THE TWO PROCESSIONS
Two very different pieces of news, one terrible, one joyful, ran
simultaneously through Frankfort. The terrible news was that the
burgomaster, who had filled two of the highest positions in the little
republic now extinct, who was the father of six children and a model of
the household virtues, had just hanged himself rather than yield to a
greedy and brutal soldier the secrets of private wealth. The joyful news
was that, thanks to Madame von Bülow's intervention and to the appeal
made by the queen to her husband, the city of Frankfort had been
relieved from the tax of twenty-five million florins.
It will easily be understood that nobody in the town talked of any other
subject. Astonishment and curiosity were even more aroused owing to the
occurrence of two mysterious deaths at the same time. People wondered
how it happened that Frederic von Bülow, after having been insulted by
his superior officer, should before he shot himself have charged his
wife with her pious errand to Berlin, seeing that he was no citizen of
Frankfort, but belonged, body and soul, to the Prussian army. Had he
hoped to redeem the terrible deeds of violence committed by his
countrymen? Moreover, the young officers who had been present at the
quarrel between Frederic and the general had not observed entire silence
about that quarrel. Many of them were hurt in their pride at being
employed to execute a vengeance of which the cause lay far back amid the
obscure resentments of a minister who had once been an ambassador. Those
who felt this said among themselves that they were acting the part not
of soldiers but of bailiffs and men-in-possession. They had repeated
some words of the dispute that had taken place before them and had left
the rest to be guessed.
Orders had been given prohibiting the printing of any placard without
the authorization of the officer in command; but every printer in
Frankfort was ready to contravene the order, and at the very moment when
Councillor Kugler threw the burgomaster's rope into the scale, a
thousand unseen and unknown hands were pasting upon the walls of
Frankfort the following notice.
"At three o'clock our worthy burgomaster Fellner hanged himself and
became the martyr of his devotion to the city of Frankfort. Citizens,
pray for him."
Benedict, on his part, had visited the printer of the "Journal des
Postes" who engaged to furnish, within two hours, two hundred copies of
the telegrams interchanged by the king and queen. He further undertook,
on condition that the notices were not unduly large, to get them posted
by his usual billstickers, who were ready to take the risk of officially
announcing the good news to their neighbours. Accordingly, two hours
later, two hundred bills were stuck beside the former ones. They
contained the following words:
"Yesterday, at two in the afternoon, as is already known, Baron von
Bülow blew out his brains, in consequence of a quarrel with General
Sturm, in the course of which the general had insulted him. The
causes of this quarrel will remain a secret for such people only as
do not care to solve it.
"One clause of the baron's will instructed Madame von Bülow to go
to Berlin, and to beg of Her Majesty Queen Augusta that the levy of
twenty-five million florins, imposed by General Manteuffel, might
be withdrawn. The baroness paused only long enough to put on
mourning garments before setting out.
"We are happy to be able to communicate to our fellow-citizens the
two royal despatches which she sent to us."
The crowds that collected before these notices can be imagined. For one
moment the stir that passed through the whole population assumed the
aspect of a riot; drums beat, patrols were organized, and the citizens
received an order to stay at home.
The streets became deserted. The gunners, whose matches, as we have said
already, had been lighted at ten in the morning, once more stood by
their cannon with their lighted matches in hand. This sort of threat
continued for thirty hours. However, as at the end of that time the
crowds were no longer collecting, as no conflicts took place, and no
shot was fired, all these hostile demonstrations ceased between the 25th
and the 26th.
Next morning fresh placards had been stuck up. They contained the
following notice:
"To-morrow, July 26th, at two in the afternoon the funerals will
take place of the late burgomaster, Herr Fellner, and of the late
chief staff officer, Frederic von Bülow.
"Each party will start from the house of mourning and the two will
unite at the cathedral, where a service will be held for the two
martyrs.
"The families believe that no invitation beyond the present notice
will be necessary, and that the citizens of Frankfort will not fail
in their duty.
"The funeral arrangements for the burgomaster will be in the hands
of his brother-in-law, Councillor Kugler, and those of Major
Frederic von Bülow in the hands of M. Benedict Turpin, his
executor."
We will not endeavour to depict the homes of the two bereaved families.
Madame von Bülow arrived about one o'clock on the morning of the 24th.
Everybody in the house was up, and all were praying round the deathbed.
Some of the principal ladies of the town had come and were awaiting her
return; she was received like an angel bearing the mercies of heaven.
But after a few minutes the pious duty that had brought her so swiftly
to her husband's side was remembered. Everybody withdrew, and she was
left alone. Helen, in her turn, was watching by Karl. Twice in the
course of the day she had gone downstairs, knelt by Frederic's bedside,
uttered a prayer, kissed his forehead, and gone up again.
Karl was better; he had not yet returned to life, but he was returning.
His eyes reopened and were, able to fix themselves upon Helen's; his
mouth murmured words of love, and his hand responded to the hand that
pressed it. The surgeon, only, still remained anxious, and, while
encouraging the wounded man, would give Helen no reply; but, when he was
alone with her, would only repeat in answer to all her questions:
"We must wait! I can say nothing before the eighth or ninth day."
The house of Herr Fellner was equally full of mourning. Everybody who
had filled any post in the old republic, senators, members of the
Legislative Assembly, etc., came to salute this dead and just man, and
to lay on his bed wreaths of oak, of laurel, and _immortelles_.
