"Can it be possible?"
She looked at him intently and realized his earnestness. He answered with a glow of pride in his work:
"Fact! And in all the time you have never seen a newspaper or asked a question about the War. Even when you have heard the great guns firing from the forts below Paris—Issy and Vanves and Montrouge and the rest—you never said a word that showed you noticed.... Do you know why?..."
His voice wavered exultantly. She looked at him and slightly shook her head.
"No!..."
"Because I willed you to. By George! there are times when I believe that even yet I'd make a doctor. Mental suggestion was the line I took with you...." He rubbed his hands. "Not that I could have done anything without the help of Madame Potier—first-class little woman!—regular brick that she is!... You see, your brain had sucked up all the trouble it was capable of holding. You wanted rest.... Well, you've had it, thank God! Night after night I've walked up and down, backward and forward, on the lawn, just as you saw me doing last night, saying: 'Sleep! Forget! You have my orders to!"
The tone of mastery thrilled, even while the muscles of her mouth twitched with repressed laughter. He was beautiful in her eyes as he leaned forward smiling at her. She said, repressing her tears, and concealing her admiration:
"But last night you did not say 'Sleep!' but something else, Monsieur...."
There was a swift change in him, telling her that for once he was not listening. His eyes were alert, his ear eagerly drank in a sound composed of many sounds that grew louder as they came more near. Now the whole room was full of the trampling of horses and the fainter clink of spur and scabbard and bridle.... Cavalry were passing up one of the great avenues south of the Rue de Provence—not the Avenue of St. Cloud—probably the Rue des Chantiers—there was a distant roar of cheers.... Then in one little oasis of silence came the rolling of carriages, and then the walls shivered with the roaring of lusty lungs:
"Hoch der König! Hoch der Kronprinz!"—and the shouts were drowned in a great burst of martial music, and the trampling of men and horses, mingled with the beat of drums and the blare of trumpets, rolled on tumultuously again.
The blood ebbed from Juliette's cheeks and lips to her heart as she listened. Then the double doors of the dining room were butted open with the corner of a wooden coffee tray, and Madame Potier appeared with a steaming pot and two cups. She was pale round the hectic patches that blazed in her thin face. Her black eyes leaped to Breagh's with an eager question in them ... "Have you told her?" ... and he answered with an almost imperceptible shake of the head.
Then before either of them knew, Juliette had risen. She went to the little woman and kissed her on the cheek. She said, taking one of the gnarled work-worn hands in one of hers and holding out the other to Carolan:
"Dear friends, to whom I owe so much, tell me now what in your great compassion you have kept from me. For I think the time has come when I must hear!"
The time had come, indeed, with the ring of Prussian cavalry hoofs upon the ancient cobblestones, and the roll of the carriages that came with them. And before either of those the girl addressed could speak in answer, the resonant sound of a Prussian trumpet pierced their silence:
"Clear the way! Clear the way! Here comes the King!"
And followed a cry, pitiful as the wail of a hare in a gin trap: "Those are Prussians!" ... and another scream, shrill and thin and clear.... Then a crash!... Madame Potier had dropped her coffee tray.... Before the hot steam of the spilled liquid rose up from the Tessier carpet, the small hand Breagh had clasped was suddenly, violently snatched from him. He sprang to his feet, but Madame Potier had been quicker than he. She had caught the girl round the waist, and now wrestled with her.... The silent, desperate strife was horrible. The slender black-clad figure writhed for freedom like a snake.... Then all at once the life seemed to go out of it.... They carried her to the sofa and laid her down....
"Monsieur should have told her!" Madame Potier said angrily. "Why leave it to the Prussians to break the news?..." Tears were running down her cheeks as she unfastened the girl's dress, and rubbed the limp hands, while Breagh dropped Cognac between the little teeth, a drop or two at a time.
And presently Juliette was looking at them, not wildly, and Madame Potier was answering: "It was nothing!... Madame was startled into an attack of faintness when I was so clumsy as to drop the coffee tray. Now I shall go and get more, and Monsieur will talk quietly to Madame as she lies there. She must hear everything that we have kept from her.... Yes, yes! that is quite understood!"
And she clumped away, with a backward glance of disdain directed at the masculine boggler, and Breagh drew a chair near the sofa where his wan Infanta lay, and sat down and told her all.
Red sunset flooded the autumn garden as he talked. Not a leaf stirred, hardly a bird uttered a nooning note. But the strange sound that had haunted not only the ears of Juliette went on incessantly. It was the sighing and whispering and muttering of the vast crowds that had filled the Rue des Chantiers behind the lines of troops to witness the entrance of the conquerors, and now gorged the great Place of the Prefecture (above whose entrance flaunted the standard of the Hohenzollerns)—filled the upper end of the Avenue de Paris—and surged over the vast expanse of the Place d'Armes, beating in black and restless human waves against the lofty blue and golden railings of the Royal Château, above whose golden dome floated the black-and-white Prussian Standard and the white Flag with the red Geneva Cross.
We know what he had to tell her.... The false step of MacMahon, the unavailing attempt of Bazaine to break out of Metz, the conflict on the Meuse, ending in defeat and the loss of 7,000 prisoners with guns and transport. The flight and escape of the Emperor to the fortress city of Sedan.... The battle between the ill-led, unfed, dispirited French forces and the Three Armies. The taking of 20,000 French prisoners, the wound of MacMahon, leading to his resignation of the chief command into the hands of General Wimpffen, summoned from his command in Algeria in time to capitulate. The pitiable surrender of the Emperor's sword to the King of Prussia. His transport into Belgium as a prisoner of War. The flight of the Empress from the Tuileries. The formation at Paris of the New Government of National Defense. The entry of the King of Prussia into Rheims, and the arrival of the First and Third Armies in force before Paris. The fight upon the heights of Châtillon—the defeat of Ducrot by a Bavarian Division—the German advance upon Nemours and Pitiviers—the investment of the capital, now encircled with an iron ring.
For three days the Crown Prince had been established with his Staff at the Prefecture. This day had seen the Great Headquarters of the Prussian King removed to Versailles, from Baron Rothschild's Castle of Ferrières....
Truly it had been time to break the news to Juliette. She lay still during the recital, only quivering now and then. She drank the coffee when Madame Potier brought it, and thanked the faithful soul affectionately. When the gas lamps were lighted, and the shutters shut, she bade P. C. Breagh good night in a faint whisper, and gave him both hands, saying with a liquid glance:
"Thank you, my friend!..."
He whispered as he kissed the little fingers:
"You will sleep to-night, will you not?..."
And she nodded in assent. But when he had gone to his bed at the cottage, the old terrible thoughts came crowding back.
That electrifying blast of glorious sound from the silver instrument of the Great Staff trumpeter had wakened and brought them like hornets buzzing and stinging about her ears.... She longed for her friend, but he had departed. And the loneliness was too terrible to bear.
She caught up a little white shawl that she had brought with her, and often wore when walking in the garden upon chilly evenings, or going to Mass in the early mornings, before the sunshine had warmed the air. One turn of the wrist draped it faultlessly about her head and body. Thus shielded, she went into the hall, and laid her hand upon the lock of the door.
As she did so, cavalry horses ridden at a sharp trot came clattering down the cobbled street. They were pulled up outside the Tessier mansion. There was an imperious tug at the gate bell. She waited for the opening of the kitchen door.
