X. THE TRAGEDY OF HERRENHAUSEN
Count Philip Koenigsmark and the Princess Sophia Dorothea
He was accounted something of a scamp throughout Europe, andparticularly in England, where he had been associated with his brotherin the killing of Mr. Thynne. But the seventeenth century did notlook for excessively nice scruples in a soldier of fortune; and so itcondoned the lack of virtue in Count Philip Christof Koenigsmark forthe sake of his personal beauty, his elegance, his ready wit, and hismagnificent address. The court of Hanover made him warmly welcome,counting itself the richer for his presence; whilst he, on his side, wasretained there by the Colonelcy in the Electoral Guard to which hehad been appointed, and by his deep and ill-starred affection for thePrincess Sophia Dorothea, the wife of the Electoral Prince, who laterwas to reign in England as King George I.
His acquaintance with her dated back to childhood, for they had beenplaymates at her father's ducal court of Zell, where Koenigsmark had beenbrought up. With adolescence he had gone out into the world to seek thebroader education which it offered to men of quality and spirit. He hadfought bulls in Madrid, and the infidel overseas; he had wooed adventurewherever it was to be met, until romance hung about him like an aura.Thus Sophia met him again, a dazzling personality, whose effulgenceshone the more brightly against the dull background of that grossHanoverian court; an accomplished, graceful, self-reliant man of theworld, in whom she scarcely recognized her sometime playmate.
The change he found in her was no less marked, though of a differentkind. The sweet child he had known--she had been married in 1682, atthe age of sixteen--had come in her ten years of wedded life to thefulfilment of the handsome promise of her maidenhood. But her beauty wasspiritualized by a certain wistfulness that had not been there before,that should not have been there now had all been well. The sprightlinessinherent in her had not abated, but it had assumed a certain warp ofbitterness; humour, which is of the heart, had given place in herto wit, which is of the mind, and this wit was barbed, and a littlereckless of how or where it offended.
Koenigsmark observed these changes that the years had wrought, and knewenough of her story to account for them. He knew of her thwarted lovefor her cousin, the Duke of Wolfenbuttel, thwarted for the sake ofdynastic ambition, to the end that by marrying her to the ElectoralPrince George the whole of the Duchy of Luneberg might be united.Thus, for political reasons, she had been thrust into a union that wasmutually loveless; for Prince George had as little affection to bring toit as herself. Yet for a prince the door to compensations is ever open.Prince George's taste, as is notorious, was ever for ugly women, andthis taste he indulged so freely, openly, and grossly that the coldnesstowards him with which Sophia had entered the alliance was eventuallyconverted into disgust and contempt.
Thus matters stood between that ill-matched couple; contempt on herside, cold dislike on his, a dislike that was fully shared by hisfather, the Elector, Ernest Augustus, and encouraged in the latter bythe Countess von Platen.
Madame von Platen, the wife of the Elector's chief minister of state,was--with the connivance of her despicable husband, who saw thereinthe means to his own advancement--the acknowledged mistress of ErnestAugustus. She was a fleshly, gauche, vain, and ill-favoured woman.Malevolence sat in the creases of her painted face, and peered from hermean eyes. Yet, such as she was, the Elector Ernest loved her. His son'staste for ugly women would appear to have been hereditary.
Between the Countess and Sophia there was a deadly feud. The princesshad mortally offended her father-in-law's favourite. Not only had shenever troubled to dissemble the loathing which that detestable womaninspired in her, but she had actually given it such free and stingingexpression as had provoked against Madame von Platen the derision ofthe court, a derision so ill-concealed that echoes of it had reached itsobject, and made her aware of the source from whence it sprang.
It was into this atmosphere of hostility that the advent of the elegant,romantic Koenigsmark took place. He found the stage set for comedy ofa grim and bitter kind, which he was himself, by his recklessness, toconvert into tragedy.
It began by the Countess von Platen's falling in love with him. It wassome time before he suspected it, though heaven knows he did not lackfor self-esteem. Perhaps it was this very self-esteem that blinded himhere to the appalling truth. Yet in the end understanding came tohim. When the precise significance of the fond leer of that paintedharridan's repellent coquetry was borne in upon him he felt the skin ofhis body creep and roughen But he dissembled craftily. He was a venalscamp, after all, and in the court of Hanover he saw opportunities toemploy his gifts and his knowledge of the great world in such a way asto win to eminence. He saw that the Elector's favourite could be of useto him; and it is not your adventurer's way to look too closely into thenature of the ladder by which he has the chance to climb.
Skilfully, craftily, then, he played the enamoured countess so long asher fondness for him might be useful, her hostility detrimental. Butonce the Colonelcy of the Electoral Guards was firmly in his grasp,and an intimate friendship had ripened between himself and PrinceCharles--the Elector's younger son--sufficiently to ensure his future,he plucked off the mask and allied himself with Sophia in her hostilitytowards Madame von Platen. He did worse. Some little time thereafter,whilst on a visit to the court of Poland, he made one night in his cupsa droll story of the amorous persecution which he had suffered at Madamevon Platen's hands.
It was a tale that set the profligate company in a roar. But there wasone present who afterwards sent a report of it to the Countess, and youconceive the nature of the emotions it aroused in her. Her rage was thegreater for being stifled. It was obviously impossible for her to appealto her lover, the Elector, to avenge her. From the Elector, above allothers, must the matter be kept concealed. But not on that account wouldshe forgo the vengeance due. She would present a reckoning in full ereall was done, and bitterly should the presumptuous young adventurer whohad flouted her be made to pay.
The opportunity was very soon to be afforded her. It arose more or lessdirectly out of an act in which she indulged her spite against Sophia.This lay in throwing Melusina Schulemberg into the arms of the ElectoralPrince. Melusina, who was years afterwards to be created Duchessof Kendal, had not yet attained to that completeness of lank, bonyhideousness that was later to distinguish her in England. But even inyouth she could boast of little attraction. Prince George, however,was easily attracted. A dull, undignified libertine, addicted toover-eating, heavy drinking, and low conversation, he found in Melusinavon Schulemberg an ideal mate. Her installation as maitresse en-titretook place publicly at a ball given by Prince George at Herrenhausen, aball at which the Princess Sophia was present.
Accustomed, inured, as she was to the coarse profligacy of her dullardhusband, and indifferent to his philandering as her contempt of him nowleft her, yet in the affront thus publicly offered her, she felt thatthe limit of endurance had been reached. Next day it was found that shehad disappeared from Herrenhausen. She had fled to her father's court atZell.
But her father received her coldly; lectured her upon the freedom andlevity of her manners, which he condemned as unbecoming the dignityof her rank; recommended her to use in future greater prudence, and aproper, wifely submission; and, the homily delivered, packed her back toher husband at Herrenhausen.
George's reception of her on her return was bitterly hostile. She hadbeen guilty of a more than usual, of an unpardonable want of respect forhim. She must learn what was due to her station, and to her husband. Hewould thank her to instruct herself in these matters against his returnfrom Berlin, whither he was about to journey, and he warned her that hewould suffer no more tantrums of that kind.
