The Hope of a tottering and crumbling Empire was installed at the
Prefecture of Rethel, a picturesque, old-world river-town of many
bridges, and houses with quaint carved gables, slanting floors, and
low ceilings crossed by heavy beams.
He had arrived late on the previous evening. There had been no
flags, no bands, no popular ovation, no delirium of enthusiasm in
greeting the Imperial heir. Press organs were now telling
incredulous Parisians that in consideration of the Prince's weariness
the people had foregone their privilege of welcome. In honest truth,
the unlucky townsfolk were too sad and sick-hearted to cheer.
A great battle was impending in the neighborhood of Metz. The First
and Second Armies of United Germany had crossed the Moselle, wheeled
right-about-face, and were closing in on Bazaine, who had failed in
his attempt to retire upon Châlons by the Verdun Road. The Prussian
Crown Prince had come out of the Vosges, and was marching North
instead of moving upon Châlons. If his vanguard clashed with
MacMahon's patched-up Army there would be trouble.... Everyone
expected trouble, the soil of France had been sown so thickly with
the bad seed from which great national disasters spring, even before
it had been plowed by German shells.... The coming tragedy chilled
and numbed as the iceberg chills the senses of the passenger in the
Atlantic liner's warm deck-cabin, long before the keel grates, and
the white fog lifts, and shows the towering Death on which the doomed
vessel is being hurled.
The deep dejection of the officers around the Heir Imperial could not
be covered by any well-meant attempts at disguise. The rumors that
came through the fog into which Bazaine had vanished were horribly
disquieting. They waited upon thorns, for a telegram from the
Emperor, conveying intelligence on which they might rely.
There was something in the situation of the lonely, proud young
creature they surrounded that made the heart bleed as you looked at
him. So helpless and yet so representative of unfettered Power, so
ignorant in the ways of the world, and yet so conversant with its
outward forms and ceremonies, so palpably the last frail link upon a
chain that was being hacked through by the Prussian sword.
He had grown older and thinner since the days of July, and his fresh,
fine color had faded to paleness. There was a frown upon the open
forehead now, the gay, confident regard had changed to sullenness.
The blue eyes were less lustrous. The silky chestnut hair was
rumpled and duller. Care had overshadowed the boyish head with her
heavy sable wing.
The arrival of the previous night had been sudden and unexpected, the
startled authorities had been rarely put about to find fitting
accommodation for their Emperor's son. This morning Monseigneur had
been hurried out of his bed at the Prefecture to receive the
apologies of the Prefect, an Imperialistic vine-grower, who had been
absent in the interests of his affairs.
"Your Imperial Highness will be aware that this is a critical month
with owners of vineyards. The vines have borne well and the grapes
are ripening magnificently. Next month the champagne-making ought to
be in full progress. But the lack of hands terribly hampers us....
Women cannot replace the men who are skilled in the various
processes. And who knows----"
The Prefect broke off, for the Sub-Prefect had nudged him openly.
Even if the tide of War should turn, and France be freed from her
invaders, who knew whether any of those grape-pickers and sorters and
pressers, Reservists and volunteers and conscripts who had been
called out to carry the chassepot against the Prussians, would ever
return to their countryside again? Who knew whether they would not
be thrown as ripe grapes into Death's huge wine-press? Perhaps their
red blood was foaming in the vat even now.
Who knew whether those rich, prosperous vineyards on the Aisne would
not be trampled into sticky mashiness under the ruthless feet of
Prussian Army Corps? If the rumors were correct, an advance upon
Paris might take place at any moment. True, MacMahon's Army was said
to be covering the road to the capital.
But MacMahon had been already beaten terribly.... Recollecting it,
the Prefect shuddered in his well-polished shoes.
But he said his say and shook the young hand graciously offered him,
and got out of his own wife's drawing-room as awkwardly as though he
had been one of his own clerks. While the Sub-Prefect, a
sharp-visaged little man, who combined the office of public notary
with the trade of wool-stapler, trotted after him, very much at his
ease.
"How you sweat! Wipe your head and your neck too," counseled the
notary. "Otherwise your cravat will be a perfect wisp and Madame
will certainly take you to task!"
"You have such _sangfroid_, my good M. Schlitte. I envy you; I do,
positively!" stuttered the Prefect, puffing and blowing and mopping.
"Royalty invariably dazzles me.... I tremble ... I blunder.... In a
word, I make a fool of myself! At this moment I am tortured by the
weight of my responsibilities.... True--His Highness is well
guarded--true, the Army of Châlons is somewhere or other in the
neighborhood!... But the daring of these Prussian horsemen ... the
danger of a surprise!..."
"A surprise.... Nonsense, my dear sir. The thing is impossible!"
