38 Pearl • August 2019the Kohlhaas affair a matter for the entire Holy Roman
Empire; that, accordingly, he, the emperor, as its head,
had felt obliged to act as plaintiff in this matter with the
house of Brandenburg; with the result that since the
court assessor Franz Müller had already gone to Berlin
in the capacity as an advocate in order to hold Kohlhaas
to account for violating public peace, the complaint
could now in no way be withdrawn, and the matter must
take its further course in accordance with the law.
This letter totally dispirited the elector and when, to
his utter dismay, private letters came in from Berlin
shortly thereafter reporting that the lawsuit had
commenced proceedings before the supreme court and
stating that despite all efforts on the part of the
advocate assigned to Kohlhaas, the horse dealer would
probably end up on the scaffold, the unhappy gentleman
decided to make one more attempt to intercede and
pleaded with the elector of Brandenburg in a personal
communication to spare the horse dealer’s life. He made
a pretext that the amnesty granted to this man did not
lawfully permit carrying out a death sentence on him.
He assured his correspondent that in spite of the appar-
ent rigour with which he had been proceeding against
Kohlhaas, it had never been his intention to let him die,
and described how disconsolate he would be if the
protection Brandenburg professed to be willing to
provide him from Berlin should finally, by an
unexpected turn of events, turn out to his major disad-
vantage than if he remained in Dresden and his case had
been decided according to Saxon law.
The elector of Brandenburg, to whom much in this
representation seemed ambiguous and unclear, replied
that the zeal with which the advocate of the imperial
majesty was proceeding made it absolutely impossible
for him to deviate from complying with the strict injunc-
tions of the law in the way the elector of Saxony wished.
He remarked that the concern voiced surely went too far,
given that the complaint against Kohlhaas concerning
the crimes pardoned him in the amnesty was not
brought before the supreme court in Berlin by the
person who had granted him the amnesty but by the
imperial sovereign, who was in no way bound by the
amnesty. At the same time he remonstrated with him
how necessary it was to make a deterrent example in
view of Nagelschmidt’s continuing acts of violence,
which with brazen audacity had advanced even into
Brandenburg territory, and urged him if all these consid-
erations did not weigh on him to appeal directly to the
imperial majesty, since if a peremptory decision of a
pardon were to be pronounced in favour of Kohlhaas, it
could only come in a declaration from this quarter.W
racked with guilt and anger at all these unsuc-
cessful attempts, the elector fell ill again, and
when one morning the chamberlain visited him, theailing elector showed him the letters he had issued to
the Viennese and Berlin courts to spare Kohlhaas’ life,
and thus at least to gain time to get hold of the slip of
paper in his possession. The chamberlain fell to his
knees before the elector and implored him by all that he
held dear and sacred to tell him what was in this piece
of paper.
The elector said to bolt the door and sit down on the
bed, and after having taken his hand and pressed it to
his heart with a sigh, he began as follows: ‘Your wife, as
I hear, has already told you that on the third day of our
meeting in Jüterbock the elector of Brandenburg and I
met a gypsy woman; and when the elector, gregarious as
he is by nature, decided by means of a prank in front of
all the people to thrash the reputation of this odd
woman, whose art had been the subject of unseemly
conversation at the meal just concluded beforehand, he
walked up to her table with his arms folded and
demanded that, if she were to tell his fortune, she
should first give him a sign that could be tested that
very day, making a pretext that otherwise he could not
believe her words, not even if she were the Roman sibyl
herself. Appraising us swiftly from head to foot, the
woman said the sign would be that the big horned
roebuck being reared in the park by the gardener's son
would approach us in the marketplace where we stood
before we left the place. Now you must know that this
roebuck, which was being prepared for the Dresden
kitchen, was kept under lock and key in a partition
fenced round with high slats and shaded by the oak
trees in the park so that, considering also other smaller
game and birds the park as well as the garden leading to
it were kept carefully locked, it was simply not possible
to conceive how the animal, according to this strange
prediction, would come up to the place where we were
standing. Nevertheless, concerned lest some trickery
was lurking behind it and firmly resolved for the sheer
fun of it to put to ridicule everything the woman would
say, the elector, after a brief word with me, sent word to
the castle ordering that the roebuck be slaughtered
instantly and prepared for the dinner table on one of the
following days. Then he turned back to the woman in
front whom this business had been loudly conducted,
and said, “Now then! What can you tell me about my
future?” Looking at his hand, the woman said, “Hail to
you, my prince elector and lord! Your grace will reign
for a long time, the house from which you are
descended will long endure, and your descendants will
become great and glorious and be more powerful than
all the princes and lords in the world!”
