The Countess was mean and miserly, she grudged allowing her husband any of her money. She had, however, made her will the year before, leaving all her large fortune to her husband for life. Consequently her death released him from domestic and pecuniary annoyances. On the morning after the death he sent for the agent of the insurance company with whom the furniture and other effects were insured and made his claim. He claimed, in addition to the value of the furniture destroyed, the worth of a necklace of diamonds and pearls which had been so injured by the fire that it had lost the greater part of its value. The pearls were quite spoiled, and the diamonds reduced in worth by a half. The agent refused this claim, as he contended that the jewelry was not included in the insurance, and the Count abstained from pressing it. To the Count the situation became at length intolerable. He perceived a decline of cordiality in his reception at Court, his friends grew cold, and acquaintances cut him. He must clear himself of the charge which now weighed on him. The death of the Countess had occurred on June 13, 1847. On October 6, that is four months later, Count Goerlitz appeared before the Grand-Ducal Criminal Court of Darmstadt, and produced a bundle of German newspapers charging him with having murdered his wife, and set fire to the room to conceal the evidence of his crime. He therefore asked to have the case re-opened, and the witnesses re-examined. Nothing followed. The Court hesitated to take up the case again, and throw discredit on the magistrates' decision in June. Again, on October 16, the Count renewed his request, and desired, if this were refused, that he and his solicitor might be allowed access to the minutes of the examination, that they might be enabled to take decided measures for the clearing of the Count's character, and the chastisement of those who charged him with an atrocious crime. On October 21, he received a reply, "that his request could not be granted, unless he produced such additional evidence as would show the Court that the former examination was defective." On October 25, the Count laid a mass of evidence before the Court which, he contended, would materially modify, if not absolutely upset the conclusion arrived at by the previous investigation. Then, at last, consent was given; but proceedings did not begin till November, and dragged on till the end of October in the following year, when a new law of criminal trial having been passed in the grand-duchy, the whole of what had gone before became invalid, save as preliminary investigation, and it was not till March 4, 1850--that is, not till _three years_ after the death of the Countess--that the case was thoroughly sifted and settled. Before the promulgation of the law of October, 1848, all trials were private, then trial by jury, and in public, was introduced.