Meantime, The Masque continued to harass the Landgrave, to baffle many of his wiles, and to neutralize his most politic schemes. In one of the many placards which he affixed to the castle gates, he described the Landgrave as ruling in Klosterheim by day, and himself by night. Sarcasms such as these, together with the practical insults which The Masque continually offered to the Landgrave, by foiling his avowed designs, embittered the prince's existence. The injury done to his political schemes of ambition at this particular crisis was irreparable. One after one, all the agents and tools by whom he could hope to work upon the counsels of the Klosterheim authorities had been removed. Losing _their_ influence, he had lost every prop of his own. Nor was this all; he was reproached by the general voice of the city as the original cause of a calamity which he had since shown himself impotent to redress. He it was, and his cause, which had drawn upon the people so fatally trepanned the hostility of the mysterious Masque. But for his highness, all the burgomasters, captains, city- officers, &c., would now be sleeping in their beds; whereas, the best late which could be surmised for the most of them was, that they were sleeping in dungeons; some, perhaps, in their graves. And thus the Landgrave's cause not merely lost its most efficient partisans, but, through their loss, determined the wavering against him, alienated the few who remained of his own faction, and gave strength and encouragement to the general dissatisfaction which had so long prevailed. Thus it happened that the conspirators, or suspected conspirators, could not be brought to trial, or to punishment without a trial. Any spark of fresh irritation falling upon the present combustible temper of the populace, would not fail to produce an explosion. Fresh conspirators, and real ones, were thus encouraged to arise. The university, the city, teemed with plots. The government of the prince was exhausted with the growing labor of tracing and counteracting them. And, by little and little, matters came into such a condition, that the control of the city, though still continuing in the Landgrave's hands, was maintained by mere martial force, and at the very point of the sword. And, in no long time, it was feared, that with so general a principle of hatred to combine the populace, and so large a body of military students to head them, the balance of power, already approaching to an equipoise, would be turned against the Landgrave's government. And, in the best event, his highness could now look for nothing from their love. All might be reckoned for lost that could not be extorted by force.