THE LEGACY.
Three days had passed since that unfortunate event. Early on this, the
third day, the corpse of the prince had been conveyed to the tomb of
his family; a large and brilliant funeral procession had accompanied
the coffin; even the carriages of the emperor, the archdukes, and high
dignitaries of the state had participated in the procession, and the
Viennese, who for three days had spoken of nothing else but the tragic
end of the young and handsome Prince Charles von Lichtenstein, derived
some satisfaction from the conviction that they were sharing the
sympathy of the imperial family for the deceased; thousands of them
consequently joined the procession and accompanied the coffin.
But this manifestation of sympathy did not seem sufficient to the
good-hearted and hot-blooded people. They did not merely wish to show
their love for the deceased; they also wanted to manifest their hatred
against the man who had slain him; and, on their return from the
funeral, the people rushed to the Kohlmarkt and gathered with loud
shouts and savage threats in front of the house of the prebendary, Baron
Weichs.
It was reported that the prebendary, whom the people charged with having
assassinated Prince Lichtenstein, was constantly in Vienna; and as this
fact seemed to indicate that the emperor did not intend to punish his
misdeed, the people wanted to take it upon themselves to chastise him,
or to give him at least a proof of the public hatred.
“Smash the murderer’s windows!” shouted the people, who were constantly
reenforced by fresh crowds appearing on the Kohlmarkt. And, passing
from threats to deeds, hundreds and hundreds of busy hands tore up the
pavement in order to hurl the stones at the house and windows of the
prebendary. And the rattling of the windows, the loud noise of the
stones glancing off on the walls, increased the rage and exasperation
of the people. Soon they were no longer contented with doing this, but
wished to get hold of the malefactor himself, and to punish him for his
crime. The crowd rushed with wild clamor toward the closed street-door
of the baron’s house; one among them quickly climbed on the shoulders of
another, in order to tear down the coat-of-arms of the prebendary,
fixed over the entrance, and thundering applause greeted him when he had
accomplished his purpose. The infuriated men then commenced striking
at the door itself, which offered, however, to all attacks, a firm and
unyielding resistance.
Suddenly a stern, imperious voice shouted: “Stop! Stand back! stand
back!”
The people turned around in terror, and discovered only then that a
carriage, surrounded and followed by twenty mounted policemen,
was approaching from the alley on which the principal door of the
prebendary’s house was situated. This carriage, with its sinister
escort, could make but slow headway through the dense mass of the
people, who looked inquisitively through the lowered windows into
the interior of the coach. Every one was able to recognize the three
gentlemen who were seated in the carriage, and who were none other than
the prebendary, Baron Weichs, and two of the best known and most feared
high functionaries of the police. The baron’s face was pale and gloomy,
but the defiant, impudent smile was still playing on his thin lips. He
looked, with an air of boundless contempt, at the crowd surging around
his carriage and staring at him as if it wished to read in his pale
features the sentence that had been pronounced against him.
“How inquisitive is the populace!” said the prebendary, disdainfully.
“They are so anxious to find out whether I am now being conveyed to the
place of execution, which would be a most welcome spectacle for them.
You ought to have mercy on this amiable rabble, gentlemen, and inform
them of the evil tidings that I have unfortunately not been sentenced to
be hanged on the gallows, nor to be broken on the wheel, but only to
be imprisoned in a fortress for ten years, which I shall pass at the
beautiful citadel of Komorn.”
The two officers only replied to him by silently nodding, and the
carriage passed on. But some compassionate and talkative police agent
had informed the people that the emperor had sentenced the prebendary,
Baron Weichs, to ten years’ imprisonment in a fortress, and that he
was at this moment on his way to Komorn. The people received this
intelligence with jubilant shouts, and dispersed through the city in
order to inform their friends and acquaintances of the welcome news,
and then to go home, well satisfied with the day’s amusements and
diversions.