Thus he delivered himself, with cold hate in his white, flabby,frog-face and in the very poise of his squat, ungainly figure.
Thereafter he departed for Berlin, bearing hate of her with him, andleaving hate and despair behind.
It was then, in this despair, that Sophia loo
ked about her for a truefriend to lend her the aid she so urgently required; to rescue her fromher intolerable, soul-destroying fate. And at her elbow, against thisdreadful need, Destiny had placed her sometime playmate, her mostdevoted friend--as she accounted him, and as, indeed, he was--theelegant, reckless Koenigsmark, with his beautiful face, his golden mane,and his unfathomable blue eyes.
Walking with him one summer day between clipped hedges in the formalgardens of Herrenhausen--that palace as squat and ungraceful as thosewho had built and who inhabited it--she opened her heart to him veryfully, allowed him, in her overwhelming need of sympathy, to see thingswhich for very shame she had hitherto veiled from all other eyes. Shekept nothing back; she dwelt upon her unhappiness with her boorishhusband, told him of slights and indignities innumerable, whose pain shehad hitherto so bravely dissembled, confessed, even, that he had beatenher upon occasion.
Koenigsmark went red and white by turns, with the violent surge of hisemotions, and the deep sapphire eyes blazed with wrath when she came atlast to the culminating horror of blows endured.
"It is enough, madame," he cried. "I swear to you, as Heaven hears me,that he shall be punished."
"Punished?" she echoed, checking in her stride, and looked at him witha smile of sad incredulity. "It is not his punishment I seek, my friend,but my own salvation."
"The one can be accomplished with the other," he answered hotly, andstruck the cut-steel hilt of his sword. "You shall be rid of this loutas soon as ever I can come to him. I go after him to Berlin to-night."
The colour all faded from her cheeks, her sensitive lips fell apart, asshe looked at him aghast.
"Why, what would you do? What do you mean?" she asked him.
"I will send him the length of my sword, and so make a widow of you,madame."
She shook her head. "Princes do not fight," she said, on a note ofcontempt.
"I shall so shame him that he will have no alternative--unless, indeed,he is shameless. I will choose my occasion shrewdly, put an affronton him one evening in his cups, when drink shall have made him valiantenough to commit himself to a meeting. If even that will not answer, andhe still shields himself behind his rank--why, there are other ways toserve him." He was thinking, perhaps, of Mr. Thynne.
The heat of so much reckless, romantic fury on her behalf warmed thepoor lady, who had so long been chilled for want of sympathy, andstarved of love. Impulsively she caught his hand in hers.
"My friend, my friend!" she cried, on a note that quivered and broke."You are mad--wonderfully beautifully mad, but mad. What would become ofyou if you did this?"
He swept the consideration aside by a contemptuous, almost angrygesture. "Does that matter? I am concerned with what is to become ofyou. I was born for your service, my princess, and the service beingrendered..." He shrugged and smiled, threw out his hands and let themfall again to his sides in an eloquent gesture. He was the completecourtier, the knight-errant, the romantic preux-chevalier all in one.
She drew closer to him, took the blue lapels of his military coat in herwhite hands, and looked pathetically up into his beautiful face. If evershe wanted to kiss a man, she surely wanted to kiss Koenigsmark in thatmoment, but as she might have kissed a loving brother, in token of herdeep gratitude for his devotion to her who had known so little truedevotion.
"If you knew," she said, "what balsam this proof of your friendship haspoured upon the wounds of my soul, you would understand my utter lack ofwords in which to thank you. You dumbfound me, my friend; I can find noexpression for my gratitude."
"I ask no gratitude," quoth he. "I am all gratitude myself that youshould have come to me in the hour of your need. I but ask your leave toserve you in my own way."
She shook her head. She saw his blue eyes grow troubled.
He was about to speak, to protest, but she hurried on. "Serve me if youwill--God knows I need the service of a loyal friend--but serve me as Ishall myself decide--no other way."
"But what alternative service can exist?" he asked, almost impatiently.
"I have it in mind to escape from this horrible place--to quit Hanover,never to return."
"But to go whither?"
"Does it matter? Anywhere away from this hateful court, and this hatefullife; anywhere, since my father will not let me find shelter at Zell,as I had hoped. Had it not been for the thought of my children, Ishould have fled long ago. For the sake of those two little ones I havesuffered patiently through all these years. But the limit of endurancehas been reached and passed. Take me away. Koenigsmark!" She wasclutching his lapels again. "If you would really serve me, help me toescape."
His hands descended upon hers, and held them prisoned against hisbreast. A flush crept into his fair cheeks, there was a sudden kindlingof the eyes that looked down into her own piteous ones. These sensitive,romantic natures are quickly stirred to passion, ever ready to yield tothe adventure of it.
"My princess," he said, "you may count upon your Koenigsmark while he haslife." Disengaging her hands from his lapels, but still holding them, hebowed low over them, so low that his heavy golden mane tumbled forwardon either side of his handsome head to form a screen under cover ofwhich he pressed his lips upon her fingers.
She let him have his will with her hands. It was little enough rewardfor so much devotion.
"I thank you again," she breathed. "And now I must think--I mustconsider where I can count upon finding refuge."
That cooled his ardour a little. His own high romantic notion was, nodoubt, to fling her there and then upon the withers of his horse, and soride out into the wide world to carve a kingdom for her with his sword.Her sober words dispelled the dream, revealed to him that it was notquite intended he should hereafter be her custodian. And there for themoment the matter was suspended.
Both had behaved quite recklessly. Each should have remembered thatan Electoral Princess is not wise to grant a protracted interview,accompanied by lapel-holding, hand-holding, and hand-kissings, withinsight of the windows of a palace. And, as it happened, behind one ofthose windows lurked the Countess von Platen, watching them jealously,and without any disposition to construe the meeting innocently. Was shenot the deadly enemy of both? Had not the Princess whetted satire uponher, and had not Koenigsmark scorned the love she proffered him, andthen unpardonably published it in a ribald story to excite the mirth ofprofligates?
That evening the Countess purposefully sought her lover, the Elector.
"Your son is away in Prussia," quoth she. "Who guards his honour in hisabsence?"
"George's honour?" quoth the Elector, bulging eyes staring at theCountess. He did not laugh, as might have been expected at the notion ofguarding something whose existence was not easily discerned. He had nosense of humour, as his appearance suggested. He was a short, fat manwith a face shaped like a pear--narrow in the brow and heavy in thejowl. "What the devil do you mean?" he asked.
"I mean that this foreign adventurer, Koenigsmark, and Sophia grow toointimate."
"Sophia!" Thick eyebrows were raised until they almost met the line ofhis ponderous peruke. His face broke into malevolent creases expressiveof contempt.
"That white-faced ninny! Bah!" Her very virtue was matter for his scorn.
"It is these white-faced ninnies can be most sly," replied the Countess,out of her worldly wisdom. "Listen a moment now." And she related, withinterest rather than discount, you may be sure, what she had witnessedthat afternoon.