‘After a pause in which he looked at the woman
thoughtfully, the elector said in a low voice, taking a
step towards me, that he now felt almost sorry to have
sent a messenger to destroy the prophecy; and while the
knights in his entourage poured heaps of money into38 Pearl • August 2019the Kohlhaas affair a matter for the entire Holy Roman
Empire; that, accordingly, he, the emperor, as its head,
had felt obliged to act as plaintiff in this matter with the
house of Brandenburg; with the result that since the
court assessor Franz Müller had already gone to Berlin
in the capacity as an advocate in order to hold Kohlhaas
to account for violating public peace, the complaint
could now in no way be withdrawn, and the matter must
take its further course in accordance with the law.
This letter totally dispirited the elector and when, to
his utter dismay, private letters came in from Berlin
shortly thereafter reporting that the lawsuit had
commenced proceedings before the supreme court and
stating that despite all efforts on the part of the
advocate assigned to Kohlhaas, the horse dealer would
probably end up on the scaffold, the unhappy gentleman
decided to make one more attempt to intercede and
pleaded with the elector of Brandenburg in a personal
communication to spare the horse dealer’s life. He made
a pretext that the amnesty granted to this man did not
lawfully permit carrying out a death sentence on him.
He assured his correspondent that in spite of the appar-
ent rigour with which he had been proceeding against
Kohlhaas, it had never been his intention to let him die,
and described how disconsolate he would be if the
protection Brandenburg professed to be willing to
provide him from Berlin should finally, by an
unexpected turn of events, turn out to his major disad-
vantage than if he remained in Dresden and his case had
been decided according to Saxon law.
The elector of Brandenburg, to whom much in this
representation seemed ambiguous and unclear, replied
that the zeal with which the advocate of the imperial
majesty was proceeding made it absolutely impossible
for him to deviate from complying with the strict injunc-
tions of the law in the way the elector of Saxony wished.
He remarked that the concern voiced surely went too far,
given that the complaint against Kohlhaas concerning
the crimes pardoned him in the amnesty was not
brought before the supreme court in Berlin by the
person who had granted him the amnesty but by the
imperial sovereign, who was in no way bound by the
amnesty. At the same time he remonstrated with him
how necessary it was to make a deterrent example in
view of Nagelschmidt’s continuing acts of violence,
which with brazen audacity had advanced even into
Brandenburg territory, and urged him if all these consid-
erations did not weigh on him to appeal directly to the
imperial majesty, since if a peremptory decision of a
pardon were to be pronounced in favour of Kohlhaas, it
could only come in a declaration from this quarter.
W
racked with guilt and anger at all these unsuc-
cessful attempts, the elector fell ill again, and
when one morning the chamberlain visited him, the
ailing elector showed him the letters he had issued to
the Viennese and Berlin courts to spare Kohlhaas’ life,
and thus at least to gain time to get hold of the slip of
paper in his possession. The chamberlain fell to his
knees before the elector and implored him by all that he
held dear and sacred to tell him what was in this piece
of paper.
The elector said to bolt the door and sit down on the
bed, and after having taken his hand and pressed it to
his heart with a sigh, he began as follows: ‘Your wife, as
I hear, has already told you that on the third day of our
meeting in Jüterbock the elector of Brandenburg and I
met a gypsy woman; and when the elector, gregarious as
he is by nature, decided by means of a prank in front of
all the people to thrash the reputation of this odd
woman, whose art had been the subject of unseemly
conversation at the meal just concluded beforehand, he
walked up to her table with his arms folded and
demanded that, if she were to tell his fortune, she
should first give him a sign that could be tested that
very day, making a pretext that otherwise he could not
believe her words, not even if she were the Roman sibyl
herself. Appraising us swiftly from head to foot, the
woman said the sign would be that the big horned
roebuck being reared in the park by the gardener's son
would approach us in the marketplace where we stood
before we left the place. Now you must know that this
roebuck, which was being prepared for the Dresden
kitchen, was kept under lock and key in a partition
fenced round with high slats and shaded by the oak
trees in the park so that, considering also other smaller
game and birds the park as well as the garden leading to
it were kept carefully locked, it was simply not possible
to conceive how the animal, according to this strange
prediction, would come up to the place where we were
standing. Nevertheless, concerned lest some trickery
was lurking behind it and firmly resolved for the sheer
fun of it to put to ridicule everything the woman would
say, the elector, after a brief word with me, sent word to
the castle ordering that the roebuck be slaughtered
instantly and prepared for the dinner table on one of the
following days. Then he turned back to the woman in
front whom this business had been loudly conducted,
and said, “Now then! What can you tell me about my
future?” Looking at his hand, the woman said, “Hail to
you, my prince elector and lord! Your grace will reign
for a long time, the house from which you are
descended will long endure, and your descendants will
become great and glorious and be more powerful than
all the princes and lords in the world!”
‘After a pause in which he looked at the woman
thoughtfully, the elector said in a low voice, taking a
step towards me, that he now felt almost sorry to have
sent a messenger to destroy the prophecy; and while the
knights in his entourage poured heaps of money into