The chancellor, Henry von Geusau, bending down to him from his horse with a friendly aspect, promised him in the name of the elector, that his last bequest should be held sacred, and requested him to dispose of the other things in the bundle according to his pleasure. Upon this Kohlhaas called out of the mob Herse’s old mother, whom he perceived in the square, and giving her the things, said, “Here, mother, this belongs to you,” adding, at the same time, the sum which was in the bundle, to pay damages, as a comfort for her old days. The elector then cried, “Now, Kohlhaas, the horse-dealer, thou to whom satisfaction has been thus accorded, prepare to give satisfaction thyself for the breach of the public peace.” Kohlhaas, taking off his hat, and throwing it down, said, that he was ready, and giving the children, after he had once more lifted them up and pressed them to his heart, to the farmer of Kohlhaasenbrück, he stepped up to the block, while the farmer, silently weeping, led the children from the place. He then took the handkerchief from his neck, and opened his doublet, when taking a cursory glance at the circle of people, he perceived at a short distance from himself, between two knights, who nearly concealed him, the well-known man with the blue and white plumes. Kohlhaas, bringing himself close to him by a sudden step, which astonished the surrounding guard, took the case from his breast. Taking the paper out, he opened it, read it, and fixing his eye on the man with the plume, who began to entertain hopes, put it into his mouth and swallowed it. At this sight, the man with the blue and white feathers fell down in convulsions. Kohlhaas, while the man’s astonished attendants stooped down and raised him from the ground, turned to the scaffold, where his head fell beneath the axe of the executioner. Thus ends the history of Kohlhaas. The corpse was put into a coffin, amid the general lamentations of the people. While the bearers were raising it to bury it decently in the suburban church-yard, the elector called to him the sons of the deceased, and dubbed them knights, declaring to the chancellor, that they should be brought up in his school of pages. The Elector of Saxony, wounded in mind and body, soon returned to Dresden, and the rest concerning him must be sought in his history. As for Kohlhaas, some of his descendants, brave, joyous people, were living in Mecklenburg in the last century. [1] On one point the translator of this tale solicits the indulgence of his critical readers. A great number of official names and legal terms occur, the technical meaning of which could not properly be defined by any one but a German jurist. As these names have no exact equivalents in English, the names into which they are here translated may appear arbitrary. The translator can only say that, where exactitude was impossible, he has done his best.