And the waves of life closed over the lamentable event, and carried
it down into the abyss of oblivion. A few days passed by, and another
occurrence caused the colloquies concerning the duel of Prince
Lichtenstein and what had brought it about to cease, as some new subject
of conversation took its place.
One heart alone did not console itself so rapidly; one soul alone
bewailed him on comfortless days and restless nights, and paid to him
the tribute of tears and sighs. Since that last meeting with the prince,
Fanny Arnstein had not left her cabinet again; its doors had been closed
against everybody, and she had wept and sighed there during these three
days, without taking a morsel of food.
Vainly had her husband often come to her door in order to implore her to
open it at last, and to take some nourishment. Fanny had never answered
him; and if he had not, constantly and stealthily returning to her
door at night, heard her low sobs and half-loud wailing, he would have
believed that grief had killed her, and that love had intended to unite
her in heaven with him to whom her heart belonged, as they had been so
hopelessly separated on earth.
To-day, after the prince’s funeral, the baron again entered the
reception-room adjoining his wife’s cabinet, but this time he did not
come alone. A lady, whose face was covered with a large black veil,
accompanied him, and walked at his side to the constantly closed door.
The baron knocked at this door, and begged his wife, in words of
heart-felt sympathy, to open it to him.
There was no reply; not a word was heard from the unhappy baroness.
“You see, your highness,” whispered the baron, turning to the veiled
lady, “it is as I told you. All prayers are in vain; she does not leave
her room; she will die of grief.”
“No, she will not die,” said the lady, “she is young, and youth survives
all grief. Let me try if I cannot induce her to admit us.”
And she knocked at the door with bold fingers, and exclaimed: “Pray,
Fanny, open the door, and let me come in. It is I, Princess Eibenberg;
it is I, your friend, Marianne Meier; I want to see my dear Fanny
Itzig.”
Every thing remained silent; nothing stirred behind that locked door.
Marianne removed her veil, and showed her proud, pale countenance to the
baron.
“Baron,” she said, gravely, “at this hour I forgive you the insult and
contempt you hurled at me five years ago on your wedding-day. Fate has
avenged me and punished you cruelly, for I see that you have suffered
a great deal during the last three days. My heart does not bear you any
ill-will now, and I will try to restore your beautiful and unhappy wife
to you, and to console her. But I must request you to leave this room. I
know a charm, by which I shall decoy Fanny from that room; but in order
to do so I must be alone, and nobody, save herself, must be able to hear
me.”
“Very well, I will go,” said the baron, mournfully. “But permit me first
to ask you to do me a favor. My request will prove to you the confidence
I repose in you. Please do not tell Fanny that you saw me sad and deeply
moved; do not intimate any thing to her about my own grief.”
“She will perceive herself, from your pale face and hollow cheeks, poor
baron!” exclaimed Marianne.
“No, she is not accustomed to look at me attentively; it will escape
her,” said the baron, sadly, “and I would not have it appear as though
I were suffering by her grief, which I deem but natural and just. I beg
you, therefore, to say nothing about me.”
“I shall fulfil your wish,” said Marianne. “Fanny will, perhaps, thank
you one day for the delicacy with which you are now behaving toward her.
But go now, so that I may call her.”
The baron left the room, and Marianne returned to the door. “Fanny,”
she said, “come to me, or open the door and let me walk in. I have
to deliver to you a message and a letter from Prince Charles von
Lichtenstein.”
Now a low cry from the cabinet was heard; the bolt was drawn back, the
door opened, and Baroness Arnstein appeared on the threshold. Her face
was as pale as marble; her eyes, reddened by weeping, lay deeply in
their orbits; her black, dishevelled hair fell down on her back like a
long mourning veil. She was still beautiful and lovely, but hers was now
the beauty of a Magdalen.
“You bring me a message from him?” she asked, in a low, tremulous voice,
and with tearful eyes.
