For Sceptre and Crown Volume II Part 70

"At your majesty's command. He waits in the anteroom."

At a sign from the king, Louis Schneider entered, with a large portfolio under his arm.

"Good morning, Schneider," cried the king. "Everything has returned to its accustomed order, and we can begin regular work. What is there in the way of literature? What have you got in that great portfolio?"

"Allow me first, your majesty, to offer you my most hearty congratulations on the successful termination of the war. Here, on the very spot," said Schneider, with emotion, "where I stood last time--that day when your majesty regarded the future so anxiously, and found yourself so completely without allies,--your majesty has again experienced that the King of Prussia is not weak when he stands alone!"

"If he has those two Allies who gave us our device," said the king, with a calm smile, "G.o.d and the Fatherland!"

He was silent for a moment. Schneider opened his portfolio.

"Well, what have you in the newspapers?" asked the king.

"Nothing, your majesty, but variations upon one theme--joy at our victories, grat.i.tude to our royal conqueror, his soldiers, and his ministers. The whole press is one great dithyrambus, expressing its emotions now majestically, now pathetically, now comically. But good advice to Prussia and the North-German Confederacy is not wanting. It is incredible how much didactic writing is produced on the future well-being of Germany. Would your majesty like an example?"

The king was silent, and looked thoughtfully before him.

"Schneider," he said, "how ungrateful men are!"

Schneider gazed at the king in amazement.

"Your majesty," he cried, "I cannot, alas! deny that ingrat.i.tude is a characteristic of the human race; but I thought the present time was really an exception, everyone is so anxious to express grat.i.tude to your majesty, to the generals."

"It is just at the present time," said the king gravely, "that I think the world, and Berlin especially, so very ungrateful. They thank me, in the most exaggerated words, my Fritz too, all my generals; but _One_ Man they forget, and yet that man had a great share in the success that G.o.d has given us."

Schneider still looked at the king enquiringly.

"No one thinks of my brother, the late king," said King William, in a voice that trembled slightly.

Deep emotion appeared on Schneider's animated face, a tear shone on his eyelashes.

"Yes, by G.o.d!" he cried, in his sonorous voice, "your majesty is right; we are ungrateful."

"How deep, how true," said the king, "was his devotion to Germany's greatness, and to Prussia's destiny; how much he did to strengthen the army, and to organize the government of Prussia, that she might be ready to fulfil her high calling. Prussia's future greatness was clear to his enlightened mind; and if the rough hand of revolution had not interfered in the carrying-out of his plans and views----"

The king paused suddenly, and pursued his thoughts in silence.

Schneider's eyes rested with warm affection upon the thoughtful features of his generous and simple-minded sovereign.

"If G.o.d has granted to us to pluck the fruit," continued the king, "yet ought we not to forget whose careful hand planted the tree and watered its roots in time of drought; truly he has not deserved it of us."

The king turned to his writing-table, and took up a sheet of paper.

"I have written down a few of my thoughts," said he with some hesitation, "but chiefly facts, as to what the late king did for Prussia, how he strengthened the army, and the nation, and laboured for the unity of Germany. I should like a leading article to be written from this and published in the 'Spener Gazette,' that all Berlin may read it. Will you see to this?"

He held out the paper to Schneider, who took it respectfully, his eyes resting on the king's face with admiration and surprise.

"I will attend to it at once,--does your majesty wish for an especial t.i.tle?"

"It must be made rather striking," said the king, "that every one may read it. Let it be called 'A Royal Brother,'" he added after a moment's thought; "if all forget him, his brother must not forget him."

"I will carry out your majesty's wishes at once," said Schneider, "and," he added with much emotion, "I shall henceforth look upon what has pa.s.sed to-day as the most beautiful incident of my life. The victor of Koniggratz amidst the rejoicing of his people places half his laurels on his brother's grave."

"It hurts me to find how little they thought of my brother in their rejoicings," said the king, with a gentle smile, "for I have only built upon the foundation he laid. Now go, and take care that the article appears shortly, we will do nothing else to-day. This you will do with your whole heart. I know your faithfulness to your late king."

He offered his hand to Schneider, but would not permit him to press it to his lips.

The king turned away and walked silently to his writing-table, and in silence Schneider left the cabinet.

Count Bismarck too had returned, and was devoting himself with resistless energy to the work before him of organizing and arranging the new state of affairs.

Late one evening the count again sat in his cabinet before his large writing-table, piled with papers, busily occupied in reading despatches, and in thinking over what was laid before him. There was a sharp knock at the door leading from the ante-room.

The count looked up. His confidant only would come in that manner.

"Come in!" he exclaimed. Baron von Keudell entered. The minister nodded to him with a smile.

"What brings you here, dear Keudell?" he asked, laying aside a paper which he had just looked through, "has anything happened?"

"Something decidedly strange has happened, your excellency, which I must at once impart to you. Monsieur Hansen is here, and has just been with me."

"Hansen, the Danish agitator?" asked Bismarck.

"The same," said Keudell, "only this time he is not the Danish agitator, but the French agent."

A cloud gathered on Count Bismarck's brow.

"What do they still want in Paris?" he cried. "Are they not yet satisfied? Benedetti must have understood me perfectly."

"I think they wish to make one more secret effort," said von Keudell.

"I beg you to hear Monsieur Hansen yourself, he is to a certain extent accredited by Drouyn de Lhuys, and he can really tell us much that it interests us to know."

"Drouyn de Lhuys is no longer minister," said Count Bismarck.

"He has resigned, certainly," replied Keudell, "and Lavalette is in his place until Moustier arrives, but his credentials prove that Hansen has something to propose, which is not to follow the usual course of diplomacy until it is known how we shall receive it."

"Well," said Bismarck, after a short pause, "why should I not hear him?

My mind, though, is made up as to all these proposals, direct or indirect. Where is Monsieur Hansen?"

"I brought him with me; he is waiting down stairs, and if your excellency desires----"

"Be so kind as to bring him here," said the minister; "I shall find you when I join the countess?"

Keudell bowed, a minute afterwards he took Monsieur Hansen to the cabinet and withdrew as soon as Bismarck had received the unimportant-looking little man with great cordiality, and had requested him to be seated at his writing-table.

The count's keen grey eyes rested enquiringly on the clever face of the Dane.

"Your excellency," said Hansen, "I thank you in the name of my country for your generosity to Denmark, after your complete success, expressed in Article V. of the peace stipulations."