Part 20

"Ah, yes, where was I? Th-this morning, the twelfth of July, the originals of these three telegrams, which are not in cipher, were sent from Sigmaringen by Prince Antony. The first, to Marshal Prim, at Madrid, withdraws his son from the candidacy. The second, to Olozaga, recapitulates the wording of this. The third, ostensibly addressed to the principal journals of Berlin and Germany, and to the German Submarine Telegraphic Agencies by order of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern, abandons all pretensions to the Spanish scepter, and restores to Spain her freedom of initiative."

Von Roon bellowed like a nine-inch siege gun:

"What May-madness has the confounded old billy-goat?"

The Chief of the Great General Staff put on his wig, and said, folding his lean arms upon his sunken chest:

"How has he at Paris managed to frighten the old man?"

The Chancellor said, fixing his full, powerful eyes upon the light ones twinkling through their wise old puckers:

"The mission of M. Straz, privately sent, upon the advice of the Duke de Gramont, by the Emperor of France to Sigmaringen (while Count Benedetti repairs to the King of Prussia at Ems, and a third emissary, Bartholdi, is sent to menace President Zorilla at Madrid)--the mission of M. Straz is to terrify the Prince and Princess with threats of the assassination of one, if not both their sons."

Commented Moltke, shrugging a shoulder:

"To work on the woman, always--if there is one! ... Badinguet's tactics are not new--but they are effective beyond doubt."

"Knave!" came from Roon, in a blurt of indignation

"Says Straz to Prince Antony of Hohenzollern--I give you the exact words;--'Highness, His Imperial Majesty the Emperor authorizes me to inform you that a group of Roumanian conspirators are plotting against the life of your elder son, Prince Charles von Hohenzollern--now Charles of Roumania. The threads of this plot being centered in Paris, it is in the Emperor's power to sever them--he will do so if Prince Leopold withdraws from the candidature,--he will not seek to deter the conspirators, should the Prince prove obstinate. Reflect in addition that Prince Leopold, as King of Spain, will have to contend against the plots of Alfonsists and Carlists--as against the intrigues of Montpensier and other aspirants to Isabella's vacated throne. He will not be summoned to reign--he will be called to a disaster. Death will sit beside him, under the Royal canopy.'"

The reader's muscular white hands drew another crackling sheet from the little roll of papers. He went on:

"The mother of the two young men was present--as was intended--when Straz delivered this message from the Emperor. Naturally the Princess brought her batteries to work upon the Prince and her younger son, who, though it is not admitted, was actually present. She has wept, implored, prayed, fainted, argued for forty-eight hours----"

The Field-Marshal muttered:

"Poor soul!"

And with his wrinkled hand he rubbed a glistening drop from his cheek, that was not perspiration. Von Roon snorted like a dyed old war-horse:

"Meanwhile, the Imperial Ambassador, Count Benedetti, will be setting forth the object of his mission to the King!"

Said the Chancellor, letting the words come out softly and distinctly,--and one would have expected so huge a man to roar after the fashion of giants, rather than to speak in such mellifluous tones:

"His instructions run thus: '_Say to the King that we have no secret motive, that we do not seek a pretext for war--and that we only ask to reach an honorable solution of a difficulty that was not created by us._'"

"It is honorable, then," said Von Moltke in a tone of childlike wonder, "to threaten to murder that old woman's two sons?"

"Meanwhile," said the mellifluous, pleasant voice of the Chancellor, "the Emperor and Marshal le Bœuf have sent Staff-Colonel Gresley to Algiers with secret orders to MacMahon to embark those troops from Africa which are most available for service on the Continent, and to warn the most distant regiments to be at Algiers on the 18th. The Generals of his Artillery and Engineers have been dispatched upon a plain-clothes confidential visit of inspection to the fortresses of the North-East, all leave has been stopped, and the commanders of brigades have apprised the staffs of the mobilization offices to dispatch the orders of recall of the reserves. This was put into effect on the 8th. Upon the same day the order was given to bring the Infantry regiments up to War strength by the creation of their Fourth Battalions, and General Blondeau, of the Administrative Branch of the War Department, has been authorized to exceed his credit by the sum of a million francs." He ended, showing his small, regular teeth, as he smiled agreeably upon his hearers: "The Tuileries system of Secret Intelligence is certainly excellent, but I do not think we are so badly served!"

