“You mean,” I said bluntly, “that they could not protect me from the French. Very good. I agree. I don’t want to see the inside of Magdeburg fortress more than another. But” — firmly, for I had by this time set my heart on this search, seeing clearly that it was by that way only that I could set myself right with the Office and with Ellis’s family—” there is a way of avoiding that peril. I will go to the French Embassy, now, myself, and I will see Daru or St. Marsan — whoever is there in fact — and I will demand a safe conduct. If only to clear themselves they must give it me. If I obtain that, surely Herr Gruner cannot refuse.”
“Useless!” the policeman muttered curtly.
“I fear so,” the Baron agreed. “It is not St. Marsan or Daru you have to fear. It is the underlings who are here to do the dirty work, and who will know how to evade even Dam’s orders. You fall in with a squad of mounted douaniers, or a handful of French horse crossing the country; and what care they for the Intendant’s safe conduct? They have had a hint and a handful of thalers, may be, and piff! You disappear! That is all! You disappear! And, aware of that possibility, Dam, you may be sure, will not be so foolish as to commit himself. He will have had word — from Talleyrand may be — c’est lá, le diable ! — and he will stand mum chance. He will simply and politely refer you to the Prussian authorities. He will say — I can hear him saying it with his dry smile — that he could not presume to issue a safe-conduct within the Prussian dominions.”
“Then what am I to do?”
“Go home — by the shortest road!” said Gruner.
“Well, I’m hanged if I do!” I replied angrily. “ No, I’m hanged if I do!” I repeated, uplifted by an idea that had suddenly come into my head. “If it be useless to apply to Dam, I will go to one whom at any rate your douaniers and your French horse will respect — or he falls very far below his reputation! He is in Berlin now, he has just arrived, and I will see him. I will tear aside this web of flimsy pretence that stifles us! I will get his safe conduct!”
“Whose?” The question was Gruner’s. He looked up — for once. I had excited his curiosity.
“Davout’s!” I said. “Davout’s! The Prince of Eckmuhl’s.”
Neither of them spoke.
“Do you mean that that will not avail — to protect me?” I cried, looking from one to the other, challenging them.
For the first time the Prussian’s eyes met mine. He even smiled — grimly, but he smiled. “Possibly, if you could get it,” he said.
“I will get it. You don’t think that I shall?”
“No,” he replied. “I am sure that you will not.”
“Well, at any rate, I can try,” I said. “And I will try.” I took up my hat.
CHAPTER XIII
AT THE FRENCH EMBASSY
BUT with the French Embassy before me and no more than thirty yards ahead, I was shaken by a spasm of doubt. An embassy is extra-territorial, and I knew that once across the threshold I stood on French soil. If, then, upon no matter what pretext, my hosts chose to detain me, it might not be easy for Bronberg, it might not be easy even for the Prussian authorities, to reclaim me.
But some risk, I reflected, I must run, and I judged that the affaire Ellis had made too much noise in the world and been too publicly affiched for even the agents of Talleyrand to venture on a fresh outrage at this moment. I went on.
The bustle which centred about the Embassy had impressed me when I had gone by it that morning, but it struck me more forcibly now. For it was evident that something of note was passing. Twenty paces from the house a squadron of chasseurs a cheval sat cloaked and motionless in their saddles, their shining helmets and nodding plumes in sharp contrast with the russet green of the autumnal trees.
Facing the door, a couple of troopers, their carbine-butts on their thighs, their horses drawn across the roadway, gazed stonily before them; and between them and the entrance half a dozen led chargers, held by as many orderlies, tossed their heads and jingled their bits. On the steps stood a score of officers and civilians, and fringing the wall of the opposite houses a long line of idlers gazed sullenly on the spectacle; on which also from every window in the neighbourhood pale, curious faces looked down.
It occurred to me that I had come near to missing, if I had not missed, my opportunity, and I hastened my steps. Forgetting the qualms which I had felt a moment before, I pushed boldly through the group on the steps and entered the hall. A porter in a gorgeous livery placed himself before me, but with the air of authority that custom confers, I waved him aside.
