'Anything in the world you ask,' he had replied. And she had demanded Stetten, the Duchess-mother's dower-house! Zollern and Madame de Ruth were overwhelmed when they heard of it. Good heavens! what would the Duchess-mother have said? But on the day when Eberhard Ludwig rode to the coronation, the Landhofmeisterin's coach thundered through the fields to Stetten. * * * * * When the news came from Paris that Forstner had been released from the Bastille, the Landhofmeisterin flew into a towering passion. The Geheimraethe were summoned, and the affair put before them once more. The evidence against Forstner was convincing, and any Chamber would have convicted him; but it is necessary to consider who composed this Privy Council. Landhofmeister Count Wuerben--an invalid unfortunately, and unable to appear--was Premier and Minister of War, and in his regrettable absence his wife, her Excellency the Landhofmeisterin, presided at the sessions of the Council, and a more energetic, autocratic President could not have been found in Europe. Friedrich, Count von Graevenitz, was Minister of the Interior; Baron Schuetz, Minister for Foreign Affairs; Baron Sittmann, Minister of Finance; and two brothers Pfau, cousins of Schuetz, held office as Councillors. For appearance sake (not that the Landhofmeisterin considered that often) there were several minor councillors, men of no importance, who obeyed implicitly the autocratic, vigilant, relentless President of Council. Thus the entire government lay in the Graevenitz's capable hands. Small wonder that Forstner trembled. The Council decreed that the recalcitrant Baron was to be summoned to attend his trial forthwith, and that a hope of rehabilitation should be held out to him if he came immediately to his country's first tribunal. The death sentence was rescinded, of course, pending this new trial. Forstner replied to this official document that he had no intention of putting his head between the wolf's teeth, and that he intended to appeal in Vienna against the wrongful detention of his monies and properties in Wirtemberg. He reminded the honourable Council that he was by birth a Bavarian, and that, though he had resided in Wirtemberg, and owned lands in that dukedom, still the Wirtemberg tribunal had no jurisdiction over him. Upon receipt of this answer the Privy Council solemnly recondemned Forstner to death, confiscated his Wirtemberg properties, and further decreed that if he refused to be executed in person, he should be burned in effigy in the market-place of Stuttgart by the common hangman.