CHAPTER XXX
THE AMBASSADOR
"Receive then this young hero with all becoming state; 'Twere ill advis'd to merit so fierce a champion's hate." --_Nibelungenlied._
In his bedroom at Buena Vista, the marshal's residence, Driscoll thenext day received a personage, and offered him a cigar. Declined, withbow from shoulder. Hoped he would have a nip of peach brandy? Declined,with sweep from hips. He _was_ a personage. Driscoll noted regalia,medals, cordon; and apologized for the temerity of Missouri hospitality.
"Especially," he said, "as you're a Grand Divinity."
"Dignity, senor," the hidalgo corrected him, "Grand Dignity."
"You'll have to pardon me again," said Driscoll, "but I really didn'tintend any short measure at all."
It was the Imperial Grand Chamberlain himself. There were noincomunicado doors before _him_; he came from the Emperor. TheEmpress had spoken to His Majesty, having just had her discussionaforementioned with Madame la Marechale, so that Monsieur le Marechalhad had to lift from his prisoner the ban of the incomunicado. Butmonsieur had been extremely reluctant about it.
The Chamberlain's name went well with his exalted fourth degree ofproximity to the throne. It was Velasquez de Leon, a very bristling ofCastilian pride. He looked over the battered American in homespun gray,and wondered where the mistake was. For, as arbiter of precedence,appraiser of inequality between men, and supervisor over court functionsgenerally, he had been sent in the way of business. Driscoll felt sorryfor him.
"Just tell them to let me out of here," said the prisoner, "then I'llcall in on the Emperor whenever it's convenient for him."
"But, senor," the don objected testily, "with what status, pray? Hasyour country a representative here? You must obtain a letter from yourambassador, or have him present you."
Driscoll shook his head. "Can't," he said, "haven't any country."
The minion of etiquette despaired.
"But," Driscoll added, "I've got as good as credentials from what usedto be my country."
Velasquez de Leon grasped at the straw. "Then," he cried, "we canregister you as an ambassador."
"Bringing my country with me," Driscoll suggested.
So it was all straightened out pleasantly, and quite in the orthodoxmanner, too. The American's status was defined. His reception would fallunder the rubric: "Private Audience." There remained only one gravedrawback. The protocol allowed no hints as to the un-protocol aspect ofan ambassador's wardrobe. The hidalgo could only finger nervously theImperial Crown in his Grand Uniform, and with stiff dignity take hisleave.
The ambassador who was his own country rode in the marshal's landau tocourt, with a retinue of Lancers that was also his guard. Soon theyentered the Paseo, which Maximilian was making beautiful at inordinatecost as a link between the City and his summer palace, the alcazar ofChapultepec. Turning into the wide, stately boulevard, Driscoll was thatmoment plunged into an eddying splendor of Europe transplanted, and heblinked his eyes, half humorously. There were mettlesome steeds, andcoaches with a high polish, and silver weighted harness, and theinsolence of livery, and armorial bearings, and the gilt of coronets oncarriage panels. There were silk hats and peaked sombreros, lacemantillas and Parisian bonnets. A lavish use of French money was doingthese things, and the Mexicans, believing in their aristocracy since therevival of titles never heard of in Gotha, believed also that suchbrilliancy of display made their capital the peer of Vienna, or of theQuartier St. Germain. The Mexicans were very happy and arrogant over it.
"I wonder how they can fight and yet keep their clothes so pretty,"thought the Missourian.
The gallant carpet-knighthood of uniforms was bothering him again. Theywere dashing, militant, these paladins, a bal masque of luxurious oddityand color. They twisted waxed moustaches, and their coursers cantered toand fro in the gay parade, and among them only the charro cavaliers witha glitter of spangle let one guess that this could be Mexico. There wasthe Austrian dragoon with his Tyrolean feather, and the Polish uhlan,fur fringed, and the Hungarian hussar, whose pelisse dangledromantically, and there were some fellows in low boots and tights andhigh busbies, who were cross-braided on the chest and scroll-embroideredon the front of the leg, and looked exactly like Tzigane bandmasters orlion tamers. The Slav, the Magyar, the Czech, and yet others of theEmperor's score of native races, all were here out of the nearer Orient,with curved swords and ferocious bearing. There were the countrymen ofthe Empress, too; the Belgians, who were as bedecked of sleeve as a drumcorps. And as to the French, there they were in green and silver, in skyblue, in cuirassier helmets, in the zouave fez, or in any of the otherways in which they bore _their_ chips on the shoulder.
