CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH THE LUCK GOES AGAINST BARRY
My hopes of obtaining the hand of one of the richest heiresses inGermany were now, as far as all human probability went, and as far asmy own merits and prudence could secure my fortune, pretty certain ofcompletion. I was admitted whenever I presented myself at the Princess'sapartments, and had as frequent opportunities as I desired of seeingthe Countess Ida there. I cannot say that she received me with anyparticular favour; the silly young creature's affections were, as I havesaid, engaged ignobly elsewhere; and, however captivating my own personand manners may have been, it was not to be expected that she should allof a sudden forget her lover for the sake of the young Irish gentlemanwho was paying his addresses to her. But such little rebuffs as I gotwere far from discouraging me. I had very powerful friends, who were toaid me in my undertaking; and knew that, sooner or later, the victorymust be mine. In fact, I only waited my time to press my suit. Whocould tell the dreadful stroke of fortune which was impending over myillustrious protectress, and which was to involve me partially in herruin?
All things seemed for a while quite prosperous to my wishes; and inspite of the Countess Ida's disinclination, it was much easier tobring her to her senses than, perhaps, may be supposed in a sillyconstitutional country like England, where people are not brought upwith those wholesome sentiments of obedience to Royalty which werecustomary in Europe at the time when I was a young man.
I have stated how, through Magny, I had the Princess, as it were, at myfeet. Her Highness had only to press the match upon the old Duke, overwhom her influence was unbounded, and to secure the goodwill ofthe Countess of Liliengarten, (which was the romantic title of hisHighness's morganatic spouse), and the easy old man would give anorder for the marriage: which his ward would perforce obey. Madame deLiliengarten was, too, from her position, extremely anxious to obligethe Princess Olivia; who might be called upon any day to occupy thethrone. The old Duke was tottering, apoplectic, and exceedingly fond ofgood living. When he was gone, his relict would find the patronage ofthe Duchess Olivia most necessary to her. Hence there was a closemutual understanding between the two ladies; and the world said that theHereditary Princess was already indebted to the favourite for help onvarious occasions. Her Highness had obtained, through the Countess,several large grants of money for the payment of her multifarious debts;and she was now good enough to exert her gracious influence over Madamede Liliengarten in order to obtain for me the object so near myheart. It is not to be supposed that my end was to be obtained withoutcontinual unwillingness and refusals on Magny's part; but I pushedmy point resolutely, and had means in my hands of overcoming thestubbornness of that feeble young gentleman. Also, I may say, withoutvanity, that if the high and mighty Princess detested me, the Countess(though she was of extremely low origin, it is said) had better tasteand admired me. She often did us the honour to go partners with us inone of our faro-banks, and declared that I was the handsomest man in theduchy. All I was required to prove was my nobility, and I got at Viennasuch a pedigree as would satisfy the most greedy in that way. In fact,what had a man descended from the Barrys and the Bradys to fear beforeany VON in Germany? By way of making assurance doubly sure, I promisedMadame de Liliengarten ten thousand louis on the day of my marriage, andshe knew that as a play-man I had never failed in my word: and I vow,that had I paid fifty per cent. for it, I would have got the money.
