the States: "The duke thought himself much
too august  to permit such people to dictate
laws to him."

According to a statement made by Frederic
the Second of Prussia, the personal revenue of
the duke amounted to not quite sixty thousand
pounds; that of the country to two
hundred and fifty thousand pounds; of which the
duke had to receive a part. But these sums
were far from sufficient for his wants. It has
been calculated that, besides the constitutional
taxes  and the burden of the sorrage and the
quartering of the soldiers, and the profit which
was made by the sale of places, the six hundred
thousand inhabitants had to pay in seven years
the sum of more than five hundred thousand
pounds, and the addition from the revenue of
country to the private and personal income
of the duke rose to one hundred and thirty-five
thousand pounds a year!

To increase the revenue, Montmartin
instituted a " Würtembergian Ducal most Graciously
Privileged Great Lottery," and compelled
private persons, communities, and even pious
institutions, to buy tickets. He divided the
people into twelve classes, according to their
income, and taxed them accordingly; even the
beggar had to pay at least fivepence. "When
a deputation from the town of Tuebingen
remonstrated-with the duke, and entreated him
to consider the miserable state of the fatherland,
he cried in imitation of Louis the Fourteenth,
"What fatherland? I am the Fatherland!"
and ordered troops against the rebellious town.
The tax was enforced, and several of the most
respected inhabitants sent to Hohenasperg as
prisoners, where they remained for half a year.

Yet Würtemberg  had a constitution which
shared with the English the repute of being
the freest in Europe!

In those free days the army was recruited in
a forcible manner. Even only sons of widows
were taken away from them, and once the duke
ordered all the farm labourers to be enrolled,
saying very confidently, "That they certainly
would like better to serve their sovereign than
private persons." To prevent desertion, watchmen
had to patrol all night around the villages,
and, if an alarm were given, all the neighbouring
communities were bound to place pickets on all
the roads, byways, footpaths, and bridges, and
to keep them guarded for at least twenty-four
hours. On account of such an alarm, three
hundred persons, who were not soldiers, might
be kept from their business a whole day. A little
place containing only fifty families, furnished
for this kind of service one thousand four
hundred and eighty-right men in the course of one
year. The place in which a deserter might
perhaps have been arrested but was not, had to
provide a man of the same stature; and it was
ordered expressly that, the sons of the chief
inhabitant should be selected in preference.
Whoever assisted a deserter, or even omitted to
denounce him, lost for himself and family all civil
rights, and was sent to a house of correction.

In this army of the duke, there served two
hundred noblemen, and amongst them twenty
princes and counts of the empire. The duke
kept for his personal use eight hundred horses,
and, when going to one of his country residences,
took with him about a dozen cavaliers, and
between six and seven hundred persons; all
only to contribute to his amusement.

The duke began to build the new palace in
Stuttgard, which, however, was finished in this
century, and built the palace of Solitude, situated
on the rough hills between Stuttgard and
Leonberg. Lakes were dug there to hunt the
stags into, and the peasants had to line them
with clay and fill them with water. At night
the surrounding woods were illuminated, and,
from artificial grottos, satyrs and nymphs rushed
out to dance midnight ballets. Another country
seat in the Black Forest, Grafeneck, was built
also then.

The duke intended that the church should
pay his opera singers and musicians, because
they performed sometimes at service; but the
director of the finances opposed this. He lost
his place, and a rascal named Wittleder, who had
been formerly a Prussian sergeant, became the
right-hand man. He and the duke sold the
governmental places and shared the profit. Once the
duke wrote to his agent, concerning a man who
wanted to buy a certain place: "Although he has
not much talent he is an honest man, and four
thousand florins are a nice sum of money;" and
once the agent wrote to another applicant for a
place: "Give the duke five hundred florins, and
one thousand to myself." No wonder that one
morning Vittleder found a donkey tied at his
house door, with a bill bearing the inscription,
"I want a place."

At last Frederic the Great was in a position
to assist the poor Würtembergians , and the three
powers which had warranted the constitution,
Prussia, Denmark, and Hanover, interfered
energetically. An imperial commission was sent
from Vienna, and the duke ordered to make up
his quarrels with his States in two months' time.
The commission is said to have found about one
million of pounds of debts. The duke did all he
could to prevent interference. He went to
Venice, where the Nobili wrote his name in
the golden book, and at last shut himself up in
solitude, where nobody had admittance except
such persons as could show a pass, written by
his own hand. At last, after six years' resistance,
he gave in, and the old constitution, with the old
rights of the States, were recognised, again under
the guarantee of the above-mentioned powers.
The duke found consolation in a new favourite:
the wife of a stupid and ugly Baron Lentrum,
whose divorce from her he procured. The lady
was made Countess Hohenheim, and was raised
to the rank of consort of the duke, to whom she
became honestly attached. She was noble and
simple in her manners, had a kind heart, much
knowledge, and a good understanding. "She
loved and protected the arts, and would have
liked to make Stuttgard a modern Athens," says
Baronessss Oberkirch, in her memoirs. The duke
attended to all her wishes, which were, however,