The Road to Paris Part 31

"Egad, so it seems! Come, then, let me play the Good Samaritan again!"

"I don't see how I can refuse you, my lord," said d.i.c.k, looking down at himself.

"Good! Wilkins, open the door for Mr. Wetheral."

"A moment, my lord. Where are you going?"

"To Paris, of course."

"Then I thank you, but I have important business in the opposite direction."

"Oh, come into the carriage! I shall not be in Paris long. I've come up from Fontainebleau, to engage a secretary. Then I am going to make a tour of France and Germany."

"Do you want a secretary? I am sure I should make a good secretary."

"Why, you are a gentleman."

"Do you want an hostler for a secretary, then?"

"Why, if you really wish it, the post is open to you."

"Then I accept it on the spot."

"Then I have no need to go to Paris. Get in, Mr. Secretary."

d.i.c.k obeyed with alacrity, Lord George ordered the postilion to turn around, and soon they were whirling through Charenton, on the road to Melun, d.i.c.k telling Lord George his story, and receiving the latter's unsolicited promise to back whatever a.s.sertions might become necessary to show that his lords.h.i.+p's secretary was not the man who had escaped from the Bastile.

CHAPTER XVIII.

d.i.c.k GIVES A SPECIMEN OF AMERICAN SHOOTING.

But d.i.c.k's appearance was soon so changed as to remove fear of recognition, thanks to the equipment with which Lord George provided him, as advanced payment, out of his lords.h.i.+p's own wardrobe,--an equipment for a fine gentleman rather than for a secretary. The transformation was begun at Melun, whence the travellers went speedily to Fontainebleau, where a barber and hair-dresser completed it. d.i.c.k was then told that his duties would consist in writing letters of travel that his lords.h.i.+p had promised to send to England. His lords.h.i.+p gave the name to which these epistles were to be directed. d.i.c.k echoed back the name, in astonishment:

"Miss Celestine Thorpe! Why, it seems to me I've heard--"

"Yes," admitted Lord George, with a sigh, "I went to Oxfords.h.i.+re and renewed the attack, and the lady capitulated,--that is to say, conditionally on my behavior during absence. These letters are to show how I spend my time. I undertook to write them myself, but at this place I found I hadn't the literary gift. So I started for Paris in search of a secretary. By the way, you may be glad to hear that the lovely Amabel is soon to be Sir William Fountain's lady. He is the exact opposite of the lamented Bullcott. Alderby has married Miss Mallby, and revenges himself for her treatment of him before marriage, by keeping her green with jealousy."

d.i.c.k sighed to think how long ago seemed his contact with the lives of the people thus recalled to his mind, and how completely he must have been by them forgotten. Such is the world!

The next few weeks, pa.s.sed in leisurely travel from one old town of France to another, were among the most uneventful and serenely pleasurable in d.i.c.k's life. From the n.o.ble forest, great rocks, and historic chateau of Fontainebleau, they went to Sens, with its winding streets and pleasant rivulets. There they took the water-coach, and were towed, by horses on the bank, up the Yonne to Joigny, which looks down on fertile meadows watered by the two rivers that join at the foot of its hillside. Continuing on the water-coach, with a cheerful company of merchants, lawyers, abbes, milliners, soldiers, fiddlers, women of different ages and degrees of virtue, and other people, they joined in the quadrilles in the cabin and on deck with a gaiety that effectually disguised Lord George's rank and nationality.

At Auxerre they left the water-coach, and proceeded by a hired conveyance to Dijon, where they met several English, Irish, and Scotch gentry at the coffee-house, and were reminded of London by the garden called Vauxhall, hard by the ramparts. So they went through Burgundy, drinking the wine, exchanging civilities with the well-fed monks, and partaking everywhere of the fat of the land. By way of Auxonne, a town small but fortified, and Dole, with its Roman vestiges, they neared the Swiss frontier at Besancon, then noted for its university, its hospital, its large garrison containing among others the regiment of the King, its perpetual religious processions, its frequent suicides of lovers in the river Doube, and its soldiers' duels.

Thence they went to Basle, lodging at the inn of the Three Kings, and dining by a window that looked across the Rhine to smiling plains; thence past miles of tobacco fields to Strasbourg; thence across the Rhine and to Rastadt; thence by way of Carlsruhe and Speyer to Mannheim, whose straight streets, crossing at right angles, reminded d.i.c.k of Philadelphia. Over a flat country where there were few houses but palaces and peasants' cottages,--for in most small German states the gentry lived in the capitals and the merchant cla.s.s in towns,--they went by carriage to the ecclesiastical capital, Mayence, which swarmed with priests, many of them rich and gay-looking, and not a few openly tipsy with Rhenish wine. From there Lord George and his secretary proceeded to Frankfort, notable for its stately houses covered with red stucco, its s.p.a.cious streets, its well-dressed and well-mannered people, its mult.i.tude of Jews.