Thus by my talents, honesty, and acuteness, I had, considering I wasa poor patronless outcast, raised for myself very powerful protectors.Even his Highness the Duke Victor was favourably inclined to me; for,his favourite charger falling ill of the staggers, I gave him a ballsuch as my uncle Brady used to administer, and cured the horse; afterwhich his Highness was pleased to notice me frequently. He invited meto his hunting and shooting parties, where I showed myself to be a goodsportsman; and once or twice he condescended to talk to me about myprospects in life, lamenting that I had taken to gambling, and that Ihad not adopted a more regular means of advancement. 'Sir,' said I, 'ifyou will allow me to speak frankly to your Highness, play with me isonly a means to an end. Where should I have been without it? A privatestill in King Frederick's grenadiers. I come of a race which gaveprinces to my country; but persecutions have deprived them of their vastpossessions. My uncle's adherence to his ancient faith drove him fromour country. I too resolved to seek advancement in the military service;but the insolence and ill-treatment which I received at the hands ofthe English were not bearable by a high-born gentleman, and I fled theirservice. It was only to fall into another bondage to all appearancestill more hopeless; when my good star sent a preserver to me in myuncle, and my spirit and gallantry enabled me to take advantage of themeans of escape afforded me. Since then we have lived, I do not disguiseit, by play; but who can say I have done him a wrong? Yet, if I couldfind myself in an honourable post, and with an assured maintenance, Iwould never, except for amusement, such as every gentleman must have,touch a card again. I beseech your Highness to inquire of your residentat Berlin if I did not on every occasion act as a gallant soldier. Ifeel that I have talents of a higher order, and should be proud to haveoccasion to exert them; if, as I do not doubt, my fortune shall bringthem into play.'
The candour of this statement struck his Highness greatly, and impressedhim in my favour, and he was pleased to say that he believed me, andwould be glad to stand my friend.
Having thus the two Dukes, the Duchess, and the reigning favouriteenlisted on my side, the chances certainly were that I should carry offthe great prize; and I ought, according to all common calculations, tohave been a Prince of the Empire at this present writing, but thatmy ill luck pursued me in a matter in which I was not the least toblame,--the unhappy Duchess's attachment to the weak, silly, cowardlyFrenchman. The display of this love was painful to witness, as its endwas frightful to think of. The Princess made no disguise of it. IfMagny spoke a word to a lady of her household, she would be jealous, andattack with all the fury of her tongue the unlucky offender. She wouldsend him a half-dozen of notes in the day: at his arrival to join hercircle or the courts which she held, she would brighten up, so that allmight perceive. It was a wonder that her husband had not long ere thisbeen made aware of her faithlessness; but the Prince Victor was himselfof so high and stern a nature that he could not believe in her stoopingso far from her rank as to forget her virtue: and I have heard say,that when hints were given to him of the evident partiality which thePrincess showed for the equerry, his answer was a stern command nevermore to be troubled on the subject. 'The Princess is light-minded,' hesaid; 'she was brought up at a frivolous Court; but her folly goes notbeyond coquetry: crime is impossible; she has her birth, and my name,and her children, to defend her.' And he would ride off to hismilitary inspections and be absent for weeks, or retire to his suite ofapartments, and remain closeted there whole days; only appearing tomake a bow at her Highness's LEVEE, or to give her his hand at the Courtgalas, where ceremony required that he should appear. He was a man ofvulgar tastes, and I have seen him in the private garden, with his greatungainly figure, running races, or playing at ball with his little sonand daughter, whom he would find a dozen pretexts daily for visiting.The serene children were brought to their mother every morning ather toilette; but she received them very indifferently: except on oneoccasion, when the young Duke Ludwig got his little uniform as colonelof hussars, being presented with a regiment by his godfather the EmperorLeopold. Then, for a day or two, the Duchess Olivia was charmed withthe little boy; but she grew tired of him speedily, as a child does ofa toy. I remember one day, in the morning circle, some of the Princess'srouge came off on the arm of her son's little white military jacket; onwhich she slapped the poor child's face, and sent him sobbing away. Oh,the woes that have been worked by women in this world! the misery intowhich men have lightly stepped with smiling faces; often not even withthe excuse of passion, but from mere foppery, vanity, and bravado! Menplay with these dreadful two-edged tools, as if no harm could come tothem. I,
who have seen more of life than most men, if I had a son, wouldgo on my knees to him and beg him to avoid woman, who is worse thanpoison. Once intrigue, and your whole life is endangered: you never knowwhen the evil may fall upon you; and the woe of whole families, and theruin of innocent people perfectly dear to you, may be caused by a momentof your folly.
