nevertheless had but little difficulty in the presence of such an
upright man as the prince, in showing how groundless were the
accusations that had been brought against him. Not only, as he said,
was he, under the circumstances, far from requiring any assistance from
a third party, to bring his suit to a decision, seeing that it was
going on as well as possible, but some letters which he had with him,
and which he produced to the prince, plainly showed the impossibility
of Nagelschmidt being willing to give him the assistance in question,
since shortly before he had disbanded his troop, he had been going to
hang the fellow for acts of violence in the flat country. Indeed he
had only been saved by the appearance of the electoral amnesty, which
had broken off all the connection between them, and they had parted the
day after as mortal enemies. Kohlhaas, on his own proposal, which was
accepted by the prince, sat down and wrote a letter to Nagelschmidt, in
which he called the pretext of supporting the amnesty, granted to him
and his troop, and afterwards broken, a shameful and wicked invention;
and told him that on arriving at Dresden he was neither arrested nor
consigned to a guard, that his suit was proceeding quite according to
his wishes, and that he gave him up to the full vengeance of the laws
as a warning to the rabble around him for the incendiarisms he had
committed in the Erzgebirg, after the publication of the amnesty. At
the same time some fragments of the criminal proceedings, which the
horse-dealer had set on foot against the man at the Castle of Lützen,
for the misdeeds above alluded to, were subjoined to enlighten the
people, as to the good-for-nothing fellow, who had been sentenced to
the gallows, and had only been saved by the elector’s patent. The
prince, satisfied by these acts, calmed Kohlhaas, as to the suspicion
which they had been forced to express under the circumstances, assured
him that so long as he continued in Dresden, the amnesty granted him
should remain unbroken, once more shook hands with the boys, to whom he
gave the fruit that was on the table, and dismissed him. The
chancellor, who likewise perceived the danger that impended over the
horse-dealer, did his utmost to bring the affair to a conclusion before
it became entangled and complicated by new events. Strange to say, the
cunning knights desired and aimed at the same thing, and instead of
tacitly confessing the crime as before, and limiting the opposition to
a mitigation of the sentence, they now began with all sorts of
chicanery to deny the crime itself. Now they gave out that the horses
had merely been kept at the Tronkenburg by the act of the castellan and
the bailiff, of which the squire knew little or nothing; now they
asserted that the beasts were sick of a violent and dangerous cough
immediately after their arrival, appealing to witnesses whom they
promised to produce; and when they were beaten out of the field with
their arguments by inquiries and explanations, they brought an
electoral edict, in which twelve years before, on account of prevailing
distemper among cattle, the introduction of horses from Brandenburg
into Saxony was prohibited. This was to prove that the squire was not
only authorised but actually bound to detain the horses brought by
Kohlhaas over the border. Kohlhaas, who in the meanwhile had
repurchased his farm of the good farmer at Kohlhaasenbrück for a small
sum, wished, as it appears, for the purpose of finally completing this
transaction, to leave Dresden for a few days, and to travel home;--a
resolution in which, however, we doubt not the alleged business,
important as it might be on account of the winter sowing time, had less
part than the wish to examine his situation under circumstances so
remarkable and so critical. Reasons of another kind, which we leave to
the surmise of every one who knows the secrets of his own heart, might
also have operated. He therefore went to the high-chancellor, without
the guard, and having the farmer’s letters in his hand, stated that if
his presence at the court could be dispensed with, as indeed seemed to
be the case, he wished to leave the city and go to Brandenburg for
eight days or a fortnight, promising to return within that time. The
high-chancellor, looking on the ground with a dubious and displeased
countenance, said that his presence was now more necessary than ever,
since the court, in consequence of the crafty and quibbling objections
of the opposite party, would require his explanation in a thousand
cases, which had not been foreseen. However, when Kohlhaas referred
him to his advocate, who was well acquainted with the merits of the
case, and urgently though modestly still adhered to his request,
promising to limit his absence to eight days, the high chancellor said,
after a pause, as he dismissed him, that he hoped he would obtain
passports of Prince Christian of Misnia. Kohlhaas, who perfectly
understood the chancellor’s countenance, sat down at once confirmed in
his resolution, and asked the Prince of Misnia, as chief minister,
without assigning any reason, to give him passports to Kohlhaasenbrück
for eight days. To this request he received an official answer, signed
by Baron Siegfried von Wenk, governor of the castle, stating that his
petition for passports to Kohlhaasenbrück had been laid before the
elector, and that as soon as consent was obtained, they would be
forwarded to him. Kohlhaas asked his advocate how it was that this
paper was signed by a Baron Siegfried von Wenk, and not by Prince
Christian of Misnia, whereupon he was informed that the prince had gone
to his estates three days before, and that the affairs of office had
been entrusted during his absence, to Baron Siegfried von Wenk,
governor of the castle, and cousin to the gentleman who has been
previously mentioned.
