The Youth of the Great Elector Part 11

The Princess only with difficulty suppressed a shriek, and stared with horror at the smiling countenance of the young count.

"Hush, gracious lady, hus.h.!.+" whispered the latter while he took her hand and imprinted a reverential kiss upon the tips of her rosy fingers. "Why should you wish to deny what is so genial and so delightful? My magician Ducato always tells me the truth; why should we dispute it? But it was not that which your highness wished to learn of me. You would ask me, how I know that the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg loves the beautiful Princess Ludovicka Hollandine, and was to have his first rendezvous with her to-day. Once more, it is the magician Ducato who has told me that; yes, that good, obliging magician has done yet more for me. He put into my hands the pretty little note which the Princess Ludovicka sent yesterday through her confidential maid-servant to the confidential valet of the Electoral Prince, before the Prince had read it himself."

"That is shameful--that is unheard of!" said the Princess, with glowing cheeks and tears in her eyes. "It is an abominable piece of deceit on the part of my maid, and she shall pay for it. To-morrow morning I shall dismiss her, and--"

"That she may tell all the world the little secrets of her exalted mistress?" asked Count d'Entragues. "Oh, no, your highness; the maid is perfectly innocent of deceit, and it was only the magician Ducato who played the Princess's pretty little note into my hands. And will my sweetest lady know now what I did with the little note? I read it first, then--saw there that a rendezvous was granted the Prince at one o'clock. I took a very small sharp knife and--"

"And? My G.o.d, go on! What did you with the knife?"

"I very delicately erased and altered the number from a one into a two.

Then I refolded the note, and handed it to my magician for further preferment to the Prince."

"The Electoral Prince has received my note, then?" asked the Princess. "He will consequently--"

"Come at two o'clock, instead of one o'clock," replied the count, and he intercepted the look which Ludovicka cast upon the large French clock upon the mantelpiece. "Yes, we have just a half hour before the Prince makes his appearance, and I hope that will suffice to obtain your highness's pardon for my boldness, and to establish a good understanding between myself and the most spirituelle, most genial, and most beautiful Princess of all the European courts. Will your highness be kind enough to grant me a hearing?"

The Princess smiled imperceptibly. "The question comes somewhat late," she said. "If you had asked it while you stood there on the windowsill, before you came into my room, then I should have replied: 'No, be off! No, you are a shameless person, who has dared to spy out my secrets, to bribe my servants, and to deceive me, while he approaches me in a way that he knew perfectly was not open to him.' But you are here now; alas! I have not the power to expel you, and to punish you before all the world as you deserve."

"O Princess! as if your harsh and cruel words were not a punishment, which touches my heart more sensibly than the cut of a sword or thrust of a dagger!"

The Princess seemed not to have heard these words of the count, spoken with artistic effect, and continued: "You are here now, and I will at least know what inspired you to run this unheard-of risk of forcing yourself upon my notice. I am therefore ready to listen to you, on condition that you try to be short and not burden me too long with your presence."

"Permit me to thank you, most condescending Princess," cried the count, while he sank from the ottoman down upon his knees, and pressed his glowing lips upon the hem of the Princess's robe. "I thank you, and swear that I will not overstep the limit prescribed, and depart at two with the first stroke of the clock."

"Rise, count, rise and speak," said Ludovicka, in commanding tones, and with the full dignity of a Princess.

Count d'Entragues again resumed his seat upon the divan. "Your highness commands now that I explain how I could have dared to come here?"

"I confess that I am very anxious to hear this explanation."

"Well, then, your highness is young, very young indeed, hardly eighteen years old, but you possess, in addition to a soft and tender heart, an almost masculine intellect. I apprehend from this that you interest yourself in politics."

"There you are entirely mistaken, count. I hate, I abhor politics, and when my mother proposes to talk politics with me I always run away."

"That is bad, very bad, your highness; for I am forced to talk politics to you. But I shall not be tedious, but limit myself to what is absolutely necessary. I shall therefore begin, in order to give your highness a proof of my reverential, unlimited confidence, by telling you what no one here knows--by telling you why I have been sent here and what my errand is.

Princess, I have been ostensibly sent here to the Stadtholder of Orange and as amba.s.sador from the King of France to the Sovereign States. In reality, I have been sent to two entirely different persons--to the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg and to the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine."

"To me?" asked the Princess, and her beautiful face expressed the most undisguised astonishment.

"Yes, to yourself, most gracious Princess. And does your highness know why? Because our spies here, as well as the gentlemen of the French emba.s.sy to Holland, had reported that the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg was smitten with the most glowing love for your highness."

