he
assumption is ungracefully apparent: Hoyden playing Cleopatra. I should
judge her to be incapable of truth. In private life a girl of this
description embroils the peace of families, walks attended by a troop of
scowling swains, and passes, once at least, through the divorce court; it
is a common and, except to the cynic, an uninteresting type. On the
throne, however, and in the hands of a man like Gondremark, she may
become the authoress of serious public evils.

Gondremark, the true ruler of this unfortunate country, is a more complex
study. His position in Grunewald, to which he is a foreigner, is
eminently false; and that he should maintain it as he does, a very
miracle of impudence and dexterity. His speech, his face, his policy,
are all double: heads and tails. Which of the two extremes may be his
actual design he were a bold man who should offer to decide. Yet I will
hazard the guess that he follows both experimentally, and awaits, at the
hand of destiny, one of those directing hints of which she is so lavish
to the wise.

On the one hand, as _Maire du Palais_ to the incompetent Otto, and using
the love-sick Princess for a tool and mouthpiece, he pursues a policy of
arbitrary power and territorial aggrandisement. He has called out the
whole capable male population of the state to military service; he has
bought cannon; he has tempted away promising officers from foreign
armies; and he now begins, in his international relations, to assume the
swaggering port and the vague, threatful language of a bully. The idea
of extending Grunewald may appear absurd, but the little state is
advantageously placed, its neighbours are all defenceless; and if at any
moment the jealousies of the greater courts should neutralise each other,
an active policy might double the principality both in population and
extent. Certainly at least the scheme is entertained in the court of
Mittwalden; nor do I myself regard it as entirely desperate. The
margravate of Brandenburg has grown from as small beginnings to a
formidable power; and though it is late in the day to try adventurous
policies, and the age of war seems ended, Fortune, we must not forget,
still blindly turns her wheel for men and nations. Concurrently with,
and tributary to, these warlike preparations, crushing taxes have been
levied, journals have been suppressed, and the country, which three years
ago was prosperous and happy, now stagnates in a forced inaction