The Chancellor said, emptying another bumper of champagne:
"This morning the opportunity lay within grasp. So strongly
convinced was I of this that as my phaeton passed through the village
of Wussow, on the way to the station, 'War is Inevitable' seemed
written on every house. The old clergyman stood before his parsonage
door and greeted me with a hand-wave. My answer was the gesture of a
thrust in _carte_ and _tierce_. For me the three words: 'War is
Declared' replaced the lettering of the advertisement posters on the
walls of the stations the special rushed through. Yet, though I had
notified His Majesty of the advisability of summoning me to his
assistance, I received, even as I stepped out of the train at the
Stettin Station, a vacillating telegram from him, enjoining delay."
He added, laughing: "Together with a message in cipher from our
Prussian Ambassador at Paris, informing me that it has been given
forth from the tribune of the Corps Législatif that had not Prince
Leopold retreated from the Spanish candidature, to prevent the war
with which the Emperor threatens us--the Government of Napoleon III.
would have extorted a letter of apology from the King."
Roon could not speak. Said Moltke:
"The Gallic cock crows loudly! Such a letter would nicely recoup
France for the humiliation of Sadowa."
"Did France succeed in extorting it," retorted the Chancellor, "but
she has got to get it first!"
The forehead of Roon was black as thundercloud. He unhooked his
collar, and wiped his congested face. The Field-Marshal thrust his
hand under his wig perplexedly, saying:
"That His Majesty should continue to treat with Benedetti after all
these insults and outrages.... It passes my understanding, I am fain
to confess!"
"The Count himself would have no difficulty in reading the riddle,"
said the Chancellor, shrugging. "He is--according to his own
conviction--a diplomat of the first water, a statesman of infinite
finesse and irresistible persuasions. Yet he did not coax us into
the Emperor's trap in 1867. Speaking of that, I have in my pocket
something that will presently jump out of it, a testimony in his own
handwriting that he is not quite so clever a fellow as he thinks!"
"To-day," boomed Roon, "I met Prince Gortchakoff. We were riding in
the Unter den Linden when he stopped. He spoke of the King's
age--the merest allusion in reference to a site he pointed out as
being suitable for a statue. His Majesty was to be represented
holding a wreath of laurel with the dates of 1864 and 1866 upon it.
While emblematical figures of Peace, and the Genius of the Domestic
Hearth, were shown disarming him of his helmet and sword."
"A sneer thoroughly merited," said the Chancellor, "by these days of
hesitation!" He added: "The Genius of the Domestic Hearth is for the
moment at Coblenz. However, wifely expostulations can be conveyed by
telegram. Her Majesty's cry is, '_Remember Jena and Tilsit and avoid
war, even at the cost of national dishonor!_' Should these
entreaties of the Queen prevail, she will merit the reproof of Sir
Walter Scott--I think it was Sir Walter Scott!--who addressed to his
grayhound, Maida, who had torn up--unless I err?--the manuscript of a
newly-completed novel. '_Poor thing! thou little knowest the injury
thou hast done!_'"
"Women are less reasonable," declared Von Boon, "than bitches, to my
mind!"
"Nay, nay!" said the Field-Marshal with sudden anger. "Maida was not
a bitch, and I cannot agree with you! Great and noble female
characters have been, and exist now--not only in the pages of
history-books. It may be that Her Majesty is prejudiced--her
influence has not always been favorable to the adoption of measures I
would have counseled. But she is high-minded!--a great lady, and
truly devoted as a wife. And with this ring upon my finger"--he held
up his wrinkled left hand and showed the narrow band of gold--"it
would ill become me to sit still and hear women likened to the
unreasoning beasts that perish, when for all I know my beloved wife
Mary is standing by my side!"
He drank a sip of wine, and continued more mildly:
"The good God took her to Himself twelve years ago, in the fullness
of life and strength and English beauty!--while I, more than thirty
years her senior, hang yet upon the tree. On the top of the hill at
Crusau is her tomb, where one day I shall lie beside her. But before
that day"--the brave old eyes snapped fire, and he wrinkled up his
ancient eagle-beak as though he savored the fumes already--"it may be
that I shall smell powder again!"
