Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia Part 17

"I thank you," said Talleyrand, bowing. "Listen, then; the emperor has issued orders to arrest the Prince von Hatzfeld, and to have him tried by a court-martial."

"Impossible!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Duroc, turning pale. "The Prince von Hatzfeld has always been a zealous and warm adherent of France, and it was precisely on account of this that he was in high disfavor with the court party. The inhabitants of Berlin also reproach him with having prevented them from defending themselves, and with having intentionally failed to remove the arms from the a.r.s.enal. What, then, may he have done that he should be tried by a French court-martial?"

An imperceptible smile pa.s.sed over Talleyrand's astute features. "He has written a letter to the king," he said, "which, if need be, _may_ be construed as the letter of a traitor and spy, especially since an opportunity is desired to set an example, and to intimidate the haughty aristocracy, because they avoid coming hither and doing homage to the conqueror."

"If that be the intention," sighed Duroc, "the Prince von Hatzfeld is lost. The emperor will be inexorable."

"Is it necessary, then, to have some one put to death in order to frighten the others?" asked Talleyrand. "But you are right. The emperor will have no mercy. The court-martial will a.s.semble to-morrow."

"To-morrow!" said Duroc, sadly. "Oh, into what distress it will plunge the family! The young princess loves her husband pa.s.sionately; she expects to become a mother in a few months, and is to lose the father of her child before it sees the light!"

Again a smile overspread Talleyrand's face. He inclined closer to the grand marshal and placed his small, emaciated hand on Duroc's vigorous arm. "My friend," he said, in a low voice, "you must try to save the prince!"

"I?" asked Duroc, wonderingly.

Talleyrand nodded. "Yes, you! You have long known the family; you have, on your various missions to Berlin, been repeatedly at Hatzfeld's house, and, as a matter of course, the young princess in her distress and despair will apply to you for advice and a.s.sistance. You must procure her an interview with the emperor, and she will thus obtain an opportunity to implore his majesty on her knees to have mercy on her husband. The whole aristocracy, then, in her person will humbly kneel before the emperor, and they will all be pardoned in the person of the prince. My dear sir, you must at all events procure the princess an interview with Napoleon."

"But did you not tell me that the emperor was determined not to pardon the prince, and that the court-marital will a.s.semble to-morrow?"

"I did. I might have added that the emperor, when I begged him to have mercy on Hatzfeld, angrily rejected my application, and told me he would not permit any one to renew it. He was very emphatic about it. Even Duroc, he said, should not dare to conduct the princess to him, and thus enable her to implore his mercy."

"Well?" exclaimed Duroc.

"Well," said Talleyrand, composedly. "I believed I might conclude precisely from this peremptory order, that he wished to indicate to me that he was inclined to pardon the offender in this manner."

"What!" said Duroc, smiling, "the emperor orders us not to admit the Princess von Hatzfeld; he says he will not pardon the prince, and you conclude from all this that he will grant her an audience and the pardon of her husband?"

"Certainly," said Talleyrand. "What is language given us for, unless to veil our thoughts? Whenever I have to deal with sagacious and prominent men, I presume that their thoughts are just the reverse of what their words express. Only simpletons, and men of no position, say what they mean. Try it, by all means. Procure the princess an interview with the emperor, and leave the rest to her eloquence and beauty."

"But I cannot go to her and offer her my intercession. It would look as though the emperor had sent me; and if he then should pardon the prince, it would be generally believed to be a mere _coup de theatre_."

"You are right. We must avoid by all means letting the affair a.s.sume such a character," said Talleyrand, smiling. "If the princess really loves her husband, and if she really intends to save him, she will naturally first think of you; for you are acquainted with her and her family, and are known to be the emperor's intimate and influential friend. It will be but natural for her to invoke your intercession."

"If she does so, I will try, to the best of my power, to be useful to her, for I have spent many pleasant hours at the prince's house, and it would be agreeable to me to do her a favor. But I am afraid you are mistaken. The emperor never takes back his word, and if he has said that he will have no mercy, and not admit the princess, that will be the end of it, and all endeavors of mine will be in vain."

