ir head, and
through him to attain their ends."

"And what are their ends?" asked the Elector, with lowering brow.

The count bent over closer to his ear, as if he feared letting even the
walls hear what he had to say.

"Their ends are a transference of the government, and when this is
effected a revolt from Emperor and empire, and a league with the Swedes
and all Protestant German princes against Emperor and empire."

"The transference of the government? That means an insurrection, a
revolution. They would hurl me from my throne and ensconce my son there?"

"They hope that in your distress you will do, gracious sir, what your
blessed father did."

"Abdicate!" cried the Elector angrily. "Abdicate in favor of my son?"

"In favor of the Electoral Prince, who has grown up in Holland to become a
promising Prince, a general of the future, a brilliant leader of the
Protestant Church, and of whom his followers say that he will be a second
Gustavus Adolphus!"

"A second plague--a second source of danger to myself!" screamed the
Elector, striking with his clinched fist upon the arm of his chair. "It
was not enough that my brother-in-law Gustavus Adolphus brought me into
trouble and distress, and caused the Emperor's wrath to flame forth
against me, so that I was really afraid that I would share the fate of my
cousin the Margrave of Jaegerndorf, whom the Emperor put under his ban,
declaring that he had forfeited his margraviate, and giving it over as a
feudal tenure to Prince Liechstenstein! I was only saved then from a like
terrible fate by your intercession and fidelity! It was you who, by your
address and eloquence, softened the Emperor's resentment against me,
induced him to pardon me, and afterward brought about the peace of Prague,
which reconciled the Emperor to me. Yet it was not enough to have gone
through those times of anxiety and distress, they must be now renewed
through my only son! In him am I to find a second Gustavus Adolphus, to
plunge me into new perils and bring down upon me the Emperor's avenging
wrath? But it shall not be--I solemnly swear, it shall not be! I will
_not_ involve my land in new dangers and calamities of war. I will _not_
depart from my neutrality. I _will_ have peace--peace with the Emperor,
peace for my poor people, and for their unhappy Prince! But I shall not
act as my father did, and prepare a pleasure for my son by resigning
sovereignty and rule in my lifetime and becoming the ser