When I saw how entirely lost the unlucky Monsieur de Magny seemed to be,in spite of all the claims I had against him, I urged him to fly. He hadrooms in the palace, in the garrets over the Princess's quarters(the building was a huge one, and accommodated almost a city of nobleretainers of the family); but the infatuated young fool would notbudge, although he had not even the excuse of love for staying. 'Howshe squints,' he would say of the Princess, 'and how crooked she is! Shethinks no one can perceive her deformity. She writes me verses out ofGresset or Crebillon, and fancies I believe them to be original. Bah!they are no more her own than her hair is!' It was in this way that thewretched lad was dancing over the ruin that was yawning under him. I dobelieve that his chief pleasure in making love to the Princess was, thathe might write about his victories to his friends of the PETITES MAISONSat Paris, where he longed to be considered as a wit and a VAINQUEUR DEDAMES.
Seeing the young man's recklessness, and the danger of his position,I became very anxious that MY little scheme should be brought to asatisfactory end, and pressed him warmly on the matter.
My solicitations with him were, I need not say, from the nature of theconnection between us, generally pretty successful; and, in fact, thepoor fellow could REFUSE ME NOTHING: as I used often laughingly to sayto him, very little to his liking. But I used more than threats, or thelegitimate influence I had over him. I used delicacy and generosity;as a proof of which, I may mention that I promised to give back to thePrincess the family emerald, which I mentioned in the last chapter thatI had won from her unprincipled admirer at play.
This was done by my uncle's consent, and was one of the usual acts ofprudence and foresight which distinguish that clever man. "Press thematter now, Redmond my boy," he would urge. "This affair between herHighness and Magny must end ill for both of them, and that soon; andwhere will be your chance to win the Countess then? Now is your time!win her and wear her before the month is over, and we will give up thepunting business, and go live like noblemen at our castle in Swabia. Getrid of that emerald, too," he added: "should an accident happen, it willbe an ugly deposit found in our hand." This it was that made me agree toforego the possession of the trinket; which, I must confess, I wasloth to part with. It was lucky for us both that I did: as you shallpresently hear.
Meanwhile, then, I urged Magny: I myself spoke strongly to the Countessof Liliengarten, who promised formally to back my claim with hisHighness the reigning Duke; and Monsieur de Magny was instructed toinduce the Princess Olivia to make a similar application to the oldsovereign in my behalf. It was done. The two ladies urged the Prince;his Highness (at a supper of oysters and champagne) was brought toconsent, and her Highness the Hereditary Princess did me the honour ofnotifying personally to the Countess Ida that it was the Prince's willthat she should marry the young Irish nobleman, the Chevalier Redmond deBalibari. The notification was made in my presence; and though the youngCountess said 'Never!' and fell down in a swoon at her lady's feet, Iwas, you may be sure, entirely unconcerned at this little display ofmawkish sensibility, and felt, indeed, now that my prize was secure.
That evening I gave the Chevalier de Magny the emerald, which hepromised to restore to the Princess; and now the only difficulty in myway lay with the Hereditary Prince, of whom his father, his wife, andthe favourite, were alike afraid. He might not be disposed to allow therichest heiress in his duchy to be carried off by a noble, though nota wealthy foreigner. Time was necessary in order to break the matter toPrince Victor. The Princess must find him at some moment of good-humour.He had days of infatuation still, when he could refuse his wife nothing;and our plan was to wait for one of these, or for any other chance whichmight occur.
But it was destined that the Princess should never see her husband ather feet, as often as he had been. Fate was preparing a terrible endingto her follies, and my own hope. In spite of his solemn promises to me,Magny never restored the emerald to the Princess Olivia.
He had heard, in casual intercourse with me, that my uncle and I hadbeen beholden to Mr. Moses Lowe, the banker of Heidelberg, who had givenus a good price for our valuables; and the infatuated young man tooka pretext to go thither, and offered the jewel for pawn. Moses Lowerecognised the emerald at once, gave Magny the sum the latter demanded,which the Chevalier lost presently at play: never, you may be sure,acquainting us with the means by which he had made himself master of somuch capital. We, for our parts, supposed that he had been supplied byhis usual banker, the Princess: and many rouleaux of his gold piecesfound their way into our treasury, when at the Court galas, at our ownlodgings, or at the apartments of Madame de Liliengarten (who on theseoccasions did us the honour to go halves with us) we held our bank offaro.