“Yes, Fanny,” said Marianne, scarcely able to overcome her own emotion,
“I bring you his last love-greetings. He believed that he would fall,
and on that fatal morning, before repairing to the duelling-grounds, he
paid me a visit. We had long been acquainted and intimate; both of us
had a great, common goal in view; both of us were pursuing the same
paths; this was the origin of our acquaintance. He knew, too, that I had
been a friend of yours from your childhood, and he therefore intrusted
to me his last message to you. Here, Fanny, this small box contains all
the little souvenirs and love-tokens which he has received from you, and
which he deemed much too precious to destroy or to take into his grave;
hence he requests you to preserve them. They consist of withered flowers
which you once gave him, of a ribbon which you lost, of a few notes
which you wrote to him, and from which the malicious and slanderous
world might perceive the harmless and innocent character of your
intercourse, and, last, of your miniature, painted by the prince
himself, from memory. This casket the prince requests you to accept as
his legacy. It is a set of pearls, an heirloom of his family, which his
dying mother once gave to him in order to adorn with it his bride on his
wedding-day. The prince sends it to you and implores you to wear it as
a souvenir from him, because you were the bride of his heart. And here,
Fanny, here is a letter from him, the last lines he ever wrote, and they
are addressed to you.”
The baroness uttered a cry of joy; seizing the paper with passionate
violence, she pressed it to her lips, and knelt down with it.
“I thank Thee, my God, I thank Thee!” she murmured, in a low voice.
“Thou hast sent me this consolation! Thou dost not want me to die of
despair!”
And now, still remaining on her knees, she slowly unfolded the paper and
read this last glowing farewell, this last tender protestation of his
love, with which the prince took leave of her.
Marianne stood, with folded arms, in a bay window, watching her friend
with grave, sympathetic eyes, and beheld the pallor and blushes which
appeared in quick succession on her cheeks, the impetuous heaving of her
bosom, the tremor of her whole frame, and the tears pouring down like
rivers from Fanny’s eyes on the paper, with a mingled feeling of pity
and astonishment.
“It must be beautiful to be able to love in such a manner,” she thought.
“Beautiful, too, to be able to suffer thus. Enviable the women living
with their hearts and deriving from them alone their happiness and
grief. Such a lot has not fallen to MY share, and I am almost afraid
that I do not love any thing but myself. My life is concentrated in my
head, and my blood only rushes from the latter to my heart. Who is more
to be pitied, Fanny with the grief of her love, or I, who will never
know such a grief? But she has wept now, and her tears might finally
cause me to weep, too, and to awaken my love. That must not be, however.
One who has to pursue great plans, like myself, must keep a cool head
and a cold heart.”
And she approached with quick steps the baroness, who was yet on her
knees, reading and re-reading the farewell letter of the prince.
“Rise from your knees, Fanny,” she said, almost imperiously. “You have
paid the tribute of your tears to the departed friend, you have wept for
him for three days; now bury the past in your heart and think of your
future, my poor girl.”
“My future?” said Fanny, permitting her friend to raise her gently. “My
future is broken and darkened forever, and there is a cloud on my name,
which will never leave it. Oh, why is there no convent for the Jewess,
no lonely cell whither she might take refuge, with her unhappiness and
disgrace?”
“Do as I have done,” said Marianne; “let the whole world be your
convent, and your reception-room the cell in which you do penance, by
compelling men to kneel before you and adore you, instead of kneeling
yourself, and mortifying your flesh. Lay your unhappiness and your
disgrace like a halo around your head, and boldly meet the world with
open eyes and a proud mien. If you were poor and nameless I should
seriously advise you to become a Catholic, and to take refuge in a
convent. But you are rich; you bear a distinguished, aristocratic name;
your husband is able to give sumptuous dinner-parties; consequently
people will pardon his wife for having become the heroine of an
unfortunate romance, and they will take good care not to turn their
backs on nor to point their fingers at you; and whenever you pass them
in the street, not to laugh scornfully and tell your history in an
audible voice. I, my child, formerly had to bear such contumely and
humiliation, and I took a solemn oath at that time that I would revenge
myself upon this world, which believed it had a right to despise
me--that I would revenge myself by becoming its equal. And I have
fulfilled my oath; I am now a princess and a highness. The proud world
that once scorned me now bows to me; the most virtuous and aristocratic
ladies do not deem it derogatory to their dignity to appear in my
reception-room; the most distinguished princes and cavaliers court the
friendship and favor of the Princess von Eibenberg, nee Marianne Meier.
