papers; and thus the misconceptions which he had caused were perpetuated in the Landgrave's mind. It was on the third day after Paulina's arrival that she was first placed before the court. The presiding officer in this tribunal was the governor of the fortress, a tried soldier, but a ruffian of low habits and cruel nature. He had risen under the Landgrave's patronage, as an adventurer of desperate courage, ready for any service, however disreputable, careless alike of peril or of infamy. In common with many partisan officers, who had sprung from the ranks in this adventurous war, seeing on every side and in the highest quarters, princes as well as supreme commanders, the uttermost contempt of justice and moral principle, he had fought his way to distinction and fortune, through every species of ignoble cruelty. He had passed from service to service, as he saw an opening for his own peculiar interest or merit, everywhere valued as a soldier of desperate enterprise, everywhere abhorred as a man. By birth a Croatian, he had exhibited himself as one of the most savage leaders of that order of barbarians in the sack of Magdeburgh, where he served under Tilly; but, latterly, he had taken service again under his original patron, the Landgrave, who had lured him back to his interest by the rank of general and the governorship of Lovenstein. This brutal officer, who had latterly lived in a state of continual intoxication, was the judge before whom the lovely and innocent Paulina was now arraigned on a charge affecting her life. In fact, it became obvious that the process was not designed for any other purpose than to save appearances, and, if that should seem possible, to extract further discoveries from the prisoner. The general acted as supreme arbiter in every question of rights and power that arose to the court in the administration of their almost unlimited functions. Doubts he allowed of none; and cut every knot of jurisprudence, whether form or substance, by his Croatian sabre. Two assessors, however, he willingly received upon his bench of justice, to relieve him from the fatigue and difficulty of conducting a perplexed examination. These assessors were lawyers of a low class, who tempered the exercise of their official duties with as few scruples of justice, and as little regard to the restraints of courtesy, as their military principal. The three judges were almost equally ferocious, and tools equally abject of the unprincipled sovereign whom they served.