Shelby's ragged Missourians had tossed on straw for the lack of quinine,and yet were presuming to save this gorgeous empire of golden spurredgentlemen. The thought of his mission gave Driscoll an ironic twinge.
But there was the pantalon rouge, the little soldier boy of France whodid the work, and the sight of him put the American into a friendlyhumor. He was everywhere, the little pantalon rouge, streaming thewalks, dotting the cafes with red, and every wee piou-piou under thegreat big epaulettes of a great big comic opera generalissimo. His hugemilitary coat fitted him awkwardly, and the crimson pompon cocked on hislittle fighting kepi was more often awry, and he could not by any effortachieve a strut. He was only bon enfant, this unconquered soldier lad;so he gave over trying to be martial, and left to his officers the roleof the Gallic rooster, taking it all as a droll joke on himself, whilehis vivacious eyes danced with fun.
The ambassador's coach passed under the cypresses and wound round theAztec hill of the Grasshopper, and came at last to the castle on thesummit. And as Guatemotzin had once ventured to this place to plead withMoctezuma to save his empire, and to show him how to do it, so Driscollnow entered the portals of Chapultepec on a very similar errand.
The superb Indian lord was never so hedged in with barbaric ceremony aswas his Teuton successor of three centuries later. But Driscoll waspatient. He advanced as the red tape gave way, humming under his breath"Green Grows the Grass," a schottische which the American invaders of'48 had sung in taking this same fortress, which also had given allAmericans the name of "Gringo."
Guardias Palatinas saluted the Missourian at the entrance. TwoSecretaries of Ceremony, Grand Uniform, with cordon and the Imperialeagle, bowed before him in the Gran Patio. One stepped to his right, theother to his left, with all the ceremony of which they were secretaries,and the three walked abreast the length of the Galeria de Iturbide,where they were joined by the Lesser Service of Honor. Thus, swelling bycumulative degrees of impressiveness, Trooper Driscoll came at last intothe Sala de Audiencias, and gazed with admiration at its beautifulGobelin suite.
The Emperor was there, tall, white browed, refined. He bowed. Driscollbowed, and started toward him, for they were scarcely in speakingdistance. But His Imperial Highness bowed again. He was absent-minded,evidently, but Driscoll bowed also, and pretended not to notice. Thenyet a third time the monarch bowed. And with true courtesy the Americanoverlooked what was growing ridiculous, and did likewise. Thus theritualistic three obeisances were accomplished.
Maximilian dismissed the Lesser Service, and he and his guest werealone. Now Driscoll supposed, considering the discommoding interest hismission had awakened in everybody except in the Emperor, that theEmperor himself would this time be concerned enough to "get down tobusiness." But not so. There were yet the formalities.
"I understand, Senor Embajador," Maximilian began in the language of hiscourt, "that Your Excellency----"
"Thank you, sir, but my name is Driscoll."
"That Your Excellency comes accredited from a government that no longerexists. But We will waive that, since the said power existed at themoment of Your Excellency's departure."
This was to harmonize the absurdity with the Ritual. Maximilian liked toplay at receiving an American representative. It grieved him so
rely thatthe United States had never recognized his dignity, but that it hadconsistently rated him as merely "the Prince Maximilian."
Driscoll's first words cut short the make-believe.
"You'd hardly call them credentials," he said. "Our president, it istrue, helped me on my way, but I have nothing from him to you. And yet Ibring more than Mr. Jefferson Davis could send. Here," and he producedthe memorandum from the Confederate generals of the Trans-Mississippidepartment, which in his belt Jacqueline had had restored to him withhis other effects.