The Princess blushed with pleasure, and a wondrous smile lit up her radiant countenance. "But," asked she, "how does it concern the court of France whom the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg loves?"

"It concerns the court of France very nearly, your highness. I can not avoid now burdening your highness a little with hated politics, while I explain to you how it comes that the love of the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg is a state affair for the European courts. It comes from this, your highness, because the Electoral Prince, however small and insignificant his house, however inconsiderable, too, his future realm of Brandenburg, is still a very important personage. Three crowns are hovering in the air above his head, and if he obtains all three he will be a mighty Prince, and his sword may turn the scale in the balance of peace and war."

"What three crowns are those which hover thus above the Prince's head?"

"There is first the crown of the dukedom of Prussia, with which the King of Poland has to invest the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, and which the Elector of Saxony would be too glad to see fall upon his own head. Then, in the second place, there is the crown of the duchy of Pomerania, which belongs to the house of Brandenburg by right of inheritance, and which the Swedes are struggling for; and finally, in the third place, there is the crown of the duchy of Cleves, Juliers, and Berg, which the Emperor of Germany has indeed adjudged to that house, but which is so torn by Hessians and Spaniards, by the States, by the Swedes and various robbers, that probably hardly anything at all of it will be left. But nevertheless, there it is, and if the future Elector of Brandenburg actually succeeds in uniting upon his own head these three crowns, besides the electoral hat of Brandenburg, then he will be mighty and influential, and have a full sounding voice in the concert of the European princes. But now you must know that the Elector of Brandenburg is sickly, and has not many more years to live. Then the Electoral Prince Frederick William becomes his successor, and it is only needful to have seen the Prince for a few hours, to have looked into his fiery eyes, to be made aware that he will not tread in his father's footsteps, that he will not be the submissive va.s.sal of the German Emperor, a mere tool in the hands of his minister, but that his efforts will be directed to making himself a free, independent Prince, and his country a strong, powerful, and self-sustaining state. The Minister von Schwarzenberg, the almighty representative of the present Elector, knows this very well, and on this account dreads and hates the Electoral Prince; he has therefore removed him from his father's court in order to take away all influence from him, and he would esteem himself happy if some lucky accident or criminal hand should free him from this inconvenient successor to the throne. But heretofore accident has not favored him; nor has he yet dared to press the murderous hand into his service; and he has therefore been compelled to devise some other method for securing his future, and so enchaining the Electoral Prince that he, too, may remain the Emperor's obedient va.s.sal. As the best means for attaining this object it has occurred to them to bind the Electoral Prince to the German imperial house by marriage, and to receive him into the Hapsburg family. The Archduke Leopold, the future Emperor, has a very pretty daughter. She is intellectual, ardent, a strict Catholic, and has at heart the greatness of the Hapsburg house and the German Emperor. This princess, or rather archd.u.c.h.ess, has been selected for the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg, and on that account the Electoral Prince is now to return home, for the Elector and his Minister Schwarzenberg are much bent upon the imperial alliance, and have already promised that the Electoral Prince shall make a visit to the imperial court. But, excuse me, I am misusing your indulgence, Princess. I am holding forth to you a long-winded political harangue, forgetting entirely how you hate politics, what a heinous crime I am committing, and that I weary you."

"You do not weary me at all," replied Ludovicka quickly. "On the contrary, you interest me greatly. Only go on. I am listening attentively. You said that the Electoral Prince was to return home in order to make a visit to the imperial court, and to marry an archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria?"

"Pardon me, your highness. I only said this was the new plan of the imperial court, and consequently of the Minister Schwarzenberg and his Elector. And, indeed, the plan is good, for the son-in-law of the Emperor would be wholly dependent upon Austria, and if then the three pending crowns should settle upon his brow, it would be the same as if Austria herself wore them. Then they would cause the young married couple to make an agreement respecting claims of inheritance, in accordance with which the survivor should become heir to the first deceased. Then, some day, the Electoral Prince, or the young Elector, would have the misfortune to fall from his horse, or be pierced while hunting by some missent bullet, or fall a victim to a sudden problematical sickness; in short, he would die, and his wife would be his heiress, and through her the Electoral Mark Brandenburg, the duchies of Prussia, Pomerania, and Cleves, accrue to the imperial house. This would be then to put an end to the long, fearful war, to make peace with Sweden by relinquis.h.i.+ng Pomerania to her, and, in order to see this war finally ended, which has desolated the whole of Germany, the other German powers would acquiesce in Pomerania becoming Swedish, and Cleves, Brandenburg, and Prussia Hapsburgian."

