The Road to Paris: A Story of Adventure

by Robert Neilson Stephens

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  DICK GIVES A SPECIMEN OF AMERICAN SHOOTING.

  But Dick's appearance was soon so changed as to remove fear ofrecognition, thanks to the equipment with which Lord George providedhim, as advanced payment, out of his lordship's own wardrobe,--anequipment for a fine gentleman rather than for a secretary. Thetransformation was begun at Melun, whence the travellers went speedilyto Fontainebleau, where a barber and hair-dresser completed it. Dick wasthen told that his duties would consist in writing letters of travelthat his lordship had promised to send to England. His lordship gave thename to which these epistles were to be directed. Dick echoed back thename, in astonishment:

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

  "Yes," admitted Lord George, with a sigh, "I went to Oxfordshire andrenewed the attack, and the lady capitulated,--that is to say,conditionally on my behavior during absence. These letters are to showhow I spend my time. I undertook to write them myself, but at this placeI found I hadn't the literary gift. So I started for Paris in search ofa secretary. By the way, you may be glad to hear that the lovely Amabelis soon to be Sir William Fountain's lady. He is the exact opposite ofthe lamented Bullcott. Alderby has married Miss Mallby, and revengeshimself for her treatment of him before marriage, by keeping her greenwith jealousy."

  Dick sighed to think how long ago seemed his contact with the lives ofthe people thus recalled to his mind, and how completely he must havebeen by them forgotten. Such is the world!

  The next few weeks, passed in leisurely travel from one old town ofFrance to another, were among the most uneventful and serenelypleasurable in Dick's life. From the noble forest, great rocks, andhistoric chateau of Fontainebleau, they went to Sens, with its windingstreets and pleasant rivulets. There they took the water-coach, and weretowed, by horses on the bank, up the Yonne to Joigny, which looks downon fertile meadows watered by the two rivers that join at the foot ofits hillside. Continuing on the water-coach, with a cheerful company ofmerchants, lawyers, abbes, milliners, soldiers, fiddlers, women ofdifferent ages and degrees of virtue, and other people, they joined inthe quadrilles in the cabin and on deck with a gaiety that effectuallydisguised Lord George's rank and nationality.

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

  Thence they went to Basle, lodging at the inn of the Three Kings, anddining by a window that looked across the Rhine to smiling plains;thence past miles of tobacco fields to Strasbourg; thence across theRhine and to Rastadt; thence by way of Carlsruhe and Speyer to Mannheim,whose straight streets, crossing at right angles, reminded Dick ofPhiladelphia. Over a flat country where there were few houses butpalaces and peasants' cottages,--for in most small German states thegentry lived in the capitals and the merchant class in towns,--they wentby carriage to the ecclesiastical capital, Mayence, which swarmed withpriests, many of them rich and gay-looking, and not a few openly tipsywith Rhenish wine. From there Lord George and his secretary proceeded toFrankfort, notable for its stately houses covered with red stucco, itsspacious streets, its well-dressed and well-mannered people, itsmultitude of Jews.

  From the free imperial city they drove to Marburg, in the landgraviateof Hesse-Cassel, a hilly, well-wooded country, with many fertile valleysand fields. Its landgrave, Frederick II., was one of the richest andmost powerful of all the German princes, and was then in close relationswith England, which fact gave him a mild interest in Lord George's eyes;but there was to that fact a circumstance with a different interest forDick Wetheral,--it was this Landgrave that sold his troops to England,and thousands of them were even now in America fighting against Dick'scountrymen.

  Pushing on from Marburg as rapidly as the bad roads and the stolid,smoking German postilion would let them go, the young gentlemen enteredCassel, then no longer a walled city, on a pleasant autumn evening,little foreseeing, as they drove in from the southwest and set footbefore the hotel in the round platz near the Landgrave's palace, that inthis capital a very remarkable drama was about to open in the life ofDick Wetheral.

  The next morning Dick stayed in the hotel to write Lord George'sjournal up to date, while his lordship went out to visit the Englishresident. Before noon Lord George returned.

  "Lay aside your pen, my dear fellow," he said to Dick. "We are to dineat the palace with their highnesses, the Landgrave and Landgravine. Makehaste, you've barely time to change your clothes."