And M. Schlitte, who was said upon the strength of his queer French
accent to be a native of Strasbourg, soothed the Prefect, and grinned
like a rat-trap as he betook himself home. Inhabiting a riverside
villa in the neighborhood, from which residence--we may suppose for
the better conduct of his extensive business--a private telegraphic
installation connected him with Rheims, Paris, Brussels,
Luxembourg--and, when necessary, Berlin--it would have been possible
to have made arrangements for that very contingency. His suggestions
were not adopted at the Prussian Headquarters, but his zeal was
approved in the right place. He became Prefect of Rethel a little
later, when Berlin was settled at Versailles.
He stopped now, on his way back to his villa, to send the town-band
round to the Place of the Prefecture and to bribe some loafers with
small silver to mix with the crowd and cheer for the Emperor and the
Prince. Consequently, a drum, trombone, cornet, and ophicleide
shortly made their appearance before the Imperial lodgings.... _La
Reine Hortense_ and _Partant Pour La Syrie_ entertained Monseigneur
while he breakfasted. Since then he had thrice been summoned out
upon the balcony to acknowledge the acclamations of the loyal
populace of Rethel.
It was pouring rain, and the knots of spies, loafers, and genuine
enthusiasts were sheltered by umbrellas. The very fowls that pecked
between the cobbles had a listless and draggled air. The boy
shivered as he turned from the dismal outdoor prospect to contemplate
the Empire hangings, ormolu girandoles, and obsolete, scroll-backed
chairs and claw-foot tables, gracing the Prefect's wife's
reception-room. He told himself that it was horrible, even when one
waited for the news of certain victory, to be shut up in a beastly
hole like this.
He nearly jumped for joy when the name of M. de Straz was brought him
by his equerry. He remembered the Roumanian agent, who had
previously been presented to him.
"Pray bring him quickly, M. le Comte," he said eagerly to M. d'Aure,
who had replaced old M. Bachon. "It is possible that he may bring a
message from the Emperor."
He colored, and his eyes regained a little of their old brightness.
The green-and-gold equerry, who loved him, as did every member of his
household, was glad to see him, interested, for more reasons than one.
Straz, known to be a secret agent of the Emperor, and hailing from
Rheims, where his employer was now--Straz might well amuse the Prince
while his protectors waited for an Imperial telegram. Meanwhile, the
bodyguard about the Prefecture was unostentatiously doubled, the
carriages and the baggage were secretly held in readiness for a move.
You can imagine Straz, with his profile and beard of a courtier of
old Nineveh, bowing over the boyish hand, and rolling his jet-black,
glittering eyes. He had looked better in his Astrachan-trimmed
traveling jacket than in the tight-waisted, closely buttoned, black
frock-coat and pearl-gray trousers of ceremony, and the inky river of
black silk cravat that flowed over the expanse of white shirt-front
now covering his Herculean chest.
He wore white spats, which made his short legs appear shorter. A
bouquet adorned his buttonhole--pink carnation and tuberose. Its
cloying fragrance hung heavily on the damp air of the Prefecture
reception-room, as the boy pleasantly said:
"Good-day, M. de Straz; do you come to us from the Emperor?"
"Yes, my Prince, and no!..." Straz had long ago got rid of his cold,
yet a certain thickness characterized his consonants. He shrugged
his great shoulders and smiled, showing his dazzling double curves of
solid human ivory. "I come from Rheims, where His Imperial Majesty
is making history.... I am not charged with any message from him!"
The boy's face fell. He said, with a brave effort to conquer his
disappointment: "I am impatient, Monsieur, for news of another
victory. It is so long since the engagement of Saarbrück, and that
was only a little one. You are an officer in the Army of Roumania,
you have told me. You are aware, even better than I, that military
plans take time to develop .. and that Papa has every confidence in
the generalship of M. de Bazaine.... If I were five or six years
older, I should be admitted to the Councils of the Imperial État
Major.... I should understand the reasons for these changes which
puzzle me.... But one thing I should like to ask..." He flushed and
glanced round nervously. "They do not believe in Paris or London
that we are being ... beaten?... I beg of you to answer me candidly!"
Straz drew himself up dramatically, expanding his huge chest, and
curling his parted mustache. His fierce black eyes, staring from
their great curved arches, glittered like balls of polished jet....
"They do not, my Prince! They wait for the Star of the Bonapartes to
rise resplendent from a sea of gore shed from Prussian veins....
They wait, as the world waits, for the Empire to emerge more glorious
than ever from this conflict, which will restore to her forever her
lost Provinces of the Rhine. It may be that the Coronation of
Napoleon IV. will be solemnized in the Cathedral of Cologne.... Aha,
my Prince, have I won a smile at last?"
