[Michaelis, iii. 440.] Her brother Gravenitz the page has become Count Gravenitz the prime minister, or chief of the Governing Cabal; she Countess Gravenitz and Autocrat of Wurtemberg. Loaded with wealth, with so-called honors, she and hers, there go they, flaunting sky-high; none else admitted to more than the liberty of breathing in silence in this Duchy;—the poor Duke Eberhard Ludwig making no complaint; obedient as a child to the bidding of his Gravenitz. He is become a mere enchanted simulacrum of a Duke; bewitched under worse than Thessalian spells; without faculty of willing, except as she wills; his People and he the plaything of this Circe or Hecate, that has got hold of him. So it has lasted for above twenty years. Gravenitz has become the wonder of Germany; and requires, on these bad grounds, a slight mention in Human History for some time to come. Certainly it is by the Gravenitz alone that Eberhard Ludwig is remembered; and yet, down since Ulrich with the Thumb, [Ulricus POLLEX (right thumb bigger than left); died A.D. 1265 (Michaelis, iii. 262).] which of those serene abstruse Beutelsbachers, always an abstruse obstinate set, has so fixed himself in your memory?—
"Most persons in Wurtemberg, for quiet's sake, have complied with the Gravenitz; though not without protest, and sometimes spoken protest. Thus the Right Reverend Osiander (let us name Osiander, Head of the Church in Wurtemberg) flatly refused to have her name inserted in the Public Prayers; 'Is not she already prayed for?' said Osiander: 'Do we not say, DELIVER US FROM EVIL?' said the indignant Protestant man. And there is one other person that never will comply with her: the lawful Wife of Eberhard Ludwig. Serene Lady, she has had a sad existence of it; the voice of her wrongs audible, to little purpose, this long while, in Heaven and on Earth. But it is not in the power of reward or punishment to bend her female will in the essential point: 'Divorce, your Highness? When I am found guilty, yes. Till then, never, your Highness, never, never,' in steady CRESCENDO tone:—so that his Highness is glad to escape again, and drop the subject. On which the Serene Lady again falls silent. Gravenitz, in fact, hopes always to be wedded with the right, nay were it only with the left hand: and this Serene Lady stands like a fateful monument irremovably in the way. The Serene Lady steadily inhabits her own wing of the Ducal House, would not exchange it for the Palace of Aladdin; looks out there upon the grand equipages, high doings, impure splendors of her Duke and his Gravenitz with a clear-eyed silence, which seems to say more eloquently than words, 'MENE, MENE, YOU are weighed!' In the land of Wurtemberg, or under the Sun, is no reward or punishment that can abate this silence. Speak of divorce, the answer is as above: leave divorce lying, there is silence looking forth clear-eyed from that particular wing of the Palace, on things which the gods permit for a time.
"Clear-eyed silence, which, as there was no abating of it, grew at last intolerable to the two sinners. 'Let us remove,' said the Gravenitz, 'since her Serene Highness will not: build a new charming Palace—say at our Hunting Seat, among those pleasant Hills in the Waiblingen region—and take the Court, out thither.' And they have done so, in these late bad years; taking out with them by degrees all the Courtier Gentry, all the RATHS, Government Boards, public businesses; and building new houses for them, there. ["From 1727 to 1730" was this latter removal. A hunting-lodge, of Eberhard Ludwig's building, and named by him LUGWIGSBURG, stood here since 1705; nucleus of the subsequent palace, with its "Pheasantries," its "Favoritas," &c. &c. The place had originally been monastic (Busching, Erdbeschreibung, vi. 1519).] Founding, in fact, a second Capital for Wurtemberg, with what distress, sulky misery and disarrangement, to Stuttgard and the old Capital, readers can fancy. There it stands, that Ludwigsburg, the second Capital of Wurtemberg, some ten or twenty miles from Stuttgard the first: a lasting memorial of Circe Gravenitz and her Ludwig. Has not she, by her incantations, made the stone houses dance out hither? It remains to this day a pleasant town, and occasional residence of sovereignty. WAIBLINGEN, within an hour's ride, has got memorability on other grounds;—what reader has not heard of GHIBELLINES, meaning Waiblingens? And in another hour up the River, you will come to Beutelsbach itself, where Ulrich with the Thumb had his abode (better luck to him!), and generated this Lover of the Gravenitz, and much other nonsense loud now and then for the last four centuries in the world!—
"There is something of abstruse in all these Beutelsbachers, from Ulrich with the Thumb downwards: a mute ennui, an inexorable obstinacy; a certain streak of natural gloom which no illumination can abolish. Veracity of all kinds is great in them; sullen passive courage plenty of it; active courage rarer; articulate intellect defective: hence a strange stiff perversity of conduct visible among them, often marring what wisdom they have;—it is the royal stamp of Fate put upon these men. What are called fateful or fated men; such as are often seen on the top places of the world, making an indifferent figure there. Something of this, I doubt not, is concerned in Eberhard Ludwig's fascination; and we shall see other instances farther down in this History.