Follow my example, therefore, Fanny; brave the world, appear in your
reception-room with serene calmness and ease; give even more sumptuous
dinner-parties than heretofore, and the small cloud now darkening your
name will pass by unnoticed. People will come at first from motives
of curiosity, in order to see how you bear your affliction and how you
behave under the eclat produced by the deplorable occurrence; next they
will come because your dinners are so very excellent, and because
this and that princess or countess, this and that prince, minister, or
general, do not disdain to appear in your reception-room, and thus the
whole affair will gradually be forgotten.”
“But my heart will not forget it,” said the baroness, mournfully; “my
heart will never cease to weep for him, and when my heart is weeping,
my eyes will not laugh. You have had the courage to conceal your tears
under a smile, and not to suffer your head to be weighed down by the
disgrace and contumely which they tried to heap on it. I shall have
the courage not to conceal my tears, and to walk about, bending my head
under the disgrace and contumely which have undeservedly fallen to
my share. If I were guiltier, I should be able, perhaps, to brave the
world; but having to mourn, not over a guilty action, but only over a
misfortune, I shall weep! Let the world condemn me for it; I shall not
hear its judgment, for I shall retire into solitude.”
“Oh, you foolish woman!” exclaimed Marianne, fervently.
“Yes, foolish, because you believe already at the beginning of your life
that you are done with it. My child, the human heart is much too weak to
be able to bear such a grief for many years. It gradually grows tired of
it and finally drops it, and perceives then all at once that it is quite
empty. Tedium, with its long spider-legs, will then creep over you and
draw its dusty network around and no one will tear away this network,
because nobody will be there to do this salutary service, for you will
have driven people away from your side and preferred loneliness to their
society. Beware of solitude, or rather learn to be alone in the midst of
the world, but not in the privacy of your deserted boudoir. You have
to fulfil a beautiful and grand mission here in Vienna. You have to
emancipate the Jews--in a manner, however, different from the course I
have pursued. I have proved to the foolish world that a Jewess may
very well be a princess and worthily represent her exalted rank,
notwithstanding her oriental blood and curved nose; but in order to
be able to prove it to the world, I had to give up my religion and
to desert my people. It is your mission to finish the work I have
commenced, and to secure to the Jews a distinguished and undisputed
place in society. You shall be the mediator between the aristocracy of
blood and of pedigree and the aristocracy of money--the mediator between
the Christians and the Jews. You shall give to the Jews here in Vienna
a position such as they are justly entitled to: free, respected, and
emancipated from the degrading yoke of prejudices. Such is your mission.
Go and fulfil it!”
“You are right, Marianne,” replied Fanny, with glowing enthusiasm. “I
will fulfil the mission, for it is a grand and sacred one, and it
will comfort and strengthen my heart. The happiness of my life is gone
forever; but I may, perhaps, be happy in my unhappiness, and I will now
try to become so by consoling the unhappy, by assisting the suffering,
and by giving an asylum to the disowned and proscribed. To dry tears, to
distribute alms, and to scatter joy and happiness around me--that shall
be the balm with which I will heal the wounds of my heart. You are
right; I will not retire from the world, but I will compel it to respect
me; I will not flee with my grief into solitude, but I will remain with
it in the midst of society, a comfort to all sufferers, a refuge to all
needing my assistance!” [Footnote: Fanny von Arnstein kept her word. Her
house became the centre of the most distinguished intellectual life;
her hands were always open and ready to scatter charities and to spread
blessings. She did not, however, give merely with her hands, but also
with her heart, and only thereby she became a true benefactress; for she
added to her gifts that pity and sagacity which know how to appreciate
the true sort of relief. To many people she secured lasting happiness;
to many she opened the road to wealth, and to some she gave sums
which, in themselves, were equivalent to an independent fortune. Her
hospitality equalled her benevolence, and she exercised it with rare
amiability and to a remarkable extent. Every day numerous guests were
received in her house in the city as well as in her villa, where
they enjoyed the advantages of the most attractive, enlightened, and
distinguished society.]