Then she heard it unlocked, and the clatter of Madame Potier's clogs upon the terrace.Klop—klop—klop!they crossed the leads, descended the three steps that led to the gravel walk, and went on to the iron gate. It was locked, as always, in the absence of Madame Tessier. Presently the keys clashed, the lock scrooped back from the mortise, and the hinges uttered a protesting cry....
Then the harsh tones of a man, speaking French with a frightful German accent, turned the listening girl to ice. There was an exclamation from Madame Potier, a rejoinder in the stranger's gutturals. A horse trampled. The rough voice of the rider swore at the brute in German. Then there was a clatter of boots upon the pavement, with a great clinking of spurs and scabbard, and the now-dismounted rider said in his infamous French jargon:
"Go you before and open! His Excellency is coming in!"
Terrified, Madame Potier obeyed ... scuttling across the terrace like a frightened beetle. Juliette, paralyzed with horror, heard the heavy spurred footsteps crunch and jingle up the gravel walk and ascend the steps to the hall door. Almost directly, as little Madame Potier darted panting up the stairs from the kitchen, the hall doorbell clanged a deafening peal.
A carriage had rolled down the Rue de Provence, and stopped before the smaller gate, ere the doorbell's iron echoes had ceased shouting through the house of the Tessiers. There were other voices at the gate, other footsteps upon the gravel.... They mounted the steps. A resonant, unforgotten voice said to the ringer in German:
"The Herr Intendant General may spare himself the trouble.... I will interview the people of the house myself!"
The person addressed replied in the harsh tones that had terrified Madame Potier:
"But supposing Your Excellency be met with some insolence?..."
The resonant voice answered with a smile in it: "In that case, Herr Intendant General, my Excellency will take the risk. There are only women in the house, and should they offer violence, I have Count Hatzfeldt and Count Bismarck-Böhlen here!..."
There was a laugh—gay, mellow, and careless—and a young man's voice answered:
"Your Excellency may safely rely on our protection!"
There was another laugh. Under cover of it, Madame Potier hissed into the head folds of the white shawl:
"They have quartered the Prussian Chancellor and the Foreign Office upon us. That is what the sacred brute in the big boots and spectacles shouted, when I went down to open the front gate.... What is the Prussian Foreign Office?"
From the white folds of the shawl a sibilant whisper hissed at her:
"It is a man. They call him Count Bismarck. Now if you love me, be quiet, and watch and listen. He shall ring the bell with his own hand.... Then I open the door!..."
"But, Madame!..." whispered the distracted caretaker.
No verbal answer.... The white shawl pulled closer, shrouding round the slender form and girlish features. A little hand, firm and unfaltering, ready upon the latch of the door.
Poor Potier whimpered....
"Madame Charles.... My child! my treasure! for the love of Christ and Mary!... Tell me what you are going to do!"
The bell rang again, with a new and imperious hand upon it. She well knew whose was the hand. And the snow-water in her veins became liquid fire. She threw open the hall door and stepped back to admit the Man of Iron.
He stood upon the doorsteps like the house's master, a huge dominating figure, dressed as she had seen him on the battlefield of Gravelotte, in his high black, pewter-buttoned military frock and white peaked Cuirassier cap, riding cords, and great black jack-boots with long steel spurs. He was powdered with dust as a man newly come off a journey, though his boots were clean, for he had driven in a carriage from Ferriéres. Upon the step below him stood Count Hatzfeldt, his First Secretary, a man of thirty, tall, broad-shouldered, anddébonnaire, wearing, as did Bismarck-Böhlen, the semi-military Foreign Office undress. The lean trap-jawed personage in a dark uniform with velvet facings, whom we must recognize as the Intendant General, waited in the background, glaring through his spectacles at the tardy portress in the white shawl, and the peaked face and flaring black eyes of little Madame Potier, who stood beside her mistress as ready to spit and scratch for her sake as a pussy cat to defend its young.
There was no pause. The dominating figure stepped into the hall. His great Cuirassier sword clanked on the threshold. He touched the peak of his cap with his bare right hand, and said, looking down from his great height upon the women:
"This is the house of the Famille Tessier?"
One of the women, who was swaddled in a white shawl, dropped him a stiff little middle-class reverence. Behind her, the other bobbed a serving woman's curtsy. He went on, addressing White Shawl as the superior:
"This house, Madame, has been selected as the official residence of the Prussian Foreign Office. We shall pay you an adequate sum for our accommodation, and remain here some weeks ... possibly three."
He glanced at Hatzfeldt, and said with a flicker of sardonic humor playing in his heavy blue eyes, and about the corners of the deeply cut mouth that was masked by the heavy iron-gray mustache:
"Though the actual duration of the visit depends—not upon ourselves—but upon the decision of the United German Powers, and the position which they shall decide to take up with regard to Conditions of Peace. We are not the invited guests of France, whose stay can be cut short because our manners do not prepossess our hostess. We came because we thought it advisable ... we will go when it is convenient to depart!"
"If Jules Faure could hear Your Excellency!..." said Bismarck-Böhlen, grinning.
"He would cast up his fine eyes more tragically than he did at Ferrières," said Hatzfeldt, "when the three words, 'Forfeiture of Territory,' drew from them so many patriotic tears...."
"He is a weeper," said the Minister, pulling off his left glove, "and Wimpffen was a posturer, with his 'Moi, soldat de l'Armée Français'—and the Duke of FitzJames is a manufacturer of bugaboos.... Our German caricaturists should draw him as a pavement artist, holding the hat beside a horrible red-and-yellow chalk picture of our atrocious cruelties in Bazeilles."
We know that Bazeilles had been on the thirty-first of August a town of 2,000 inhabitants, mostly weavers, gathered about the ancient château that sheltered the boyhood of the great Turenne. Bazeilles had not observed the Law of the Neutrality of the non-combatant. The village had formed the extreme right of the French position on the day of the Battle of Sedan. Lebrun's Corps had occupied it, and its inhabitants had been seized with the fighting fever, and had helped to hold back a Bavarian Division for nearly six hours. Elderly civilians armed with antiquated rifles had displayed desperate bravery. One old woman, possessed of an ancient horse pistol, is said to have shot down three of the enemy. The men, their women and children, were now cinders mixed with heaps of calcined brickbats. The grim lesson had been taught very thoroughly. Bazeilles served as an object-lesson on Prussian methods throughout the remainder of the War.
"I will remember Bazeilles!" had flashed through the young head that was swaddled in white woolen. "My friend shall not forget to tell me what was done there!"
But the imperious hand of the Minister was upon the door of the billiard room. She saw it summarily thrown open. He went in, followed by Hatzfeldt, Bismarck-Böhlen at their heels.
"Capital!" he said to them. "We will have this arranged as a Bureau for the Councilors, the dispatch secretaries, and the cipherers. What is this?" He went to the glass door that led into the winter garden, looked through, and commented: "One could smoke a cigar here after dinner in wet weather; very well, it seems to me!"
The owner of the quick ears sheltered by the shawl of white woolen understood but little German, as she had previously said to her absent comrade. But what slight lore she had in the abhorred tongue had been gained in conversation with a Prussian mistress. She found that, thanks to the enemy's clear, melodious diction, she had no great difficulty in comprehending the substance of what he said.