The malevolence deepened in his face. He had never loved Sophia, and hefelt none the kinder towards her for her recent trip to Zell. Then, too,being a libertine, and the father of a libertine, it logically followedthat unchastity in his women-folk was in his eyes the unpardonable sin.
He heaved himself out of his deep chair. "How far has this gone?" hedemanded.
Prudence restrained the Countess from any over-statement that mightafterwards be disproved. Besides, there was not the need, if she couldtrust her senses. Patience and vigilance would presently afford her allt
he evidence required to damn the pair. She said as much, and promisedthe Elector that she would exercise herself the latter quality in hisson's service. Again the Elector did not find it grotesque that hismistress should appoint herself the guardian of his son's honour.
The Countess went about that congenial task with zeal--though George'shonour was the least thing that concerned her. What concerned her wasthe dishonour of Sophia, and the ruin of Koenigsmark. So she watchedassiduously, and set others, too, to watch for her and to report. Andalmost daily now she had for the Elector a tale of whisperings andhand-pressings, and secret stolen meetings between the guilty twain.The Elector enraged, and would have taken action, but that the guilefulCountess curbed him. All this was not enough. An accusation that couldnot be substantiated would ruin all chance of punishing the offenders,might recoil, indeed, upon the accusers by bringing the Duke of Zell tohis daughter's aid. So they must wait yet awhile until they held moreabsolute proof of this intrigue.
And then at last one day the Countess sped in haste to the Elector withword that Koenigsmark and the Princess had shut themselves up togetherin the garden pavilion. Let him come at once, and he should so discoverthem for himself, and thus at last be able to take action. The Countesswas flushed with triumph. Be that meeting never so innocent--and Madamevon Platen could not, being what she was, and having seen what shehad seen, conceive it innocent--it was in an Electoral Princess anunforgivable indiscretion, to take the most charitable view, which nonewould dream of taking. So the Elector, fiercely red in the face, hurriedoff to the pavilion with Madame von Platen following. He came too late,despite the diligence of his spy.
Sophia had been there, but her interview with the Count had been abrief one. She had to tell him that at last she was resolved in allparticulars. She would seek a refuge at the court of her cousin, theDuke of Wolfenbuttel, who, she was sure--for the sake of what once hadlain between them--would not now refuse to shelter and protect her. OfKoenigsmark she desired that he should act as her escort to her cousin'scourt.
Koenigsmark was ready, eager. In Hanover he would leave nothing thathe regretted. At Wolfenbuttel, having served Sophia faithfully, hisever-growing, romantic passion for her might find expression. She wouldmake all dispositions, and advise him when she was ready to set out.But they must use caution, for they were being spied upon. Madame vonPlaten's over-eagerness had in part betrayed her. It was, indeed, theirconsciousness of espionage which had led to this dangerous meetingin the seclusion of the pavilion, and which urged him to linger afterSophia had left him. They were not to be seen to emerge together.
The young Dane sat alone on the window-seat, his chin in his hands, hiseyes dreamy, a faint smile on his shapely lips, when Ernest Augustusburst furiously in, the Countess von Platen lingering just beyond thethreshold. The Elector's face was apoplectically purple from rage andhaste, his breath came in wheezing gasps. His bulging eyes sweptround the chamber, and fastened finally, glaring, upon the startledKoenigsmark.
"Where is the Princess?" he blurted out.
The Count espied Madame von Platen in the back ground, and had thescent of mischief very strong. But he preserved an air of innocentmystification. He rose and answered with courteous ease:
"Your Highness is seeking her? Shall I ascertain for you?"
At a loss, Ernest Augustus stared a moment, then flung a glance over hisshoulder at the Countess.
"I was told that her Highness was here," he said.
"Plainly," said Koenigsmark, with perfect calm, "you have beenmisinformed." And his quiet glance and gesture invited the Elector tolook round for himself.
"How long have you been here yourself?" Feeling at a disadvantage, theElector avoided the direct question that was in his mind.
"Half an hour at least."
"And in that time you have not seen the Princess?"
"Seen the Princess?" Koenigsmark's brows were knit perplexedly. "Iscarcely understand your Highness."
The Elector moved a step and trod on a soft substance. He looked down,then stooped, and rose again, holding in his hand a woman's glove.
"What's this?" quoth he. "Whose glove is this?"
If Koenigsmark's heart missed a beat--as well it may have done--he didnot betray it outwardly. He smiled; indeed he almost laughed.
"Your Highness is amusing himself at my expense by asking me questionsthat only a seer could answer."
The Elector was still considering him with his ponderously suspiciousglance, when quick steps approached. A serving-maid, one of Sophia'swomen, appeared in the doorway of the pavilion.
"What do you want?" the Elector snapped at her.
"A glove her Highness lately dropped here," was the timid answer,innocently precipitating the very discovery which the woman had been toohastily dispatched to avert.
The Elector flung the glove at her, and there was a creak of evillaughter from him. When she had departed' he turned again to Koenigsmark.
"You fence skilfully," said he, sneering, "too skilfully for an honestman. Will you now tell me without any more of this, precisely what thePrincess Sophia was doing here with you?"
Koenigsmark drew himself stiffly up, looking squarely into the furnace ofthe Elector's face.
"Your Highness assumes that the Princess was here with me, and a princeis not to be contradicted, even when he insults a lady whose spotlesspurity is beyond his understanding. But your Highness can hardly expectme to become in never so slight a degree a party to that insult byvouchsafing any answer to your question."
"That is your last word, sir?" The Elector shook with suppressed anger.
"Your Highness cannot think that words are necessary?"
The bulging eyes grew narrow, the heavy nether lip was thrust forth inscorn and menace.
"You are relieved, sir, of your duties in the Electoral Guard, and asthat is the only tie binding you to Hanover, we see no reason why yoursojourn here should be protracted."
Koenigsmark bowed stiffly, formally. "It shall end, your Highness, assoon as I can make the necessary arrangements for my departure--in aweek at most."
"You are accorded three days, sir." The Elector turned, and waddledout, leaving Koenigsmark to breathe freely again. The three days shouldsuffice for the Princess also. It was very well.
The Elector, too, thought that it was very well. He had given thistroublesome fellow his dismissal, averted a scandal, and placed hisdaughter-in-law out of the reach of harm. Madame von Platen was the onlyone concerned who thought that it was not well at all, the consummationbeing far from that which she had desired. She had dreamt of a flamingscandal, that should utterly consume her two enemies, Sophia andKoenigsmark. Instead, she saw them both escaping, and the fact that shewas--as she may have supposed--effectively separating two loving heartscould be no sort of adequate satisfaction for such bitter spite as hers.Therefore she plied her wicked wits to force an issue more germane toher desires.
The course she took was fraught with a certain peril. Yet confident thatat worst she could justify it, and little fearing that the worst wouldhappen, she boldly went to work. She forged next day a brief note inwhich the Princess Sophia urgently bade Koenigsmark to come to her atten o'clock that night in her own apartments, and with threat and bribeinduced the waiting woman of the glove to bear that letter.
