conversation, expressing his belief that I entertained an evil
opinion of the Queen. He inferred it from this: the day before he had
said to me that His Majesty had ordered that whatever I desired from
the kitchen and cellar should be at once brought to me, to which I
had answered, 'God preserve His Majesty; he is a good sovereign; may
he show clemency to evil men!' He had then said, 'The Queen is also
good,' to which I had made no answer. He had then tried to turn the
conversation to the Queen, and to hear if he could not draw out a
word from me; he had said: 'The Queen is sorry for you that you have
been so led away. It grieves her that you have willed your own
unhappiness; she is not angry; she pities you.' And when I made no
answer, he repeated it again, saying from time to time, 'Yes, yes, my
dear lady, it is as I say.' I was annoyed at the talk, and said,
'Dieu vous punisse!' 'Ho, ho!' he said, misinterpreting my words, and
calling Karen, he went out and closed the doors. Thus unexpectedly I
got rid of him. It was ridiculous that the woman now wanted to oblige
me to attend to what the prison governor had said. I begged her to
remember that she was now not attending on a child (she had before
been nurse to children). She could not so easily depart from her
habit, and for a long time treated me as a child, until at length I
made her comprehend that this was not required.
When I perceived that my stomach desired food and could retain it, I
became impatient that I could not die, but must go on living in such
misery. I began to dispute with God, and wanted to justify myself
with Him. It seemed to me that I had not deserved such misfortune. I
imagined myself far purer than David was from great sins, and yet he
could say, 'Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my
hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and
chastened every morning.' I thought I had not deserved so exceedingly
great a chastisement as that which I was receiving. I said with Job,
'Show me wherefore thou contendest with me. Is it good unto thee that
thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine
hands?' I repeated all Job's expressions when he tried to justify
himself, and it seemed to me that I could justly apply them to
myself. I cursed with him and Jeremiah the day of my birth, and was
very impatient; keeping it, however, to myself, and not expressing it
aloud. If at times a word escaped me, it was in German (since I had
generally read the Bible in German), and therefore the woman did not
understand what I was saying. I was very restless from coughing, and
turned from side to side on the bed. The woman often asked me how I
was. I begged her to leave me quiet and not to speak to me. I was
never more comfortable than in the night when I observed that she was
sleeping; then, unhindered, I could let my tears flow and give free
vent to my thoughts. Then I called God to account. I enumerated
everything that I had innocently suffered and endured during my life,
and I enquired of God whether I had deviated from my duty? Whether I
ought to have done less for my husband than I had done? Whether the
present was my recompense for not having left him in his adversity?
Whether I was to be now tortured, tormented, and scorned for this?
Whether all the indescribable misfortunes which I had endured with
him were not enough, that I had been reserved for this irremediable
and great trouble? I do not wish to conceal my unreasonableness. I
will confess my sins. I asked if still worse misfortunes were in
store for me for which I was to live? Whether there was any
affliction on earth to be compared to mine? I prayed God to put an
end to my sufferings, for it redounded in no wise to his honour to
let me live and be so tormented. I was after all not made of steel
and iron, but of flesh and blood. I prayed that He would suggest to
me, or inform me in a dream, what I was to do to shorten my misery.
When I had long thus disputed and racked my brains, and had also wept
so bitterly that it seemed as if no more tears remained, I fell
asleep, but awoke with terror, for I had horrible fancies in my
dreams, so that I feared to sleep, and began again to bewail my
misery. At length God looked down upon me with his eye of mercy, so
that on August 31 I had a night of quiet sleep, and just as day was
dawning I awoke with the following words on my lips: 'My son, faint
not when thou art rebuked of the Lord; for whom the Lord loveth he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.' I uttered the
last words aloud, thinking that the woman was sleeping; possibly she
awoke at the moment, and she asked me whether I wished for anything.
I answered 'No.' 'You were speaking,' she said, 'and you mentioned
your stockings; I could not understand the rest.' I replied, 'It must
have been then in my sleep. I wish for nothing.'
