Stubber knew his master well. There was no need for any “perquisitions”
on his part; the ladies, the studio, and the garden were totally
forgotten ere nightfall. Some rather alarming intelligence had arrived
from Carrara, which had quite obliterated every memory of his late
adventure. That little town of artists had long been the resort of an
excited class of politicians, and it was more than rumored that the
“Carbonari” had established there a lodge of their order. Inflammatory
placards had been posted through the town--violent denunciations of
the Government--vengeance, even on the head of the sovereign, openly
proclaimed, and a speedy day promised when the wrongs of an enslaved
people should be avenged in blood. The messenger who brought the
alarming tidings to Massa carried with him many of the inflammatory
documents, as well as several knives and poniards, discovered by the
activity of the police in a ruined building at the sea-shore. No
arrests had as yet been made, but the authorities were in possession of
information with regard to various suspicious characters, and the police
prepared to act at a moment's notice.
It was an hour after midnight when the Council met; and the Duke sat,
pale, agitated, and terrified, at the table, with Landelli, the Prime
Minister, Caprini, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and General
Ferrucio, the War Minister; a venerable ecclesiastic, Monsignore Abbati,
occupying the lowest place, in virtue of his humble station as confessor
of his Highness. He who of all others enjoyed his master's confidence,
and whose ready intelligence was most needed in the emergency, was not
present; his title of Minister of the Household not qualifying him for a
place at the Council.
Whatever the result, the deliberation was a long one. Even while it
continued, there was time to despatch a courier to Carrara, and receive
the answer he brought back; and when the Duke returned to his room,
it was already far advanced in the morning. Fatigued and harassed, he
dismissed his valet at once, and desired that Stubber might attend him.
When he arrived, however, his Highness had fallen off asleep, and lay,
dressed as he was, on his bed.
Stubber sat noiselessly beside his master, his mind deeply pondering
over the events which, although he had not been present at the Council,
had all been related to him. It was not the first time he had heard of
that formidable conspiracy, which, under the title of the Carbonari, had
established themselves in every corner of Europe.
In the days of his humbler fortune he had known several of them
intimately; he had been often solicited to join their band; but
while steadily refusing this, he had detected much which to his keen
intelligence savored of treachery to the cause amongst them. This cause
was necessarily recruited from those whose lives rejected all honest and
patient labor. They were the disappointed men of every station, from
the highest to the lowest. The ruined gentleman, the beggared noble, the
bankrupt trader, the houseless artisan, the homeless vagabond, were all
there; bold, daring, and energetic, fearless as to the present, reckless
as to the future. They sought for any change, no matter what, seeing
that in the convulsion their own condition must be bettered. Few
troubled their heads how these changes were to be accomplished; they
cared little for the real grievances they assumed to redress: their work
was demolition. It was to the hour of pillage alone they looked for the
recompense of their hardihood. Some, unquestionably, took a different
view of the agencies and the objects; dreamy, speculative men, with high
aspirations, hoped that the cruel wrongs which tyranny inflicted on many
a European state might be effectually curbed by a glorious freedom,
when each man's actions should be made comformable to the benefit of the
community, and the will of all be typified in the conduct of each.
There was, however, another class, and to these Stubber had given deep
attention. It was a party whose singular activity and energy were always
in the ascendant,--ever suggesting bold measures whose results could
scarcely be more than menaces, and advocating actions whose greatest
effect could not rise above acts of terror and dismay. And thus while
the leaders plotted great political convulsions, and the masses dreamed
of sack and pillage, these latter dealt in acts of assassination,--the
vengeance of the poniard and the poison-cup. These were the men Stubber
had studied with no common attention. He fancied he saw in them neither
the dupes of their own excited imaginations, nor the reckless followers
of rapine, but an order of men equal to the former by intelligence,
but far transcending the last in crime and infamy. In his own early
experiences he had perceived that more than one of these had expatriated
themselves suddenly, carrying away to foreign shores considerable
wealth, and, that, too, under circumstances where the acquisition of
property seemed scarcely possible. Others he had seen as suddenly,
throwing off their political associates, rise into stations of rank and
power; and one memorable case he knew where the individual had become
the chief adviser of the very state whose destruction he had sworn to
accomplish. Such a one he now fancied he had detected among the advisers
of his Prince; and deeply ruminating on this theme, he sat at the
bedside.
“Is it a dream, Stubber, or have we really heard bad news from Carrara?
Has Fraschetti been stabbed, or not?”
“Yes, your Highness, he has been stabbed exactly two inches below where
he was wounded in September last,--then, it was his pocket-book saved
him; now, it was your Highness's picture, which, like a faithful
follower, he always carried about him.”
“Which means, that you disbelieve the whole story.”
“Every word of it.”
“And the poniards found at the Bocca di Magra?”
“Found by those who placed them there.”
“And the proclamations?”
“Blundering devices. See, here is one of them, printed on the very paper
supplied to the Government offices. There 's he water-mark, with the
crown and your own cipher on it.”
