The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04

When the morning dawned the entire castle had burned down and only the walls remained standing; no one was left in it but Kohlhaas and his seven men. He dismounted from his horse and, in the bright sunlight which illuminated every crack and corner, once more searched the inclosure. When he had to admit, hard though it was for him to do so, that the expedition against the castle had failed, with a heart full of pain and grief he sent Herse and some of the other men to gather news of the direction in which the Squire had fled. He felt especially troubled about a rich nunnery for ladies of rank, Erlabrunn by name, which was situated on the shores of the Mulde, and whose abbess, Antonia Tronka, was celebrated in the neighborhood as a pious, charitable, and saintly woman. The unhappy Kohlhaas thought it only too probable that the Squire, stripped as he was of all necessities, had taken refuge in this nunnery, since the abbess was his own aunt and had been his governess in his early childhood. After informing himself of these particulars, Kohlhaas ascended the tower of the castellan's quarters in the interior of which there was still a habitable room, and there he drew up a so-called "Kohlhaas mandate" in which he warned the country not to offer assistance to Squire Wenzel Tronka, against whom he was waging just warfare, and, furthermore, commanded every inhabitant, instead, relatives and friends not excepted, to surrender him under penalty of death and the inevitable burning down of everything that might be called property.

This declaration he scattered broadcast in the surrounding country through travelers and strangers; he even went so far as to give Waldmann, his servant, a copy of it, with definite instructions to carry it to Erlabrunn and place it in the hands of Lady Antonia. Thereupon he had a talk with some of the servants of Tronka Castle who were dissatisfied with the Squire and, attracted by the prospect of plunder, wished to enter the horse-dealer's service. He armed them after the manner of foot-soldiers, with cross-bows and daggers, taught them how to mount behind the men on horseback, and after he had turned into money everything that the company had collected and had distributed it among them, he spent some hours in the gateway of the castle, resting after his sorry labor.

Toward midday Herse came and confirmed what Kohlhaas' heart, which was always filled with the most gloomy forebodings, had already told him—namely, that the Squire was then in the nunnery of Erlabrunn with the old Lady Antonia Tronka, his aunt. It seemed that, through a door in the rear wall behind the castle, leading into the open air, he had escaped down a narrow stone stairway which, protected by a little roof, ran down to a few boats on the Elbe. At least, Herse reported that at midnight the Squire in a skiff without rudder or oars had arrived at a village on the Elbe, to the great astonishment of the inhabitants who were assembled on account of the fire at Tronka Castle and that he had gone on toward Erlabrunn in a village cart.

Kohlhaas sighed deeply at this news; he asked whether the horses had been fed, and when they answered "Yes," he had his men mount, and in three hours' time he was at the gates of Erlabrunn. Amid the rumbling of a distant storm on the horizon, he and his troop entered the courtyard of the convent with torches which they had lighted before reaching the spot. Just as Waldmann, his servant, came forward to announce that the mandate had been duly delivered, Kohlhaas saw the abbess and the chapter-warden step out under the portal of the nunnery, engaged in agitated conversation. While the chapter-warden, a little old man with snow-white hair, shooting furious glances at Kohlhaas, was having his armor put on and, in a bold voice, called to the men-servants surrounding him to ring the storm-bell, the abbess, white as a sheet, and holding the silver image of the Crucified One in her hand, descended the sloping driveway and, with all her nuns, flung herself down before Kohlhaas' horse.

Herse and Sternbald overpowered the chapter-warden, who had no sword in his hand, and led him off as a prisoner among the horses, while Kohlhaas asked the abbess where Squire Wenzel Tronka was. She unfastened from her girdle a large ring of keys, and answered, "In Wittenberg, Kohlhaas, worthy man!"—adding, in a shaking voice, "Fear God, and do no wrong!" Kohlhaas, plunged back into the hell of unsatisfied thirst for revenge, wheeled his horse and was about to cry, "Set fire to the buildings!" when a terrific thunder-bolt struck close beside him. Turning his horse around again toward the abbess he asked her whether she had received his mandate. The lady answered in a weak, scarcely audible voice—"Just a few moments ago!" "When?" "Two hours after the Squire, my nephew, had taken his departure, as truly as God is my help!" When Waldmann, the groom, to whom Kohlhaas turned with a lowering glance, stammered out a confirmation of this fact, saying that the waters of the Mulde, swollen by the rain, had prevented his arriving until a few moments ago, Kohlhaas came to his senses. A sudden, terrible downpour of rain, sweeping across the pavement of the courtyard and extinguishing the torches, relaxed the tension of the unhappy man's grief; doffing his hat curtly to the abbess, he wheeled his horse, dug in his spurs, calling "Follow me, my brothers; the Squire is in Wittenberg," and left the nunnery.

