In his chivalrous ardor Lassalle swore to help the countess, and promised that he would carry on the struggle with her husband to the bitter end. He took his two friends with him to Berlin, and then to Dusseldorf, for they discovered that the Count von Hatzfeldt was not far away. He was, in fact, at Aix-la-Chapelle with the baroness. Lassalle, who had the scent of a greyhound, pried about until he discovered that the count had given his mistress a legal document, assigning to her a valuable piece of property which, in the ordinary course of law, should be entailed on the boy, Paul. The countess at once hastened to the place, broke into her husband's room, and secured a promise that the deed would be destroyed. No sooner, however, had she left him than he returned to the baroness, and presently it was learned that the woman had set out for Cologne. Lassalle and his two friends followed, to ascertain whether the document had really been destroyed. The three reached a hotel at Cologne, where the baroness had just arrived. Her luggage, in fact, was being carried upstairs. One of Lassalle's friends opened a trunk, and, finding a casket there, slipped it out to his companion, the judge. Unfortunately, the latter had no means of hiding it, and when the baroness's servant shouted for help, the casket was found in the possession of the judge, who could give no plausible account of it. He was, therefore, arrested, as were the other two. There was no evidence against Lassalle; but his friends fared badly at the trial, one of them being imprisoned for a year and the other for five years. From this time Lassalle, with an almost quixotic devotion, gave himself up to fighting the Countess von Hatzfeldt's battle against her husband in the law-courts. The ablest advocates were pitted against him. The most eloquent legal orators thundered at him and at his client, but he met them all with a skill, an audacity, and a brilliant wit that won for him verdict after verdict. The case went from the lower to the higher tribunals, until, after nine years, it reached the last court of appeal, where Lassalle wrested from his opponents a magnificently conclusive victory--one that made the children of the countess absolutely safe. It was a battle fought with the determination of a soldier, with the gallantry of a knight errant, and the intellectual acumen of a learned lawyer.