inted
for the Monday after Palm-Sunday.

At this intelligence, the Elector of Saxony, whose heart was rent with
grief and remorse, shut himself up in his room for two days, during
which, being weary of his life, he tasted no food. On the third day,
he suddenly disappeared from Dresden, giving a short notice to the
Gubernium that he was going to the Prince of Dessau to hunt. Where he
actually went, and whether he did turn to Dessau, we must leave
undecided, since the chronicles from the comparison of which we obtain
our information, are singularly contradictory upon this point. So much
is certain, that the Prince of Dessau, unable to hunt, lay sick at this
time, with his uncle, Duke Henry, in Brunswick, and that the Lady
Heloise on the evening of the following day, accompanied by a Count
Koenigstein, whom she called her cousin, entered the room of her
husband, the chamberlain.

In the meantime, the sentence of death was read to Kohlhaas at the
elector's request, and the papers relating to his property, which had
been refused him at Dresden, were restored to him. When the
councillors, whom the tribunal had sent to him, asked him how his
property should be disposed of after his death, he prepared a will in
favour of his children, with the assistance of a notary, and appointed
his good friend the farmer at Kohlhaasenbrueck their guardian. Nothing
could equal the peace and contentment of his last days, for by a
special order of the elector, the prison in which he was kept was
thrown open, and a free approach to him was granted to all his friends,
of whom many resided in the city. He had the further satisfaction of
seeing the divine, Jacob Freysing, as a delegate from Doctor Luther,
enter his dungeon, with a letter in Luther's own hand (which was
doubtless very remarkable, but has since been lost), and of receiving
the holy sacrament from the hands of this reverend gentleman, in the
presence of two deans of Brandenburg.

At last the portentous Monday arrived, on which he was to atone to the
world for his too hasty attempt to procure justice, and still the city
was in general commotion, not being able to give up the hope that some
decree would yet come to save him. Accompanied by a strong guard, and
with his two boys in his arms--a favour he had expressly asked at the
bar of the tribunal--he was stepping from the gate of his prison, led
by Jacob Freysing, when, through the midst of a mournful throng of
acquaintance