  "But I am merely a secretary," objected Dick, who had no desire to enjoythe hospitality of the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.

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

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

  "That rule of etiquette is observed only towards the natives, nottowards strangers, and particularly not towards Englishmen. Come, thisis a gala-day, and we shall go to the masquerade to-night as well. Imust have at least one court dinner and court ball in my journal oftravels, to be in the fashion. To-morrow we shall leave Cassel, whichdoesn't interest me, and go by way of Magdeburg to Berlin."

  Dick was glad to hear this last intention, for, unlike the LandgraveFrederick II. of Hesse-Cassel, King Frederick I. of Prussia (who wasalso Duke of Magdeburg) had shown some favor to the American cause,having some months ago forbidden the passage of Hessian soldiers throughhis dominions to embark for America. So Dick complied the morecheerfully with Lord George's wish.

  Cassel then, as now, was mainly on the west bank of the river Fulda, andconsisted of the "old town," large and irregular, and the "new town,"where the nobility and the court officers had fine houses. The circularplatz in which the travellers lodged was at the southwestern extremityof 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 theircarriage horses brought Lord George and Dick to the palace, then a largeGothic castle, west of which was the great rectangular open space nowknown as the Friedrichsplatz. South of this space, and between the newtown and the Fulda, was a flat-roofed villa, used by the Landgrave as asummer residence, and surrounded by parks, gardens, an orangery, and amenagerie. But though September was not yet past, the Landgrave was nowoccupying the winter palace.

  The guard officer at the palace, to whom Lord George showed his orderfor entrance, caused a footman to conduct the visitors into a largedecorated room, where a number of officers stood about in groups,talking in low tones. One of these, whom Lord George had met in theforenoon, greeted the two with the utmost courtesy, which seemed like acompound of French politeness and English gravity. Dick observed thatthis officer spoke in French, which indeed was so much the courtlanguage in Germany while Frederick of Prussia set the fashion, that theuse of German was deemed a mark of vulgarity. In France the craze wasfor everything English; in Germany for everything French.

  From the number of military officers present, it was evident that theLandgrave had not sent all of his army to serve England in America. Dickmade several acquaintances in a very few minutes. He who had firstapproached was Count von Romberg, a captain in the foot-guards. Anotherwas the Baron von Sungen, lieutenant-colonel of the horse-guards, awitty, spirited, impulsive, chivalrous man, with a French manneracquired in Paris. A third--slim, talkative, vain, meddlesome, withbrazen gray eyes and reddish eye-lashes--was Count Mesmer, on
e of hishighness's chamberlains. These three were young men. Of the older onesin the assemblage, Dick noticed particularly a bent, wrinkled,crafty-looking sexagenarian, who, he learned, was Von Rothenstein,minister of police.

  Presently doors were thrown open, and there appeared a robust gentlemanof medium height, looking fewer years than his fifty-eight, and wearingthe Order of the Garter. He came with a firm tread, noticing in a briefbut gracious way the officers, who bowed low to him as he approached. Hehad a moment and a word for this one and for that; for General Scliven,his chief reliance in military affairs; for old Zastrow, who hadcommanded at Schweidnitz; for the Prince of Saxe-Gotha, who had aregiment in Hesse-Cassel's service; and, in due time, for the officiousCount Mesmer, by whom Lord George and Dick had the honor of being madeknown to the Landgrave.

  His highness expressed, in the French language and in a guttural voicestill full of virility, the pleasure he took in meeting Englishmen.While Lord George was bowing indifferently, and Dick hypocritically,other doors opened, and a lady entered, very beautiful and dignified,large, and somewhat over-plump. Dick knew from the great respect withwhich she was received, and from the number of ladies that followed her,that she must be the Landgravine. A very cold greeting passed betweenher and the Landgrave,--for, though it was but five years sinceFrederick II. had married, for love, the Princess of Brandenburg-Schwedt,he already lived estranged from her, as he had lived from his firstwife, a daughter of England's George II.; and as he now lived also fromhis son George William, the hereditary prince, who was also Count ofHanau, and maintained there a little court.