The night having set in, he stopped at an inn on the highroad, and had to rest here for a day because the horses were so exhausted. As he clearly saw that with a troop of ten men (for his company numbered that many now) he could not defy a place like Wittenberg, he drew up a second mandate, in which, after a short account of what had happened to him in the land, he summoned "every good Christian," as he expressed it, to whom he "solemnly promised bounty-money and other perquisites of war, to take up his quarrel against Squire Tronka as the common enemy of all Christians." In another mandate which appeared shortly after this he called himself "a free gentleman of the Empire and of the World, subject only to God"—an example of morbid and misplaced fanaticism which, nevertheless, with the sound of his money and the prospect of plunder, procured him a crowd of recruits from among the rabble, whom the peace with Poland had deprived of a livelihood. In fact, he had thirty-odd men when he crossed back to the right side of the Elbe, bent upon reducing Wittenberg to ashes.

He encamped with horses and men in an old tumble-down brick-kiln, in the solitude of a dense forest which surrounded the town at that time. No sooner had Sternbald, whom he had sent in disguise into the city with the mandate, brought him word that it was already known there, than he set out with his troop on the eve of Whitsuntide; and while the citizens lay sound asleep, he set the town on fire at several points simultaneously. At the same time, while his men were plundering the suburbs, he fastened a paper to the door-post of a church to the effect that "he, Kohlhaas, had set the city on fire, and if the Squire were not delivered to him he would burn down the city so completely that," as he expressed it, "he would not need to look behind any wall to find him."

The terror of the citizens at such an unheard-of outrage was indescribable, though, as it was fortunately a rather calm summer night, the flames had not destroyed more than nineteen buildings, among which, however, was a church. Toward daybreak, as soon as the fire had been partially extinguished, the aged Governor of the province, Otto von Gorgas, sent out immediately a company of fifty men to capture the bloodthirsty madman. The captain in command of the company, Gerstenberg by name, bore himself so badly, however, that the whole expedition, instead of subduing Kohlhaas, rather helped him to a most dangerous military reputation. For the captain separated his men into several divisions, with the intention of surrounding and crushing Kohlhaas; but the latter, holding his troop together, attacked and beat him at isolated points, so that by the evening of the following day, not a single man of the whole company in which the hopes of the country were centred, remained in the field against him. Kohlhaas, who had lost some of his men in these fights, again set fire to the city on the morning of the next day, and his murderous measures were so well taken that once more a number of houses and almost all the barns in the suburbs were burned down. At the same time he again posted the well-known mandate, this time, furthermore, on the corners of the city hall itself, and he added a notice concerning the fate of Captain von Gerstenberg who had been sent against him by the Governor, and whom he had overwhelmingly defeated.

The Governor of the province, highly incensed at this defiance, placed himself with several knights at the head of a troop of one hundred and fifty men. At a written request he gave Squire Wenzel Tronka a guard to protect him from the violence of the people, who flatly insisted that he must be removed from the city. After the Governor had had guards placed in all the villages in the vicinity, and also had sentinels stationed on the city walls to prevent a surprise, he himself set out on Saint Gervaise's day to capture the dragon who was devastating the land. The horse-dealer was clever enough to keep out of the way of this troop. By skilfully executed marches he enticed the Governor five leagues away from the city, and by means of various manoeuvres he gave the other the mistaken notion that, hard pressed by superior numbers, he was going to throw himself into Brandenburg. Then, when the third night closed in, he made a forced ride back to Wittenberg, and for the third time set fire to the city. Herse, who crept into the town in disguise, carried out this horrible feat of daring, and because of a sharp north wind that was blowing, the fire proved so destructive and spread so rapidly that in less than three hours forty-two houses, two churches, several convents and schools, and the very residence of the electoral governor of the province were reduced to ruins and ashes.

