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Updated: July 24, 2025
"Very serious and very subtle news I bring with me, count," replied Count Lesle, "and of such a tender, delicate nature that we could not willingly entrust it to paper, even in cipher, but could only transmit it from my lips to your ear, and thence to the locked-up recesses of your breast.
Schwarzenberg assisted him to don his ample and heavy wrappings, and then escorted him to the door. "Permit me at least to conduct you to your carriage, Count Lesle," he said. "Impossible, count; that would excite remark among your people, and give rise to conjectures on all sides.
There is something bewitching in his character, and he would be in a position either to carry the Elector along with him in his career or to induce George William to follow his father's example, and resign the government in favor of his son, the Electoral Prince Frederick William. And do you know, Count Lesle, what would be the first act of Frederick William's reign?
"She has now removed her residence farther, to The Hague itself," said Count Lesle dryly; "without doubt, because winter approaches, and it will be more comfortable for the Electoral Prince not to find it necessary to travel that long way to Doornward to see his dearly beloved one.
"I dare," said an earnest voice, and a tall, slender gentleman, wholly enveloped in a heavy traveling coat, his head covered with a great fur cap, strode through the apartment toward the count. "Count Lesle, lord high chamberlain to the Emperor!" exclaimed the Stadtholder in surprise. "Is it you? Are you direct from Regensburg?"
"But the Emperor would be displeased at it in the highest degree," cried Count Lesle. "It is therefore impossible that this alliance take place. You must do everything to prevent the Elector from granting his consent, and however many are for it, and blow upon one horn, yet the Elector must strike no note in harmony with this Palatinate marriage."
For at Innsprück the Archduke Leopold now holds his court, and the Electoral Prince could not fail to enjoy himself there, for the court at Innsprück is brilliantly gay, and the archduke's youthful daughter, Clara Isabella, is peculiarly fond of pleasure, and is a beautiful and attractive young lady." With a sudden movement of the head Count Schwarzenberg turned toward Lesle.
"His Imperial Majesty knows, I hope, that first and above all other things I place my duty to the Emperor, and that I have no higher aim than to subserve the interests of his Imperial Majesty." "Yes, the Emperor, our most gracious Sovereign, knows that," said Count Lesle feelingly.
And yet so it is, and for twenty years past the Catholic Count Schwarzenberg has been the favorite and I may say the controller of the Elector of Brandenburg. And why should not the Catholic minister and Stadtholder be able to negotiate a Catholic alliance? You underrate your power, count, and are by far too modest." "Say rather I know the ground on which I tread, Count Lesle.
I have briefly made you acquainted with the Emperor's intentions and desires, and your wise and fertile brain will know how to enlarge and construe. Farewell, Sir Stadtholder in the Mark, farewell, and may every blessing attend you!" Count Lesle had risen and drawn his fur cap once more far over his brow.
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