  Dick glanced from the Landgravine to her ladies, who looked neither aspiquant as French women, nor as reserved as English women. If what anungallant American traveller wrote at that time--that at the Germancourts beauty and butter alike were measured by the pound--were true, itwas to be granted that the German ladies had fair skin, radiantcomplexion, and something of a classic cast of countenance. But Dick'sgaze fastened upon one face, which had beauty without heaviness; a facethat stood out from the others,--making them and all the world besidesfade into nothingness, while Dick, in doubt whether he was not dreaming,forgot that any other woman had ever lived. It was the face of Catherinede St. Valier!

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

  The company was already on the way to the dining-parlor, and Dick had tofollow. It was the privilege of Lord George and his friends to dine attheir highnesses' table, where only strangers and such officers as werenot under the rank of colonel were allowed to sit, the lesser guestseating in an adjoining room, to which the doors were left open. But Dicktook no thought of the honor done him, or of the table-talk, which wasconstrained and low-spoken, no voice being raised save when one of theirhighnesses addressed some person at a distance. Catherine was notpresent. Dick continued to wonder how in the world she had come to be aninmate of the palace of Cassel. As the dinner lasted two hours, he hadtime in which to repeat this question to himself many times. Afterdinner he absent-mindedly followed the company back to the room where ithad first assembled. 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," saidLord George, on the way back to the hotel. "I shall thank God when Ihave put this stupid place far behind me."

  "Stupid!" echoed Dick. "I find it very interesting. I sha'n't think ofleaving 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, Ibeg to resign my place as your secretary. I will do my best to find youanother secretary here at Cassel."

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

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

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

  "No, my lord, I would never serve this Landgrave as a soldier,--nor inany other post, but for one reason."

  His lordship, though puzzled, was too polite to ask what the reason was."Very well," said he, after a moment's silence, "we shall see to-morrow.I shall try to lure away some under-clerk from a brilliant officialcareer, as my secretary, and to get you in his place,--if you continueof the same mind."

  "My lord, you are destined to be always my Good Samaritan," cried Dick,his eyes suddenly moist with gratitude. He considered that, in occupyinga civil sinecure under the Landgrave, he would not in reality be servingthat virtual enemy to his country, but would be merely supportinghimself by means of that enemy; that is to say, he would be, in time ofnecessity, existing at the expense of the foe, according to the customof war. Moreover, his position might enable him to serve his countrydirectly, by giving him early intelligence of future movements byHessian troops, and, perhaps, of future intentions of England.

  They drove to a costumer's, obtained dominoes, and, at six o'clock,returned to the palace, where they found the gentlemen of the court allin dominoes, the ladies in ordinary ball dress. Card tables had beenset, and the Landgrave played at cavaniolle with a rather talkativeparty of about a dozen members, while the Landgravine took a hand atquadrille with a trio of her own choosing. A number of players occupiedtables in adjoining rooms. Dick helped make up a game at which Captainvon Romberg and two placid, apple-cheeked baronesses were the otherparticipants, but his eyes roved from his cards, in vain search ofCatherine.

  While the games were going on, a gentleman passed around with a hatcontaining small tickets. Each lady took one of these, when the hat wasoffered her, and then similar tickets were drawn by the gentlemen. Dicksaw that his ticket bore the number twenty-three, and he learned fromthe talk of his fellow players that the lady who had drawn the samenumber would be his partner at supper and at the dance. Presently anofficer began calling out the numbers, a lady declaring herself at eachnumber, and a gentleman offering his arm to lead her out to supper.

  "I wonder who has twenty-three," said Dick, indifferently, to LordGeorge, who had meanwhile rejoined him.

  "I can't tell you that," replied his lordship, "but I know who has mynumber, seventeen. I happened to see her ticket, when she held it up tothe light. She is that splendid, dark-eyed creature, standing yonderunder the candles."

  Dick's glance turned idly towards the indicated place. Suddenly hebecame afire.

  "My lord," he almost gasped, "be my Good Samaritan once again. Exchangetickets with me, for heaven's sake!"

  "Why, certainly. That gives me back the uncertainty to which this gameentitles me." And the exchange was quickly made.

  "Seventeen," was called out, and Dick advanced, with beating heart, tomeet Catherine. She colored again--was it with pleasure?--as she tookhis proffered arm. They walked in silence to the supper-room.

  At supper there was more ease and animation than there had been atdinner. This circumstance favored conversation between Dick and hispartner.

  "I should not have expected to meet you so far from where I saw youlast," he began, in a low voice.

