CHAPTER XXITHE BLOW FALLS
“I wantto see what it is like to be mad.”
The words struck on Maximilian’s ear like the grinding crash of a collision upon the ear of the sailor sleeping peacefully in his berth, far out upon the waste of waters. He sprang to his feet, and confronted the young Prince with terrible eyes.
“What are you saying? Who taught you that?”
Ernest recoiled, terror-stricken.
“My mother told me of it,” he blurted out helplessly, backing towards the door to secure a refuge from the King’s wrath.
Maximilian struck furiously upon a gong. Karl rushed in, evidently in a state of alarm.
“Take this boy away,” said the King, fiercely, “and send me Bernal here at once, and Johann Mark.”
Karl darted off, accompanied by Ernest, who, in his hurry to escape from his cousin’s presence, forgot to call his dog after him; and Maximilian paced the room with frantic strides till the attendant returned. Auguste was with him.
“Herr Mark has left the Castle,” explained the agitated Karl. “He took a horse from the stable an hour ago, saying that it was on your Majesty’s service, and rode away at a gallop.”
Maximilian tore at his hair.
“Traitor! He has deserted me in the hour of need, after working my ruin!” he cried in the first moment. But on reflection, he added, “Perhaps he has gone to get help. We shall see.”
Bernal affected to be ignorant of the cause of the King’s excitement.
“Has anything happened?” he inquired. “What is it that has disturbed you?”
Maximilian glanced from his face to that of Karl, and back again. The musician was unable to meet his eye. Karl, better used to hypocrisy, displayed the most genuine tribulation.
“Auguste,” said the King, speaking solemnly and mournfully, “you remember what I told you of the night I passed in prison in Mannhausen. The conspirators have gone on with their work. My aunt has joined them, and I have just learnt from Ernest that they are openly declaring me”—it required an effort to bring out the word—“mad. I adjure you,” he added, beseechingly, “in the name of our sacred friendship, to tell me whether you had any inkling of this?”
The man thus addressed shifted his position uneasily, and cast down his eyes.
“I have had certain fears,” he said, in low, indistincttones, “that if you drove the Ministers too far, they would succeed in convincing the public that you ought not to be entrusted with the royal power. No doubt your refusal to proclaim these wretched meetings has been the last straw. Maximilian!—perhaps it is not yet too late—give up this Socialist and his wild ideas; you have not been the same man since he came—”
The King interrupted him with a gesture so imperious and so scornful, that the musician fairly cowered beneath it.
“And you—you whom I have loved as a brother, you to whom I have shown my inmost heart—you have deserted me! Sir, never dare to address me again in the name you have used. Henceforth to you I am the King of Franconia—and a stranger. You will leave my palace to-morrow, and you may take with you the thirty pieces of silver you have earned.”
Without attempting a reply, Bernal turned and went out of the King’s presence.
Maximilian turned to Karl.
“And you, Karl, why should you be faithful to me? All my friends have betrayed me; why do not you go and join them? Doubtless you will be rewarded well.”
Stricken to the heart, the wretched attendant fell on his knees before his master, and began to sob.
“See,” said Maximilian, speaking aloud as if to some witness of the scene, “this poor youth, on whom I have bestowed neither titles nor honours, whom I simply fed from day to day, and treated as some creature of a lower nature, he clings to me when all my friends andmy Ministers, and my very kinsmen, have cast me off. What have I done to deserve this poor fellow’s faithfulness? Karl, if I survive this day as King of Franconia, you shall be made a Count; and I will bestow upon you the motto, ‘Only true.’”
The miserable Karl cast himself grovelling at full length upon the floor.
“No, no,” said Maximilian, raising him gently, “do not distress yourself so much for me, Karl. I have been a kind master to you, have I not?—but you have served me well. You, at least, have nothing to reproach yourself with. Come, let us act. I will know the worst at once. Go instantly to the Chancellor, and tell him I command his presence without a moment’s delay.”
Karl bowed his head, unable to speak, and fled from the room.
The King walked to an iron cupboard in a corner of the cabinet, unlocked it, and took out a golden circlet, which represented the crown of Franconia on all occasions except the coronation ceremony itself. He placed the diadem upon his head, closed the cupboard, and seated himself at the head of the table, on which the map, with its parti-coloured pins, was still spread.
There he sat silently, awaiting his doom.
Maximilian’s agony was not of long duration. The tramp of many feet was heard in the ante-room, the door swung back, and the Chancellor von Sigismark entered, clad in his official robes, and bearing in his hands a great parchment scroll, blazoned with the arms of the State, from the foot of which swung, by a silken cord, a hugeround of wax stamped by the Great Seal of the Franconian kingdom.
