Fifteen Years; A Picture from the Last Century (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XIV. CONCLUSION. More than two long, eventful months had passed. The friends of the king had paid, for the crime of attempting to alter the constitution, on the scaffold. The unhappy monarch, who, by a cruel decree of his tyrants, was deprived of the noblest privilege of crowned heads, the power of pardoning, could not save them nor hardly himself, indeed, except by solemnly declaring that he had not known any thing of the conspiracy raised in his favor. Those among his friends who were less implicated were outlawed, among them Count Kronhelm. Mannsfeld was buried in the quiet garden at Soderwyk. A plain stone, overshadowed by a weepingwillow, marked the spot. The name of " Moritz Mannsfeld" was inscribed upon the stone, together with the words, "He died, murdered by the servants of the law, a victim to his magnanimity." In the house Caritas still sat by her mother's sickbed. When the unhappy woman at length awoke from her swoon, her mind was far away. The most celebrated physicians of Stockholm came and went, but they could not check the passionate ravings of this fearfully-shaken soul. The patient spoke German, only German. She was in Silesia with her parents; the victorious Prussians were entering the captured fortress. She was sitting by his bedside. To her mind, which often seemed entranced, the past fifteen years were steeped in the deepest night of oblivion. "Oh I" Caritas would think, "would it not be a blessing for the dear one, if she were never, never again to come to herself and to a consciousness of the truth? if God would take her now, now in her fancied happiness?" But, generous though she was, it was only for a few moments that the young girl could endure the thought. Then she would sink down on her knees by the bedside, ...