His long heavy strides carried him next into the drawing-room, that apartment destined to become famous in history as the seat of the various negotiations which led to the treaties with the States of South Germany, the proclamation of the King of Prussia as German Emperor, and later, to the surrender of the City of Paris, and the settlement of the Conditions of Peace. The simply furnished, medium-sized room boasted a few mediocre oil paintings, a cottage piano, a sofa, some easy-chairs, and wall mirrors framed in handsomely wrought ormolu. Upon a little table against the wall stood an old-world timepiece, surmounted by a bronze figure with fiendish attributes, which engaged his attention curiously. His great laugh burst out, as he contemplated the grotesque.
"Now," he said, his voice still shaken by amusement, "if that malignant little demon be a model of the guardian spirit of the Famille Tessier, the Socialists and Ultramontane will be of opinion that I have come to the right shop!"
The young men laughed at the jest uproariously. He joined them, crushing down their lighter merriment with a mirthful giant's thunderous "Ha, ha!..." Then the double doors of the drawing-room opened. He came out with his followers into the hall place, demanding of little Madame Potier in fluent French whether gas was laid on in the rooms above:
"I think it probable, for you are a luxurious people in your habits, even down to thebourgeoisieand peasantry of France. At home, I am accustomed to go to bed with a candle, and blow it out when I get between the sheets. But here in Gallia I shall do as the Gauls!"
"There is gas in the bedrooms, Monseigneur!" shrilled White Shawl.
"So!" He looked down from his great height upon the speaker. She caught up a box of matches from the hall table and thrust it into Madame Potier's shaking hand....
"Go up quickly. Light the gas in the bedrooms. Monseigneur wishes to examine them all!" She added in her shrill voice: "They are in use at the moment, but can be vacated and got ready for the occupation of Monseigneur in something less than half an hour!" She broke off to shriek to the ascending Madame Potier.... "Quicker, Jeannette! Thou art always as slow as a tortoise!... But I come myself!..." And with a halting, shuffling gait which made Count Bismarck-Böhlen grin, and even the polished Hatzfeldt put up his eyeglass, she jerked across the beeswaxed parquet of the hall, and mounted the gray-and-red drugget-covered stairs.
What virtue lies in contrasts! When Juliette de Bayard walked, you learned what poetry could be in simple motion. Her skirts had a rhythmic swing and flow. Those little feet of hers made twenty steps to the stride of an ordinary English girl. At Mass, when folded in her white School veil, she advanced to the Communion rail to receive the Blessed Sacrament, she swam, she rocked as though upborne on waves of buoyant ether. Watching her, you would have said that thus Our Lady must have glided onward, bearing the gracious burden of her Divine Child.
This peacock-voiced creature who hid under a white shawl what the men who sneered at her dimly felt must be a countenance ugly to repulsiveness, had one shoulder thrust upward and forward, reaching nearly to the ear on that side.... A palpable curvature of the spine caused the curious gait, and possibly to this deformity might be attributed the voice that was so harsh, raucous, and torturing to the ear.
"Do not laugh.... It is pitiable rather than ridiculous," she heard her enemy say, in his own tongue.
Hot wrath, fulminating indignation, mingled in Juliette with the pride of the comedian who has made an effective exit.... To be pitied by him, and for a second time! That liquid flame that circulated through her veins, illuminated her brain in its every cell and convolution. By its lurid light she saw her own intention in all its ugliness. Was she to blame, who had fled from this her destiny? Had she sought for her vengeance? Of his own will had he not come, this world-shaking Colossus, to find his Fate waiting for him?
And Breagh. What of her promise to her comrade? The thought was a knife-keen stab compelling a shriek. She stifled it in the folds of the shawl, bent down her head, and with an exaggeration of the grotesque gait, scuttled upstairs with the agility of an escaping spider, provoking a guffaw from the Twopenny Roué, a laugh from the well-bred Hatzfeldt, even a deep chuckle from the Enemy. Let him laugh! As she fled from room to room, and the gas-jets leaped up flaring and shrieking under her small, fierce hand, like little Furies and Vengeances, and tell-tale articles of feminine attire and use were caught up and thrust into a small portmanteau, she bade him laugh as much as he would. As she opened a cupboard by the chimney-piece where Madame Tessier had kept medicine and cosmetics, and took from the shelf a flat-topped, wide-mouthed chemist's vial, and thrust it within her dress, deep into her bosom, she told herself that France should laugh before long!
Meanwhile, her enemy and France's waited, chatting in the hall at the foot of the stair. When she descended, he went up with Hatzfeldt and Bismarck-Böhlen, and made a brief inspection of the rooms. His own choice was made with the least delay possible. Opening from the square, skylighted landing at the head of the main staircase, was a room, some ten paces long and seven broad, lighted by one window on the right side of the main front, looking toward the stables, and commanding a view of the pleasance and shrubbery from two more windows in the eastward wall. This apartment, which was partly above the dining room, and had been occupied by Madame Charles Tessier, the Minister appropriated to his own use. A second room, communicating with this, and looking on the pleasance, and boasting also a glass window door leading out upon the iron bridge topping the conservatory on the south side, he set apart for Bismarck-Böhlen.
A somewhat better-furnished room looking upon the Rue de Provence would serve, as would the drawing-room upon the ground floor, for the reception of strangers and guests. Privy Councilor Abeken would occupy the bedroom next to this, also with an outlook upon the Rue de Provence. A tiny cell near the back stairs, only big enough to hold a bed, chest of drawers, and washstand, was set apart for Secretary Bolsing. Upon the second floor Dr. Busch or Privy Councilor Bucher would occupy the best bedroom, the two Prussian body servants from the Wilhelm-Strasse sleeping in the attic overhead. The two remaining chambers on the second floor—small, angular, ill-ventilated places—the women of the house were free to move into, and retain, if they desired. "Only in that case," said the masterful voice, "they must contribute their services toward keeping the house in order. Where I live, there must be no idlers. That is understood!"
Below in the hall, White Shawl and Madame Potier heard his strong laugh echoing amid the empty chambers and his heavy stride shaking the rafters above their heads.
"I am pleased with my room, though it has a window opening toward the stables, where the detachment of troops supplying the sentries will be quartered for the present, with my orderly and coachman and the two grooms. But common sights do not annoy me, any more than common noises, and there are two other windows overlooking the park. The trees in their autumn coloring will remind me of my own woodlands at home. Altogether the place has been chosen intelligently. A more roomy and better-furnished house might afford spiteful people an excuse to accuse the Chancellor of the Confederated States of luxury—the love of which has never been a besetting sin of mine. True, I must have a table supplied well, punctually, and generously.... That is always an understood thing. Asine qua non, in fact.... The King is quite aware of this.... I told him again yesterday, ... 'Sire, I must be fed properly if I am to make proper terms of peace!'"
His great laugh sounded again as he came trampling downstairs, bringing with him a masculine perfume of Russian leather and cigars of super-excellent quality. And Hatzfeldt was saying in his languid, well-bred accents:
"With Your Excellency's permission, I will now take leave of you—I must go and see the place where I am quartered. It is at No. 25, Avenue St. Cloud."
"So, then.... A pretty good distance from the Chancellor of the Confederation, should he require at some unusual hour the services of his First Secretary.... You will have to find the Count more convenient lodgings." The Minister turned to the Intendant General, who barked:
"At Your Excellency's honorable orders, the change shall be immediately made!"