The Governor who, when the day broke, believed his adversary to be in Brandenburg, returned by forced marches when informed of what had happened, and found the city in a general uproar. The people were massed by thousands around the Squire's house, which was barricaded with heavy timbers and posts, and with wild cries they demanded his expulsion from the city. Two burgomasters, Jenkens and Otto by name, who were present in their official dress at the head of the entire city council, tried in vain to explain that they absolutely must await the return of a courier who had been dispatched to the President of the Chancery of State for permission to send the Squire to Dresden, whither he himself, for many reasons, wished to go. The unreasoning crowd, armed with pikes and staves, cared nothing for these words. After handling rather roughly some councilors who were insisting upon the adoption of vigorous measures, the mob was about to storm the house where the Squire was and level it to the ground, when the Governor, Otto von Gorgas, appeared in the city at the head of his troopers. This worthy gentleman, who was wont by his mere presence to inspire people to respectful obedience, had, as though in compensation for the failure of the expedition from which he was returning, succeeded in taking prisoner three stray members of the incendiary's band, right in front of the gates of the city. While the prisoners were being loaded with chains before the eyes of the people, he made a clever speech to the city councilors, assuring them that he was on Kohlhaas' track and thought that he would soon be able to bring the incendiary himself in chains. By force of all these reassuring circumstances he succeeded in allaying the fears of the assembled crowd and in partially reconciling them to the presence of the Squire until the return of the courier from Dresden. He dismounted from his horse and, accompanied by some knights, entered the house after the posts and stockades had been cleared away. He found the Squire, who was falling from one faint into another, in the hands of two doctors, who with essences and stimulants were trying to restore him to consciousness. As Sir Otto von Gorgas realized that this was not the moment to exchange any words with him on the subject of the behavior of which he had been guilty, he merely told him, with a look of quiet contempt, to dress himself, and, for his own safety, to follow him to the apartments of the knight's prison. They put a doublet and a helmet on the Squire and when, with chest half bare on account of the difficulty he had in breathing, he appeared in the street on the arm of the Governor and his brother-in-law, the Count of Gerschau, blasphemous and horrible curses against him rose to heaven. The mob, whom the lansquenets found it very difficult to restrain, called him a bloodsucker, a miserable public pest and a tormentor of men, the curse of the city of Wittenberg, and the ruin of Saxony. After a wretched march through the devastated city, in the course of which the Squire's helmet fell off several times without his missing it and had to be replaced on his head by the knight who was behind him, they reached the prison at last, where he disappeared into a tower under the protection of a strong guard. Meanwhile the return of the courier with the decree of the Elector had aroused fresh alarm in the city. For the Saxon government, to which the citizens of Dresden had made direct application in an urgent petition, refused to permit the Squire to sojourn in the electoral capital before the incendiary had been captured. The Governor was instructed rather to use all the power at his command to protect the Squire just where he was, since he had to stay somewhere, but in order to pacify the good city of Wittenberg, the inhabitants were informed that a force of five hundred men under the command of Prince Friedrich of Meissen was already on the way to protect them from further molestation on the part of Kohlhaas.

The Governor saw clearly that a decree of this kind was wholly inadequate to pacify the people. For not only had several small advantages gained by the horse-dealer in skirmishes outside the city sufficed to spread extremely disquieting rumors as to the size to which his band had grown; his way of waging warfare with ruffians in disguise who slunk about under cover of darkness with pitch, straw, and sulphur, unheard of and quite without precedent as it was, would have rendered ineffectual an even larger protecting force than the one which was advancing under the Prince of Meissen. After reflecting a short time, the Governor determined therefore to suppress altogether the decree he had received; he merely posted at all the street corners a letter from the Prince of Meissen, announcing his arrival. At daybreak a covered wagon left the courtyard of the knight's prison and took the road to Leipzig, accompanied by four heavily armed troopers who, in an indefinite sort of way, let it be understood that they were bound for the Pleissenburg. The people having thus been satisfied on the subject of the ill-starred Squire, whose existence seemed identified with fire and sword, the Governor himself set out with a force of three hundred men to join Prince Friedrich of Meissen. In the mean time Kohlhaas, thanks to the strange position which he had assumed in the world, had in truth increased the numbers of his band to one hundred and nine men, and he had also collected in Jessen a store of weapons with which he had fully armed them. When informed of the two tempests that were sweeping down upon him, he decided to go to meet them with the speed of the hurricane before they should join to overwhelm him. In accordance with this plan he attacked the Prince of Meissen the very next night, surprising him near Mühlberg. In this fight, to be sure, he was greatly grieved to lose Herse, who was struck down at his side by the first shots but, embittered by this loss, in a three-hour battle he so roughly handled the Prince of Meissen, who was unable to collect his forces in the town, that at break of day the latter was obliged to take the road back to Dresden, owing to several severe wounds which he had received and the complete disorder into which his troops had been thrown. Kohlhaas, made foolhardy by this victory, turned back to attack the Governor before the latter could learn of it, fell upon him at midday in the open country near the village of Damerow, and fought him until nightfall, with murderous losses, to be sure, but with corresponding success. Indeed, the next morning he would certainly with the remnant of his band have renewed the attack on the Governor, who had thrown himself into the churchyard at Damerow, if the latter had not received through spies the news of the defeat of the Prince at Mühlberg and therefore deemed it wiser to return to Wittenberg to await a more propitious moment.

Five days after the dispersion of these two bodies of troops, Kohlhaas arrived before Leipzig and set fire to the city on three different sides. In the mandate which he scattered broadcast on this occasion he called himself "a vicegerent of the archangel Michael who had come to visit upon all who, in this controversy, should take the part of the Squire, punishment by fire and sword for the villainy into which the whole world was plunged." At the same time, having surprised the castle at Lützen and fortified himself in it, he summoned the people to join him and help establish a better order of things. With a sort of insane fanaticism the mandate was signed: "Done at the seat of our provisional world government, our ancient castle at Lützen."

