CHAPTER XIIITHE STATE PRISON
Forsome time after the parting words of the girl, Maximilian and his companion walked on in silence. Johann saw that the King was profoundly affected by what he had just listened to, and did not venture to disturb his reflections. At length Maximilian raised his head, and gave utterance to the thoughts of his mind.
“She is right, Johann. There are some things beyond my power, or yours, to alter. We may change social conditions, we may care for men’s health, we may add to the comfort of their lives; but how are we to war against evil passions, how can we prevent such wrongs as that poor creature has suffered, how root out the superstitions which thrive under the name of religion, and darken the whole nature of mankind?”
“Even here we can do something,” was the firm reply. “We do not believe that there is anything in human nature so fixed that it cannot be transformed by the right means. Do away with marriage, and you abolish the degradation of love; merge the household into the community, and you render it impossible forthe happiness of the child to be blighted by the prejudices and ignorance of its parents.”
Maximilian looked at him in some consternation. This was the first time that Johann had expounded this part of the doctrines of his sect, and the new disciple was somewhat taken aback.
“Is that part of the Socialist programme?” he asked. “Do your friends aim at abolishing marriage and the family?”
“I will not go so far as to say that it is a recognised item in our programme,” was the answer. “Many Socialists are not educated up to these views, and others regard them as something that can better be dealt with at a later stage, after we have brought about the economical freedom of society. But personally I cannot see how we can ever make the species really happy until we have thoroughly reorganised society on these points as well.”
“But surely the people in general would never consent to such steps as these. If you had a Republic to-morrow you would have the majority against you.”
“No doubt that would be so at first. We can only wait, and do our best to enlighten them.”
“Well, at all events I am glad you do not make that a vital question,” said Maximilian, a good deal relieved. “I do not think I should care to hint at anything of that sort to the Chancellor.”
The revolutionist sighed. He saw that his pupil was still lagging far behind his own position, and thatit would be necessary to use great caution in bringing him on.
Presently Maximilian spoke again.
“Well, after what I have seen and heard to-night I am convinced that you are in the right as to one thing. The present state of affairs is wrong, and the only question is how to set about righting it. If my Ministers will do nothing, I promise you that I will go on without them.”
For answer Johann turned half round and wrung the King’s hand in silence.
“Now,” continued Maximilian, “I should like to see more of your party. I want to come in touch with them. You say there are three thousand members of the Socialist League in Mannhausen?”
“In Franconia,” corrected Johann. “There are several provincial branches, but of course the one here is the most numerous, and gives the lead to the others.”
“Tell me”—the King spoke with a little hesitation—“was it the League which sent you to Neustadt?”
“Oh, no; certainly not. I came here as the agent of a small secret society, which was founded in the reign of your father. The League is a public organisation, and does not undertake any measures of that kind.”
“Good. Now, what I want you to do is to take me to a meeting of the League, so that I may see something of its working for myself. When does it meet next?”
Johann looked slightly disturbed at this bold suggestion.Knowing as he did the kind of language which was indulged in at these meetings, language of which the last few days had done much to make him realise the extravagance, he could hardly help feeling a little uneasy at the King’s proposal to be present.
“There is a meeting to-morrow night,” he responded cautiously, “to which I thought of going, but I hardly know whether it would be wise for you to come. Some of our members hold rather strong views about monarchy, and you might hear something—”
Maximilian did not wait for him to finish.
“Don’t be afraid of shocking me,” he said good-humouredly. “I dare say I shan’t hear anything worse than I have deserved, and after all”—with a side smile—“it won’t be worse than having a pistol pointed at my head.”
Johann blushed. But a new objection had occurred to him.
“I forgot to say that the meetings are only open to members,” he observed. “You see, we have to be cautious on account of the police. It has been rumoured that they mean to make a raid upon us before long.”
“They won’t dare to do that after what I said to Herr Moritz,” replied Maximilian, confidently. “As to the other point, what is there to prevent my becoming a member of the League?”
This time the Socialist was fairly staggered. But strange as the suggestion sounded, it was difficult for him to think of any valid reason for rejecting it. Onthe contrary, it might be that such a step would be most desirable, by committing the King irrevocably, and giving the revolutionary party a stronger hold upon him than the mere private compact which bound him to Johann personally.
He turned the matter over in his mind, and it ended in his procuring a card of membership for Maximilian, which enrolled him as a member of the Socialist League, under the name of Karl Josef. On the following evening at eight o’clock they crossed the threshold of the hall in which the Socialists were assembled.
But they did not make their entrance together. Maximilian followed his introducer at a few paces in the rear, and slipped quietly into a back seat where he was unobserved, while Johann walked boldly forward through the gathering to the seats reserved for members of the governing committee of the League.