From the free imperial city they drove to Marburg, in the landgraviate of Hesse-Ca.s.sel, a hilly, well-wooded country, with many fertile valleys and fields. Its landgrave, Frederick II., was one of the richest and most powerful of all the German princes, and was then in close relations with England, which fact gave him a mild interest in Lord George's eyes; but there was to that fact a circ.u.mstance with a different interest for d.i.c.k Wetheral,--it was this Landgrave that sold his troops to England, and thousands of them were even now in America fighting against d.i.c.k's countrymen.

Pus.h.i.+ng on from Marburg as rapidly as the bad roads and the stolid, smoking German postilion would let them go, the young gentlemen entered Ca.s.sel, then no longer a walled city, on a pleasant autumn evening, little foreseeing, as they drove in from the southwest and set foot before the hotel in the round platz near the Landgrave's palace, that in this capital a very remarkable drama was about to open in the life of d.i.c.k Wetheral.

The next morning d.i.c.k stayed in the hotel to write Lord George's journal up to date, while his lords.h.i.+p went out to visit the English resident. Before noon Lord George returned.

"Lay aside your pen, my dear fellow," he said to d.i.c.k. "We are to dine at the palace with their highnesses, the Landgrave and Landgravine. Make haste, you've barely time to change your clothes."

"But I am merely a secretary," objected d.i.c.k, who had no desire to enjoy the hospitality of the Landgrave of Hesse-Ca.s.sel.

"So much the more reason why you should see the Landgrave's court, to write my description of it. Besides, no one will know you are my secretary as well as my friend."

"But no one is permitted to appear at German courts who isn't n.o.ble."

"That rule of etiquette is observed only towards the natives, not towards strangers, and particularly not towards Englishmen. Come, this is a gala-day, and we shall go to the masquerade to-night as well. I must have at least one court dinner and court ball in my journal of travels, to be in the fas.h.i.+on. To-morrow we shall leave Ca.s.sel, which doesn't interest me, and go by way of Magdeburg to Berlin."

d.i.c.k was glad to hear this last intention, for, unlike the Landgrave Frederick II. of Hesse-Ca.s.sel, King Frederick I. of Prussia (who was also Duke of Magdeburg) had shown some favor to the American cause, having some months ago forbidden the pa.s.sage of Hessian soldiers through his dominions to embark for America. So d.i.c.k complied the more cheerfully with Lord George's wish.

Ca.s.sel then, as now, was mainly on the west bank of the river Fulda, and consisted of the "old town," large and irregular, and the "new town,"

where the n.o.bility and the court officers had fine houses. The circular platz in which the travellers lodged was at the southwestern extremity of the old town, and by proceeding a short way southwest from the platz, one reached the winter palace and the new town. A few steps of their carriage horses brought Lord George and d.i.c.k to the palace, then a large Gothic castle, west of which was the great rectangular open s.p.a.ce now known as the Friedrichsplatz. South of this s.p.a.ce, and between the new town and the Fulda, was a flat-roofed villa, used by the Landgrave as a summer residence, and surrounded by parks, gardens, an orangery, and a menagerie. But though September was not yet past, the Landgrave was now occupying the winter palace.

The guard officer at the palace, to whom Lord George showed his order for entrance, caused a footman to conduct the visitors into a large decorated room, where a number of officers stood about in groups, talking in low tones. One of these, whom Lord George had met in the forenoon, greeted the two with the utmost courtesy, which seemed like a compound of French politeness and English gravity. d.i.c.k observed that this officer spoke in French, which indeed was so much the court language in Germany while Frederick of Prussia set the fas.h.i.+on, that the use of German was deemed a mark of vulgarity. In France the craze was for everything English; in Germany for everything French.

From the number of military officers present, it was evident that the Landgrave had not sent all of his army to serve England in America. d.i.c.k made several acquaintances in a very few minutes. He who had first approached was Count von Romberg, a captain in the foot-guards. Another was the Baron von Sungen, lieutenant-colonel of the horse-guards, a witty, spirited, impulsive, chivalrous man, with a French manner acquired in Paris. A third--slim, talkative, vain, meddlesome, with brazen gray eyes and reddish eye-lashes--was Count Mesmer, one of his highness's chamberlains. These three were young men. Of the older ones in the a.s.semblage, d.i.c.k noticed particularly a bent, wrinkled, crafty-looking s.e.xagenarian, who, he learned, was Von Rothenstein, minister of police.