I then lay quietly thinking. I perceived and confessed my folly, that
I, who am only dust and ashes, and decay, and am only fit for the
dunghill, should call God to account, should dispute with my Creator
and his decrees, and should wish to censure and question them. I
began to weep violently, and I prayed fervently and from my heart for
mercy and forgiveness. While I had before boasted with David, and
been proud of my innocence, now I confessed with him that before God
there is none that doeth good; no, not one. While before I had spoken
foolishly with Job, I now said with him that I had 'uttered that I
understood not; things too wonderful for me which I knew not.' I
besought God to have mercy on me, relying on his great compassion. I
cited Moses, Joshua, David, Jeremiah, Job, Jonah, and others, all
highly endowed men, and yet so weak that in the time of calamity
they grumbled and murmured against God. I prayed that He would in his
mercy forgive me, the frailest of earthen vessels, as I could not
after all be otherwise than as He had created me. All things were in
his power; it was easy to Him to give me patience, as He had before
imparted to me power and courage to endure hard blows and shocks. And
I prayed God (after asking forgiveness of my sins) for nothing else
than good patience to await the period of my deliverance. God
graciously heard me. He pardoned not only my foolish sins, but He
gave me that also for which I had not prayed, for day by day my
patience increased. While I had often said with David, 'Will the Lord
cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more? Is his mercy
clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore? Hath God
forgotten to be gracious? Hath He in anger shut up his tender
mercies?' I now continued with him, 'This is my infirmity, but I will
remember the years of the right hand of the Most High.' I said also
with Psalm cxix.: 'It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that
I might learn thy statutes.'
The power of God was working within me. Many consolatory sentences
from the Holy Scriptures came into my mind; especially these:--'If so
be that we suffer with Christ, that we may be also glorified
together.' Also: 'We know that all things work together for good to
them that love God.' Also: 'My grace is sufficient for thee, for my
strength is made perfect in weakness.' I thought especially often of
Christ's words in St. Luke, 'Shall not God avenge his own elect,
which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I
tell you that he will avenge them speedily.' I felt in my trouble how
useful it is to have learned psalms and passages from the Bible in
youth. Believe me, my children, that it has been a great consolation
to me in my misery. Therefore, cultivate now in your youth what your
parents taught you in childhood; now, while trouble visits you less
severely, so that when it comes, you may be ready to receive it and
to comfort yourselves with the Word of God.
I began by degrees to feel more at peace, and to speak with the
woman, and to answer the prison governor when he addressed me. The
woman told me sundry things, and said that the prison governor had
ordered her to tell him everything that I spoke or did, but that she
was too wise to do such a thing; that she understood now better than
she had done at first how to behave. He went out, but she remained
shut up with me, and she would be true to me. And as it appeared that
I did not at once believe what she said, she swore it solemnly, and
prayed God to punish her if ever she acted falsely towards me. She
stroked and patted my hand, and laid it against her cheek, and begged
that I would believe her, using the words, 'My dearest lady, you can
believe me; as truly as I am a child of God, I will never deceive
you! Now, is not that enough?' I answered, 'I will believe you;'
thinking at the same time that I would do and say nothing but what
she might divulge. She was very glad that she had induced me to
speak, and said, 'When you lay so long silent, and I had no one with
whom I could speak, I was sad, and determined that I would not long
lead this life, even if they gave me double as much, for I should
have become crazed. I was afraid for you, but still more for myself,
that my head would give way.'
She went on talking in this way, introducing also various merry
stories. When she was young she had been in the service of a
clergyman, who encouraged his domestics in the fear of God, and there
she had learned prayers and sentences from the Bible by heart; she
knew also the Children's Primer, with the explanatory remarks, and
sang tolerably well. She knew in some measure how she should walk
before God and behave towards her neighbour; but she acted contrary
to her knowledge--for she had a malicious temper. She was an elderly
woman, but she liked to reckon herself as middle-aged. It appeared
that in her youth she had been pretty and rather dissolute, since
even now she could not lay aside her levity, but joked with the
tower-warder, and the prison governor's coachman, a man of the name
of Peder, and with a prisoner named Christian (more will presently be
said with regard to this prisoner; he was free to go about the
tower).[69]
[69] When I took my meals, the woman had opportunity of talking
with the three men. The coachman helped the tower-warder Rasmus to
bring up the food. [Marginal note.]
