A WIFE’S LOVE.
Anna went in the first place to General Colomb, and begged him to grant
her an interview.
About four hours had passed since Palm’s arrest when the general
received her.
“Madame,” he said, “I know why you have come to me, you are looking for
your husband, but he is no longer here at my headquarters.”
“No longer here?” she ejaculated in terror. “You have sent him to
France? You intend to kill him, then?”
“The law will judge him, madame,” said the general, sternly. “I have
myself examined him and requested him to give us the name of the
author of this infamous libel which Mr. Palm has brought into general
circulation. Had he done so, he would no longer be held responsible,
and would have been at liberty to return to his house and to you. But
he refused firmly to state the names of the author and printer of the
pamphlet.”
“He does not know either!” exclaimed Anna; “oh, believe me, sir, Palm
is innocent. That pamphlet was sent to him, together with an anonymous
letter.”
“He ought to have taken care, then, not to circulate it,” replied the
general. “It is contrary to law to circulate a printed book, the author
and printer of which are unknown to him who circulates it.”
“No, general, it is not contrary to the laws of the German free city
of Nuremberg. By an order of the Emperor of France, Nuremberg has
been given to Bavaria, but the laws and privileges of our more liberal
constitution were guaranteed to our ancient free city. Hence, Palm has
done nothing contrary to law.”
“We judge according to our laws,” said the general, shrugging his
shoulders; “wherever we are there is France, and wherever we are
insulted we hold him who insults us responsible for it, and punish him
according to our laws. Your husband has committed a great crime; he has
circulated a pamphlet reviling France and the Emperor of the French in
the most outrageous manner. He refused to mention the author of this
pamphlet; so long as he persists in his refusal, we take him for the
author, and shall punish him accordingly. As he declined confessing
any thing to me, I have surrendered him to my superiors. Mr. Palm left
Nuremberg two hours ago for Anspach, where Marshal Bernadotte is going
to judge him.”
“Then I shall go to Anspach, to Marshal Bernadotte,” said Anna; and
without deigning to cast another glance at the general, she turned
around and left the room.
She intended to set out this very hour, but her endeavors to find a
conveyance to take her to Anspach proved unavailing. All the horses of
the postmaster had been retained for the suite and baggage-wagons
of Marshal Berthier, who was about setting out for Munich, and the
proprietors of the livery-stables, owing to the approaching darkness and
insecurity of the roads, refused to let her have any of their carriages.
Anna had to wait, therefore, until morning, and improved the long hours
of the night in drawing up a petition, which she intended to send to
Marshal Bernadotte, in case he should refuse to grant her an interview.
Early next morning she at length started, but the roads were sandy and
bad; the horses were lazy and weak, and she reached Anspach only late at
night.
She had again to wait during a long, dreary night. No one could or would
reply to her anxious inquiries whether Palm was really there, or whether
he had been again sent to some other place. Trembling with inward fear
and dismay, but firmly determined to dare every thing, and leave nothing
untried that might lead to Palm’s preservation, Anna repaired in the
morning to the residence of Marshal Bernadotte.
The marshal’s adjutant received her, and asked her what she wanted.
“I must see the marshal himself, for I shall read in his mien whether he
will pardon or annihilate my husband,” said Anna. “I beseech you, sir,
have mercy on the grief of a wife, trembling for the father of her
children. Induce the marshal to grant me an audience.”
“I will see what can be done,” said the adjutant, touched by the despair
depicted on the pale face of the poor lady. But he returned in a few
minutes after he had left her.
“Madame,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “I am sorry, but your wish
cannot be fulfilled. The marshal will have nothing whatever to do with
this affair, and declines interfering in it. For this reason, too,
he did not admit Mr. Palm, who yesterday, like you, applied for an
interview with the marshal, and I had to receive him in the place of the
marshal, as I have now the honor to receive you.”
“Oh, you have seen my husband?” asked Anna, almost joyfully. “You have
spoken to him?”
“I have told him in the name of the marshal what I am now telling you,
madame. The marshal is unable to do any thing whatever for your husband.
The order for his arrest came directly from Paris, from the emperor’s
cabinet, and the marshal, therefore, has not the power to revoke it
and to prevent the law from taking its course. Moreover, Mr. Palm is no
longer in Anspach, as he was sent to another place last night.”
“Whither? Oh, sir, you will have mercy on me, and tell me whither my
unfortunate husband has been sent.”
“Madame,” said the adjutant, timidly looking around as if he were afraid
of being overheard by an eavesdropper, “he has been sent to Braunau.”
Anna uttered a cry of horror. “To Braunau!” she said, breathlessly. “To
Braunau, that is to say, out of the country. You do not wish to try a
citizen and subject of Bavaria, for a crime which he is said to have
committed in his own country, according to the laws of Bavaria, but
according to those of a foreign and hostile state? My husband has been
sent to Austria!”