Now it so happened that Koenigsmark, through the kind offices of Sophia'smaid-of-honour, Mademoiselle de Knesebeck, who was in the secret oftheir intentions, had sent the Princess a note that morning, brieflystating the urgency of departure, and begging her so to arrange that shecould leave Herrenhausen with him on the morrow. He imagined the notenow brought him to be in answer to that appeal of his. Its genuinenesshe never doubted, being unacquainted with Sophia's writing. He wasaghast at the rashness which dictated such an assignation, yet neverhesitated as to keeping it. It was not his way to hesitate. He trustedto the gods who watch over the destinies of the bold.
And meanwhile Madame von Platen was reproaching her lover with havingdealt too softly with
the Dane.
"Bah!" said the Elector. "To-morrow he goes his ways, and we are rid ofhim. Is not that enough?"
"Enough, if, soon as he goes, he goes not too late already," quoth she.
"Now what will you be hinting?" he asked her peevishly.
"I'll be more plain. I will tell you what I know. It is this. Koenigsmarkhas an assignation with the Princess Sophia this very night at teno'clock--and where do you suppose? In her Highness's own apartments."
The Elector came to his feet with an oath. "That is not true!" he cried."It cannot be!"
"Then I'll say no more," quoth Jezebel, and snapped her thin lips.
"Ah, but you shall. How do you know this?"
"That I cannot tell you without betraying a confidence. Let it sufficeyou that I do know it. Consider now whether in banishing this profligateyou have sufficiently avenged the honour of your son."
"My God, if I thought this were true...." He choked with rage, stoodshaking a moment, then strode to the door, calling.
"The truth is easily ascertained," said Madame. "Conceal yourself in theRittersaal, and await his coming forth. But you had best go attended,for it is a very reckless rogue, and he has been known aforetime topractice murder."
Whilst the Elector, acting upon this advice, was getting his mentogether, Koenigsmark was wasting precious moments in Sophia'santechamber, whilst Mademoiselle de Knesebeck apprised her Highnessof his visit. Sophia had already retired to bed, and the amazingannouncement of the Count's presence there startled her into a fear ofuntoward happenings. She was overwhelmed, too, by the rashness of thisstep of his, coming after the events of yesterday. If it should be knownthat he had visited her thus, terrible consequences might ensue. Sherose, and with Mademoiselle de Knesebeck's aid made ready to receivehim. Yet for all that she made haste, the precious irreclaimable momentssped.
She came to him at last, Mademoiselle de Knesebeck following, forpropriety's sake.
"What is it?" she asked him breathlessly. "What brings you here at suchan hour?"
"What brings me?" quoth he, surprised at that reception. "Why, yourcommands--your letter."
"My letter? What letter?"
A sense of doom, of being trapped, suddenly awoke in him. He pluckedforth the treacherous note, and proffered it.
"Why, what does this mean?" She swept a white hand over her eyes andbrows, as if to brush away some thing that obscured her vision. "That isnot mine. I never wrote it. How could you dream I should be imprudent asto bid you hither, and at such an hour How could you dream it?"
"You are right," said he, and laughed, perhaps to ease her alarm,perhaps in sheer bitter mirth. "It will be, no doubt, the work ofour friend, Madame von Platen. I had best begone. For the rest, mytravelling chaise will wait from noon until sunset to-morrow by theMarkt Kirck in Hanover, and I shall wait within it. I shall hope toconduct you safely to Wolfenbuttel."
"I will come, I will come. But go now--oh, go!"
He looked very deeply into her eyes--a valedictory glance against theworst befalling him. Then he took her hand, bowed over it and kissed it,and so departed.
He crossed the outer ante-room, descended the short flight of stairs,and pushed open the heavy door of the Hall of Knights. He passedthrough, and thrust the door behind him, then stood a moment lookinground the vast apartment. If he was too late to avoid the springs ofthe baited trap, it was here that they should snap upon him. Yet all wasstill. A single lamp on a table in the middle of the vast chamber sheda feeble, flickering light, yet sufficient to assure him that no onewaited here. He sighed relief, wrapped his cloak about him, and set outswiftly to cross the hall.
But even as he passed, four shadows detached themselves from the tallstove, resolved themselves into armed men, and sprang after him.
He heard them, wheeled about, flung off his cloak, and disengaged hissword, all with the speed of lightning and the address of the man whofor ten years had walked amid perils, and learned to depend upon hisblade. That swift action sealed his doom. Their orders were to take himliving or dead, and standing in awe of his repute, they were not the mento incur risks. Even as he came on guard, a partisan grazed his head,and another opened his breast.
He went down, coughing and gasping, blood dabbling his bright goldenhair, and staining the priceless Mechlin at his throat, yet his righthand still desperately clutching his useless sword.
His assassins stood about him, their partisans levelled to strike again,and summoned him to yield. Then, beside one of them, he suddenly beheldthe Countess von Platen materializing out of the surrounding shadows asit seemed, and behind her the squat, ungraceful figure of the Elector.He fought for breath. "I am slain," he gasped, "and as I am to appearbefore my Maker I swear to you that the Princess Sophia is innocent.Spare her at least, your Highness."
"Innocent!" said the Elector hoarsely. "Then what did you now in herapartments?
"It was a trap set for us by this foul hag, who..."
The heel of the vindictive harridan ground viciously upon the lips ofthe dying man and choked his utterance. Thereafter the halberts finishedhim off, and he was buried there and then, in lime, under the floor ofthe Hall of Knights, under the very spot where he had fallen, which waslong to remain imbrued with his blood.
Thus miserably perished the glittering Koenigsmark, a martyr to his ownirrepressible romanticism.
As for Sophia, better might it have been for her had she shared his fatethat night. She was placed under arrest next morning, and Prince Georgewas summoned back from Berlin at once.
The evidence may have satisfied him that his honour had not suffered,for he was disposed to let the matter drop, content that they shouldremain in the forbidding relations which had existed between them beforethis happening. But Sophia was uncompromising in her demand for strictjustice.
"If I am guilty, I am unworthy of you," she told him. "If innocent, youare unworthy of me."
There was no more to be said. A consistory court was assembled todivorce them. But since with the best intentions there was no faintestevidence of her adultery, this court had to be content to pronounce thedivorce upon the ground of her desertion.
She protested against the iniquity of this. But she protested in vain.She was carried off into the grim captivity of a castle on the Ahlen, todrag out in that melancholy duress another thirty-two years of life.
Her death took place in November of 1726. And the story runs that on herdeath-bed she delivered to a person of trust a letter to her sometimehusband, now King George I. of England. Seven months later, as KingGeorge was on his way to his beloved Hanover, that letter was placedin his carriage as it crossed the frontier into Germany. It containedSophia's dying declaration of innocence, and her solemn summons to KingGeorge to stand by her side before the judgment-seat of Heaven within ayear, and there make answer in her presence for the wrongs he had doneher, for her blighted life and her miserable death.