"Oh, for Heaven's sake, not to-night!" expostulated Hatzfeldt, with graceful peevishness. "I am horribly done up with the heat and the dust we had on our way here. Why should the King have dragged us to Choissy-le-Roi, in order to see the troops? Cannot he see troops every hour of his existence? Ah, by the way! Did Your Excellency notice that at Villeneuve St. George the bridge of boats had been blown up?"
The Minister shrugged:
"Who can understand this destructive mania? It is a national disease peculiar to the French. Since the beginning of the war, they have destroyed bridges and railways to the tune of millions—for the sheer pleasure, one would suppose, of building them up again. Well, good night!" He held out his hand pleasantly to Hatzfeldt. "Good night to you, Herr Intendant General!"
The Intendant saluted stiffly and barked in his peculiar style:
"I wish a very good night to Your Excellency!" Then he clanked down the steps after Hatzfeldt and over the gravel walk to the front gate.
"I know what Count Paul has it in his mind to do," chuckled Bismarck-Böhlen, looking after them. "He will take a bath and dine at the Hôtel des Réservoirs."
"It would not be a bad plan to follow his example," said the Minister, "since some of the Foreign Officefourgonsmay be late in getting here. Unless Madame Tessier is prepared to supply us with a dinner upon the spur of the call?"
He added:
"Come, shut the hall door. I see they have already placed sentries. The grooms and Niederstedt will bring in the luggage by the back door and up the servants' staircase." He continued as Bismarck-Böhlen obeyed: "They are particular about such matters in French houses, where there is so much wax polishing of the floors and woodwork. Where are the women? ... There were two. Abonneand her mistress, the proprietress...." His powerful glance fell upon them standing near the doorway of the dining-room. He motioned them to enter, and followed them in.
"Madame Tessier!" he began, taking as by right the chair at the head of the long shining dinner table, upon which the tapestry cloth had not yet been replaced. He looked at White Shawl. The shrill voice cackled:
"Madame Tessier is in Belgium.... I am Madame Charles Tessier, the wife of Monsieur, her son!"
He said in his excellent French, laying on the table the flat white Cuirassier cap he had removed on entering:
"I congratulate M. Tessier! Can your servant cook, Madame?"
The shrill voice responded:
"Monseigneur must be judge of that when he has tried her dishes. She does her best—the excellent Jeannette! But if Monseigneur is to be served as befits his state and consequence ... I should prefer to cook for him myself!"
"So!" He leaned one elbow on the table, meditatively regarding the speaker, and the lambent blue flame of humor danced and flickered in his eyes: "Since we do not require you and your domestic to leave the house—only to confine yourselves to the two smaller bedrooms on the second floor—it may be as well that you should assist to a degree in the kitchen.... But for all that does not require women we have our servants—you understand? And thechefattached to the service of the Prussian Chancellery is extremely competent. He is—rather a personage in his way!"
Bismarck-Böhlen sniggered in his characteristic fashion.
White Shawl shrilled, gesticulating with a hand that resembled a claw:
"If your Prussian cooks better than I do—or even thechefof ourgredinof an Emperor, he may call me a Bonapartist and I will not slap his face!"
The Minister drew his well-shaped sunbrowned hand over his mustache, perhaps to hide a smile at the epithet. He asked with his powerful glance intent upon Madame Charles Tessier:
"So, then, you are not a lover of the Bonapartes? What is your party? Are you Republican or Monarchist?"
She shrieked with raucous energy:
"I am a patriot, and a citizeness of the French Republic! All my life I have execrated the Bonapartes. See you well—I do not love Prussians!... But you have humiliated and dethroned this sacred pig of a Napoleon.... And for that I could kiss the hand that received his sword!"
The person to whom the shrill tirade was addressed listened with imperturbability, although Bismarck-Böhlen, standing on the other side of the table, between the windows, involuntarily clapped his hands to his sorely sacrificed ears.
Now the Minister said in his suavest French accents:
"The hand was not mine, Madame, I beg to assure you, but that of the King of Prussia, who is hardly likely to pay us a visit here.... Should His Majesty elect to do so, your ambition may be partially gratified. You will see the monarch who has paid your Imperial bugbear so thoroughly well in his own coin."
Here Bismarck-Böhlen broke in.... "Excellency! ... talking of coin ... you told me to remind you of what happened the other day...."
"Ah, so I did!" said he. "It is a mere coincidence, but worth remembering.... Upon leaving the weaver's hovel, near the village of Donchery, outside which you and Leverstrom waited while I discussed the terms of the capitulation with Napoleon in a garret containing a table, a bed, and two rush-bottomed chairs, the French Emperor presented five pieces of gold to the weaver, which Leverstrom afterward told me he vainly endeavored to buy of the man. His stupidity or the weaver's, we will not say now which was the greater!... But the coins displayed in unbroken sequence—the portraits of five rulers of France. There was Napoleon I., imperially wreathed, on a fine fat piece of 1820; a Louis XVIII., inane and aristocratic; a Charles X., with the knob in his nose; a Louis Philippe, looking like a bourgeois, and Napoleon III., Emperor of Ready-Made Plebiscites...." He broke off to say: "And now, Madame, what news of this dinner? Can you supply it, or must we go elsewhere? Decide. I am always an economist of time!"
And the penetrating glance shaded by the shaggy eyebrows of the Minister questioned the meager peaked countenance of which merely a wedge showed between the curtaining folds of the white shawl.... Lover of good cheer as he was, he was perhaps asking himself whether a creature so mean and pinched-looking could set before him the nourishing, well-flavored, well-cooked dishes, calculated to restore energy to his giant's frame. She was studying the face revealed in the circle of light cast downward by the shaded lamps of the gasalier above the dinner table, half loathing, half fascinated by the tremendous personality now revealed.
How much the published portraits of the man lacked, she realized now, clearly. What mental and physical power, and force, and energy were indicated in the lines of the great domed skull and the astonishing frontal development. What audacious courage and ironic humor were in the regard of the full blue eyes that rested lightly upon her own insignificance.... What deeply cut, pugnacious nostrils he had; what a long stern upper lip the full gray mustache curtained! He had a cleft in his chin that reminded her of a friend she loved....
This last and the other characteristics of the visage that confronted her were fuel to her roaring furnace of hate. A baleful light blazed in the eyes she curtained from him. Her heart seemed a goblet brimmed with intoxicating, poisoned wine. And then a little thing tamed the snake in her. It drew in its quivering, forked tongue, covered the fangs that oozed with venom, lowered its hooded head, and sank down, palpitating among its cold and scaly coils.
With all its power, the profound weariness of his face had suddenly come home to and arrested her. He looked, as was indeed the fact, like a man who had not known a good night's rest for weeks. There were sagging pouches of exhaustion under the masterful eyes, and the lines about the forehead and mouth and jaws were deeply trenched with fatigue and anxiety. With pain, too, for he was suffering from facial neuralgia brought on by nervous strain and overexposure, and divers galls and blisters, the result of days spent in the saddle by an elderly heavy-weight. Now he yawned and leaned back in his creaking chair, and suddenly was no despot helmed with terrors, armed with power, mantled with ruthlessness, but a man fagged out, and tired and hungry, athirst for rest and the comforts of home.