“Pardon me, madame,” said the adjutant, smiling, “the city of Braunau
does not yet again belong to Austria; up to the present hour it is still
French territory, for we took and occupied it during the war and have
not yet given it back to Austria; hence, Mr. Palm will be tried in
Braunau according to the laws of France.”
“Oh, then he is lost,” exclaimed Anna, in despair; “there is no more
hope for him.”
“If he be guilty, madame, he has deserved punishment; if he be innocent,
no harm can befall him, for the laws of France are impartial and just.”
“Oh, sir,” said Anna, almost haughtily, “there are things which may seem
deserving of punishment, nay, criminal, according to the laws of your
country, but which, according to the laws of a German state, would
not deserve any punishment, but, on the contrary, praise and
acknowledgment.”
“If what Mr. Palm has done is an offence of this description, I am sorry
for him,” said the adjutant, shrugging his shoulders. “But,” he added,
in a lower voice, “I will give you some good advice. Hasten to the
French ambassador at Munich. If he should decline granting you an
audience, send him a petition, stating the case of your husband
truthfully and with full details, and asking for his intercession.”
“And if he should not reply to my petition; if he should refuse to
intercede for me?”
“Then a last remedy will remain to you. In that case, apply to Marshal
Berthier, who is now also at Munich. He has great power over the
emperor, and will alone be able to help you. But lose no time.”
“I shall set out this very hour, sir, and I thank you for your advice
and sympathy. I see very well that you cannot do any thing for me, but
you have granted me your compassion, and I thank you for it. Farewell,
sir.”
An hour later, Anna was on the road to Munich. After an exhausting
journey of four days--for, at that time there were no turnpikes, much
less railroads, in Bavaria--she reached Munich, where she stopped at a
hotel.
She was utterly unacquainted in that capital; she had no friends, no
protectors, no recommendations, and, as a matter of course, all doors
were closed against her, and nobody would listen to her. Nobody
felt pity for the poor, despairing lady; nobody would listen to her
complaints, for her complaints were at the same time charged against the
all-powerful man who now held his hand stretched out over Bavaria, and
was able to crush her whenever he chose to do so.
Anna, therefore, met with no encouragement at the hands of the German
authorities, who even refused to hear a statement of her application.
She went to all the ministers, to all those on whom, according to their
official position, it would have been incumbent to intercede for her.
She even ventured to enter the royal palace, and stood for hours in the
anteroom, always hoping that her supplications would be heeded, and that
some door would be opened to her.
But all doors were closed against her, even that of the French
ambassador. She had vainly applied to him for an audience; when her
request had been refused, she had delivered to his attache a petition
which an attorney had drawn up for her, and in which all the points for
and against Palm were lucidly stated. For a week she waited for a
reply; for a week she went every morning to the residence of the French
ambassador and asked in the same gentle and imploring voice, whether
there was any reply for her, and whether no answer had been returned to
her application?
On the eighth day she was informed that no reply would be made to her
petition, and that the French ambassador was unable to do any thing for
her.
Anna did not weep and complain; she received this information with
the gentle calmness of a martyr, and prayed instead of bursting into
lamentations. She prayed to God that He might grant her strength not to
despair, not to succumb to the stunning blow; she prayed to God that He
might impart vigor to her body, so that it might not prevent her from
doing her duty, and from seeking for further assistance for her beloved
husband.
Strengthened and inwardly relieved by this prayer, Anna now repaired to
the residence of Marshal Berthier; her step, however, was slower, a deep
blush mantled her cheeks, which had hitherto been so pale, and her hands
were no longer icy cold, but hot and red.
She did not apply for an audience on reaching the marshal’s residence,
for she already knew that such an application would meet with a refusal;
she only took thither another copy of the petition which she had
delivered to the French ambassador, and begged urgently for an early
reply.
Her supplications were this time not destined to be unsuccessful, and
she received a reply on the third day.
But this reply was even more terrible than if none whatever had been
made. Marshal Berthier sent word to her by his adjutant that Palm had
been placed before a court-martial at Braunau, and that no intercession
and prayers would be of any avail, the decision being exclusively left
with the court-martial.
A single, piercing cry escaped from Anna’s breast when she received this
information. Then she became again calm and composed. Without uttering
another complaint, another prayer, she left the marshal’s residence and
returned to her hotel.
With perfect equanimity and coolness, she requested the waiter to bring
her the bill and get her a carriage, so that she might set out at once.
Fifteen minutes later, the landlady herself appeared to present to
Madame Palm the bill she had called for. She found Anna sitting quietly
at the window, her hands folded on her lap, her head leaning on the high
back of the chair, and her dilated eyes staring vacantly at the sky. Her
small travelling-trunk stood ready and locked in the middle of the room.
