by your address and eloquence, softened the Emperor’s resentment against me, induced him to pardon me, and afterward brought about the peace of Prague, which reconciled the Emperor to me.  Yet it was not enough to have gone through those times of anxiety and distress, they must be now renewed through my only son!  In him am I to find a second Gustavus Adolphus, to plunge me into new perils and bring down upon me the Emperor’s avenging wrath?  But it shall not be—­I solemnly swear, it shall not be!  I will not involve my land in new dangers and calamities of war.  I will not depart from my neutrality.  I will have peace—­peace with the Emperor, peace for my poor people, and for their unhappy Prince!  But I shall not act as my father did, and prepare a pleasure for my son by resigning sovereignty and rule in my lifetime and becoming the servant and subject of my own son!  Before me shall he bow—­me shall he acknowledge to be his lord so long as I live, and never while I breathe shall I cease to lay to his charge these hours of pain and vexation.  I am Elector and ruler, and he is nothing further than my son and subject, my successor when I die, but not my coregent while I live!  Count Adam Schwarzenberg, I charge you to stand courageously at my side, to remain zealous in my service, and to direct your attention especially to unraveling all the arts and wiles, the plots and schemes of my son and his abettors; to give me always information on these points, to keep nothing in the background, and not to conceal anything from me merely to save me from vexation.  Will you promise and swear so to manage and act, my Adam?”

“I swear and promise it, and in affirmation will my Prince allow me to give him my hand upon it?” asked Schwarzenberg, laying his own right hand in the outstretched one of the Elector.  “You will find in me a true servant and guardian of your sacred person and your throne, and he who would supplant or harm you must first step over the corpse of Count Schwarzenberg!  But now, most gracious sir, I beseech you not to be overpowered by your feelings of indignation, and to be amiable and condescending toward the home-coming Electoral Prince; for it is sometimes very necessary to wear a mask and assume an appearance of harmlessness and unconcern in order the better to fathom the designs of one’s enemies, and to make them feel secure, that they may the more easily betray themselves.”

“Yes, I will do so,” said George William, sighing.  “I will swallow down my rage, although it would be a relief to me to vent it a little, and to show my son that I know him and am not deceived by him.  But what noise is that without, and who is knocking so violently at the door?”

This door was now impetuously torn open, and the Electress Sophy Elizabeth entered, with beaming eyes and features lighted up by joy, while on high she held an open letter in her hand.

“George!” she exclaimed—­“George, our son is coming!  Our dear Frederick William is coming!”