Part 60

When the provisions and money subscribed to the Fund for the aid of the many destitute English residents in Paris were at an end, he did not hesitate to dip his hand into his own breeches pocket. His shining patent-leather boots carried him not only into the attics and cellars where grim Starvation crouched on a bed of damp straw. They tripped over the Aubusson carpets of the drawing-rooms where Genteel Famine sat sipping hot water out of Sèvres cups, wherewith to quell its gnawing pangs, and retired, without having trodden upon a single corn during the accomplishment of their owner's charitable errand. He bombarded Count Bismarck with official Notes, until he had obtained permission from that grim Cerberus for his little army of refugees to pass the Prussian lines.

Of his dreary three days' journey in charge of the string of country carts containing the exiles, who were permitted to travel to Versailles via the Porte Charenton, Brie-Comte-Robert, and Corbeil, Lord Henry afterward penned a Narrative. Which literary effort, printed, bound in cloth of a soothing green, and adorned with a Portrait of the Author, the young man bestowed upon his friends.

Perhaps you can see the blue eyes of Juliette peering between the frost flowers encrusting the window of her bedroom on the second floor, which commanded a view of the garden of the Rue de Provence.

She had, upon the previous evening, received an intimation from the Minister that she would be permitted to take exercise regularly in the garden between the hours of nine and ten. Thus with a throbbing heart, she dressed the shining tresses so long concealed under Madame Charles Tessier's chenille net and white shawl, and arrayed herself in the plain black silk skirt and bodice that we have seen once previously--looped over a cloth petticoat of the same mourning hue. She sought for, found, and put on the gray velvet jacket trimmed with Persian lambskin, and the little gray toque that matched it, despoiled of its azure feather. These things, with many others, had been packed away in a trunk and stowed in the attic now occupied by Madame Potier, when Mademoiselle had departed for Belgium under the charge of Madame Tessier.

She wound a white silk scarf about her throat, tied on a veil, and found herself wishing for a knot of violets to brighten the pale, somberly clad reflection in the looking-glass.... Color ... and her Colonel's grave lying under the first-fallen snow.... She blushed deep rose for very shame of her own vanity, and then in all conscience the picture was bright enough.

The pleasance, like the rest of the world, lay under a mantle of sparkling whiteness. The orderlies and grooms had already cleared and scraped the paths in the vicinity of the house. The ring of the shovels and the swish of the brooms might be heard in the distance. Mademoiselle sighed, thinking of Jean Jacques Potier.

Then timidly she stole down by the back staircase and passed through the hall door into a world all glittering. The keen air was as exhilarating as champagne. It breathed on her cheeks, and renewed the roses that had bloomed there when she had frowned at the girl in the mirror. The frost kissed her eyes, and they sparkled like sapphire-tinted icicles. She tripped down the short curved avenue, passed the gardener's cottage, and turned into the kitchen garden. Not that she was looking for anybody there.

All through the autumn and winter in a sheltered corner had bloomed a large standard rose tree of the hardy, late-flowering kind. The storms of October had passed over and left its fragrant pink blooms unscathed, the bitter winds and night frosts of November had done no more than brown the edges of an outer petal. The tree in its fragrance and beauty, and its strange immunity from hurt of wind and weather, had been an unfailing source of pleasure to Juliette. When an overblown flower shed its leaves, she had gathered up and kept them. When a new bud plumped and bravely unfolded, her heart had known a delicate thrill of joy.

So Mademoiselle went on into the kitchen garden, whose paths had not been cleared of snow. There was her tree--standing in its corner, but buried to the lower branches in a drift that had formed in this sheltered angle of the southward wall.

The roses had met their match at last. Drooping and yellow, sodden and heavy, they had no more courage or hope to give away. Juliette kissed both her hands to them, in farewell, and turned to encounter P. C. Breagh.

