Part 9 (1/2)
The councillors sent me to reconnoitre in the direction of Eger, at Schlackenwerth, and at Schlackenwald. My guide followed on foot. He was an intelligent lad, speaking both German and Bohemian. I ascertained that the Bohemians had cut down the trees in the wood, and as such made the route impa.s.sable for the horse and artillery, it was even impossible for the landsknechten to cross it with their standards flying.
After that, the councillors sent me to the castle of Gaspard Pflug, to whom the States of the country had entrusted the command of the troops.[40] He was very reserved. ”What are we to do?” he said, looking perplexed. ”The Elector of Saxony is our ally, our co-religionist; we cannot leave him to his fate. On the other hand, Ferdinand is our king.
Are we to jeopardize our liberties?” Gaspard Pflug, having taken refuge at Magdeburg after the capture of the elector, built himself opposite the cathedral an elegant dwelling, where he ended his days, the king having confiscated his property.
While the elector encamped before Leipzig, the emperor overran the Algau and Swabia, imposing heavy fines and big garrisons to the towns forced to capitulate. The Spaniards committed every excess, and above all, in Wurtemberg.[41]
On April 23 and 25 the sun a.s.sumed so sombre an aspect that everybody rushed to the threshold of his house; both experts and scientific men foretold strange events.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Stettin. Wittenberg. Spires. _From old Prints_.]
One day I was strolling alone outside Lertmeritz around the walls (for the time hung heavily on my hands), when an individual, his eyes blazing with anger, a.s.sailed me without warning, vilifying me and trying to fling me into the moat. He was evidently under the impression of having come upon a spy. I endeavoured to convince him to the contrary; the difficulty was to understand each other. Finally, with hands clasped together as if they were bound, I gave him to understand with a sign of the head that I was ready to enter the town with him.
Thanks to heaven, he consented to this, although he did not cease his imprecations. Before I had fairly entered our hostelry two members of the council came to ask our deputies to forbid their people to leave the city and the promenading on the walls. ”We know very well that we have nothing to fear from you,” they said, ”but our citizens are quick to take umbrage, and just now one of your folk narrowly escaped coming to grief.”
On April 16 the news came to Lertmeritz that two days previously the Elector of Saxony had been made a prisoner. Immediately leaving Bohemia we started in the direction of Torgau, but to get to the camp at Wittemberg the perils were endless, for the Spanish troops, whose lines we had to cross, shrank from no misdeeds.[42] Hence it was resolved that I should go to Wittenberg to get a safe-conduct--a decision against which I protested. ”How am I to pa.s.s without the smallest bit of parchment?” ”Never mind,” exclaimed Damitz; ”the Lord is the best safeguard.” ”In that case,” I retorted, ”are you not yourselves under the Divine protection?” My argument was, however, in vain; my life weighed less in the balance than that of my superiors.
In my capacity of a member of the missions to Bohemia and to the camp of the elector, I wore a yellow gorget which was the insignia of the Protestants. I was obliged to hide it in my breast and to replace it with the one bought for me, the red gorget of the Imperialists. And thus I started. If they had caught me with the double insignia upon me, my account would soon have been settled. I should have been slung up on the nearest tree.
I crossed Muhlberg, where the elector, wounded in the cheek, had been made a prisoner on the very spot where his pa.s.sion for the chase caused so much damage to his unfortunate subjects. Wherever the eye turned there were signs of the recent battle; broken lances, shattered muskets, and torn-up harnesses littered the ground, and all along the road soldiers dying of their wounds and from want of sustenance. Around Wittenberg itself all the villages were deserted; the inhabitants had taken flight without leaving anything behind them. Here, the corpse of a peasant, a group of dogs fighting for the entrails; there, a landsknecht with just a breath of life left to him, but the body putrefying, his arms stretched out at their widest, and his legs far enough apart to put a bar between them.