He had a wife living, she knew, and sons serving in the Prussian Army. Perhaps he had a daughter who loved him, too.... Perhaps she was thinking of him ... praying for his return in safety.... Oh, God!... The dreadful thought was not to be tolerated.... It must be driven away ... banished from the mind, if one was to carry out the plan....
All these thoughts volted through the brain under the white shawl in the passing of an instant. The next, she heard the shrill voice say:
"It is for Monseigneur to decide!... There is no difficulty about dinner—that is, provided Monseigneur can eat a good soup of artichokes made with cream!..."
His startlingly blue eyes laughed. He acquiesced, seeming to snuff the air with his deeply cut nostrils.
"There is nothing better than puree of artichokes—provided it serves as the prelude to a solid, sustaining, and well-cooked meal."
White Shawl shrilled:
"There might follow a six-pound trout, boiled, with sauceà la Tartare.... One came in this afternoon, fresh to a miracle, a fish from the Gauche near Montreuil."
He said to Bismarck-Böhlen:
"The trout of the Cauche are capital eating ... especially those caught in the upper part of the stream, a mile below Parenty. What else, Madame?"
She proclaimed in the raucous voice that made Bismarck-Böhlen grimace and shudder:
"A dish of cutlets and aragoûtof partridges with little cabbages. It is now upon the fire, simmering in the casserole—I meant it for next day!"
Like the trout, it had been designed for P. C. Breagh's delectation.
She added:
"And there are a cold ham, a peach tart, and a jelly of Maraschino, and I could toss up a savory omelette to follow the sweet dishes. As for dessert ... we have pears and plums from the garden.... But, Monseigneur..." It was greed that made the woman's strange eyes glitter so intolerably—"I shall be well paid for the excellent food and all my trouble, shall I not, Monseigneur? ... In good French money—not in Prussian notes?"
Under the heavy mustache he showed his sound, even teeth in a laugh of enjoyment.
"In good French money. You have my promise. So—you do not like our Prussian notes?"
White Shawl screamed:
"They are good where they come from, it may be, Monseigneur!... But here—the people would as soon take dead leaves for pay!..."
He thrust his hand in his breeches pocket, pulled out a gold Napoleon, and threw it ringing on the shining table. Her eyes snapped. The little clawlike hand darted from the folds of the enveloping white shawl and pounced on the gold piece. She curtsied like an elder-pith puppet to the great figure sitting at the table head, and with the extraordinary gait that combined a hitch, twist, and shuffle, hobbled out of the room, shrilling as the door closed behind her:
"Jeannette! Jeannette! Monseigneur will dine here! Make you up the kitchen fire! I will go myself to the cellar and get the fruit.... And the wine ... Monseigneur will certainly require some wine! Later on you must help me get ready the bedrooms. Put out sheets and pillow cases to air!"
Bismarck-Böhlen was saying, as he followed his great relative into the drawing-room, and extended himself upon the green plush sofa, as the Minister selected the largest armchair, and lighted one of his huge cigars:
"What a woman! What a voice!"
The other laughed through the fragrant smoke rings:
"You could say no more and no less of an operaticdiva, had you recently fallen a victim to her charms. My landlady pleases me. My tastes, as you know, are somewhat peculiar.... But you need not feel anxious on the Countess's behalf. My sentiments in this instance are highly platonic." He added, smoking and speaking almost dreamily: "If in cookery Madame's performance equals her promise, what with trout, and partridgesaux petit choux—cold ham to fall back on, and a savory omelette, we ought not to do badly at all!... With half a dozen bottles of that champagne we brought from Rheims, and a little of the Epernay..."
He added, yawning and stretching his great limbs: "I am not usually poetical, but I have a fancy with regard to the deep blue, green-fleshed grapes of the country, that their color affects the river into which the hillside vineyards drain. The Marne water is as brilliant and green as though it were made of melted emeralds. And the must from those grapes yields the best champagne of Rheims and Epernay...." He yawned again and went on: "There is something in surroundings! In this house I feel that I can work comfortably. The view of old trees, and bushes and flower beds from the room I have chosen as a bedroom and study will make one feel almost at home. Two of my servants shall sleep upstairs in the attics—of which there are several, and my coachman Niederstedt—who was my porter at the Wilhelm Strasse, shall have a shakedown somewhere belowstairs. He is as strong as Goliath and as sharp as a needle. An unusual combination of qualities, because giants are supposed by little people to be dull-witted and easily taken in!"
He sent out a long column of fragrant blue vapor, and added, looking at the antique bronze clock surmounted by its grotesque bat-winged shape: "A fallacy, since I myself belong to the family of the Anakim. Do you observe that my landlady's familiar spirit appears to be winking at what I have just said?... Kobold or gnome, there is a family resemblance between his countenance and Madame's. I must get her to sell him to me, to carry home to Berlin."
P. C. Breagh had gone back to his bedroom at the gardener's cottage, under the garret where had slumbered the unlucky Jean Jacques Potier. The pet rabbits of the young man were even now in a hutch in the stable yard, and his striped house jacket and the green baize apron he used to wear when cleaning the Tessier silver hung on a hook in Madame Potier's closet, with the civil integuments of M. Potier, now deceased.
It was too early to go to bed. He pulled off jacket and waistcoat, filled and lighted the venerable briar root, and, sitting on his bed, re-perused by the light of his tallow candle a letter in headings, and bearing the date of September 23rd, which may be reproduced as written, here:
288 GREAT CORAM STREET, LONDON, W.C.
"MY DEAR YOUNG MAN!
I WAS SURPRISED AND GRATIFIED
To Receive Letters dated respectively July 28th, 31st, August 4th, 11th, 26th, Sept. 5th, 19th, from:
ONE WHO HAD VANISHEDSWALLOWED ALIVEBY THE ROARING WHIRLPOOL OF WAR.THEY ARE SLAP-UP AND NO MISTAKE!ROBUST TO BRUTALITY!THEY HAVE BEEN ACCEPTEDPUBLISHED AND PAID FOR!BY THREE SUBURBAN EDITORSSIMULTANEOUSLY.A NEW IDEALONG CHERISHEDBY SOLOMON KNEWBIT.A MAN BORN BEFORE HIS AGE!THE BOSS OF A FLEET ST. WEEKLYIS NOW NIBBLING AT'BANG!A DOG'S TALE.'I Have Recovered My Fifteen Shiners And HaveCash in HandFor My Young SwellWHEN HE COMES MARCHING HOME!MARIA SAYSYOU HAD BETTER LOOK SHARP!
AN IMPORTANT CLUEDISCOVERED!MYSTERY OF LOST FORTUNEABOUT TO BE CLEARED UP!ABSCONDING TRUSTEEHAS BEEN IDENTIFIED IN ECCENTRIC LODGERBY THE LANDLADY!PROOFS IN A SEALSKIN WAISTCOAT!BE READY!AT ANY MOMENT THE SUMMONS MAY COME!
I remain,My dear young man,Truly and faithfully yours,SOLOMON KNEWBIT."
