Part 17
Madame came to her rescue by proposing a visit to the billiard-room, built and appointed by the late M. Tessier to afford his son wholesome recreation at home. For otherwise, Madame explained, the young man might have been allured by the amusements to be found in the saloons of the Hôtel des Réservoirs and other brilliant and fashionable lounges, full of dissipated civilians and officers of every branch of the military and naval services. Clubs Madame regarded as gateways to eternal perdition. She dried another tear as she thanked Heaven that her beloved child did not belong to one. When possible, she added, Charles avoided restaurants. A congenital delicacy of constitution rendered over-seasoned dishes little less than poison to him; he habitually suffered from nettle-rash after the consumption of shellfish. Green salad was, upon this count, pernicious to his well-being. Nor should he ever be permitted to sleep without a nightcap, having been subject to earache from his youth.
The mental picture of Charles, suffering from an attack of nettle-rash and crowned with his protective nightcap, sent the listener's balance dipping toward hysteria. They were in the billiard-room, a pleasant, longish salle, with two high windows opening on the frontward terrace. The glass door stood open leading into the winter-garden: from whence came a smell of hot-water pipes, damp moss, and mold, with an added whiff of ferniness, and a suggestion of the cockroaches and mice that pervaded the place.
And then: "Thou seest, my sweet Juliette"--pray imagine Madame, indicating with a lifted mitten a gilt-framed square of canvas hanging between the two French windows--"a speaking portrait, painted but two years ago, of my--I should say, of our beloved Charles."
Obediently the eyes of Mademoiselle Bayard followed the direction of the pointing finger. The painter or the evil genius of Charles Tessier had induced him to sit for his portrait in the habiliments of the chase; thus in sporting checks of the chessboard pattern, with the addition of yellow leather leggings, gun pads, and a game bag, and holding between his knees a weapon which obviously embarrassed him, he was presented for the first time to the gaze of his future bride. Those eyes of Juliette's fastened on the canvas a single moment before their dusky lashes dropped. But in that moment Mademoiselle had classified Charles as belonging to the Order of Invertebrates; comprehended his profound insignificance, and realized that from the owner of a head so commonplace, eyes so round, and a nose so blunt, a mouth so lax, and cheeks so pink and chubby--possibly the artist had been liberal of carmine--nothing more of originality, decision, manly force, or power of will might be expected than is commonly demanded of the child's whirligig of stick and cardboard, as seen gyrating madly or spinning feebly under the impetus of its owner's breath.
It was impossible, Mademoiselle told herself, to detest a being so utterly devoid of character--a human pad of blotting paper--as uninteresting as a counting-house stool. One could only pity him, and hope for his mother's sake that sound business capacities were concealed behind that characterless forehead, topped with brown hair cut very short and standing upon end--and wonder at or congratulate Mademoiselle Clémence. Flamandes are generally big and muscular. One could only hope that she had taken Charles by his sloping shoulders and soundly shaken him when he had backed out of his proposal of marriage. Though possibly he had never spoken to the girl at all.
M. le Colonel found his daughter silent during their walk back to the Barracks. After a questioning eyeshot or so at the dainty little figure that moved so demurely beside him--abandoning the vain endeavor to read her mood from the droop of the pure eyelids, the chiseled lines of the exquisite profile--the father relapsed into his own sad thoughts. And then Juliette, stealing a glance at him, realized, with a pang, that his once luxuriant black curls were thinning in places, and already thickly sown with white hairs. The upright martial carriage was marred by a rounding of the shoulders--the stoop of a man upon whose back sits perched Black Care. The seams of the immaculately brushed frock-coat of civil ceremony were shiny in places--the rosette of red ribbon at the lapel was frayed and faded--the tiny medal tarnished and dull. Perhaps the mood of the wearer, be it hopeful or despondent, can affect the apparel, as the chameleon's wrinkled skin changes from the hue of dead bark to the vivid green of young leaves when sunlight touches it, and fades back to the neutral tint when the golden ray is withdrawn.
Juliette would not have thanked me for that analogy of the prehensile-tongued, long-tailed lizard. Inconstancy as described by the poets is typified by the chameleon, and her faith in the sincerity and truth of her Colonel was founded upon the living rock.
