Louisa of Prussia and Her Times Part 43

At length every thing was in readiness, and if they really wished to set out, it had to be done at once.

Roberjot and Jean Debry approached softly and with deep emotion their wives, who were kneeling and praying still, and raised them tenderly.

"Now be strong and courageous--be wives worthy of your husbands," they whispered. "Dry your tears and come! The carriages are waiting for us.

Come, come, France is waiting for us!"

"Or the grave!" muttered Bonnier, who accompanied the others to the courtyard where the carriages were standing.

The amba.s.sadors with their wives and attendants had finally taken seats in the carriages. Roberjot and his wife occupied the first carriage; Bonnier, the second; Jean Debry with his wife and daughters, the third; in the fourth, fifth, and sixth were the secretaries of legation, the clerks and servants of the amba.s.sadors.

The last coach-door was closed; a profound momentary silence succeeded the noise and turmoil that had prevailed up to this time. Then the loud, ringing voice of Roberjot asked from the first carriage, "All ready?"

"All ready!" was the reply from the other carriages.

"Then let us start," shouted Roberjot, and his carriage immediately commenced moving. The other five carriages followed slowly and heavily.

The night was chilly and dark. The sky was covered with heavy clouds.

Not the faintest trace of the moon, not a star was visible. In order that they might not lose their way, and see the bridge across the Rhine, a man, bearing a torch, had to precede the carriages. But the gale moved the flame so violently that it now seemed near going out, and then again flared up and cast a glare over the long procession of the carriages.

Then every thing once more became dark and gloomy and ominously still.

The torch-bearer, preceding the foremost carriage, vigorously marched ahead on the road. All at once it seemed to him as though black figures were emerging from both sides of the highway and softly flitting past him. But a.s.suredly he must have been mistaken; it could not have been any thing but the shadows of the trees standing on both sides of the road.

No, now he saw it again, quite plainly. The shadows were hors.e.m.e.n, softly riding along on both sides of the highway. He raised his torch and looked at the hors.e.m.e.n. There was quite a cavalcade of them.

Now they crossed the ditch and took position across the road, thus preventing the carriages from pa.s.sing on. The torch-bearer stood still and turned around in order to shout to the postilions to halt. But only an inarticulated, shrill cry escaped from his throat, for at the same moment two of the hors.e.m.e.n galloped up and struck at him with their flas.h.i.+ng swords. He parried the strokes with his torch, his only weapon, so that one of the swords did not hit him at all, while the other only slightly touched his shoulder.

"What is the matter?" shouted Roberjot, in an angry voice, from the first carriage.

The hors.e.m.e.n seized the arms of the torch-bearer and dragged him toward the carriage. "Light!" they shouted to him, and quite a squad of merry hors.e.m.e.n was now coming up behind them. When they dashed past the torch, the frightened torch-bearer was able to see their wild, bearded faces, their flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and the silver lace on their uniforms.

The torch betrayed the secret of the night, and caused the Sczekler hussars of Barbaczy's regiment to be recognized.

They now surrounded the first carriage, shouting furiously, and shattering the windows with their sabres.

"Minister Roberjot! Are you Minister Roberjot?" asked a dozen wild, howling voices.

Roberjot's grave and threatening face, illuminated by the glare of the torch, appeared immediately in the aperture of the window. "Yes, I am Roberjot," he said, loudly; "I am the amba.s.sador of France, and here is the pa.s.sport furnished me by the amba.s.sador of the Elector of Mentz."

He exhibited the paper, but the hussars took no notice of it; four vigorous arms dragged Roberjot from the carriage, and before he had time to stretch out his hand toward his pistols, the sabres of the hussars fell down upon his head and shoulders.

A terrible yell was heard, but it was not Roberjot who had uttered it; it was his wife, who appeared with pale and distorted features in the coach door, hastening to her beloved husband, to save him or to die with him.

But two stout arms kept her back--the arms of the valet de chambre who, perceiving that his master was hopelessly lost, wanted to protect at least his mistress from the murderous sabres of the hussars.

"Let me go, let me go; I will die with him!" she cried; but the faithful servant would not loosen his hold, and, unable to reach her husband, she had to witness his a.s.sa.s.sination by the hussars, who cut him with their sabres until he lay weltering in his gore.

"He is dead!" shrieked his wife, and her wail aroused Roberjot once more from his stupor. He opened his eyes and looked once more at his wife.