As the good fortune of the inhabitants of Leipzig would have it, the fire, owing to a steady rain which was falling, did not spread, so that, thanks to the rapid action of the means at hand for extinguishing fires, only a few small shops which lay around the Pleissenburg went up in flames; nevertheless the presence of the desperate incendiary, and his erroneous impression that the Squire was in Leipzig, caused unspeakable consternation in the city. When a troop of one hundred and eighty men at arms that had been sent against him returned defeated, nothing else remained for the city councilors, who did not wish to jeopardize the wealth of the place, but to bar the gates completely and set the citizens to keep watch day and night outside the walls. In vain the city council had declarations posted in the villages of the surrounding country, with the positive assurance that the Squire was not in the Pleissenburg. The horse-dealer, in similar manifestos, insisted that he was in the Pleissenburg and declared that if the Squire were not there, he, Kohlhaas, would at any rate proceed as though he were until he should have been told the name of the place where his enemy was to be found. The Elector, notified by courier of the straits to which the city of Leipzig was reduced, declared that he was already gathering a force of two thousand men and would put himself at their head in order to capture Kohlhaas. He administered to Sir Otto von Gorgas a severe rebuke for the misleading and ill-considered artifice to which he had resorted to rid the vicinity of Wittenberg of the incendiary. Nor can any one describe the confusion which seized all Saxony, and especially the electoral capital, when it was learned there that in all the villages near Leipzig a declaration addressed to Kohlhaas had been placarded, no one knew by whom, to the effect that "Wenzel, the Squire, was with his cousins Hinz and Kunz in Dresden."

It was under these circumstances that Doctor Martin Luther, supported by the authority which his position in the world gave him, undertook the task of forcing Kohlhaas, by the power of kindly words, back within the limits set by the social order of the day. Building upon an element of good in the breast of the incendiary, he had posted in all the cities and market-towns of the Electorate a placard addressed to him, which read as follows:

"Kohlhaas, thou who claimest to be sent to wield the sword of justice, what is it that thou, presumptuous man, art making bold to attempt in the madness of thy stone-blind passion—thou who art filled from head to foot with injustice? Because the sovereign, to whom thou art subject, has denied thee thy rights—thy rights in the struggle for a paltry trifle—thou arisest, godless man, with fire and sword, and like a wolf of the wilderness dost burst upon the peaceful community which he protects. Thou, who misleadest men with this declaration full of untruthfulness and guile, dost thou think, sinner, to satisfy God therewith in that future day which shall shine into the recesses of every heart? How canst thou say that thy rights have been denied thee—thou, whose savage breast, animated by the inordinate desire for base revenge, completely gave up the endeavor to procure justice after the first half-hearted attempts, which came to naught? Is a bench full of constables and beadles who suppress a letter that is presented, or who withhold a judgment that they should deliver—is this thy supreme authority? And must I tell thee, impious man, that the supreme authority of the land knows nothing whatever about thine affair—nay, more, that the sovereign against whom thou art rebelling does not even know thy name, so that when thou shalt one day come before the throne of God thinking to accuse him, he will be able to say with a serene countenance, 'I have done no wrong to this man, Lord, for my soul is ignorant of his existence.' Know that the sword which thou wieldest is the sword of robbery and bloodthirstiness. A rebel art thou, and no warrior of the righteous God; wheel and gallows are thy goal on earth—gallows and, in the life to come, damnation which is ordained for crime and godlessness.

Wittenberg, etc. MARTIN LUTHER."

When Sternbald and Waldmann, to their great consternation, discovered the placard which had been affixed to the gateway of the castle at Lützen during the night, Kohlhaas within the castle was just revolving in his distracted mind a new plan for the burning of Leipzig—for he placed no faith in the notices posted in the villages announcing that Squire Wenzel was in Dresden, since they were not signed by any one, let alone by the municipal council, as he had required. For several days the two men hoped in vain that Kohlhaas would perceive Luther's placard, for they did not care to approach him on the subject. Gloomy and absorbed in thought, he did indeed, in the evening, appear, but only to give his brief commands, and he noticed nothing. Finally one morning, when he was about to have two of his followers strung up for plundering in the vicinity against his express orders, Sternbald and Waldmann determined to call his attention to it. With the pomp which he had adopted since his last manifesto—a large cherubim's sword on a red leather cushion, ornamented with golden tassels, borne before him, and twelve men with burning torches following him—Kohlhaas was just returning from the place of execution, while the people on both sides timidly made way for him. At that moment the two men, with their swords under their arms, walked, in a way that could not fail to excite his surprise, around the pillar to which the placard was attached.