Maximilian took the note handed him, but stared at the emissary.Charlotte had induced the monarch to grant the audience. She had hintedat its importance, but not until now did Maximilian recognize his guest.Driscoll was attired in the full uniform of a lieutenant colonel ofcavalry, which, by the way, was what he had carried so jealously in thebundle behind his saddle. From the dignified young officer in gray backto the desperado young giant in homespun proved considerable of a reachfor the Hapsburg; but at last, by virtue of much caressing of his silkybeard with delicate finger tips, he arrived.
"So, it was you the marshal saved!" he exclaimed. "Yes, yes, I shouldhave remembered sooner. Colonel Lopez told me. A capable, faithfulofficer, is Lopez! I could not but approve the finding of his courtmartial. And yet, against his urgent advice, I have decided to pardonyou."
"To apologize, you mean?"
The Emperor looked hurt. As a foil for his royal clemency, there shouldbe humble gratitude. Maximilian often mistook fawning for such.
"Isn't it a bit odd," Driscoll queried whimsically, "that an ambassadorshould be arrested?"
"Jove, that's a fact! I hadn't thought."
"Certainly. But if it don't occur again, we'll just let the apology go."
"No, no," protested the monarch. "You must have your apology. You willreceive it from the Grand Chamberlain to-morrow, and it will appear inthe Journal Officiel."
"Oh, all right," said Driscoll, "anything to clear the way." Whereuponhe plunged and stated his business.
With debonair Prince Max it was not a question of even who talked best.It was who talked last. And Driscoll, being for the moment an exhorterof both descriptions, drove home conviction as a sabre point. He spokebluntly, earnestly; and, at the scent of opposition, he spoke fiercely.The South was defeated, he said, and the North would now make good itsthreat to drive out the French. And the French would go, too. Supposethey were even willing to undertake a great war for Maximilian, yet theywould go just the same. And why? Because they had fought the Russians.They had fought the Austrians. And they were keeping the Italians out ofRome to help the Pope. So they had not a friend left, not one, to helpthem against the enemy they must soon fight, which was Prussia.Consequently they would draw every bayonet out of Mexico, and Maximilianwould be left alone to face his rebels. But Maximilian could not facethe rebels alone. They had been dominant before the French came. Toreplace thirty thousand French, Driscoll offered fifty thousandSoutherners, fifty thousand well-equipped, splendid veterans.Twenty-five thousand were already on the frontier, he meaning thoseunder General Slaughter at Brownsville, and Shelby and the others werenot far behind.
"But," said Maximilian, smiling bitterly, "you forget that the UnitedStates would still object to my poor Empire."
"Not when the French leave, they wouldn't. We would become citizens. Wewould not be a foreign intervention. You would be backed up by Mexicansagainst Mexicans, and the North could not interfere. But, suppose thatthe French remain, wouldn't they have to fight? And they would need ouraid to do it, too. Don't you see, sir, that in any case you should makeus very welcome?"
"There is assuredly no other way to look at it!" admitted the princeuneasily.
Dreaming himself a monarch of chivalry days, Maximilian was subtlyenthralled by the idea of a band of heroes flocking to his standard,their swords on high. Stouter than those warriors who had helpedSiegfried to his bride, they would hold for him a treasure greater thanthat under the Rhine. Themselves and their children forever, they wouldbe the real mainstay of the dynasty founded by Maximilian the Great.They were Anglo-Saxons, Germanic, his own kindred, and to him they camefor new homes and a new country. They would be his landed gentry, hisbarons, his hidalgos. It was a prospect for an emperor; above all, for apoet emperor. As he looked now on the young Confederate officer, on himwho had seemed a desperado, Maximilian thought that here stood one whowas the instrument of Destiny.
"Can--can they really come?" he demanded breathlessly.
Driscoll smiled. "Of course, there's no time to lose," he replied. "Forinstance, if I'd had your answer there at Murguia's ranch, I'd havegotten back in time to head off whole regiments who've probably given uptheir arms since then. But you can still count on an army west of theMississippi that hasn't surrendered yet. At least _my_ generalhasn't, not Old Joe, and he won't either. But you must say 'yes' prettyquick. We're restless, and might conclude to run the French out of here.We haven't forgotten how Napoleon forgot to help us."
