des took up the gauntlet thrown down to
them, and, while they were opposed to Goldacker in Mecklenburg, other
Swedish regiments marched from Lausitz against Berlin. This was exactly
what the Stadtholder wished, and once more the devoted Mark saw the flames
of war burst forth, in order that Schwarzenberg might have an excuse for
summoning Saxon troops to his aid.

To-day these troops had reached Berlin, and the Stadtholder wished to
celebrate their arrival by a sumptuous _fete_ in his palace. To this
entertainment he had bidden Colonel Goldacker from Mecklenburg; the
commandants of Spandow and Berlin, with their officers, were also invited,
and already, in the early morning, they were preparing the table in the
great hall for the magnificent collation to be served at noon.

Meanwhile lamentation and mourning reigned in the cities of Berlin and
Cologne, while life went so merrily in the Schwarzenberg palace. The wild
hordes of soldiers made the streets unsafe even in the daytime. Drunken
they roved through the city, with the greatest tumult and uproar; they
broke into the houses of peaceful citizens to plunder and rob, and
wherever anything was refused them, they committed the most wanton acts,
laughing and singing over the tortures they inflicted. In vain had the
burghers applied to the officers of these ungovernable outlaws and
besought them to restrain the soldiery from outrages, to confine them to
their quarters, and to punish them for their thefts and robberies. The
officers declared that there was no means of enforcing so rigid a
discipline, and that in times of war some allowance should be made for
soldiers who with their own bodies protected the burghers from their foes.

But the poor, tormented burghers did not want war; they wanted peace!
Peace at any price. The States, too, who held their session in Berlin,
wanted peace, and to this end had sent out a deputation from their midst
to the Elector at Koenigsberg to implore him to pity their distress and to
command the Stadtholder in the Mark to abstain from hostilities against
the Swedes.

The same suit the citizens desired to present to the Stadtholder, and
to-day, while preparations were in progress for a military entertainment
in the Schwarzenberg palace, a solemn deputation of the magistracy and
citizenship repaired to the same spot to lay before the Stadtholder their
wishes and entreaties. Count Schwarzenberg kept them waiting a long while
in his antechambe