"But so, for twenty years, the absurd Duke, transformed into a mere Porcus by his Circe in that scandalous miraculous manner, has lived; and so he still lives. And his Serene Wife, equally obstinate, is living at Stuttgard, happily out of his sight now. One Son, a weakly man, who had one heir, but has now none, is her only comfort. His Wife is a Prussian Margravine (Friedrich Wilhelm's HALF-AUNT), and cultivates Calvinism in the Lutheran Country: this Husband of hers, he too has an abstruse life, not likely to last. We need not doubt 'the Fates' are busy, and the evil demons, with those poor fellow-beings! Nay it is said the Circe is becoming much of a Hecate now; if the bewitched Duke could see it. She is getting haggard beyond the power of rouge; her mind, any mind she has, more and more filled with spleen, malice, and the dregs of pride run sour. A disgusting creature, testifies one Ex-Official gentleman, once a Hofrath under her, but obliged to run for life, and invoke free press in his defence: [Apologie de Monsieur Forstner de Breitembourg, &c. (Paris, 1716; or "a Londres, aux depens de la Compagnie, 1745"): in Spittler, Geschichte Wurtembergs (Spittlers WERKE, Stuttgard und Tubingen, 1828; vol. v.), 497–539. Michaelis, iii. 428–439, gives (in abstruse Chancery German) a Sequel to this fine affair of Forstner's.] no end to the foul things she will say, of an unspeakable nature, about the very Duke her victim, testifies this Ex-Official: malicious as a witch, says he, and as ugly as one in spite of paint—'TOUJOURS UN LAVEMENT A SES TROUSSES.' Good Heavens!"
But here is the august Prussian Travelling-Party: shove aside your bewitchments and bewilderments; hang a decent screen over many things! Poor Eberhard Ludwig, who is infinitely the gentleman, bestirs himself a good deal to welcome old royal friends; nor do we hear that the least thing went awry during this transit of the royalties. "Field of Blenheim, says your Majesty? Ah me!"—For Eberhard Ludwig knows that ground; stood the World-Battle there, and so much has come and gone since then: Ah me indeed!
Friedrich Wilhelm and he have met before this, and have much to tell one another; Treaty of Seville by no means their only topic. Nay the flood of cordiality went at length so far, that at last Friedrich Wilhelm, the conscientious King, came upon the most intimate topics: Gravenitz; the Word of God; scandal to the Protestant Religion: no likely heir to your Dukedom; clear peril to your own soul. Is not her Serene Highness an unexceptionable Lady, heroic under sore woes; and your wedded Wife above all?—'M-NA, and might bring Heirs too: only forty come October:—Ah Duke, ah Friend! AVISEZ LA FIN, Eberhard Ludwig; consider the end of it all; we are growing old fellows now! The Duke, I conceive, who was rather a fat little man, blushed blue, then red, and various colors; at length settling into steady pale, as it were, indicating anthracitic white-heat: it is certain he said at length, with emphasis, "I will!" And he did so, by and by. Friedrich Wilhelm sent a messenger to Stuttgard to do his reverence to the high injured Lady there, perhaps to show her afar off some ray of hope if she could endure. Eberhard Ludwig, raised to a white-heat, perceives that in fact he is heartily tired of this Circe-Hecate; that in fact she has long been an intolerable nightmare to him, could he but have known it.
And his Royal Highness the Crown-Prince all this while? Well, yes; his Royal Highness has got a Court Tailor at Ludwigsburg; and, in all privacy (seen well by Rochow), has had the Augsburg red cloth cut into a fine upper wrappage, over coat or roquelaure for himself; intending to use the same before long. Thus they severally, the Father and the Son; these are their known acts at Ludwigsburg, That the Father persuaded Eberhard Ludwig of the Gravenitz enormity, and that the Son got his red top-coat ready. On Thursday, 3d of August