Maren Blocks often sent me a message through this coachman, besides
various kinds of candied sugar and citron, letting me know from time
to time whether anything new was occurring. All this had to be done
through the woman. One day she came in when the doors were closed,
and brought me a message from Maren Blocks, saying, 'My lady, if you
will now write to your children in Skaane, there is a safe
opportunity for you to do so.' I answered, 'My children are not in
Skaane, yet if I can send a message to Skaane, I have a friend there
who will probably let me know how it fares with my children.' She
gave me a piece of crumpled paper and a pencil. I wrote a few words
to F. Margrete Rantzow,[E24] saying that she probably knew of my
miserable condition, but supposing that her friendship was not
lessened by it, and begging her to let me know how my children were,
and from what cause they had come to Skaane, as I had been informed
was the case, though I did not believe it. This was what I wrote and
gave to the woman. I heard nothing further of it, and I imagine that
she had been ordered to find out to whom I wrote, &c. (They have been
busy with the idea that some of you, my dear children, might come to
Skaane.) I sewed up the letter or slip of paper in such a manner that
it could not be opened without making it apparent. I asked the woman
several times if she knew whether the letter had been sent away. She
always answered that she did not know, and that with a morose
expression, and at last she said (when I once more asked her to
enquire of Peder), 'I suppose that the person who ought to have it
has got it.' This answer made me reflect, and since then I asked no
further.
[E24] Margrete Rantzow was the sister of that Birgitte Rantzow to
whom there is an allusion in the Autobiography of Leonora, where
she relates the examination to which she was subjected at Malmoe.
Margrete's husband was Ove Thott, a nobleman in Skaane, who had
taken an important part in the preparations for a rising against
the Swedes, in which Corfitz Ulfeldt was implicated.
I remained all this time in bed, partly because I had nothing with
which to beguile the time, and partly because of the cold, for no
stove was placed in my prison till after the New Year. Occasionally I
requested the woman to manage, through Peder, that I should have a
little silk or thread, that I might beguile the time by embroidering
a piece of cloth that I had; but the answer I received was that he
dared not. A long time afterwards it came to my knowledge that she
had never asked Peder for it. There was trouble enough, however, to
occupy my thoughts without my needing to employ the time in
handiwork.
It was on September 2 that I heard some one moving early overhead, so
I asked the woman if she knew whether there was a chamber there (for
the woman went up every Saturday with the night-stool). She answered
that there was a prison there like this, and outside was the rack
(which is also the case). She observed that I showed signs of fear,
and she said, 'God help! Whoever it is that is up there is most
assuredly to be tortured.' I said, 'Ask Peder, when the doors are
unlocked, whether there is a prisoner there.' She said she would do
so, and meanwhile she kept asking herself and me who it might be. I
could not guess; still less did I venture to confess my fear to her,
which she nevertheless perceived, and therefore increased; for after
she had spoken with Peder, about noon,[70] and the doors were locked,
she said, 'God knows who it is that is imprisoned there! Peder would
tell me nothing.' She said the same at the evening meal, but added
that she had asked him, and that he would give no answer. I calmed
myself, as I heard no more footsteps above, and I said, 'There is no
prisoner up there.'[71] 'How do you know that?' she asked. 'I gather
it from the fact,' I said, 'that since this morning I have heard no
one above; I think if there were anyone there, they would probably
give him something to eat.' She was not pleased that my mind was
quieted, and therefore she and Peder together endeavoured to trouble
me.
[70] I could not see when she spoke with any one, for she did so on
the stairs. [Marginal note.]
[71] In the margin is added: 'There was none.'
