“I think I have given the king a Roland for his Oliver,” he said to himself.  “I have broken the point from the arrow which was aimed at me, and it glanced from my bosom without wounding me.  Public opinion will be on my side from this time, and that which was intended for my shame has crowned me with honor.  It was, nevertheless, a harsh and cruel act, for which I will one day hold a reckoning with Frederick.  Ah, King Frederick!  King Frederick!  I shall not forget, and I will have my revenge; my cards are also well arranged, and I hold important trumps.  I will wait yet a little while upon our lovelorn shepherd, this innocent and tender Trenck, who is in a dangerous way about the little princess.”

Pollnitz waited for Trenck, who had with difficulty forced his way through the crowd and hastened after him.

CHAPTER VII.

The first interview.

The ball at the palace was opened.  The two queens and the princesses had just entered the great saloon, in order to receive the respectful greetings of the ladies of the court; while the king, in an adjoining room, was surrounded by the gentlemen.  A glittering circle of lovely women, adorned with diamonds and other rich gems, stood on each side of the room, each one patiently awaiting the moment when the queens should pass before her, and she might have the honor of bowing almost to the earth under the glance of the royal eye.

According to etiquette, Queen Elizabeth Christine, who, notwithstanding her modest and retired existence, was the reigning sovereign, should have made the grand tour alone, and received the first congratulations of the court; but this unhappy, shrinking woman, had never found the courage to assume the rights or privileges which belonged to her as wife of the king.  She who was denied the highest and holiest of all distinctions, the first place in the heart of her husband, cared nothing for these pitiful and outward advantages.  Elizabeth had to-day, as usual, with a soft smile, given precedence to the queen-mother, Sophia Dorothea, who was ever thirsting to show that she held the first place at her son’s court, and who, delighted to surround herself with all the accessories of pomp and power, was ever ready to use her prerogative.  With a proud and erect head, and an almost contemptuous smile, she walked slowly around the circle of high-born dames, who bowed humbly before this representative of royalty.  Behind her came the reigning queen, between the two princesses, who now and then gave special and cordial greetings to their personal friends as they passed, Elizabeth Christine saw this and sighed bitterly.  She had no personal friend to grace with a loving greeting.  No man saw any thing else in her than a sovereign by sufferance, a woman sans consequence, a, powerless queen and unbeloved wife.  She had never had a friend into whose sympathetic and silent bosom she could pour out her griefs.