"Try it at least," said Talleyrand. "Perhaps you may accomplish your purpose. But you have no time to lose, for, as I have told you already, the court-martial is to a.s.semble to-morrow. What is to be done, must be done, therefore, in the course of to-day."

CHAPTER XII.

THE PRINCESS VON HATZFELD.

Grand-Marshal Duroc was pacing his room in great agitation. Evening was drawing nigh, and still he had not received any intelligence from the Princess von Hatzfeld. Yet her husband had been arrested in the course of the forenoon and taken to the palace, in one of the rooms of which he was locked up and kept under strict surveillance. The news of his arrest had spread rapidly through Berlin, and cast a gloom over the whole city.

Everywhere in the streets groups of pale and grave men were to be seen, who whispered to each other this latest dreadful event, and vented their anger in secret imprecations.

All were convinced that the Prince von Hatzfeld must die; every one felt it to be a new humiliation inflicted upon himself personally, that one of the most respected and distinguished men in Prussia was to be charged with felony, and tried as a common spy. No one doubted that the court-martial would pa.s.s sentence of death upon him; and that Napoleon would show no mercy, nor feel any compa.s.sion, could be read in his stern and melancholy air when, followed by his suite, he rode through the streets to Charlottenburg.

All the reproaches heretofore uttered against the Prince von Hatzfeld were forgotten; the people forgave his weakness, his cowardice, his predilection for France. At this hour, when he was menaced by the universal enemy and oppressor they only remembered that he was a German, and that the anger of the conqueror ought to make him a martyr of the German cause. They whispered to each other that Napoleon had selected the prince merely for the purpose of intimidating the opposition by an example of severity, and of frightening the royalists. "He is lost!"

they said, mournfully. "The emperor will not pardon him, for he intends to punish in the prince's person ourselves, who love the king and would like to send him information concerning the enemy and his armies."

"The Prince von Hatzfeld is lost!" said Duroc, also, as he was uneasily and sadly pacing his room. "Yes! This time Talleyrand, in spite of all his sagacity, has been mistaken. The emperor does not intend to pardon the prince, for he has selected Davoust, Rapp, and Clarke as members of the court-martial, and they have no mercy on those whom their master has accused. The princess does not think of coming to me and of invoking my intercession. And even if she did, I should not be able to a.s.sist her.

All my supplications would be in vain. The emperor has resolved on the prince's death from policy, not in auger; hence nothing can save him."

Just then the door opened, and the footman hastily entered. "Grand marshal," he said, "there is a veiled lady outside, who insists on seeing you. I have vainly requested her to give me her name; she will only mention it to your excellency, and--"

Duroc did not longer listen to him. He himself hastened into the anteroom, and, offering his arm to the lady, conducted her into his cabinet.

"Go down-stairs, Jean," he hurriedly said to his footman,"--down-stairs, hasten into the Palace Place, and when you see the emperor approaching in the distance, return and inform me of it."

Jean slipped out of the door, and Duroc locked it after him. "Well, madame," he then said, "speak! We are alone."

The lady hastily removed the veil from her face, and showed her beautiful, pale features bathed in tears.

"The Princess von Hatzfeld!" exclaimed Duroc, successfully feigning an air of great surprise.

"Yes, it is I," she said, breathlessly and with quivering lips. "I come to beseech you to a.s.sist me! You must do so--you must not desert me! My husband has been arrested! He is charged with having secretly informed the king of the operations of the French army. He is accused of being a spy. Oh, merciful Heaven! he will die, for the emperor is bent on having him executed; he desires to crush and ruin us all! Do you understand it is my husband?--he whom others charged with being a traitor to his country, because, in his generous exertions to avoid bloodshed, he always admonished the inhabitants to be patient and submissive--he is charged now with having betrayed the emperor, and is to be executed as a spy! They have dragged him from my side and taken him away. I fainted with grief and despair. Oh, I hoped--wished it were death that prostrated me! But G.o.d would not let me die; He preserved my life, that I might try to save my husband. The physician advised me to remain, and endeavor to take rest. Duroc, how can I take rest while the life of my beloved husband is in danger? I rose from my couch, for the thought flashed through my mind, 'Duroc will a.s.sist me in saving him!' And now I am here, and beseech you, have mercy on a wife's despair! Duroc, help me, so that I may save the prince! You have a kind and generous heart, and the emperor loves you! Implore him to have mercy on my husband! By all that is dear to you, I beseech you, beg for him!" And quite beside herself, pale and in tears, the young princess was about to kneel down before Duroc, but he quickly raised her up, and, bowing deeply, kissed her cold, trembling hands.