Thus Magny's money was very soon gone. But though the Jew held hisjewel, of thrice the value no doubt of the sums he had lent upon it,that was not all the profit which he intended to have from his unhappycreditor; over whom he began speedily to exercise his authority. HisHebrew connections at X--, money-brokers, bankers, horse-dealers, aboutthe Court there, must have told their Heidelberg brother what Magny'srelations with the Princess were; and the rascal determined to takeadvantage of these, and to press to the utmost both victims. Myuncle and I were, meanwhile, swimming upon the high tide of fortune,prospering with our cards, and with the still greater matrimonial gamewhich we were playing; and we were quite unaware of the mine under ourfeet.
Before a month was passed, the Jew began to pester Magny. He presentedhimself at X--, and asked for further interest-hush-money; otherwisehe must sell the emerald. Magny got money for him; the Princess againbefriended her dastardly lover. The success of the first demand onlyrendered the second more exorbitant. I know not how much money wasextorted and paid on this unluckly emerald: but it was the cause of theruin of us all.
One night we were keeping our table as usual at the Countess ofLiliengarten's, and Magny being in cash somehow, kept drawing outrouleau after rouleau, and playing with his common ill success. Inthe middle of the play a note was brought into him, which he read, andturned very pale on perusing; but the luck was against him, and lookingup rather anxiously at the clock, he waited for a few more turns of thecards, when having, I suppose, lost his last rouleau, he got up with awild oath that scared some of the polite company assembled, and leftthe room. A great trampling of horses was heard without; but we weretoo much engaged with our business to heed the noise, and continued ourplay.
Presently some one came into the play-room and said to the Countess,'Here is a strange story! A Jew has been murdered in the Kaiserwald.Magny was arrested when he went out of the room.' All the party brokeup on hearing this strange news, and we shut up our bank for the night.Magny had been sitting by me during the play (my uncle dealt and I paidand took the money), and, looking under the chair, there was a crumpledpaper, which I took up and read. It was that which had been delivered tohim, and ran thus:--'If you have done it, take the orderly's horse whobrings this. It is the best of my stable. There are a hundred louis ineach holster, and the pistols are loaded. Either course lies open toyou if you know what I mean. In a quarter of an hour I shall know ourfate--whether I am to be dishonoured and survive you, whether you areguilty and a coward, or whether you are still worthy of the name of
'M.'
This was in the handwriting of the old General de Magny; and my uncleand I, as we walked home at night, having made and divided with theCountess Liliengarten no inconsiderable profits that night, felt ourtriumphs greatly dashed by the perusal of the letter. 'Has Magny,' weasked, 'robbed the Jew, or has his intrigue been discovered?' In eithercase, my claims on the Countess Ida were likely to meet with seriousdrawbacks: and I began to feel that my 'grea
t card' was played andperhaps lost.
Well, it WAS lost: though I say, to this day, it was well and gallantlyplayed. After supper (which we never for fear of consequences tookduring play) I became so agitated in my mind as to what was occurringthat I determined to sally out about midnight into the town, and inquirewhat was the real motive of Magny's apprehension. A sentry was at thedoor, and signified to me that I and my uncle were under arrest.
We were left in our quarters for six weeks, so closely watched thatescape was impossible, had we desired it; but, as innocent men, we hadnothing to fear. Our course of life was open to all, and we desired andcourted inquiry. Great and tragical events happened during those sixweeks; of which, though we heard the outline, as all Europe did, when wewere released from our captivity, we were yet far from understanding allthe particulars, which were not much known to me for many years after.Here they are, as they were told me by the lady, who of all the worldperhaps was most likely to know them. But the narrative had best formthe contents of another chapter.