We know that she had, or thought she had, discovered why he dared not trust her to a husband whose career must lead him from her. "My blood," she had murmured to herself sorrowfully, "it must" (she meant unfaith) "be in my blood!" The reason for his desperate haste was all beyond her. It must be cruel, because it hurt him so.
That heart of hers was as great as she herself was tiny. Titania at need could love like a Titaness. And the blood of Antigone runs in the veins of living women even to this day, though the noble daughter of Œdipus died a virgin unspotted. When the fairy hand in the perfectly fitting gray glove crept under the Colonel's elbow, it gave, with the smile that accompanied it, a silent pledge of fidelity to the death. But oh, blind father, could you have seen her, in that inmost chamber of the heart where the most innocent maiden shrines the imaginary portrait of a lover--taking down the stately canvas bearing the presentment of a soldier-hero unknown, and hanging up in its place the picture of a mere Charles Tessier, your eyes, like those of the protagonist of the Greek drama, would have wept tears of blood.
That night a letter was penned to Monica in the small, delicately pointed handwriting that seemed appropriate to Juliette.
"To you, dear friend, who have exacted of me the pledge that I will write to you before all, a faithful description of the person of my future husband, I hasten to fulfill the vow. M. Charles Tessier has a fine head and a fine hand, my father praises his capacity for business and his skill at the billiard-table with equal fervor. Of his powers of conversation I have as yet not sufficient experience to afford you an opinion. In the presence of his mother he has been silent and reserved. His letters, however, are eloquently expressed and forcible. When I mention his letters, it should be explained that affairs have entailed upon him the necessity of a journey to Belgium, where he remains for the present, at the house of his partner, M. Basselôt. Thou wilt draw from this the correct conclusion that I am not yet married. Do not forget to pray for thy faithful
"JULIETTE."
"See you well, I am happy--content--I dream not of impossibilities. _J'ai pris mon parti_. I am sensible, me!"
In answer to a second letter from Monica received upon the ending of the month there came:
"Tell M. Breagh that I have received his message, so generously worded. Alas! the poor young girl had no intention of wounding a heart at once so courageous and so proud. His fellow-student is unjust to himself. Why term that 'brutality' which was merely honest _brusquerie_? Yet if he gave pain--and I do not deny it was so--he may rest assured he has been forgiven. Tell this to thy brother, from
"JULIETTE."
"M. Charles Tessier is still delayed by affairs in Belgium. I visit his mother nearly every day. An excellent housekeeper and cuisinière, she is charmed with my skill in cooking. For her and for my father, who dines with her frequently, I plan delightful little menus. They eat, and praise the dishes and cry--at least, Madame cries: '_Ah, Heaven! if my Charles were only here!_' In a letter which this morning's post brought me from the person mentioned, he dwells with that impassioned luxuriance of imagery, warmth of color and fullness of expression not denied to his sex, upon our approaching union. One cannot deny that it is pleasant to be the sole object in life of a young man so worthy and so amiable, and--ah, my dearest! were the sacrifice of a personal wish demanded of me, could I, _knowing what I_" (_scratched out_) "refuse to gratify the cherished desire of my dear father's heart? Each day that finds me by his side closes in deeper respect and love more ardent. Our Lord, Whose will it was to leave me motherless, decreed that in him I should find the tenderness of a father and that of a mother too.
"J. M. DE B."
For the delectation of those readers who are anxious to sample the luxuriant imagery, glowing color and plenitude of expression ascribed to the epistolary communication received by Mademoiselle de Bayard from M. Charles Tessier I append the letter referred to as above:
"BASSELÔT AND TESSIER, "WHOLESALE MERCHANTS. "WEAVERS AND DYERS OF WOOLEN FABRICS.
"MONS-SUR-TROOTLLE. "BELGIUM. "--th _January_, 1870.
"MADEMOISELLE,
"That I have been tardy in personally assuring you of my profound regard and unfaltering devotion you will pardon, knowing me detained in a foreign country in the interests of my business affairs.