"Sauvez! sauvez!" he shouted, in a voice full of anguish. "Oh!--"

"What! not dead yet?" roared the hussars, and they struck him again.

Now he was dying. That loud, awful death-rattle was his last life-struggle. The valet de chambre in order to prevent her from hearing that awful sound, with his hands closed the ears of his mistress, who, petrified with horror, was looking at her dying husband.

But she did not hear it; she had fainted in the servant's arms. At this moment a heavy hand was laid on his shoulder, and the wild, bearded face of a hussar stared at him.

"Footman?" asked the hussar, in his broken Hungarian dialect. "Yes, footman!" said the valet de chambre, in broken German.

The hussar smilingly patted his shoulder, and, with his other hand, pulled the watch from his vest-pocket, kindly saying to him, "Footman, stay here. No harm will befall him!" He then bent forward, and with a quick grasp, tore the watch and chain from the neck of Roberjot's fainting wife.

His task was now accomplished, and he galloped to the second carriage, to which the other hussars had just dragged the torch-bearer, and which they had completely surrounded.

"Bonnier, alight!" howled the hussars, furiously--"Bonnier, alight!"

"Here I am!" said Bonnier, opening the coach door; "here--" They did not give him time to finish the sentence. They dragged him from the carriage, and struck him numerous blows amidst loud laughter and yells.

Bonnier did not defend himself; he did not parry a single one of their strokes; without uttering a cry or a groan, he sank to the ground. His dying lips only whispered a single word. That word was, "Victoria!"

The six hussars who crowded around him now stopped in their murderous work. They saw that Bonnier was dead--really dead--and that their task was accomplished. Now commenced the appropriation of the spoils, the reward that had been promised to them. Four of them rushed toward the carriage in order to search it and to take out all papers, valuables, and trunks; the two others searched and undressed the warm corpse of Bonnier with practised hands.

Then the six hussars rushed after their comrades toward the third carriage--toward Jean Debry. But the others had already outstripped them. They had dragged Debry, his wife, and his daughters from the carriage; they were robbing and searching the lady and the children, and cutting Jean Debry with their sabres.

He dropped to the ground; his respiration ceased, and a convulsive shudder pa.s.sed through the b.l.o.o.d.y figure, and then it lay cold and motionless in the road.

"Dead! dead!" shouted the hussars, triumphantly. "The three men are killed; now for the spoils! The carriages are ours, with every thing in them! Come, let us search the fourth carriage. We will kill no more; we will only seize the spoils!"

And all were shouting and exulting, "Ho for the spoils! for the spoils!

Every thing is ours!" And the wild crowd rushed forward, and Jean Debry lay motionless, a bleeding corpse by the side of the carriage.

Profound darkness enveloped the scene of horror and carnage. The torch had gone out; no human eye beheld the corpses with their gaping wounds.

The ladies had been taken into the carriages by their servants; the hussars were engaged in plundering the three remaining carriages, the inmates of which, however, forewarned in time by the shrieks and groans that had reached them from the scene of Roberjot's a.s.sa.s.sination, had left and fled across the marshy meadows to the wall of the castle garden. Climbing over it and hastening through the garden, they reached the city and spread everywhere the terrible tidings of the a.s.sa.s.sination of the amba.s.sadors.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

JEAN DEBRY.

As soon as the report of the dreadful occurrence had been circulated, a dense crowd gathered in the streets of Rastadt, and for the first time for two years the amba.s.sadors of all the German powers were animated by one and the same idea, and acting in concord and harmony. They repaired in a solemn procession to the Ettlinger gate, headed by Count Goertz and Baron Dohm; the others followed in pairs, Count Lehrbach, the Austrian amba.s.sador, being the only one who had not joined the procession.

But the guard at the gate refused to let them pa.s.s, and when they had finally succeeded, after long and tedious negotiations, in being permitted to leave the city, they were met outside of the gate by the Austrian Captain Burkhard and his hussars.

Count Goertz went to meet him with intrepid courage. "Did you hear that an infamous murder has been perpetrated on the French amba.s.sadors not far from the city?"

"I have heard of it," said the captain, shrugging his shoulders.

"And what steps have you taken in order to save the unfortunate victims, if possible?"

"I have sent an officer and two hussars for the purpose of ascertaining the particulars."