rzenberg, when he
again found himself alone in his cabinet. "We approach the _denouement_,
and if I could only get decisive tidings from my son, I would hurry on a
crisis and begin open war. He keeps me waiting for such tidings a very
long while," continued the count, dropping into the armchair in front of
his writing table. "He has only written once to me from Regensburg, and
then he could only inform me that he had commenced operations, and--Ah!"
he interrupted himself, as his glance fell upon his table, "there are
papers and dispatches, which must have come in my absence. Perhaps there
is among them a letter from my son."

He hastily snatched up the letters and examined one after another. No,
there was no letter from his son, only official documents from the
Elector's cabinet.

He opened the first of these, and a shudder ran through his whole frame as
he read. In this paper the Elector commanded the Stadtholder in the Mark
to send back to him the blank charters, intrusted to him by the Elector
George William on his departure for Koenigsberg; he must, moreover, render
a distinct and exact account of the manner in which he had disposed of the
charters no longer in existence. _He_, Schwarzenberg, the mighty
Stadtholder in the Mark, the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, the
Director of the War Department--_he_, to be called to account as a servant
by his master! He was expected to answer for what he had done in the
plenitude of his power, and--worse than that--he must suffer that power to
be limited! He would do nothing of the sort; he would not give up the
blank charters not yet appropriated and send them back to the Elector!

That was to curtail the privileges of his high position, to dethrone him,
and, after having been an absolute master, to make him a dependent
servant! These blank charters had been the princely prerogative of the
Stadtholder, the scepter with which he ruled! These papers, on which
nothing was written, but at the lower corner of which stood the Elector's
sign manual--these papers had made him absolute monarch of the Mark. In
free plenitude of power, with unfettered will, had he filled up the
vacant sheets, bestowing by their means honors and benefits, inflicting
punishments, imposing taxes, and the Elector's signature had legalized his
decrees, and imparted the force of law to his will.[43]

And these blank charters, before which his enemies trembled, which had
struck his partisans and fri