"Let us drink to that!" said the Chancellor. As they filled their
glasses there came a peculiar, scratching knock on the door.
"Come in, Bucher!" cried the host harshly, and the summons was
answered by one of His Excellency's Privy Councillors of Legation, a
little, stooping old gentleman, with a large hooked nose and a
grizzled mustache and whiskers, who was dressed in a
chocolate-colored, single-breasted frock-coat, tightly fastened with
gilt buttons, and who wore a black satin stock, with the tongue of
the buckle sticking up among the locks at the back of his neck, and
baggy black cloth trousers ending in the feet of a Prussian
Lifeguard, encased in huge and shapeless cloth boots; these moved him
noiselessly to the elbow of the Chancellor, to whom he whispered,
handing him a card, large and square, and unmistakably feminine:
"And so, as Madame was urgent ... Your Excellency knows what women
are!"
"Thanks to some early studies in femininity, I am credited," said the
Chancellor, "with knowing a great deal too much about the sex. Where
have you put Madame?"
Bucher answered, raising himself on his toes to approach his lips to
the large, well-shaped ear; for even seated, the Chancellor
overtopped him:
"In the gracious Countess's little red damask back drawing-room."
"It is doubtful, my good Bucher, whether--did she know how she was
honored--the gracious Countess would welcome her visitor."
"Alas! Your Excellency!" pleaded the Councillor, "but Her Excellency
does not know!--and the room contains nothing valuable. Only a few
family pictures--no china, silver, or _bric-à-brac_. Nothing that it
would be any use to steal!"
"Come, come!" expostulated the Minister, his blue eyes alight with
cynical amusement, "you must not speak of Madame as though she were a
house-thief. Our good Bucher," he went on, turning jestingly to his
table companions, "sees little difference between a person who picks
brains for pay, and sells the pickings, and another person who picks
locks and steals silver vases and cups. Rather a reflection on the
Diplomatic Service, now I think of it!"
"_Ach! Herr Gott!_" said the Councillor in alarm, "I cast no
reflection, Your Excellency knows it! Only the woman is of light
reputation----"
"And may be light-fingered into the bargain. Possibly--" said the
Chancellor, "and all the better if she be so! We will risk my wife's
family portraits in her vicinity until after dinner. Have coffee and
liqueurs sent to her, and beg her to wait a while." He added, "Let
them put cigarettes on the tray--I have no doubt she smokes tobacco.
And as the smell will have passed off before my wife and daughter
return from Varzin, neither of the ladies will ever know of the
desecration of the red damask back drawing-room."
And as Bucher shuffled out of the room to execute his errand, his
Chief rang the bell for the third course.
"By the way, Excellency," said the War Minister, as the demure
servants out of livery removed the empty dishes: "that Frenchwoman of
poor Max Valverden's is driving about Berlin."
"So!" commented the host, turning an inscrutable face upon the
Minister. "She must find it very warm, and insufferably dull."
"She consoled herself," said Roon, "not long after Count Max's
suicide."
"There," burst out the Field-Marshal, "was an incomprehensible
catastrophe! That young man--who was military attaché at our Embassy
in Paris until the return of the Allied Armies of Great Britain and
France from the Crimea in 1856; and in 1866, ten years later, joined
my staff in Austria as third _aide-de-camp_--I cannot understand
it--he must have been demented!"
He unbuttoned the frock-coat, showing an unstarched, but scrupulously
clean white shirt and vest of white nankeen, and taking a little
silver snuff-box from his waistcoat pocket, laid it down carefully
upon the tablecloth as he said:
"In '56 he brought his mistress from Paris with him--he was
infatuated with her spirit and beauty. They said she was the wife of
an officer in Grandguerrier's Division, who had served throughout the
whole of the War in the Crimea."
"A _chef d'escadron_ of Mounted Chausseurs, who seems to have taken
his wife's desertion philosophically," commented the Chancellor.
The Field-Marshal took a pinch of snuff, and gravely shook his head.