"Sir Count!" cried the Princess, "now you become tiresome, for you have digressed from your subject!"

"From the Electoral Prince? Oh, no; I have already come to him again, fairest Princess! I said all Germany would consent to this marriage.

Poland, too, would rather invest the Catholic imperial house with the Prussian crown than the reformed Elector, and prefer an Austrian neighbor as friend to a Russian; only two European powers would look askance upon this union, and consequently do all they possibly could to prevent its consummation."

"And who are these two powers, Sir Count?"

"One power is France, who would never consent to so striking an aggrandizement of the house of Austria, and can not pa.s.sively submit to see it spread itself so extensively north, west, and east."

"And the second power, count?"

"The second power is the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine of the Palatinate, who would never give up the handsome Electoral Prince, and would s.n.a.t.c.h at any means of preventing his marriage with any one else. Will you condescend to acknowledge that I have told the truth?"

"Yes!" cried the Princess pa.s.sionately--"yes, you have told the truth! I love him, and the only happiness upon earth for me is in becoming his wife!"

"Princess, I presume to make a proposal to you. Let the two powers that wish not the marriage with an Austrian archd.u.c.h.ess conclude together a league offensive and defensive. The power France accedes to this with joy.

It promises to further and support the second power in all her plans, to lend her efficient aid, that the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine may wed the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg."

"Oh, heavens, count, you would do that, you--"

"France will do that, not I," said the count pa.s.sionately. "No, not I, Princess, for you know well that I was rash enough to lift my eyes to your heavenly apparition, my heart--But hush, you poor, foolish heart, suffer and be dumb, sacrifice yourself, and only busy yourself in making happy the sweet object of your warm and glowing love! Princess, you love the Electoral Prince! France offers you her a.s.sistance that you may marry him.

This marriage will throw the Elector as well as the German Emperor into the greatest rage; they will both refuse their consent; they will require Holland to deliver up the Electoral Prince; they will proclaim invalid the marriage between two minor lovers, and will cut off the Electoral Prince from all means of subsistence."

"Oh, that is shocking, you give me a glimpse of a background which fills me with dread and horror," lamented the Princess.

"Fear nothing, dread nothing," whispered the count. "France is here to support you. France offers the young couple an asylum in Paris, and will receive them at her court with pleasure. France will take care that the Electoral Prince and his wife want for nothing; she will pay him rich subsidies, contribute vast sums of money that the Electoral Prince may present his young bride with a costly outfit; and finally, in the name of her mother, the Electress of the Palatinate, provide the Princess with a truly princely income."

"How kind, how generous that is of France!" cried Ludovicka. "It will promote my happiness, it will aid me in being united with my beloved; it thereby pledges me to eternal grat.i.tude, and never shall I forget that I owe to France the happiness of my whole life."

"And that, adored Princess, that is the only thing that France claims for its good offices--a little grat.i.tude! A faithful remembrance of its good offices rendered, the sure promise that the Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg will never range himself on the side of the enemies of France, never league himself with the house of Austria against France, but forever remain the faithful ally and friend of France!"

"I promise you that--I give you my solemn word for it! Oh, we are no ingrates, to reward you with ingrat.i.tude; be sure and certain of that. The Electoral Prince loves me; he will bid all welcome that makes a union with me possible; he will be eternally grateful to those who will lend us a helping hand."

"And--forgive me, your highness, for asking one question--has he offered you his hand; has he made you a formal proposal of marriage?"

"He has sworn a thousand times that he loves me; he has so long and so often besought me to grant him an interview that I have at last done so--all the rest follows."

"Now," said the count, with a meaning smile, "that is just as one may take it. In any case, this interview will be useful and to the purpose, and your highness must now bring the Prince to declare himself formally."

"My heavens!" cried the Princess impatiently, "I tell you that he has very often declared himself, that he has sworn to me a thousand times that of all the world he loves me, and me alone! What more would you have him say?"

"Princess, you are an angel of innocence and maidenly simplicity. When I say the Prince must declare himself, I mean by that that he must sue for your hand; he must say to you in so many words that he wishes to marry you."

"Good! he shall do so, even to-day. Oh, sir, it pleases you to doubt the love of the Electoral Prince? You dare to think it possible that he may be only amusing himself with me--that he has no serious designs? I shall prove to you that you are mistaken--that you wrong me and the Electoral Prince alike by your doubt. This very night he shall offer me his hand--this very night I shall engage myself to him!"