“The Prince of Eckmuhl? “ I said, sans fagon. “He has not started yet? Good! Tell him, if you please, that Mr. Cartwright, Secretaire de la Mission Britannique, accredits aupres de la Cour de Vienne, ex-envoys Extraordinaire aupres de la meme Cour, desires leave to speak with him.”
Astonished, the man was going to reply, but I waved him away. “At once, if you please,” I said. “It is important that I should see M. le Marechal immediately.”
My announcement had been extraordinary enough to impress the man, and my manner completed the work. He beckoned to an underling to take his place while he himself vanished up the wide staircase to do my bidding.
I caught the murmur of surprise to which my announcement had given rise, and I was aware that I was the object of all eyes and of much whispered comment. But I was not unaccustomed to that, and could bear it. Presently an officer detached himself from one of the groups about me, and approached me courteously. “I trust,” he said, politely, “that the safety of his Excellency M. Ellis, whom I had the pleasure of meeting in Vienna, is also ascertained?”
“Alas, monsieur,” I answered, “I regret to say that that is not the case. It is in his behalf that I am here and desire to see the Prince.”
“I regret. I fear that he is at this moment on the point of starting to Magdeburg,” he answered. “Still it is possible — ah! Here is the Prince.” He stepped back hurriedly as the Marshal, attended by a brilliant cluster of officers, appeared at the head of the stairs.
I stepped forward, recognizing that this was no time for misgivings or for diffidence, and that all now depended on myself. Fortunately the diplomat, however young he may be, has a sense of his own importance — or he were not fit to represent his sovereign — and is not easily abashed. He has talked with kings, he has met on terms of apparent equality men whom the world names with awe — and he has learned that they are much as other men.
In the days when he was First Consul I had talked with the great Napoleomagne, as the Germans called him, had watched the play of his pale, classic features, listened to his harsh voice, and silently criticized his lack of manners. And I now summoned the remembrance to my aid.
Davout descended slowly. He was cloaked to the feet, the heel of his scabbard slid from step to step behind him, and looking up I had time to consider him. He had not the face of a soldier, rather the look of a physician or of some staid business man, sagacious, firm, not wanting in benevolence — so little does the man at times match his reputation.
Of the ruthless disciplinarian, the dogged, unsparing fighter, the commander for whom no responsibility was too great, there appeared not a trace, and he looked far more British than French, and on the surface anything but formidable. But I knew him to be, descending that staircase, the virtual master of Prussia, as he had been its conqueror, and when half-way down the flight his eyes met mine, I felt the sudden silent thrust of his personality.
A man also cloaked, but in black, with a couple of orders peeping from his breast — M. Daru, I fancied, late the Intendant-General of Prussia — was talking in his ear as he descended; and the Marshal seemed to be giving silent attention to his words. But Davout’s eyes, once they had met mine, did not quit them, and when he reached the foot of the stairs he advanced a step in my direction.
“Are you the gentleman who sent in a request to see me?” he asked.
“I am, M. le Prince,” I replied. “ If you will be so good, I need deta
in you but five minutes.”
Daru’s eyes intercepted mine. He smiled an ambiguous smile that reminded one of his master, Talleyrand. “Unfortunately, my dear sir,” he said smoothly, speaking for the Marshal, “the Prince is on the point of starting for Magdeburg. He has commissioned me to see you in his stead and after his departure. I shall then be at leisure to learn, M. Cartwright — M. Cartwright, is it not? — what is the object of—”
“My application?” I bowed. “ Unfortunately — I much regret it — it is one which I can make only to the Prince in person, as it is he only who can grant it.”
“You are bold, young gentleman,” Davout said, “ since to hear you I must needs detain all these gentlemen. It should be an important matter to warrant that.”
“It is a matter of the first importance, Prince,” I said, firmly — for I saw that in another moment I might be put aside. “It touches the honour of the French administration here, and the honour of him whom M. Daru and you alike serve.”
“Ha!” His eyes searched mine, but I did not give way. “You crow loudly,” he said, “ considering all that I know! But there, I will hear you. Five minutes. Follow me.”
