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We heard of the mad Swedish-Russian War; and how Czarina Elizabeth was kind enough to choose a Successor to the old childless Swedish King, Landgraf of Hessen-Cassel by nature; who has had a sorry time in Sweden, but kept merry and did not mind it much, poor old soul.
The excellent von Tolb took her departure, bearing off with her the Landgraf, who had already settled the date and duration of Ronnie's Christmas visit. "It will be dull, you know," he warned the prospective guest; "our Landtag will not be sitting, and what is a bear-garden without the bears? However, we haf some wildt schwein in our woods, we can show you some sport in that way."
With the Hessians there was some difficulty; hesitation on Landgraf Wilhelm's part; who pities the poor Kaiser, and would fain see him back at Frankfurt, and awaken the Britannic magnanimities for him. "To Frankfurt, say you? We cannot fight against the Kaiser!" and they had to be left behind, for some time; but at length did come on, though late for business, as it chanced.
The sister of the Emperor whose name was Jutta, was married to the Landgraf Ludwig of Thüringen, and they lived at the Wartburg. One day when Barbarossa came to visit them, he observed that the castle had no outer walls round it, as was usual in those days. "What a pity," he said, "that such a fine castle should be unprotected by walls and ramparts, it ought to be more strongly fortified."
It was a strongly fortified burg, and within ten years of its completion the mighty ramparts witnessed several bloody encounters. Twenty-six Rhenish cities once combined to carry the invulnerable fortress, but though some 4000 lives were sacrificed the army retreated baffled. For centuries after this, the banner of the Hessian Landgraf waved from its battlements, none daring to attack it.
His was a Bismarckian nature, reminiscent of the Iron Chancellor alike physically and mentally. In appearance he recalls irresistibly the heroic figure of Bismarck, jack-booted and cuirassed at the Congress of Vienna, painted by von Werner. Heir to an old land-owning family, ennobled and entitled to bear the title Landgraf, Count von Zeppelin was a type of the German aristocrat.
A new opera, never yet performed, by a Belgian composer, M. Lassen, "Landgraf Ludwig's Brautfahrt," will be put in rehearsal soon. As far as I am concerned, while He do! is hammering in my head I can enjoy nothing else, either old or new, and dream only of the "Ring of the Nibelung," which God's grace may soon vouchsafe to me. Your F. L. WEYMAR, February 16th, 1857.
"The disgust of Landgraf Wilhelm was infinite; who, honest man, saw in all this merely an artifice of Carteret's, To undo the Kaiser with his French Allies, to quirk him out of his poor help from the French, and have him at their mercy.
See, in particular, Libellus de Dictis Quatuor Ancillarum, &c. Conrad, left guardian to his deceased Brother's children, had at first much quarrel with Saint Elizabeth, though he afterwards took far other thoughts. Meanwhile he had his own apanage, "Landgraf" by rank he too; and had troubles enough with that of itself.
Another soon follows; from a quarrel he had with Fritzlar, Imperial Free-Town in those parts, perhaps a little stiff upon its privileges, and high towards a Landgraf. Whereupon the idle women of Fritzlar, who are upon the ramparts gazing in fear and hope, burst into shrill universal jubilation of voice, and even into gestures, and liberties with their dress, which are not describable in History!
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