THE WAR-MINISTER AT HOME
Except at the crisis of great convulsions, when the man with the bayonet
is the only individual that clearly knows what he has got to do and how
to do it, the soldier is but the puppet upon the stage, while the
diplomatist pulls the strings from behind the scenes. Before Sebastopol
the armies of England, France, and Sardinia keep watch and ward, ever
ready for action; at Vienna, the spruce _attache_ deciphers and makes
his _precis_ of those despatches which decide the soldier's fate. Is it
to be peace or war? Has Russia entered into a league with the Austrian
Government, or is the Kaiser, in his youthful enthusiasm, eager for an
appeal to arms, and forgetful of his defenceless capital, not thirty
leagues from the Polish frontier, and innocent of a single fortified
place between its walls and the enemy, prepared to join heart and hand
with France and England against the common foe? These are questions
everybody asks, but nobody seems able to answer. On the Bourse they
cause a deal of gambling, and a considerable fluctuation in the value of
the florin as computed with reference to English gold. Minor capitalists
rise and fall, and Rothschild keeps on adding heap to heap. Money makes
money, in Austria as in England; nor are those moustached and spectacled
merchants smoking cigars on the Bourse one whit less eager or less
rapacious than our own smooth speculators on the Stock Exchange. The
crowd is a little more motley, perhaps, and a little more demonstrative,
but the object is the same.
"And what news have you here this morning, my dear sir?" observes a
quiet-looking, well-dressed bystander who has just strolled in, to a
plethoric individual, with a double chin, a double eye-glass, and a red
umbrella, who is making voluminous entries in a huge pocket-book. The
plethoric man bows to the ground, and becomes exceedingly purple in the
face.
"None, honourable sir, none," he replies, with a circular sweep of his
hat that touches his toes; "the market is flat, honourable sir, flat,
and money, if possible, scarcer than usual."
Whereat the stout man laughs, but breaks off abruptly, as if much
alarmed at the liberty he has taken. The well-dressed gentleman turns
to some one else with the same inquiry, and, receiving a less cautious
answer, glances at his fat friend, who pales visibly under his eye.
They are all afraid of him here, for he is no other than our old
acquaintance, Monsieur Stein, clean, quiet, and undemonstrative as when
we saw him last in the drawing-room at Edeldorf. Let us follow him as
he walks out and glides gently along the street in his dark, civil
attire, relieved only by a bit of ribbon at the button-hole.
All great men have their weaknesses. Hercules, resting from his
labours, spun yarns with Omphale; Antony combined fishing and
flirtation; Person loved pale ale, and refreshed himself copiously
therewith; and shall not Monsieur Stein, whose Protean genius can assume
the characters of all these heroes, display his taste for the fine arts
in so picturesque a capital as his own native Vienna? He stops
accordingly at a huge stone basin ornamenting one of its squares, and,
producing his note-book, proceeds to sketch with masterly touches the
magnificent back and limbs of that bronze Triton preparing to launch his
harpoon into the depths below. Sly Monsieur Stein! is it thus you
spread your nets for the captivation of unwary damsels, and are you
always rewarded by so ready a prey as that well-dressed _soubrette_ who
is peeping on tiptoe over your shoulder, and expressing her artless
admiration of your talent in the superlative exclamations of her
Teutonic idiom?
"Pardon me, honourable sir, that I so bold am, as so to overlook your
wondrously-beautiful design, permit me to see it a little nearer. I
thank you, love-worthy sir."
Monsieur Stein is too thoroughly Austrian not to be the pink of
politeness. He doffs his hat, and hands her the note-book with a bow.
As she returns it to him an open letter peeps between the leaves, and
they part and march off on their several ways with many expressions of
gratitude and politeness, such as two utter strangers make use of at the
termination of a chance acquaintanceship; yet is the _soubrette_
strangely like Jeannette, Princess Vocqsal's _femme de chambre_; and the
letter which Monsieur Stein reads so attentively as he paces along the
sunny side of the street, is certainly addressed to that lady in
characters bearing a strong resemblance to the handwriting of Victor,
Count de Rohan.
Monsieur Stein pockets the epistle--it might be a receipt for
_sour-krout_ for all the effect its perusal has on his impassible
features--and proceeds, still at his equable, leisurely pace, to the
residence of the War-Minister.
While he mounts the steps to the second floor, on which are situated the
apartments of that functionary, and combs out his smooth moustaches,
waiting the convenience of the porter who answers the bell, let us take
a peep inside.
The War-Minister is at his wit's end. His morning has been a sadly
troubled one, for he has been auditing accounts, to which pursuit he
cherishes a strong disinclination, and he has received a letter from the
Minister of the Interior, conveying contradictory orders from the
Emperor, of which he cannot make head or tail. Besides this, he has
private annoyances of his own. His intendant has failed to send him the
usual supplies from his estates in Galicia; he is in debt to his tailor
and his coach-maker, but he must have new liveries and an English
carriage against the next Court ball; his favourite charger is lame, and
he does not care to trust himself on any of his other horses; and, above
all, he has sustained an hour's lecture this very morning, when drinking
coffee in his dressing-gown, from Madame la Baronne, his austere and
excellent spouse, commenting in severe terms on his backslidings and
general conduct, the shortcomings of which, as that virtuous dame
affirms, have not failed to elicit the censure of the young Emperor
himself. So the War-Minister has drunk three large tumblers of
_schwartz-bier_, and smoked as many cigars stuck up on end in the bowl
of a meerschaum pipe, the combined effects of which have failed to
simplify the accounts, or to reconcile the contradictory instructions of
the Court.
He is a large, fine-looking man, considerably above six feet in height.