Kohlhaas, whose heart began to beat uneasily under all these
circumstances, waited several days for an answer to his petition which
had been brought before the elector with singular prolixity; but a week
passed, and another and another, and he had neither got an answer nor
had the tribunal come to a decision of his case, definitely as it had
been announced. Therefore, on the twelfth day, fully determined to
know the disposition of the government towards him, whatever it might
be, he sent another pressing application to the ministry for the
passport. But how surprised he was, when on the evening of the
following day (which had likewise passed away without the expected
answer), as he stepped towards the window of his back room, deeply
occupied in pondering over his situation, and especially on the amnesty
which Dr. Luther had obtained for him, he did not see the guards who
had been given him by the Prince of Misnia in the little outhouse which
had been assigned as their abode. The old servant Thomas whom he
called, and of whom he asked what this meant, answered with a sigh,
“Master, all is not as it should be! The soldiers, of whom there are
more than usual to-day, dispersed themselves over the whole house as
night advanced. Two are standing with spear and shield in the street
before the front door, two in the garden at the back door, and two
others are lying on a heap of straw in the anteroom, where they say
they intend to sleep.” Kohlhaas, who changed colour, turned round and
said it was just the same to him whether they were there or not, and
that as soon as he got to the passage he should set up a light that the
soldiers might see.
Under the pretext of emptying a vessel he opened the front shutter and
convinced himself that the old man had spoken the truth; for the guard
had just been quietly relieved, a measure which never had been thought
of before. This ascertained he lay down in his bed, little inclined to
sleep, and with his mind thoroughly made up as to what he should do the
next day. Nothing on the part of the government was more displeasing
to him than the empty show of justice, while, in fact, the amnesty was
broken; and in case he was a prisoner, about which there seemed to be
no doubt, he wished to compel the government to declare it clearly and
without ambiguity. Therefore, at the dawn of the following day, he had
his vehicle brought up, and the horses put to it by Sternbald his
servant, to go, as he said, to the farmer at Lockewitz, who had spoken
to him a few days before at Dresden as an old acquaintance, and had
invited him to pay him a visit with his children. The soldiers, who
were laying their heads together, and perceived the movements in the
house, sent one of their number privily into the town, whereupon in a
few minutes an officer of the government appeared, at the head of
several men, and went into the opposite house, as if he had something
to do there. Kohlhaas who, as he was occupied with dressing his boys,
witnessed their movements, and designedly kept his vehicle before the
house longer than was necessary, went out with his children, as soon as
he saw that the police had completed their preparations, without taking
any notice, and telling the soldiers at the door as he passed them,
that they need not follow him, he took the boys into the cart, and
kissed and consoled the little crying girls, who, in conformity with
his orders, remained with the daughter of the old servant. He had
scarcely mounted the cart himself, when the officer came up to him with
his train from the opposite house, and asked him where he was going.
Kohlhaas answering that he was going to see his friend the farmer at
Lockewitz, who had some days before invited him into the country with
his boys, the officer said that in that case he must wait a few
moments, as some horse-soldiers, by the command of the Prince of
Misnia, would have to accompany him.
Kohlhaas asked him, smiling from the cart, whether he thought his
person would not be safe in the house of a friend, who had invited him
to his table for a day. The officer answered pleasantly and cheerfully
enough, that the danger was certainly not great, and added that he
would find the men by no means burdensome. Kohlhaas replied,
seriously, that when he first came to Dresden, the Prince of Misnia had
left it quite free to him whether he would avail himself of the guard
or not, and when the officer expressed his surprise at this
circumstance, and referred to the custom which had prevailed during the
whole of Kohlhaas’s residence at Dresden, the horse-dealer told him of
the occurrence which had led to the appointment of a guard in his
house. The officer assured him that the order of the Baron von Wenk,
governor of the castle, who was at present head of the police, made the
constant guard of his person an imperative duty, and begged him, if it
was unpleasant to be so attended, to go to the seat of government
himself, and rectify the error which seemed to prevail there.