When Kohlhaas, sunk in thought and with his hands folded behind his back, came under the portal, he raised his eyes and started back in surprise, and as the two men at sight of him drew back respectfully, he advanced with rapid steps to the pillar, watching them absent-mindedly. But who can describe the storm of emotion in his soul when he beheld there the paper accusing him of injustice, signed by the most beloved and honored name he knew—the name of Martin Luther! A dark flush spread over his face; taking off his helmet he read the document through twice from beginning to end, then walked back among his men with irresolute glances as though he were about to speak, yet said nothing. He unfastened the paper from the pillar, read it through once again, and cried, "Waldmann! have my horse saddled!"—then, "Sternbald, follow me into the castle!" and with that he disappeared. It had needed but these few words of that godly man to disarm him suddenly in the midst of all the dire destruction that he was plotting.

He threw on the disguise of a Thuringian farmer and told Sternbald that a matter of the greatest importance obliged him to go to Wittenberg. In the presence of some of his most trustworthy men he turned over to Sternbald the command of the band remaining in Lützen, and with the assurance that he would be back in three days, during which time no attack was to be feared, he departed for Wittenberg. He put up at an inn under an assumed name, and at nightfall, wrapped in his cloak and provided with a brace of pistols which he had taken at the sack of Tronka Castle, entered Luther's room. When Luther, who was sitting at his desk with a mass of books and papers before him, saw the extraordinary stranger enter his room and bolt the door behind him, he asked who he was and what he wanted. The man, who was holding his hat respectfully in his hand, had no sooner, with a diffident presentiment of the terror that he would cause, made answer that he was Michael Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer, than Luther cried out, "Stand far back from me!" and rising from the desk added, as he hurried toward a bell, "Your breath is pestilence, your presence destruction!"

Without stirring from the spot Kohlhaas drew his pistol and said, "Most reverend Sir, if you touch the bell this pistol will stretch me lifeless at your feet! Sit down and hear me. You are not safer among the angels, whose psalms you are writing down, than you are with me."

Luther sat down and asked, "What do you want?" Kohlhaas answered, "I wish to refute the opinion you have of me, that I am an unjust man! You told me in your placard that my sovereign knows nothing about my case. Very well; procure me a safe-conduct and I will go to Dresden and lay it before him."

"Impious and terrible man!" cried Luther, puzzled and, at the same time, reassured by these words. "Who gave you the right to attack Squire Tronka in pursuance of a decree issued on your own authority, and, when you did not find him in his castle, to visit with fire and sword the whole community which protects him?"

Kohlhaas answered, "Reverend Sir, no one, henceforth. Information which I received from Dresden deceived and misled me! The war which I am waging against society is a crime, so long as I haven't been cast out—and you have assured me that I have not."

"Cast out!" cried Luther, looking at him. "What mad thoughts have taken possession of you? Who could have cast you out from the community of the state in which you lived? Indeed where, as long as states have existed, has there ever been a case of any one, no matter who, being cast out of such a community?"

"I call that man cast out," answered Kohlhaas, clenching his fist, "who is denied the protection of the laws. For I need this protection, if my peaceable business is to prosper. Yes, it is for this that, with all my possessions, I take refuge in this community, and he who denies me this protection casts me out among the savages of the desert; he places in my hand—how can you try to deny it?—the club with which to protect myself."

"Who has denied you the protection of the laws?" cried Luther. "Did I not write you that your sovereign, to whom you addressed your complaint, has never heard of it? If state-servants behind his back suppress lawsuits or otherwise trifle with his sacred name without his knowledge, who but God has the right to call him to account for choosing such servants, and are you, lost and terrible man, entitled to judge him therefor?"

"Very well," answered Kohlhaas, "if the sovereign does not cast me out I will return again to the community which he protects. Procure for me, I repeat it, safe-conduct to Dresden; then I will disperse the band of men that I have collected in the castle at Lützen and I will once again lay my complaint, which was rejected, before the courts of the land."

With an expression of vexation, Luther tossed in a heap the papers that were lying on his desk, and was silent. The attitude of defiance which this singular man had assumed toward the state irritated him, and reflecting upon the judgment which Kohlhaas had issued at Kohlhaasenbrück against the Squire, he asked what it was that he demanded of the tribunal at Dresden. Kohlhaas answered, "The punishment of the Squire according to the law; restoration of the horses to their former condition; and compensation for the damages which I, as well as my groom Herse, who fell at Mühlberg, have suffered from the outrage perpetrated upon us."

Luther cried, "Compensation for damages! Money by the thousands, from Jews and Christians, on notes and securities, you have borrowed to defray the expenses of your wild revenge! Shall you put that amount also on the bill when it comes to reckoning up the costs?"

"God forbid!" answered Kohlhaas. "House and farm and the means that I possessed I do not demand back, any more than the expenses of my wife's funeral! Herse's old mother will present the bill for her son's medical treatment, as well as a list of those things which he lost at Tronka Castle; and the loss which I suffered on account of not selling the black horses the government may have estimated by an expert."

Luther exclaimed, as he gazed at him, "Mad, incomprehensible, and amazing man! After your sword has taken the most ferocious revenge upon the Squire which could well be imagined, what impels you to insist upon a judgment against him, the severity of which, when it is finally pronounced, will fall so lightly upon him?"

