In a chamber of the Tuileries five men were seated around a table.
Before them were decanters and glasses, wine bottles of varied shapes,
an epergne filled with choice flowers, silver trays loaded with luscious
fruits, nuts, olives--in short, all the materials of a magnificent
dessert.
A certain odour of roast meats, passing off under the _bouquet_ of the
freshly-decanted wines, told of a dinner just eaten, the dishes having
been carried away.
The gentlemen had taken to cigars, and the perfume of finest Havana
tobacco was mingling with the aroma of the fruit and flowers. Smoking,
sipping, and chatting with light nonchalance, at times even flippantly,
one could ill have guessed the subject of their conversation.
And yet it was of so grave and _secret_ a nature, that the butler and
waiters had been ordered not to re-enter the room--the double door
having been close-shut on their dismissal--while in the corridor outside
a guard was kept by two soldiers in grenadier uniform.
The five men, thus cautious against being overheard, were the
representatives of the Five Great Powers of Europe--England, Austria,
Russia, Prussia, and France.
They were not the ordinary ambassadors who meet to arrange some trivial
diplomatic dispute, but plenipotentiaries with full power to shape the
destinies of a continent.
And it was this that had brought together that five-cornered conclave,
consisting of an English Lord, an Austrian Field-Marshal, a Russian
Grand Duke, a distinguished Prussian diplomatist, and the President of
France--host of the other four.
They were sitting in conspiracy against the peoples of Europe, set free
by the late revolutions--with the design to plot their re-enslavement.
Their scheme of infamy had been maturely considered, and perfected
before adjourning to the dinner-table.
There had been scarce any discussion; since, upon its main points, there
was mutual accord.
Their after-dinner conversation was but a _resume_ of what had been
resolved upon--hence, perhaps, the absence of that gravity befitting
such weighty matter, and which had characterised their conference at an
earlier hour.
They were now resting over their cigars and wines, jocularly agreeable,
as a band of burglars, who have arranged all the preliminaries for the
"cracking of a crib."
The English lord seemed especially in good humour with himself and all
the others. Distinguished throughout his life for what some called an
amiable levity, but others thought to be an unamiable heartlessness, he
was in the element to delight him. Of origin not very noble, he had
attained to the plenitude of power, and now saw himself one of five men
entrusted with the affairs of the Great European Aristocracy, against
the European people. He had been one of the principal plotters--
suggesting many points of the plan that had been agreed upon; and from
this, as also the greatness of the nation he represented, was
acknowledged as having a sort of tacit chairmanship over his
fellow-conspirators.
The real presidency, however, was in the Prince-President--partly out of
regard to his high position, and partly that he was the host.
After an hour or so passed in desultory conversation, the "man of a
mission," standing with his back to the fire, with hands parting his
coat tails--the habitual attitude of the Third Napoleon--took the cigar
from between his teeth, and made _resume_ as follows:--
"Understood, then, that you, Prussia, send a force into Baden,
sufficient to crush those pot-valiant German collegians, mad, no doubt,
from drinking your villainous Rhine wine!"
"Mercy on Metternich, _cher President_. Think of Johanisberger!"
It was the facetious Englishman who was answerable for this.
"Ya, mein Prinz, ya," was the more serious response of the Prussian
diplomatist. "Give 'em grape, instead of grapes," put in the punster.
"And you, Highness, bind Russia to do the same for these hog-drovers of
the Hungarian Puszta?"
"Two hundred thousand men are ready to march down upon them," responded
the Grand Duke.
"Take care you don't catch a Tartar, _mon cher altesse_!" cautioned the
punning plenipotentiary.
"You're quite sure of Georgei, Marshal?" went on the President,
addressing himself to the Austrian.
"Quite. He hates this Kossuth as the devil himself; and perhaps a
little worse. He'd see him and his Honveds at the bottom of the Danube;
and I've no doubt will hand them over, neck and crop, as soon as our
Russian allies show themselves over the frontier."
"And a crop of necks you intend gathering, I presume?" said the
heartless wit.
"_Tres bien_!" continued the President, without noticing the sallies of
his old friend, the lord. "I, on my part, will take care of Italy. I
think I can trust superstition to assist me in restoring poor old Pio
Nono."
"Your own piety will be sufficient excuse for that, _mon Prince_. 'Tis
a holy crusade, and who more fitted than you to undertake it? With
Garibaldi for your Saladin, you will be called Louis of the Lion-heart!"
The gay viscount laughed at his own conceit; the others joining him in
the cachinnation.
"Come, my lord!" jokingly rejoined the Prince-President, "it's not meet
for you to be merry. John Bull has an easy part to play in this grand
game!"
"Easy, you call it? He's got to provide the stakes--the monisch. And,
after all, what does he gain by it?"
"What does he gain by it? _Pardieu_! You talk that way in memory of
your late scare by the Chartists? _Foi d'honnete homme_! if I hadn't
played special constable for him, you, _cher vicomte_, instead of being
here as a plenipotentiary, might have been this day enjoying my
hospitality as an exile!"
