the Landhofmeisterin, but in even more
pregnant terms, and with additional remarks concerning her person,
habits, and transactions.

'Death to the person found affixing such a placard. Imprisonment to those
who speak of these handbills. Fines to each householder upon whose house
or door such a paper is found.' Thus Eberhard Ludwig decreed; and one
miserable wretch was actually hung for nailing up one of Forstner's
placards; while innumerable fines were imposed upon the burghers whose
houses had been thus decorated.

The burning in effigy of Baron Forstner was fixed for the 15th of
February. The arrangements for this strange function were elaborate, and
entirely supervised and in part designed by the Landhofmeisterin. Her aim
was to make this mock execution not merely a symbol of the criminal's
degradation, but a truly awe-inspiring ceremony, calculated to strike
terror into the minds of the onlookers.

She caused every town and village of Wirtemberg to send their chief men
accompanied by their wives (the Landhofmeisterin knew the power of
womanly gossip in a country, or indeed in any community) to witness the
sham holocaust. The members of the court were commanded to be present,
and the Stuttgart burghers were informed that non-attendants would be
fined.

The 15th of February dawned clear and frosty, and in spite of the
burghers' hatred of the Landhofmeisterin and all she did, there was a
certain amused anticipation in Stuttgart regarding the strange ceremony
which was to take place.

For days carpenters, joiners, and builders had been at work in the
market-place erecting a huge platform and a giant gibbet. The well-to-do
burghers hired rooms in the houses looking on to the square. As they
dared not refuse to attend, they desired at least to make this mock
execution an occasion for popular entertainment.

At nine of the clock the bells of all churches in Stuttgart began to toll
for the dead, and the tramp of soldiers proceeding to the market-place
warned the compulsory sightseers that it was time to repair thither and
they would not be crushed in the mob. Many set out in a jocular humour,
but quickly this gaiety changed; there was something inexplicably
sinister in the atmosphere, a menace to freedom, an appalling sense of
relentless tyranny.

Round the market-place the soldiery formed a double line, and the people
soon saw that this mock ceremony was a grim threat; for the soldiers
carried matchlocks, and the