"Of that I know nothing, but there was no meeting. Max Valverden
assured me, on his honor, that an opportunity for the challenge had
been given. Otherwise the young Count could not have continued in
our Prussian Army--one would naturally have been obliged to retire
him." He sneezed and went on: "My personal acquaintance with
Valverden began ten years later. He served me--excellently. One
should always give due praise to the dead. But when he returned from
Austria--then happened the tragedy, at Schönfeld in the Altenwald,
where lies his patrimonial property, and where the lady waited.
And--he shot himself, upon the very night of his return to her."
"Not," interposed the cool, level voice of the Chancellor, "not being
expected until noon of the day following."
"Of that I know nothing," said Moltke, turning his ascetic hairless
face full upon the speaker. "What I know is that an officer who
faithfully served his country and whom I had recommended for
distinction, at the earliest opportunity--died by his own hand! How
the woman was left, I cannot tell you."
"Count Maximilian von Schön-Valverden had provided for Madame de
Bayard when summoned upon active Service," said the Chancellor. "His
family did not contest the will, and she is not badly off.
Therefore," he added with a smile, "when she condescends to serve my
Intelligence Department as a spy, you may suppose she does not do it
too cheaply. I must refer to my perambulating ledger, Bucher, before
I quote you the exact figures of the sum I am to hand her to-night.
She is a true daughter of the horseleech, who cries '_Give, give,
give!_' incessantly. But all the same I am indebted to her for those
remarkably interesting particulars concerning the Mission of M. de
Straz to Prince Antony."
"So!" ejaculated Von Roon in astonishment. The Field-Marshal rubbed
his chin and turned his clear eyes upon the speaker, who went on
smilingly:
"M. de Straz is susceptible--a fatal fault in a conspirator. Madame
is still seductive, with a figure like Circe, ropes of black silk
hair, a skin of cream, though the roses are bought ones! and eyes the
color--exactly the color of old, pale tawny port. Now, when you
reflect that she is waiting in my wife's red boudoir to interview me
in my next spare moment--do you fear for my hitherto unassailable
virtue, or regard me as proof against such charms?"
"I never bet more," said Moltke, "than half a pfennig, and then only
when I play cards with my niece."
"I will wager you proof," cried Roon, "for two hundred thalers!"
"I can hardly bet upon my own marital infidelity!" said the
Chancellor, laughing, as a servant uncovered the dish newly placed
before him. "Will Your Excellency take some of this?"
"This" was the savory _pièce de resistance_ of the masculine banquet,
a lamb of six weeks, roasted to a golden brown, basted with marrow,
and surrounded with tiny cucumbers stuffed with seasoning.
Moltke accepted the offer with alacrity, indifferent to the charms of
veal with tomatoes and aubergines. Von Roon, declining, hurled
himself upon a fillet of beef _jardinière_, and hacked a huge steak
from its surface as with a sword, rather than a carving-knife. The
Chancellor, plying his gleaming weapons delicately, liberally
supplied his guest and piled his own plate, saying as he launched
himself upon its contents with unabated appetite:
"Confederations may disappoint us--Kings may deceive us--while our
teeth and our digestions faithfully serve us, we can find some zest
in life. When I retire, I shall cultivate vegetables, plant
forest-trees, rear trout, breed cattle, sheep, pigs, and
poultry--drop my hereditary patronymic as I shed my titles of office
and be known to all posterity as the Farmer of Varzin!"
The hall-bell had been heard to ring a moment previously. There was
another scratching signal on the door, and Bucher appeared,
manifestly excited and carrying a telegraphic dispatch.
"What now?" asked the Chancellor, finishing a mouthful.
"A telegram from Ems----" began the Councillor.
The imperious hand whipped it from between his pudgy fingers; the
masterful voice demanded, as the envelope was rent open:
"The decipherer has not left?"
"Excellency, no!" twittered the Councillor, agitated by the
portentous frown of his Chief, and by the grave faces of Moltke and
Roon. The paper was thrust back to him with the curt order:
"Get this deciphered--do not delay!"
