A German Pompadour Part 29

To oust the d.u.c.h.ess was impossible; therefore it was deemed sufficient that she should be deserted and apparently forgotten, and surely in time the Church would permit itself to be mollified, and if cajolery failed, the Gravenitz dreamed of using the well-worn threat of Roman conversion.

Meanwhile she was ruler of the land, and she thought it preposterous that in the State Church services her great name went unmentioned in the prayers to G.o.d for the salvation of Wirtemberg's ruler. The Duke was induced to intimate to Osiander his wish that the Landhofmeisterin should be prayed for when they interceded for himself. Osiander treated this request with contempt, and returned no answer. Then the matter rested for two years, and it seemed as though both the Duke and his mistress had forgotten it.

One day Osiander was summoned to Ludwigsburg. He could not refuse to obey the ruler of his country, and though he suspected the summons to be in truth from the Landhofmeisterin, it was signed and sealed by Eberhard Ludwig. So the Prelate rode to Ludwigsburg.

It was as he had feared, and he was conducted to her Excellency's reception room in the Corps de Logis. Bowing deeply, the page ushered the Prelate into the large apartment and retired, and Osiander found himself alone in the presence of the great Landhofmeisterin.

She came forward graciously and greeted the churchman with a profoundly reverential courtesy. He returned her salutation coldly and turned away his eyes, for her beauty was dazzling still, and he feared he might be influenced.

'I think, your Excellency,' he said quietly, 'I think his Highness the Duke wished to speak with me?'

'Monseigneur Osiander, I have ventured to request your presence concerning a matter which has been long in my thoughts,' she said in her most sonorous tones, and with that smile upon her lips which few could resist; but Osiander observed her coldly and gravely.

'I pray you be seated,' she continued, and pointed to a large red-cushioned chair, one which Zollern had brought from Rome, the typical dignified, high-backed chair of the Roman Cardinal. To Osiander its very shape was Papistical.

She flung herself down upon a gilt tabouret which stood near. It was much lower than the Prelate's seat, and he could not fail to look down into the deep decolletage of her bodice. He moved away a little, while a faint flush rose to his cheeks.

'I am listening, Excellency,' he said; 'but you will pardon me if I urge you to be brief, for I have much business to transact this afternoon.'

'Ah! Prelate, it is so difficult to be brief with those who do not comprehend!' She leaned towards him. 'I have ever--respected you, Monseigneur.'

The Prelate drew back from her. In his mind he repeated over and over again, as though the phrase were an incantation against some evil spirit: 'The Jezebel flatters me, the Jezebel flatters me,' but man, he could not remain insensible to the woman who thus appealed to him, though priest, he abhorred her. All her charm was in her eyes, her smile; there was a fragrance about her--an exhilaration.

'Madame, it were better if you respected G.o.d's laws,' he said sternly.

His severity seemed to him as a barrier which he raised between his human weakness and her evil fascination. She sprang up; actress that she was, she meant to convince this man by a grand and tragical scene. She knew him to be too simple, too unsubtle, to detect the art which lent power and pathos to her words. Besides, she was well in her role, it amused her.

'Ah! you priest of G.o.d! I appeal to you, not concerning the necessarily unjust laws of men, but concerning the law of G.o.d and Nature. See, it is no law of G.o.d's that I have transgressed. Remember, I am truly the wife of Serenissimus, blessed by prayer. My second marriage is nothing--merely a political arrangement. And my sin, what is it? I found a good man dragging out the days of his youth in sadness beside a woman who could not understand him--a woman only his wife in name. I gave my life to him, I am true to him. The law of man refuses me justice, but G.o.d does not, cannot; and I appeal to you, as G.o.d's representative on earth, to give me my spiritual right: to include me in your prayers.' She sank back upon the tabouret. The Prelate was astounded. The question of the Landhofmeisterin's being mentioned in the public prayers for the head of the State came back to him, but it was incredible, preposterous. No; this woman surely sought the grace of G.o.d. She was earnest, repentance had come to her. She desired his prayers. Thus well had Wilhelmine gauged the Prelate's character, his incapacity for detecting the play-actress in the pa.s.sionate, imploring woman.

