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After this declaration, which was no more than an unmeaning compliment, he began to bombard and cannonade the place with red-hot bullets, which produced conflagrations in many different parts of the city, and frightened the electress into a miscarriage. On the fifteenth, the French discontinued their firing, and retired to Enghein.
Besides, the future Electress would then owe her mother-in-law a lifelong debt of gratitude, and the Dowager Electress might exert great influence and share in the government of her son." "Yes, indeed, they all count upon my death," groaned the Elector; "they all long for the time when I shall be gathered to my fathers.
I took care not to play with them, for the false marquis was an unmitigated cheat and often tricked with less skill than impudence. He asked disreputable people to my house and treated them at my expense; every evening scenes of a disgraceful character took place. The Dowager Electress mortified me extremely by the way she addressed me on my last two visits to her.
"The Electoral Prince, to whom the Electress had recommended me, and who received me into the number of his attendants, suddenly and unexpectedly determined to take his departure from The Hague, and straightway carried his resolution into effect.
Prince William was, however, as little as his father inclined to make concessions; and violent collisions speedily ensued. He wedded Madame Lehmann, the wife of a Prussian officer, under the name of the Countess von Schaumburg, and closed the theatre against his mother, the electress, for refusing to place herself at her side in public.
"Permit me, my husband, to put in a good word for poor Schlieben!" cried the Electress. "He had no power to bring the Electoral Prince away by force, just as the Electoral Prince himself has no power to leave of his own free will. The whole difficulty consists in our son's having no money." "Yes, and right welcome is it to him, this time," said the Elector with a bitter laugh.
The doctor has been here, and ordered that the Prince be kept perfectly quiet to-day, and not allowed to speak with any one or to leave his bed. To-morrow he will be quite well again." "Then I will not speak to him," exclaimed the Electress; "I will only take one look at him and give him one kiss." She entered her son's sleeping room and stepped up to his couch.
"Ask your question quickly," cried the Electress, "that I may hear the request it is to introduce, for I am really curious to know what the rich and powerful Count Schwarzenberg can have to desire of the poor, uninfluential Electress." "First, then, my question, most gracious lady: At what hour does your highness command my fête to begin?"
The Elector laughed aloud, and the anxious brow of the Electress cleared up again. The entertainment quietly proceeded. Why should they be uneasy about the young gentleman, who had no other sufferings than those resulting from unwonted indulgence in strong drink? The Electoral Prince had meanwhile arrived with his chamberlain at the castle. No one came to meet them.
On the morrow he learned, to his amazement, that he was a widower, and entertained no doubt that he had been specially directed towards the princess seen in his slumbers, whom he had never seen in life. His friends were in favor of his marrying the Electress Dowager, rather than her daughter, whose years numbered less than half his own.
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