and ambition was to promote by all possible
means the establishment of a powerful family. Nevertheless he ventured
to write from Paris to his father, acquainting him with the fact that
his affections were engaged. But what he had foreseen was actually
realised; the old Baron declared categorically that he had himself
chosen the future mistress of the entail, and therefore there could
never be any mention made of any other. Wolfgang, instead of crossing
the Channel into England, as he was to have done, returned into Geneva
under the assumed name of Born, and married Julia, who after the lapse
of a year bore him a son, and this son became on Wolfgang's death the
real lord of the entail. In explanation of the facts why Hubert, though
acquainted with all this, had kept silent so long and had represented
himself as lord of the entail, various reasons were assigned, based
upon agreements formerly made with Wolfgang, but they seemed for the
most part insufficient and devoid of real foundation.

The Baron sat staring at the clerk of the court as if thunderstruck,
whilst the latter went on proclaiming all this bad news in a
provokingly monotonous and jarring tone. When he finished, V---- rose,
and taking the young man whom he had brought with him by the hand,
said, as he bowed to the assembled company, "Here I have the honour to
present to you, gentlemen, Freiherr Roderick von R----, lord of the
entail of R--sitten." Baron Hubert looked at the youth, who had, as it
were, fallen from the clouds to deprive him of the rich inheritance
together with half the unentailed Courland estates, with suppressed
fury in his gleaming eyes; then, threatening him with his doubled fist,
he ran out of the court without uttering a word. Baron Roderick, on
being challenged by the court-officers, produced the documents by which
he was to establish his identity as the person whom he represented
himself to be. He handed in an attested extract from the register of
the church where his father was married, which certified that on such
and such a day Wolfgang Born, merchant, born in K----, had been united
in marriage with the blessing of the Church to Mdlle. Julia de St. Val,
in the presence of certain witnesses, who were named. Further, he
produced his own baptismal certificate (he had been baptized in Geneva
as the son of the merchant Born and his wife Julia, _nee_ De St. Val,
begotten in lawful wedlock), and various letters from his father to his
mother