After him filed in, in solemn procession, nearly the whole of the members of the Privy Council, the only notable absentee being the Count von Eisenheim, the distant kinsman of the King. The other Ministers and high officers of State followed; and in the rear stole the Princess Hermengarde, with Auguste Bernal and a third figure whose presence destroyed the last doubt in Maximilian’s breast as to his fate—the sombre-coated Court physician.
“On your allegiance,” exclaimed the King, as the party filed in before him, “I order every one except the Chancellor to retire.”
Not a soul obeyed. All cast looks at the young monarch, in which he read pity or horror. Without waiting, the Count proceeded to read from the parchment in his hands.
“Whereas it has pleased Almighty God,” the document began, “to afflict his Majesty, Maximilian Charles Leopold Joseph Marie von Astolf, King of Franconia, Grand Duke of Thuringia and Swabia, Prince of Astolf, Marquis of Este and Ferrara, Count of Lech, Meyer, and Ratisbon, Lord of Hohenlingen, Lord of Stürn, Lord of Neustadt, Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, etc., etc., with unsoundness of mind: Now we, the members of the Privy Council of Franconia, having received and considered the testimony of Herman Krauss, doctor of medicine, physician to hissaid Majesty, and of her Royal Highness, Hermengarde of Schwerin-Strelitz, Princess of Franconia, aunt to his Majesty, and of the illustrious Count von Sigismark, Chancellor of Franconia, and of Herr Paul Moritz, Minister of the Interior, Herr Auguste Bernal, his Majesty’s intimate friend, Karl Fink, his Majesty’s confidential attendant, and divers others, do hereby pronounce his said Majesty to be incapable of governing; and whereas his Royal Highness, Prince Ernest Leopold Friedrich Hugo Marie von Astolf, heir-presumptive to the throne, has not yet attained the age of eighteen, we furthermore hereby appoint her Royal Highness, the Princess Hermengarde aforesaid, mother of the said Prince Ernest Leopold, to be Regent of the kingdom until his Royal Highness shall attain the said age of eighteen, and we do hereby invest her with all the powers, rights and prerogatives of his Majesty for such period, and entrust her with the custody of his Majesty’s person. Done by the Privy Council at Seidlingen this fifth day of June, 18—.“Wilhelm von Sigismark, Chancellor.“Christian Silbur, Clerk.”
“Whereas it has pleased Almighty God,” the document began, “to afflict his Majesty, Maximilian Charles Leopold Joseph Marie von Astolf, King of Franconia, Grand Duke of Thuringia and Swabia, Prince of Astolf, Marquis of Este and Ferrara, Count of Lech, Meyer, and Ratisbon, Lord of Hohenlingen, Lord of Stürn, Lord of Neustadt, Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, etc., etc., with unsoundness of mind: Now we, the members of the Privy Council of Franconia, having received and considered the testimony of Herman Krauss, doctor of medicine, physician to hissaid Majesty, and of her Royal Highness, Hermengarde of Schwerin-Strelitz, Princess of Franconia, aunt to his Majesty, and of the illustrious Count von Sigismark, Chancellor of Franconia, and of Herr Paul Moritz, Minister of the Interior, Herr Auguste Bernal, his Majesty’s intimate friend, Karl Fink, his Majesty’s confidential attendant, and divers others, do hereby pronounce his said Majesty to be incapable of governing; and whereas his Royal Highness, Prince Ernest Leopold Friedrich Hugo Marie von Astolf, heir-presumptive to the throne, has not yet attained the age of eighteen, we furthermore hereby appoint her Royal Highness, the Princess Hermengarde aforesaid, mother of the said Prince Ernest Leopold, to be Regent of the kingdom until his Royal Highness shall attain the said age of eighteen, and we do hereby invest her with all the powers, rights and prerogatives of his Majesty for such period, and entrust her with the custody of his Majesty’s person. Done by the Privy Council at Seidlingen this fifth day of June, 18—.
“Wilhelm von Sigismark, Chancellor.“Christian Silbur, Clerk.”
The reading of this act was received in absolute silence, except when the Chancellor came to the name Karl Fink, when the King uttered a stifled cry, and glanced over the throng in search of his attendant. But Karl had slunk away, unable to endure the exposure of his baseness.
The Chancellor, with several others of the Council,had anticipated a fearful explosion on the part of their victim, and a body of guards had been ordered into the ante-room, in case of any forcible resistance. But their apprehensions were disappointed. As the Count folded up his parchment, a strange, baffled, hunted look spread over the King’s features. He gazed at the array of countenances before him with a sickly smile for one moment, and then, bursting into a vacant laugh, leant back in his chair, and exclaimed—
“Wolf! Wolf! Won’t some one bring Wolf to me?”