The pastor of souls was softened immediately by the vision of rescuing this strayed spirit.

'My daughter,' he said solemnly, 'if you indeed desire my prayers, I will intercede daily for you. I shall pray that your heart shall be steadfast, pray for G.o.d's pardon for your evil life. But I ask you to combat temptation with all your strength. May Christ in His mercy help you.'

The emotion of his great earnestness rendered the good man's voice tremulous.

'I thank you, you are generous to me.' She reached him her hand, and he held it gently between both of his. 'But, Prelate,' she continued, 'is it not written in the Bible that when two or three are gathered together G.o.d will grant their requests? I would fain have prayer offered for me in church.'

The Prelate started; yet the demand seemed too outrageous. He could not credit that this sinner wished for a nation's prayers as though she were, in truth, the Duke's legal wife. No, no; she was a repentant sinner seeking the grace of G.o.d. Far be it from him, a sinner, to refuse his help.

'You mean, your Excellency, that you wish me to pray silently for you when the faithful are gathered together?' he said tentatively.

'No, I do not mean that,' she answered quickly; 'I wish a prayer to be said aloud for my salvation.'

The Prelate was overwhelmed.

'Surely you do not wish to make public confession of repentance before the congregation?' he questioned. The woman seemed mad to desire thus to proclaim her shame, and yet he was filled with reverence for the faith which could prompt so proud a being to humble herself in the eyes of all men.

'Monseigneur le Prelat Osiander,' she said after a pause, 'I am the Duke's wife before G.o.d, and it is my husband his Highness's command and mine, that my name should be included in the official prayer for the head of this Dukedom. I am ruler I would have you know.'

The preposterous demand was made, Osiander could no longer doubt. It was no repentant sinner with whom he dealt, but the all-powerful mistress who had but stooped for a moment to cajole him in the hope of gaining her aim, and who, finding him uncompromising, had resumed her imperious habit. The Prelate was aghast, indignant. He rose stiffly from his chair.

'Your Excellency cannot have considered this command, or even you, Madame, would not have dared to make it. The only prayer that can be said for you in church is that of intercession for the sinful.'

The Landhofmeisterin approached closely.

'Will you accede to my request? If not, you shall obey my order or it will be the worse for you.' She was beside herself with anger. She hated the word Sin; she always said it represented the bourgeois' criticism of the life of gentlemen.

'No, Excellency, I will not obey you. With my consent the pure service of the worship of G.o.d shall never be sullied with your name.' Osiander was the sterner, the more relentless, because of his momentary weakness and credulity.

'You are obliged to pray for me,' she retorted mockingly; 'each time you pet.i.tion Heaven for the health and happiness of the Duke, you pray for me! For me, do you hear? I am his health and his happiness.'

To Osiander this was rank blasphemy, and, good man though he was, he lost his temper.

'Indeed, Excellency, you say rightly. You are truly included in the prayers of the congregation, for each time we say "Lord, deliver us from evil," we pray for the end of your infamous reign.'

The Gravenitz laughed harshly. All traces of her softer mood, of her fascination, had gone past; she had become once more the cold, proud woman, the tyrant whose statue-like beauty seemed to the Wirtembergers to be some devil's mask of false outward fairness, covering a ma.s.s of inner corruption.

'Is this the only answer you have, Osiander?' she asked roughly.

'Yes, your Excellency, and if it were to be my last word on earth.'

The Gravenitz looked at him fixedly for a moment; after all, she rather admired his intrepidity.

'Your audience is at an end,' she said haughtily, and bowed slightly as though she were really some rightful sovereign dismissing a froward courtier.

