That very same day the Elector sent him a written demand for all the official documents concerning Kohlhaas, under the pretext that, on account of the political importance of the affair, he wished to go over it himself.  As he could not bear to think of destroying the man from whom alone he could receive information concerning the secrets contained in the paper, he composed an autograph letter to the Emperor; in this he affectionately and urgently requested that, for weighty reasons, which possibly he would explain to him in greater detail after a little while, he be allowed to withdraw for a time, until a further decision had been reached, the complaint which Eibenmaier had entered against Kohlhaas.

The Emperor, in a note drawn up by the State Chancery, replied that the change which seemed suddenly to have taken place in the Elector’s mind astonished him exceedingly; that the report which had been furnished him on the part of Saxony had made the Kohlhaas affair a matter which concerned the entire Holy Roman Empire; that, in consequence, he, the Emperor, as head of the same, had felt it his duty to appear before the house of Brandenburg in this, as plaintiff in this affair, and that, therefore; since the Emperor’s counsel, Franz Mueller, had gone to Berlin in the capacity of attorney in order to call Kohlhaas to account for the violation of the public peace, the complaint could in no wise be withdrawn now and the affair must take its course in conformity with the law.

This letter completely crushed the Elector and, to his utter dismay, private communications from Berlin reached him a short time after, announcing the institution of the lawsuit before the Supreme Court at Berlin and containing the remark that Kohlhaas, in spite of all the efforts of the lawyer assigned him, would in all probability end on the scaffold.  The unhappy sovereign determined, therefore, to make one more effort, and in an autograph letter begged the Elector of Brandenburg to spare Kohlhaas’ life.  He alleged as pretext that the amnesty solemnly promised to this man did not lawfully permit the execution of a death sentence upon him; he assured the Elector that, in spite of the apparent severity with which Kohlhaas had been treated in Saxony, it had never been his intention to allow the latter to die, and described how wretched he should be if the protection which they had pretended to be willing to afford the man from Berlin should, by an unexpected turn of affairs, prove in the end to be more detrimental to him than if he had remained in Dresden and his affair had been decided according to the laws of Saxony.