discipline had then been very strict, but the
young duke having abolished it, and commanded
gaiety and masquerades, the officers of the court
and chancery, merchants, and other respectable
citizens, were compelled to attend these entertainments
in regulated costumes. A French theatre
was instituted, and all who belonged to the court
were on the free-list. The duke was also a great
huntsman, and as " Master of the Hunt for the
Empire," he created, in honour of St. Hubert,
the great huntsman's order. All the rooms in
his hunting lodges were adorned with the antlers
of stags killed by himself, and everywhere he was
followed by his favourite black wolf, Melai, which
slept on a tiger-skin at the foot of his bed.
He was fond also of soldiering, and kept the
first standing army of two thousand house troops,
horse and foot guards, dressed in a yellow livery
trimmed all over with silver.

This was extravagant enough for the small
country, but, moreover, the duke was supplied
by his courtiers with a Maintenon: the sister of
one of themselves, who was invited from
Mecklenburg. Wilhelmine von Graevnitz was made
a lady of honour to the duchess. His highness
married Mademoiselle von Graevnitz, not in
the morganatic manner, but in the way of
direct and open bigamy, and bought for her in
Vienna, for twenty thousand florins, a countess's
diploma. The clergy reprimanded, and refused
the sacrament. Charles XII. and several other
princes remonstrated, but the duke said, " I am
pope in my country, and, as a Lutheran prince,
I am, in cases of conscience, not answerable to
any one on earth." At last, a very resolute
prelate, John Ogiandes, succeeded in persuading
the duke to declare the second marriage void,
and, after rumours of an attempt to poison the
duchess by diamond powder, the duke took the
countess to Geneva, Würtemberg having agreed
to pay her fifty thousand florins. Then he went
with her to Bern, where they lived for two
years together, and then, to help her return to
Stuttgard, the countess was married to an old
count, Würben, who received for going through
the marriage service with the lady, twenty
thousand florins and a pension of eight thousand
florins a year, besides being made chief of the
court, president of the privy council and the
council of war; but with all his dignities and
duties at the court of Würtemberg he was to
reside in Vienna. Now, the countess had two
husbands, and the duke two wives. But the
countess, keeping her name of Graevnitz,
returned to Stuttgard, where she governed duke
and country for twenty years, and was called by
the people, Country's Ruin. As the duchess
would not leave the palace in Stuttgard, the
countess induced the duke to build for her,
about four miles away, the new residence of
Eudwigsburg, in the middle of a kind of desert.
It was built by the architect, Frigoni, after
the pattern of Versailles; and Napoleon, when
visiting there, found his rooms so magnificent,
that he said to King Frederick of Würtemberg
that he would not be able in Paris to lodge him so
well. Eudwigsburg cost an immense sum, for all
the materials had to be fetched from afar, and
even every cart-load of sand cost a dollar. The
duke had here his excellent band of music, his
fine pheasant-garden, and his magnificent stables.
The orange trees of Eudwigsburg were almost
unequalled in Europe. When the first stone of
the palace was laid, the duke amused himself
with having loaves thrown out amongst the
people, but so roughly that some persons were
dangerously hurt and wounded.

The countess persuaded the duke to institute
a secret cabinet which should
superintend the finances, and the law. Of this she
was herself president, à la Maintenon, whose
example she strove to follow. The other
members of the council were her brother and his
son, with two of her creatures, all bound to
each other by a secret undertaking not to
propose anything in presence of the duke, which
they had not before agreed on. Everything
went through the hands of the countess.
Whoever was found opposing her, was banished, and
his property was confiscated. All, therefore,
cringed before her except Ogiandes, who
answered her request to be included in the public
prayers of the church, by saying, " Madam, without
remembrance of you, there is never a Lord's
prayer said. We pray every day, Deliver us
from evil." In Würtemberg it was even severely
prohibited to reason about the relative positions
of the duke and the countess. She sent money
to Vienna, to silence the state councillors, aud
bribed King Frederic William of Prussia, with
some tall recruits. She kept spies everywhere
in Würtemberg, had letters opened at the
post-offices, and her police was thoroughly despotic.
If the states of the country refused money, she
threatened to take it from the members. She sold
everything—monopolies and justice; robbed,
cheated, and laughed at the people openly. She
confiscated English goods that pleased her; and
even the duke appeared with her in public,
wearing clothes made of a stolen piece of gold
brocade. The countess's strong-box was always
well filled; that of the duke, always empty. She
very readily lent money to him, and was repaid
in estates. The court absorbed enormous sums,
and debts increased at a fearful rate, until even
the revenue of the country had to be anticipated.
The countess was insolent to the duchess, and
even maltreated the sickly hereditary prince.
Even the duke often complained that she really
was too hard with him; but for twenty years
he was her slave. She received company every
evening, and exacted the strictest etiquette of
dress, although she herself appeared often in
négligé, under pretext of not being well. She
was not even faithful to the duke.

At last help came from Prussia. The
hereditary prince married a Prussian princess. King
Frederic William I. came on a visit to Stuttgard
and found means to persuade the duke to
dismiss his tyrant. He did so by letters, when he
was himself absent in Berlin.

She was to be left in possession of all her
plunder, and to receive ten thousand florins a
year, if she would behave properly. She did