XIV. SOPHIA DOROTHEA MARRIES
SHE HAD COME, she had seen, but had she conquered? Bernstorff asked the question of himself a hundred foolish times as he paced towards the Castle avenue. But he dared ask it of no one else. He had cultivated a slow brooding walk and introspective eyes which suddenly came to life with a start and a smile as some prominent citizen greeted him; and that practice must be observed on this morning, as on any other. He must progress sedately buried in great affairs like a proper statesman and not speculating, as he certainly was, whether a tobacco factory was to rise on the banks of the Aller and perhaps a “von” preceed the name of Bernstorff. He must be quite unaware of a heavy coach lumbering through silent streets in the grey of the morning. It was extraordinary to him and rather hard-hearted that people were going about their daily business — women with baskets on their arms, men hurrying between offices, or loitering to gossip on the curb.
“My career, my fortune, perhaps too my liberty may have been decided this morning, yet Celle is behaving as if nothing whatever had happened!”
And Bernstorff was amazed at the selfishness of the world.
Under the lime-trees where the leaves though rusty were still thick, he could quicken his steps. At the Castle there was more bustle, more going and coming of ushers and servants, more soldiers in full uniform and more pages in their Court liveries of green and white than he had seen for many a day; but it was the birthday of the Princess and etiquette demanded some exceptional flourish and parade. Bernstorff had been snubbed already by Eleonore for poking his thin nose into matters of the household with which a Chancellor was not concerned. He mounted the stone steps to his office without a question.
Once in his room, however, he stood sheltered by the curtains at the window and peered eagerly out for a sign which would comfort him. He could see not one. It was odd, however, that Duchess Sophia’s big coach stood in a corner with its horses harnessed in the shafts. Even she, remarkable woman though she was, must at the age of fifty-two want some repose after jolting all night along the road from Hanover — unless she had failed! Yes, if Duchess Sophia had failed, she would shake the dust of Celle off the wheels of her carriage without a moment’s unnecessary delay.
Suddenly there was a stir in the doorway beneath him. A footman ran towards the carriage. Two pages, bareheaded and glistening, stepped out into the open space, turned, bowed towards the entrance and stood erect and ceremonious.
“I am a ruined man,” he said sinking down into a chair. “The d’Olbreuse has won.”
And a voice which he knew cried roughly: “Quick! Let us go! All this politeness! A fig for it!”
Bernstorff flung himself out of his chair. He threw open the window. Whether he was seen or not, he no longer considered. He craned his body over the sill. Of course — of course — the servants by the coach there! He had been blind. Those were not the liveries of Hanover. He looked down and, from the archway beneath him, Duke Anthony Ulrich came hurrying out, his face black as thunder.
“Come!” he cried impatiently.
Men called him “the Monkey” from his ugliness, and as he waved his long arms and scowled and cursed, he earned the epithet.
“Fine true friends we have got at Celle!”
He was joined by a lad of Sophia Dorothea’s own age, a lad handsome and tall. His young face was flushed with shame and his eyes bright and a trifle fierce.
“Honourable friends,” Duke Anthony Ulrich railed. “Cousins, be damned to them!”
The boy said nothing.
Both father and son wore travelling dress, stained with the dust of their long journey from Brunswick. They crossed the gravelled space towards their carriage with such haste that the glittering pages must mend their courtly paces to a run in order to keep up with them. Anthony Ulrich swept them aside as he wrenched open the door.
“Stand away! I can get into my carriage without a couple of mincing popinjays to help me. And you,” he bawled to his coachman, “get out of this town. For, by God, I must hold my nose until you do.”
He sprang in, his son followed him and the carriage clattered over the drawbridge and disappeared in the avenue of limes.
Bernstorff stepped back from the window. He felt the sweat running down his forehead and wiped it away with his handkerchief. The great gamble had brought in its profit. His legs weakened under him and he dropped into his chair. He had a moment of wondering whether any reward could make worthwhile the torments of the last two days and nights. He painted for himself a picture of old Schultz smoking his big curved pipe in the arbour of his garden comfortably conscious of life’s work honestly done; and whilst he dwelt upon this agreeable composition with a feeling of envy, an usher knocked upon his door.
