to of Count Eberhard
'the Bearded,' a great gentleman of the Cinque cento, whose nuptials with
a Princess of Mantua were celebrated in the same Golden Hall. In memory
whereof their nuptial bed still stood in the hall where Eberhard Ludwig
assembled his Privy Council for the announcement of his marriage with
Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, the Mecklemburg adventuress. The councillors
kept waiting in the Golden Hall guessed the preposterous demand their
Duke would make to them. They were in a fine quandary. What to say to a
Prince who answered questions of legal right by: 'I am above the law,
alter the petty phrase in your code-book.' A Prince, mark you, who could
punish resistance with death. And yet at Vienna was a suzerain who might
chastise the official participators in a crime against the Empire's laws.

So the eight councillors stood moodily waiting for their Prince to
appear, and contemplating with anger the elaborate preparations for the
evening's feast. Such flowers, such rich hangings, and what were those
two fine chairs?

The Duke was coming; they heard a woman's voice in the corridor, a
woman's laugh--most unseemly.

His Highness greeted them ceremoniously, and then:

'My honourable council, I have summoned you to announce my marriage to
the Reichsgraefin Wilhelmine von Graevenitz, Countess of Urach, which was
solemnised privately, though in all legal and religious form, a year
ago.'

No one has ever known why his Highness told this useless untruth anent
the date of his mock marriage, for he must have known that none would
believe that, at least; besides, why tell an unnecessary lie?

'It is convenient to me to declare publicly my new alliance at this time,
and I desire that the news shall be received by you and all my subjects
in Wirtemberg, not only without comment, but with fitting expressions of
content and with feasting and rejoicing. My late wife, the Princess
Johanna Elizabetha of Baden-Durlach, I direct shall receive the honours
and respect due to a Princess Dowager of Wirtemberg, and I appoint you to
arrange with her Highness where she shall reside, provided it is not in
or near my city of Stuttgart. The appanage I concede to the Princess
Dowager Johanna Elizabetha is ten thousand gulden a year beside her own
small marriage dowry. To my present legal wife, the Countess of Urach, I
appoint royal honours and the castle of Urach as residence, in addition
to such lodgings as it may please her to occupy i