His grey-blue uniform is buttoned tightly over a capacious chest,
covered with orders, clasps, and medals; his blue eyes and florid
complexion denote health and good-humour, not out of keeping with the
snowy moustaches and hair of some three-score winters. He looks
completely puzzled, and is bestowing an uneasy sort of attention, for
which he feels he must ere long be taken to task, upon a very charming
and well-dressed visitor of the other sex, no less a person, indeed,
than that "_odious intrigante_," as Madame la Baronne calls her, the
Princess Vocqsal.
She is as much at home here in the War-Minister's apartments as in her
own drawing-room. She never loses her _aplomb_, or her presence of
mind. If his wife were to walk in this minute she would greet her with
amiable cordiality; and, to do Madame la Baronne justice, though she
abuses the Princess in all societies, her greeting would be returned
with the warmth and kindness universally displayed to each other by
women who hate to the death. Till she has got her antagonist _down_, the
female fencer never takes the button off her foil.
"You are always so amiable and good-humoured, my dear Baron," says the
Princess, throwing back her veil with a turn of her snowy wrist, not
lost upon the old soldier, "that you will, I am sure, not keep us in
suspense. The Prince wishes his nephew to serve the Emperor; he is but a
boy yet. Will he be tall enough for the cavalry? A fine man looks so
well on horseback!"
The Baron was justly proud of his person. This little compliment and
the glance that accompanied it were not thrown away. He looked pleased,
then remembered his wife, and looked sheepish, then smoothed his
moustache, and inquired the age of the candidate.
"Seventeen next birthday," replied the Princess. "If it were not for
this horrid war we would send him to travel a little. Do you think the
war will last, Monsieur le Baronne?" added she, naively.
"You must ask the Foreign Minister about that," replied he, completely
thrown off his guard by her innocence. "We are only soldiers here, we
do not pull the strings, Madame. We do what we are told, and serve the
Emperor and the ladies," he added, with a low bow and a leer.
"Then will you put him into the Cuirassiers immediately, Monsieur?" said
the Princess, with her sweetest smile; "we wish no time to be lost--now
_do_, to please _me_."
The Baron was rather in a dilemma; like all men in office, he hated to
bind himself by a promise, but how to refuse that charming woman
anything?--at last he stammered out--"Wait a little, Madame, wait, and I
will do what I can for you; it is impossible just now, for we are going
to reduce the army by sixty thousand men."
While he spoke, Monsieur Stein was announced, and the Princess rose to
take her leave; she had got all she wanted now, and did not care to face
a thousand Baronesses. As she went downstairs, she passed Monsieur
Stein without the slightest mark of recognition, and he, too, looked
admiringly after her, as if he had never seen her before. The Baron, by
this time pining for more _schwartz-bier_, and another cigar, devoutly
hoped his new visitor, with whose person and profession he was quite
familiar, would not stay long; and the Princess, as she tripped past the
_Huissier_ at the entrance, muttered, "Sixty thousand men--then it
_will_ be peace: I thought so all along. My poor Baron! what a soft old
creature you are! Well, I have tried everything now, and this
speculating is the strongest excitement of all, even better than making
Victor jealous!" but she sighed as she said it, and ordered her coachman
to drive on at once to her stock-broker.
The presence of Monsieur Stein did not serve to re-establish either the
clear-headedness or the good-humour of the War-Minister. The ostensible
errand on which he came was merely to obtain some trifling military
information concerning the garrison at Pesth, without which the
co-operation of the police would not have been so effectual, in annoying
still further the already exasperated Hungarians; but in the course of
conversation, Monsieur Stein subjected the Baron to a process familiarly
called "sucking the brains," with such skill that, ere the door was
closed on his unwelcome visitor, the soldier felt he had placed
himself--as indeed was intended--completely in the power of the
police-agent. All his sins of omission and commission, his neglect of
certain contracts, and his issuing of certain orders; his unpardonable
lenity at his last tour of inspection, his unlucky expression of
opinions at direct variance with those of his young Imperial
master:--all these failures and offences he felt were now registered in
letters never to be effaced,--on the records of Monsieur Stein's secret
report; and what was more provoking still, was to think that he had,
somehow or another, been insensibly led on to plead guilty to
half-a-dozen derelictions, which he felt he might as consistently have
denied.
As he sat bolt upright in his huge leathern chair, and turned once more
to "sublime tobacco" for consolation and refreshment, his thoughts
floated back to the merry days when he was young and slim, and had no
cares beyond his squadron of Uhlans, no thought for the morrow but the
parade and the ball. "Ah!" sighed the Baron to himself as he knocked
the ash off his cigar with a ringed fore-finger, "I would I were a
youngling again; the troop-accounts were easily kept, the society of my
comrades was pleasanter than the Court. One never meets with such beer
now as we had at Debreczin; and oh! those Hungarian ladies, how
delightful it was to waltz before one grew fat, and flirt before one
grew sage. I might have visited the charming Princess then, and no one
would have found fault with me; no one would have objected--Heigh-ho!
there was no Madame la Baronne in those days--_now_ it is so different.
_Sapperment_! Here she comes!"
Though the Baron was upwards of six feet, and broad in
proportion--though he had distinguished himself more than once before
the enemy, and was covered with orders of merit and decorations for
bravery--nay, though he was the actual head of the six hundred thousand
heroes who constituted the Austrian army, he quailed before that little
shrivelled old woman, with her mouth full of black teeth, and her hair
dressed _a l'Imperatrice_.
We profane not the mysteries of Hymen--"Caudle" is a name of no
exclusive nationality. We leave the Baron, not without a shudder, to
the salutary discipline of his excellent monitress.