Such was the positive and relative aspect of the several interests
which were now struggling in Klosterheim. Desperate measures were
contemplated by both parties; and, as opportunities should arise, and
proper means should develop themselves, more than one party might be
said to stand on the brink of great explosions. Conspiracies were
moving in darkness, both in the council of the burghers and of the
university. Imperfect notices of their schemes, and sometimes delusive
or misleading notices, had reached the Landgrave. The city, the
university, and the numerous convents, were crowded to excess with
refugees. Malcontents of every denomination and every shade,--
emissaries of all the factions which then agitated Germany; reformado
soldiers, laid aside by their original employers, under new
arrangements, or from private jealousies of new commanders; great
persons with special reasons for courting a temporary seclusion, and
preserving a strict incognito; misers, who fled with their hoards of
gold and jewels to the city of refuge; desolate ladies, from the
surrounding provinces, in search of protection for themselves, or for
the honor of their daughters; and (not least distinguished among the
many classes of fugitives) prophets and enthusiasts of every
description, whom the magnitude of the political events, and their
religious origin, so naturally called forth in swarms; these, and many
more, in connection with their attendants, troops, students, and the
terrified peasantry, from a circle of forty miles radius around the
city as a centre, had swelled the city of Klosterheim, from a total of
about seventeen, to six or seven and thirty thousand. War, with a
slight reserve for the late robberies of Holkerstein, had as yet spared
this favored nook of Germany. The great storm had whistled and raved
around them; but hitherto none had penetrated the sylvan sanctuary
which on every side invested this privileged city. The ground seemed