“His Highness wishes to speak to Your Excellency in his library,” said the usher.
“I shall wait upon His Highness at once.”
Bernstorff bathed his face and resettled his peruke upon his head. He found the Duke standing by his table, his head in the air like one about to deliver a speech, and his face beaming with rectitude.
“My dear sister-in-law Duchess Sophia reached Celle early this morning,” he began. “The estrangement which has so grieved me is at an end. The ties, always close between my brother and myself, will now be strengthened...” He repeated all the arguments which Bernstorff had used, as though he had first thought of them himself, but he repeated them like an orator rehearsing a speech. And Bernstorff knew that he was rehearsing one which must be spoken that morning into the unwilling ears of Duchess Eleonore. He added an argument which even Bernstorff had not dared to use, so fantastic it seemed in that year of 1682.
“My daughter will be the Queen of England, the mother of a line of Kings! A great destiny, Bernstorff! I know not whether to feel more humility or more pride.”
He played for a few moments with a jewelled box which lay upon the table.
“The Prince George Louis with his father, my brother, will set out for Celle as soon as the good news reaches them. We must make the betrothal a public affair. Fireworks, Bernstorff, a banquet for the poor, perhaps a masked ball in the Palace—”
Duke George William was putting off as long as he could the distressing interview with his wife and his daughter which surely awaited him.
“Her Highness Duchess Sophia brought for my daughter from George Louis, as a token of his devotion, this miniature of him set in diamonds.” The Duke took up the miniature and gazed at it with a smile which he strove to make soft and moving by its affection. “The dear fellow!” he murmured, shaking his head with a tender amusement at the loving ardours of the young. “I shall take it to my daughter now.” H drew in a breath. “Yes, I shall,” as though Bernstorff had dared him to. “We will make a programme of our festivities this afternoon, Bernstorff. We must spend money, Bernstorff. We must be worthy of this occasion.” He looked at the miniature again. “It is set with diamonds, Bernstorff. The dear fellow!”
It is regrettable to have to add that when a few minutes later he presented the miniature to his daughter, who was crying her heart out upon her bed in her darkened room, she snatched it from his hand and flung it against the wall with so much violence that the miniature itself was cracked and the diamonds scattered about the room.
Bernstorff wrote a gay and diverting little narrative of the upheaval in the Court of Celle and the marriage in the Schlosskapelle, which he sent off to Madame Platen whose attendance was not requested. He made much of the grotesque departure of Duke Anthony Ulrich and his son; told with good humour of his own agitations; touched lightly on the tears and the prayers and the inevitable submission of the d’Olbreuse and her daughter; and paid a pretty tribute to old Schultz who had first initiated him into the doctrine of the “weak man stubborn.” Duchess Sophia had snatched the promise of Sophia Dorothea’s hand from George William in his dressing-room at six o’clock in the morning. The door between the dressing-room and the d’Olbreuse’s bedroom stood open all the while, but Duchess So
phia insisted that the conversation should be carried on in the High Dutch language which the Frenchwoman, poor slut, did not understand. The poor slut’s bleatings from her bed to be admitted to the discussion and George William’s petulant closing of the door were bright passages in the narrative.
“The financial arrangements equaled our wishes and exceeded our hopes,” he wrote and indeed with Duchess Sophia to overawe him, his tricky brother Ernst Augustus to outwit him, and his Chancellor to betray him, Duke George William had very little chance to strike a decent bargain.
“He gives the Duke of Hanover fifty thousand thalers down, settles upon his daughter a hundred thousand thalers a year (to be paid into the Treasury of Hanover), and her estates, including the island Principality of Wilhelmsburg, (to be administered by the Treasury of Hanover) and agrees to pay off the Duke of Hanover’s public debt.” Sophia Dorothea was to enjoy a proper allowance of twelve thousand thalers a year if George Louis her husband predeceased her. He, Bernstorff, had most loyally seen to that, and no doubt a suitable provision would be made for her during his lifetime. This was a matter to be arranged, of course, between husband and wife.
