The elector, pressing the chamberlain’s hand with warmth against his breast, answered: “Consider that you are myself, and get the paper;” and, therefore, the chamberlain, having entrusted his office to other hands, hastened his journey by a day or two, and, leaving his wife behind, set off for Berlin, accompanied only by some servants. Kohlhaas, who, as we have already said, had in the meanwhile arrived at Berlin, and by the special order of the elector had been put in a state prison, made as comfortable as possible for the reception of him and his five children, was, immediately after the appearance of the imperial attorney from Vienna, brought before the chamber council charged with a breach of the imperial peace. Although he said, in answer, that he could not be prosecuted for his armed attack in Saxony, and the violence he had there committed, by virtue of the agreement made with the Elector of Saxony, at Lützen, he was informed that of that agreement the emperor, whose attorney conducted this complaint, could take no cognizance. When the matter was explained to him, and he heard, besides, with reference to his affair at Dresden, that he would have ample justice against Squire Wenzel von Tronka, he readily submitted. The very day on which the chamberlain arrived, sentence was passed against Kohlhaas, and he was condemned to be put to death with the sword;--a sentence which, seeing how complicated was the state of affairs, no one believed would be executed, notwithstanding its mildness; nay, the whole city, knowing the good feeling of the elector towards Kohlhaas, firmly hoped that the capital punishment, by a special edict, would be commuted into a long and severe imprisonment. The chamberlain seeing at once that no time was to be lost, if he would fulfil his sovereign’s commission, went to work, by appearing one morning, sedulously attired in his usual court-dress, before Kohlhaas, who was innocently watching the passers-by from the window of his prison. Concluding, from a sudden movement of his head, that the horse-dealer had perceived him, and particularly observing, with great delight, how the latter clutched, involuntarily, at the part of his breast, where the case was situated, he judged, that what had passed in the mind of Kohlhaas at that moment, was a sufficient preparation to advance one step further in the attempt to gain possession of the paper.