  "Nor I to meet you," she
replied, speaking without haste, and with thegravity that characterized her.

  "Oh, my coming here was a very simple matter. Sent to England as aprisoner, I escaped to France, and there fell in with an Englishnobleman, whose travels brought him this way. I am his secretary. It isnot known I am an American."

  "My coming here was quite as simple," said she, with a slight smile. "Mybrother and I came to France to receive a small bequest left by a cousinof my mother's. In Paris we met a distant relation,--one of the ladiesof her highness the Landgravine. When she returned to Cassel, sheobtained for me a post as lady-in-waiting. French people are in requestat the German courts."

  "And Monsieur Gerard?"

  "My brother is in the foot-guards."

  "I should like to see him," said Dick, and added, with specialintention, "I suppose he has forgotten me."

  "Oh, no, monsieur," she replied, quite artlessly; "we have often talkedof you. Our gratitude for recovering the portrait, and risking your lifeto bring it to us--"

  "'Twas the opportunity of risking it to serve you, that made my lifeworth having," he said, in a tone little above a whisper.

  "My brother will be glad to learn that your life was surely saved," shereplied, avoiding Dick's glance.

  "And you, who saved it?"

  "I, too, of course."

  The words were nothing, but the slight blush with which she uttered themwas eloquent.

  After supper, all the company put on masks with which they had providedthemselves. The Landgravine was led to the ballroom by her partner, anowlish colonel, and the other couples followed. Her highness stopped atthe upper end of the room, the second couple stopped immediately belowthis, and at last there was a double file extending the length of thehall. This arrangement seemed to promise a country-dance, but when themusic began, Dick found that a form of minuet was intended. When thishad been walked through, everybody sat down, except the Landgravine, whothen danced with several different gentlemen in succession.

  After this there were minuets and country-dances. The company wasaugmented by maskers from the town, some in fancy dresses; while severalwho belonged to the court, having meanwhile slipped out, returned indifferent costume, so as to be really disguised,--for on first enteringthe masquerade-room, all were known, notwithstanding their masks.Everybody was now on a footing, and the maskers mingled promiscuously.But Dick remained with Catherine, who showed no desire for othercompany. He thought himself in the midst of paradise, until suddenly shesaid:

  "Her highness is retiring. I must go."

  "But, mademoiselle, the others are not going!"

  "The others are not keepers of her highness's robes," said Catherine.

  "But one moment! When may I see you again?"

  "How can I say? My hours of duty are long. I am usually free in theafternoon, from three to five o'clock. On occasions like this, sometimesI attend her highness, sometimes I may do as I please."

  "From three to five, you say. I suppose you remain in the palace then?"

  "Except when I visit my brother. I must go now, monsieur. _Au revoir!_"

  In a moment she was lost in the crowd. You may be sure much had beensaid, between their opening colloquy at supper and their brief dialogueat parting, to bring about the tacit understanding of a future meeting.

  So she was in the habit of going to see her brother! Dick had learnedthat the Prussian system was followed in Cassel,--that the troops,instead of being lodged in barracks, were quartered with citizens. Hewalked the next morning to the drill-ground and armory of thefoot-guards, and, happily meeting Captain von Romberg, learned whereGerard had lodgings. He went immediately to the house, which was in astreet running east from the platz and through the southern extremity ofthe old town. It was the house of a glover, whose shop was on the groundfloor. Gerard was out on duty.

  Dick, finding that the guardsman occupied the first-floor room towardsthe street, immediately hired a corresponding room in an obscure innacross the way. He waited at the inn door till he saw Gerard, inmilitary coat and buff cross belt, coming down the street; he thencrossed over, with a preoccupied air, as if going about his business.Looking up suddenly, as he came face to face with the soldier, Dickpretended the greatest surprise at recognizing Monsieur de St. Valier.

  The recognition was not mutual at first, but, as soon as Dick hadrecalled himself to the other, the young Frenchman became instantlycordial. A minute later the two were sitting in Gerard's room,expressing wonder at the strange chance that had made Dick a lodgeracross the street from Gerard.

  They dined together at the table d'hote of Dick's inn, and then returnedto Gerard's house, where the marvellous coincidence had to be discussedover again when Gerard's sister called in the afternoon. It was hiscustom to receive her in the glover's back parlor, and on this occasionDick was of course invited to be present. Not until she had gone back tothe palace, did Dick return to Lord George, who had been mystified athis absence.