Bernstorff described the wedding scene. The army in new uniforms, the pages and the servants in new liveries, the nobles and the gentry of the neighbourhood shimmering in velvet, sparkling with jewels, a bride slender and beautiful, the flush of excitement in her cheeks making up for the tired and unhappy eyes, the brilliant uniform of the bridegroom distracting attention from his clumsy figure and sullen face. Bernstorff made a charming picture of it.
He got his tobacco factory and his “von.”
Platen at the same time became Baron von Platen.
Leibnitz wrote an Epithalamium in French doggerel.
But as the stupid Catherine Marie one did think; something had been forgotten.
George LOUIS was a fine soldier. He was twenty-two years old at the time of his marriage and he had already a military record which Generals thrice his age might envy. He had distinguished himself at Consarbrücke on the Moselle and at the siege of Treves seven years before. In the autumn of the same year he had taken Field-Marshal Crequi prisoner on the Rhine. During the next year his name was heard wherever the story of Maestricht was told. Two years later he led his troops with valour and skill at the siege of Charleroi and at the battle of St. Denis. His spiritual home was a soldier’s camp. He had no wish to marry. He had no delicacy in his manners, no culture in his mind. He liked big coarse meals and big coarse women, and both of them German.
Sophia Dorothea stood at the opposite pole. She was of a dainty build, willful, no doubt more than a little spoilt by the adoration of her parents, French in the refinement of her taste. She was of a quick and flashing mind. She loved pleasure but it must be draped in beauty. And she had depths of passion to which her husband was a stranger.
She wrote a letter to Duchess Sophia which in its dutiful humility might have moved to sympathy and kindness even a woman as cold and hard as she. Then amidst cheers and through crowded streets, she drove off with her husband to Duke George William’s hunting-box at Brockhausen, there to spend their two days’ honeymoon.
XV. BERNSTORFF QUOTES RACINE
IT WAS FOUR o’clock in the afternoon and the light was beginning to fade. Bernstorff raised his hand to the gong upon the table, but before he could strike it, he heard a knock upon the door.
“Come in!”
And without turning, he added, “Yes, it is time to light the candles, Christian.”
But it was not Christian the usher who had entered. A younger voice answered.
“Your Excellency!”
Bernstorff swung round and saw just within the doorway a favourite page of Duchess Eleonore, a French lad named Raoul de Malortie. Bernstorff raised his eyebrows.
“And how can I serve you?” he said pleasantly.
The French boy advanced and bowed respectfully.
“Her Highness begs Your Excellency to spare her a few minutes when it suits your convenience.”
Bernstorff turned aside to hide a smile. So humble a message and a page point device from head to toe to deliver it! Not thus had Duchess Eleonore been accustomed to require his presence. A footman and an immediate claim had been thought by her sufficient.
“I shall find Her Highness no doubt in her French garden,” he said with a sly grin.
This was the second day after the marriage, and during the clear hours of those two days, the unhappy woman had been pacing alone the walks of her garden or standing at the edge of the pond, lost in the gloom of her forebodings. The flowers were all withered; dead leaves drifted across the paths with little whisperings of perished hopes and sad times come; the wind sighed through the trees; the yew hedges were black. The garden so gay with flowers in the spring-time and the summer, so melancholy now, matched the despondency of her mood. She had borne herself bravely enough through the ceremonies and banquets which had garlanded the ill-omened marriage. But as soon as her loved daughter had driven away and the guests had gone, her grief and her fears had aged her by twenty years. She had sought the silence and the lonely places of her little pleasance by the river Aller. No one but had hesitated to interrupt her. No one but had shrunk with a sense of pity from gazing upon her eyes faded with tears and her face haunted by her despair. It needed Bernstorff to allude to them with a sneer.
The cheeks of Raoul de Malortie, the page, flamed and his eyes gleamed. But he had his orders. He answered simply: “Her Highness has returned to her apartments, Your Excellency.”