"Badly served!" echoed Roon. "One would say not!"

"You must be served by the great devil himself and all his devilkins, Otto, my dear fellow!" said the Chief of the Great General Staff, with a merry chuckle, "to have all this dished up to you before it is cold! Well, well! Thanks be to the good God--we are not so far behind these French as we might be! No, no! not at all so far behind! ..."

He said this musingly, his startlingly limpid eyes almost hidden by the wrinkles and puckers, his long, humorous upper lip drawn down and set firmly on the lower one, as he cupped his sharp chin in the palm of one wrinkled hand, nursing the elbow appertaining to it in the palm of-the other hand.

"'So far behind,' do you say?" growled Von Roon. "_Sapperlot_! I should call it a day's march and a half-day's march ahead!"

"It may be--it may be!" said the Field-Marshal placidly. "God grant that it prove so!"

"You are as pious as the King to-night," said the Chancellor, laughing heartily. "And your God is the God of Battles, we all know!"

"Yes, yes, the Friend Above does not forget this old fellow!" said the Field-Marshal simply. "The thousand-ton Krupp gun--whose acquaintance the Parisians made at the Exposition of 1867,--has been waiting ever since to make upon them an impression of a different kind! Like the gun, I have _bided my time_, as the Scotch say. Neither the cannon nor myself will last for ever, but to worry is folly! ... Heaven will not let us rust upon the shelf!"

"'_Mensch ärgere Dich nicht_' is a good proverb," said the Chancellor, "not only for Your Excellency! Chained to my study-table all yesterday and this morning,--horribly handicapped by the absence of my First Secretary Abeken, who is doing duty with the King at Ems.--listening to reports, receiving showers of telegrams, dictating replies in answer to the appeals or expostulations of Foreign Ministers--sending instructions to Ambassadors, and drinking Mühlbrunnen water,--which must not be taken when one is vexed or worried, if one wants it not to play the very devil in one's inside, I chewed the cud of that proverb, '_Man, do not vex thyself!_' to keep myself from gnawing my tongue. That official international threat of Gramont, uttered in the session of the Corps Législatif of July 6th,--the filth hurled by the Paris Press--did not cost me a sleepless night. But that, after such insults, the King of Prussia should treat with Benedetti at Ems while the Prussian Foreign Minister remained at Varzin--stuck in my gizzard as though I had swallowed a prickle-burr. It was worse than Olmütz.... I saw nothing but resignation ahead of me!"

Von Roon agreed:

"To me also it seemed a slight not to the Foreign Minister alone--but to His Majesty's Government in your person."

The Field-Marshal added, his wrinkled face lengthening dourly:

"I may tell you--there being no ladies present!--the whole affair acted on me like unripe gooseberries, especially after reading that sentence in the _Gaulois_, written by a _gamin_ with a finger to his nose...."

Von Boon thundered:

"'_La Prusse cane_!' Only say black-dose, rather than sour gooseberries, and there you have the effect of the words on me!"

Said the Chancellor, with a twinkle of humor:

"They wrought upon myself as an emetocatharsis. For, repudiating the slight, and simultaneously expelling from my system the last remains of compunction, I decided then and there to hurry off from Varzin to Ems for the purpose of urging upon His Majesty the urgent necessity for summoning the Reichstag. The words I meant to use kept drumming in my skull--_We shall be traitors to ourselves if we do not accept this challenge. Without an instant's delay, we must mobilize!_"

Said Roon:

"Why not, when we are prepared to take measures for the safety of the Rhenish provinces? We can put Saarbrück in a state of defense in twenty-four hours, and Mainz in less than forty-eight. Is it not so, Herr General Field-Marshal?"

Von Moltke's dry, level voice returned quietly:

"My plan of invasion was drawn up in 1868. All my arrangements are made, as I have said. When His Majesty--when the Chancellor of the Confederation and Your Excellency give the signal--I go home to my quarters on the first floor of the south-east wing of the Great General Staff Department, and dispatch a telegraphic message of three words..." He began to laugh, rubbing his hands together. "Then--you will see whether I am ready! All I ask is Opportunity--like Krupp's thousand-tonner gun!"