"Ha--ha--ha! Ha--ha--ha!"
Grave Sclave, and graver Teuton--Russia, Prussia, and Austria--took part
in the laugh; all three delighted with this joke at the Englishman's
expense.
But their _debonnaire_ fellow-conspirator felt no spite at his
discomfiture; else he might have retorted by saying:
"But for John Bull, my dear Louis Napoleon, and that service you pretend
to make light of, even the purple cloak of your great uncle, descending
as if from the skies, and flouted in the eyes of France, might not have
lifted you into the proud position you now hold--the chair of a
President, perhaps to be yet transformed into the throne of an Emperor!"
But the Englishman said naught of this. He was too much interested in
the hoped-for transformation to make light of it just then; and instead
of giving rejoinder, he laughed loud as any of them.
A few more glasses of Moet and Madeira, with a "tip" of Tokay to
accommodate the Austrian Field-Marshal, another regalia smoked amidst
more of the same kind of _persiflage_, and the party separated.
Two only remained--Napoleon and his English guest.
It is possible--and rather more than probable--that two greater
_chicanes_ never sat together in the same room!
I anticipate the start which this statement will call forth--am prepared
for the supercilious sneer. It needs experience, such as revolutionary
leaders sometimes obtain, to credit the _scoundrelism_ of conspiring
crowns; though ten minutes spent in listening to the conversation that
followed would make converts of the most incredulous.
There was no lack of confidence between the two men. On the contrary,
theirs was the thickness of thieves; and much in this light did they
look upon one another.
But they were thieves on a grand scale, who had stolen from France
one-half of its liberty, and were now plotting to deprive it of the
other.
Touching glasses, they resumed discourse, the Prince speaking first:
"About this purple robe? What step should be taken? Until I've got
that on my shoulders, I feel weak as a cat. The Assembly must be
consulted about everything. Even this paltry affair of restoring the
Pope will cost me a herculean effort."
The English plenipotentiary did not make immediate reply. Tearing a kid
glove between his fingers, he sat reflecting--his very common face
contorted with an expression that told of his being engaged in some
perplexing calculation.
"You must make the Assembly more _tractable_," he at length replied, in
a tone that showed the joking humour had gone out of him.
"True. But how is that to be done?"
"By weeding it."
"Weeding it?"
"Yes. You must get rid of the Blancs, Rollins, Barbes, and all that
_canaille_."
"_Eh bien_! But how?"
"By disfranchising their _sans culottes_ constituency--the blouses."
"_Mon cher vicomte_! You are surely jesting?"
"No, _mon cher prince_. I'm in earnest."
"_Sacre_! Such a bill brought before the Assembly would cause the
members to be dragged from their seats. Disfranchise the blouse voters!
Why, there are two millions of them?"
"All the more reason for your getting rid of them. And _it can be
done_. You think there's a majority of the deputies who would be in
favour of it?"
"I'm sure there is. As you know, we've got the Assembly packed with the
representatives of the _old regime_. The fear would be from the outside
rabble. A crowd would be certain to gather, if such an act was in
contemplation, and you know what a Parisian crowd is, when the question
is political?"
"But I've thought of a way of scattering your crowd, or rather hindering
it from coming together."
"What way, _mon cher_!"
"We must get up the comb of the Gallic cock--set his feathers on end."
"I don't comprehend you."
"It's very simple. On our side we'll insult your ambassador, De Morny--
some trifling affront that can be afterward explained and apologised
for. I'll manage that. You then recall him in great anger, and let the
two nations be roused to an attitude of hostility. An exchange of
diplomatic notes, with sufficient and spiteful wording, some sharp
articles in the columns of your Paris press--I'll see to the same on our
side--the marching hither and thither of a half-dozen regiments, a
little extra activity in the dockyards and arsenals, and the thing's
done. While the Gallic cock is crowing on one side of the Channel, and
the British bull-dog barking on the other, your Assembly may pass the
disfranchising act without fear of being disturbed by the blouses. Take
my word it can be done."
"My lord! you're a genius!"
"There's not much genius in it. It's simple as a game of dominoes."
"It shall be done. You promise to kick De Morny out of your court.
Knowing the reason, no man will like it better than he!"
"I promise it."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The promise was kept. De Morny was "kicked out" with a silken slipper,
and the rest of the programme was carried through--even to the
disfranchising of the blouses.
It was just as the English diplomat had predicted. The French people,
indignant at the supposed slight to their ambassador, in their mad
hostility to England, lost tight of themselves; and while in this rabid
condition, another grand slice was quietly cut from their fast
attenuating freedom.
And the programme of that more extensive, and still more sanguinary,
conspiracy was also carried out to the letter.
Before the year had ended, the perjured King of Prussia had marched his
myrmidons into South Germany, trampling out the revived flame of Badish
and Bavarian revolution; the ruffian soldiers of the Third Napoleon had
forced back upon the Roman people their detested hierarch; while a grand
Cossack army of two hundred thousand men was advancing iron-heeled over
the plain of the Puszta to tread out the last spark of liberty in the
East.
This is not romance: it is history!