“I will wait upon her at once,” said Bernstorff.
He found the Duchess alone in the small three-cornered room behind the theatre. The curtains were drawn, the candles lit and a fire burned brightly upon the hearth. She was standing with her eyes fixed impatiently upon the door and with an expression on her face which made plain her aversion from the task which she had set before herself. So anxious indeed was she to get it over and done with that almost before Bernstorff had closed the door, she had taken an air of humility.
“Monsieur le Baron,” she said, forcing her lips to smile. “I have a request a little difficult for a mother to make. I beg you to be seated.”
Bernstorff could not remember one occasion on which the d’Olbreuse had asked him to sit down. He bowed and obeyed. For a few moments she sat, her eyes upon the fire, her fingers twitching in a painful agitation.
“You and I have not taken the same view about my daughter’s marriage,” she said in a low voice.
“Madame, a mother’s heart and a statesman’s care cannot always speak with the same voice.”
Bernstorff sat back. A moment which he had long been anticipating had arrived. On one occasion he had been made to wait for some minutes in the Duchess’ drawing-room. During that time he had seen a play by Racine lying open upon her table and glancing over the pages — it was the play of Andromaque — his attention had been caught by a line. He had learnt it by heart, foreseeing an hour when he could use it with effect.
“No doubt,” the Duchess said, forcing her lips to a smile.
“I shall be bold enough to quote to you, Madame, what I humbly think is a wise saying by a great French poet.”
“Yes, Baron von Bernstorff?”
“L’amour ne règle pas le sort d’une Princesse,” Bernstorff declaimed.
Eleonore d’Olbreuse dropped her head. She did not wish him to see — she could not afford that he should see — the anger which flamed in her eyes. She remained silent for a little while.
“Poets, Your Excellency,” she said at length and, in spite of effort to command herself, with a little bitterness, “inspire us with ringing words which we find greatly to our taste, until we test them by our own private dreams.”
She made a movement with her shoulders and head as though she would shake all such dreams away from her forever.
“But what is done, is done,” she continued. “We must do the best we can with the world as we find it.”
Bernstorff was watching her warily now. She had perhaps some clever ruse in her head, some trick which would entangle him. He had the advantage over her now. He had the ear of the Duke George William. He was not going to allow her to use upon him the wiles of Delilah.
“You have, of course,” she continued, “close relations with people of importance in Hanover.”
The remark was simply made, without a note of criticism, without indignation, without a suggestion of treachery. A statement, as it were, of facts which the world knew. Bernstorff, however, returned her look with complete bewilderment.
“I, Your Highness?” he exclaimed. “I have had the supreme good fortune of listening to the Duchess Sophia’s opinion of the philosophers. I know more of Descartes and Spinoza and Leibnitz than I ever thought to know. I have also had occasion to discuss with His Highness the Duke Ernst Augustus business matters of importance to the two Duchies. But close relations with people of such high distinction I can lay no claim to.”
“I was not thinking of either the Duke Ernst Augustus or Duchess Sophia, his wife,” said Eleonore shortly.
“Of whom then?”
“Of Madame von Platen and her sister, Madame Busche,” she answered, dwelling no doubt a little unwisely upon the sign and mark of Platen’s elevation into the nobility, and a little too contemptuously upon the name of his sister-in-law.
“Madame,” Bernstorff declared boldly, and let it be said at once that his declaration was the exact truth, “I have never spoken to, and more, I have never seen either of those two persons.”
But though his words were bold, a good many troublesome questions were tumbling over one another in his mind. How much did Eleonore d’Olbreuse know of the secret share he had taken in the negotiation of the marriage between George Louis and Sophia Dorothea? Of the fine presents he had received? Had she spies in the household of Clara von Platen? Had friends of hers in Celle remarked the nocturnal journeys of Muller, and traced him to Monplaisir? Was she seeking an admission which she could carry to her husband, George William? Or was it all mere guesswork, an arrow shot at a venture?
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