King George's answer to that summons was immediate. The reading ofthat letter brought on the apoplectic seizure of which he died in hiscarriage next day--the 9th of June, 1727--on the road to Osnabruck.
XI. THE TYRANNICIDE
Charlotte Corday and Jean Paul Morat
Tyrannicide was the term applied to her deed by Adam Lux, her lover inthe sublimest and most spiritual sense of the word--for he never so muchas spoke to her, and she never so much as knew of his existence.
The sudden spiritual passion which inflamed him when he beheld her inthe tumbril on her way to the scaffold is a fitting corollary to heraction. She in her way and he in his were alike sublime; her tranquilmartyrdom upon the altar of Republicanism and his exultant martyrdomupon the altar of Love were alike splendidly futile.
It is surely the strangest love-story enshrined in history. It has itspathos, yet leaves no regrets behind, for there is no might-have-beenwhich death had thwarted. Because she died, he loved her; because heloved her, he died. That is all, but for the details which I am now togive you.
The convent-bred Mari
e Charlotte Corday d'Armont was the daughter of alandless squire of Normandy, a member of the chetive noblesse, a manof gentle birth, whose sadly reduced fortune may have predisposed himagainst the law of entail or primogeniture--the prime cause of theinequality out of which were sprung so many of the evils that afflictedFrance. Like many of his order and condition he was among the earliestconverts to Republicanism--the pure, ideal republicanism, demandingconstitutional government of the people by the people, holdingmonarchical and aristocratic rule an effete and parasitic anachronism.
From M. de Corday Charlotte absorbed the lofty Republican doctrines towhich anon she was to sacrifice her life; and she rejoiced when the hourof awakening sounded and the children of France rose up and snapped thefetters in which they had been trammelled for centuries by an insolentminority of their fellow-countrymen.
In the early violence of the revolution she thought she saw a transientphase--horrible, but inevitable in the dread convulsion of thatawakening. Soon this would pass, and the sane, ideal government ofher dreams would follow--must follow, since among the people's electedrepresentatives was a goodly number of unselfish, single-minded men ofher father's class of life; men of breeding and education, impelled bya lofty altruistic patriotism; men who gradually came to form a partypresently to be known as the Girondins.
But the formation of one party argues the formation of at least another.And this other in the National Assembly was that of the Jacobins,less pure of motive, less restrained in deed, a party in whichstood pre-eminent such ruthless, uncompromising men as Robespierre,Danton,--and Marat.
Where the Girondins stood for Republicanism, the Jacobins stood forAnarchy. War was declared between the two. The Girondins arraigned Maratand Robespierre for complicity in the September massacres, and therebyprecipitated their own fall. The triumphant acquittal of Marat wasthe prelude to the ruin of the Girondins, and the proscription oftwenty-nine deputies followed at once as the first step. These fled intothe country, hoping to raise an army that should yet save France, andseveral of the fugitives made their way to Caen. Thence by pamphlets andoratory they laboured to arouse true Republican enthusiasm. They weregifted, able men, eloquent speakers and skilled writers, and they mighthave succeeded but that in Paris sat another man no less gifted, andwith surer knowledge of the temper of the proletariat, tirelesslywielding a vitriolic pen, skilled in the art of inflaming the passionsof the mob.
That man was Jean Paul Marat, sometime medical practitioner, sometimeprofessor of literature, a graduate of the Scottish University ofSt. Andrews, author of some scientific and many sociological works,inveterate pamphleteer and revolutionary journalist, proprietor andeditor of L'Ami du Peuple, and idol of the Parisian rabble, who hadbestowed upon him the name borne by his gazette, so that he was known asThe People's Friend.
Such was the foe of the Girondins, and of the pure, altruistic, UtopianRepublicanism for which they stood; and whilst he lived and laboured,their own endeavours to influence the people were all in vain. From hisvile lodging in the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine in Paris he spun withhis clever, wicked pen a web that paralysed their high endeavours andthreatened finally to choke them.
He was not alone, of course. He was one of the dread triumvirate inwhich Danton and Robespierre were his associates. But to the Girondinshe appeared by far the most formidable and ruthless and implacable ofthe three, whilst to Charlotte Corday--the friend and associate now ofthe proscribed Girondins who had sought refuge in Caen--he loomed sovast and terrible as to eclipse his associates entirely. To her youngmind, inflamed with enthusiasm for the religion of Liberty as preachedby the Girondins, Marat was a loathly, dangerous heresiarch, threateningto corrupt that sublime new faith with false, anarchical doctrine, andto replace the tyranny that had been overthrown by a tyranny more odiousstill.
She witnessed in Caen the failure of the Girondin attempt to raise anarmy with which to deliver Paris from the foul clutches of the Jacobins.An anguished spectator of this failure, she saw in it a sign thatLiberty was being strangled at its birth. On the lips of her friends theGirondins she caught again the name of Marat, the murderer of Liberty;and, brooding, she reached a conclusion embodied in a phrase of a letterwhich she wrote about that time.
"As long as Marat lives there will never be any safety for the friendsof law and humanity."
From that negative conclusion to its positive, logical equivalent itwas but a step. That step she took. She may have considered awhile theproposition thus presented to her, or resolve may have come to her withrealization. She understood that a great sacrifice was necessary; thatwho undertook to rid France of that unclean monster must go prepared forself-immolation. She counted the cost calmly and soberly--for calm andsober was now her every act.
She made her packages, and set out one morning by the Paris coach fromCaen, leaving a note for her father, in which she had written:
"I am going to England, because I do not believe that it will bepossible for a long time to live happily and tranquilly in France. Onleaving I post this letter to you. When you receive it I shall no longerbe here. Heaven denied us the happiness of living together, as it hasdenied us other happinesses. May it show itself more clement to ourcountry. Good-by, dear Father. Embrace my sister for me, and do notforget me."
That was all. The fiction that she was going to England was intended tosave him pain. For she had so laid her plans that her identity shouldremain undisclosed. She would seek Marat in the very Hall of theConvention, and publicly slay him in his seat. Thus Paris should beholdNemesis overtaking the false Republican in the very Assembly which hecorrupted, and anon should adduce a moral from the spectacle of themonster's death. For herself she counted upon instant destruction at thehands of the furious spectators. Thus, thinking to die unidentified,she trusted that her father, hearing, as all France must hear, the greattidings that Marat was dead, would never connect her with the instrumentof Fate shattered by the fury of the mob.
You realize, then, how great and how terrible was the purpose ofthis maid of twenty-five, who so demurely took her seat in the Parisdiligence on that July morning of the Year 2 of the Republic--1793, oldstyle. She was becomingly dressed in brown cloth, a lace fichu foldedacross her well-developed breast, a conical hat above her light brownhair. She was of a good height and finely proportioned, and her carriageas full of dignity as of grace. Her skin was of such white lovelinessthat a contemporary compares it with the lily. Like Athene, she wasgray-eyed, and, like Athene, noble-featured, the oval of her facesquaring a little at the chin, in which there was a cleft. Calm was herhabit, calm her slow-moving eyes, calm and deliberate her movements, andcalm the mind reflected in all this.