XXVI

The Chancellor said, emptying another bumper of champagne:

"This morning the opportunity lay within grasp. So strongly convinced was I of this that as my phaeton passed through the village of Wussow, on the way to the station, 'War is Inevitable' seemed written on every house. The old clergyman stood before his parsonage door and greeted me with a hand-wave. My answer was the gesture of a thrust in _carte_ and _tierce_. For me the three words: 'War is Declared' replaced the lettering of the advertisement posters on the walls of the stations the special rushed through. Yet, though I had notified His Majesty of the advisability of summoning me to his assistance, I received, even as I stepped out of the train at the Stettin Station, a vacillating telegram from him, enjoining delay." He added, laughing: "Together with a message in cipher from our Prussian Ambassador at Paris, informing me that it has been given forth from the tribune of the Corps Législatif that had not Prince Leopold retreated from the Spanish candidature, to prevent the war with which the Emperor threatens us--the Government of Napoleon III. would have extorted a letter of apology from the King."

Roon could not speak. Said Moltke:

"The Gallic cock crows loudly! Such a letter would nicely recoup France for the humiliation of Sadowa."

"Did France succeed in extorting it," retorted the Chancellor, "but she has got to get it first!"

The forehead of Roon was black as thundercloud. He unhooked his collar, and wiped his congested face. The Field-Marshal thrust his hand under his wig perplexedly, saying:

"That His Majesty should continue to treat with Benedetti after all these insults and outrages.... It passes my understanding, I am fain to confess!"

"The Count himself would have no difficulty in reading the riddle," said the Chancellor, shrugging. "He is--according to his own conviction--a diplomat of the first water, a statesman of infinite finesse and irresistible persuasions. Yet he did not coax us into the Emperor's trap in 1867. Speaking of that, I have in my pocket something that will presently jump out of it, a testimony in his own handwriting that he is not quite so clever a fellow as he thinks!"

"To-day," boomed Roon, "I met Prince Gortchakoff. We were riding in the Unter den Linden when he stopped. He spoke of the King's age--the merest allusion in reference to a site he pointed out as being suitable for a statue. His Majesty was to be represented holding a wreath of laurel with the dates of 1864 and 1866 upon it. While emblematical figures of Peace, and the Genius of the Domestic Hearth, were shown disarming him of his helmet and sword."

"A sneer thoroughly merited," said the Chancellor, "by these days of hesitation!" He added: "The Genius of the Domestic Hearth is for the moment at Coblenz. However, wifely expostulations can be conveyed by telegram. Her Majesty's cry is, '_Remember Jena and Tilsit and avoid war, even at the cost of national dishonor!_' Should these entreaties of the Queen prevail, she will merit the reproof of Sir Walter Scott--I think it was Sir Walter Scott!--who addressed to his grayhound, Maida, who had torn up--unless I err?--the manuscript of a newly-completed novel. '_Poor thing! thou little knowest the injury thou hast done!_'"

"Women are less reasonable," declared Von Boon, "than bitches, to my mind!"

"Nay, nay!" said the Field-Marshal with sudden anger. "Maida was not a bitch, and I cannot agree with you! Great and noble female characters have been, and exist now--not only in the pages of history-books. It may be that Her Majesty is prejudiced--her influence has not always been favorable to the adoption of measures I would have counseled. But she is high-minded!--a great lady, and truly devoted as a wife. And with this ring upon my finger"--he held up his wrinkled left hand and showed the narrow band of gold--"it would ill become me to sit still and hear women likened to the unreasoning beasts that perish, when for all I know my beloved wife Mary is standing by my side!"

He drank a sip of wine, and continued more mildly:

"The good God took her to Himself twelve years ago, in the fullness of life and strength and English beauty!--while I, more than thirty years her senior, hang yet upon the tree. On the top of the hill at Crusau is her tomb, where one day I shall lie beside her. But before that day"--the brave old eyes snapped fire, and he wrinkled up his ancient eagle-beak as though he savored the fumes already--"it may be that I shall smell powder again!"