As he made his way up the floor he became conscious that the eyes of all present were turned upon him. This was his first appearance among his comrades since his famous expedition to Neustadt, and public rumour had already informed those present that the man who had gone to the Castle on a mission to assassinate King Maximilian, had remained there as his guest and friend. Hence, most of the looks directed at the returning wanderer were of a decidedly unfriendly character, and there was a slight murmur in the hall when they saw one whom they had come to regard as a recreant coolly taking his former place among them as if nothing had happened.
The stir drew the attention of the president, and, seeing that it would be useless to proceed with the other business till the meeting was satisfied as to Johann’s right to be present, he rose abruptly to invite him to make an explanation.
“Comrades,” he said, “I see in the hall a member of the League about whose doings we have heard a good deal during the last few days. It is currently reported that he has been staying in the Castle of Neustadt, and that though he went there with an object which some of us may not have approved, he is now high in the favour of the King. It is naturally difficult for us to reconcile this with his continued membership of our body; but we are Socialists, and we judge no man unheard. Before we proceed with the ordinary business of the meeting, therefore, I deem it right to call upon comrade Johann Mark for an explanation, and I ask all present to give him a fair hearing.”
These words were received with applause, and Johann instantly mounted the platform.
His appearance was the signal for a chilling silence, which struck unpleasantly on his nerves, used as he had been to be greeted with applause as one of the favourite orators of the society. Nevertheless, he did not allow himself to be daunted, but began at once, facing the audience boldly, and speaking in a loud, steady voice.
“Comrades, I am glad that you are at least willing to grant me a hearing, although it seems that some of you have already condemned me in my absence. I did not come here to-night to defend my character as a Socialistand a republican—a more advanced republican, perhaps, than any man in the room. I rely upon my own record in the past: I was fighting for our principles in the dark days of King Leopold, and it is not likely that I should desert them now that we are on the eve of a glorious triumph. I came here simply to tell you as friends and fellow-workers of what I have been trying to do for the cause. The president has referred to the object with which I went to Neustadt. I went there to shoot King Maximilian with this pistol”—a thrill ran through the assembly as he produced the weapon and held it out before their gaze—“and I did so because I believed him to be a bad and worthless ruler.”
Here the speaker was interrupted for a moment by ironical applause from some of his listeners. He went on with a heightened colour.
“If I still believed him to be bad and worthless, I should use this weapon still. If in a year’s time, or in ten years’ time, I believe it, I shall go there again and do what I meant to have done this time. The only reason why King Maximilian is still alive is because I have been convinced that, whatever he may have been in the past, he now sincerely wishes to do whatever he can to help us in the objects we have at heart.”
At this point the incredulity of the meeting broke forth in scornful murmurs, which the president in vain attempted to suppress.
Johann felt his anger kindling.
“I was promised a fair hearing!” he shouted outabove the disturbance. “Hear me out before you interrupt. You have been quick enough to assume that the King had converted me to the cause of reaction: did it never occur to you as possible that I might have converted the King to the cause of revolution? I tell you plainly, as I stand here, that there is no man in this room who, as I believe, is more sincere in desiring to see our principles triumph than Maximilian IV.”
Some of the audience could not refrain from mocking laughter at this statement. The rest stared at the speaker in stubborn disbelief.
“You do not believe me. I dare say not. You think, perhaps, that the King has only to hold up his hand in order to bring about everything which we want.” (Hear, hear.) “Fools, have you ever realised what a government is; that it is a huge organisation, running in a groove, from which it is as difficult to turn it without reducing the whole state of society to chaos as it is to throw an express train off the rails without upsetting it? That is why I have been staying at Neustadt, that I might see with my own eyes what the difficulties are, and do what I could to help the King in overcoming them. Do you think I have learned nothing in these few days? I have learned a great deal, and this most of all, that no one man, not even though he be a king, can change the whole structure of society at a moment’s notice. There are the Ministers to deal with, the legislature, the sullen resistance of the whole official and propertied classes. Give him time, and if nothing changes forthe better at the end of the next six months I pledge myself to leave the King and come back to you.”
The meeting had been set against Johann by the air of superior knowledge which he had assumed, as much as by the unpalatable conclusions to which he sought to lead them. The murmurs of suspicion and dislike swelled in a tumult as he went on. At the first break a voice from the centre of the hall demanded—
“Let him abdicate!”
This sentiment was received with a sound of cheering which told how strongly the feelings of the audience were inflamed against the King and his champion. Maximilian, who had listened to it all with downcast head, moved uneasily in his seat, and looked for a moment as if he would have made for the platform himself.
