e and valuable ally of Imperial Vienna, would escape with a
reprimand. But for her an Austrian prison was on the cards, or at best
perpetual exile and outlawry, which would make it difficult for any State
to befriend her. He bethought him of his kinsman, Frederick I. of
Prussia, an amiable monarch, and Zollern's personal friend and cousin. If
Austria proved obdurate, and Rome objected to entering into a dispute
with Vienna, at least Wilhelmine could find powerful protection at
Berlin. Zollern wrote to his cousin of Prussia, praying him to grant the
Countess of Graevenitz, Countess of Urach, a perpetual Schutzbrief, or
Lettre de Sauvegarde--an official document binding the King of Prussia to
protect the lady and her property, if she appealed for aid. Frederick I.
granted this without ado.

Still the imperial answer tarried. It behoved Eberhard Ludwig to announce
his marriage formally to the officials at Stuttgart. Wilhelmine enjoying
the prospect of the scene urged Serenissimus to summon his Geheimraethe,
or Privy Councillors, to Urach immediately. They were to arrive at the
castle in the afternoon, she decided; the marriage was to be announced,
then a State banquet was to take place in the ancient tilting-hall
beneath the castle. This latter, of course, she would not attend; but it
would be followed by a grand ball in the Golden Hall, where all should
greet her as Queen of the Revels, as legal wife of their Duke, as
Countess of Urach and future Duchess of Wirtemberg.

Thus it befell that on the 15th of September 1707, eight pompous
gentlemen, Geheimraethe of the Dukedom, arrived at the castle of Urach.
They were met with much ceremony at the gate and conducted to the Golden
Hall. A delightful quaint place this: picture to yourself a large
apartment, three sides of which open out in lattice windows through
which, if your eye wanders, you see the rounded Swabian hills densely
clad in beech and pine. On the summit of one of the nearest of these
hills stands the grim fortress of Hohen-Urach, an impregnable stronghold
of mediaeval days turned prison in the eighteenth century. The Golden Hall
is decorated, as its name portends, with gilded devices on the wall, with
stately golden pilasters and formal green-painted trees, whose branches
meander quaintly over one entire wall of the room, that wall unbroken by
the windows. Over the two heavily carved doors the tree-branches twine
and twist into the word 'ATTEMPTO,' the proud mot