A Diplomatic Adventure Part 1

A Diplomatic Adventure.

by S. Weir Mitch.e.l.l.

I

No man has ever been able to write the history of the greater years of a nation so as to include the minor incidents of interest. They pa.s.s unnoted, although in some cases they may have had values influential in determining the course of events. It chanced that I myself was an actor in one of these lesser incidents, when second secretary to our legation in France, during the summer of 1862. I may possibly overestimate the ultimate importance of my adventure, for Mr. Adams, our minister of the court of St. James, seems to have failed to record it, or, at least, there is no allusion to it in his biography.

In the perplexing tangle of the diplomacy of the darker days of our civil war, many strange stories must have pa.s.sed unrecorded, but surely none of those remembered and written were more singular than the occurrences which disturbed the quiet of my uneventful official life in the autumn of 1862.

At this time I had been in the legation two years, and was comfortably lodged in pleasant apartments in the Rue Rivoli.

Somewhere about the beginning of July I had occasion to engage a new servant, and of this it becomes needful to speak because the man I took chanced to play a part in the little drama which at last involved many more important people.

I had dismissed a stout Alsatian because of my certainty that, like his predecessor, he was a spy in the employ of the imperial police.

There was little for him to learn; but to feel that I was watched, and, once, that my desk had been searched, was disagreeable. This time I meant to be on safer ground, and was inquiring for a suitable servant when a lean, alert little man presented himself with a good record as a valet in England and France. He was very neat and had a humorous look which caught my fancy. His name was Alphonse Duret. We agreed easily as to wages and that he was to act as valet, take care of my salon, and serve as footman at need. Yes, he could come at once.

Upon this I said:

"A word more and I engage you." And then, sure that his reply would be a confident negative, "Are you not a spy in the service of the police?" To my amused surprise he said:

"Yes, but will monsieur permit me to explain?"

"Certainly."

"I was intended by my family to be a priest, but circ.u.mstances caused me to make a change. It was not gay."

"Well, hardly."

"I was for a time a valet, but circ.u.mstances occurred--monsieur may observe that I am frank. Later I was on the police force, but after two years I fell ill and lost my place. When I was well again, I was taken on as an observer. Monsieur permits me to describe it as an observer?"

"A spy?" I said.

"I cannot contradict monsieur. I speak English--I learned it when I was valet for Mr. Parker in London. That is why I am sent here. The pay is of a minuteness. Circ.u.mstances make some addition desirable."

I perceived that circ.u.mstances appeared to play a large part in this queer autobiography, and saved the necessity of undesirable fullness of statement.

I said: "You appear to be frank, but are you to belong to me or to the police? In your studies for the priesthood you may have heard that a man cannot serve two masters."

His face became of a sudden what I venture to call luminous with the pleasure an intelligent man has in finding an answer to a difficult question.

He replied modestly: "A man has many masters. One of mine has used me badly. I became ill from exposure in the service, but they refused to take me back. If monsieur will trust me, there shall be but one real master."

The man interested me. I said: "If I engage you, you will, I suppose, desire to remain what you call an observer."

"Yes. Monsieur may be sure that either I or another will observe.

Since the unfortunate war in America, monsieur and all others of his legation are watched."

"And generally every one else," I said. "Perhaps you, too, are observed."

"Possibly. Monsieur may perceive that it is better I continue in the pay of the police. It is hardly more than a _pourboire_, but it is desirable. I have an old mother at Neuilly."

I had my doubts in regard to the existence of the mother--but it was true, as I learned later.

"It seems to me," I said, "that you will have to report your observations."

"Yes; I cannot avoid that. Monsieur may feel a.s.sured that I shall communicate very important information to my lesser master,"--he grinned,--"in fact, whatever monsieur pleases. If I follow and report at times to the police where monsieur visits, I may be trusted to be at need entirely untrustworthy and prudent. I do not smoke. Monsieur's cigars are safe. If monsieur has absinthe about, I might--monsieur permits me to be suggestive."

The man's gaiety, his intelligence, and his audacious frankness took my fancy. I said: "There is nothing in my life, my man, which is not free for all to know. I shall soon learn whether or not I may trust you. If you are faithful you shall be rewarded. That is all." As I spoke his pleasant face became grave.

"Monsieur shall not be disappointed." Nor was he. Alphonse proved to be a devoted servant, a man with those respectful familiarities which are rare except in French and Italian domestics. When once I asked him how far his superiors had profited by his account of me, he put on a queer, wry face and said circ.u.mstances had obliged him to become inventive. He had been highly commended. It seemed as well to inquire no further.

II

On the 6th of October I found on my table a letter of introduction and the card of Captain Arthur Merton, U.S.A. (2d Infantry), 12 Rue du Roi de Rome.

The note was simple but positive. My uncle, Harry Wellwood, a cynical, pessimistic old bachelor and a rank Copperhead, wrote me to make the captain welcome, which meant much to those who knew my uncle. On that day the evening mail was large. Alphonse laid the letters on my table, and as he lingered I said, "Well, what is it?"

"Monsieur may not observe that three letters from America have been opened in the post-office."

I said, "Yes." In fact, it was common and of course annoying. One of these letters was from my uncle. He wrote:

I gave Arthur Merton an open letter to you, but I add this to state that he is one of the few decent gentlemen in the army of the North.

He inherited his father's share in the mine of which I am part owner, and has therefore no need to serve an evil cause. He was born in New Orleans of Northern parents, spent two years in the School of Mines in Paris, and until this wretched war broke out has lived for some years among mining camps and in the ruffian life of the far West. It is a fair chance which side turns up, the ways of the salon, the accuracy of the man of science, or the savagery of the Rockies. You will like him.

He has been twice wounded, and then had the good sense to acquire the mild typhoid fever which gave him an excuse to ask for leave of absence. He has no diplomatic or political errand, and goes abroad merely to recruit his health. Things here are not yet quite as bad as I could desire to see them. Antietam was unfortunate, but in the end the European States will recognize the South and end the war. I shall then reside in Richmond.

Yours truly,

_Harry Wellwood._

I hoped that the imperial government profited by my uncle's letter. It was or may have been of use, as things turned out, in freeing Captain Merton from police observation, which at this time rarely failed to keep under notice every American.

I was kept busy at the legation two thirds of the following day. At five I set out in a coupe having Alphonse on the seat with the coachman. He left cards for me at a half-dozen houses, and then I told him to order the driver to leave me at Rue du Roi de Rome, No.

12.--Captain Merton's address.

As I sat in the carriage and looked out at the exterior gaiety of the open-air life of Paris, my mind naturally turned in contrast to the war at home and the terrible death harvest of Antietam, news of which had lately reached Europe. The sense of isolation in a land of hostile opinion often oppressed me, and rarely was as despotic as on this afternoon. I turned for relief to speculative thought of the numberless dramas of the lives of the busy mult.i.tude among which I drove. I wondered how many lived simple and uneventful days, like mine, in the pursuit of mere official or domestic duties. Not the utmost imaginative ingenuity of the novelist could have antic.i.p.ated, as I rode along amidst the hurries and the leisures of a Parisian afternoon, that my next hour or two was about to bring into the monotony of office life an adventure as strange as any which I could have conceived as possible for any human unit of these numberless men and women.

Captain Merton lived so far away from the quarter in which I had been leaving cards that it was close to dusk when I got out of the carriage at the hotel I sought.

I meant to return on foot, but hearing thunder, and rain beginning to fall heavily, I told Alphonse to keep the carriage. The captain was not at home. I had taken his card from my pocket to a.s.sure me in regard to the address, and as I hurried to reenter my coupe I put it in my card-case for future reference.