Kohlhaas, darting an expressive look at the officer, and determined
either to bend or to break the matter, said that he would do this,
descended with a beating heart from the cart, had his children carried
into the passage by the servant, and repaired with the officer and his
guard to the seat of government, leaving the man with the vehicle in
front of the house. It chanced that Baron von Wenk was engaged in the
examination of a band of Nagelschmidt’s men, which had been captured in
the neighbourhood of Leipzig, and had been brought in the evening
before, and that these fellows were being questioned on many matters
which would willingly have been heard by the knights who were with the
baron when the horse-dealer and those who attended him entered the
room. The baron no sooner saw him, than he went up to him, while the
knights became suddenly silent, and ceased their examination, and asked
him what he wanted.
The horse-dealer respectively stating his project of dining with the
farmer in Lockewitz, and his wish to leave behind the soldiers, whom he
did not require, the baron changed colour, and seeming as if he
suppressed another speech, said that his best plan would be to stop
quietly at home, and put off the dinner with the Lockewitz farmer.
Then cutting short the conversation, and turning to the officer he told
him, that the command which he had given him with respect to Kohlhaas,
was to remain as before, and that he was not to leave the city, except
under the guard of six horsemen. Kohlhaas asked whether he was a
prisoner, and whether he was to believe that the amnesty solemnly
granted him in the eyes of the whole world was broken; whereupon the
baron, suddenly becoming as red as fire, turned to him, and walking
close up to him, looked full in his eyes, and answered, “Yes, yes,
yes!” He then turned his back upon him, left him standing, and again
went to Nagelschmidt’s men.
Kohlhaas then quitted the room, and although he saw that the only
course left for him, namely, flight, was rendered difficult by the
steps which he had taken, he nevertheless concluded he had acted
rightly, as he now saw he was free from all obligation to conform to
the articles of the amnesty. When he reached home, he ordered the
horses to be taken from the cart, and accompanied by the officer
entered his chamber very much dispirited. This officer, in a manner
which greatly disgusted him, assured him that all turned on a
misunderstanding which would soon be cleared up, while his men, at a
sign which he gave them, fastened up all the outlets that led into the
yard. The front entrance, as the officer assured Kohlhaas, was open to
his use as before.
In the meanwhile, Nagelschmidt was so hampered on all sides by soldiers
and officers of the law in the woods of the Erzgebirge, that being
utterly destitute of means to carry out the part he had chosen, he hit
upon the thought of really drawing Kohlhaas into his interest. He had
learned with tolerable accuracy, through a traveller who passed on the
road, the state of the suit at Dresden, and was of opinion, that in
spite of the open hostility which existed between them, it would be
possible to induce the horse-dealer to enter into a new alliance with
him. He therefore sent a man to him, with a scarcely legible letter,
to the effect, that if he would come to the Altenburg territory, and
resume the conduct of the band, who had assembled there, out of the
relics of the one that had been dismissed, he would furnish him with
horses, men, and money, to assist him in flying from his prison at
Dresden. At the same time, he promised to be better and more obedient
in future than he had been; and to prove his fidelity and devotion, he
offered to come to Dresden himself and effect Kohlhaas’s liberation.
Now the fellow to whom this letter was entrusted had the misfortune to
fall into convulsions of a dangerous sort, such as he had been subject
to from his youth, close to Dresden, and the consequence was, that the
letter which he carried in his doublet, was discovered by people who
came to assist him, and that he himself, as soon as he had recovered,
was arrested, and removed to the seat of government, attended by a
numerous guard. The Governor von Wenk had no sooner read the letter
than he hastened to the elector, in whose castle he found the two von
Tronkas (the chamberlain having recovered of his wounds) and Count
Kallheim, president of the chancery. These gentlemen were of opinion,
that Kohlhaas should be arrested without delay, and prosecuted on the
ground of a secret understanding with Nagelschmidt, since, as they
attempted to prove, such a letter could not have been written, had not
others been previously sent by the horse-dealer, and had not some
criminal compact been formed, for the perpetration of new atrocities.