At the bottom of the last page was written in a curious up-and-down handwriting:
"Dr mr Breagh,
"yu kno How mr Knewbit Has a Way of Puting Things queer but it Wold be Best For you To Come Home it Realy Wold. There Is a Pore Siner only Wating To maik Amens wich Is Mind must alwais Have Bean weak and People Puting There Afares in the Hands of sutch a Trustea Can ixpect Nothing but Truble, mr Chown of Furnival's Inn is To Be let kno If He Gives Warning to Leeve the House wich i think never will Drink being got Hold of him to sutch an xtent dear mr Breagh you have thought you were Pore. But your Fortune of 7,000 lbs was only took awai by the Almighty Goodness to Be Given back again, trust and beleive. I am Dr mr Breagh,
"Respectfully and afexnly"Maria Ling."
P. C. Breagh folded up the pregnant pages—owing to Mr. Knewbit's professional predilection for capitals and spacings, the double letter covered a good number—and put them away and began to think.
Would it not be best that Juliette should return to her husband in Belgium, since M. Tessier gave no sign of returning? And whether she agreed with the notion of leaving Versailles or not, was it wise of P. C. Breagh to stay?
He loved her. He would love her always. There were times when her eyes had tenderness in them for him. Those unforgettable days passed together ... those strange and dreadful sights seen in common, those perils mutually encountered had made a bond between them that might never be broken now.
But was it wise to remain near her, breathing her atmosphere, drinking in her rare, delicate, exquisite beauty, and growing more besotted in his worship of it with every day? He knew that it was not. By the anguish the mere thought of leaving her cost him, he realized how deeply the love of Juliette Tessier had taken root in his heart.
His nature, as simple as hers was complex, made it easy to hold her blameless in all. She had not led him on. They had been flung together by force of circumstances. That there was something guileful in her very guilelessness never suggested itself to Breagh.
The gate bell pealed as he sat ruminating, causing him nearly to leap out of his skin. That M. Tessier had returned was the possibility that instantly suggested itself. He knelt by the window of the low-ceiled cottage chamber and leaned out into the deepening dusk.
German voices at the gate, the stamping of horses, and the clinking of bridles.... The grinding of heavy boots on gravel, the jingle of spurs and the sound of scabbards scraping against the ground, rapping against the steps. A pause and a voice he knew said clearly and resonantly:
"The Herr Intendant General may spare himself the trouble. I will interview the people of the house myself!"
A loud voice barked out something unintelligible to the listener, ending with "insolence." The voice of the Man of Iron returned:
"In that case, my Excellency will take the risk. There are only women in the house, and, should they offer violence, I have Count Hatzfeldt and Count Bismarck-Böhlen here."
If there were any further words, the listener missed them, so deafeningly loud was the drumming of the blood in his ears.... The door was opened. There was a gleam of something white in the dusky hail place. AndHeentered and the other men followed him.... What did they there? What was it best to do?...
Now one by one the upper rooms were illuminated. The house door was opening. Two men came out and descended the steps. One who walked lightly and hummed a tune between the whiffs of his cigar passed away, still humming, toward the Avenue St. Cloud. The second who trailed a clanking sword gave harsh-voiced orders in the staccato tone of Prussian military authority to some persons in the street outside, mounted a charger held by an orderly, and rode jingling away toward the Boulevard de la Reine. His helmet and his orderly's could be seen bobbing over the top of the wall that screened the Tessier house from the Rue de Provence, and the dark silhouettes of the heads and bodies of men who crowded the double box seats of two private luggage vans that waited beyond theporte cochèreunder an escort of cavalry. No doubt they werefourgonssacred to the traveling Foreign Office of the Minister, bearing, besides the material of diplomatic labor, a working staff of Chancery clerks. Other vehicles were waiting, and videttes of cavalry were posted at each end of the quiet street. The trampling of their horses could be heard distinctly, with certain gruff admonitions, presumably addressed to pedestrians desirous of using the thoroughfare.
Now the leaves of theporte cochèrewere being opened and hooked back by the dusky silhouettes of a couple of men. Liveried grooms, because of stray gleams of light flashed back from buttons and cockades. Light thrown by the blazing yellow lamps of a large, empty, traveling landau that rolled in under the lozenged archway, at the heels of a splendid pair. The horses smelt of dust and sweat, and whinnied as they whiffed the stables. They were driven by a huge coachman, and a second carriage followed, piled with luggage, and containing three persons, who might have been secretaries or body servants, one could not decide. Four led horses followed, guided by orderlies of Cuirassiers. These did not follow the carriages, as they turned up the short avenue and pulled up at the hall door. The orderlies, quite as though they knew the place, rode down the longer gravel drive that ended at the gates of the stable yard. One trooper got down and opened the gates, and the eager horses were conducted in.
Tramp, tramp, tramp!...
A detachment of infantry, marching down the Rue de Provence. Turning in under the archway of the carriage entrance, an eighth company belonging to a regiment impossible to specify, because of the enfolding, deepening dusk. They also smelt hot and dusty and tallowy. A subaltern was in command of them, and an under officer. They halted, marked time while they posted a sentry at each of the gates, then tramped on toward the gardener's cottage, and turned into the Tessier stable yard. They were going to bivouac there. It was all clear and plain and simple. It was as fascinating as a shadow play—but for the tragic element that mingled in. Now the servants and grooms were unloading the luggage from the carriages and marvelously deft and noiseless they seemed at the work. A little later—and both carriages turned from the house, and were driven into the stable yard. You could hear the grooms and the big coachman hissing as they unharnessed the weary horses, and the horses snorting recognition as they scented their stable mates. And then P. C. Breagh became aware that the venerable pair of ponies that drew Madame Tessier's basket carriage were not to be permitted to remain in their comfortable loose boxes.... He could hear the elderly man who groomed and fed and exercised the ponies vainly protesting at the summary eviction of his charges, and the officer who commanded the detachment of infantry—Green Rifles, as it turned out—answering his complaints:
"Find the beasts another stable, and the rent and forage will be paid for. But remember!—if you grumble, His Excellency will have you shot!"
And the ponies were led away in search of new quarters, as the Foreign Officefourgon, with its escort of Uhlans, ground over the trampled gravel and pulled up at the terrace steps. One could hear the voice of Madame Potier and the creaking of the Venetian shutters. Then the billiard-room windows threw broad stripes of light across the terrace toward the wall. They were going to carry in the dispatch boxes and light traveling safes, the copying presses and letter books and the rest of the Foreign Office impedimenta by way of the long windows.... One guessed whose idea that had been.
A dominating, transforming spirit had invaded the quiet house in the Rue de Provence, bringing with it this purposeful, orderly bustle, this disciplined irruption of elements strange and new.
Of all these servants and attendants, some would certainly take up their abode at the gardener's cottage. Would P. C. Breagh, like the Tessier ponies, be presently turned out to seek cover elsewhere?
And Juliette.... The thought of her roused all his stinging apprehensions. He told himself that presently, when the house should have resumed something of its normal quiet, he would steal across the lawn in the shadow of the trees and borders, and lie in wait for a glance ... for a word....
He would force her to leave at once for Belgium. She must not remain in the house with all these men.... The time crept by with maddening slowness as he waited. Dark shadows moved in lighted rooms, passing across the blinded windows.... The whole house was flaring with gaslight now.
How long.... The slatted Venetian shutters of the dining-room were now unbarred and thrown open. He could not see into the room by reason that it faced east toward the pleasance, while the window from which he watched looked southward, immediately commanding the hall door. But broad beams of light were thrown down the steps and across the grass plot. Tall shadows moved across the streaks at intervals. There was the clatter of china, glass, and cutlery, a smell of cooking delectably savory. The Man of Iron was dining, and Hate had spread the board.