  "I have found a secretary," said his lordship, who also had passed agreat part of the day out of the hotel, "in the shape of a clerk at theFrench resident's office, who has got into trouble over cards and awoman and has to seek other pastures. But the vacancy he will leave isalready provided for. I don't know what can be done for you if you aredetermined to remain here."

  "I shall find something," said Dick; "and, meanwhile, I've taken a roomat a cheaper hotel, where I can live for some time on the money I have.But I am as grateful to you--"

  "As if I had ever really done anything for you," broke in Lord George,who liked expressions of gratitude to be cut short. He supposed thatDick's "some time" meant several weeks, whereas it really meant threedays.

  The next afternoon there was a review of the first battalion of guards,in that part of the park which lay between the summer palace and themenagerie. Lord George remained at Cassel on the pretext of a desire tosee an exhibition of target-shooting that was to be given in connectionwith the review, by certain of the guardsmen. Dick guessed that hislordship's real purpose in tarrying was to make further effort towardsobtaining employment for him.

  The two met at Lord George's hotel (Dick having already moved to the innopposite the glover's), and rode on hired horses to the reviewing-ground.It was a fine day, warm and sunny. The Landgrave and his chief officerswere present on horseback. The Landgravine and several ladies were incarriages, at that side of the park which bordered on the Fulda and atwhich was the menagerie. Dick and Lord George took station, with severalother horsemen, near the Landgrave's party. When the shooting at markbegan, Dick found himself near the place where the men stood whilefiring. The competitors were drawn up in line, at right angles with theline formed by the rest of the battalion. This latter line formed thewestern side of an imaginary square, the targets were midway in thesouth side of the same square, the east side was formed by the menagerieand the carriages, while the north side began with the line ofmarksmen, and was continued eastward by the groups of horsemen. After afew shots had been fired, Dick observed that the Landgravine and otherladies had got out of their carriages and were standing at some distancefrom them, so as to see better the effect of each shot.

  Some one had just called Dick's attention to the fact that Mlle. F----,the Landgrave's Parisian mistress, was standing within a few feet of theLandgrave's wife, when suddenly a terrible roar came from the menagerie,followed a moment later by a great four-footed, striped figure, whichbounded into sight, then crouched and looked around with ferociouscuriosity.

  "The tiger has broken out!" an officer exclaimed, while everybody gazedat the animal as if struck dumb with sudden amazement and alarm.

  A man rushed wildly out from the menagerie after the tiger,--he was thekeeper, through whose carelessness the beast had escaped. At this sightthe women began to scream and to run back to the carriages. In a momentor two, the Landgravine was left alone. She stood looking at the animalas if fascinated, or as if paralyzed with terror.

  The keeper threw himself before the tiger. It felled him with a blo
w,drew the blood from his face with its claws, and began to tear his fleshwith its teeth. The women shrieked with horror. The animal looked up,glided across the body of the man, and made swiftly towards theLandgravine.

  A kind of shuddering moan went up from the whole field. Some officersdashed forward on their horses, as if to intervene between theLandgravine and the beast, though the great distance made the attempt ahopeless one.

  As the tiger made its spring, a shot rang out. The beast gave a howl ofpain, dropped sidewise, and lay still, at the Landgravine's feet,pierced through the brain.

  The officers looked around amazed, and saw Dick Wetheral, afoot,lowering a smoking gun. He had slid from his horse at the tiger's firstappearance, run to the nearest marksman, seized the loaded weapon, andfired as he had fired at many a running bear in Pennsylvania.

  "Who fired?" cried the Landgrave, too deeply moved to say more,--for aprince does not wish his wife to die a violent death in his presence andthe court's, however estranged he may be from her.

  "I took the liberty, your highness," said Dick, handing back the gun tothe guardsman, and approaching the Landgrave.

  "You have saved the Landgravine's life," said his highness. "I lackwords in which to express my gratitude. You shall hear from me."

  And the Landgrave rode quickly over to the Landgravine, who was beingsupported to her carriage.

  "You don't need a Good Samaritan any longer. Your fortune is made!" saidLord George, as Dick remounted.