The green baize apron and other integuments of the late Jean Jacques Potier had been replaced by the old brown Norfolk suit so often mentioned in these pages. It had been sedulously brushed and his linen was scrupulously white, and he had bestowed infinite pains upon the knot of the black silk, loose-ended tie. His cropped hair would grow again, and his broad red smear of eyebrow was echoed on his upper lip by a young but decidedly red mustache with rather fuzzy corners. The pleasant lips smiled at sight of her, and a hot flame leaped into the gray-and-amber eyes. Her own could not be likened to sapphire icicles now. They were tender, and her long upper lip was haunted by flying smiles that came, and vanished, and came again.

"It is you! Ah, my friend," she said, "I am so glad--I am so glad!"

He caught the gloved hands she stretched out to him, and held them in his, that were reddened with Jean Jacques Potier's labors, and kissed them eagerly. The little gray gloves were not buttoned--his warm lips feasted unchecked upon each blue-veined wrist, until she told him breathlessly:

"No more!--there must be no more!... Pray cease, my friend!"

She had withdrawn her hands.... He said with a catch in his breath and with eyes that implored her:

"I do not offend you?..."

She looked at him full and drew off one glove and laid the bare hand in his extended palm. Warm and soft, it seemed incredibly small as it lay there. The touch of it infused a melting sweetness; a thrill went through the man from head to foot. Perhaps the thrill was communicated, for she drew her hand away quickly. She said:

"You are very generous to one who has so often deceived you.... How many times I have condemned myself for my wickedness, thinking: 'Of all those noble deeds I have described in the letters, not one has been really performed by M. Charles Tessier.... All are invented to make a good face!'"

He said in a whisper:

"I could forgive you for making even a worse fool of me--now I know you never were married! It was your telling me that knocked me out of time.... Nothing else mattered much afterward.... You said to Monseigneur yesterday that it was to retain your place in this house you pretended to be the wife of its master. But why did you pretend it in the first place to _me_?"

She began to change color from pale to red, and tried to free her hand. It was impossible. He said:

"I mean to know.... I have the right to know!..."

She faltered:

"See you well, Monsieur, I cannot explain...."

He said doggedly:

"Then I shall explain it for you. You told me that to make me jealous! Now, did you not?"

She winced.

"Monsieur ... not then!... Upon my faith, I assure you.... See you well, I had promised my father that M. Charles should be my husband.... I would have kept that promise _à tout hasard_ ... had M. Charles not married Mademoiselle Basselôt. And so I told you I was married, not then to make you jealous ... that came after. But to make it ... possible to be true!"

He almost reeled under the sudden shock of the terrible, exquisite confession. He would have given a year of life to let himself go with the sweet roaring current that tumbled foaming through his veins and sent its red sparkling bubbles to his brain. But there were steps and voices on the other side of the high laurel hedge that divided the kitchen garden from the pleasance. He recognized Bismarck-Böhlen's snigger and Hatzfeldt's lazy, well-bred accents--telling an anecdote of the Minister one could not doubt. The languid voice reached their ears distinctly. It said:

"He was an officer of French Imperial Hussars, who had been taken prisoner at Sedan, and had broken his _parole_. He had been taken again in arms against us, fighting under General Chancy at Le Mans. So she comes post-haste to Versailles, lays siege to the King, who will not see her--to the Crown Prince, who will not see her--and finally to Moltke, who will not see her, because all three of them are cowards at the sight of a woman's tears. Finally the Chief consents to receive her.... It was yesterday, in his room at the Prefecture. She comes in--all in black, which to a blonde of her type is very suitable, full of hope at not being made to _croquer le marmot_ for long. She reels off a long tale about her Frederic, his bravery, and his excellent heart. The Chief listens sympathetically, looking at the clock from time to time. Again the heart is pressed upon his notice. It is heavy with grief at the thought of a life parting from Madame, who is Frederic's mistress, by the way--and not his wife!... It is weighed down with suspense at the delay of the Prussian _Kriegsrath_ in answering the loved ones his prayer.... She gets so far, when the Chief looks up at the clock, and says, touching his table bell: 'Madame, that excellent heart of your client is even heavier than it was five minutes ago....' 'How, Monseigneur?' cries Madame. 'He was shot,' says the Chief, 'just now when I looked up at the clock. And, as a rule, seven out of the ten bullets shot off by the firing party are found to have lodged in the region of the heart.' So the poor woman screamed and fainted. They carried her past me with her teeth set and all her fine hair hanging down...."