On the following day, when the doors were being locked after the
mid-day dinner (which was generally Peder's task), and he was pulling
to my innermost door, which opens inside, he put in his head and
said, 'Casset!' She was standing beside the door, and appeared as if
she had not rightly understood him, saying, 'Peder spoke of some one
who is in prison, but I could not understand who it is.' I understood
him at once, but also behaved as if I had not. No one knows but God
what a day and night I had. I turned it over in my mind. It often
seemed to me that it might be that they had seized him, although
Cassetta was a subject of the King of Spain; for if treason is
suspected, there is no thought given as to whose subject the man
suspected may be. I lay in the night secretly weeping and lamenting
that the brave man should have come into trouble for my sake, because
he had executed my lord's will, and had followed me to England, where
we parted, I should say, when Petcon and his company separated us and
carried me away.
I lay without sleep till towards day, then I fell into a dream which
frightened me. I suppose my thoughts caused it. It came before me
that Cassetta was being tortured in the manner he had once described
to me that a Spaniard had been tortured: four cords were fastened
round his hands and feet, and each cord was made secure in a corner
of the room, and a man sometimes pulled one cord and sometimes
another; and since it seemed to me that Cassetta never screamed, I
supposed that he was dead, and I shrieked aloud and awoke. The woman,
who had long been awake, said: 'O God! dear lady, what ails you? Are
you ill? You have been groaning a long time, and now you screamed
loudly.' I replied, 'It was in my dream; nothing ails me.' She said
further, 'Then you have had a bad dream?' 'That may well be,' I
answered. 'Oh, tell me what you have dreamt; I can interpret
dreams.' I replied, 'When I screamed I forgot my dream, otherwise no
one can interpret dreams better than I.' I thank God I do not regard
dreams; and this dream had no other cause than what I have said. When
the door was locked after the mid-day meal, the woman said of herself
(for I asked no further respecting the prisoners), 'There is no one
imprisoned there; shame on Peder for his nonsense!' I asked him who
was imprisoned there, and he laughed at me heartily. 'There is no one
there, so let your mind be at peace.' I said, 'If my misfortunes were
to involve others, it would be very painful to me.'
Thus matters went on till the middle of September, and then two of
our servants were brought as prisoners and placed in arrest; one Nils
Kaiberg, who had acted as butler, and the other Frans, who had been
in our service as a lacquey. After having been kept in prison for a
few weeks and examined they were set at liberty. At the same time two
Frenchmen were brought as prisoners: an old man named La Rosche, and
a young man whose name I do not know. La Rosche was brought to the
tower and was placed in the witch-cell; a feather-bed had been thrown
down, and on this he lay; for some months he was never out of his
clothes. His food consisted of bread and wine; he refused everything
else. He was accused of having corresponded with Corfitz, and of
having promised the King of France that he would deliver Crooneborg
into his hands.[72] This information had been given by Hannibal
Sehested, who was at that time in France, and he had it from a
courtesan who was then intimate with Hannibal, but had formerly been
in connection with La Rosche, and probably afterwards had quarrelled
with him. There was no other proof in favour of the accusation.
Probably suspicion had been raised by the fact that this La Rosche,
with the other young man, had desired to see me when I was in arrest
in Dover, which had been permitted, and they had paid me their
respects. It is possible that he had wished to speak with me and to
tell me what he had heard in London, and which, it seemed to him,
excited no fears in me. But as I was playing at cards with some
ladies who had come to look at me, he could not speak with me; so he
asked me whether I had the book of plays which the Countess of
Pembroke had published.[E25] I replied, 'No'. He promised to send it
me, and as I did not receive it, I think he had written in it some
warning to me, which Braten afterwards turned to his advantage.
[72] Did not this accord well with the statement that my lord had
offered the kingdom of Denmark to two potentates? [Marginal note.]
[E25] The book in question is probably Philip Sidney's work, 'The
Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia,' a famous book of its time, which
Leonora, who does not seem to have known it, has understood to be a
book by the Countess of Pembroke. It is true, however, that
Philip's sister, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, had translated
a French play, Antonius (1592, and again 1595).
