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It was a bright sunny autumn morning, and, travelling swiftly as we were, it was delightfully exhilarating. Passing through old-world Meissen, with its picturesque gabled houses, we continued on another fifteen miles to a small place called Riesa, and when about three miles farther on I summoned courage to carry out a scheme over which, during the run, I had been deeply pondering.
The dressing-table displayed a variety of dainty articles such as a lady might be supposed to use, pearl-handled brushes, enamelled powder-boxes, slender vases of Meissen porcelain, a fanciful ring-stand; from the half-open drawer a rich glimpse of an Indian fan; a pair of delicate kid gloves, which only a woman's hands could have worn, were thrown carelessly on the table.
Was it here while waiting about Meissen, or where was it, that Daun got his Letter to Fermor answered in that singular way? The Letter of two weeks ago, carried by Loudon's Hussars, or by whomsoever, for certain, it was retorted or returned upon Daun; not as if from the Dead-Letter Office, but with an Answer he little expected!
Finally, Pappenheim, too, was recalled from Lower Saxony, to reinforce the diminished army of the duke, and to complete the miseries of the devoted country. Ruined churches, villages in ashes, harvests wilfully destroyed, families plundered, and murdered peasants, marked the progress of these barbarians, under whose scourge the whole of Thuringia, Vogtland, and Meissen, lay defenceless.
Two years long, she endured this terrible punishment, and died mad, on the 18th of December, 1577. On the following day, she was buried in the electoral tomb at Meissen; a pompous procession of "school children, clergy, magistrates, nobility, and citizens" conducting her to that rest of which she could no longer be deprived by the cruelty of man nor her own violent temperament.
"After me," he cries, "you Avicenna, Galen, Rhasis, Montagnana and the others. You after me, not I after you. You of Paris, you of Montpellier, you of Swabia, of Meissen and Vienna; you who come from the countries along the Danube and the Rhine; and you, too, from the Islands of the Ocean. Follow me. It is not for me to follow you, for mine is the monarchy."
Prince Christiern of Meissen, very much displeased at this turn in affairs, which threatened to fleck his sovereign's honor in the most painful manner, went immediately to the palace to confer with the Elector.
Having sold what of the domains he could to persons of quality, at an uncommonly easy rate, and so pocketed what ready cash there was among them, he made over his pawn-ticket, or properly he himself repawned Brandenburg to the Saxon potentate, a speculative moneyed man, Markgraf of Meissen, "Wilhelm the Rich," so called.
"How should they?" said a bronze statuette of Vischer's "They daub themselves green with verdigris, or sit out in the rain to get rusted; but green and rust are not patina; only the ages can give that!" "And my imitations are all in primary colours, staring colours, hot as the colours of a hostelry's sign-board!" said the Lady of Meissen, with a shiver.
Old Papa has the Saxons in flank; sends more and ever more other cavalry in on them; and in fact, the right wing altogether storms violently through Kesselsdorf, and sweeps it clean. Whole regiments of the Saxons are made prisoners; Roel's Light Horse we see there, taking standards; cutting violently in to avenge Roel's death, and the affront they had at Meissen lately.
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