A shudder went through Breagh, and a cold perspiration bathed him. His hair seemed to rise and stiffen upon his creeping scalp. A sound broke from him ... perhaps a groan, perhaps an exclamation. There was a soft step in the darkness under his window and a whisper like a sigh.
"Monsieur Breagh.... Do not descend! It will be better that I mount the stairs to you!"
His first impulse was to reassume the discarded coat and waistcoat. Then he remembered that it was dark. The floor creaked under his stealthy footsteps as he reached the landing and crept on stockinged feet down the narrow stairway. She had pushed back the unlatched door and passed into the tiny passage. He met her almost on the threshold, felt for and seized her little hands. How feverishly hot they were! He pressed them as he whispered:
"I guessed what had happened!... I know who has come here!... For hours I have been waiting my chance to get a word alone with you. I was just coming when I heard you under the window!"
She whispered—and, although her hands burned in his, they trembled and her teeth chattered:
"Monseigneur de Bismarck desired to dine here. Every day one does not entertain a guest so noble. See you well! I have cooked for Monseigneur with my own hands a dinner worthy of—himself! He has devoured like an ogre the troutà la sauce Tartare, and the cutlets, and is now engaged upon aragoûtof partridges. When it is time to fry the savory omelette that follows, Madame Potier will ring the little bell, and I shall run back to the house."
The sentence ended in a stifled titter. An ugly sound that sickened Breagh as he heard it. He pressed the small hands, whispering entreatingly:
"Don't laugh! You must not laugh. Go back and get what you need for a journey. Tell Madame Potier I am taking you to Belgium. Back to your husband! ... your place is where he is! You shall not stay here ... you must not, I forbid you!..."
She ceased to laugh and pulled her hands away from his. Her answer came: an inflexible utterance to be breathed so softly:
"I remain here, Monsieur, until my husband comes!"
He panted the old prayer:
"Juliette, for the love of God...! You don't know what terrible danger you are risking!..."
The reply fanned past his cheek like the velvety wing of some great night moth:
"Monsieur, I remain here, until the arrival of M. Charles Tessier. Although you will do wisely to depart while you may—unseen!"
He said between his gritted teeth, while the pounding of his heart choked him:
"I shall stay here! ... I decline to be sent away!..."
She seemed to cogitate. Then came the mere breath of an utterance.
"Will you swear to be secret and faithful?"
He said hoarsely:
"Juliette, I must first know what you intend to do."
She whispered, and her voice set his blood rushing and the fragrance of her maddened him.
"Stoop!... Why are you so tall? Bend down your head!"
He stooped from his majestic altitude of five feet nine inches and a bittock, and two little hands that scorched him clasped his neck about. Light and soft as the touch of a flower was the contact of the mouth that whispered:
"I will tell you.... There is a line of one of your English poets—I forget his name—but the words run like this....
"'Throw but a stone—the giant dies!'
He gasped:
"I hear you!"
She whispered, still with her mouth against his cheek:
"See you well!—for the deliverance of my country, it is I who am going to throw that stone!"
He panted through the shuddering that had seized him:
"Do you know what will happen, whether you succeed or fail? You will be led out—placed with your back against—this wall perhaps—and shot!"
He felt her lips smile against his cheek as she answered:
"And what of that! It will be the fortune of War! But you..." She sharply drew her face away, and the slight hands thrust him from her. "I will have you leave this place to-night!"
A weakness seized him. He sank down upon his knees and stretched his arms out, in the darkness, to the dimly outlined silhouette of the slight elfin creature standing on the threshold, and the scents of rose and jasmine came to him in gusts from the night-veiled garden with another fragrance that had no name. He whispered, driven beyond himself:
"I will not go! I love you!"
She said:
"I have nothing to do with Love—who have consecrated myself to vengeance. And your presence here might ruin all.... He knows M. Breagh, the Englishman.... Have you not told me over and over that once he..."
She broke off there. But the intolerable stab brought Breagh to his feet. He snarled at her through his clenched teeth.
"He may know Breagh, the Englishman, but he doesn't know Jean Jacques Potier. Tell Madame that I shall wear her nephew's clothes and take his name, and do his work about the house and garden. All his duds are in the cupboard up in my room there, and his apron and clogs and so forth...."
Appalling triviality of the sex feminine. The conjured picture evoked a titter. She breathed, and he was stung with rage to know her shaken with irresistible mirth:
"But you do not know how to sweep and clean, and how can you conceal your very red and curly hair? French servant men have not such hair! You will be betrayed by it, Monsieur!..."
His blood boiled, and he thundered in a whisper:
"I shan't!... Call it what color you like to-night. It won't be there to-morrow! There are clippers in the cupboard, and I shall have it off."
A distant bell rang. She was gone like a bat in the darkness. His word was given. He was pledged now to follow her wherever fate should lead.
Versailles, always a town of martial music. Royal or Imperial fanfares of brass, and welcoming salutes of deep-voiced cannon, had been—since a day early in October, when the girdle of iron and steel had closed about Paris—resonant with Prussian bugle calls and throbbing with Prussian drums.
From dusk to dawn the electric search ray now mounted on the summit of the Arc de Triomphe, as the broad wheeling beams from Vanves, Issy, Mont Valérien, and the whole ring of forts that guarded the great, magnificent, menaced capital, whitened earth and sky in token of the unsleeping vigilance of the Parisians, and their ceaseless expectation of a German night attack, even as the long indicatory fingers of brilliant blue-white light, stretching from the ridge of St. Cloud and from the heights of Clamart, from Marly, Vanesse, Epinal, Noiseau, Choisy, and Bourget—no less than the formidable battery of big guns on the Place d'Armes, with their muzzles placed so as to sweep the avenues radiating from the Château—betokened the invaders' anticipations of yet another sortie.
Ah, why had there been no sortie earlier than that abortive effort toward Chevilly on the thirtieth of September? There were, at the beginning of the Investment, no more than 180,000 German troops of the Crown Prince's Army encircling Paris. Up to the tenth of October what a triumphant turning of the tables might have been effected by a vigorous sally, effectively carried out!
Huge German forces were engaged in the sieges of Metz and Strasburg, Belfort and Soissons, Schelsstadt and Verdun. General von der Tann was engaged with the Army of the Loire near Artenay. The stubborn resistance of Orleans kept an Army Corps of the Red Prince extremely busy. The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg, with the right wing of the Prussians' covering army south of Paris, was actively engaged with the French at Dreux and Le Mans.
And there were 55,000 troops of the Line within the walls of Paris; there were 105,000 Mobiles—not fighters to be sneezed at. There were 30,000 National Guards—perhaps too soft in muscle and well-developed in the region of the corporation to be very effective—pitted against such seasoned warriors as Schmidt, Klaus, Kraus, and Klein. But add to these, 25,000 Marines, Douaniers, Gardes-Champêtres and Forestiers, and there you had a force of 485,000 trained Frenchmen, asking nothing better than to sally out by St. Denis, Villejuif, and Charenton, cut the line of investment north, clear the blocked road south, effect a junction with the Army of the Loire, destroy the Warlock's subtlest combinations, promptly raise the Siege of Paris, and deliver France from the invader.
