The Youth of the Great Elector Part 52

"Silence!" called out the Stadtholder, in a thundering voice--"silence! I have heard you out, and it is my turn now to speak, and yours to listen silently. Go and take your measures accordingly, and act as becomes obedient subjects."

He turned upon his heel and with proud bearing re-entered his cabinet, while the burghers sorrowfully slunk away, to spread throughout all Berlin the dreadful news that all their entreaties had been in vain, and that the war was to be prolonged.

"Yes, the war is to be prolonged," repeated Count Schwarzenberg, when he again found himself alone in his cabinet. "We approach the _denouement_, and if I could only get decisive tidings from my son, I would hurry on a crisis and begin open war. He keeps me waiting for such tidings a very long while," continued the count, dropping into the armchair in front of his writing table. "He has only written once to me from Regensburg, and then he could only inform me that he had commenced operations, and--Ah!"

he interrupted himself, as his glance fell upon his table, "there are papers and dispatches, which must have come in my absence. Perhaps there is among them a letter from my son."

He hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed up the letters and examined one after another. No, there was no letter from his son, only official doc.u.ments from the Elector's cabinet.

He opened the first of these, and a shudder ran through his whole frame as he read. In this paper the Elector commanded the Stadtholder in the Mark to send back to him the blank charters, intrusted to him by the Elector George William on his departure for Konigsberg; he must, moreover, render a distinct and exact account of the manner in which he had disposed of the charters no longer in existence. _He_, Schwarzenberg, the mighty Stadtholder in the Mark, the Grand Master of the Knights of St. John, the Director of the War Department--_he_, to be called to account as a servant by his master! He was expected to answer for what he had done in the plenitude of his power, and--worse than that--he must suffer that power to be limited! He would do nothing of the sort; he would not give up the blank charters not yet appropriated and send them back to the Elector!

That was to curtail the privileges of his high position, to dethrone him, and, after having been an absolute master, to make him a dependent servant! These blank charters had been the princely prerogative of the Stadtholder, the scepter with which he ruled! These papers, on which nothing was written, but at the lower corner of which stood the Elector's sign manual--these papers had made him absolute monarch of the Mark. In free plenitude of power, with unfettered will, had he filled up the vacant sheets, bestowing by their means honors and benefits, inflicting punishments, imposing taxes, and the Elector's signature had legalized his decrees, and imparted the force of law to his will.[43]

And these blank charters, before which his enemies trembled, which had struck his partisans and friends as a precious attribute of his power--these blank charters he was now called upon to resign!

"I shall not do it," he exclaimed, in a loud, determined voice--"no, I shall not do it! I shall not be such a fool as to lessen my own power. No; the blank charters are mine, I shall know how to hold them fast!"

He threw the rescript aside and seized another letter. Again from the Elector's cabinet--again a command from him to the Stadtholder in the Mark!

He broke open the seal, unfolded the paper with trembling hands, and again shuddered as he read; and a momentary pallor overspread his cheeks. This writing contained the Elector's orders to suspend hostilities, and to refrain from any attack upon the Swedes and the places occupied by them, and most rigidly to confine himself to the defensive until an abiding peace could be concluded with Sweden.[44]

"You a.s.sail me, little Elector!" he said, with smothered, threatening voice. "You bring out your reserves against me, and would cause the proud edifice of my power to crumble away stone by stone! You fear lest if the great Colossus falls at once it might crush you, and therefore you would destroy it piecemeal, a little at a time! You shall not succeed, though, little Elector; the Colossus will rear its head on high, and you alone will fall!"

At this moment loud, angry and excited voices made themselves heard from the antechamber, and a lackey tore open the door.

"Your excellency, the Commandants von Rochow, von Kracht, and Colonel von Goldacker request an audience."

But the three gentlemen did not wait for the granting of this audience.

With unseemly haste they rushed into the cabinet, unceremoniously thrust out the lackey, and closed the door behind him.

"Most gracious sir, do you know it?" screamed Rochow, the commandant of Spandow.

"Do you know, your excellency, what things are going on?" growled Kracht, the commandant of Berlin.

"Have you learned what bold steps the Elector is taking?" thundered Colonel Goldacker, shaking his fist in a most menacing way.

"I know nothing, gentlemen, have heard nothing! Speak, tell me what has happened!"

