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Well, the Criminal-Collegium have condemned him to be hanged; an excellent soldier and of good inches, for that one fault. Nobleman Schlubhut was 'to make restitution, they decreed: that was their decree on Schlubhut, one of their own set; and this poor soldier, six feet three, your Majesty, is to dance on the top of nothing for a three-halfpenny matter!"
Once on the spot, judge if the Konigsberg Domain-Kammer had not a stiff muster to pass; especially if Schlubhut's drill-exercise was gentle! Schlubhut, summoned to private interview with his Majesty, carries his head higher than could be looked for: Is very sorry; knows not how it happened; meant always to refund; will refund, to the last penny, and make all good. "Refund?
To all which Roloff, a courageous pious man, answers with discreet words and shakings of the head, "Did I behave ill, then; did I ever do injustice?" Roloff mentions Baron Schlubhut the defalcating Amtmann, hanged at Konigsberg without even a trial. "He had no trial; but was there any doubt he had justice? Roloff shakes his head, Too violent, your Majesty, and savoring of the tyrannous.
I wish his Majesty had been a thought more equal, when he was so rhadamanthine! Schlubhut he hanged, Schlubhut being only Schlubhut's chattel; this musketeer, his Majesty's own chattel, he did not hang, but set him shouldering arms again, after some preliminary dusting!
Is theft in the highest quarters a thing to be let off for refunding?" growls his Majesty; and will not confirm this sentence of his Criminal-Collegium; but leaves it till he get to the spot, and see with his own eyes. Schlubhut, in arrest or mild confinement all this while, ought to be bethinking himself more than he is!
So would Donhof represent the thing, "fact being," says my Dryasdust, "it was a case of house-breaking with theft to the value of 6,000 thalers and this musketeer the ringleader!" Well; but was Schlubhut sentenced to hanging? Do you keep two weights and two measures, in that Criminal-Collegium of yours, then?
Undisputed fact, again totally without precision or details; not even datable, except that, on study, we perceive it may have been before this Schlubhut's execution, and after the Criminal-Collegium had committed their error about him, must have been while this of Schlubhut was still vividly in mind; Here is the unprecise but indubitable fact, as the Prussian Dryasdust has left us his smear of it:
Only the failures are used to point the great historical moral, and if Bonaparte had died in the Tuileries in all honour and glory, he would have ranked with Frederick or Francia as a wholly true man. Mr. Carlyle would then no more have declared the execution of Palm 'a palpable, tyrannous, murderous injustice, than he declares it of the execution of Katte or Schlubhut.
And in the morning, see, a high gallows built; close in upon the Domain-Kammer, looking into the very windows of it; and there, sure enough, the unfortunate Schlubhut dies the thief's death, few hours hence, speaking or thinking what, no man reports to me. Death was certain for him; inevitable as fate.
Schlubhut clearly guilty of the defamation, say they; but he has moneys, landed properties: let him refund, principal and interest; and have, say, three or four years' imprisonment, by way of memento. "Years' imprisonment? Refund?
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