When the elector asked with astonishment how this was possible in so short a time, he answered, that three weeks had already elapsed since Eibenmeyer’s departure, and that by the instructions which he had received, it was incumbent upon him to despatch the business as soon as possible after his arrival at Vienna. The prince further remarked, that a delay would, under the circumstances, be so much the more unjustifiable, as the Brandenburg representative, Zäuner, was proceeding against Squire Wenzel von Tronka with the boldest energy, and had already moved the court, that the horses, as a preliminary measure, should be taken out of the hands of the flayer, with a view to their future recovery, and had succeeded in carrying this point in spite of all the objections of the opposite party. The elector, ringing the bell, said, “Well, no matter!” and after putting some indifferent questions to the prince, such as “how matters stood in Dresden,” and “what had been going on in his absence,” he shook hands with him, unable any longer to conceal the state of his mind, and dismissed him. On the very same day he sent to him a written request for all the documents relating to the Kohlhaas affair, under the pretext that he would take the management of it into his own hands on account of its political importance. The thought of destroying the man from whom alone he could learn the mysteries of the slip was to him insupportable, so he addressed to the emperor a letter in his own hand, in which he requested him in the most pressing manner, for certain important reasons, which he would perhaps explain more definitely in a short time, to set aside the complaint which Eibenmeyer had brought against Kohlhaas, until some further conclusion had been arrived at.