Kohlhaas answered, while a tear rolled down his cheek, "Most reverend Sir! It has cost me my wife; Kohlhaas intends to prove to the world that she did not perish in an unjust quarrel. Do you, in these particulars, yield to my will and let the court of justice speak; in all other points that may be contested I will yield to you."

Luther said, "See here, what you demand is just, if indeed the circumstances are such as is commonly reported; and if you had only succeeded in having your suit decided by the sovereign before you arbitrarily proceeded to avenge yourself, I do not doubt that your demands would have been granted, point for point. But, all things considered, would it not have been better for you to pardon the Squire for your Redeemer's sake, take back the black horses, thin and worn-out as they were, and mount and ride home to Kohlhaasenbrück to fatten them in your own stable?"

Kohlhaas answered, "Perhaps!" Then, stepping to the window, "Perhaps not, either! Had I known that I should be obliged to set them on their feet again with blood from the heart of my dear wife, I might, reverend Sir, perhaps have done as you say and not have considered a bushel of oats! But since they have now cost me so dear, let the matter run its course, say I; have judgment be pronounced as is due me, and have the Squire fatten my horses for me."

Turning back to his papers with conflicting thoughts, Luther said that he would enter into negotiations with the Elector on his behalf; in the mean time let him remain quietly in the castle at Lützen. If the sovereign would consent to accord him free-conduct, they would make the fact known to him by posting it publicly. "To be sure," he continued, as Kohlhaas bent to kiss his hand, "whether the Elector will be lenient, I do not know, for I have heard that he has collected an army and is about to start out to apprehend you in the castle at Lützen; however, as I have already told you, there shall be no lack of effort on my part"—and, as he spoke, he got up from his chair prepared to dismiss him. Kohlhaas declared that Luther's intercession completely reassured him on that point, whereupon Luther bowed to him with a sweep of his hand. Kohlhaas, however, suddenly sank down on one knee before him and said he had still another favor to ask of him—the fact was, that at Whitsuntide, when it was his custom to receive the Holy Communion, he had failed to go to church on account of this warlike expedition of his. Would Luther have the goodness to receive his confession without further preparation and, in exchange, administer to him the blessed Holy Sacrament? Luther, after reflecting a short time, scanned his face, and said, "Yes, Kohlhaas, I will do so. But the Lord, whose body you desire, forgave his enemy. Will you likewise," he added, as the other looked at him disconcerted, "forgive the Squire who has offended you? Will you go to Tronka Castle, mount your black horses, ride them back to Kohlhaasenbrück and fatten them there?"

"Your Reverence!" said Kohlhaas flushing, and seized his hand—

"Well?"

"Even the Lord did not forgive all his enemies. Let me forgive the Elector, my two gentlemen the castellan and the steward, the lords Hinz and Kunz, and whoever else may have injured me in this affair; but, if it is possible, suffer me to force the Squire to fatten my black horses again for me."

At these words Luther turned his back on him, with a displeased glance, and rang the bell. In answer to the summons an amanuensis came into the anteroom with a light, and Kohlhaas, wiping his eyes, rose from his knees disconcerted; and since the amanuensis was working in vain at the door, which was bolted, and Luther had sat down again to his papers, Kohlhaas opened the door for the man. Luther glanced for an instant over his shoulder at the stranger, and said to the amanuensis, "Light the way!" whereupon the latter, somewhat surprised at the sight of the visitor, took down from the wall the key to the outside door and stepped back to the half-opened door of the room, waiting for the stranger to take his departure. Kohlhaas, holding his hat nervously in both hands, said, "And so, most reverend Sir, I cannot partake of the benefit of reconciliation, which I solicited of you?"

Luther answered shortly, "Reconciliation with your Savior—no! With the sovereign—that depends upon the success of the attempt which I promised you to make." And then he motioned to the amanuensis to carry out, without further delay, the command he had given him. Kohlhaas laid both hands on his heart with an expression of painful emotion, and disappeared after the man who was lighting him down the stairs.

On the next morning Luther dispatched a message to the Elector of Saxony in which, after a bitter allusion to the lords, Hinz and Kunz Tronka, Chamberlain and Cup-bearer to his Highness, who, as was generally known, had suppressed the petition, he informed the sovereign, with the candor that was peculiar to him, that under such notorious circumstances there was nothing to do but to accept the proposition of the horse-dealer and to grant him an amnesty for what had occurred so that he might have opportunity to renew his lawsuit. Public opinion, Luther remarked, was on the side of this man to a very dangerous extent—so much so that, even in Wittenberg, which had three times been burnt down by him, there was a voice raised in his favor. And since, if his offer were refused, Kohlhaas would undoubtedly bring it to the knowledge of the people, accompanied by malicious comments, and the populace might easily be so far misled that nothing further could be done against him by the authorities of the state, Luther concluded that, in this extraordinary case, scruples about entering into negotiations with a subject who had taken up arms must be passed over; that, as a matter of fact, the latter, by the conduct which had been observed toward him, had in a sense been cast out of the body politic, and, in short, in order to put an end to the matter, he should be regarded rather as a foreign power which had attacked the land (and, since he was not a Saxon subject, he really might, in a way, be regarded as such), than as a rebel in revolt against the throne.

