thee at the Castle of Lützen. Nevertheless, as I told thee before, there shall be no want of trouble on my part.” Upon this he arose and seemed about to dismiss him. Kohlhaas thought that this intercession was perfectly satisfactory, and Luther was signifying a farewell with his hand, when the former suddenly dropped on his knee before him, and said he had one request deep at heart. At Whitsuntide--a period when he was usually accustomed to take the sacrament--he had not gone to church, on account of his martial expedition, and he begged that Luther would have the kindness to receive his confession without further preparation, and to administer to him the supper of the Lord.

Luther, eyeing him keenly, said after a short reflection: “Yes, Kohlhaas, I will do it. But recollect that the Lord, whose body thou desirest, forgave his enemy. Wilt thou,” he added, as Kohlhaas looked confused, “likewise forgive the squire who offended thee, go to the Tronkenburg, set thyself upon thy horses, and ride home to fatten them at Kohlhaasenbrück?”

“Reverend sir,” said Kohlhaas, cooling as he grasped his hand, “Even the Lord did not forgive all his enemies. Let me forgive their highnesses, the two electors, the castellan and the bailiff, the rest of the Von Tronkas, and whoever besides may have injured me in this matter, but let me compel the squire to feed my horses.”

Luther, on hearing these words, turned his back upon him with a displeased countenance, and rung the bell. Kohlhaas, as a servant with a light announced himself in the antechamber, rose astounded, and drying his eyes, from the ground, and Luther having again set himself down to his papers, he opened the door to the man who was in vain struggling against, on account of the bolt being drawn. “Show a light,” said Luther to the servant, casting a rapid side-glance at the stranger, whereupon the man rather astonished at the visit took down the house key from the wall, and retired to the door, which stood half open, waiting for Kohlhaas to withdraw. “Then,” said Kohlhaas, deeply moved, as he took his hat in both hands, “I cannot receive the benefit of a reconciliation as I entreated.”

“With thy Redeemer, no!” answered Luther shortly, “With thy sovereign--that, as I told thee, depends upon the success of an endeavour.” He then motioned the servant to do as he had been ordered, without further delay. Kohlhaas, with an expression of deep pain, laid both his hands on his heart, followed the man, who lit him down stairs, and disappeared.

On the following morning Luther sent a communication to the Elector of Saxony, in which after giving a severe side-blow to Herrn Henry, and Conrad von Tronka, the cup-bearer and chamberlain, who had, as was notorious, suppressed the complaint, he told him, with that freedom which was peculiar to him, that under such vexatious circumstances nothing was left but to accept the horse-dealer’s proposal, and to grant an amnesty on account of the past, that he might renew his suit. Public opinion, he remarked, was completely on the side of this man, and that to a dangerous degree; nay, to such an extent, that even the city of Wittenberg, which he had burned three times, raised a voice in his favour. If his offer were refused it would unquestionably be brought, accompanied by very obnoxious remarks, to the notice of the people, who might easily be so far led away that the state authority could do nothing whatever with the transgressor. He concluded with the observation, that in this case the difficulty of treating with a citizen who had taken up arms must be passed over; that by the conduct towards him the man had been in a certain manner released from his obligation to the state; and that in short, to settle the matter, it would be better to consider him as a foreign person who had invaded the country--which would be in some measure correct, as he was indeed a foreigner[5]--than as a rebel who had taken up arms against the throne.

The elector received this letter just when Prince Christian of Misnia, generalissimo of the empire, and uncle of the Prince Frederic who was defeated at Mühlberg, and still very ill of his wounds, the high chancellor of the tribunal, Count Wrede, Count Kallheim, president of the state-chancery, and the two von Tronkas, the cup-bearer, and the chamberlain, who had both been friends of the elector from his youth, were present in the castle. The chamberlain, who, as a privy counsellor of the elector, conducted private correspondence, with the privilege of using his name and coat of arms, first opened the subject, and after explaining at great length, that on his own authority he would never have set aside the petition which the horse-dealer had presented to the tribunal against his cousin the squire, if he had not been induced by false representations to consider it a mere vexatious and useless affair,--he came to the present state of things. He observed that neither according to divine nor human laws had the horse-dealer any right to take such a monstrous revenge, as he had allowed himself on account of this oversight. He dwelled on the lustre which would fall on the impious head of Kohlhaas, if he were treated as a party lawfully at war, and the dishonour which would result to the sacred person of the elector by such a proceeding appeared to him so great, that he said, with all the fire of eloquence, that he would rather see the decree of the round-headed rebel acted on, and the squire, his cousin, carried off to feed the horses at Kohlhaasenbrück, than he would see the proposition of Dr. Martin Luther accepted. The high chancellor of the tribunal, half turning to the chamberlain, expressed his regret that such a tender anxiety, as he now showed to clear up this affair to the honour of his sovereign, had not inspired him in the first instance. He pointed out to the elector his objection against the employment of force to carry out a measure which was manifestly unjust; he alluded to the constant increase of the horse-dealer’s followers as a most important circumstance, observing that the thread of misdeeds seemed to be spinning itself out to an infinite length, and declared that only an act of absolute justice, which should immediately and without reserve make good the false step that had been taken, could rescue the elector and the government from this hateful affair.