The landlady handed her the paper silently, and then turned aside in
order not to show the tears which, at the sight of the pale, gentle
young wife, had filled her eyes.
Anna rose and quietly placed the money on the table. “I thank you,
madame, for all the attention and kindness I have met with at your
house,” she said. “It only seems to me that my bill is much too
moderate. You must have omitted many items, for it is impossible that I
should not have used up any more than that during my prolonged sojourn
in Munich.”
“Madame,” said the landlady, deeply moved, “I should be happy if you
permitted me to take no money at all from you, but I know that that
would offend you, and for that reason I brought you my bill. If you
allow me to follow the promptings of my heart, I should say, grant
me the honor of having afforded hospitality to so noble, brave, and
faithful a lady, and, if you should consent, I should be courageous
enough to utter a request which I dare not make now, because you would
deem it egotistic.”
“Oh, tell me what it is,” said Anna, mildly; “for the last two weeks
I have begged so much, and my requests were so often refused, that it
would truly gratify me to hear from others a request which I might be
able to fulfil.”
“Well, then, madame,” said the landlady, taking Anna’s hand and kissing
it respectfully, “I request you to stay here and not to depart. Afford
me the pleasure of keeping you here in my house, of taking care and
nursing you as a mother would nurse her daughter. I am old enough to be
your mother, and you, my poor, beloved child, you need nursing, for you
are sick.”
“I feel no pain--I am not sick,” said Anna, with a smile which was more
heart-rending than loud lamentations.
“You are sick,” replied the landlady; “your hands are burning with
fever, and the roses blooming on your cheeks are not natural, but
symptoms of your inward sufferings. During your whole sojourn in my
house you have scarcely touched the food that was placed before you;
frequently you have not gone to bed at night, and, instead of sleeping,
restlessly paced your room. A fever is now raging in your delicate body,
and if you do not take care of yourself, and use medicine, your body
will succumb.”
“No, it will not succumb,” said Anna; “my heart will sustain it.”
“But your heart, too, will break, if you do not take care of yourself,”
exclaimed the landlady, compassionately. “Stay here, I beseech you, do
not depart. Stay as a guest at my house!”
Anna placed her burning hand on the shoulder of the landlady, and looked
at her long and tenderly.
“You were married?” she asked. “You loved your husband?”
“Yes,” said the landlady, bursting into tears, “I was married, and
God knows that I loved my husband. For twenty years we lived happy and
peacefully together, and when he died last year, my whole happiness died
with him.”
“He was sick, I suppose, and you nursed him?”
“He was sick for a month, and I did not leave his bedside either by day
or by night.”
“Well, then, what would you have replied to him who would have tried
to keep you back from your husband’s death-bed, and to persuade you to
leave him in his agony, because it might have injured your health? Would
you have listened to him?”
“No, I should have believed him, who had made such a proposition to me,
to be my enemy, and should have replied to him: ‘It is my sacred right
to stand at my husband’s death-bed, to kiss the last sigh from his lips,
to close his eyes, and no one in the world shall prevent me from doing
so!’”
“Well, then, dear mother, I say as you have said: it is my sacred right
to stand at my husband’s death-bed and to close his eyes. My husband’s
death-bed is in Braunau; I am not so happy as you have been; I cannot
nurse him, nor be with him and comfort him in his agony; but I am able,
at least, to see him in his last hour. My mother, will you still ask
your daughter to stay here and take care of her health, instead of going
to her husband’s death-bed in Braunau?”
“No, my daughter,” exclaimed the landlady, “no; I say to you, go! Take
not a minute’s rest until you reach your husband. God will guide and
protect you, for He is love, and has mercy on those whose heart are
filled with love! Go, then, with God; but, for the sake of your husband,
take some nourishing food; try to eat and sleep, so as to gain fresh
strength, for you will need it.”
“Give me some nourishing food, mother, I will eat,” said Anna, placing
her arms tenderly around the landlady’s neck; “I will try also to-night
to sleep, for you are right: I shall need my whole strength! But after I
have eaten, I may set out at once, may I not?”
“Yes, my poor, dear child, then you may set out. Now come to my
room--your meal is already waiting for you.”
Half an hour later the landlady herself lifted Anna into the carriage,
and said to her in a voice trembling with tearful emotion: “Farewell, my
daughter. God bless you and grant you strength. When alone one day, and
in need of a mother, then come to me! May the Lord have mercy on you!”
“Yes, may the Lord have mercy on me, and let me die with him!” whispered
Anna, as the carriage rolled away with her.
At noon on the following day, August 30th, 1806, she arrived at Braunau.