"Let us drink to that!" said the Chancellor. As they filled their glasses there came a peculiar, scratching knock on the door.

"Come in, Bucher!" cried the host harshly, and the summons was answered by one of His Excellency's Privy Councillors of Legation, a little, stooping old gentleman, with a large hooked nose and a grizzled mustache and whiskers, who was dressed in a chocolate-colored, single-breasted frock-coat, tightly fastened with gilt buttons, and who wore a black satin stock, with the tongue of the buckle sticking up among the locks at the back of his neck, and baggy black cloth trousers ending in the feet of a Prussian Lifeguard, encased in huge and shapeless cloth boots; these moved him noiselessly to the elbow of the Chancellor, to whom he whispered, handing him a card, large and square, and unmistakably feminine:

"And so, as Madame was urgent ... Your Excellency knows what women are!"

"Thanks to some early studies in femininity, I am credited," said the Chancellor, "with knowing a great deal too much about the sex. Where have you put Madame?"

Bucher answered, raising himself on his toes to approach his lips to the large, well-shaped ear; for even seated, the Chancellor overtopped him:

"In the gracious Countess's little red damask back drawing-room."

"It is doubtful, my good Bucher, whether--did she know how she was honored--the gracious Countess would welcome her visitor."

"Alas! Your Excellency!" pleaded the Councillor, "but Her Excellency does not know!--and the room contains nothing valuable. Only a few family pictures--no china, silver, or _bric-à-brac_. Nothing that it would be any use to steal!"

"Come, come!" expostulated the Minister, his blue eyes alight with cynical amusement, "you must not speak of Madame as though she were a house-thief. Our good Bucher," he went on, turning jestingly to his table companions, "sees little difference between a person who picks brains for pay, and sells the pickings, and another person who picks locks and steals silver vases and cups. Rather a reflection on the Diplomatic Service, now I think of it!"

"_Ach! Herr Gott!_" said the Councillor in alarm, "I cast no reflection, Your Excellency knows it! Only the woman is of light reputation----"

"And may be light-fingered into the bargain. Possibly--" said the Chancellor, "and all the better if she be so! We will risk my wife's family portraits in her vicinity until after dinner. Have coffee and liqueurs sent to her, and beg her to wait a while." He added, "Let them put cigarettes on the tray--I have no doubt she smokes tobacco. And as the smell will have passed off before my wife and daughter return from Varzin, neither of the ladies will ever know of the desecration of the red damask back drawing-room."

And as Bucher shuffled out of the room to execute his errand, his Chief rang the bell for the third course.

"By the way, Excellency," said the War Minister, as the demure servants out of livery removed the empty dishes: "that Frenchwoman of poor Max Valverden's is driving about Berlin."

"So!" commented the host, turning an inscrutable face upon the Minister. "She must find it very warm, and insufferably dull."

"She consoled herself," said Roon, "not long after Count Max's suicide."

"There," burst out the Field-Marshal, "was an incomprehensible catastrophe! That young man--who was military attaché at our Embassy in Paris until the return of the Allied Armies of Great Britain and France from the Crimea in 1856; and in 1866, ten years later, joined my staff in Austria as third _aide-de-camp_--I cannot understand it--he must have been demented!"

He unbuttoned the frock-coat, showing an unstarched, but scrupulously clean white shirt and vest of white nankeen, and taking a little silver snuff-box from his waistcoat pocket, laid it down carefully upon the tablecloth as he said:

"In '56 he brought his mistress from Paris with him--he was infatuated with her spirit and beauty. They said she was the wife of an officer in Grandguerrier's Division, who had served throughout the whole of the War in the Crimea."

"A _chef d'escadron_ of Mounted Chausseurs, who seems to have taken his wife's desertion philosophically," commented the Chancellor.

The Field-Marshal took a pinch of snuff, and gravely shook his head.

"Of that I know nothing, but there was no meeting. Max Valverden assured me, on his honor, that an opportunity for the challenge had been given. Otherwise the young Count could not have continued in our Prussian Army--one would naturally have been obliged to retire him." He sneezed and went on: "My personal acquaintance with Valverden began ten years later. He served me--excellently. One should always give due praise to the dead. But when he returned from Austria--then happened the tragedy, at Schönfeld in the Altenwald, where lies his patrimonial property, and where the lady waited. And--he shot himself, upon the very night of his return to her."

