upon which two of the guards attending, placed her by force upon the coach-box, where the executioner mounted after her, and having seated himself by her produced the original letter which she had wrote to his serene highness, her sovereign; and which he with an audible voice, declared to all the people to be an infamous, scandalous, and seditious libel, tending to the defamation of the characters of two great and innocent persons, and to the alienating the minds of the good subjects of Meinungen, from their lawful and rightful sovereign; and afterwards presenting the lady with a lighted match, he ordered her to set fire to the said libel which the mortified baroness accordingly did. The executioner after this proceeded to the completion of the sentence by obliging her to kneel down and pray for the prosperity of the injured prince, giving her two slaps on the face, and then conducting her back to prison It is said positively that the favourite and the minister were placed in a window at some distance from the scaffold to feast their eyes with the ill-natured pleasure of seeing the ceremony. But the House of Holsendorf roused by this affront so publicly offered to their blood, and moved with compassion for a suffering sister, resolved not to let her languish in prison under an unjust sentence, and presented a memorial to the Imperial Chamber of Wetzlaer setting forth the cruelties and oppression of the tyrant of Meinungen, and the unjust sufferings of the baroness of Kheichlin, and prayed for redress of such grievances from that august tribunal. To this the prince soon put in an answer; the House of Holsendorf replied, and his serene highness rejoined, and the controversy soon wasted much paper to the great joy of all German readers, and to the great emolument of the whole Diet of Ratisbon. At length in due time the sentence of the Imperial Chambers was published, by which the prince of Meinungen was ordered to set the baroness Kheichlin at liberty, and to make her ample amends for the insults done to her honour, and the outrages committed upon her person. It was in vain, that this imperial decree was notified in due form to his highness of Meinungen; he persisted in justifying all that he had done, set the judgment of the chamber of Wetzlaer at nought, and was so far from complying with what was enjoined him, that he not only refused to let the lady out of prison, but to make her captivity more intolerable, he sent her husband thither to keep her company. All these disobedient steps being soon known at Wetzlaer; the Imperial Chamber declared the sovereign of Meinungen contumacious and resolved to make him feel the weight of insulted justice. They, therefore, sent their orders to the duke of Saxe Gotha to carry their decree into execution, to enter immediately with his armies into the states of Meinungen, to release the prisoners, and take them under his protec tion; and to continue his troops at discretion in that headstrong prince's country, till such time as his serene highness of Saxe Gotha should be thoroughly satisfied, and amply repaid the whole expenses and trouble of his expedition. The duke of Gotha had long borne great enmity to the prince of Meinungen for several affronts and injuries that he had received from him, and he had long wished for an opportunity to be revenged. This added to the great respect and deference that all German princes now have for imperial decrees, made him not hesitate a moment to show himself a dutiful son of the Germanic body, and to give the ordinances of the Imperial Chamber of Wetzlaer their proper weight. Therefore, after having summoned his council and declared to them his intentions of putting the imperial decree into execution, he gave orders to his generals to march his army the very next day towards Meinungen. Accordingly with the first dawn, the army moved, consisting of five hun dred foot and one hundred horse with two halfpound field pieces. I leave you to guess at the terrors that invaded the breast of the prince of Meinungen. He soon proved that tyrants can make no foundation upon oppressed subjects, and reflected, but too late, that a prince's best security is the affection of his people. However he lost no time but gathering together about three hundred militia, he resolved to repel force by force, and meet the invader of his country in the field; but upon the approach of the troops of Gotha the infinite superiority of their numbers struck such terror into the Meinungenian army, that the whole fled with the utmost precipitation each to his respective home, except the tyrant; who finding himself thus abandoned thought Meinungen, no longer a place of safety for him, and retired with great confusion to Frankfort, preceded by no postillion at all. During this time, the army of Gotha pursued its march, and as it met with no enemy was |