The dog, which had been left behind by Prince Ernest, crept forward at the sound of its name, and licked the King’s hand.
While these events were passing in the Castle of Seidlingen, Johann was approaching the capital as fast as the train could carry him.
On his arrival at Mannhausen, the first sound that struck upon his ear as he emerged from the station was the voice of a newsboy shouting out the deposition of the King. The telegraph had been quicker than the train.
Without giving a moment to rest or refreshment, he sprang into a carriage, and drove off to the house of his old friend and comrade, Schwartz, the man with the red beard. Schwartz was completely taken by surprise at his appearance. Indeed, his manner was so embarrassed that if Johann’s mind had been free to take in anything but the fate of the King, he must have perceived that something was wrong.
“I have come here straight from Seidlingen,” he burst out, without waiting for Schwartz, “to rouse the revolutionary party on behalf of King Maximilian. He is the victim of a vile plot, solely on account of his sympathy with us. They are scheming to depose him as a madman, though he is no more insane than you are.”
Schwartz listened coldly.
“I was just about to go to a meeting of the revolutionary committee,” he said. “You had better come with me.”
Johann eagerly assented, and as they walked along, poured into his companion’s ear the history of the last few weeks. Schwartz heard him without vouchsafing any reply. The two men seemed to have exchanged natures. Still Johann suspected nothing.
The Committee was assembled in a small private meeting-place when they arrived. The chair was vacant, and Schwartz at once walked up to the head of the room, and occupied it, leaving Johann by the door. The sullen, hostile looks of those present were the first signs that roused the intruder to a sense of what was coming.
“The first business before us,” calmly announced Schwartz, as soon as he had placed himself in the chair, “is the reading of the minutes of our last meeting.”
A sensation made itself felt through the gathering, and all eyes were directed towards Johann as the secretary proceeded to read in a cold, metallic voice.
This was the last item in the minutes—
“Moved by Comrade Meyerbeer, seconded by Comrade Hirst, and carried unanimously, that Johann Mark be expelled from all further connection with the revolutionary movement, as a friend and favourer of monarchy.”
The republican reeled beneath the blow. His first impulse was to rush from the meeting. But before the chairman could affix his signature to the fatal page, he gathered himself together, and strode proudly up the room.
“You have condemned me in my absence,” he cried, sternly. “Will you give me a hearing now?”
The chairman, after consulting his comrades with a glance, bowed his head in token of consent, and Johann, seizing the permission, launched forth into a full statement of all that had happened since his first meeting with King Maximilian. He wound up his harangue by reiterating what he had already told Schwartz as to the true nature of the conspiracy against the King, and implored those present to banish prejudice from their minds, and come to the rescue of one who was about to fall in their cause.
The meeting heard him out in perfect silence. Schwartz took it upon himself to reply.
“Johann Mark,” he said, gravely, “we have been friends for years, and it goes to my heart to have to cast you off. But the cause is more sacred than friendship. We believe you to be sincere; we do not condemn you, as we might, to the penalties of a traitor;but you have gone over to the enemy, and henceforth there can be no more comradeship between you and us.”
Johann stamped his foot.
“I know you,” he exclaimed bitterly. “You talk of liberty and brotherhood, and yet you calmly stand by and see the sacrifice of the only king who ever showed himself ready to serve the cause of liberty and brotherhood. What are your real motives? Not love of the principles you proclaim so loudly! Not love of the people! But blind hatred for a name.”
“Stop!” It was Schwartz who raised his voice harshly over the angry murmur arising in the hall. “If you have been blinded and deceived, we have not. I know these Astolfs; I know this race of vipers. My daughter and her child were foully done to death by the father of this Maximilian; their blood cries out for vengeance; and rather than stir one inch to save him from his fate, I swear to you that if he were here at this moment, I would strangle him with my own hands!”
A dreadful silence followed the dreadful oath. Johann, sick to his very heart, sank his head upon his breast, and went away out of the company, and out of their communion for ever.
Henceforth he had nothing more to do in Mannhausen. If the King were to be delivered, it must be by his unaided efforts. He took his way back to the railway station at which he had so recently arrived, and as he walked along he saw, staring at him from everywall and hoarding, a proclamation prohibiting the revolutionary demonstration on pain of treason, and signed in the name of Hermengarde, Regent of Franconia.
The following Sunday, armed troops patrolled the streets of Mannhausen, and of all the principal towns in Franconia. In some places the proposed demonstrations were abandoned altogether. In others, the revolutionists gathered, only to be charged, ridden down, and bayoneted by the soldiery. Many were killed, hundreds were taken and thrown into prison, there to await the sternest penalties of the law. The whole revolutionary movement was extinguished as if by a breath, and the Regent’s government received the applause of the civilised world.