At the end of my journey and within sight of the Spanish troops I pa.s.sed a Spaniard, who said to me: ”My good and handsome horseman, your service with the emperor is but of recent date.” I rode a few steps further; then, undoing my gorget, I rubbed it against my boot to make it appear less new. At last, I reached the camp, where I lost several days in fruitless endeavours.
Every now and again there was firing from Wittenberg. Some Pomeranian horse-troopers with whom I had made acquaintance warned me not to keep to the high road if I should venture in that direction, but to go at random in order to avoid becoming a b.u.t.t. A couple of steps in front of me a ball whizzed so closely past an individual's head that the shock or the fright felled him to the ground, where he was picked up for dead. From that moment I suspended my strolls.
Dr. Seld, the vice-chancellor, whom I succeeded in seeing,[43] did not disguise the deep irritation of the emperor. I answered that neither Duke Philip nor his brother, Barnim, notwithstanding the former's marriage with the sister of the Elector of Saxony, had given the slightest a.s.sistance to the Protestants, either in money, men or deeds, and that it would not be difficult for his Majesty to convince himself of this. Nevertheless my negotiations made no progress.
It was said in the camp that after the defeat of the elector, when Christopher Carlowitzi[44] the princ.i.p.al counsellor of Maurice, came to salute the emperor, whose docile instrument he was, the latter exclaimed: ”Well, Carlowitz, what is going to happen?” ”Everything is in your Majesty's hands,” Carlowitz replied. ”Yes, yes, something will happen,” was the retort. And when the elector bent the knee before the emperor, saying, ”Most clement emperor and lord,” King Ferdinand interrupted with, ”Ah, so he is your emperor now? But what about Ingoldstadt?[45] Wait a while. We shall soon settle your account.” And when the death sentence was delivered, Ferdinand insisted upon its prompt execution. The Marquis de Saluces, on the other hand, repeated to the emperor, even before the arrival of the Elector of Brandenburg, that the best sheep in his flock was the Elector of Saxony, and that his execution would rouse the whole of Germany.
As I found it impossible to get a safe-conduct, I returned to Torgau, and immediately after hearing my report, our emba.s.sy ordered its carriages and took the direct road to Stettin.
Inasmuch as the Elector of Brandenburg loudly promised his good offices with the emperor, the princes dispatched me with a letter of thanks to him to the camp at Wittenberg. They also prompted the language I was to hold to the vice-chancellor and to the other Imperial counsellors.[46]
To accelerate matters they prepared six relays of horses for me, with precise indications on paper as to their whereabouts, though I started from Wolgast on a pitiful cart-horse, equipped anyhow, for neither saddle, bridle nor stirrups were in condition. They thought that it did not matter, as I had to change animals at a short distance. So far so good. But neither at the first, second, third, fourth nor fifth stage was there a sign of a horse. The last stage was Brandenburg--the Old.
Abraham Gatzkow, a gentleman of Lower Pomerania, had indeed provided a downright good and properly equipped saddle-horse for me, only on the day of my arrival he had mounted it for a ride to the camp, so that the same jade carried me to the end of my journey.
On June 1 I alighted at the tent of the Elector of Brandenburg, and when presenting my dispatch, I begged of Chancellor Weinleben to spare me a long stay. Next morning when I called again, he exclaimed: ”Oh, the affair takes more time than you think,” which remark did not prevent my insisting upon an answer on June 3, inasmuch as the elector went several times a day to the emperor, and that therefore he had no lack of opportunity to broach the subject. Moreover, there was need for urgency; they had just thrown a bridge across the Elbe and the emperor had transferred his quarters to the other side of the river, a sure sign of his approaching departure. To all which arguments on my part, Chancellor Weinleben angrily replied: ”The interests of princes are discussed with minds at rest. Just look at the presumption of a simple messenger. Wait till you are told to go and then go. Here, this is the elector's reply. Take it, go, and leave me in peace.”
