n of Misnia, very
much displeased at this new turn of affairs, which threatened seriously
to sully the fame of his sovereign, immediately went to the castle to
see him, and clearly perceiving that it was the interest of the knights
to crush Kohlhaas if possible on the ground of new misdeeds, he asked
leave to examine him at once. The horse-dealer somewhat surprised, was
conducted to the seat of government (_Gubernium_) by an officer, with
his two little boys, Henry and Leopold in his arms, for his man
Sternbald had returned the day before with his five children from
Mecklenburg, where they had been staying, and thoughts of various
kinds, which it would be tedious to unravel, determined him to take
with him to the examination the two boys, who, in tears begged to
accompany him, as they saw him depart. The prince, after looking
kindly at the children, whom Kohlhaas had seated beside him, and asking
their names and ages in a friendly manner, disclosed to him the
liberties which Nagelschmidt, his former servant, had allowed himself
in the valleys of the Erzgebirg, and while he showed him what the
fellow called his mandates, requested him to state what he could in his
own justification.

Shocked as the horse-dealer was at the scandalous papers, he
nevertheless had but little difficulty in the presence of such an
upright man as the prince, in showing how groundless were the
accusations that had been brought against him. Not only, as he said,
was he, under the circumstances, far from requiring any assistance from
a third party, to bring his suit to a decision, seeing that it was
going on as well as possible, but some letters which he had with him,
and which he produced to the prince, plainly showed the impossibility
of Nagelschmidt being willing to give him the assistance in question,
since shortly before he had disbanded his troop, he had been going to
hang the fellow for acts of violence in the flat country. Indeed he
had only been saved by the appearance of the electoral amnesty, which
had broken off all the connection between them, and they had parted the
day after as mortal enemies. Kohlhaas, on his own proposal, which was
accepted by the prince, sat down and wrote a letter to Nagelschmidt, in
which he called the pretext of supporting the amnesty, granted to him
and his troop, and afterwards broken, a shameful and wicked invention;
and told him that on arriving at Dresden he was neither arrested nor
consigned to a g