But Johann stilled the clamour with a contemptuous wave of his hand.
“I was not afraid of King Maximilian’s guards,” he cried, “and I am not afraid of you. If there is a man in this room who is prepared to take this pistol from me and go with it to the palace, let him come forward.”
And he held it out defiantly. The effect was magical. Not one of his judges responded to the challenge. The whole crowd shrank from his glance, and allowed him to continue in silence.
“You ask me why he does not abdicate? What good would that do? Do you think that a dull-wittedboy like Prince Ernest would be any better for you than Maximilian? How would you like to have the Princess Hermengarde for a Regent?” The Princess’s name was received with hisses. “I thought so. I thought you would at least see that much.” He could not refrain from taunting them, forgetting that his true object was not to silence but to persuade. Maximilian, watching the scene, was tortured by the unskilfulness of his advocate. It was not thus that he had wrought on Johann himself in the gallery at Neustadt.
“Surely it is better for us,” the orator proceeded, “to have a man on the throne who sympathises with us. Even if the King fails to perform what I hope from him, he leaves us free to go on with our own work independently. It is not as if I were asking you to desist from the movement. No, I rather urge you to go on more boldly now than ever. Do not trust in me or in the King, but act exactly as you would have done if I had never gone to Neustadt.”
These words produced a favourable impression, and for the first time there was a slight sound of applause.
Johann eagerly followed up his success.
“And you can go on with all the more confidence, knowing that you have a friend at Court. The King will protect you from your enemies. Only the day before yesterday I happen to know that he gave orders that the police were to take no steps against you without his permission.”
While his lips were yet moving, and as if these words had been a preconcerted signal, a loud whistle soundedoutside, the door was violently burst in, and a body of police with drawn staves marched into the hall.
An exciting scene followed. The bulk of those present sprang to their feet and made a wild rush for the doorway, through which some of them escaped, only to fall into the hands of a reserve force stationed in the street outside. Others, more determined, stood their ground, and engaged in a free fight with the officers who attempted to capture them, while the president sat pale and motionless in his chair, waiting to be arrested; and Johann, fairly unmanned under the influence of a feeling of sickening despair, reeled backward and clung for support to the table, while his horrified glance traversed the miserable scene.
Maximilian himself, after the first shock of alarm, stood up quietly to deliver himself into custody, but underneath this apparent calm the fiercest rage possessed him, and he inly swore to make the author of this outrage bitterly repent his disobedience.
A very few minutes sufficed for all resistance to be quelled. The prisoners were handcuffed together in pairs and marched off through the deserted streets, and as night fell Maximilian IV., King of Franconia, found himself the inmate of a cell in his own State prison.
So large was the number of arrests made at the meeting that even the ample accommodation at the disposal of the governor of the prison seemed likely to prove insufficient. Each man, as he passed in through the gates, had his name taken down in a book, and was assigned to a separate cell. When the whole ofthe vacant cells had been thus allotted, a number of prisoners remained undisposed of.
While the governor was wondering how he was to deal with the surplus, he was relieved to see the Minister of the Interior arrive on the scene.
“Welcome, Herr Moritz!” he exclaimed. “I was just fearing that I might have to send for your Excellency.” And he quickly explained how matters stood.
The Minister stepped up to the governor’s desk—it was in the bureau through which the prisoners were passed on being received into the gaol—and cast his eyes carelessly over the pages of the admission book.
“There is only one thing for it, Herr Governor,” he said, in answer. “You must put them two in a cell.”
“Of course that is against the regulations, but if your Excellency authorises it?” said the other, hesitating.
“Certainly, I authorise it. By the way, I see a name here of a man whom I used to know something about—Karl Josef. You have put him in No. 79. Is that a fairly comfortable room?”
“It is one of the best in the prison. Now you mention it, I remember I was struck by something distinguished in the air of that prisoner, and that was why I gave it to him.”
“It was a proof of your discrimination. Let him have a respectable companion, if you can find one.”
“Oh, I think I shall be able to dispose of the rest without using his room, if your Excellency takes an interest in him.”
Herr Moritz frowned.
“Certainly not. I am not interested in any man who has broken the law. Let him be treated exactly like the rest.”
The governor hastened to murmur an apology, and the work of taking the prisoners’ names and distributing them among the cells was resumed.
The Minister stood idly looking on till a prisoner entered, in the custody of an officer, who appeared to be unconnected with the rest, and who gave his name as Hans Trübner. Then Herr Moritz bent over and whispered in the governor’s ear—
“He looks a better class of man. Suppose you send him to No. 79.”
The governor nodded and gave the required directions. Shortly afterwards the Minister bade him a friendly good night and strolled away.