"It has happened that the Elector has sent commissioners to all our fortresses!" cried Herr von Rochow. "Two hours ago such a cursed fellow came to me at Spandow, and when he had delivered me his message I left the fool standing there without any answer, threw myself on my horse, and galloped off to confer with your excellency."

"And such a confounded popinjay has been with me, too!" growled Herr von Kracht. "He also imparted to me his Electoral message--command, the fellow called it. I did just like Commandant von Rochow, left him standing while I hurried off to your excellency."

"An Electoral mandate reached me also!" cried Colonel Goldacker, laughing.

"I simply showed the jackanapes the door, laughed him to scorn, and am come to get my orders from your excellency!"

"But, gentlemen, with all this I know nothing and can not find out what has happened. Sir Commandant von Rochow, inform me. What is the matter?"

"The matter is, your excellency," said Herr von Rochow, gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth, "that a commissioner from the Elector has come to me with his master's orders, to require an oath of allegiance to the Elector from myself and the whole garrison."

"A like order has the Elector's deputy handed to me!" cried the commandant of Berlin; "the fellow wanted to swear me and my men into the Elector's service."

"I, too, must give such an oath to the commissioner!" screamed Goldacker, "and my troops as well. What do you say to that, Sir Stadtholder in the Mark?"

Just now, however, the Stadtholder said nothing. He turned pale and tottered backward, until his hand rested upon a chair into which he sank.

His head swam, a sudden dizziness seized him, and he was obliged to put his hand over his eyes, for everything was turning and whirling in a circle around him. In the vehemence of their own excitement the three gentlemen hardly observed this, and the count, with the energy of his strong will, speedily recovered his composure and presence of mind.

"Your excellency!" cried Commandant von Kracht, "do you not agree with us?

Do you not find the Elector intolerably a.s.suming?"

"I was silent because I was reflecting, gentlemen," said the count, drawing a deep breath. "This appearance of the commissioner empowered to administer to you your oaths of office is a challenge, thrown down to me by the Elector, for I am Director of the War Department, and to me alone should that duty have been committed of again binding the troops in the Mark to him by oath. He insults me, and thereby insults the Emperor, for you all know that the Emperor is your commander in chief, and that you dare never break the oath to the Emperor, which I took from you after the conclusion of the peace of Prague. You swore to do your duty for Emperor and Elector, and for this reason, on the recent accession of the present Elector, I only required the colonels to give me their hands in token of their obligations already a.s.sumed, for an oath is an oath, and you can not swear to serve one to-day and another to-morrow."

"We can not and will not, either," shouted Colonel Goldacker furiously. "I have given my word to the Emperor. I remain true to the Emperor, and the Emperor will protect us against the insolence of the little Elector."

"Yes, the Emperor will protect us," cried Colonel von Rochow. "I shall take no new oath, for I have sworn to the Emperor, and not until the Emperor has released me from the oath, and I have made a new agreement with the Elector, can I swear to him. Until that time the oath which I have taken to the Emperor remains binding." [45]

"I, too, have sworn to serve the Emperor, and shall abide by my oath,"

said the commandant of Berlin, as if weighing each word. "No one has a right to command here but the Emperor and the Stadtholder in the Mark, whom the Elector himself appointed. What that vagabond of a commissioner says is nothing to the purpose--it signifies nothing to us."

"No, it signifies nothing to us," repeated the other gentlemen. "From you alone, Sir Stadtholder, can we receive orders, for you are Director of the Council of War, the representative of the Emperor and Elector. To you alone we belong. Give us your orders; we are here to receive them!"

"Gentlemen," said the Stadtholder, pointing with his finger to a sealed packet, lying on the writing table before him--"gentlemen, you interrupted me by your entrance in the perusal of important dispatches, which had just arrived for me from the Elector's cabinet. See, there lies an unopened writing with the Electoral seal. Allow me to read it, for it contains the Elector's commands, which may harmonize with those of his accredited commissioner, or at least enter into particulars with regard to them."

The three officers bowed and reverentially retreated a few steps; but their eyes rested with intense interest upon the count, who now broke the seal and unfolded the paper. A deep silence followed. The piercing glances of the three warriors rested on the count's countenance, which maintained steadfastly its grave, serious expression. But now a scornful laugh burst from him, 'and for a moment an expression of wild joy illuminated his features. He rose, and with the paper in his hand approached the soldiers.