And as the heavy diligence trundles out of Caen and takes the opencountry and the Paris road, not even the thought of the errand uponwhich she goes, of her death-dealing and death-receiving mission,can shake that normal calm. Here is no wild exaltation, no hystericalobedience to hotly-conceived impulse. Here is purpose, as cold as itis lofty, to liberate France and pay with her life for the privilege ofdoing so.
That lover of hers, whom we are presently to see, has compared herineptly with Joan of Arc, that other maid of France. But Joan moved withpomp in a gorgeous pageantry, amid acclamations, sustained by the headywine of combat and of enthusiasm openly indulged, towards a goal oftriumph. Charlotte travelled quietly in the stuffy diligence with thequiet conviction that her days were numbered.
So normal did she appear to her travelling companions, that one amongthem, with an eye for beauty, pestered her with amorous attentions, andactually proposed marriage to her before the coach had rolled over thebridge of Neuilly into Paris two days later.
She repaired to the Providence Inn in the Rue des Vieux Augustine, whereshe engaged a room on the first floor, and then she set out in quest ofthe Deputy Duperret. She had a letter of introduction to him from theGirondin Barbaroux, with whom she had been on friendly terms at Caen.Duperret was to assist her to obtain an interview with the Minister ofthe Interior. She had unde
rtaken to see the latter on the subject ofcertain papers relating to the affairs of a nun of Caen, an old conventfriend of her own, and she was in haste to discharge this errand, so asto be free for the great task upon which she was come.
From inquiries that she made, she learnt at once that Marat was ill, andconfined to his house. This rendered necessary a change of plans, andthe relinquishing of her project of affording him a spectacular death inthe crowded hall of the Convention.
The next day, which was Friday, she devoted to furthering the businessof her friend the nun. On Saturday morning she rose early, and bysix o'clock she was walking in the cool gardens of the Palais Royal,considering with that almost unnatural calm of hers the ways and meansof accomplishing her purpose in the unexpected conditions that shefound.
Towards eight o'clock, when Paris was awakening to the business of theday and taking down its shutters, she entered a cutler's shop in thePalais Royal, and bought for two francs a stout kitchen knife ina shagreen case. She then returned to her hotel to breakfast, andafterwards, dressed in her brown travelling-gown and conical hat, shewent forth again, and, hailing a hackney carriage, drove to Marat'shouse in the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine.
But admittance to that squalid dwelling was denied her. The CitizenMarat was ill, she was told, and could receive no visitors. It wasSimonne Everard, the triumvir's mistress--later to be known as the WidowMarat--who barred her ingress with this message.
Checked, she drove back to the Providence Inn and wrote a letter to thetriumvir:
"Paris, 13th July, Year 2 of the Republic.
"Citizen,--I have arrived from Caen. Your love for your country leadsme to assume that you will be anxious to hear of the unfortunate eventswhich are taking place in that part of the Republic. I shall thereforecall upon you towards one o'clock. Have the kindness to receive me, andaccord me a moment's audience. I shall put you in the way of rendering agreat service to France.
"Marie Corday."
Having dispatched that letter to Marat, she sat until late afternoonwaiting vainly for an answer. Despairing at last of receiving any, shewrote a second note, more peremptory in tone:
"I wrote to you this morning, Marat. Have you received my letter? May Ihope for a moment's audience? If you have received my letter, I hope youwill not refuse me, considering the importance of the matter. It shouldsuffice for you that I am very unfortunate to give me the right to yourprotection."
Having changed into a gray-striped dimity gown--you observe this furthermanifestation of a calm so complete that it admits of no departure fromthe ordinary habits of life--she goes forth to deliver in person thissecond letter, the knife concealed in the folds of the muslin fichucrossed high upon her breast.
In a mean, brick-paved, ill-lighted, and almost unfurnished room of thathouse in the Rue de l'Ecole de Medecine, the People's Friend is seatedin a bath. It is no instinct of cleanliness he is obeying, for in allFrance there is no man more filthy in his person and his habits thanthis triumvir. His bath is medicated. The horrible, loathsome diseasethat corrodes his flesh demands these long immersions to quiet thegnawing pains which distract his active, restless mind. In these bathshe can benumb the torment of the body with which he is encumbered.
For Marat is an intellect, and nothing more--leastways, nothing morethat matters. What else there is to him of trunk and limbs and organshe has neglected until it has all fallen into decay. His very lack ofpersonal cleanliness, the squalor in which he lives, the insufficientsleep which he allows himself, his habit of careless feeding atirregular intervals, all have their source in his contempt forthe physical part of him. This talented man of varied attainments,accomplished linguist, skilled physician, able naturalist and profoundpsychologist, lives in his intellect alone, impatient of all physicalinterruptions. If he consents to these immersions, if he spends wholedays seated in this medicated bath, it is solely because it quenches orcools the fires that are devouring him, and thus permits him to bendhis mind to the work that is his life. But his long-suffering body isavenging upon the mind the neglect to which it has been submitted. Themorbid condition of the former is being communicated to the latter,whence results that disconcerting admixture of cold, cynical cruelty andexalted sensibility which marked his nature in the closing years of hislife.
In his bath, then, sat the People's Friend on that July evening,immersed to the hips, his head swathed in a filthy turban, his emaciatedbody cased in a sleeveless waistcoat. He is fifty years of age, dying ofconsumption and other things, so that, did Charlotte but know it, thereis no need to murder him. Disease and Death have marked him for theirown, and grow impatient.
A board covering the bath served him for writing-table; an empty woodenbox at his side bore an inkstand, some pens, sheets of paper, and two orthree copies of L'Ami do Peuple. There was no sound in the room but thescratch and splutter of his quill. He was writing diligently, revisingand editing a proof of the forthcoming issue of his paper.
A noise of voices raised in the outer room invaded the quiet in which hewas at work, and gradually penetrated his absorption, until it disturbedand irritated him. He moved restlessly in his bath, listened a moment,then, with intent to make an end of the interruption, he raised ahoarse, croaking voice to inquire what might be taking place.
The door opened, and Simonne, his mistress and household drudge, enteredthe room. She was fully twenty years younger than himself, and under theslattern appearance which life in that house had imposed upon her therewere vestiges of a certain comeliness.
"There is a young woman here from Caen, who demands insistently to seeyou upon a matter of national importance."
The dull eyes kindle at the mention of Caen; interest quickens in thatleaden-hued countenance. Was it not in Caen that those old foes of his,the Girondins, were stirring up rebellion?
"She says," Simonne continued, "that she wrote a letter to you thismorning, and she brings you a second note herself. I have told her thatyou will not receive anyone, and..."
"Give me the note," he snapped. Setting down his pen, he thrust out anunclean paw to snatch the folded sheet from Simonne's hand. He spreadit, and read, his bloodless lips compressed, his eyes narrowing toslits.
