her." The cabinet minister was in a great embarrassment, for he knew the resolute character of _Frau von_ Gleichen. At last he advised her to rise from the table before grace, then she would at all events go out first and so get the precedence. Thus the _Landjägermeisterin_ maintained her place, but she was much offended, and so was the whole court, which split into two parties. This quarrel of the ladies made a commotion in the whole of the holy Roman Empire, occasioned a campaign between Gotha and Meiningen, and was only ended by Frederick the Great, in a manner which reminds one of the fable of the lion which took the royal share for himself. _Frau von_ Gleichen appealed to the absent Duke for reparation. She only received a strong and ungracious answer. Irritated at this, she made inquiries into the former life of her enemy, and propagated an anonymous writing, in which the love affairs of the Countess were described with more energy than delicacy. The _Frau von_ Pfaffenrath complained of this lampoon to the sovereign at Frankfort, and afterwards began a course of proceedings against the _Frau Landjägermeisterin_ which even then was considered harsh and cruel. She was called upon to crave pardon of the _Frau von_ Pfaffenrath, on her knees entreating her most penitently for forgiveness; and when she refused with these words: "I would die first," she was taken in arrest to the council-house and there guarded by two musketeers; her husband also was put in an unhealthy prison. Unshaken by such great sufferings the _Frau Landjägermeisterin_, in a beautiful letter full of self-reliance and noble sentiments, petitioned the Duke for her husband's freedom, her own dismission from the service of the court, and permission to institute a legal defence against the Pfaffenrath. All this was denied her. She was on the contrary carried by two musketeers into the room of the Pfaffenrath in order to beg pardon, and when she again refused, she was taken into the market-place of Meiningen surrounded by a circle of soldiers, and the sheriff read aloud a decree, in which it was proclaimed to the people, that the lampoon was to be burnt before the eyes of the _Landjägermeisterin_ by the hangman, and every one was forbidden, on pain of six weeks' imprisonment and a fine of a hundred thalers, ever to speak again on the subject. The letter was burnt by the hangman and _Frau von_ Gleichen again taken back to prison.