Louisa of Prussia and Her Times Part 79

"Sire, I venture to unite my prayers with those of Constant," said Duroc, urgently. "Sire, do not receive this lady!"

"Your majesty, permit me rather to arrest her immediately," exclaimed M.

de Vincennes.

Napoleon's flaming eyes glanced in succession smilingly at the three men. "Truly," he said, "on hearing you, one might almost believe this beautiful woman to be a mine, and that it was merely necessary to touch her in order to explode and be shattered! Rea.s.sure yourselves, I believe we will save our life this time. You have warned me, and I shall be on my guard. Not another word, no more prayers! My resolution is fixed; I will see this beautiful woman, and, moreover, alone!"

"Sire," exclaimed Constant, anxiously, "suppose this crazy woman should fire a pistol at your head at the moment when your majesty appears before her?"

"In that case the bullets would harmlessly glance off from me, or the pistol would miss fire," replied Napoleon, in a tone of firm conviction.

"Fate did not place me here to fall by the hands of an a.s.sa.s.sin! Go, gentlemen, and accept my thanks for your zeal and sympathy. M. de Vincennes, return to Vienna; I shall keep your papers here. Is Count Haugwitz still at your rooms, Duroc?"

"Yes, sire, we were just engaged in drawing up the several sections of the treaty, when M. de Vincennes sent for me."

"Return to the count, and you, Constant, go to M. von Brandt and count with him the minutes which his lady will pa.s.s in my company. I should not be surprised if he should earn a great many gold-pieces, for I do not intend dismissing the interesting belle so soon."

He nodded to them, and hastily crossing the room, pa.s.sed through the door which Constant opened. With rapid steps, and without any further hesitation, he walked across the two large reception-halls, and then opened the door of the small reception-room where the lady, as Constant had told him, was waiting for him.

He remained for a moment on the threshold, and his burning glances turned toward Marianne, who, as soon as she saw him coming in, had risen from the arm-chair in which she had been sitting.

"It is true," murmured Napoleon to himself, "she is really beautiful!"

He advanced a few steps; then, as if remembering only at this moment that he had left the door wide open, he turned around and closed it.

"I suppose you want to speak to me without witnesses?" he asked, approaching Marianne.

"Sire, the words of love and adoration fail too often in the presence of others," whispered Marianne, casting a flaming glance on him.

Napoleon smiled. "Well, why did you hesitate, then, just now to write the words of love and adoration between my shoulders?" he asked. "I turned my back to you intentionally; I wished to give you an opportunity for carrying out your heroic deed."

"What?" exclaimed Marianne, in terror, "has your majesty any doubts of my intentions?"

"No," said Napoleon, laughing, "I have no doubts whatever of your intentions; on the contrary, I am quite sure of them. I know that you have come hither to translate the Bible, the truth of which has been questioned so often, into reality. You intended to make of the chapter of Judith and Holofernes a tragedy of our times. But although you are as beautiful and seductive as Judith, I am no Holofernes, who allows himself to be ruled by his pa.s.sion, and forgets the dictates of prudence in the arms of a woman. I never was the slave of my pa.s.sions, madame, and it is not sufficient for a woman to be beautiful in order to win my heart; I must be able, too, to esteem her, and never should I be able to esteem a woman capable of loving the conqueror of her country. You see, therefore, that I am no Holofernes, and that I should not have opened my arms to you if I should have believed you to be a recreant daughter of your country. But I know that you are a patriot, and that alters the case: I know that I may esteem you; hence, I do not say that I cannot love you, for it is true, you are enchantingly beautiful."

"Sire," said Marianne, indignantly, "if you have only received me to insult and mortify me, pray permit me to withdraw!"

"No, I have received you because I wanted to give you good advice," said Napoleon, gravely; "I, therefore, pray you to remain. You must choose your servants more cautiously, madame; you must confide in them less and watch them better; for slavish souls are easily led astray, and money is a magnet they are unable to withstand. Your mistress of ceremonies is a traitress; beware of her!"

"Then she has slandered me?" asked Marianne, with quivering lips.