The elector firmly refused to violate the free conduct which he had
granted to Kohlhaas, on the mere ground of this letter. Nay, according
to his opinion, it rather showed, that no previous communication had
existed between Kohlhaas and Nagelschmidt, and all that he would
resolve upon, and that after much delay, was that, according to the
suggestion of the president, the letter should be sent to Kohlhaas by
Nagelschmidt’s man, just as if the fellow was perfectly at liberty, and
that then it should be seen whether Kohlhaas would answer it. The man,
who had been put in prison, was accordingly brought to the seat of
government on the following morning, when the governor of the castle
restored him his letter, and, promising that he should be free, and
exempt from the punishment he had incurred, told him to give it to the
horse-dealer as if nothing had happened. Without more ado, the fellow
lent himself to the mean stratagem, and as if by stealth, entered
Kohlhaas’s room on the pretext of selling some crabs, with which the
officer had provided him in the market-place. Kohlhaas, who read the
letter while the children played with the crabs, would certainly, under
the circumstances, have taken the fellow by the collar, and delivered
him up to the soldiers, who stood at his door, but as, in the present
disposition of people towards him, such a step might be interpreted in
more than one way, and he was fully convinced that nothing in the world
could help him out of the difficulty in which he was placed, he looked
mournfully at the fellow’s well-known face, asked him where he lived,
and ordered him to come again in an hour or two, when he would
communicate the resolution he had taken with respect to his master. He
told Sternbald, who chanced to enter the room, to buy some crabs of the
fellow he found there, and this having been done, and the two men
having parted without recognition, he sat down and wrote a letter to
Nagelschmidt to the following effect: In the first place he accepted
his offer of the command of the band in Altenburg, and in the next told
him to send him a waggon with two horses to the Neustadt by Dresden, to
free him from the temporary prison in which he was placed with his
children. Two horses more, he said, for the sake of speed would be
wanted on the road to Wittenberg, by which circuitous route, for
certain reasons, too long to specify, he could alone come to him. He
represented the soldiers who guarded him as open to bribery, but
nevertheless, in case force should be necessary, he desired the
presence of a few, stout, active, well-armed fellows in the Neustadt.
To defray the expenses of all these preparations he would send by the
man a _rouleau_ containing twenty gold crowns, about the expenditure of
which he would come to an account with him when the affair was settled.
His presence in Dresden on the occasion of his liberation he prohibited
as unnecessary, nay, he gave the express order that he should remain in
the territory of Altenburg, as the temporary leader of the band, which
could not well do without a captain. When the messenger came towards
the evening he gave him this letter, and rewarding him liberally,
exhorted him to take the greatest care of it. His design was to
proceed to Hamburg with his five children, and there to embark for the
Levant or the East Indies, or as far as the sky might cover other men
than those he knew, for his soul, which was now bowed down with grief,
had given up the notion of getting the horses, to say nothing of his
repugnance to make a common cause with Nagelschmidt.
Scarcely had the fellow delivered this answer to the castellan than the
high chancellor was removed, the president, Count Kallheim, was
appointed chief of the tribunal in his stead, and Kohlhaas, being
arrested by a cabinet order of the elector, was thrown into the city
prison, heavily laden with chains. Proceedings were commenced against
him on the ground of the letter, which was posted up at all the corners
of the town; and when, before the bar of the tribunal, to the question
of the counsel, who presented him this letter, whether he recognised
the handwriting, he answered “Yes,” but to the question whether he had
any thing to say in his defence, he with downcast eyes answered “No.”
He was condemned to have his flesh torn with red-hot pincers, and his
body quartered and burned between the wheel and the gallows.
Thus stood matters with poor Kohlhaas in Dresden, when the Elector of
Brandenburg appeared to rescue him from the hands of arbitrary power
and claimed him as a Brandenburg subject in the electoral chancery,
through a note sent for that purpose. For the brave Captain Heinrich
von Geusau had told him, during a walk on the banks of the Spree, the
history of this strange and not utterly abandoned man. On this
occasion, urged by the questions of the astonished elector, he could
not avoid mentioning the wrong which had been done to his own person,
through the improper acts of the high chancellor, Count Siegfried von
Kallheim. The elector, being highly indignant at this, demanded an
explanation of the high chancellor, and finding that his relationship
to the house of Tronka had been the cause of all the mischief,
dismissed him at once with many signs of displeasure, and appointed
Heinrich von Geusau chancellor in his place.
Now it happened that the kingdom of Poland, while for some cause or
other it was in a hostile position against Saxony, made repeated and
pressing demands to the Elector of Brandenburg to unite against Saxony
in one common cause. This led the High Chancellor Geusau, who was no
novice in such matters, to hope that he could fulfil his sovereign’s
wish of doing justice to Kohlhaas at any price, without placing the
general peace in a more critical position than the consideration due to
an individual would justify. Hence the high chancellor, alleging that
the proceedings had been arbitrary, and alike displeasing to God and
man, not only demanded the immediate and unconditional delivery of
Kohlhaas, that in case he was guilty he might be tried according to
Brandenburg laws, on a complaint which the court of Dresden might make
through an attorney at Berlin, but also required passports for an
attorney whom the elector wished to send to Dresden, to obtain justice
for Kohlhaas against Squire Wenzel von Tronka, on account of the wrong
which had been done the former, on Saxon soil, by the detention of his
horses and other acts of violence which cried aloud to Heaven. The
chamberlain, Herr Conrad, who on the change of office in Saxony had
been nominated president of the state chancery, and who for many
reasons did not wish to offend the court of Berlin, in the difficulty
in which he now found himself, answered in the name of his sovereign,
who was much dejected at the note he had received, that the unfriendly
and unfair spirit in which the right of the court of Dresden to try
Kohlhaas, according to law, for offences committed in the country, had
been questioned, had created great astonishment, especially when it was
well known that he held a large piece of ground in the Saxon
metropolis, and did not deny that he was a Saxon citizen.