However all this may be, La Rosche suffered innocently, and could
prove upon oath that he had never spoken with my lord in his life,
and still less had corresponded with him.[73] In short, after some
months of innocent suffering, he was set at liberty and sent back to
France. The other young man was confined in an apartment near the
servants' hall. He had only been apprehended as a companion to the
other, but no further accusation was brought against him.[E26] At
first, when these men were imprisoned, there was a whispering and
talking between the prison governor and the woman, and also between
Peder and her; the prison governor moreover himself locked my door. I
plainly perceived that there was something in the wind, but I made no
enquiries. Peder at length informed the woman that they were two
Frenchmen, and he said something about the affair, but not as it
really was. Shortly before they were set at liberty the prison
governor said, 'I have two parle mi franco in prison; what they have
done I know not.' I made no further enquiries, but he jested and
said, 'Now I can learn French.' 'That will take time,' said I.
[73] In the margin is noted: 'I had never seen La Rosche nor his
companion till I did so at Dover.'
[E26] La Roche Tudesquin had some time been in the Danish army, but
had returned to France when Hannibal Sehested, while in Paris as
Ambassador from the King of Denmark, received information from a
certain Demoiselle Langlois that La Roche was implicated in a
conspiracy for surrendering the principal Danish fortresses to a
foreign prince. He and a friend of his, Jaques Beranger, were
arrested in Brussels in September 1663, but not, as Leonora says,
immediately brought to Copenhagen. The Spanish Government did not
consent to their extradition till the following year, and they were
not placed in the Blue Tower till June 1664. La Roche seems to have
been guilty of peculation while in the Danish service, but the
accusation of treason seems to have been unfounded.
In the same month of September died Count Rantzow. He did not live to
see the execution of an effigy, which he so confidently had hoped
for, being himself the one who first had introduced this kind of
mockery in these countries.[E27]
[E27] In the MS. a pen is drawn through this paragraph, of which
the contents were to form part of the Preface. The date of Count
Rantzow is moreover not correctly given; he died on November 8,
five days before the execution of Ulfeldt's effigy.
On October 9 our Princess Anna Sophia was betrothed to the Electoral
Prince of Saxony. On the morning of the day on which the festivities
were to take place I said to the woman, 'To-day we shall fast till
evening.' For I thought they would not think of me, and that I should
not receive any of the remains until the others had been treated, at
any rate, to dinner. She wished to know the reason why we were to
fast. I answered, 'You shall know it this evening.' I lay and thought
of the change of fortune: that I, who twenty-eight years ago had
enjoyed as great state as the Princess, should now be lying a
captive, close by the very wall where my bridal chamber had been;
thank God, that it afflicted me but little. Towards noonday, when the
trumpets and kettledrums were sounding, I said, 'Now they are
conducting the bride across the square to the great hall.' 'How do
you know that?' said the woman. 'I know it,' I said; 'my spirit tells
me so.' 'What sort of spirit is that?' she asked. 'That I cannot
tell you,' I replied. And as the trumpets blew every time that a new
course of dishes and sweets were produced, I mentioned it; and before
they were served the kettledrums were sounded. And as they were
served on the square in front of the kitchen, I said each time, 'We
shall have no dinner yet.' When it was nearly three o'clock, the
woman said, 'My stomach is quite shrunk up; when shall we have
dinner?' I answered, 'Not for a long time yet; the second course is
only now on the table; we shall have something at about seven
o'clock, and not before.' It was as I said. About half-past seven the
prison governor came and excused himself, saying that he had asked
for the dinner, but that all hands in the kitchen were occupied. The
woman, who had always entertained the idea that I was a witch, was
now confirmed in her opinion.[74]
[74] In the margin is added: 'The prison governor told the woman
about the magnificence of the festivity and Peder also told her of
it, so that it seemed to her that I could know somewhat from
customs of former times.'