"Let her in," he commanded sharply, and Simonne obeyed him without moreado. She admitted Charlotte, and left them alone together--the avengerand her victim. For a moment each regarded the other. Marat behelda handsome young woman, elegantly attired. But these things had nointerest for the People's Friend. What to him was woman and the lure ofbeauty? Charlotte beheld a feeble man of a repulsive hideousness, andwas full satisfied, for in this outward loathsomeness she imagined aconfirmation of the vileness of the mind she was come to blot out.
Then Marat spoke. "So you are from Caen, child?" he said. "And what isdoing in Caen that makes you so anxious to see me?"
She approached him.
"Rebellion is stirring there, Citizen Marat."
"Rebellion, ha!" It was a sound between a laugh and a croak. "Tell mewhat deputies are sheltered in Caen. Come, child, their names." He tookup and dipped his quill, and drew a sheet of paper towards him.
She approached still nearer; she came to stand close beside him, erectand calm. She recited the names of her friends, the Girondins, whilsthunched there in his bath his pen scratched briskly.
"So many for the guillotine," he snarled, when it was done.
But whilst he was writing, she had drawn the knife from her fichu, andas he uttered those words of doom to others his own doom descended uponhim in a lightning stroke. Straight driven by that strong young arm, thelong, stout blade was buried to its black hilt in his breast.
He looked at her with eyes in which there was a faint surprise as hesank back. Then he raised his voice for the last time.
"Help, chere amie! Help!" he cried, and was for ever silent.
The hand still grasping the pen trailed on the ground beside the bath atthe end of his long, emaciated arm. His body sank sideways in the samedirection, the head lolling nervelessly upon
his right shoulder, whilstfrom the great rent in his breast the blood gushed forth, embruingthe water of his bath, trickling to the brick-paved floor,bespattering--symbolically almost--a copy of L'Ami du Peuple, thejournal to which he had devoted so much of his uneasy life.
In answer to that cry of his came now Simonne in haste. A glancesufficed to reveal to her the horrible event, and, like a tigress, shesprang upon the unresisting slayer, seizing her by the head, and callingloudly the while for assistance. Came instantly from the anteroomJeanne, the old cook, the Fortress of the house, and Laurent Basse, afolder of Marat's paper; and now Charlotte found herself confrontedby four maddened, vociferous beings, at whose hands she may well haveexpected to receive the death for which she was prepared.
Laurent, indeed, snatched up a chair, and felled her by a blow of itacross her head. He would, no doubt, have proceeded in his fury tohave battered her to death, but for the arrival of gens d'armes and thepolice commissioner of the district, who took her in their protectingcharge.
The soul of Paris was convulsed by the tragedy when it became known.All night terror and confusion were abroad. All night the revolutionaryrabble, in angry grief, surged about and kept watch upon the housewherein the People's Friend lay dead.
That night, and for two days and nights thereafter, Charlotte Corday layin the Prison of the Abbaye, supporting with fortitude the indignitiesthat for a woman were almost inseparable from revolutionaryincarceration. She preserved throughout her imperturbable calm, basednow upon a state of mind content in the contemplation of accomplishedpurpose, duty done. She had saved France, she believed; saved Liberty,by slaying the man who would have strangled it. In that illusion shewas content. Her own life was a small price to pay for the splendidachievement.
Some of her time of waiting she spent in writing letters to her friends,in which tranquilly and sanely she dwelt upon what she had done,expounding fully the motives that had impelled her, dwelling uponthe details of the execution, and of all that had followed. Among theletters written by her during those "days of the preparation of peace"--as she calls that period, dating in such terms a long epistle toBarbaroux--was one to the Committee of Public Safety, in which she begsthat a miniature-painter may be sent to her to paint her portrait, sothat she may leave this token of remembrance to her friends. It is onlyin this, as the end approaches, that we see in her conduct any thoughtfor her own self, any suggestion that she is anything more than ainstrument in the hands of Fate.
On the 15th, at eight o'clock in the morning, her trial began before theRevolutionary Tribunal. A murmur ran through the hall as she appeared inher gown of grey-striped dimity, composed and calm--always calm.
The trial opened with the examination of witnesses; into that of thecutler, who had sold her the knife, she broke impatiently.
"These details are a waste of time. It is I who killed Marat."
The audience gasped, and rumbled ominously. Montane turned to examineher.
"What was the object of your visit to Paris?" he asks.
"To kill Marat."
"What motives induced you to this horrible deed?"
"His many crimes."
"Of what crimes do you accuse him?"
"That he instigated the massacre of September; that he kept alive thefires of civil war, so that he might be elected dictator; that he soughtto infringe upon the sovereignty of the People by causing the arrest andimprisonment of the deputies to the Convention on May 31st."
"What proof have you of this?"
"The future will afford the proof. Marat hid his designs behind a maskof patriotism."
Montane shifted the ground of his interrogatory.
"Who were your accomplices in this atrocious act?"
"I have none."
Montane shook his head. "You cannot convince anyone that a person ofyour age and sex could have conceived such a crime unless instigated bysome person or persons whom you are unwilling to name."
Charlotte almost smiled. "That shows but a poor knowledge of the humanheart. It is easier to carry out such a project upon the strength ofone's own hatred than upon that of others." And then, raising her voice,she proclaimed: "I killed one man to save a hundred thousand; I killeda villain to save innocents; I killed a savage wild-beast to give reposeto France. I was a Republican before the Revolution. I never lacked forenergy."
What more was there to say? Her guilt was completely established. Herfearless self-obssession was not to be ruffled. Yet Fouquier-Tinville,the dread prosecutor, made the attempt. Beholding her so virginal andfair and brave, feeling perhaps that the Tribunal had not had the bestof it, he sought with a handful of revolutionary filth to restore thebalance. He rose slowly, his ferrety eyes upon her.
"How many children have you had?" he rasped, sardonic, his tone a slur,an insult.
Faintly her cheeks crimsoned. But her voice was composed, disdainful, asshe answered coldly:
"Have I not stated that I am not married?"
A leer, a dry laugh, a shrug from Tinville to complete the impression hesought to convey, and he sat down again.
It was the turn of Chauveau de la Garde, the advocate instructedto defend her. But what defence was possible? And Chauveau had beenintimidated. He had received a note from the jury ordering him to remainsilent, another from the President bidding him declare her mad.
Yet Chauveau took a middle course. His brief speech is admirable; itsatisfied his self-respect, without derogating from his client. Ituttered the whole truth.
"The prisoner," he said, "confesses with calm the horrible crime she hascommitted; she confesses with calm its premeditation; she confesses itsmost dreadful details; in short, she confesses everything, and doesnot seek to justify herself. That, citizens of the jury, is her wholedefence. This imperturbable calm, this utter abnegation of self, whichdisplays no remorse even in the very presence of death, are contraryto nature. They can only be explained by the excitement of politicalfanaticism which armed her hand. It is for you, citizens of the jury, tojudge what weight that moral consideration should have in the scales ofjustice."