Nevertheless, as Poland to enforce her claims had already collected an
army of 5000 men on the borders of Saxony, and the high chancellor,
Heinrich von Geusau, declared that Kohlhaasenbrück, the place from
which the horse-dealer took his name, lay in the Brandenburg territory,
and that the execution of the sentence of death that had been declared
would be considered a violation of the law of nations, the elector, by
the advice of the chamberlain, Herr Conrad himself, who wished to
retreat out of the affair, called Prince Christian of Misnia from his
estates, and was induced by a few words from this intelligent man to
deliver Kohlhaas to the court of Berlin, in compliance with the request
that had been made.
The prince, who, although he was little pleased with the late unseemly
proceedings, was obliged to undertake the prosecution of the Kohlhaas
affair, in compliance with the wish of his embarrassed sovereign, asked
him on what ground he meant to prosecute the horse-dealer, in the
chamber council at Berlin. To the fatal letter to Nagelschmidt
reference could not be made, so doubtful and obscure were the
circumstances under which it was written, neither could the early
plunderings and incendiarisms be mentioned on account of the placards
in which they had been pardoned.
The elector, therefore, resolved to lay before the Emperor of Vienna a
statement of the armed attack of Kohlhaas upon Saxony, to complain of
the breach of the public peace, which he had established, and to
request those who were bound by no amnesty to prosecute Kohlhaas in the
Berlin court through an imperial prosecutor.
In eight days the horse-dealer, chained as he was, was placed in a cart
and transported to Berlin with his five children (who had been got
together again out of the orphan and foundling asylums) by the night
Friedrich von Malzahn, whom the Elector of Brandenburg had sent to
Dresden with six troopers.
Now it chanced that the Elector of Saxony, at the invitation of the
seneschal (_Landdrost_) Count Aloysius von Kallheim, who held
considerable property on the borders of Saxony, had gone to Dahme to a
great hunt, which had been appointed for his recreation, accompanied by
the chamberlain, Herr Conrad, and his wife the Lady Heloise, daughter
of the seneschal and sister of the president, besides other fine ladies
and gentlemen, hunting-attendants, and nobles. All this party, covered
with dust from hunting, was seated at table under the cover of some
tents adorned with flags, which had been set up on a hill right across
the road, waited upon by pages and young nobles, and recreated by the
sound of cheerful music, which proceeded from the trunk of an oak, when
the horse-dealer, attended by his army of troopers, came slowly along
the road from Dresden.
The sickness of one of Kohlhaas’s little delicate children had
compelled the Knight von Malzahn, who accompanied him, to remain for
three days at Herzberg--a fact which he did not deem it necessary to
communicate to the government at Dresden, feeling that he was only
responsible to his own prince. The elector, who with his breast
half-uncovered, and his plumed hat adorned with fir-twigs, sat by the
Lady Heloise--his first love in the days of early youth--said, elevated
by the pleasure of the feast, that sparkled round him: “Come let us
give the unfortunate man, whoever he may be, this cup of wine!” The
Lady Heloise, casting a noble glance at him, arose at once, and laying
the whole table under contribution, filled a silver vessel, which a
page handed to her, with fruit, cakes, and bread. The whole party,
with refreshments of all kinds, had already thronged from the tent,
when the seneschal met them with a confused countenance and bade them
stop. To the elector, who asked with surprise what had happened thus
to confound the seneschal, the latter answered, stammering and with his
head turned towards the chamberlain, that Kohlhaas was in the cart. At
this piece of intelligence, which astonished every body, as it was
generally known that Kohlhaas had set off six days before, the
chamberlain, Conrad, took his goblet of wine, and turning towards the
tent poured it into the dust. The elector, deeply colouring, placed
his on a salver, which a page presented to him for that purpose, at a
hint from the chamberlain; and while the knight Friedrich von Malzahn,
respectfully greeting the company, whom he did not know, passed slowly
through the tent-ropes that ran across the way, in the direction of
Dahme, the party, at the invitation of the seneschal, returned to the
tent without taking further notice.