What was Trochu, Military Governor of Paris, thinking about? What were MM. Ducrot and Vinoy doing, to delay until the garrison and fortress of Strasburg were surrendered, until the Capitulation of Metz on the twenty-seventh of October, and the fall of Verdun on the seventh of November, had released the main Army of the Red Prince for the strengthening of that steel and iron girdle that lay outside the defiant ring of forts? The tentative sally of the twenty-ninth of November was foredoomed to failure from the outset. No wonder Trochu and his plans furnished hungry Parisians with abundant food for mockery, when the Specter of Famine brooded over the City on the Seine. Narrow-eyed and tight-lipped, cold, sinister, and mysterious, the man was a mere bag of wind, when all was said and done.
Meanwhile, the great bronze muzzle-loaders of the Forts of Mont Valérien, Issy, Montrouge, Vanves, and Charenton, St. Denis and its twin sisters, roared at intervals throughout each day, raining common shell, chain shot, solid ball, and shrapnel into the lines of the investing host. But the trenching and battery-making went on steadily; the high-walled farmyards and gardens of country houses in the environs were being converted into emplacements for artillery of the largest caliber. Already several of Krupp's stupendous siege-howitzers, with muzzles cocked at angles of forty-five, demonstrated the possibilities of the bombardment for which the German Press daily shrieked.
"Not for the reduction of the military defenses, but to produce by the exercise of sheer terror, bodily suffering, and destruction of private property, such an effect upon the unarmed multitudes—subjected to a hail of incendiary shells within their encircling ring of walls and fortresses—as to compel the chiefs of the Government and garrison to come to terms at command of the popular voice."
Thus the leader-writers of theBerliner Zeitungand other journals—peaceful-looking, stout men, with full beards and short-sighted eyes behind spectacles—wrote, as though they longed to dip their quills in newly shed French blood.
"It is sad, very sad," said the Warlock, vexed for once, "that the siege trains conveying more than 100,000 hundred-weights of ammunition cannot be brought over a single line of rails with sufficient quickness to gratify these excellent gentlemen.... Yet for the present we can do no more than invest the place and wait for the means of attacking it. The process of starving out is, as the mighty fortress of Metz has shown, a very slow one. But as the loud voices of one hundred and one guns have already proclaimed to our Berliners—the empty stomach triumphs over the most obstinate resistance. We now require an army to guard 300,000 prisoners of War! Since the Babylonian Captivity the world has not heard the like! And yet the chamber prattlers and the journalists accuse us of tardiness. Already from several anonymous quarters have reproachful or ridiculing letters reached me. One even contains a villainous comic verse, which I am told is sung in the music halls in Berlin."
And the great tactician read, with the expression of one who savors the bouquet of sulphureted hydrogen or asafetida:
"Guter Moltke, gehst so stumm?Immer um das Ding herum:Bester Moltke, sei nicht dumm,Mach' doch endlich: Bumm, bumm, bumm!"
And he tore up the rude verses in indignation and threw them into the waste-paper basket of the Prussian Great Headquarters at the Palais de Justice, on the right of the Prefecture, and strode downstairs, too much out of tune to hum.
To have been called slow and stupid, and affectionately urged to hurry up and make an end of things with bang, bang, banging!... He was almost glad that his departed Mary was not alive to know of the humiliation inflicted by these scurrilous rhymesters on her beloved old man.
It was an unfortunate moment chosen by a new junior assistantaide-de-campupon the Chieftain's personal staff, for tendering a request for leave of absence until the following day.
"What, what?... You have barely entered upon your new and important duties, the wine in which your comrades of the Guard pledged you is still bubbling in your veins.... Is it another congratulatory banquet, or a suppertête-à-tête... Am I right?" The Warlock's keen glance glittered between his lashless eyelids at the tall, fair-headed young officer standing rigidly before him. "Prut!that reminds me!..." he added. "In whose company did I see you lunching only yesterday at one of the little round tables in the ante-chamber of the dining salle at the Hôtel des Réservoirs?"
Said Valverden, his blue eyes meeting the sharp gray glance with a charming candor:
"Excellency, the lady is the recently married wife of a Roumanian noble. Her name, if Your Excellency desires to know it, is Madame de Straz."
Said the Field Marshal with an acute look and a dry intonation:
"In Berlin, not so long ago, she called herself something else!"
Valverden answered, with a conscious side glance at the twist of silver braid that marked his rank of Captain:
"Her first husband was killed in action with his regiment at Gravelotte. She is now legally married to M. de Straz."
Moltke took snuff and said laconically:
"She has not taken long in changing her state."
Valverden began, rather lamely:
"Madame had virtually been separated from M. de Bayard——"
Like a bayonet thrust came the retort:
"Since your Cousin Max ran away with her from Paris, fourteen years ago! The woman is an adventuress, whom you will be wise to avoid."
Valverden answered, with his disarming look of frankness:
"Your Excellency, I was applied to by the person you mention for advice in a matter of serious urgency. Madame de Straz has unhappily lost all trace of the whereabouts of her daughter, Mademoiselle de Bayard.... She has entreated me to solicit for her an audience with Your Excellency, in the hope that you might aid her to recover the young girl."
The War Eagle croaked, ruffling his feathers with indignation:
"Does the woman suppose that I have got the unfortunate young creature in my pocket? Or does she suspect you of knowing where she is to be found?"
Valverden said, hastily and flushing:
"Your Excellency, upon my honor, I have never seen the girl!"
The Warlock tucked away his snuff box and pointed the terrible withered finger at the left side of the young man's bosom, where hung upon a broad black, white-bordered ribbon a cross of dark metal, edged with a narrow line of silver, and bearing a crown and the letter "W." A terrible grating voice said, and with all his cool effrontery Valverden quailed at the words and the stern look that accompanied them:
"To you, young man, upon whom the Second Class of the Iron Cross has been conferred by the hand of your Crown Prince, for daring and gallantry upon the war field—no more I say than this: Do nothing to disgrace the wearer of that decoration—which should be sacred in your eyes...." He added: "The leave you ask is granted. Until twelve noon to-morrow, Captain von Herding will take your place."
And His Excellency the Field Marshal returned his aide-de-camp's salute and wheeled sharply, and had taken a couple of strides across the vestibule, when he halted to ask:
"This girl you speak of—how came she lost?..."
Said Valverden, hesitating slightly:
"According to Madame her mother, the ladies were on a visit to Rethel during the time when the Prince Imperial of the French was staying at the Prefecture. They had obtained an audience of the Prince.... Madame de Straz was prevented by illness from accompanying her daughter.... The young lady—Mademoiselle Juliette de Bayard—has never been seen since."
The lean neck and spare features of the greatest of strategists became suffused with indignant scarlet. He said:
"The mother is a trollop of the very first water. She took the girl to the Prefecture—why did she contrive an interview? She sends her up alone—she declares that she has never since seen her....Pfui!...The affair, in my nostrils, fairly stinks of vulgar intrigue. Have no more to do with it—though the unlucky girl is no doubt to be pitied.... I will speak to His Excellency, Count Bismarck, who has agents in Rethel."
And he steamed across the marble vestibule of the great hall of the Palais de Justice, crossed the Place des Tribunaux, and vanished into the Prefecture, over whose entrance hung the Hohenzollern banner and the Prussian standard, that was very soon to show a stripe of red beside the black and white....