Joseph II. and His Court Part 80

said the countess, frowning.

The Countess Zamoiska laughed aloud. "Voyons--are you going to play Jeanne d'Arc to bring female heroism into fas.h.i.+on? Oh, Anna! We have never had more delightful b.a.l.l.s in Warsaw than have been given since so many Russian regiments have been stationed there."

"You have danced with those who have murdered your brothers and relatives?--danced while the people of Poland are trodden under foot!"

"Ah, bah! Ne parlez pas du people!" cried the Countess Zamoiska, with a gesture of disgust. "A set of beastly peasants, no better than their own cattle, or a band of genteel robbers, who have made it unsafe to live anywhere on Polish soil, even in Warsaw."

"You are right," sighed the Countess Wielopolska, "let us drop politics and speak of other things."

"A la bonne heure. Let us have a little chronique scandaleuse. Ah, ma chere, I am at home there, for we lead an enchanting life in Warsaw. The king is a handsome man, and, in spite of the Empress Catharine, his heart is still susceptible of the tender pa.s.sion. You remember his liaison with the Countess Kanizka, your sister-in-law?"

"A base, dishonored woman, who stooped to be the mistress of the man who has betrayed her country!"

"A king, nevertheless, and a very handsome man; and she was inconsolable when he ceased to love her."

"Ah! she was abandoned, then, was she?" cried the Countess Wielopolska.

"Oh no, dear Anna! Your sister-in-law was not guilty of the belise of playing Queen Dido. As she felt quite sure that the king would leave her soon or late, she antic.i.p.ated the day, and left him. Was it not excellent? She went off with Prince Repnin."

"Prince Repnin!" exclaimed the countess with horror. "The Russian amba.s.sador!"

"The same. You should have seen the despair of the king. But he was amiable even in his grief. He tried all sorts of lover's stratagems to win back the countess; he prowled around her house at night singing like a Troubadour; be wrote her bushels of letters to implore an interview.

All in vain. The liaison with Repnin was made public, and that, of course, ended the affair. The king was inconsolable. [Footnote: Wraxall, "Memoirs of the Court of Vienna," vol. ii., p. 96.] He gave ball after ball, never missed an evening at the theatre, gambled all night, gave sleighing parties, and so on, but it was easy to see that his heart was broken; and had not Tissona, the pretty cantatrice, succeeded in comforting him, I really do believe that our handsome king would have killed himself for despair."

"Ah, he is consoled, is he?" said the countess with curling lips. "He jests and dances, serenades and gambles, while the gory knout reeks with the n.o.blest blood in Poland, and her n.o.blest sons are staggering along the frozen wastes of Siberia! Oh Stanislaus! Stanislaus! A day of reckoning will come for him who wears the splendor of royalty, yet casts away its obligations!"

"Vraiment, dear Anna, to hear your rhapsodies, one would almost believe you to be one of the Confederates who lately attempted the life of the king," cried the Countess Zamoiska, laughing.

"Who attempted the king's life?" said the countess, turning pale.

"Why three robbers: Lukawski, Strawinski, and Kosinski."

"I never heard of it," replied the countess, much agitated. "Tell me what you know of it, if you can, Lusc.h.i.n.ka."

"It is an abominable thing, and long too," said Lusc.h.i.n.ka, with a shrug.

"The conspirators were disguised as peasants, and actually had the a.s.surance to come to Warsaw. There were thirty of them, but the three I tell you of were the leaders. The king was on his way to his uncle's palace, which is in the suburbs of Warsaw. They had the insolence to fall upon him in the streets, and his attendants got frightened and ran off. Then the conspirators tore the king from his coach and carried him off, swearing that if he uttered one cry they would murder him. Wasn't it awful? Do you think that the dear king didn't have the courage to keep as quiet as a mouse while they took him off with them to the forest of Bielani? Here they robbed him of all he had, leaving him nothing but the ribbon that belonged to the order of the White Eagle. Then they dispersed to give the news of his capture to their accomplices, and Kosinski was left to dispatch him. Did you ever!"

"Further, further!" said the countess, scarcely able to speak, as her old school-mate paused in her narrative.

Lusc.h.i.n.ka laughed. "Doesn't it sound just like a fairy tale, Anna? But it is as true as I live, and happened on the third of November of this blessed year 1771. So Kosinski and six others dragged and dragged the king until he lost his shoes, and was all torn and scratched, and even wounded. Whenever the others wanted to stop and kill the king, Kosinski objected that the place was not lonely enough. All at once they came upon the Russian patrol. Then the five other murderers ran off, leaving the king and Kosinski alone."

"And Kosinski?" asked the countess, with anxiety.

"Kusinski went on with his sword drawn over the king's head, although he begged him for rest. But the king saw that Kosinski looked undecided and uneasy, so as they came near to the Convent of Bielani, he said to Kosinski, 'I see that you don't know which way to act, so you had better let me go into the convent to hide, while you make your escape by some other way.' But Kosinski said no, he had sworn to kill him. So they went on farther, until they came to Mariemont, a castle belonging to the Elector of Saxony. Here the king begged for rest, and they sat down and began to talk. Then Kosinkski told the king he was not killing him of his own will, but because he had been ordered to do so by others, to punish the king for all his sins, poor fellow! against Poland. The king then said it was not his fault, but all the fault of Russia, and at last he softened the murderer's heart. Kosinski threw himself at the king's feet and begged pardon, and promised to save him. So Stanislaus promised to forgive him, and it was all arranged between them. They went on to a mill near Mariemont, and begged the miller to let in two travellers who had lost their way. At first the miller took them to be robbers, but after a great deal of begging, he let them in. Then the king tore a leaf out of his pocket-book, and wrote a note to General Cocceji. The miller's daughter took it to Warsaw, not without much begging on the king's part; and you can conceive the joy of the people when they heard that the king was safe, for everybody seeing his cloak in the streets, and his hat and plume on the road, naturally supposed that he had been murdered. Well, General Cocceji, followed by the whole court, hurried to the mill; and when they arrived, there was Kosinski standing before the door with a drawn sword in his hand. He let in the general, and there on the floor, in the miller's s.h.i.+rt, lay the king fast asleep. So Cocceji went down on his knees and kissed his hand, and called him his lord and king, and the people of the mill, who had never dreamed who it was, all dropped on their knees and begged for mercy. So the king then forgave everybody, and went back to Warsaw with Cocceji. This, my dear, is a true history of the attempt that was made by the Confederates on the life of the handsomest man in Poland!" [Footnote: Wraxall, "Memoirs,"

vol. ii., p. 76.]

"A strange and sad history," said the Countess Anna. "However guilty the king may be, it would be disgraceful if he were murdered by his own subjects."

"Oh, my love, these Confederates refuse to acknowledge him for their king! Did you not know that they had been so ridiculous as to depose him?"

"What have the Confederates to do with a band of robbers who plundered the king and would have murdered him?" asked Anna indignantly." Are they to be made answerable for the crimes of a horde of banditti?"

"Ma chere, the banditti were the tools of the Confederates. They have been taken, and every thing has been discovered. Pulawski, their great hero, hired the a.s.sa.s.sins and bound them by an oath. Letters found upon Lukawski, who boasts of his share in the villany, shows that Pulawski was the head conspirator, and that the plot had been approved by Zaremba and Pac!"

"Then all is lost!" murmured Anna. "If the Confederates have sullied the honor of Poland by consenting to crime as a means to work out her independence, Poland will never regain her freedom. Oh, that I should have lived to see this day!"

She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed aloud.

"Vraiment, Anna," said the Countess Zamoiska pettishly, "I cannot understand you. Instead of rejoicing over the king's escape, here you begin to cry over the sins of his murderers. All Poland is exasperated against them, and nothing can save them. [Footnote: Lukawski and Strawinski were executed. They died cursing Kosinski as a traitor.

Wraxall, vol. ii., p. 83.] So, dear Anna, dry your eyes, or they will be as red as a cardinal's hat. Goodness me, if I hadn't wonderful strength of mind, I might have cried myself into a fright long ago; for you have no idea of the sufferings I have lived through. You talk of Poland, and never ask a word about myself. It shows how little interest you feel in me, that you still call me by the name of my first husband."

"Are you married a second time?" asked Anna, raising her head.

"Ah, ma chere, my name has not been Zamoiska for four years. Dear me!

The king knows what misery it is to be tied to a person that loves you no longer; and luckily for us, he has the power of divorce. He does it for the asking, and every divorce is a signal for a succession of brilliant b.a.l.l.s; for you understand that people don't part to go on and pout. They marry at once, and, of course everybody gives b.a.l.l.s, routs, and dinners, in honor of the weddings."

"Have you married again in this way?" asked the countess, gravely.

"Oh yes," replied the unconscious Lusc.h.i.n.ka; "I have been twice married and twice divorced; but it was not my fault. I loved my first husband with a depth of pa.s.sion which he could not appreciate, and I was in an agony of despair when six months after our marriage he told me that he loved me no longer, and was dying for the Countess Luwiendo. She was my bosom friend, so you can imagine my grief; mais j'ai su faire bonne mine a mauvais jeux. I invited the countess to my villa, and there, under the shade of the old trees in the park, we walked arm in arm, and arranged with my husband all the conditions of the separation. Every one praised my generous conduct; the men in particular were in raptures, and Prince Lubomirski, on the strength of it, fell so desperately in love with me, that he divorced his wife and offered me his hand."

"You did not accept it!" exclaimed Countess Anna.

"What a question!" said the ex-countess, pouting. "The prince was young, rich, charming and a great favorite with the king. We loved each other, and, of course, were married. But, indeed, my dear, love does seem to have such b.u.t.terfly wings that you scarcely catch it before it is gone!

My second husband broke my heart exactly as my first had done; he asked me to leave him, and of course I had to go. Men are abominable beings, Anna: scarcely were we divorced before he married a third wife."

[Footnote: Wraxall, ii., p. 110.]

"Poland is lost--lost!" murmured the Countess Anna. "She is falling under the weight of her children's crimes. Lost! O Poland, my unhappy country!"

"Au contraire, ma chere, Warsaw was never gayer than it is at present.

Did I not tell you that every divorce was followed by a marriage, and that the king was delighted with the masquerades and b.a.l.l.s, and all that sort of thing? Why, nothing is heard in Warsaw at night but laughter, music, and the c.h.i.n.k of gla.s.ses."

"And nevertheless you could tear yourself away" said the Countess ironically.

"I had to go," sighed the princess. "I am on my way to Italy. You see, ma chere, it would have been inconvenient and might have made me ridiculous to go out in society, meeting my husbands with their two wives, and I--abandoned by both these faithless men. I should have been obliged to marry a third time, but my heart revolted against it." "Then you travel alone to Italy?"

"By no means, mon amour, I am travelling with the most bewitching creature!--my lover. Oh, Anna, he is the handsomest man I ever laid my eyes upon; the most delightful! and he paints so divinely that the Empress Catharine has appointed him her court painter. I love him beyond all expression; I adore him! You need not smile, Anna, que voulez-vous?

Le coeur toujours vierge pour un second amour."

"If you love him so dearly, why, then, does your heart revolt against a marriage with him?" asked the Countess Anna.

"I told you he was a painter, and not a n.o.bleman," answered the ex-princess, impatiently. "One loves an artist, but cannot marry him. Do you suppose I would be so ridiculous as to give up my t.i.tle to be the respectable wife of a painter? The Princess Lubomirski a Madame Wand, simple Wand! Oh, no! I shall travel with him, but I will not marry him."

"Then go!" exclaimed the Countess Anna, rising, and casting looks of scorn upon the princess. "Degenerate daughter of a degenerate fatherland, go, and drag your shame with you to Italy! Go, and enjoy your sinful l.u.s.ts, while Poland breathes her last, and vultures prey upon her dishonored corpse. But take with you the contempt of every Polish heart, that beats with love for the land that gave you birth!"

She turned, and without a word of farewell, proudly left the room. The princess raised her brow and opened her pretty mouth in bewilderment; then rising, and going up to the mirror, she smoothed her hair and began to laugh.

"What a pathetic fool!" said she. "Anybody might know that her mother had been an actress. To think of the daughter of an artiste getting up a scene because a princess will not stoop to marry a painter! Queulle betise!"

With these words she went back to her carriage and drove off.