Prince Christian of Misnia, in answer to the elector’s question, “what he thought of it,” answered, turning respectfully to the high chancellor, that the sentiments which he had just heard filled him with great respect, but that the chancellor did not consider that while he was for helping Kohlhaas to his rights, he was compromising Wittenberg, Leipzig, and the whole of the country, which he had laid waste, in their just claims to restitution or at least to the punishment of the offender. The order of the state had been so completely distorted in the case of this man, that a maxim, taken from the science of law, could scarcely set it right again. Hence he agreed with the opinion of the chamberlain that the measures appointed for such cases should be adopted, that an armed force of sufficient magnitude should be raised, and that the horse-dealer, who had settled himself in the Castle of Lützen, should be arrested, or, at any rate, that his power should be crushed.

The chamberlain, politely taking from the wall two chairs for the elector and the prince, said he rejoiced that a man of such known integrity and acuteness agreed with him in the means to be employed in arranging this difficult affair. The prince, holding the chair without sitting down, and looking hard at him, observed, that he had no reason to rejoice, since a measure necessarily connected with the one he had recommended, would be to order his arrest, and proceed against him for the misuse of the elector’s name. For if necessity required that the veil should be let down before the throne of justice, over a series of iniquities, which kept on indefinitely increasing, and therefore could no more find space to appear at the bar, that was not the case with the first misdeed that was the origin of all. A capital prosecution of the chamberlain would alone authorise the state to crush the horse-dealer, whose cause was notoriously just, and into whose hand had been thrust the sword which he carried.

The elector, whom von Tronka eyed with some confusion as he heard these words, turned round deeply colouring, and approached the window. Count Kallheim, after an awkward pause on all sides, said that in this way they could not get out of the magic circle which encompassed them. With equal right might proceedings be commenced against the prince’s nephew, Prince Frederic, since even he, in the singular expedition which he undertook against Kohlhaas had, in many instances, exceeded his instructions; and, therefore, were the inquiry once set on foot about the numerous persons who had occasioned the present difficulty, he must be included in the list, and called to account by the elector for what had taken place at Mühlberg.

The cup-bearer, von Tronka, while the elector with doubtful glances approached his table, then took up the subject, and said, that he could not conceive how the right method of proceeding had escaped men of such wisdom, as those assembled unquestionably were. The horse-dealer, as far as he understood, had promised to dismiss his force if he obtained a free conduct to Dresden, and a renewed investigation of his cause. From this, however, it did not follow, that he was to have an amnesty for his monstrous acts of vengeance; two distinct points which Dr. Luther and the council seemed to have confused. “If,” he continued, laying his finger to the side of his nose, “the judgment on account of the horses--no matter which way it goes--is pronounced by the Dresden tribunal, there is nothing to prevent us from arresting Kohlhaas on the ground of his robberies and incendiarism. This would be a prudent stroke of policy, which would unite the views of the statesmen on both sides, and secure the applause of the world and of posterity.”

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.

The man rudely said that he understood not a word that was said, and that whether Peter or Paul or the Wilsdruf shepherd had the horses before the swineherd of Hainichen--it was just the same to him--provided they were not stolen. Upon this he went, with his whip across his broad back, to a neighbouring pot-house to get his breakfast.

The chamberlain, who did not know what in the world he should do with the horses, which the swineherd of Hainichen had, as it seemed, sold to the knacker of Döbbeln, unless indeed they were the horses on which the devil rode through Saxony, asked the squire to put in a word, and when his kinsman, with pale trembling lips, answered that the most advisable plan would be to buy them, whether they belonged to Kohlhaas or not, he wrapped his mantle round him, and not knowing what to do, retired from the crowd, cursing the father and mother who had given him birth. He then called to him Baron von Wenk, one of his acquaintance, who was riding along the street, and resolving not to leave the spot, because the rabble looked at him scoffingly, and with their handkerchiefs before their mouths only seemed to wait for his departure to burst out, he bade him call on Count von Wrede and by his means make Kohlhaas come to inspect the horses.

Now it happened that Kohlhaas, who had been summoned by an officer of the court to give certain explanations as to the surrender of property at Lützen, was present in the chancellor’s room when the baron entered, and while the chancellor with a fretful countenance rose from his chair and motioned the horse-dealer aside, the baron, to whom the person of Kohlhaas was unknown, represented the difficulty in which the von Tronkas were placed. The knacker had come from Döbbeln in accordance with a defective requisition of the Wilsdruf courts, with horses certainly; but their condition was so hopeless that Squire Wenzel could not help feeling a doubt as to their belonging to Kohlhaas. Hence, if they were to be taken from the knacker, in order that their recovery might be attempted, an ocular inspection by Kohlhaas would be necessary in the first instance to clear up the doubt that existed. “Have then the goodness,” he concluded, “to fetch the horse-dealer out of his house with a guard, and let him be taken to the market-place where the horses now are.”