of the legitimate court filtered in
to Tuebingen and were swept into the festive stream.

Eberhard Ludwig was supremely happy. If at moments he shrank a little
from the Sittmanns, or Schuetz plebeian airs and insolences, still he was
really entertained and amused. Never a hint of dullness at Wilhelmine's
court. The witticisms were atrocious, the comedies lewd, the dancing a
trifle indecorous perhaps, but her real gaiety, her innate knowledge of
limits, and above all, her unfailing admiration for her 'husband,' made
life delightful at Tuebingen. Towards the beginning of September the
'court' moved to Urach, where the Duke wished to enjoy some shooting and
stag-hunting.

There was but one small cloud on Wilhelmine's sky at this time, and this
was the silence maintained by the Emperor and his advisers. Eberhard
Ludwig had informed his Majesty of his marriage, craving his suzerain to
ratify its legality, and permit him to raise the Countess of Urach to the
rank of Duchess of Wirtemberg. He set forth that, during ten years, his
former wife Johanna Elizabetha had been sterile, and therefore, as
reigning Prince, he was at liberty to declare that alliance null, and for
the good of his country take to wife another woman capable of bearing
children. He undertook to provide for Johanna Elizabetha according to her
royal position, and declared he would accord her all honours due to an
ex-Duchess of Wirtemberg, viz. residence, monies, guards, privileges,
titles, etc. The Duke's epistle was an astounding document enough,
especially coming from a Prince whose repudiated wife had presented him
with an heir, albeit that heir, the Erbprinz Friedrich Ludwig, was but a
sickly specimen of mankind--a youth unlikely to live long enough to
succeed his father or to provide successors to his House. In this
imperial silence lay the opportunity of Zollern and the Catholic party,
who believed that if the Emperor proved obdurate, it would be possible to
obtain from Rome a decree of annulment of Johanna Elizabetha's marriage,
on the pretext of State necessity. Of course, the price of this papal
concession was Eberhard Ludwig's conversion to the Roman faith, and the
reinstalment of Catholicism as the State religion of Wirtemberg.

Zollern fully realised that Wilhelmine was playing a dangerous game; he
knew that any day an imperial edict might crush her, branding her as a
bigamist. The brunt would fall on _her_, for Eberhard Ludwig, as reigning
Princ