Frederick Schiller - The Short Stories

G. ascended too young and with too rapid steps to this greatness to enjoy them with restraint. The height upon which he was looking at the court propelled his ambition; humility abandoned him as soon as his ultimate goal of becoming a minister was achieved.

The humble submission which the prominent people in the country, who were all superior to him by birth, respectability and fortune; as well as the deference which even the old people themselves, observed against him, a young man, dizzied his pride; and the unlimited power which he has taken possession of, made soon visible in his demeanour a certain hardness which would, from now on, become a trait of his character and which would remain in him through all his turns of luck.

For his friends, there was not any difficult or great enough service that could not be obtained from him; however, his enemies might only

tremble before him: for so much his benevolence was exaggerated on one side; on the other, he showed so little measure in executing his revenge. He used his authority lesser to enrich himself, than to make happy all the many people who paid homage to him as the creator of their prosperity; however, it was always his mood, not sense of justice which decided over the matter.

Through a highly experienced, commanding attitude, he estranged himself from the hearts of the ones who were mostly his obliged, while at the same time, he transformed all his rivals and all the secretly jealous people into equally irreconcilable enemies.

Among the ones who watched every of his steps with the eyes of jealousy and covetousness and already prepared calmly the tools directed at his downfall, was a Count from Piedmont, Joseph Martinengo; a person who was also from the Prince's retinue, whom G. himself has judged as a creature inoffensive and devoted to him, since he has put him at this position to let him fill his place in the enjoyments of his master of whom he started to have enough and with whom he would exchange very much his status of a favourite for a more fundamental occupation.

As he considered this man as his creation whom he could be returning into a state of nothingness from where he has pulled him, whenever he only wanted to; hence, he kept himself assured of Martinengo's fidelity through fear as well as through gratitude, and made precisely through this move, the same mistake which Richelieu fell into when he allowed Le Grand to appear on Louis the Thirteenth's chess play.

However, without having Richelieu’s spirit to improve this mistake, he also has to do with a more astute enemy than the French Minister had to fight against. Instead of taking advantage of his good luck and making his benefactor feel that he does not need his favours any more, Martinengo has rather more strived most carefully to entertain the semblance of his dependence and with a false submission, linked himself ever more and more to the creator of his luck.

At the same time, however, he did not miss to use any occasion which his position allowed him, to be more often around the Prince, to its full scope and to make himself, little by little, necessary and indispensable to this one.

In a short period, he knew by heart the state of mind in which his Prince was, watched carefully over to all those who received his confidence, and in an unnoticed manner, made himself into a position of acquiring his favour.

All these artifices which the Minister's nobler pride and naturally sublime soul has learned to despise, would be used by the Italian who did not disdain to use the lowest means to reach his goals.

As he was very well aware that the human being needed nowhere else a guide and help than on the way to vice, and that unsavoury confidences justified absolute secrecy; hence, he awoke in the Prince passions which until now has slumbered in him, and then pressed him into making him his confident and his necessary help with his other assistants.

He dragged him into making such excesses which tolerated the least witnesses; and through this way, he used him, in an unnoticed manner, to confide to him secrets from which any third party was excluded. Hence, he finally succeeded to set his plan through, and precisely because secret was an essential means to his plan; hence, was the Prince's heart his, even before G. could even allow himself to think that the Prince could share his heart with another person than him.

People may be wondering how such an important change in the Prince's favours could have been left unnoticed; but G. was too certain of his own value to think of a man like Martinengo as a potential rival, and this one was also so very much comfortably established under his protection to commit some imprudence which would declare him as an enemy.

G. would also be brought into fall by what has made thousands favourites before him stumbled upon on the slippery way to a Prince's favours: he had too much confidence in himself. The secret connivances between Martinengo and his master did not in any way worry him.

Very voluntarily, he granted a favour to a newcomer whom he despised at heart and whom never represented a goal in any of his strivings. Only because the Prince's friendship could pave the way to the highest power, did he bear with such friendship; it has never genuinely had an attraction for him, and he let very easily this friendship down, as soon as it has helped him reached the desired height. Martinengo, however, was not a man to settle himself with a subordinated role.

With every step which he did forward in the favour of his Prince, would his demands become bolder, and his ambition started also to strive after a more fundamental satisfaction. The artificial role of subordination which he, until now, has ever observed against his benefactor, would ever become more pressing to him, the more the growth of his authority raised his pride.

As the Minister's conduct towards him did not refine after the rapid steps which he made in the Prince's favour; as, to the contrary, G. gave him often a salutary reminding, visibly aimed at pulling down his now raised pride; hence, would this coerced and contradictory relationship, finally became so burdening to Martinengo that he projected a serious plan to end it at once through the downfall of his arch-rival.

Under the most impenetrable veil of deceit, he prepared his plan into maturation; for he did not dare to measure himself with his rival in an open fight; because even if G.'s Golden Age as favourite was gone, yet has this passion started very early in the life and still has deep roots in the soul of the young Prince, that it still could resurface very easily. The smallest circumstance could bring back such memories into their former strength: for that reason, Martinengo knew well that the blow which he would be giving to G., must be a deadly one.

Maybe what G. gave up in the Prince's love, he won in his respect; for the more the last one has removed himself from the occupation of governing, the lesser he could get rid of the man who cared with the most certain devotion and faith to the homeland affairs, and no matter how dear G. has been to him before as friend, he was very important to him, now, as minister.

What kind of means did the Italian specifically use to reach his goal, has remained a secret among the few ones who prepared and executed the blow. People suspected that he presented to the Prince the originals of a secret and very suspicious correspondence which G. has maintained with a neighbouring palace; the opinions were divided whether such correspondence was authentic or forged. However, it did surely produce its intentioned effect in a princely degree. G. appeared in the Prince's eyes as the most ungrateful and darkest betrayer whose crimes have been ascertained above any doubt, that people believed they have to punish him immediately without any further inquiry. The whole punitive scheme would be dealt under the greatest secrecy between Martinengo and his master, that G. did never notice from afar the storm which was gathering over his head. He was kept in a corrupting security until the terrible moment where he should sink down from being an object of the general adoration and jealousy into that of commiseration arrived.