"Gentlemen," he said quietly, "I have a piece of news to communicate to you, which I fear will incommode you and your men a little, and is not calculated to heighten the love of the military for their chief. The Elector commands me, until further notice, to put the troops upon summer allowance, and the payment now in arrears is regarded as coming under the same regulation. I beg you will inform your troops of this."

"That is shameful! That is contemptible! That will put the soldiers in a perfect fury!" screamed the three officers together.

"I do not mean to tell my men!" exclaimed Herr von Rochow--"no, I shall not tell them, for the fellows would be frantic, and in their desperation might commit shameful acts!"

"I shall tell my men on the spot!" grumbled Herr von Kracht. "I shall tell them on purpose to make them desperate, to make them rave! As far as I am concerned, they are welcome to vent their spleen upon all Berlin, upon the whole region round about. Let them go around, plundering and laying the country under contribution; they are justified in doing so, for the fellows can not subsist in winter on summer allowance, and therefore must rob and plunder."

"I shall tell my soldiers directly, too," shouted Herr von Goldacker. "Not but that it will give rise to a pretty tale of murder, a devilish scandal.

There will result a military out-break, and the burghers of Berlin and Cologne may look to themselves; but the Elector has so willed it--the Elector excites us as well as our subordinates to open insurrection. Let him work his will now; it will only convince him that we are not to be ruled by sc.r.a.ps of paper and decrees scribbled by feather-headed clerks, and that he is not the irresistible lord, to whose piping we dance. The little Elector shall be made to know that the Emperor alone is our supreme officer, to him we have sworn fealty, and to him we cling despite the Elector and all his deputies. I am going on the spot to give my commissioner his dismissal--to tell him that I shall not swear, and then to carry to my soldiers the news of their having been put upon summer allowance!"

"I will go with you," cried Herr von Kracht. "I will also put my commissioner out of the door, and convey the glad tidings to the garrison of Berlin."

"And I," said Herr von Rochow, "will forthwith dispatch a courier to Spandow, to tell my lieutenant that he must send the commissioner out of the fort, and tell the garrison that they are put on summer allowance. It will stir up a fine hub-bub, I am sure of that."

"I, too, believe that the end will not be perfect peace," said the Stadtholder, smiling. "Let the Elector learn that governing is not such an easy matter as he supposes, but that a man may know a good deal, and yet be an unskillful ruler. Go then, gentlemen, issue your orders, but forget not that in an hour our entertainment begins, and that we must not allow our feast to be disturbed by such little follies of the new _regime_."

"No, we will not allow ourselves to be disturbed!" cried Herr von Rochow.

"In one hour expect us here again, and you shall see, most gracious sir, that we have brought with us our cheerfulness, our fine appet.i.tes, and our thirst."

"Yes, yes, your excellency, guard well your keys and bottles; we shall take the field against them."

"Do so, gentlemen," said the count. "But go now, to return the sooner."

He nodded kindly to the officers and followed them with his eyes until the door closed behind them. Then the composure of his features, the smile on his lip, vanished, and his whole being seemed to express agitation and bitterness of wrath.

"He will insist upon war," he said fiercely. "He smiles upon and strokes me with one hand, while with the other he stabs me, inflicting wound upon wound. Yes, yes, stone by stone he would crumble to dust the tower of my strength, and thinks to crush me to atoms, supposing that I will voluntarily bend to avoid being bent by him. Oh, you are mistaken, little Elector; I am not afraid of you, I shall not bend before you! The Emperor alone I serve, to him alone I am subject. But to me the Emperor is a gracious master. He will ruin you and exalt me; he will protect me against your arrogance. To me belongs the future, presumptuous young Prince! who would rule here, where I have held undisputed sway for twenty years. To me alone belongs the Mark, and I shall hold it for my lord and Emperor! The crisis has come, and finds me prepared and resolute. The troops will revolt, and then shall I step out among them, appease them in the Emperor's name, with lavish hand scatter money among them, and again bind them by oath to the Emperor! Oh, my heart leaps for joy, for the hour of action has come. Only one thing I lack. I would just like to have certain news from my son, to be sure that the Emperor approves of my plan, that he will lift me up where the Elector would cast me down. But this, too, will come, this wish will also be gratified. For I am a son of good fortune, and all goes in accordance with my wishes! Away then with all sad and gloomy thoughts! I would present a cheerful countenance to my guests--I would appear before them in the full splendor of my glory!"