 sprung from the ranks in
this adventurous war, seeing on every side, and in the highest quarters, princes
as well as supreme commanders, the uttermost contempt of justice and moral
principle, - he had fought his way to distinction and fortune through every
species of ignoble cruelty. He had passed from service to service, as he saw an
opening for his own peculiar interest or merit, everywhere valued as a soldier
of desperate enterprise, everywhere abhorred as a man. By birth a Croatian, he
had exhibited himself as one of the most savage leaders of that order of
barbarians in the sack of Magdeburgh, where he served under Tilly: but,
latterly, he had taken service again under his original patron the Landgrave,
who had lured him back to his interest by the rank of general and the
governorship of Lovenstein.
    This brutal officer, who had latterly lived in a state of continual
intoxication, was the judge before whom the lovely and innocent Paulina was now
arraigned on a charge affecting her life. In fact, it became obvious that the
process was not designed for any other purpose than to save appearances, - and,
if that should seem possible, to extract further discoveries from the prisoner.
The general acted as supreme arbiter in every question of rights and power that
arose to the court in the administration of their almost unlimited functions.
Doubts he allowed of none; and cut every knot of jurisprudence, whether form or
substance, by his Croatian sabre. Two assessors, however, he willingly received
upon his bench of justice, to relieve him from the fatigue and difficulty of
conducting a perplexed examination.
    These assessors were lawyers of a low class, who tempered the exercise of
their official duties with as few scruples of justice, and as little regard to
the restraints of courtesy, as their military principal. The three judges were
almost equally ferocious, and tools equally abject of the unprincipled sovereign
whom they served.
    A sovereign, however, he was; and Paulina was well aware that in his own
states he had the power of life and death. She had good reason to see that her
own death was resolved on; still she neglected no means of honourable
self-defence. In a tone of mingled sweetness and dignity she maintained her
innocence of all that was alleged against her; protested that she was
unacquainted with the tenor of any papers which might have been found in her
trunks; and claimed her privilege, as a subject of the Emperor, in bar of all
right on the Landgrave's part to call her to account. These pleas were
overruled; and, when she further acquainted the
