On December the sixteenth, 1733, Charles Alexander, Duke of Würtemberg, entered Stuttgart in state. It was a brilliant though brief winter day. The sun streamed out of a cloudless heaven on the snowy roofs of the old town, and the castle park trees frosted as though covered with jewels. The streets were hung with tapestries, crimson drapery, and wreaths of artificial flowers. Peasants in their quaint costume poured in from all the country round to salute their new prince. From the old castle towers floated the banners of the Duchy and the Empire--for Würtemberg three stag-horns quartered with the Hohenstauffen black lions. The Duke was not young: he was hard on fifty--an age when a man has got the better of youthful impetuosity and regrets early indiscretions--an age at which, if a man has stuff in him, he is at his best. The land of Würtemberg is a favoured and smiling land. At the period of which we write, it was not so ample as the present kingdom, but fruitful, favoured, and called the Garden of the Empire. For twenty years this Duchy had been badly governed; the inhabitants had been cruelly oppressed by the incompetent Duke Eberhardt Ludwig, or rather by his favourites. The country was burdened with debt; the treasury was exhausted. It had, as it were, lain under winter frost for twenty years and more, and now though on a winter day laughed and bloomed with a promise of spring. And every good Würtemberger had a right to be glad and proud of the new duke, who had stormed Belgrade under Prince Eugene, and was held to be one of the bravest, noblest minded, and most generous of the German princes of his time. As he rode through the streets of Stuttgart all admired his stately form, his rich fair hair flowing over his shoulders, his bright commanding eye, and the pleasant smile on his lip; every Würtemberger waved his hat, and shouted, and leaped with enthusiasm. Now at last the Garden of Germany would blossom and be fruitful under so noble a duke. But in the same procession walked, not rode, another man whom none regarded--a handsome man with dark brown hair and keen olive eyes, a sallow complexion, and a finely moulded Greek nose. He had a broad forehead and well arched brows. He was tall, and had something noble and commanding in his person and manner. But his most remarkable feature was the eye--bright, eager, ever restless. This man, whom the Würtembergers did not observe, was destined to play a terrible and tragic part in their history--to be the evil genius of the duke and of the land. His name was Joseph Suess Oppenheim.