sole exception;
and this was a distinction odious to his generous nature, as it drew upon him a
cloud of suspicion. He was sensible that he would be supposed to owe his
privilege to some discovery or act of treachery, more or less, by which he had
merited the favour of the Landgrave. The fact was that in the indulgence shown
to the Count no motive had influenced the Landgrave but a politic consideration
of the great favour and influence which the Count's brother, the Palsgrave, at
this moment enjoyed in the camp of his own Swedish allies. On this principle of
policy, the Landgrave contented himself with placing St. Aldenheim under a
slight military confinement to his own house, under the guard of a few sentinels
posted in his hall.
    For him, therefore, under the powerful protection which he enjoyed
elsewhere, there was no great anxiety entertained. But for the rest, many of
whom had no friends, or friends who did them the ill service of enemies, being
in fact regarded as enemies by the Landgrave and his council, serious fears were
entertained by the whole city. Their situation was evidently critical. The
Landgrave had them in his power. He was notoriously a man of gloomy and
malignant passions; had been educated, as all European princes then were, in the
notions of a plenary and despotic right over the lives of his subjects, in any
case where they lifted their presumptuous thoughts to the height of controlling
the Sovereign; and, even in circumstances which to his own judgment might seem
to confer much less discretionary power over the rights of prisoners, he had
been suspected of directing the course of law and of punishment into channels
that would not brook the public knowledge. Darker dealings were imputed to him
in the popular opinion. Gloomy suspicions were muttered at the fireside, which
no man dared openly to avow; and in the present instance the conduct of the
Landgrave was every way fitted to fall in with the worst of the public fears. At
one time he talked of bringing his prisoners to a trial; at another, he
countermanded the preparations which he had made with that view. Sometimes he
spoke of banishing them in a body; and again he avowed his intention to deal
with their crime as treason. The result of this moody and capricious tyranny was
to inspire the most vague and gloomy apprehensions into the minds of the
prisoners, and to keep their friends, with the whole city of Klosterheim, in a
feverish state of insecurity.
    This state of things lasted for nearly three weeks; but at length a morning
of unexpected pleasure dawned upon the city. The