When the Elector received this letter there were present at the palace Prince Christiern of Meissen, Generalissimo of the Empire, uncle of that Prince Friedrich of Meissen who had been defeated at Mühlberg and was still laid up with his wounds, also the Grand Chancellor of the Tribunal, Count Wrede, Count Kallheim, President of the Chancery of State, and the two lords, Hinz and Kunz Tronka, the former Cup-bearer, the latter Chamberlain—all confidential friends of the sovereign from his youth. The Chamberlain, Sir Kunz, who in his capacity of privy councilor, attended to the private correspondence of his master and had the right to use his name and seal, was the first to speak. He once more explained in detail that never, on his own authority, would he have suppressed the complaint which the horse-dealer had lodged in court against his cousin the Squire, had it not been for the fact that, misled by false statements, he had believed it an absolutely unfounded and worthless piece of mischief-making. After this he passed on to consider the present state of affairs. He remarked that by neither divine nor human laws had the horse-dealer been warranted in wreaking such horrible vengeance as he had allowed himself to take for this mistake. The Chamberlain then proceeded to describe the glory that would fall upon the damnable head of the latter if they should negotiate with him as with a recognized military power, and the ignominy which would thereby be reflected upon the sacred person of the Elector seemed to him so intolerable that, carried away by the fire of his eloquence, he declared he would rather let worst come to worst, see the judgment of the mad rebel carried out and his cousin, the Squire, led off to Kohlhaasenbrück to fatten the black horses, than know that the proposition made by Dr. Luther had been accepted.

The Lord High Chancellor of the Tribunal of Justice, Count Wrede, turning half way round toward him, expressed regret that the Chamberlain had not, in the first instance, been inspired with such tender solicitude for the reputation of the sovereign as he was displaying in the solution of this undoubtedly delicate affair. He represented to the Elector his hesitation about employing the power of the state to carry out a manifestly unjust measure. He remarked, with a significant allusion to the great numbers which the horse-dealer was continually recruiting in the country, that the thread of the crime threatened in this way to be spun out indefinitely, and declared that the only way to sunder it and extricate the government happily from that ugly quarrel was to act with plain honesty and to make good, directly and without respect of person, the mistake which they had been guilty of committing.

Prince Christiern of Meissen, when asked by the Elector to express his opinion, turned deferentially toward the Grand Chancellor and declared that the latter's way of thinking naturally inspired in him the greatest respect, but, in wishing to aid Kohlhaas to secure justice, the Chancellor failed to consider that he was wronging Wittenberg, Leipzig, and the entire country that had been injured by him, in depriving them of their just claim for indemnity or at least for punishment of the culprit. The order of the state was so disturbed in its relation to this man that it would be difficult to set it right by an axiom taken from the science of law. Therefore, in accord with the opinion of the Chamberlain, he was in favor of employing the means appointed for such cases—that is to say, there should be gathered a force large enough to enable them either to capture or to crush the horse-dealer, who had planted himself in the castle at Lützen. The Chamberlain brought over two chairs from the wall and obligingly placed them together in the middle of the room for the Elector and the Prince, saying, as he did so, that he was delighted to find that a man of the latter's uprightness and acumen agreed with him about the means to be employed in settling an affair of such varied aspect. The Prince, placing his hand on the chair without sitting down, looked at him, and assured him that he had little cause to rejoice on that account since the first step connected with this course would be the issuing of a warrant for his arrest, to be followed by a suit for misuse of the sovereign's name. For if necessity required that the veil be drawn before the throne of justice over a series of crimes, which finally would be unable to find room before the bar of judgment, since each led to another, and no end—this at least did not apply to the original offense which had given birth to them. First and foremost, he, the Chamberlain, must be tried for his life if the state was to be authorized to crush the horse-dealer, whose case, as was well known, was exceedingly just, and in whose hand they had placed the sword that he was wielding.

The discomfited Chamberlain at these words gazed at the Elector, who turned away, his whole face flushing, and walked over to the window. After an embarrassing silence on all sides, Count Kallheim said that this was not the way to extricate themselves from the magic circle in which they were captive. His nephew, Prince Friedrich, might be put upon trial with equal justice, for in the peculiar expedition which he had undertaken against Kohlhaas he had over-stepped his instructions in many ways—so much so that, if one were to inquire about the whole long list of those who had caused the embarrassment in which they now found themselves, he too would have to be named among them and called to account by the sovereign for what had occurred at Mühlberg.