The Prelate returned her salute equally slightly, and turning away with a sigh, he left her presence.

In later years the estimable man was wont to aver he had never been so near to insulting a woman, yet he would add:

'But she was great in her very wickedness! Surely she must have been one of the angels fallen from Heaven and apprenticed in h.e.l.l! for of a truth she was in evil as compared with ordinary sinners, what in holiness is a saint compared with ordinary good people. A wonderful woman, alas!'

Ah, Osiander, did she leave some clinging fragrance, some spark of her subtle charm, to tingle for ever through your pure, simple soul?

In 1716 the Erbprinz Friedrich Ludwig had espoused Henriette Marie of Brandenburg-Schwedt, a pretty and most correct Princess who possessed, among other graceful talents, a perfect genius for tasteful dressing. The marriage festivities had not taken place at Stuttgart, in order to avoid the obvious complications of the meeting of the bridegroom's parents. The Erbprinz hardly knew his father, for Eberhard Ludwig had permitted him to remain chiefly with the d.u.c.h.ess in Stuttgart. At least the unfortunate Johanna Elizabetha was granted the happiness of watching over her gentle, sickly son. The boy had led a dull life enough in deserted Stuttgart, and his natural apt.i.tude for music and study had thus found free scope.

Immediately after his marriage, however, he was commanded to reside at Ludwigsburg, where a fine suite of apartments was prepared for him and his bride.

Friedrich Ludwig protested that he desired to remain in Stuttgart, but the Landhofmeisterin willed it otherwise, and Serenissimus enforced her will.

Henriette Marie played her part in this difficult position with dignity and well-bred tact. She was perfectly correct in her demeanour towards the Landhofmeisterin, yet she kept her at a distance and gently reb.u.t.ted the mistress's friendly advances, and refused to notice her subsequent sneers. Twice during each week the Erbprincessin drove to Stuttgart to visit her unhappy mother-in-law, and she was careful to inform Serenissimus of every intended visit. 'Have I your Highness's permission to journey to Stuttgart?' and 'I thank your Highness, I shall start this afternoon.'

The Landhofmeisterin raged, but she was powerless against the Erbprincessin's quiet dignity and amiable, obstinate coldness. Then, too, Henriette Marie's wardrobe was a source of much annoyance to Wilhelmine; she feared the younger woman had finer gowns than she. In fine, it was the tragi-comedy of that painful jealousy of the woman approaching forty years for the youth of twenty summers.

The Erbprinz, however, could not resist the Landhofmeisterin's charm. She sang him to a very frenzy of delight; she a.s.sumed a tender, motherly anxiety over his delicate health--an anxiety which she made charmingly friendly; while she avoided the tiresome questions, the constant open observation, the galling reminders of his weakness in the presence of others, all that which poor, really tender, desperately anxious Johanna Elizabetha had done, wearying her son, shaming him with his physical delicacy.

The Erbprincessin bore a son in August 1718--a weakly child, the picture of his feeble father. The little life's flame flickered and shuddered through one bitter Wirtemberg winter, and in February 1719 pa.s.sed away into the best sleep the baby had ever known.

Here again the Landhofmeisterin triumphed over Johanna Elizabetha. She knew how to console the Erbprinz with words of hope, how to turn his thoughts away from the empty gilded cradle where had lain that frail little being whom poor Friedrich Ludwig had loved with all his gentle heart. Alas! Johanna Elizabetha was too sad herself to be able to cheer sorrow, and she invariably met her stricken son with floods of tears, doleful questionings, torrents of lamentations, and he went back to Ludwigsburg--and the Landhofmeisterin--for consolation.

Thus things were fairly smooth at Ludwigsburg, and to Johanna Elizabetha it seemed like some wonderful, illicit heaven where her husband revelled and whence she was shut out. She sometimes dreamed of breaking into this Elysium, of expelling the regnant devil and rescuing Eberhard Ludwig.