For Sceptre and Crown Volume I Part 14

"I will not detain you," said Napoleon, and shaking his minister heartily by the hand, he dismissed him.

After he had left the room the emperor remained for some time lost in thought.

"I cannot directly force events," he said half to himself, "I must allow them to take their course. If my veto were not heard, I should be obliged to undertake a frightful war, and then? I must endeavour by the careful and prudent study of events to turn them to our advantage."

He placed himself before a marble bust of Caesar which stood on a black pedestal in his cabinet, and he gazed for some time on the beautifully chiselled features of the Roman conqueror of the world.

"Thou great antetype of my house," he said, while an electric brightness beamed from his upturned eyes. "At this moment I too must say, _Jacta est alea!_ But," he added gloomily, "thy dice were thrown by thyself, and forced by thy mighty hand to fall according to thy will. The pitiless iron hand of fate throws my dice, and I must take them as they fall!"

An attendant entered and announced:--"The emperor's breakfast is served."

Napoleon left the cabinet.

CHAPTER V.

GEORGE V.

One morning, when the trees on either side of the long avenue leading from Hanover to the royal residence were still clad in their brightest, freshest green, a carriage rolled rapidly along, and approached the gilded iron gate which shuts off the outer entrance to the castle.

The carriage drew up before the entrance to the inner courtyard.

A slight man, somewhat under the middle height, alighted; he was about thirty-six years of age, very fair, with a long drooping moustache upon the upper lip, and he was dressed in black with a grey overcoat.

This man walked in at the side gateway in the corner of the princ.i.p.al building of the old electoral and royal palace, built by the renowned Le Notre, and resembling a miniature of Versailles; he pa.s.sed through a long pa.s.sage which led directly to King George V.'s Cabinet.

Before the door of this cabinet, which was on the ground floor, with a small entrance from the park and garden, sat the king's groom of the chambers. Close to the entrance of the royal apartments was the waiting room for the gentlemen summoned by the king, chiefly adorned by the portraits of celebrated Prussians. There were represented in life-size Blucher and Ziethen, and there was an exquisite painting of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, who fell at Saalfeld.

The gentleman who had left the carriage, and reached the entrance to the royal apartments, asked the groom of the chambers:

"Is his majesty alone?"

He had risen and taken the visitor's overcoat, and he replied in broken German with a strong English accent:

"Privy Councillor Lex is with his Majesty."

"Will you announce me!"

The groom of the chambers knocked loudly at the king's door, and the clear voice of George V. was heard. He cried--"Come in!" in English.

The attendant returned after a few minutes.

"The king begs M. Meding to wait a moment."

And he opened the door of the waiting-room, which Meding the councillor of state entered.

The room was empty. Meding took up a position on a large sofa.

After about five minutes the door opened, and a gentleman, somewhat bent with age, entered. His hair and moustache were as white as snow, and he wore the uniform of a Hanoverian lieutenant-general, with the golden epaulettes of an adjutant-general. His breast was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Guelphic Order, and with the medals of 1813, and Waterloo. It was General Tschirschnitz, the king's right hand in military affairs, the medium of every appointment in the army.

Meding rose with the words, "Good morning, your excellency."

"Good morning!" replied the general, in a curt military tone, whilst he laid a large closed portfolio on the table. "Are you here so early?

Shall we have long to wait? I hope you have not much to do."

"The king is working with his cabinet councillor, and apparently writing letters; how long that will last, it is difficult to tell. As far as I am concerned I have only a little to do, and my audience will not take long."

The general threw himself back in his chair with a loud groan.

"Do you know, my dear Meding," he said after a pause, "how long I have waited already, during the course of my life?" and he raised himself a little and looked inquiringly at his friend.

Meding by slightly shrugging his shoulders implied that it was impossible to reply to the question.

"Eight years, seven months, three weeks, and four days!" cried the general in a loud voice, and with great disgust.

Meding could not help laughing aloud.

"Your excellency has certainly suffered to the utmost, and your patience has stood the proof!"

"I have a book," said the general dismally, with a sort of grim humour, "in which I have written down every day since I first received my commission from my late lamented master, the length of time I have pa.s.sed in this waiting room. It now amounts to eight years, seven months, three weeks, and four days. What do you say to that? They say,"

he continued, "that I am sixty-eight years old. It is not true; I have _lived_ but fifty-nine years, five months, one week, and three days.

The rest of the time I have _waited!_"

And the general threw himself back in the arm-chair with a look of resignation.

"I must say, your excellency," said Meding, "it would never have occurred to me to make a statement of the hours fruitlessly pa.s.sed in the ante-chamber. I should prefer for them to remain uncertain, and to allow the dark moments pa.s.sed in this _salle des pas perdus_, to fall into oblivion."

"You are still young, and inclined to dawdle away your time," replied the general, "but I----"

"Your excellency's time is much more valuable than mine," said Meding, politely.

At this moment a bell was heard.

A few minutes afterwards the groom of the chambers appeared, and called--"M. Meding."

He bowed to the general and walked to the royal apartments. He pa.s.sed through the ante-room, the doors of which were set wide open, and entered the king's cabinet.

In this cabinet, filled with many different flowering plants, and with windows wide open to the garden, sat the king at a square writing-table. George V. was at this time forty-six years of age, a handsome man in perfect health. The regular and cla.s.sic features of his race were seen in their purest lines in a face beaming with cheerfulness and amiability; but which also expressed much royal dignity. A slightly upturned fair moustache covered the upper lip, and few of those who for the first time saw the king's free movements, and the rapid changes of his expressive face, discovered the fact that he was totally blind. The king wore the uniform of the Jager guard regiment, comfortably unb.u.t.toned. Across his breast, beneath his uniform, ran the dark blue ribbon of the Order of the Garter. He also wore the small crosses of the Orders of Guelph and Ernest Augustus.

Near the king, stood the privy councillor, Dr. Lex, a small, dried-up looking man with thick grey hair, sharp, intelligent features, and a modest, almost bashful manner. He was in the act of arranging his papers.

A small King Charles spaniel lay at the king's feet.

"Good morning! my dear Meding!" cried the king in his clear voice, "I am delighted to see you. Seat yourself and tell me the news. What says public opinion in my kingdom?"

"Good morning, your majesty," replied Meding with a low bow, as he took a chair opposite the king.