“That is right! I like to hear you talk thus,” exclaimed Marianne,
embracing her friend, and tenderly pressing her to her heart. “Now my
fears for you are gone, and I may bid you farewell with a reassured and
comforted heart. My travelling-coach is waiting for me, and I shall set
out in the course of the present hour.”
“And where are you going?” asked Fanny, sympathetically.
“That is a secret--a profound political secret,” said Marianne, smiling;
“but I will confide it to you as a proof of my love. I go to Paris for
the purpose of delivering to the first consul a letter from the poor
Count de Provence, whom the royalists, and consequently myself, also
call King Louis the Eighteenth of France. That, Fanny, is the legacy
Prince Charles von Lichtenstein has bequeathed to ME. Through him I
became acquainted with some of those noble emigres who preferred to
give up their country and their possessions, and to wander about foreign
lands without a home, instead of proving faithless to their king, and of
obeying that despotic republic and the tyrant who now lays his iron
hand upon France. It was the Prince von Lichtenstein who, two weeks ago,
brought the Duke d’Enghien to me, and initiated me into the great plans
of the unfortunate Bourbons.”
“The Duke d’Enghien was here in Vienna?” asked Fanny, in surprise.
“Yes, he was here; he kept himself concealed in the palace of your
friend Lichtenstein, and only his devoted adherents knew where he was.
The prince belonged to his most enthusiastic followers and friends. Oh,
what plans those two fiery young men conceived in the safe asylum of my
reception-room! what great things did they expect from the future for
the cause of the Bourbons and for France! You ought to have see Prince
Charles von Lichtenstein in such hours, Fanny; then you would have
really understood and boundlessly loved him. His cheeks, then, were
glowing with noble impetuosity; his eyes flashed fire, and sublime words
of soul-stirring eloquence dropped from his lips. Never has an enemy
been hated more ardently than he hated Bonaparte, the first consul;
never has a cause been more passionately adhered to than the cause of
his unhappy fatherland and that of the exiled Bourbons. If the Count de
Provence could boast of a hundred such defenders as was the Prince von
Lichtenstein, he would have reconstructed the throne of the fleur-de-lis
within a week in Paris. Dry your tears, Fanny, for you are not most to
be pitied. You only lost a lover, but the Bourbons lost a champion and
Germany a true and valorous son; these two are more to be pitied than
you. You may find a hundred other lovers, if such should be your desire,
but the Bourbons have but few champions, and the number of the true and
noble sons of Germany is constantly on the decrease.”
“And he said nothing to me about his plans and hopes?” exclaimed Fanny,
reproachfully. “He never made me suspect that--”
“That he had not only a heart for love, but also for politics and for
the cause of the fatherland!” interrupted Marianne, smiling. “My child,
he loved with his heart; hence, so long as he was with you, all the
schemes of his head were silent. Still he knew that the beloved of his
heart was able and worthy, too, to be the friend of his head; and when
he took leave of me, he instructed me to initiate you into all his
plans, and to let you participate in his hopes. Fanny, your friend
greets you through my mouth; he wishes to transfer his love and his
hatred, now that he has left us forever to yourself. As he was a
faithful son of his German fatherland, you shall be its faithful
daughter and guardian, and watch over the welfare of your country, and
devote yourself to its service with your whole strength. As he was an
inexorable enemy of that new, blood-stained France and of her dictator,
you shall forswear all connection with that country, which soon will
pour its torrents of blood and fire over our own unhappy fatherland. You
shall do whatever will serve and be useful to the fatherland, and you
shall abhor, persecute, and combat every menace to subjugate Germany.