While the Elector, with doubtful glances, walked up to his table, the Cup-bearer, Sir Hinz Tronka, began to speak in his turn. He did not understand, he said, how the governmental decree which was to be passed could escape men of such wisdom as were here assembled. The horse-dealer, so far as he knew, in return for mere safe-conduct to Dresden and a renewed investigation of his case, had promised to disband the force with which he had attacked the land. It did not follow from this, however, that he must be granted an amnesty for the wanton revenge he had taken into his own hands. These were two different legal concepts which Dr. Luther, as well as the council of state, seemed to have confounded. "When," he continued, laying his finger beside his nose, "the judgment concerning the black horses has been pronounced by the Tribunal at Dresden, no matter what it may be, nothing prevents us from imprisoning Kohlhaas on the ground of his incendiarism and robberies. That would be a diplomatic solution of the affair, which would unite the advantages of the opinion of both statesmen and would be sure to win the applause of the world and of posterity." The Prince, as well as the Lord Chancellor, answered this speech of Sir Hinz with a mere glance, and, as the discussion accordingly seemed at an end, the Elector said that he would turn over in his own mind, until the next sitting of the State Council, the various opinions which had been expressed before him. It seemed as if the preliminary measure mentioned by the Prince had deprived the Elector's heart, which was very sensitive where friendship was concerned, of the desire to proceed with the campaign against Kohlhaas, all the preparations for which were completed; at least he bade the Lord Chancellor, Count Wrede, whose opinion appeared to him the most expedient, to remain after the others left. The latter showed him letters from which it appeared that, as a matter of fact, the horse-dealer's forces had already come to number four hundred men; indeed, in view of the general discontent which prevailed all over the country on account of the misdemeanors of the Chamberlain, he might reckon on doubling or even tripling this number in a short time. Without further hesitation the Elector decided to accept the advice given him by Dr. Luther; accordingly he handed over to Count Wrede the entire management of the Kohlhaas affair. Only a few days later a placard appeared, the essence of which we give as follows:

"We, etc., etc., Elector of Saxony, in especially gracious consideration of the intercession made to us by Doctor Martin Luther, do grant to Michael Kohlhaas, horse-dealer from the territory of Brandenburg, safe-conduct to Dresden for the purpose of a renewed investigation of his case, on condition that, within three days after sight, he lay down the arms to which he has had recourse. It is to be understood, however, that in the unlikely event of Kohlhaas' suit concerning the black horses being rejected by the Tribunal at Dresden, he shall be prosecuted with all the severity of the law for arbitrarily undertaking to procure justice for himself. Should his suit, however, terminate otherwise, we will show mercy to him and his whole band, instead of inflicting deserved punishment, and a complete amnesty shall be accorded him for the acts of violence which he has committed in Saxony."

Kohlhaas had no sooner received through Dr. Luther a copy of this placard, which had been posted in all the public squares throughout the land, than, in spite of the conditional language in which it was couched, he immediately dispersed his whole band of followers with presents, expressions of gratitude, and appropriate admonitions. He deposited whatever he had taken in the way of money, weapons, and chattels, with the courts at Lützen, to be held as the property of the Elector, and after he had dispatched Waldmann to the bailiff at Kohlhaasenbrück with letters about repurchasing his farm, if that were still possible, and had sent Sternbald to Schwerin for his children whom he wished to have with him again, he left the castle at Lützen and went, without being recognized, to Dresden, carrying with him in bonds the remnant of his little property.

Day was just breaking and the whole city was still asleep when he knocked at the door of the little dwelling situated in the suburb of Pirna, which still, thanks to the honesty of the bailiff, belonged to him. Thomas, the old porter, in charge of the establishment, who on opening the door was surprised and startled to see his master, was told to take word to the Prince of Meissen, in the Government Office, that Kohlhaas the horse-dealer had arrived. The Prince of Meissen, on hearing this news, deemed it expedient to inform himself immediately of the relation in which they stood to this man. When, shortly afterward, he appeared with a retinue of knights and servants, he found an immense crowd of people already gathered in the streets leading to Kohlhaas' dwelling. The news that the destroying angel was there, who punished the oppressors of the people with fire and sword, had aroused all Dresden, the city as well as the suburbs. They were obliged to bolt the door of the house against the press of curious people, and the boys climbed up to the windows in order to get a peep at the incendiary, who was eating his breakfast inside.

As soon as the Prince, with the help of the guard who cleared the way for him, had pushed into the house and entered Kohlhaas' room, he asked the latter, who was standing half undressed before a table, whether he was Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer. Kohlhaas, drawing from his belt a wallet containing several papers concerning his affairs and handing it respectfully to the Prince, answered, "Yes;" and added that, in conformity with the immunity granted him by the sovereign, he had come to Dresden, after disbanding his force, in order to institute proceedings against Squire Wenzel Tronka on account of the black horses.