"No, she has only betrayed you," said Napoleon, smiling. "Even the diamond ring which you gave her as a souvenir did not touch her heart.

Do you yet remember what you said to her when you handed it to her?"

"Sire, how should I remember it?" asked Marianne.

"Well, I will repeat it to you," exclaimed Napoleon, unfolding the papers which M. de Vincennes had given to him, and which he had kept all the time rolled up in his hand. "Here it is. You said: 'I know you are a good and enthusiastic Austrian; like myself, you hate the tyrant who wants to subjugate us, and you will bless the hand which will order him to stop, and put an end to his victorious career.' Well, was it not so, madame?"

Marianne made no reply; her cheeks were pale, and her eyes stared at the emperor, who looked at her smilingly.

"A moment before you had concealed a flas.h.i.+ng object in your bosom,"

continued Napoleon. "That object which your mistress of ceremonies did not see distinctly was a dagger which you had bought this forenoon.

Shall I tell you where?"--He glanced again at the papers, and then said: "You bought this dagger in a gun store on the Kohlmarkt, and paid four ducats for it. You have now got this dagger with you; truly, it occupies an enviable hiding-place, and I might be jealous of it. Why do you not draw it forth and carry out your purpose? Do you really believe what so many fools have said about me, viz, that I was in the habit of wearing a coat-of-mail? I pledge you my imperial word, my breast is unprotected, and a dagger will meet with no resistance provided it is able to reach my breast. Just try it!"

Marianne, who, while the emperor was speaking, had dropped on a chair as if stupefied, now rose impetuously. "Sire," she said, proudly, "it is enough. Your officers doubtless await me in the adjoining room, in order to arrest me like a criminal. Permit me to go thither and surrender to them."

She was about turning toward the door, but Napoleon seized her hand and kept her back. "Oh, no," he said, "our interview is not yet over; it has scarcely lasted fifteen minutes, and remember that M. von Brandt would consequently get only fifteen gold-pieces. Ah, you look at me in surprise. You wonder that I should be aware of that, too? I am no magician, however, and have acquired my knowledge of this laughable incident in a very simple manner. Look here, this is the written agreement you gave to M. von Brandt!"

He offered the paper to Marianne; she did not take it, however, but only glanced at it. "Your majesty may see from it how ardently I longed for an interview with you," she said. "Had M. von Brandt asked half my fortune for this interview with your majesty, I should have joyfully given it to him, for an hour in the presence of your majesty is worth more than all the riches of the world."

"And yet you were going to leave me just now!" exclaimed Napoleon, reproachfully. "How ingenuous that would have been toward your friend who is standing in the anteroom with Constant, and, watch in hand, calculating the number of his gold-pieces. We will be generous and grant him three hours. Three hours--that is a good time for a rendezvous; when you leave me, then, you will pay M. von Brandt one hundred and eighty louis-d'or, and I shall receive the congratulations of my confidants."

Marianne's eyes flashed angrily, and a deep blush mantled her cheeks.

"Sire," she exclaimed almost menacingly, "call your officers--have me arrested like a criminal--take my life if I have deserved it, but let me leave this room!"

"Ah, you would die rather than that people should believe you had granted me a rendezvous of three hours' duration," asked Napoleon. "It is true, this rendezvous, if it should result peacefully and without the eclat which you hoped for when you came hither to play the part of Judith, would discredit you with your friends! Your party will distrust you as soon as it learns that, after being three hours with me, you left Schonbrunn in the middle of the night, while I was not found on my couch with a dagger in my heart. I cannot spare you this humiliation; it shall be the only punishment I shall inflict on you. You remain here!"

"Sire, let me go," exclaimed Marianne, "and I swear to you that I will never dare again to approach you; I swear to you that I will live in some remote corner in the most profound retirement, far from the noise and turmoil of the world."

"Oh, the world would never forgive me if I should deprive it in this manner of its most beautiful ornament," said the emperor, smiling. "You are too lovely to live in obscurity and solitude. You will now grant me three hours, and you are free to tell everybody during the whole remainder of your life that you hate me; but it is true, people will hardly believe in the sincerity of your hatred."