"Not," interposed the cool, level voice of the Chancellor, "not being expected until noon of the day following."

"Of that I know nothing," said Moltke, turning his ascetic hairless face full upon the speaker. "What I know is that an officer who faithfully served his country and whom I had recommended for distinction, at the earliest opportunity--died by his own hand! How the woman was left, I cannot tell you."

"Count Maximilian von Schön-Valverden had provided for Madame de Bayard when summoned upon active Service," said the Chancellor. "His family did not contest the will, and she is not badly off. Therefore," he added with a smile, "when she condescends to serve my Intelligence Department as a spy, you may suppose she does not do it too cheaply. I must refer to my perambulating ledger, Bucher, before I quote you the exact figures of the sum I am to hand her to-night. She is a true daughter of the horseleech, who cries '_Give, give, give!_' incessantly. But all the same I am indebted to her for those remarkably interesting particulars concerning the Mission of M. de Straz to Prince Antony."

"So!" ejaculated Von Roon in astonishment. The Field-Marshal rubbed his chin and turned his clear eyes upon the speaker, who went on smilingly:

"M. de Straz is susceptible--a fatal fault in a conspirator. Madame is still seductive, with a figure like Circe, ropes of black silk hair, a skin of cream, though the roses are bought ones! and eyes the color--exactly the color of old, pale tawny port. Now, when you reflect that she is waiting in my wife's red boudoir to interview me in my next spare moment--do you fear for my hitherto unassailable virtue, or regard me as proof against such charms?"

"I never bet more," said Moltke, "than half a pfennig, and then only when I play cards with my niece."

"I will wager you proof," cried Roon, "for two hundred thalers!"

"I can hardly bet upon my own marital infidelity!" said the Chancellor, laughing, as a servant uncovered the dish newly placed before him. "Will Your Excellency take some of this?"

"This" was the savory _pièce de resistance_ of the masculine banquet, a lamb of six weeks, roasted to a golden brown, basted with marrow, and surrounded with tiny cucumbers stuffed with seasoning.

Moltke accepted the offer with alacrity, indifferent to the charms of veal with tomatoes and aubergines. Von Roon, declining, hurled himself upon a fillet of beef _jardinière_, and hacked a huge steak from its surface as with a sword, rather than a carving-knife. The Chancellor, plying his gleaming weapons delicately, liberally supplied his guest and piled his own plate, saying as he launched himself upon its contents with unabated appetite:

"Confederations may disappoint us--Kings may deceive us--while our teeth and our digestions faithfully serve us, we can find some zest in life. When I retire, I shall cultivate vegetables, plant forest-trees, rear trout, breed cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry--drop my hereditary patronymic as I shed my titles of office and be known to all posterity as the Farmer of Varzin!"

The hall-bell had been heard to ring a moment previously. There was another scratching signal on the door, and Bucher appeared, manifestly excited and carrying a telegraphic dispatch.

"What now?" asked the Chancellor, finishing a mouthful.

"A telegram from Ems----" began the Councillor.

The imperious hand whipped it from between his pudgy fingers; the masterful voice demanded, as the envelope was rent open:

"The decipherer has not left?"

"Excellency, no!" twittered the Councillor, agitated by the portentous frown of his Chief, and by the grave faces of Moltke and Roon. The paper was thrust back to him with the curt order:

"Get this deciphered--do not delay!"

And as the Legation Councillor vanished, Bismarck said with a short laugh, bending his powerful regard on the gaunt, black stare of the War Minister:

"It is from the King, and will not please us. We may make up our minds beforehand to that. Yet I drink this glass to the honor of Prussia!" And filling his great bumper glass from a fresh bottle that had been placed at his elbow, he gulped down at least a pint of the creaming nectar of the Widow Clicquot, and his guests, in smaller measures, pledged the same toast. After that they sat in silence, the Chancellor alone continuing to eat with appetite--until the Councillor's big feet came shuffling back again.

"The copy, Excellency, 200 groups altogether," he began, "signed by the Herr Privy Councillor von Abeken, at His Majesty's command."