It was a cunning stroke. Maximilian would have asked nothing better thanindependence from his "dear imperial brother," and just this was thebribe so temptingly held out by the instrument of Destiny. But theHapsburg of the heavy, trembling underlip credited wavering asstatesmanlike prudence.
"To-morrow," he said, "no, the day after, you shall have my decision."
Jacqueline witnessed the ambassador's departure. Hidden among the rosesof the fortress rock, where she sat with a book, she peeped out as hecame down the steps to the marshal's landau. The glacial Secretaries ofCeremony flanked him on either side, and the statuesque Palatine Guardssaluted. She could not be mistaken, the corners of his mouth weretwitching. It was such an inimitable commentary on the Ritual that shehad much to do not to dart out and laugh with him in gleeful mischief.
Then, she noted his uniform. After the ornate regimentals of all Europe,what a relief was the simple gray! There was the long coat, the belt,the dragoon sabre, the unobtrusive insignia on the collar, and shemurmured her verdict advisedly. It was beautiful! Next she noted theman--as though she had not in the first place. His easy frame still hadthat charm of gaucherie, and the rollicking daredeviltry lurkedquiescent in the brown eyes, but enough to recall the rider of fury, herchevalier de Missour-_i_, plunging through a wall and cloud of duston a big-boned yellow charger. And though now he was in this beautifulsimplicity of gray, she looked in vain for some hint of martial strideor pompous chest.
She wondered for a moment why he had worn the uniform. It signifiednothing, since the Confederacy had fallen. Then she understood._He_ had not surrendered. Nor had those he represented. The gray,for him, still had its reason, and was a power yet; the power to decidean empire's fate. It was the grave dignity of a lost cause; striving,before being doffed forever, to leave behind a new cause. Or, iffailing, to accept the lot of surrender. In either case, her chevalierde Missour-_i_ was wearing the dear uniform for the last time. Withher keenness for intuition and sympathy, Jacqueline _knew_. Sheknew what it must mean. And he looked so strong, so splendid! Her eyesunexpectedly dimmed in tenderness for him.
Driscoll, being now a free man, established himself at a hotel near thediligencia office in the busy Plateros street. He drilled through thefollowing day with tedious waiting for the day after, when he was tohave the promised reply. Used to men who knew their own minds, he hopedfor strength in this emperor fellow. Then, his mission successful, hewould be in the saddle by the next night, perhaps by noon, and hasteningtoward the border with tidings of homes and more fighting for hiscomrades of the Old Brigade. But the next morning, even as he wasmounting Demijohn to go to Chapultepec, a thin man in riding breechesentered the hotel patio and accosted him.
"I am Monsieur Eloin," the stranger announced in English that could beunderstood, "of Her Majesty's household. Also aide and secretary inprivate to the Emperor. I see, you go to horse. It is well, sir. Mine isoutside."
"What's the answer?" asked Driscoll. "I'm not up on conundrums."
"I
t is that we go to Cuernavaca."
"You don't say! Now where's that, and what for?"
"Cuernavaca is His Majesty's country sit-down, about a douzaine ofleagues from here. You have not read of this morning the JournalOfficiel? Here it is. The court went there yesterday. His Majesty has toneed rest."
"But he was to see me to-day! What's the matter with him?"
M. Eloin's brow contracted narrowly, and he shrugged his shoulders. "HisImperial Highness is much worked. He is worse of good health. HerMajesty sought at having him stay, to give you that same-self answer hehad promised already. And the Marshal Bazaine, sensible this once, didtalk yesterday night before last, after you were there, and beseechedhim to accept your offer. And they all beseeched, Her Majesty and Madamela Marechale, and I.--But, what would you?"
"I'm sure I don't know. What the devil----"
"No, not him! But her, sir, her!"
"Her, who?"
"Why, her. We all talk, argue, beseech; and she, in one little whisper,she only tell His Majesty he has to need that rest--and, poof! off theyall go to Cuernavaca, and I know nothing. Her Majesty leave me a note. Ibring you it here."
"But who is the 'she?' You don't mean----"
"Yes, we others call her Jacqueline. She did it, against everybody whobeseech. But we--how you say?--we fool her, you and me. Come, we arethere to-night, at Cuernavaca."
"Just that little girl----" Driscoll murmured wonderingly.
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