THE CHIEF JUSTICE

CHAPTER I.


In the Higher Court of Bolosch, an important Germano-Slavonic town of
northern Austria, there sat as Chief Justice some thirty years ago, one
of the bravest and best of those men on whom true justice might
hopefully rely in that sorely tried land.

Charles Victor, Baron von Sendlingen, as he may be called in this
record of his fate, was the last descendant of a very ancient and
meritorious race which could trace its origin to a collateral branch of
the Franconian Emperors, and which had once upon a time possessed rich
lands and mines on the shores of the Wörther See: now indeed by reason
of an adverse fate and the love of splendour of some of its scions,
there had gradually come to be nothing left of all this save a series
of high sounding titles. But the decline of fame and influence had not
kept pace with the loss of lands and wealth; the Sendlingens had
entered the service of the Hapsburgs and in the last two hundred years
had given the Austrian Hereditary Dominions not only several brave
generals, but an almost unbroken line of administrators and guardians
of Justice. And so, although they were entirely dependent on their
slender official salaries, they were reckoned with good reason among
the first families of the Empire, and a Sendlingen might from his
cradle count upon the office of Chief Justice of one of the Higher
Courts. Even unkind envy, to say nothing of honest report, was obliged
to admit that these hereditary patricians of Justice had always shown
themselves worthy of their sacred office, and just as they regularly
inherited certain physical characteristics--great stature, bright eyes
and coal-black curly hair--so also gifted intellects, iron industry and
a sense of duty which often enough bordered on self-denial, were always
theirs. "The majesty of the Law is the most sacred majesty on earth."
Thus spake the first of this family who had entered the service of the
Imperial Courts of Justice, the Baron Victor Amadeus, Chief Judge of
the Vienna Senate, in answer to an irregular demand of Ferdinand the
Catholic, and his descendants held fast to the maxim in good days and
evil, even in those worst days when Themis threatened, in this country
also, to sink to the level of the venal mistress of Princes. The
greatest of the Hapsburgs, Joseph II., knew how to value this at its
right worth, and although he much disliked hereditary offices, he on
this account appointed the Baron Charles Victor, in spite of his youth,
as his father's successor in one of the most important offices of the
State.