ived a strong and ungracious answer. Irritated at this, she
made inquiries into the former life of her enemy, and propagated an
anonymous writing, in which the love affairs of the Countess were
described with more energy than delicacy. The _Frau von_ Pfaffenrath
complained of this lampoon to the sovereign at Frankfort, and
afterwards began a course of proceedings against the _Frau
Landjaegermeisterin_ which even then was considered harsh and cruel. She
was called upon to crave pardon of the _Frau von_ Pfaffenrath, on her
knees entreating her most penitently for forgiveness; and when she
refused with these words: "I would die first," she was taken in
arrest to the council-house and there guarded by two musketeers; her
husband also was put in an unhealthy prison. Unshaken by such great
sufferings the _Frau Landjaegermeisterin_, in a beautiful letter full of
self-reliance and noble sentiments, petitioned the Duke for her
husband's freedom, her own dismission from the service of the court,
and permission to institute a legal defence against the Pfaffenrath.
All this was denied her. She was on the contrary carried by two
musketeers into the room of the Pfaffenrath in order to beg pardon, and
when she again refused, she was taken into the marketplace of Meiningen
surrounded by a circle of soldiers, and the sheriff read aloud a
decree, in which it was proclaimed to the people, that the lampoon was
to be burnt before the eyes of the _Landjaegermeisterin_ by the hangman,
and every one was forbidden, on pain of six weeks' imprisonment and a
fine of a hundred thalers, ever to speak again on the subject. The
letter was burnt by the hangman and _Frau von_ Gleichen again taken
back to prison.

But now the friends of the Gleichen brought a complaint before the
Imperial chamber. But the repeated mandates of the Chamber to Duke
Anthony Ulrich and his government, to give freedom to the Gleichens and
to proceed according to law, were not obeyed. After that Duke Friedrich
III. of Gotha, received a commission from the same tribunal to defend
_Frau von_ Gleichen and her husband from farther violence, and to
deliver them from imprisonment in Meiningen, yet keep them in
honourable custody. Duke Friedrich demanded the delivery of the
prisoners from Meiningen, but his commissioners were not admitted into
the city, nor his letter accepted; but it was signified to him, that if
Gotha should attempt to free them by force, there was plenty of powder