The Prussian Terror Part 44

"At the request of our beloved consort, the indemnity of twenty-five million florins levied by General Manteuffel is countermanded. WILLIAM."

"Well," said the queen, "to whom should this despatch be sent in order that it may arrive in time? You, dear child, are the person who has obtained this favour, and the honour of it ought to rest with you. You say it is important that the king's decision should be known in Frankfort by ten o'clock. Tell me to what person it should be addressed."

"Indeed, madam, I do not know how to make any answer to so much kindness," said the baroness, kneeling and kissing the queen's hands. "I know that the proper person to whom to send it would be the burgomaster; but who can tell whether the burgomaster may not have fled or be in prison? I think the safest way--excuse my egoism, madam--but if you do me the honour of consulting me, I would beg that it may be addressed to Madame von Beling, my grandmother; she, very certainly, will not lose a moment in putting it into the proper hands."

"What you wish shall be done, my dear child," said the queen, and she added to the despatch:

"This favour has been granted to Queen Augusta by her gracious consort, King William; but it was asked of the queen by her faithful friend, Baroness Frederic von Bulow, her princ.i.p.al lady-in-waiting."

"AUGUSTA."

The queen raised Emma from her knees, kissed her, unfastened from her own shoulder the Order of Queen Louisa and fastened it on the baroness's shoulder.

"As for you," she said, "you need some hours' rest, and you shall not go until you have taken them."

"I beg Your Majesty's pardon," replied the baroness, "but two persons are waiting for me, my husband and my child."

Nevertheless, as no train left until one in the afternoon, and as the hour could neither be hastened nor r.e.t.a.r.ded, Emma resigned herself to waiting.

The queen gave orders that she should receive the same attentions as though she were already a lady-in-waiting, made her take a bath and some hours' rest, and engaged a carriage for her in the train for Frankfort.

That city, meanwhile, was in consternation. General Roeder, with his staff, was waiting in the Council Hall for the payment required; scales were ready for the weighing. At nine o'clock the gunners, match alight and in hand, came to take their places at the batteries.

The deepest terror prevailed throughout the town. From the arrangements which they saw being made, the Frankforters judged that no mercy was to be expected from the Prussian generals. The whole population was shut up indoors waiting anxiously for the stroke of ten o'clock to announce the town's doom.

All at once a terrible rumour began to circulate, that the burgomaster, rather than denounce his fellow-citizens, had ended his life--had hanged himself. At a few minutes before ten, a man dressed in black came out of Herr Fellner's house; it was his brother-in-law, Herr von Kugler, and he held in his hand a rope. He walked straight on, without speaking to anybody, or stopping till he reached the Roemer, pushed aside with his arm the sentinels who attempted to prevent his pa.s.sing, and, entering the hall in which General von Roeder was presiding, he advanced to the scales and threw into one of them the rope that he had been carrying.

"There," said he, "is the ransom of the city of Frankfort."

"What does this mean?" asked General von Roeder.

"This means that, rather than obey you, Burgomaster Fellner hanged himself with this rope. May his death fall upon the heads of those who caused it."

"But," returned General von Roeder brutally, while he continued to smoke his cigar, "the indemnity must be paid all the same."

"Unless," quietly said Benedict Turpin, who had just come in, "King William should withdraw it from the city of Frankfort."

And, unfolding the despatch that Madame von Beling had just received, he read the whole of it in a loud voice to General von Roeder.

"Sir," said he, "I advise you to put the twenty-five million florins into your profit and loss account. I have the honour to leave you the despatch as a voucher."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE TWO PROCESSIONS

Two very different pieces of news, one terrible, one joyful, ran simultaneously through Frankfort. The terrible news was that the burgomaster, who had filled two of the highest positions in the little republic now extinct, who was the father of six children and a model of the household virtues, had just hanged himself rather than yield to a greedy and brutal soldier the secrets of private wealth. The joyful news was that, thanks to Madame von Bulow's intervention and to the appeal made by the queen to her husband, the city of Frankfort had been relieved from the tax of twenty-five million florins.

It will easily be understood that n.o.body in the town talked of any other subject. Astonishment and curiosity were even more aroused owing to the occurrence of two mysterious deaths at the same time. People wondered how it happened that Frederic von Bulow, after having been insulted by his superior officer, should before he shot himself have charged his wife with her pious errand to Berlin, seeing that he was no citizen of Frankfort, but belonged, body and soul, to the Prussian army. Had he hoped to redeem the terrible deeds of violence committed by his countrymen? Moreover, the young officers who had been present at the quarrel between Frederic and the general had not observed entire silence about that quarrel. Many of them were hurt in their pride at being employed to execute a vengeance of which the cause lay far back amid the obscure resentments of a minister who had once been an amba.s.sador. Those who felt this said among themselves that they were acting the part not of soldiers but of bailiffs and men-in-possession. They had repeated some words of the dispute that had taken place before them and had left the rest to be guessed.

Orders had been given prohibiting the printing of any placard without the authorization of the officer in command; but every printer in Frankfort was ready to contravene the order, and at the very moment when Councillor Kugler threw the burgomaster's rope into the scale, a thousand unseen and unknown hands were pasting upon the walls of Frankfort the following notice.

