He hastily snatched up the letters and examined one after another.  No, there was no letter from his son, only official documents from the Elector’s cabinet.

He opened the first of these, and a shudder ran through his whole frame as he read.  In this paper the Elector commanded the Stadtholder in the Mark to send back to him the blank charters, intrusted to him by the Elector George William on his departure for Koenigsberg; he must, moreover, render a distinct and exact account of the manner in which he had disposed of the charters no longer in existence. He, Schwarzenberg, the mighty Stadtholder in the Mark, the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, the Director of the War Department—­he, to be called to account as a servant by his master!  He was expected to answer for what he had done in the plenitude of his power, and—­worse than that—­he must suffer that power to be limited!  He would do nothing of the sort; he would not give up the blank charters not yet appropriated and send them back to the Elector!

That was to curtail the privileges of his high position, to dethrone him, and, after having been an absolute master, to make him a dependent servant!  These blank charters had been the princely prerogative of the Stadtholder, the scepter with which he ruled!  These papers, on which nothing was written, but at the lower corner of which stood the Elector’s sign manual—­these papers had made him absolute monarch of the Mark.  In free plenitude of power, with unfettered will, had he filled up the vacant sheets, bestowing by their means honors and benefits, inflicting punishments, imposing taxes, and the Elector’s signature had legalized his decrees, and imparted the force of law to his will.[43]

And these blank charters, before which his enemies trembled, which had struck his partisans and friends as a precious attribute of his power—­these blank charters he was now called upon to resign!

“I shall not do it,” he exclaimed, in a loud, determined voice—­“no, I shall not do it!  I shall not be such a fool as to lessen my own power.  No; the blank charters are mine, I shall know how to hold them fast!”

He threw the rescript aside and seized another letter.  Again from the Elector’s cabinet—­again a command from him to the Stadtholder in the Mark!

He broke open the seal, unfolded the paper with trembling hands, and again shuddered as he read; and a momentary pallor overspread his cheeks.  This writing contained the Elector’s orders to suspend hostilities, and to refrain from any attack upon the Swedes and the places occupied by them, and most rigidly to confine himself to the defensive until an abiding peace could be concluded with Sweden.[44]

“You assail me, little Elector!” he said, with smothered, threatening voice.  “You bring out your reserves against me, and would cause the proud edifice of my power to crumble away stone by stone!  You fear lest if the great Colossus falls at once it might crush you, and therefore you would destroy it piecemeal, a little at a time!  You shall not succeed, though, little Elector; the Colossus will rear its head on high, and you alone will fall!”