"Then you will not permit me to withdraw?" asked Marianne, with quivering lips. "You want me to stay here?"

"Only three hours, madame; then you may go. Let us improve this time and speak frankly and honestly to each other. Forget where we are; imagine we were the heads of two parties, meeting on neutral ground and telling each other the truth with respectful frankness for the purpose of thereby bringing about peace, if possible. Well, then, tell me honestly: do you really hate me so ardently as to have come hither for the purpose of a.s.sa.s.sinating me?"

"You ask me to tell you the truth," exclaimed Marianne, her eyes sparkling with anger, "well, you shall hear it! Yes, I hate you; I swore to you in Paris, at the time when you sent me like a criminal to the frontier, the most ardent and implacable hatred, and in accordance with my oath I came hither to accomplish a work which would be a boon for Germany, nay, for the whole world. Yes, I wanted to a.s.sa.s.sinate you, I wanted to deliver the world from the tyrant who intends to enslave it.

Yes, I had concealed a dagger in my bosom to kill you as Judith killed Holofernes. Had I accomplished my purpose, the world would have blessed me and paid the highest honors to my name; but now that I have failed in carrying out my plan, I shall be laughed and sneered at. Now I have told you the truth, and in order that you may not doubt it, I will show you the dagger which was intended for your breast, and which I shall now hurl down at your feet as the dragon's feet, from which one day full-grown warriors will spring for our cause in order to combat you."

She drew the dagger from her bosom, and, with a violent gesture, threw it at Napoleon's feet. "Sire," she then asked, in an imploring voice, "will you not yet order me to be arrested?"

"Why?" asked Napoleon, "Words falling from the lips of beautiful women are never insulting, and I do not punish thoughts which have not yet become actions. Your hands are free from guilt, and the only criminal here in this room is that dagger on the floor. I trample it under foot, and it is unable to rise any more against me."

He placed his foot on the flas.h.i.+ng blade, and fixed his piercing eyes on the princess. "Madame," he said, "when you came to me in Paris, it was the Count de Provence who had sent you. He sent me a letter through you at that time. Tell me, did he send me this dagger to-day?"

"No, I will take the most solemn oath that he knows nothing about it,"

replied Marianne. "n.o.body knew of my undertaking; I had no confidants and no accomplices."

"You had only your own hatred, madame," said Napoleon, musingly. "Why do you hate me so bitterly? What have I done to all of you that you should turn away from me?"

"Why I hate you?" asked Marianne, impetuously. "Because you have come to trample Germany in the dust, to transform her into a French province, and to defraud us of our honor, our good rights, and independence. What have you done, that all honest men should turn away from you? You have broken your most sacred oaths--you are a perjurer!"

"Oh, that goes too far," cried Napoleon, pa.s.sionately. "What hinders me, then--"

"To have me arrested?" Marianne interrupted him, defiantly--"please do so."

"No, I shall not do you that favor. Proceed, proceed! You stand before me as though you were Germania herself rising before me to accuse me.

Well, then, accuse me. When have I broken my oaths?"

"From the moment when you raised the banner in the name of the republic which you intended to upset; from the moment when you called the nations to you in the name of liberty, in order to rule over them as their tyrant and oppressor!"

"To those who wanted to keep up the despotism of liberty under which France had bled and groaned so long, I was a tyrant," said Napoleon, calmly; "to those who entertained the senseless idea of restoring the Bourbons, under whom France had bled and groaned as long and longer, I was an oppressor. The family of the Bourbons has become decrepit; it resembles a squeezed lemon, the peel of which is thrown contemptuously aside, because there is no longer any juice in it. Did you really believe I should have been such a fool as to pick up this empty peel, which France had thrown aside, and to clothe it in a purple cloak and crown? Did you believe I had, like those Bourbons and all legitimate princes, learned nothing from history, and not been taught by the examples it holds up to all those who have eyes to see with? I have learned from history that dynasties dry up like trees, and that it is better to uproot the hollow, withered-up trunk rather than permit it, in its long decay, to suck up the last nouris.h.i.+ng strength from the soil on which it stands."