"At three o'clock our worthy burgomaster Fellner hanged himself and became the martyr of his devotion to the city of Frankfort. Citizens, pray for him."

Benedict, on his part, had visited the printer of the "Journal des Postes" who engaged to furnish, within two hours, two hundred copies of the telegrams interchanged by the king and queen. He further undertook, on condition that the notices were not unduly large, to get them posted by his usual billstickers, who were ready to take the risk of officially announcing the good news to their neighbours. Accordingly, two hours later, two hundred bills were stuck beside the former ones. They contained the following words:

"Yesterday, at two in the afternoon, as is already known, Baron von Bulow blew out his brains, in consequence of a quarrel with General Sturm, in the course of which the general had insulted him. The causes of this quarrel will remain a secret for such people only as do not care to solve it.

"One clause of the baron's will instructed Madame von Bulow to go to Berlin, and to beg of Her Majesty Queen Augusta that the levy of twenty-five million florins, imposed by General Manteuffel, might be withdrawn. The baroness paused only long enough to put on mourning garments before setting out.

"We are happy to be able to communicate to our fellow-citizens the two royal despatches which she sent to us."

The crowds that collected before these notices can be imagined. For one moment the stir that pa.s.sed through the whole population a.s.sumed the aspect of a riot; drums beat, patrols were organized, and the citizens received an order to stay at home.

The streets became deserted. The gunners, whose matches, as we have said already, had been lighted at ten in the morning, once more stood by their cannon with their lighted matches in hand. This sort of threat continued for thirty hours. However, as at the end of that time the crowds were no longer collecting, as no conflicts took place, and no shot was fired, all these hostile demonstrations ceased between the 25th and the 26th.

Next morning fresh placards had been stuck up. They contained the following notice:

"To-morrow, July 26th, at two in the afternoon the funerals will take place of the late burgomaster, Herr Fellner, and of the late chief staff officer, Frederic von Bulow.

"Each party will start from the house of mourning and the two will unite at the cathedral, where a service will be held for the two martyrs.

"The families believe that no invitation beyond the present notice will be necessary, and that the citizens of Frankfort will not fail in their duty.

"The funeral arrangements for the burgomaster will be in the hands of his brother-in-law, Councillor Kugler, and those of Major Frederic von Bulow in the hands of M. Benedict Turpin, his executor."

We will not endeavour to depict the homes of the two bereaved families.

Madame von Bulow arrived about one o'clock on the morning of the 24th.

Everybody in the house was up, and all were praying round the deathbed.

Some of the princ.i.p.al ladies of the town had come and were awaiting her return; she was received like an angel bearing the mercies of heaven.

But after a few minutes the pious duty that had brought her so swiftly to her husband's side was remembered. Everybody withdrew, and she was left alone. Helen, in her turn, was watching by Karl. Twice in the course of the day she had gone downstairs, knelt by Frederic's bedside, uttered a prayer, kissed his forehead, and gone up again.

Karl was better; he had not yet returned to life, but he was returning.

His eyes reopened and were, able to fix themselves upon Helen's; his mouth murmured words of love, and his hand responded to the hand that pressed it. The surgeon, only, still remained anxious, and, while encouraging the wounded man, would give Helen no reply; but, when he was alone with her, would only repeat in answer to all her questions:

"We must wait! I can say nothing before the eighth or ninth day."

The house of Herr Fellner was equally full of mourning. Everybody who had filled any post in the old republic, senators, members of the Legislative a.s.sembly, etc., came to salute this dead and just man, and to lay on his bed wreaths of oak, of laurel, and _immortelles_.

From early in the morning of the 26th, as soon as the cannon were perceived to have disappeared and the town to be no longer threatened with slaughter at any unexpected moment, all the inhabitants congregated about the two doors that were hung with black. At ten o'clock all the trade guilds met together in the Zeil with their banners, as if for some popular festivity of the free town. All the dissolved societies of the city came with flags flying--although they had been forbidden to display these ensigns--determined to live again for one more day. There was the Society of Carabineers, the Gymnastic Society, the National Defence Society, the new Citizens' Society, the young Militia Society, the Sachsenhausen Citizens' Society, and the Society for the Education of the Workers. Black flags had been hung out at a great number of houses, among others at the casino in the street of Saint Gall, which belonged to the princ.i.p.al inhabitants of Frankfort; at the club of the new Citizens' Union, situated in the Corn Market, at that of the old Citizens' Union in Eschenheim Street, and, finally, at the Sachsenhausen Club--a club of the people, if there ever was one--belonging to the inhabitants of that often mentioned suburb.

A gathering, almost as considerable, was collecting at the corner of the Horse Market, near to the High Street. Here, it may be remembered, the house was situated which was generally known in the town as the Chandroz house, although n.o.body of that name now existed in it except Helen, whose maiden name had not yet been changed for that of a husband. But in the street that led to the burgomaster's house, the middle and working-cla.s.ses were a.s.sembled, while opposite to the Chandroz house the crowd was made up mainly of that aristocracy of birth to which the house belonged.