"Poor, poor lad!" said Hardenberg, moved with sympathy. "So young, and yet such bitter experience! But, perhaps, it is well that such should be the case; if he has received the baptism of tears, and has been anointed with affliction, he may become a king by the grace of God! I will do as you say, Leuchsenring; I will save myself for the future, and, if such be the will of God, I will one day serve your young king of the future." "And something tells me that God will permit you to do so," cried Leuchsenring, joyously. "It may be that I will not live to see the day. My enemies, the Rosicrucians, may have destroyed, or the storm-wind of the revolution have swept me away by that time; but you will remain, and at some future day you will remember the hour in which I showed you the young prince royal, Frederick William the Third. He is the future of Prussia, and, in the dark day which is now dawning, we are in sore need of a guiding light. Fix your eye on the Prince Royal of Prussia, and on his genial friend, Prince Louis Ferdinand!" BOOK III. CHAPTER I. SCHILLER IN DRESDEN. "That is false, I say; false!" cried Schiller, with glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes, as he walked to and fro in his little room. "It is all slander, vile slander!" The two friends, the young councillor of the consistory, Körner, and the bookseller, Göschen, stood together in the window recess, gazing sadly and sympathetically at the poet, who rushed to and fro, almost breathless with rage, hurling an angry glance at his friends, whenever he approached them. Suddenly he stopped, and fastened his gaze on them, intently. "Why do you not reply?" asked he, in loud and wrathful tones. "Why do you allow me to accuse you both of a falsehood, without even attempting to justify yourselves?" "Because we wish to give your just anger time to expend itself," said Körner, in his soft, mild voice. "To our own great sorrow we have been compelled to wound our friend's feelings, and it is quite natural that this wound should smart." "And we do not justify ourselves against these reproaches, because they do not apply to us," added Göschen, "and because they are only the utterance of your just indignation. Believe me, my friend, we would gladly have spared you this hour, but our friendship was greater than our pity." "Yes, yes, the old story," cried Schiller, with mocking laughter. "Out of friendship, you are pitiless; out of friendship you give the death-blow to my heart! And what the most cruel enemy would hardly have the courage to whisper in my ear, merciful friendship boldly declares!" [Illustration: SCHILLER.] "Schiller, you are deceived! Schiller, the girl you love is a cold-hearted coquette, who does not love you, who only keeps you in leading-strings, in order to extort presents from you, and to be able to say that a poet adores her!"