The jury voted her guilty, and Tinville rose to demand the full sentenceof the law.
It was the end. She was removed to the Conciergerie, the antechamberof the guillotine. A constitutional priest was sent to her, butshe dismissed him with thanks, not requiring his ministrations.She preferred the painter Hauer, who had received the RevolutionaryTribunal's permission to paint her portrait in accordance with herrequest. And during the sitting, which lasted half an hour, sheconversed with him quietly on ordinary topics, the tranquillity ofher spirit unruffled by any fear of the death that was so swiftlyapproaching.
The door opened, and Sanson, the public executioner, came in. He carriedthe red smock worn by those convicted of assassination. She showed nodismay; no more, indeed, than a faint surprise that the time spent withHauer should have gone so quickly. She begged for a few moments inwhich to write a note, and, the request being granted, acquitted herselfbriskly of that task, then announcing herself ready, she removed hercap that Sanson might cut her luxuriant hair. Yet first, takinghis scissors, she herself cut off a lock and gave it to Hauer forremembrance. When Sanson would have bound her hands, she begged that shemight be allowed to wear gloves, as her wrists were bruised and cut bythe cord with which she had been pinioned in Marat's house. He answeredthat she might do so if she wished, but that it was unnecessary, as hecould bind her without causing pain.
"To be sure," she said, "those others had not your experience," and sheproffered her bare wrists to his cord without further demur. "If thistoilet of death is performed by rude hands," she commented, "at least itleads to immortality."
She mounted the tumbril awaiting in the prison yard, and, disdainingthe chair offered her by Sanson, remained standing, to show herselfdauntless to the mob and brave its rage. And fierce was that rage,indeed. So densely thronged were the streets that the tumbril proceededat a crawl, and the people surging about the cart screamed death andinsult at the doomed w
oman. It took two hours to reach the Place de laRevolution, and meanwhile a terrific summer thunderstorm had brokenover Paris, and a torrential rain had descended upon the densely packedstreets. Charlotte's garments were soaked through and through, so thather red smock, becoming glued now to her body and fitting her like askin, threw into relief its sculptural beauty, whilst a reflection ofthe vivid crimson of the garment faintly tinged her cheeks, and thusheightened her appearance of complete composure.
And it is now in the Rue St. Honore that at long last we reach theopening of our tragic love-story.
A tall, slim, fair young man, named Adam Lux--sent to Paris by thecity of Mayence as Deputy Extraordinary to the National Convention--wasstanding there in the howling press of spectators. He was anaccomplished, learned young gentleman, doctor at once of philosophyand of medicine, although in the latter capacity he had never practicedowing to an extreme sensibility of nature, which rendered anatomicalwork repugnant to him. He was a man of a rather exalted imagination,unhappily married--the not uncommon fate of such delicatetemperaments--and now living apart from his wife. He had heard, as allParis had heard, every detail of the affair, and of the trial, and hewaited there, curious to see this woman, with whose deed he was secretlyin sympathy.
The tumbril slowly approached, the groans and execrations swelled uparound him, and at last he beheld her--beautiful, serene, full oflife, a still smile upon her lips. For a long moment he gazed upon her,standing as if stricken into stone. Then heedless of those about him,he bared his head, and thus silently saluted and paid homage to her. Shedid not see him. He had not thought that she would. He saluted her asthe devout salute the unresponsive image of a saint. The tumbril crawledon. He turned his head, and followed her with his eyes for awhile; then,driving his elbows into the ribs of those about him, he clove himself apassage through the throng, and so followed, bare-headed now, with fixedgaze, a man entranced.
He was at the foot of the scaffold when her head fell. To the last hehad seen that noble countenance preserve its immutable calm, and inthe hush that followed the sibilant fall of the great knife his voicesuddenly rang out.
"She is greater than Brutus!" was his cry; and he added, addressingthose who stared at him in stupefaction: "It were beautiful to have diedwith her!"
He was suffered to depart unmolested. Chiefly, perhaps because at thatmoment the attention of the crowd was upon the executioner's attendant,who, in holding up Charlotte's truncated head, slapped the cheek withhis hand. The story runs that the dead face reddened under the blow.Scientists of the day disputed over this, some arguing from it a proofthat consciousness does not at once depart the brain upon decapitation.
That night, while Paris slept, its walls were secretly placarded withcopies of a eulogy of Charlotte Corday, the martyr of Republicanism, thedeliverer of France, in which occurs the comparison with Joan of Arc,that other great heroine of France. This was the work of Adam Lux.He made no secret of it. The vision of her had so wrought upon theimagination of this susceptible dreamer, had fired his spirit with suchenthusiasm, that he was utterly reckless in yielding to his emotions, inexpressing the phrenetic, immaterial love with which in her last momentsof life she had inspired him.
Two days after her execution he issued a long manifesto, in which heurged the purity of her motive as the fullest justification of her act,placed her on the level of Brutus and Cato, and passionately demandedfor her the honour and veneration of posterity. It is in this manifestothat he applies euphemistically to her deed the term "tyrannicide." Thatdocument he boldly signed with his own name, realizing that he would payfor that temerity with his life.
He was arrested on the 24th of July--exactly a week from the day onwhich he had seen her die. He had powerful friends, and they exertedthemselves to obtain for him a promise of pardon and release if he wouldpublicly retract what he had written. But he laughed the proposal toscorn, ardently resolved to follow into death the woman who had arousedthe hopeless, immaterial love that made his present torment.
Still his friends strove for him. His trial was put off. A doctor namedWetekind was found to testify that Adam Lux was mad, that the sight ofCharlotte Corday had turned his head. He wrote a paper on this plea,recommending that clemency be shown to the young doctor on the score ofhis affliction, and that he should be sent to a hospital or to America.Adam Lux was angry when he heard of this, and protested indignantlyagainst the allegations of Dr. Wetekind. He wrote to the Journal de laMontagne, which published his declaration on the 26th of September, tothe effect that he was not mad enough to desire to live, and that hisanxiety to meet death half-way was a crowning proof of his sanity.
He languished on in the prison of La Force until the 10th of October,when at last he was brought to trial. He stood it joyously, in a mood ofexultation at his approaching deliverance. He assured the court that hedid not fear the guillotine, and that all ignominy had been removed fromsuch a death by the pure blood of Charlotte.
They sentenced him to death, and he thanked them for the boon.
"Forgive me, sublime Charlotte," he exclaimed, "if I should find itimpossible to exhibit at the last the courage and gentleness that wereyours. I glory in your superiority, for it is right that the adoredshould be above the adorer."
Yet his courage did not fail him. Far from it, indeed; if hers hadbeen a mood of gentle calm, his was one of ecstatic exaltation. At fiveo'clock that same afternoon he stepped from the tumbril under the gauntshadow of the guillotine. He turned to the people, his eyes bright, aflush on his cheeks.
"At last I am to have the happiness of dying for Charlotte," he toldthem, and mounted the scaffold with the eager step of the bridegroom onhis way to the nuptial altar.
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