Herold:
People of Riesa! I proclaim great news!
Our beloved, trusty Christoph Felgenhauer, lhe lord of the timber floats and noble owner of your manor, has been granted a great honour by the Prince Elector. Recently, in the Year of Our Lord 1623, on the 28th day of the month of July, the gracious Prince Elector most condescendingly granted the hamlet of Riesa a town charter.
From that day on and for evermore, the hamlet of Riesa … pardon me! the town of Riesa shall hold the comprehensive rights of a town with everything that flows therefrom, such as are: liberties, privileges, rights and jurisdiction. May the residents of Riesa use the privileges Baron von Felgenhauer has wrested from the Prince’s unlimited grace to their fullest extent, these being: the right to bake, to brew, to dispense, to exercise a trade, and not least, to hold a weekly market. May the people of Riesa daily prove themselves worthy of the high favour in which their town stands.
Thus endeth the proclamation. I take my leave of you!
(beiseite)… and of this godforsaken dump, as speedily as possible. Hmm… what on earth was the Elector thinking of, granting a town charter to this insignificant spot in the middle of nowhere? No doubt the former Raft Inspector and Privy Councillor von Felgenhauer talked him into it. For the sake of the privileges he himself will exercise, now that he has jurisdiction in his own patrimonial court.
Certainly I myself can’t see a weekly market being held here, or a horse fair or a cattle fair, as any proper town should have. A handful of peasants, a few craftsmen, wretched commoners, and that’s it! If you ask me, it’ll take several hundred more years before this miserable village ever amounts to a nice town. And I can’t wait that long. My job here is done. The people have been told. I’m off.