And as the Legation Councillor vanished, Bismarck said with a short
laugh, bending his powerful regard on the gaunt, black stare of the
War Minister:
"It is from the King, and will not please us. We may make up our
minds beforehand to that. Yet I drink this glass to the honor of
Prussia!" And filling his great bumper glass from a fresh bottle
that had been placed at his elbow, he gulped down at least a pint of
the creaming nectar of the Widow Clicquot, and his guests, in smaller
measures, pledged the same toast. After that they sat in silence,
the Chancellor alone continuing to eat with appetite--until the
Councillor's big feet came shuffling back again.
"The copy, Excellency, 200 groups altogether," he began, "signed by
the Herr Privy Councillor von Abeken, at His Majesty's command."
The papers he held were whipped away from him. The Chancellor
read--and his countenance most grimly altered. His brows grew
thunderous, trenches dug themselves along his forehead, caves
appeared about his blazing eyes, and the pouches under them
portentously bagged. The heavy mustache might shade the mouth and
chin, but could not hide that they were changed to granite. He
passed his firm hand over them and said, his incisive tones veiled
with a curious hoarseness:
"Mr. Councillor of Legation, you will now leave us. When I ring the
bell it summons you. Pray tell Dr. Busch that his services will be
needed. Some articles must be written for the Press to-night."
He said, as the door closed behind Bucher, and the smile that
accompanied the words was grim and cynical:
"Well, gentlemen, we have got our final slap in the face! The Press
organs of the Ultramontane and the Democrats will call us by our
nicknames to-morrow: 'Old Hellfire' and 'Death's Chess-Player' and
'The Pomeranian Ogre' and all the rest. But--I swear to you that no
enemy of mine will ever despise me as I now despise myself!"
Roon and Moltke regarded him in silence. He went on speaking, still
with that strange hoarseness:
"Some have called me the Iron Chancellor. I will tell you by what
title Wilhelm the First of Prussia will go down to posterity. Men
will speak of him as the Fluid King. It is written in the
Scriptures,--all day the phrase has haunted me,--'Unstable as water,
thou shalt not excel!'"
At a glance from the War Minister, Moltke rose up suddenly. His
stooping scholar's body sprang upright as a lance. He said, and the
words rang clear as steel on steel:
"Your Excellency, I deplore the necessity of imposing silence upon
you. But the obligation of my military oath, and your own----"
He paused as the great figure of his host reared up at the head of
the table. He saluted the Field-Marshal and said coldly:
"Herr General Field-Marshal, the rebuke is merited. Holding the
King's commission as Colonel of White Cuirassiers of the _Landwehr_,
I have spoken treasonably. Does your Excellency wish me to ring for
my sword?"
Moltke's wrinkled face flashed into amusement, as the Chancellor
imperturbably stretched his hand to the bell beside him. He said,
laughing:
"Colonel Count von Bismarck-Schönhausen, I accept your apology. I
will limit the period of your arrest to confinement to this room
until conclusion of dinner, on condition that you read now this
message from Ems."
The Chancellor saluted, and glancing at Roon, who was now standing,
gloomy and downcast, "We look," he said, "like three mourners about a
bier. It is, in fact, Prussia who lies dead upon the table.
However, judge of the situation for yourselves."
And he read out the famous telegram handed in at Ems at three-thirty:
"_Count Benedetti spoke to me on the Promenade in order to demand
from me finally, in a very important manner, that I should authorize
him to telegraph at once to Paris that I bound myself for all future
time never again to give my consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew
their candidature. I refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is
neither right nor possible to undertake engagements of this kind _à
tout jamais_. Naturally I told him that I had received no news; and
as he was earlier informed from Paris and Madrid than myself, he
could clearly see that my Government once more had no hand in the
matter._"
"Ei-ei!" broke in Moltke, "'_Somewhat sternly_' ... '_Naturally I
told_' ... '_Neither right nor possible,_' and then '_no hand in the
matter!_' Do I hear the King--or have my ears played tricks on me?"
"_Kreuzdonnerwetter!_" exploded Roon. "Well might one ask 'Is this
the master or the servant speaking?' But go on, go on, I pray your
Excellency!"
The reader had transformed his face to an expressionless mask that
might have been wrought in stone or metal. Now the tell-tale
huskiness of fierce emotion cleared from his voice. He resumed:
"This closes His Majesty's personal communication. Herr Privy
Councillor Abeken continues to the end."