“_Per Bacco!_so it is. Let me show this to Landelli.”
“Wait awhile, your Highness; let us trace this a little farther. No
arrests have been made?”
“None.”
“Nor will any. The object in view is already gained; they have terrified
you, and secured the next move.”
“What do you mean?”
“Simply, that they have persuaded you that this state is the hotbed
of revolutionists; that your own means of security and repression are
unequal to the emergency; that disaffection exists in the army; and
that, whether for the maintenance of the Government or your safety, you
have only one course remaining.”
“Which is--”
“To call in the Austrians.”
“_Per Bacco!_ it is exactly what they have advised. How did you come to
know it? Who is the traitor at the Council-board?”
“I wish I could tell you the name of one who was not such. Why, your
Highness, these fellows are not _your_ Ministers, except in so far as
they are paid by you. They are Metternich's people; they receive their
appointments from Vienna, and are only accountable to the cabinet held
at Schönbrunn. If wise and moderate counsels prevailed here, if our
financial measures prospered, if the people were happy and contented,
how long, think you, would Lombardy submit to be ruled by the rod and
the bayonet? Do you imagine that _you_ will be suffered to give an
example to the Peninsula of a good administration?”
“But so it is,” broke in the Prince; “I defy any man to assert the
opposite. The country _is_ prosperous, the people _are_ contented, the
laws justly administered, and, I hesitate not to say, myself as popular
as any sovereign of Europe.”
“And I tell your Highness, just as distinctly, that the country is
ground down with taxation, even to export duties on the few things
we have to export; that the people are poor to the very verge of
starvation; that if they do not take to the highways as brigands, it is
because some traditions as honest men yet survive amongst them; that the
laws only exist as an agent of tyranny, arrest and imprisonment being
at the mere caprice of the authorities. Nor is there a means by which an
innocent man can demand his trial, and insist on being confronted with
his accuser. Your jails are full, crowded to a state of pestilence with
supposed political offenders, men that, in a free country, would be
at large, toiling industriously for their families, and whose opinions
could never be dangerous, if not festering in the foul air of a dungeon.
And as to _your own_ popularity, all I say is, don't walk in the Piazza
at Carrara after dusk. No, nor even at noonday.”
“And you dare to speak thus to _me_, Stubber!” said the Prince, his face
covered with a deadly pallor as he spoke, and his white lips trembling,
but less in passion than in fear.
“And why not, sir? Of what value could such a man as I am be to
your service, if I were not to tell you what you 'll never hear from
others,--the plain, simple truth? Is it not clear enough that if I
only thought of my own benefit, I 'd say whatever you'd like best to
hear?--I'd tell you, like Landelli, that the taxes were well paid, or
say, as Cerreccio did t'other day, that your army would do credit to any
state in Europe, when he well knew at the time that the artillery was
in mutiny from arrears of pay, and the cavalry horses dying from short
rations!”
“I am well weary of all this,” said the Duke, with a sigh. “If the half
of what I hear of my kingdom every day be but true, my lot in life is
worse than a galley-slave's. One assures me that I am bankrupt; another
calls me a vassal of Austria; a third makes me out a Papal spy; and
_you_ aver that if I venture into the streets of my own town, in the
midst of my own people, I am almost sure to be assassinated!”
“Take no man's word, sir, for what, while you can see for yourself, it
is your own duty to ascertain,” said Stubber, resolutely. “If you really
only desire a life of ease and indolence, forgetting what you owe to
yourself and those you rule over, send for the Austrians. Ask for a
brigade and a general. You 'll have them for the asking. They 'd come
at a word, and try your people at the drum-head, and flog and shoot them
with as little disturbance to you as need be. You may pension off the
judges; for a court-martial is a far speedier tribunal, and a corporal's
guard is quite an economy in criminal justice. Trade will not, perhaps,
prosper with martial law, nor is a state of siege thought favorable
to commerce. No matter. You 'll sleep safe so long as you keep
within doors, and the band under your window will rouse the spirit of
nationality in your heart, as it plays, 'God preserve the Emperor!'”
“You forget yourself, sir, and you forget _me!_” said the Duke, sternly,
as he drew himself up, and threw a look of insolent pride at the
speaker.
“Mayhap I do, your Highness,” was the ready answer; “and out of that
very forgetfulness let your Highness take a warning. I say, once more,
I distrust the people about you; and as to this conspiracy at Carrara,
I'll wager a round sum on it that it was hatched on t 'other side of
the Alps, and paid for in good florins of the Holy Roman Empire. At all
events, give me time to investigate the matter. Let me have till the
end of the week to examine into it, and, if I find nothing to confirm
my views, I 'll say not one word against all the measures of precaution
that your Council are bent on importing from Austria.”
“Take your own way; I promise nothing,” said the Duke, haughtily; and,
with a motion of his hand, dismissed his adviser.