“That is indeed to put himself in open opposition and rebellion against his most gracious lord and father.  And now your Electoral Highness must persist in requiring the Electoral Prince to set out and come back.”

“He must and shall come back, must he not?  The Electress, indeed, intercedes for him, and would gladly persuade us that we should grant our son one year’s longer sojourn at The Hague, to perfect himself in all sorts of knowledge.”

“Your highness,” said Schwarzenberg softly, edging himself closer to the Elector’s ear—­“your highness, the Electress knows very well that the Electoral Prince has something in view at The Hague totally different from the acquisition of knowledge.”

“Well, and what may that be?”

“A marriage, your highness.  A marriage with the daughter of the widowed Electress of the Palatinate—­with the fair Ludovicka Hollandine.”

“That would indeed he a fine, plausible marriage!” cried the Elector, starting up.  “A Princess of nothing, the daughter of an outlawed Prince, put under the ban by the Emperor!”

“But this Prince was the Electress’s brother.  It would be very pleasant to her grace’s tender heart to exalt her prostrate house once more and bring it into consideration again, and she would therefore gladly see her brother’s daughter some day a reigning Princess.  Besides, the future Electress would then owe her mother-in-law a lifelong debt of gratitude, and the Dowager Electress might exert great influence and share in the government of her son.”

“Yes, indeed, they all count upon my death,” groaned the Elector; “they all long for the time when I shall be gathered to my fathers.  They grudge me life, although, forsooth, it is no light, enjoyable thing to me, but has brought me trouble, deprivation, and want enough.  But still, they grudge it to me, and if they could shorten it, would all do so.”

“But I, my beloved master and Elector—­I stand by you.  I have placed it before myself as my sacred aim in life to guard you as a faithful dog guards his master, and to turn aside from you all that threatens you with danger and vexation.  The Emperor, too, as your supreme protector, keeps his benignant eye fixed upon you, his much-loved vassal, and his wrath would crush all that should endeavor to injure you.  There are, indeed, many here who think that the Elector of Brandenburg ought to make himself free and independent of that very Emperor, beneficent though he be, and, because your highness stands in their way, they attach themselves to the son, and, placing him at their head, wish to constitute him an opponent of the Emperor and empire.  The Electress has probably not yet forgiven and forgotten that the Emperor put her brother under the ban of the empire, and banished him from country and friends.  And the Prince of Orange, and the Sovereign States, the Swedes and all the enemies of his Imperial Highness and your Electoral Grace, would all unite their efforts