He looked, despite the frock-coat, more than ever like some ancient
warrior of Assyria, marching in a carved and painted procession along
the walls of some unearthed palace of Nineveh or Babylon. And so
admirable an actor was he that the sick heart of the boy now warmed
at his simulated fire, and gladdened at his deceptive words of hope.
"I had pictured my Imperial Prince," he went on, "in brighter and
less gloomy surroundings, with sympathetic and delightful companions
to alleviate his exile from home."
He had touched the wrong chord. The slender, well-made figure was
drawn up proudly. The delicate brows frowned, the lips quivered as
the boy said:
"Monsieur, it is not 'exile' when an officer is ordered on Active
Service.... And I am with the French Army, whose uniform I wear.
For the moment the Emperor, my commanding officer, has ordered me to
remain here.... I did wrong to grumble--I shall do so no more!"
Straz grinned and bowed to cover his momentary confusion. Why had he
used the indigestible word? He touched his buttonhole bouquet and
said with a treacly inflection:
"There are no violets--it is not the proper season.... Does
Monseigneur remember when the purple blooms reached him regularly at
intervals, one timid scrap of paper hiding among the slender stems?
... And would he, did he know how the sender languished for news of
him--entrust me with one penciled message of kindness that might
restore the rose to a fading cheek?"
The clear-eyed, fresh face of the boy he harangued underwent several
changes during this windy apostrophe. For one brief instant it
flushed and brightened eagerly, then it frowned with perplexity, then
it twitched with the evident desire to laugh.
He said, controlling his amusement with his grace of good-breeding:
"Monsieur, if it was a lady who sent me those violets, pray tell her
that she was very good to do so, and that I thank her very much. And
since she asks for a message--perhaps this will do as well?"
He turned to the writing-table, where some sheets, covered with
clever pen-and-ink caricatures, lay on the blotter, and took up a
rough little outline drawing of a landscape, marked with lines of
dots and written over with notes. He said ingenuously, offering this
to the Roumanian:
"See, Monsieur, this is a mere sketch of the affair at Saarbrück. I
did it to send my tutor at Paris, but M. Filon shall have another
one.... If the lady has sons of my age, no doubt they will be able
to draw far better. Nevertheless, here it is!"
Under the date of August 2nd, he had signed it, with a touch of
boyish vanity:
"_Under fire for the first time.
"Your affectionate
"Louis Napoleon._"
"What genius!--what a gift! How gracious an act of kindness on the
part of your Imperial Highness!"
Straz grabbed the little scrawl eagerly, pressed his moist scarlet
lips to it with theatrical devotion--made a tremendous flourish of
putting it away in a pocketbook, and bestowing this receptacle near
the region of his heart.
"Though the lady has no sons--she is not even yet married," he
hinted. "Dare I confide a secret to Monseigneur?--she is a young and
beautiful girl!"
Monseigneur had been promising himself to caricature Straz at the
next opportunity, not forgetting to make the most of his profile,
hair, and beard. Young and beautiful girls were no novelties to
Louis Napoleon, accustomed to do the honors of Versailles and Saint
Cloud to the muslin-clad daughters of the sparkling coquettes who
frequented the Imperial Circle. He began, struggling with the
boredom that began to oppress him:
"If the young girl is your _fiancée_, Monsieur, or your daughter----"
The speaker broke off at the sound of hoofs and wheels on the
cobblestones of the Place, the bump of a carriage-step let down,
hitting the curb before the Prefecture.... Someone had arrived with
a message from the Emperor; or perhaps it was only the Prefect's wife
returning from an airing.... Straz would have been other than
himself had he failed to seize the opportunity.
"Monseigneur, Mademoiselle de Bayard is not affianced. She has
hitherto declined all alliances proposed as advantageous--it is said
her affections are secretly engaged!..."
His smirk revolted even while it fascinated. He said, rolling his
glistening black eyes about the apartment--shrugging his great
shoulders, laying a thick white squat-nailed finger mysteriously
against his carmine lips:
"Engaged since a little _rencontre_ that took place in the month of
January.... There were disturbances in Paris--which the troops had
been called out to quell. Riding with M. de Frossard in the Avenues
of the Champs Élysées, your Highness passed close by a young girl in
a cab. She cried out, '_Vive le Prince Impérial!_' ... She threw a
knot of violets, which struck your horse on the shoulder.... You had
the flowers in your hand, Monseigneur, when you rode away."
"Ah, now I remember!" The boy's blush became him. "Or I should say
I have not forgotten. And where is she now, Monsieur?"
"Where is Mademoiselle de Bayard? Your Imperial Highness would like
to know?"
Straz, who had thrilled with a sportsman's joy at the curtsey of the
float betokening a nibble, would have given his soul to know
himself.... Now, as he delayed, with the air of one who momentarily
holds back something eagerly waited for, the equerry knocked and
entered, approached and whispered to the Prince.