Presently doors were thrown open, and there appeared a robust gentleman of medium height, looking fewer years than his fifty-eight, and wearing the Order of the Garter. He came with a firm tread, noticing in a brief but gracious way the officers, who bowed low to him as he approached. He had a moment and a word for this one and for that; for General Scliven, his chief reliance in military affairs; for old Zastrow, who had commanded at Schweidnitz; for the Prince of Saxe-Gotha, who had a regiment in Hesse-Ca.s.sel's service; and, in due time, for the officious Count Mesmer, by whom Lord George and d.i.c.k had the honor of being made known to the Landgrave.

His highness expressed, in the French language and in a guttural voice still full of virility, the pleasure he took in meeting Englishmen.

While Lord George was bowing indifferently, and d.i.c.k hypocritically, other doors opened, and a lady entered, very beautiful and dignified, large, and somewhat over-plump. d.i.c.k knew from the great respect with which she was received, and from the number of ladies that followed her, that she must be the Landgravine. A very cold greeting pa.s.sed between her and the Landgrave,--for, though it was but five years since Frederick II. had married, for love, the Princess of Brandenburg-Schwedt, he already lived estranged from her, as he had lived from his first wife, a daughter of England's George II.; and as he now lived also from his son George William, the hereditary prince, who was also Count of Hanau, and maintained there a little court.

d.i.c.k glanced from the Landgravine to her ladies, who looked neither as piquant as French women, nor as reserved as English women. If what an ungallant American traveller wrote at that time--that at the German courts beauty and b.u.t.ter alike were measured by the pound--were true, it was to be granted that the German ladies had fair skin, radiant complexion, and something of a cla.s.sic cast of countenance. But d.i.c.k's gaze fastened upon one face, which had beauty without heaviness; a face that stood out from the others,--making them and all the world besides fade into nothingness, while d.i.c.k, in doubt whether he was not dreaming, forgot that any other woman had ever lived. It was the face of Catherine de St. Valier!

She saw him, looked slightly startled, then took on the faintest flush, which pa.s.sed immediately but left him with the happy a.s.surance that he was recognized. Half-way across the room as he was, he bowed low. She slightly inclined her head, and hastened to the Landgravine, for whom she had brought a forgotten handkerchief. She then went swiftly out by the door at which all the ladies had entered.

The company was already on the way to the dining-parlor, and d.i.c.k had to follow. It was the privilege of Lord George and his friends to dine at their highnesses' table, where only strangers and such officers as were not under the rank of colonel were allowed to sit, the lesser guests eating in an adjoining room, to which the doors were left open. But d.i.c.k took no thought of the honor done him, or of the table-talk, which was constrained and low-spoken, no voice being raised save when one of their highnesses addressed some person at a distance. Catherine was not present. d.i.c.k continued to wonder how in the world she had come to be an inmate of the palace of Ca.s.sel. As the dinner lasted two hours, he had time in which to repeat this question to himself many times. After dinner he absent-mindedly followed the company back to the room where it had first a.s.sembled. Here he stood in a trance for a quarter of an hour, and then, the Landgrave having left the apartment, the company broke up.

"Let us hope we sha'n't be so bored at the masquerade to-night," said Lord George, on the way back to the hotel. "I shall thank G.o.d when I have put this stupid place far behind me."

"Stupid!" echoed d.i.c.k. "I find it very interesting. I sha'n't think of leaving for some time."

"Why, this morning you were glad we were going at once to Berlin!"

"My dear Lord George, if you are determined to go at once to Berlin, I beg to resign my place as your secretary. I will do my best to find you another secretary here at Ca.s.sel."

"Why, I suppose I can easily find one. But are you serious? One would suppose you had got some fat appointment in the court or the army, since this morning."

"I wish I had, G.o.d knows,--or even a lean one,--but not in the army. I would not go to fight against my--against the Americans."

"Oh, you wouldn't be sent to America. We should have to get you into one of the household battalions,--not as an officer, of course; you know the officers must be of the n.o.bility, but there are gentlemen in the ranks of every military body that is attached to a sovereign's person. There are the body-guards, the foot-guards, the horse-guards, and other such troops. Doubtless volunteers are very welcome. These German princes have crimps all over Europe kidnapping men for their armies. Let us speak to one of the various counts or barons we shall meet to-night."