From early in the morning of the 26th, as soon as the cannon were
perceived to have disappeared and the town to be no longer threatened
with slaughter at any unexpected moment, all the inhabitants congregated
about the two doors that were hung with black. At ten o'clock all the
trade guilds met together in the Zeil with their banners, as if for some
popular festivity of the free town. All the dissolved societies of the
city came with flags flying--although they had been forbidden to display
these ensigns--determined to live again for one more day. There was the
Society of Carabineers, the Gymnastic Society, the National Defence
Society, the new Citizens' Society, the young Militia Society, the
Sachsenhausen Citizens' Society, and the Society for the Education of
the Workers. Black flags had been hung out at a great number of houses,
among others at the casino in the street of Saint Gall, which belonged
to the principal inhabitants of Frankfort; at the club of the new
Citizens' Union, situated in the Corn Market, at that of the old
Citizens' Union in Eschenheim Street, and, finally, at the Sachsenhausen
Club--a club of the people, if there ever was one--belonging to the
inhabitants of that often mentioned suburb.
A gathering, almost as considerable, was collecting at the corner of the
Horse Market, near to the High Street. Here, it may be remembered, the
house was situated which was generally known in the town as the Chandroz
house, although nobody of that name now existed in it except Helen,
whose maiden name had not yet been changed for that of a husband. But in
the street that led to the burgomaster's house, the middle and
working-classes were assembled, while opposite to the Chandroz house the
crowd was made up mainly of that aristocracy of birth to which the house
belonged.
The strangest feature of this second crowd was the number of Prussian
officers who had assembled to render the last honour to their comrade at
the risk of displeasing their superiors, Generals Roeder and Sturm.
These latter had had the good sense to leave Frankfort without making
any attempt whatever to suppress the display of public feeling.
When Councillor Kugler emerged from the burgomaster's house, following
the coffin and holding the dead man's two sons by the hand, cries of
"Hurrah for Madame Fellner! Hurrah for Madame Fellner and her children!"
rang out, in expression to her of the gratitude felt to her husband. She
understood this outburst rising to her from so many hearts at once, and
when she appeared, dressed in black, upon the balcony with her four
daughters, dressed likewise in black, sobs broke forth and tears flowed
from every eye.
The same thing happened as Frederic's coffin began its journey; it was
to Frederic's widow that Frankfort owed its escape from ruin. The cry of
"Hurrah for Madame von Bülow!" rose from hundreds of throats, and was
repeated until the fair young widow, wrapped in her draperies of black
crape, came forward to accept the expression of gratitude offered her by
the whole town.
Although the officers had received no order to attend Frederic's
funeral, although neither the drummers who usually precede the coffin of
a superior officer, nor the soldiers who usually follow it, had been
commanded to do so, yet, either from their military training or their
sympathy for the dead man, the drummers were present and so was the
escort of soldiers when the procession started, and it advanced towards
the cathedral to the sound of muffled drums. At the agreed point the two
processions united and went forward side by side, occupying the whole
width of the street. Only, like two rivers which run parallel, but of
which the waters do not mingle, the leaders of the two parties walked
forward. Behind the burgomaster's hearse followed the burghers and the
populace; behind that of Baron von Bülow the aristocracy and the
military. For the moment peace appeared to have been made between these
two populations, one of which weighed so cruelly upon the other that
only the death of a man universally esteemed could hold them together
for a few instants, leaving them to fall asunder immediately afterwards
into mutual hostility.
At the great door of the cathedral the coffins were lifted from the
hearses and laid side by side. Thence they were borne into the choir,
but the church had been so filled since early morning by a crowd, eager,
as the dwellers in large towns always are, for a spectacle, that there
was scarcely room for the two coffins to pass to the nave. The military
escort, the drums, and the company of soldiers followed them, but when
the crowd that accompanied the coffins tried to enter and find a place
in the building, it was impossible to do so, and more than three
thousand persons were left in the porch and in the street.
The ceremony began, solemn and lugubrious, accompanied by the occasional
roll of drums and the sound of gun stocks touching the ground; no one
could have said to which of the dead these military honours were being
paid, so that the unfortunate burgomaster had his share in the funeral
honours bestowed by the very body of men who had caused his death. It is
true that from time to time the Choral Society sang funeral hymns and
that the voices of the congregation, rising like a wave, stifled these
other sounds.
The service was long, and, although it lacked the impressive Roman
Catholic pomp, it did not fail to produce an immense effect upon those
who were present. Then the two processions set out for the cemetery, the
burgomaster attended by funeral chants, the officer by martial music.
The vault of the Chandroz family and that of the burgomaster were at a
distance from each other, so that the two parties separated. At the
grave of the civilian there were hymns, speeches, and wreaths of
_immortelles_, at that of the officer, firing and wreaths of laurel. The
double ceremonies were not entirely concluded until the evening, nor did
the gloomy and silent crowd return until then into its usual channels,
while the drummers, privates, and officers went to their quarters, if
not like a hostile troop, at least like a body altogether apart from the
inhabitants.
Benedict had had in his mind throughout the ceremony the idea of
presenting himself on the morrow to General Sturm in the character of
Frederic's executor, and, as such, demanding satisfaction for the insult
offered to his friend. But when he returned to the house he found Emma
so overcome, Karl so weak, and the old Baroness von Beling so exhausted
by age and woe together, as to make him think that the unhappy Chandroz
family still needed him. Now in such a duel as that which he meant to
propose to General Sturm, one of the results must inevitably ensue;
either he would kill the general or the general would kill him. If he
killed the general, he would clearly have to leave Frankfort that very
moment, in order to escape the vengeance of the Prussians. If he were
killed he would become completely useless to the family which seemed in
need even more of his moral protection than of his material support. He
determined, therefore, to wait for some days, but promised himself, to
send his card daily to General Sturm--and he kept his word. General
Sturm could thus be sure, every morning, that though he might forget
Benedict, Benedict did not forget him.