y?"

"Sire, I really do not understand you," replied Herzberg, shrugging his
shoulders. "I know not, in your most active youthful days, how you could
have done otherwise."

"I will tell you that, if I were not an old man, void of decision and
energy, I would have had these fellows taken to Spandau for life!" said
the king, striking the table with his staff.

"Your majesty does yourself injustice," said Herzberg, smiling. "You
were ever a just monarch in your most ardent youth, and never set aside
the law. These men were not guilty of any positive crime."

"They are daily and hourly guilty of enticing away from me the crown
prince, and making the future ruler of my country an obscurer, a
necromancer, and at the same time a libertine! I was obliged to overlook
his youthful preference for Wilhelmine Enke, and wink at this amour,
for I know that crown prince is human, and his affections are to be
consulted. If he cannot love the wife which diplomacy chooses for him,
then he must be permitted the chosen one of his heart to console him
for the forced marriage. At the same time this person was passable, and
without the usual fault of such creatures, a desire to rule and mingle
in politics. She seems to be unambitious and unpretentious. These
Rosicrucians would banish her by increasing the number of favorites,
that they may rule him, and make the future King of Prussia a complete
tool in their hands. They excite his mind, which is not too well
balanced, and rob him by their witchcraft of the intellect that he has.
They promise him to find the philosopher's stone, and make a fool of
him. Am I not right?"

"I must acknowledge that you are," sighed Herzberg.

"And admit also that it would be just to send these in, famous fellows
as criminals to Spandau."

"Sire, unfortunately, there are crimes and offences which the law does
not reach, and which cannot be judged."

"When I was young," said the king, "I tore up and stamped upon every
weed that I found in my garden. Shall I now let these two grow and
infect the air, because the law gives me no right to crush them?
Formerly I would have torn them leaf from leaf, but now I am old
and useless, my hand is weak, and lacks the strength to uproot them,
therefore I suffer them to stand, and all the other abominable things
which these rogues bring to pass. A cloud is rising, from which a storm
will one day burst over Prussia; but I cannot dissipate it, for
the little strength and b