"Assured that all that concerns my welfare will naturally possess for you the deepest interest, I hasten to inform you that jointly with my partner, M. Felix Basselôt, I have entered into a scheme to facilitate the manufacture of our woolen cloths and other textile fabrics by the purchase and installation of the most recently invented machines. Raw cloths are now subjected to perching, knotting, milling, washing, hydro-extracting, gigging, cutting, cropping, boiling, brushing and steaming processes of the latest invention, and we claim that the output of our manufactory will henceforth vie with the first qualities of goods advertised by the leading firms of Belgium, England and France.
"My mother's letters palpitate with your praises. What happiness, Mademoiselle, awaits the man who shall be privileged to confer upon such beauty, goodness, and amiability, the sacred name of wife. You will be interested to hear that for Saxonies, tweeds, merinos, and cashmeres for ladies' drapery our house maintains its old reputation, as well as for the heavier fabrics of masculine wear.
"Were I now at your side, how enchanting it would be to confide to you that we have struck out a bold and original line in dress-stuffs, dyed with the new agent called Aniline. It is extracted from coal-tar, and the magenta so much admired by our Parisian _mondaines_ is obtained from it, by treating the crude substances with the chloride of tin. From magenta we derive rosaniline, a dye as delicate yet as passionate as a lover's fondest wishes. In an experiment recently made in my presence I beheld a pure young girl immerse in a solution of this extraction containing a little ammonia, a spotless lily, when instantly the virginal blossom's whiteness was changed to the loveliest roseate hue.
"Thus, dear Mademoiselle, your soul, so chaste, so spotless, and so innocent, being plunged in the consecrated vat of marriage, will assume the glowing hue of Love. Bleu de Lyons with Violet Imperial, all the most fashionable shades of mauve and other colors can be obtained by methods equally simple, and with the addition of aldehyde and sulphuric acid, we secure a green of the most brilliant, and a yellow that enchains the eye. By a simple process these colors may be fortified to stand the test of washing, as firmly and unchangeably as the affection I am privileged to offer you; which is hallowed by the blessing of the best of mothers, and of a father noble as your own.
"Receive then, dear Mademoiselle, the tenderest assurances of devotion,
"From yours eternally, "CHARLES JOSEPH TESSIER."
Over this epistle, apparently begotten between a trade-circular and a polite letter-writer, Juliette had wept helpless tears of mirth. Reading it, one may conjure up a picture of the excellent Charles, spurred by the maternal threat of partial disinheritance to a desperate effort, bending over the paper in the throes of composition, diluting the ink with the sweat of a non-intellectual brow.
Also, one may suspect the anonymous heroine of the experiment with the lily to have been none other than Mademoiselle Clémence Basselôt, but the suspicion has not, to the present date, been verified.
XXIII
In the July of that year, while the gilding was yet untarnished upon France's brand-new Constitution--ratified by a _plebiscitum_ obtained after the usual methods, and recording seven millions of pinchbeck votes--while the Imperial Court of the Third Napoleon played at Arcadian pastorals under the mistletoe-draped oaks and spreading beeches of St. Cloud, the question of the Candidacy of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the vacant Throne of Spain appeared in the firmament of European politics (even as the voice of Lord Granville prophesied a lengthy period of unbroken fine weather)--and broke about the ears of the Power most concerned like a stinging shower of hail.
The Spanish crown upon the head of a Hohenzollern. Rather a Montpensier, intolerable as that would have been. True, the Almanach de Gotha had offered (to General Prim, President Zorilla, and the Cortes, assembled in solemn session) only the unwelcome alternative of the legal heir to the throne going begging; true, the Spanish people were very well satisfied with the idea of being ruled by a Catholic gentleman of Royal blood, suitable age, handsome person, and military experience, married to a Portuguese princess, and possessing two healthy sons.
