hofmeisterin's
forebodings seemed to be infectious; a cloud hung over Ludwigsburg, and
the people murmured ominously: 'His Highness wearies of her, and she has
ill-wished him; he will die, and she will disappear with all the jewels
and gold.'

Doubtless, the Landhofmeisterin's actions lent colour to these wild
reports. She had studied various theories of medicine--quaint, old,
forgotten herb lore, absurd mediaeval magic. At first it had diverted her,
then she grew credulous, and in the despair of knowing Eberhard Ludwig's
love to be waning and his health broken, she resorted to the pitiful
puerilities of love potions, life essences, and elixirs. Of course, for
the brewing of these concoctions she required some extraordinary
ingredients, and it was in the procuring of these that the gossip
concerning her witch practices was revived and flourished. This
prescription required the blood of a still-born male child; one old
black-letter book recommended the heart of a yellow hen; another ordered
the life-warm entrails of a black fighting-cock; a fourth prescription
commanded the admixture of hairs from a dead man's beard! These
ingredients mixed with herbs plucked in churchyards at midnight, or
spices brought directly from the East, and with seven times distilled
water, and suchlike, made a life elixir, or an infallible love potion, or
again a cure for this or that disease. Among the many absurdities of
ignorance some of the accumulated wisdom of experience may have crept
into the old recipes: a real cure for a fever, or the application of a
gold ring to an inflamed eyelid. Superstition said that the ring was the
marvel-worker; possibly it was some quality in the gold, some
even-as-yet-undiscovered power of certain metals upon the human body, and
which experience may have taught the old village woman and the wandering
quack. But for the most part the Graevenitz's potions were harmless
absurdities, yet she believed, and so did others, in their efficacy.

During the winter the Erbprinz's fainting fits were more frequent than
ever, and the Erbprincessin sank into a deep and brooding melancholy,
which was varied by attacks of painful excitement and sudden bursts of
causeless anger. It was whispered at Ludwigsburg that she was surely
going mad.

It was as though some fearful blight had fallen upon Eberhard Ludwig and
his family, and the Pietists preached that the avenging hand of God was
hovering over the sinner's court. The Se