Masque's features, received a
remarkable confirmation from the confession of the miserable assassin at
Waldenhausen. This man's illness had been first brought on by the sudden shock
of a situation pretty nearly the same, acting on a conscience more disturbed and
a more superstitious mind. In the very act of attempting to assassinate or rob
Maximilian, he had been suddenly dragged by that Prince into a dazzling light;
and this, settling full upon features which too vividly recalled to the
murderer's recollection the last unhappy Landgrave at the very same period of
blooming manhood, and in his own favourite hunting palace, not far from which
the murder had been perpetrated, naturally enough had for a time unsettled the
guilty man's understanding, and, terminating in a nervous fever, had at length
produced his penitential death.
    A death, happily of the same character, soon overtook the deposed Landgrave.
He was laid by the side of his daughter, whose memory, as much even as his own
penitence, availed to gather round his final resting-place the forgiving
thoughts even of those who had suffered most from his crimes. Klosterheim in the
next age flourished greatly, being one of those cities which benefited by the
Peace of Westphalia. Many changes took place in consequence, greatly affecting
the architectural character of the town and its picturesque antiquities; but,
amidst all revolutions of this nature, the secret passages still survive, - and
to this day are shown occasionally to strangers of rank and consideration, - by
which, more than by any other of the advantages at his disposal, The Masque of
Klosterheim was enabled to replace himself in his patrimonial rights, and at the
same time to liberate from a growing oppression his own compatriots and
subjects.
 

                                     Notes

1 Of which there is more than one remarkable instance, to the great dishonour of
the French arms, in the records of her share in the Thirty Years' War.
 
2 An old Walloon designation for a battalion.
 
3 Coaches were common in Germany at this time amongst people of rank: at the
reinstatement of the Dukes of Mecklenburgh by Gustavus Adolphus, though without
much notice, more than fourscore of coaches were assembled.
 
4 It was the Swedish General Kniphausen, a favourite of Gustavus, to whom this
maxim is ascribed.
 
5 Dag, a sort of pistol or carbine.