But that a Prussian Prince, holding a commission in Prussia's Army, should be set up like a signpost of warning on France's southern frontier, as though to keep her in mind of what would happen in the event of another war on the Rhine--was, from the Gallic point of view, intolerable. "The security and the dignity of the French nation are endangered by this candidacy!" cried Jules Favre. According to M. Thiers, "the nominacy was not only an affront to the nation, but an enterprise adverse to its interests." Gambetta cried aloud that all Frenchmen must unite for a national war. Marshal Vaillant made a memorandum in his notebook. "_This signifies war, or something very like it!_" And at the Council of Ministers hastily summoned to St. Cloud on the morning of the sixth of July, the Emperor passed to the Duke de Gramont, his Foreign Minister, a penciled communication. "_Notify Prince Gortchakoff at Petersburg that if Prussia insists upon the accession of the Prince of Hohenzollern to the throne of Spain, it will mean war!_"
What haste to clutch at the _casus belli_. When the Ministers quitted the Imperial Council, and the Corps Législatif opened its session, long-continued applause greeted the declaration of Gramont from the tribune that a certain unnamed Third Power, by placing one of its Princes on the throne of Charles V., threatened to disturb the equilibrium of Europe, to imperil the material interests and endanger the honor of France. "If it be impossible to prevent this," ran the peroration, "strong in your support, Messieurs, we shall perform our duty without hesitation or faltering!" Here was an ultimatum that sounded the very note of war.
Do you hear the echo of the thunderous acclamations that attended the Foreign Minister to his seat, the clapping of hands, stamping of feet, roaring of lungs that have been dust for more than forty years, or are now on the point of dissolving into their native element? Naturally because the Right were defiant, the Left called their utterances bellicose. Had the Right manifested a disposition to turn the other cheek in Scriptural fashion, the Left would have passionately taunted this band of politicians with cowardice, lack of patriotism, indifference to the sacred cause of national freedom,--would have accused them of being traitors to their country, and Heaven knows what else.
The Press threw oil upon the roaring conflagration. Were this affront submitted to, cried the _Gaulois_, "there would not exist a woman in the world who would accept a Frenchman's arm!" The _Correspondant_ was "relieved to find that Frenchmen once more have become Frenchmen." The _Moniteur Universel_ was charmed to discover that the blame for this momentous conflict could never be attributed to the French Government. The _Figaro_ left off making a cockshy of the Imperial dignity, to admit that for once the Emperor's official mouthpiece had spoken the right word. And the _Débats_ praised the attitude taken by the Government. "Silence at this juncture would," it cried, "have been pusillanimous. Shall the nation be accused of bowing its head for the second time, before the cannon of Sadowa?"
Lord Granville, replacing the recently deceased Clarendon at Great Britain's Foreign Ministry, mentioned to the Spanish Ambassador to England that the choice of Prince Leopold would create a sore. He wrote to Layard at Berlin that he considered France had been given good cause of resentment. Lyons, in the shoes of Lord Cowley, at the English Embassy in Paris, wrote to his chief that the unhappy affair had revived all the old animosity, though it seemed to him that "neither the Emperor nor his Ministers really wish or expect war!" The _Times_ of July 8th was severe on the policy of Prussia; the _Standard_ for once expressed the same opinion as the _Times_. The _Daily Telegraph_ prophesied that the succession of the Prussian Prince would mean France's present humiliation and future peril. The _Pall Mall Gazette_ poked mordant fun at the attitude of unconsciousness assumed by King William, who, between sips of Ems water, declared his ignorance of the whole affair. The _Early Wire_, backing and filling, kept an even keel for a day or two. Then said Mr. Knewbit confidentially to P. C. Breagh, one midsummer evening, after the early supper:
"My opinion is we are a-going to give a leg-up to this 'ere 'O'enzollern business, our Chief being--when England, Home, and Duty permit him to indulge the weakness--a red-'ot admirer of a Certain Person at Berlin. Who"--Mr. Knewbit's wink was infinitely sagacious--"is said on the strict Q.T. to have put up Field-Marshal Prim and the Government at Madrid to making the proposal to the young gentleman. For the sake of giving a jolt-up to the elderly swell at the Tuileries. We all have our ideal 'eroes," Mr. Knewbit added, "and our Chief's partiality dates from his acting in an emergency as Special War Correspondent for his own paper, durin' the Prusso-Austrian War of 1866. It was at the Battle of----that name always beats me----"
"Königgratz, perhaps?" suggested Carolan.