Bismarck-Böhlen's snigger greeted the _dénouement_. The footsteps grew fainter. Juliette and Breagh exchanged glances. She said with white lips:

"Monseigneur can be merciless! And yet, when I heard him tell my mother that did he know of my hiding place, he would not betray it, I said to myself: '_How you have misjudged this man!_'"

Her comrade had started at the reference to Madame de Bayard, remembering the rendezvous to be kept that night. Juliette went on, with a liquid look:

"Monsieur, I have a favor to ask of you.... All those weeks when I struggled with that purpose from which you tried so faithfully to dissuade me, I did not once dare to set foot in Our Lord's House. But when I threw away that wicked bottle, I found that I could pray once more.... I went to the Carmelite Fathers and made my confession.... I received Our Lord in the Holy Communion ... and my soul began to be at peace again. Now it is Christmas Eve and I should much like to attend the Midnight High Mass, or the Second Mass at daybreak, and I had intended to ask you to take me, but I am upon _parole_.... Therefore, I entreat of you--pray for me when you make your own Communion. How much I need Divine pardon and guidance ... even you can hardly know...."

His conscience stung. He had not intended to evade the sacred obligation, yet he had wavered as to when he should comply with the command of the Church. He said:

"It shall be as you ask. I shall attend High Mass at the Church of the Carmelites at midnight. Afterward, I have an appointment--at a place some distance from here."

"So late, Monsieur?"

Her glance had not only surprise in it, but fear for him. He said lightly:

"Very late.... I may not get back until--some time near the second breakfast.... Madame Potier will have some hot coffee ready for me...."

She flushed and knitted her small hands together anxiously. She asked:

"Could you not--could you not take me into your confidence?"

He said bluntly:

"Not without myself committing a breach of confidence...." He added, holding out his strong hand: "Try to trust me. If it were possible to tell you, I would do it, you must know."

"I know it, and I trust you, Monsieur, always...."

There was faith in her eyes. He kissed her hands and released them, and turned with her silently.... They walked back together as far as the house.

LXXIV

At six o'clock, when the snow had ceased falling and the old moon of December glowed redly through a thinning veil of frost fog, the Crown Prince arrived to dine with the Minister.

The Heir Apparent of Prussia came with an escort of Dragoons of the Bodyguard, driving with one of his aides-de-camp in a closed sledge belonging to the exiled Empress, an exquisite vehicle, finished like an enameled _bonbonnière_, supplied with a great white Polar bearskin, and drawn by two superb black Orloffs, whose glossy coats had the burnish of old Italian armor in the ruddy light of torches held by orderlies and grooms.

The Minister, followed by Hatzfeldt and his Chief Privy Councilor, went down bareheaded, between a double row of Chancery attendants, dressed in their new dark-blue liveries, with black velvet facings, to welcome his Crown Prince. The broad breast of "Unser Fritz" displayed the Order _Pour la Mérite_, with the First-Class of the Iron Cross, and the Red Eagle, with an English Order, bestowed by Queen Victoria upon her son-in-law. He sported new shoulder straps, distinctive of his newly conferred rank as Field Marshal, and cut a very gallant figure, as may be supposed.

Perhaps you can see him at the head of the long table in the dining-room of the Tessier mansion, his Chancellor and host upon his left hand. Upon his right sat the Bavarian plenipotentiary, Count Maltzahn. Count Holnstein, another Bavarian Minister, newly arrived from Munich with a letter from his King, and the Bavarian Minister of War, Von Pranky, were severally disposed according to their degrees. Prince Putbus was there, and a certain Herr von Zadowski, a large red-faced man in a green Hussar uniform, wearing a white patch with a red Cross, the badge of the Knights of St. John, and the Iron Cross, was also present, and the Secretaries and Privy Councilors filled the lower end of the board; sporting the new Foreign Office uniform of dark blue, with black velvet side stripes to the trousers, and a black-velvet-collared, double-buttoned military frock. Sword belts and black-hilted swords with gold knots caused the more stout and elderly among the Councilors infinite discomfort, to the secret but acute delight of Bismarck-Böhlen and Count Hatzfeldt. The dinner, composed of love gifts from admiring German patriots to their Chancellor, was of a quality, quantity, lusciousness, and length calculated, as Privy Councilor Bucher piously whispered to a neighbor, "to make a guest imagine himself a banqueter in Abraham's bosom before the time."

Long before his table companions had reached the zenith of their sensuous enjoyment, the Crown Prince had finished his temperate meal. The Chancellor commented mentally, glancing at the clear, rather set features of the great golden-bearded figure seated beside him:

"Fritz is endeavoring to impress myself and these Bavarians, with whom it rests to decide whether he is Emperor or no Emperor, _par la fermeté de son attitude_ with regard to the pleasures of the table, and by the Spartan simplicity of his habits and tastes. How I should like to offer him black broth and barley bread in a special wooden bowl and platter. But that, I suppose, would be _lèse majesté_."

And closely emulated by Von Holnstein and Von Pranky, he gave free reign to his Gargantuan appetite, taking twice of nearly every course, and washing the huge meal down, as was his habit, with floods from Rheims and Épernay.

When the cloth was drawn and fresh relays of wine appeared, the Prince accepted but a single glass of _fine champagne_ with his coffee. When the costly cigars were offered, he pulled from his pocket a porcelain pipe bearing his crest and monogram, painted and sent him by his English wife as a Christmas present, and said:

"I should prefer to smoke this, if Your Excellency does not mind."

Dinner over, His Royal Highness, with the Bavarians and the Minister, repaired to the salon. Overhead, Mademoiselle de Bayard, lonely in her prison bedroom on the second floor, heard their voices--deep, sonorous bass, shrill tenor, and penetrating, resonant baritone--engaged in discussion or joining in argument. At ten o'clock the Prince took leave, attended to his vehicle as previously by the Chancellor, to whom he said, in a low tone, as he pressed his hand:

"We are now no longer North Germans, but Germans. I shall urge upon my father the speedy proclamation of the Empire with all external state. Names, arms, titles, colors place us before the world in a proper light. I have never coveted a Crown Imperial. I denounce the idea of a bombardment as brutal and unnecessary. But I am willing to reap all the honors and advantages that can be gained from our victory. Impress this upon my father, who treats pomp and solemnity with indifference. As to demanding the old crown of Charlemagne from Vienna, I do not at all see the necessity for that. I shall write to my wife to-night!"

And _Unser Fritz_ got into the exquisite sledge that had been given to the beautiful Empress by the Third Napoleon, and was whirled away in a glittering dust of snow, kicked up by the fiery Orloffs' heels. And the Chancellor, recovering from his deep, ceremonious bow, wheeled and went back up the steps, with his bald head glittering in the ruddy torchlight.... None might guess what savage triumph swelled the heart beating under his white full-dress uniform, upon this the night that set upon the fabric of the man's colossal labors the copingstone of Success.

The Bavarian plenipotentiaries took leave within ten minutes. Count Hatzfeldt had been summoned to the salon a few moments previously. When the unseen bustle of their departure had subsided, the Secretaries and Councilors, smoking and drinking tea in the dining-room, were unexpectedly joined by the Minister.

All rose up as he suddenly opened the folding doors, thrust in his head and shoulders, and surveyed them, smiling. Behind him was Hatzfeldt, pale and excited, and with eyes that seemed dancing out of his head. There was a silence of expectation, then the great figure moved to the table, and men scattered to make space for him as though his contact might have slain.

He wore full-dress White Cuirassier uniform, without the steel cuirass, and the First and Second Classes of the Iron Cross, and the Red Eagle, with the peculiar deporation that he always sported, and which had been given him in his young manhood for saving life. His bald forehead and great domed cranium were studded with shining drops of perspiration, under his tufted brows his blue eyes blazed with a triumph almost fearful; his straight-bridged, snub-ended nose, thick cheeks, and bulldog jowl were crimson and dripping. He drew out his handkerchief and wiped them--and the hand that held the linen palpably shook.

He said to them all, and they held their breath to listen:

"Gentlemen, the Bavarian business is settled, and everything signed and sealed. We have got our German Unity--and our German Empire!"

There was a deep silence for a moment, broken by Busch's request to be allowed to take the pens with which the treaty had been signed. He got permission.

"That little Busch," said the Minister, "will never lose anything for want of a tongue. If he thinks to find there the gold pen set with brilliants, that was sent me by the Hamburg jeweler, he is mistaken. Come!" he added, "this is a great occasion!" and bade Hatzfeldt ring for a servant and order up more champagne.

The wine was brought and opened. He said to the servant who officiated:

"Let the house steward know that some wine is to be sent to the clerks and decipherers in their room. The servants also are to have what they like best for drinking--I fancy Niederstedt will choose Old Nordhausen. But--short of my best liquor, let what each likes best be given to him. No!--not that glass. I will drink out of my biggest goblet!..."

With the fizzing bumper in hand, he waited until all had been served, looking, as he reared his great bulk at the head of the full table, the biggest man, mentally and physically, who had ever served the Hohenzollern. In his most powerful tones, he called the toast:

"_Hoch!_ to His Imperial Majesty, our Kaiser Wilhelm!"

Every man there strained his lungs to the utmost, but the great bull voice of the Chancellor drowned every other there.

He talked a little more: "We should never have hooked the King of Bavaria, but for the pluck of Holnstein, who set off from Munich to tackle His Most Gracious at his Palace of Neuschwanstein, and--there being no railway--made in six days a journey of eighteen German miles on foot and on horseback over mountain passes, agreeably diversified by forest tracks and timber roads."

He drank and went on:

"He arrived, to find His Majesty nursing his toothache in absolute solitude, invisible to human eyes, save those belonging to the dentist, his valets and fiddlers and grooms. At first the King refused to receive him, but Holnstein was clever enough to gain over the dentist to deliver a letter from his own hand, and incidentally one written by myself...."

He went on, with a smile that curved the great mustache into lines of gayety:

"Knowing myself particularly detested by King Ludwig, I had taken pains to make my letter acceptable. I said in it that my family had enjoyed the patronage of his family a trifle of five hundred years ago. I mentioned that reinstitution in the Wittelsbach good graces had been the object of my whole life's labors. I incidentally pressed the claims of the King of Prussia to be made Emperor of Germany. I enclosed, with many apologies, the draft of a letter which expressed the concurrence of Bavaria. 'Your Majesty has only to copy this and sign it,' I added, 'and the troublesome business is closed.' What a prospect to a monarch afflicted by an obstinately throbbing gumboil! There was no paper or pen at hand with which to answer, so the dentist presented his patient with a sheet out of his pocketbook, and the patent ink reservoir pen with which he writes his prescriptions. King Ludwig sits up in bed, scrawls a copy of my draft reply, and the German Empire is made.... The Festival of the Orders and the Proclamation of the Emperor will come off in the Great Hall of Versailles upon a certain date not far off.... I will leave you to guess what the date is likely to be!..."

In the midst of a deafening tumult of joyful outcries and congratulations, he turned his great eyes upon one excited face after another, and drained his capacious glass and set it down.