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He wished his foolish friend from Wuerttemberg had kept out of it. They were here on the edge of a strange city, in an unknown inn, at nightfall. It showed that Furstenheimer was a green country man who, as he admitted, had seldom been away from home. He had not even seen his neighboring Rhine in years. The rain was now pelting them and they scurried indoors.
For the impressionable Fritz one can hardly imagine a more momentous change of environment than this which took him from a quiet rural village to the garish Residenz of a licentious and extravagant prince. Karl Eugen, Duke of Wuerttemberg, whom men have often called the curse, but the gods haply regard as the good genius, of Schiller's youth, came to power in 1744 at the age of sixteen.
The duke's reply was to threaten him with arrest in case he should write any more letters upon this subject. Schiller now resolved to take his fate in his own hands. Resistance and submission to the autocrat were alike out of the question; the only recourse was flight from Wuerttemberg. In the days of German absolutism, this was a dangerous step to take. Technically he would be a deserter.
Within a few months it was played successfully at nearly all the more important theaters of Germany. Even Stuttgart fell into line, but the Duke of Wuerttemberg was not pleased, and a memorial of the nobility led to the prohibition of a second performance. At Braunschweig It was tried with a happy ending, but this innovation, reasonable as it seems, took no root.
He now determined to try the effect upon body and soul of the milder climate of his native Suabia. He set out in August and took the precaution to halt in Heilbronn, not knowing what brutality the Duke of Wuerttemberg might still be capable of. On receiving the blessed assurance that his Highness would 'ignore' him, he continued on his way to Ludwigsburg, where a son was born, to him in September.
But Dalberg, a fearsome and politic creature, had no mind to compromise himself by befriending a youth who had quarreled with the powerful duke of Wuerttemberg. Schiller now began to think of running away, and his thoughts were soon quickened into resolution by fresh exasperations.
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