Your house shall be open to all German patriots; it shall be closed
against all enemies of Germany, no matter whether they are Germans
or French, or to whatever nation they may belong. Such, Fanny, is the
legacy which Prince Charles von Lichtenstein, the noble German patriot,
has bequeathed to you with his love, and which is to comfort and
strengthen you in your grief.”
“I accept this legacy,” exclaimed Fanny, radiant with enthusiasm. “Yes,
I accept this legacy and will fulfil it faithfully! To Germany I will
transfer the love which I once devoted to him; I will love and honor
him in each of our German brethren. Like him, I will hate the enemies
of Germany, and never shall my house be opened to them--never shall they
cross its threshold as welcome guests! As I cannot be a happy wife, I
will try to be a faithful daughter of my country, to love its friends
faithfully, and to hate its enemies bitterly!”
“That is right,” said Marianne, joyfully. “Now you have received your
best consolation, and the grief of your love will be transformed into
deeds of love. The blessing of your departed friend will be with you,
and the love of your fatherland will reward you for what you will do
for it. And you shall assist our despised and down-trodden Jews, too,
by proving to those who scorn us and contemptuously treat us as aliens,
that we feel like natives and children of the country in which we were
born, and that we do not seek for our Jerusalem in the distant Orient,
but in the fatherland we share with all other Germans. Let us prove to
these Christians that we also are good patriots, and that we love our
fatherland like them, and are ready to make any sacrifice which it may
require from us.”
“Yes, I will prove that I am a good patriot as he was a good patriot,”
said Fanny, enthusiastically. “I will hate whatever he hated; I will
love whatever he loved!”
“Amen!” exclaimed Marianne, solemnly. “And now, farewell, Fanny. I go to
fulfil the legacy which Prince von Lichtenstein has bequeathed to me.
He had taken it upon himself to deliver this letter to Bonaparte, and to
see what the Bourbons have to expect from him, and whether Bonaparte is
a Monk or a Cromwell. I fear the latter. The Bourbons and Lichtenstein
hoped for the former. They believed he would be the Monk of the
restoration, and he had only placed himself so near the throne in order
to restore the latter to Louis XVIII., as Monk had done in relation to
Charles II. Well, we shall see! I will go now and deliver the letter
which Prince Lichtenstein has intrusted to me. Farewell, Fanny, and
remember your legacy!”
“I shall remember it as long as I live,” said Fanny, fervently. “And as
I never shall forget my love, I shall never forget my fatherland either.
Both shall live indissolubly united in my heart!” [Footnote: The
history of Baroness Arnstein and the tragic end of Prince Charles von
Lichtenstein do not belong to romance, but to reality, and created a
great sensation at that time. Every one in Vienna knew that love for
Baroness Arnstein had been the cause of the duel and of the death of the
Prince von Lichtenstein, but every one knew also that Fanny von Arnstein
was not to blame for this event; hence the sympathy and compassion felt
for the unhappy lady were universal. The imperial court and the city
took pains to do homage to her and to manifest their respect for her.
But Baroness Arnstein was not to be consoled by such proofs of public
sympathy; the affliction which had befallen her was too terrible, and
she did not endeavor to conceal her grief. She caused the cabinet in
which he had seen her on the day preceding his death to be hung in black
like a death-room; all the souvenirs and every thing reminding her of
him were preserved in this room. She spent there every anniversary of
his death in deep mourning, and at other times she frequently retired
thither to pray for him. Except herself no one was ever permitted to
enter this cabinet, consecrated as an altar for the religion of her
reminiscences.--Vide Varnhagen von Ense’s Miscellanies, vol. i., p.
112.]