"Königgratz--when this 'ere Bismarck spurs his big brown mare up to Colonel von Somebody to ask him why, seeing the 'eavy losses occurring in his neighborhood from Austrian Artillery--he didn't ride forward with his Cuirassiers to find out where the shells came from? Took our Chief's fancy uncommon, that did, as the iron sugar-plums was dropping freely in the neighborhood, and when he had rode on, swearing at the Colonel like anything you can imagine--the old man picked up a cigar-stump he'd pitched away, and keeps it to this hour in the pen-tray of the silver inkstand the Proprietors presented him with when he came home."
Said P. C. Breagh reflectively:
"It's the rule, invariably. Men love Bismarck or lampoon him--swear by him--or swear at him. He's the devil or a demigod--there's no alternative!"
"Good!" said Mr. Knewbit, leaning back in his Windsor chair, and rubbing the ear of the ginger Tom with the toe of one of his carpet slippers. "Tell us a bit more. Anything you can lay hold of. I want to see him stand out a bit clearer in my mind."
"He gets his name from the Wendish--I've read in the _Kleine Anekdotenbuch_," said P. C. Breagh, "that 'Bismarck' really means 'beware of the thorns.' And there's a golden sprig of blackberry-bramble among the family quarterings, so perhaps there's something in it, after all. An ancestor of his who lived in the sixteenth century was a tailor--and a natural son of Duke Philip of Hesse, by the way! Duke Philip was a lineal descendant of St. Elizabeth of Hungary--who in her turn was descended from the Emperor Charlemagne----"
"Lor' bless my soul!" said Mr. Knewbit, rubbing his knees.
"And he--this man you want to know about!--was born the younger son of a Pomeranian country squire, and entered the University of Göttingen in 1831. They say that he permitted study to interfere so little with the more serious business of amusement that the name of Mad Bismarck was given him then, and had stuck to him even when he passed his examination as Referendar, and began to practice law in the Municipal Court of Aix-la-Chapelle."
Mr. Knewbit, drinking in the information at every pore, nodded "_More_"--and P. C. Breagh obliged him:
"He served his year as Volunteer at Potsdam in the _Jägers_ of the Guard, and then went home to the paternal estate of Kneiphof, and began sowing wild oats--acres and acres of them. The officers of the garrison were a hard-drinking set of fellows, and the county Junkers scorned to be outdone by them--so they hunted and shot and danced and made love to the local beauties--they dined and supped and gambled and fought duels. In fact, they did all the things men usually do when they mean to have a high old time and don't care a damn for the consequences," said P. C. Breagh, "and when you regularly hail smiling morn with cold punch, beer, and corn-brandy, and wind up the night with quart-beakers of champagne and porter, the consequences must be----"
"A taut skin and a fiery eye next morning," interpolated Mr. Knewbit, "and a tongue like a foul oven-plate or a burned kettle-bottom. But--my stars!--what a constitution that man must have to be as hale and as hearty, and as upright as they say he is, at fifty-five, and with a family of grown-up sons! One wonders how his sweetheart ever had the courage to marry such a--such a Ring-tailed Roarer.... But Love's a thing you can't account for nohow."
"I have heard that the Fräulein Puttkammer's family objected to the engagement," said P. C. Breagh, "but he seems to have got over their prejudices in a way peculiarly his own. By betrothing himself privately to the Fräulein first, and then calling openly to inquire how the family felt about it," he added, in response to the interrogative hoist of Mr. Knewbit's eyebrows, "and taking the precaution, upon entering the room--to hug the young lady before all her friends."
"The hugging would settle the thing--in Germany?" asked Mr. Knewbit.
"To a dead certainty."
"Without any male cousin or anything of that kind getting up and calling the hugger out?" asked Mr. Knewbit dubiously.
"When a man is six feet two inches in height, is as strong as a bull, and possesses a well-earned reputation as a fencer and pistol-shot, even male cousins," returned P. C. Breagh, "are content to sit still and let him hug."
"And then he married her and went into politics--and to-day, when the Press says 'Prussia,' it means him!" cried Mr. Knewbit. "What our Chief likes, and what fetches me!--is his cool owdaciousness. If ever I chance to find myself in Berlin," he added, "before visiting any State Collection of Art Objects ever brought together--I'd choose to 'ave a look at that man!"
Said P. C. Breagh: