Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia Part 7

The crowd stood back on both sides of the door, and busy hands were ready to a.s.sist the rider in dismounting. But before he had been able to do so, a voice from the rear was heard: "Ask him where the queen is at present!"

"Yes, yes, where is the queen? where is the queen?"

"The queen?" said he. "I pa.s.sed her fifteen minutes ago near the city and delivered dispatches to her, too. The queen? Look there!" And he pointed to the Brandenburg gate.

A carriage, drawn by six horses, was seen rapidly approaching.

"The queen! It is the queen!" joyfully shouted every one, and the thousands who had been a moment before so anxious to learn the news, and to call Lombard to account, rushed toward the carriage. Meantime the courier, whose presence seemed to be entirely forgotten, dismounted, and rapped softly at the door. It was at once opened in a cautious manner, and a voice whispered: "Take your horse into the house. You can afterward ride through the garden, and out of the back gate to the governor's residence."

The door was hastily thrown open, and closed as soon as the courier had entered with his horse. No notice was taken of this movement, for every one thought only of the queen, and looked anxiously through the closed coach windows.

"The queen! It is the queen!" exclaimed the people, greeting the beloved lady in the most rapturous manner. All arms were raised in sign of respect, and every voice uttered a welcome of "Long live the queen!"

The carriage window was lowered, and Louisa's beautiful face appeared; but she looked pale and afflicted; her eyes, generally so radiant, seemed dimmed and tearful; yet she tried to smile, and bowed repeatedly to her enthusiastic friends, who rushed impetuously toward her, and, in their exultation, forgetful of the rules of etiquette, seized the reins and stopped the horses.

"We want to see our queen! Long live our Queen Louisa!" cried thousands of voices. Those who stood nearest the carriage, and beheld her countenance, fell on their knees in the fervor of their love, and eyes that never before had wept were filled with tears; for she seemed as an angel of sorrow and suffering. She rose, and, leaning out of the coach door, returned the affectionate greetings of her faithful subjects, and, weeping, stretched out her arms as if to bless them.

"Long live the queen! Long live Louisa!" they cried, and those who held the horses, in order to stop the carriage, dropped the reins, rushed toward the coach door, threw up their hats, and joined in the welcome cry. The coachman, profiting by this movement, drove onward. The people, whose desire had been satisfied in having seen their queen, no longer resisted, and permitted the carriage to roll away.

Louisa closed her coach window, and, sinking back upon the cus.h.i.+ons, exclaimed in a heart-rending tone, "Alas! it is perhaps the last time that they thus salute me! Soon, perhaps, I shall be no longer Queen of Prussia!" She buried her face in her hands, and sobbed aloud.

"Do not weep," whispered Madame von Berg, the queen's intimate friend, who was sitting by her side, "do not weep. It may be a dispensation of Providence that the crown shall fall from your head for a moment, but He will replace it more firmly, and one day you will again be happy."

"Oh, it is not for the sake of my own majesty, and for my little worldly splendor, that I am lamenting at this moment," said the queen, removing her hands from her face. "I should gladly plunge into obscurity and death if my husband and my children were exempted from humiliation, and if these good people, who love me, and are attached to their king, should not be compelled to recognize a foreigner as their master, and bow to him!"

"Even though the people should be subjugated at present," said Madame von Berg, solemnly, "they will rise one day and avenge their disgrace!"

"Would you were a true prophetess!" exclaimed Louisa. "I hope the people will remain faithful to us in adversity, and never forget their love for their king! Yes, I will hope for that day, and pray that it may come speedily. I will weep no more; but remember that I am a mother, and shall see my children again--not to leave them, but to hasten with them to my husband, who is waiting for me at Kustrin. In half an hour we must continue our journey."

Just then the carriage drove past the main guard-house. The soldiers presented arms, and the drums beat.

A melancholy smile overspread the queen's features. "Do you remember what Prince Louis Ferdinand said to his mother, on the eve of his departure to the army?" she asked in a low voice.

"No, your majesty, I do not remember, and it is possible that I never heard of it."

"The princess believed a defeat of our army to be utterly impossible,"

said the queen. "She thought Prussia was so strong a bulwark that the proud a.s.sault of the French empire would be in vain. 'You are mistaken,'

exclaimed Prince Louis Ferdinand; 'you think nothing will change, and the drums will always be beaten when you ride out at the gate? On the contrary, I tell you, mamma, one day you will ride out of the gate, and no drums will be beaten!' The same will happen to us, my dear--we will often ride out of the gate, and no drums will be beaten. But here is our house, and I must hide my tears. I will show a smiling face to my children."

The queen's carriage stopped for the first time at the doorsteps of the palace without meeting there the ladies and gentlemen of the court, the high dignitaries and functionaries who had formerly never failed to wait on her. She had come without being expected, but on this day of anxiety and terror the announcement of her arrival would have made no difference; for every one thought only of himself, and was occupied with his own safety. Only a few faithful servants, therefore, received her, and bade her welcome with tearful eyes.

"Where are my children?" exclaimed the queen, anxiously. "Why are they not here to receive their mother?"

"Your majesty," said the palace-steward, in a low voice, "a courier, sent hither by the king, arrived last night, unfortunately having failed to meet with your majesty on the road. The royal princes and princesses set out two hours ago to Stettin, and thence to Grandenz. Such were his majesty's orders."

The queen suppressed the cry of pain which rose to her lips, but a deadly pallor overspread her cheeks. "In half an hour I shall set out,"

she said faintly. "Pack up only the most indispensable articles for me; in half an hour I must be ready to enter my carriage. I shall, perhaps, overtake my children in Stettin." And she retired to her room, struggling to conceal the emotions that so violently agitated her.

CHAPTER V.

QUIET IS THE CITIZEN'S FIRST DUTY.

The people in the meantime, gathering in still greater numbers in the broad street under the Linden, returned to the house of Lombard, and saw, to their great disappointment, that the courier was no longer there.

"Now, we want to know the news contained in the dispatches, and Counsellor Lombard must tell us," shouted one of the men standing in front of the house; he then commenced hammering the door with his powerful fists. Others joined him, and to the measure of this threatening music the crowd yelled, "The dispatches! the dispatches!

Lombard must come out! He must tell us what the dispatches contain! We want to know whether our army has been defeated, or has won the battle!"

When no voice replied, nor door nor window opened, the mob, whose anger grew more menacing, seized once more their former weapons, the stones, and hurled them at the house. "He shall not escape from us! We will stay here until he makes his appearance, and replies to our questions!" they cried. "If he do not come to us, we will go to him and compel him to hear us!"

"Fortunately, you will not find him at home," whispered Lombard, who was listening at the door. "Every thing is in good order," he added in a low voice. "The dear enraged people will have to hammer a good while before breaking these bolts. By that time I shall be far from here, on the road to Stettin."

The cabinet counsellor glided away with a sarcastic smile to the back gate. There stood his wife, weeping piteously and wringing her hands.

M. Lombard, who had hitherto only smiled, now laughed outright. "Truly,"

he said, "it is really worth while to make a scene in consequence of this demonstration of the people! My dear, I should think our family ought to know how to manage them! Your father has shaved those stupid fiends enough, and my father pulled the wool over their eyes,[9] and, as good children of our parents, we ought to do so too."

[Footnote 9: Lombard's father was a hair-dresser, and his wife's father a barber. Lombard liked to jest about his descent, particularly at the dinner-table of some prince or minister. He always alluded to his father in the following terms: "_Feu mon pere de poudreuse memoire!_"]

"Oh, Lombard, just listen," wailed his wife, "they are knocking at the door with heavy clubs; we must perish if they succeed in forcing it open and entering the house. They will a.s.sa.s.sinate you, for you have heard their imprecations against you."

"_Ma chere_," said Lombard, composedly, "this is not the first time that I discover that the people despise and persecute me. I knew it long ago.

These blockheads will never forgive me for being a Frenchman, and for having, consequently, a predilection for France and her heroic emperor.

And not only they, but the so-called educated and high-born cla.s.ses also, hate me intensely. Throughout all Europe I have been branded as a traitor in the pay of Napoleon. Conspiracies were got up everywhere to bring about my removal. All the princes of the royal house--nay, the queen herself, united against me.[10] But you see, my dear, that they did not succeed after all in undermining my position; and the howling rabble outside will have no better success. Indeed, the fellows seem to be in earnest. Their blows shake the whole house!"

[Footnote 10: Lombard's own words.--Vide Gentz's Diary in his "Miscellanies," edited by G. Schlesier, vol. iv.]

"They will succeed in breaking in," said his wife, anxiously; "and then they will a.s.sa.s.sinate all of us."

"They will do no such thing, for they do not come for spoils, but only for news," said Lombard. "And then, my love, they know just as well as I the German maxim: 'The people of Nuremberg do not hang anybody unless they have got him!' but they will not get me, for there comes my faithful Jean across the yard.--Well, Jean, is every thing ready?" he said to the approaching footman.

"Yes," he replied. "The carriage with four excellent horses is waiting for you, sir. I ordered it, however, not to stop at the garden gate, but a little farther down, in front of another house."

"That was well done, my sagacious Jean. But I hope you did not forget either to place several bottles of Tokay wine and some roast fowl in the carriage for me? The ill-mannered rabble outside will not permit me to-day to lunch at home. Hence I must make up my mind to do so on the road."

"I have not forgotten the wine nor the roast pheasant, your excellency."

"You have packed up a pheasant!" exclaimed Lombard. "If the noisy gentlemen outside there knew that, they would be sure to a.s.sert that the Emperor Napoleon had sent it to me as a bribe. Now, Jean, come, we will set out. The street is quiet, I suppose?"

"Perfectly so. All those who have legs have gathered in front of the house."

"And all those who have fists are hammering at the door," wailed Mde.

Lombard. "Make haste, Lombard--make haste lest it be too late!"

"You are right. I must go," said Lombard, quietly. "Now listen to what I am going to tell you. So soon as you hear my carriage roll away, be kind enough to repair to the balcony, of the first floor and address the people. Their surprise at seeing you will cause them to be silent for a moment."