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Updated: May 25, 2025
He therefore sent off one of his men to him with a letter, written in almost unreadable German, to the effect that if he would come to Altenburg and resume command of the band which had gathered there from the remnants of his former troops who had been dispersed, he, Nagelschmidt, was ready to assist him to escape from his imprisonment in Dresden by furnishing him with horses, men, and money.
To defray the expenses connected with all these preparations, he was sending Nagelschmidt by his follower a roll of twenty gold crowns concerning the expenditure of which he would settle with him after the affair was concluded.
Kohlhaas placed the children beside him, and the Prince, after looking benevolently at them and asking, with friendly interest, their names and ages, went on to inform Kohlhaas what liberties Nagelschmidt, his former follower, was taking in the valleys of the Ore Mountains, and handing him the latter's so-called mandates he told him to produce whatever he had to offer for his vindication.
For his heart, bowed down by grief, had renounced the hope of ever seeing the black horses fattened, even apart from the reluctance that he felt in making common cause with Nagelschmidt to that end.
As they could not refer to Kohlhaas' fatal letter to Nagelschmidt because of the questionable and obscure circumstances under which it had been written, nor mention the former plundering and burning because of the edict in which the same had been pardoned, the Elector determined to lay before the Emperor's Majesty at Vienna a report concerning the armed invasion of Saxony by Kohlhaas, to make complaint concerning the violation of the public peace established by the Emperor, and to solicit His Majesty, since he was of course not bound by any amnesty, to call Kohlhaas to account therefor before the Court Tribunal at Berlin through an attorney of the Empire.
Besides the fact that, so far as he could observe, he did not, as the matter now stood, need any help as yet from a third person in bringing about the decision of his lawsuit, which was proceeding most favorably, some papers which he had with him and showed to the Prince made it appear highly improbable that Nagelschmidt should be inclined to render him help of that sort, for, shortly before the dispersion of the band in Lützen, he had been on the point of having the fellow hanged for a rape committed in the open country, and other rascalities.
Kohlhaas, with the Prince's approval of the idea, sat down and wrote a letter to Nagelschmidt in which he declared that the latter's pretense of having taken the field in order to maintain the amnesty which had been violated with regard to him and his band, was a disgraceful and vicious fabrication.
He told Sternbald, who happened to enter the door, to buy some crabs from the man in the room, and when this business was concluded and both men had gone away without recognizing each other, Kohlhaas sat down and wrote a letter to Nagelschmidt to the following effect: "First, that he accepted his proposition concerning the leadership of his band in Altenburg, and that accordingly, in order to free him from the present arrest in which he was held with his five children, Nagelschmidt should send him a wagon with two horses to Neustadt near Dresden.
He was more inclined to believe that Nagelschmidt's letter made it rather probable that no previous connection had existed between them, and all he would do to clear up the matter was to assent, though only after long hesitation, to the President's proposition to have the letter delivered to Kohlhaas by the man whom Nagelschmidt had sent, just as though he had not been arrested, and see whether Kohlhaas would answer it.
He told him that, on his arrival in Dresden, he had neither been imprisoned nor handed over to a guard, also that his lawsuit was progressing exactly as he wished, and, as a warning for the rabble who had gathered around Nagelschmidt, he gave him over to the full vengeance of the law for the outrages which he had committed in the Ore Mountains after the publication of the amnesty.
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