"I thank you, princess, for having thought of and believed in me," he said. "But I am afraid that your faith will be in vain."

"Pray for my husband," she said sobbing. "You see, I shall die if I lose him. Have pity on my youth, and on my unborn child! Implore the emperor to have mercy on the prince!"

"You believe the emperor would listen to me?" asked Duroc, sadly. "Then you do not know him; you do not know what he is when he is angry. I have been in more than twenty battles; bullets have hissed all around me; death was at my side, and I did not tremble, but I tremble when the emperor is angry. When I behold his marble face--his flashing eyes--when his voice resounds like the roll of thunder, I comprehend how women faint and flee. I myself feel then what I never felt in the battle-field--I feel fear!"

"Then you will not a.s.sist me!" exclaimed the princess, wringing her hands. "You will not do any thing for him? And yet he is innocent. My n.o.ble husband never committed the crime with which he is charged. He is no spy--no traitor--and yet he is to die! I have no friend, and the only man who I had hoped would aid me desert? me, because he is afraid of his master's frown!"

"No," said Duroc, "I do not desert you, I only tell you what the emperor is in his wrath; I only tell you that the tempestuous ocean is pleasant, and the thunder mild, compared with him in such a mood. However, I would gladly expose myself to it if I could be useful to you and to your husband. But it is a vain hope. The emperor would not listen to me; he would interrupt me, and order me to be silent. My intercession would irritate him even more, and, instead of delaying the terrible catastrophe, I should be likely to accelerate it."

"Well," exclaimed the princess, wringing her hands, "if you yourself dare not speak and beg for him, let _me_. I am not afraid of the emperor's anger, and when a woman clasps his knees and implores his mercy, he will at least listen, and his heart may be softened. I beseech you to grant me this favor--conduct me to the emperor! Let me implore him to pardon my husband!"

"You are right, it is perhaps the only way to save his life. Napoleon has a generous heart; your tears, perhaps, will touch him, for he cannot bear the sight of a weeping woman, and genuine grief always moves his heart. But just because he is conscious of his weakness, he will avoid seeing you, and give stringent orders not to admit any one. You must, at present forget your rank. You must not insist that the footmen announce you, and open the folding-doors, but you must make up your mind to appear, without any regard to etiquette, before the emperor, and oblige him to grant you an audience."

"Do you not see that I am nothing but a poor, unhappy woman, begging for mercy?" said the princess, with a melancholy smile. "Would I have come to you if I thought still of the rules of etiquette? Give me an opportunity to see the emperor, and, though it were in the open street, and thousands standing by, I should kneel down before him, and, like a beggar-woman, ask for the alms of his mercy--for my husband's life is in his hands!"

"Well, if such be your feelings, princess, I hope to be able to procure you access to him. We must act as generals do in the field, and try to outwit the enemy--we must deprive the emperor of the possibility of avoiding an audience. After his return from Charlottenburg and when once in his rooms, all will be in vain; he will admit no one, and close his ears against all supplications of mine. Hence you must meet him at the moment when he enters the palace. You must--"

A rapid knock at the door interrupted him, and Duroc hastened to open it. "Is it you, Jean?" he asked.

"Yes, M. Grand marshal, it is I," said the footman, "I come to inform your excellency that the emperor is just riding up the Linden with his suite. He will be here in a few minutes."

"All right. Go now, Jean."

"Let us go, too," said the princess, quickly approaching the door. "Give me your arm, M. Grand marshal; I am trembling so, I might sink down before appearing in the presence of the emperor!"

"Come, princess," said Duroc, compa.s.sionately, "lean firmly on me.

Heaven will give you strength, for you have a n.o.ble and fearless heart.