“Yes, he has let the Mark Brandenburg go to destruction!” cried the Elector, with flashing eyes.  “Catholic and Imperialist he would have it.  And I can not reach him, he knows very well that I must spare him, and that he, the powerful, opposes me, the powerless.  To him have the commandants of the fortresses and the soldiers sworn allegiance; the Emperor protects him, and would esteem it an act of rebellion against imperial majesty itself if I were to depose Schwarzenberg from office.  It would be a departure from the course pursued by the Mark for twenty years past, for, since Schwarzenberg has nourished as Stadtholder, the Emperor has been the real lord of the Mark, and not an order nor rescript ever issued from my father’s cabinet to which the Emperor had not given his consent, or of which he had not previous knowledge.  I must therefore for the present still suffer Schwarzenberg to be lord of the Mark, for I have not power to defy the Emperor and call down upon myself his rage.  The Lord High Chancellor and Elector of the Holy Roman Empire must for the present bow humbly to the Emperor, and submit in silence to the evils of his lot.  My duchy of Pomerania the Swedes have appropriated to themselves, and I can not, as I should like, wrest it from them by force of arms, for I have no weapons, no soldiers, no army; I must now try to come to an amicable understanding with them, and, if possible, make peace with them.  In Julich and Cleves I am duke, too, as my title vouches, but to be so really I must first rescue these countries from the Dutch, and then be able to defend them against the cupidity of France.  And my duchies of Silesia, Croatia, and Jaegerndorf?  The Emperor has taken possession of them as if they were his own fiefs, and he will be little likely to restore them to the powerless Elector of Brandenburg.  Neither will the Saxons easily relinquish to the weak Elector Magdeburg and Halberstadt, which counties they hold enthralled.  Alas!  Leuchtmar, you see of all my vast possessions I only retain the empty titles.”

“But one country your highness has omitted in your enumeration, and there, undoubtedly, you are undisputed Sovereign, no enemy having supplanted you in this land.  You are Duke of Prussia, and there, at least, ruler also!”

“Yes, I am Duke of Prussia—­that is to say, if King Wladislaus of Poland will condescend to invest me with this duchy, and allow me to go to Warsaw, humbly to kneel to swear allegiance to him, and acknowledge myself one of his vassals.  Until he has done so, I am not the legalized ruler even here in Prussia, and the King of Poland will already consider it as an infringement upon his supremacy that I have not forthwith dismissed the Prussian chamber of deputies, which held its sitting in my father’s lifetime, but allowed it to prolong its session.  There, too, as at the imperial court, I must give fair words, must show myself humble and obedient, so as not to excite untimely enmity against myself, and rouse the mighty against the weak.  For what refuge would remain to me, or where would I find support, if the Emperor of Germany and the King of Poland should threaten me with their enmity?”