I stopped at the first dense clump of trees in the wood, opened the letter, and immediately turned my horse's head. ”What do you want now?”
yelled the chancellor, when he caught sight of me. ”Am I not to have any peace from you?” ”My gracious masters,” I replied, ”have authorized me to open the letter of his Electoral Highness and to act in consequence. The letter I have just read proves once more the brotherly feelings of the elector, but as he is striking his tent, I think it necessary respectfully to remind him of his generous a.s.surances. I shall wait for him at his leaving the emperor's presence, for I am bound to bring back to Wolgast something more than vague words.” At this little speech the chancellor altered his tone. He ceased to address me familiarly as ”thou,” and, in fact, made somewhat exaggerated apologies, swearing by all his G.o.ds that in reality he had not the faintest idea of the affair, but that henceforth he was my staunch ally and that his master should not leave the emperor without ardently pleading the cause of our princes.
When the elector went to the imperial tent I followed him at a distance, and the moment he got into the saddle again I galloped on his track, for I foresaw his departure for Berlin. I was just at the head of the bridge of boats, which was entirely unprovided with parapets or barriers, when I espied coming from the opposite side a heavy cart.
Time was precious. I pursue my quarry, and my right stirrup catches in the wheel and my valiant mount, in spite of its prancing and rearing, cannot extricate itself, or even hold its own against four strong draught horses. There is no room to turn, and there seems not even a possibility of saving myself by sacrificing the animal; both it and I seem inevitably doomed to perish by drowning. As for any human help, I do not as much as expect it. Even if they could have a.s.sisted me, the Spaniards at the end of the bridge would have been particularly careful not to do so. Just fancy their delight at seeing a German making a plunge with his horse into the Elbe; the sight would have been too delightful willingly to forego it.
When our distress is at its height, when neither our father nor our mother is able to save us, Providence stretches forth his protecting hand. It happened then, by this merciful grace; the rotten strap suddenly gave way, leaving the stirrup entangled in the wheel and freeing my leg. It was a startling confirmation of the Divine word that the righteous shall see good come out of evil; for had the equipment been brand-new, of the most solid leather and even embroidered with gold and pearls, that harness would have sent me into the stream as food for the fishes.
At last I managed to join the elector. He sent me word that the opportunity for interceding with the emperor in behalf of the princes of Pomerania had not presented itself, but that the counsellors he left behind with the emperor would look to the affair and keep the dukes informed of everything. Why had I not gone to the bottom of the Elbe?
In the camp itself the tale went round that the King of the Romans, Duke Maurice, and after them, the emperor had made a very careful inspection of the church of the Castle of Willemberg, having been led to believe (the emperor and the king especially) that lamps and wax tapers were constantly burning day and night on Luther's tomb, and that prayers were said there just as in the Romish churches before the relics of the saints.
At Treuenbrietzen I made my report to Chancellor Citzewitz. As he was awaiting the arrival of the Pomeranian counsellors who were to accompany the emperor to Halle, he sent me to retain quarters and to give notice to the Brunswicker captain, Werner Hahn, to have twenty hors.e.m.e.n ready at Bitterfeld on June 12. On the morning of the 12th, in fact, the mission alighted at the general hostelry outside Bitterfeld.
The captain of the husard-escort had, however, given the preference to an inn in the town. Seeing no sign of the Brunswickers, the counsellors put up their carriage, so that the captain at his return was under the impression that the mission was gone, and meeting with the hors.e.m.e.n, ordered them to face about, he being convinced that the deputies had taken another route.
Evening was drawing near; my business was finished, the quarters had been retained, the supper ordered, and the beds ready. I had taken advantage of the opportunity to renew my wardrobe, and, with my new clothes on, I took a stroll outside the gates through which the mission had to pa.s.s. Espying from the top of a mound a troop of advancing hors.e.m.e.n, I went back in hot haste afraid of a reprimand. At the same moment two Spanish bandits, half-naked, for their rags scarcely covered them, ran after me across the fields, the one on foot, the other on a kind of wretched farmer's cob--apparently stolen--and with a pistol at the saddle bow. Casting a careful look round to a.s.sure themselves that there were no witnesses to their contemplated deed, one had already raised his pistol when the Brunswicker hors.e.m.e.n arrived on the spot.