He led the way, Daru accompanying him, into a small waiting room beside the hall, and a servant at a sign from him closed the door upon us. Davout laid his plumed hat on the table and turned to me. “Now, sir,” he said, taking out his watch which he held in his hand throughout the interview, “What is it? But first—” he fixed me with eyes as cold as steel that in a moment lent an expression wholly different to his face—” let me be clear. Am I speaking to Mr. Cartwright, late the envoy — so-called, for I do not admit the regularity of the appointment — to Vienna? Or am I addressing the gentleman who some months ago at Wittenberg violated the hospitality of Prussia by joining in a public place and to the general scandal in incitements to treason? Yes, to no less, sir, with a riff-raff of brawling students and childish conspirators?”
“To Mr. Cartwright of the Austrian Mission,” I replied. But the hit was a shrewd one and my face burned.
“That is well — very well, for you, sir,” he replied severely. “For I tell you frankly that had you fallen into my hands in that other capacity I should most certainly have made you amenable to the laws of war — to those laws between nations of which you showed yourself oblivious. As it is — what do you want?”
“Marshal Davout’s safe conduct, while I inquire on His Britannic Majesty’s behalf — and my own — into the fate of my friend and Chief, Mr. Perceval Ellis, of whose disappearance on Prussian soil and in possession of Prussian passports, you have doubtless heard.”
“You have no need of my safe conduct,” he said harshly. “ M. Daru here can—”
“M. Daru,” I said bluntly, “cannot give me the same assurance of safety — in all circumstances — which the Prince of Eckmuhl can. Of course, Prince, if this were a question of a private person or of the disappearance of a private person, I should not presume to approach you. But the honour of France and of the French administration is in question here.”
“I deny it!” Daru said forcibly.
“M. Daru may deny it,” I retorted, “but these matters are regarded differently by civilians and soldiers. And I am appealing — I own it — from M. Daru to the Marshal of France. I am assured and I am personally satisfied that the French authorities have had no part in this tragedy. I believe them, I honestly believe them, to be innocent of it, as things turned out. But the only way to make that innocence clear to the world is to allow me to make my investigation and to afford me protection while I make it. I speak too bluntly, perhaps? But I have lost, M. le Marshal, a dear and attached friend, and my sovereign a useful servant. And that in circumstances which, if the matter be not cleared up, must reflect upon the French nation — and the Emperor.”
“I deny it!” Daru cried again. “I deny it altogether” I saw him touch the Prince on the arm.
But Davout did not heed him. “What do you want to do?” he asked sternly.
“I desire to go to Perleberg and there to make inquiries on the spot, sir.”
“But I understand that the Prussian police have investigated the circumstances.”
“Without solving the mystery. Moreover their report will not have the same weight with my Government as a report made by me after a thorough investigation.”
“Your Government!” As he spoke Davout’s eyes sparkled with anger. “Your Government, sir! What is it to me? We are at war with it! We owe it nothing — neither satisfaction nor explanation, nor anything — save cannon shot, sir! It is a false and perfidious one, the begetter of wars, the paymaster of trouble! I hate it, and if the sea did not protect it and your nation of shopkeepers—”
“It would still know how to protect itself!” I said. “ But that is not the question, Prince. War is war. But murder, the murder of an Envoy, passing lawfully through the country in reliance on the laws and customs of nations — that is another matter.”
“What of Rastadt?” he said, with a gloomy look.
“It was a vile and a wicked outrage, in which my country, at least, had no part. There French ambassadors were foully murdered; here an English envoy has apparently met with the same fate. There the Court of Vienna hastened to make what amends she could. Here it is no question of reparation, but of information. And I say, and I say with the utmost certainty, that if your Emperor were here and this application were made to him, His Majesty would hasten to grant it — since his sagacity would at once apprise him that to grant it would be to risk nothing, while to refuse it would afford grounds for suspicion — suspicion that I have already told you I believe to be baseless.”
“You acknowledge that?”
“I do, Prince.”
“Then what more do you want?”
“Proof,” I replied, standing my ground. “Proof that will convince my Government as well as myself.”
He stood silent a moment, reflecting; and Daru would have given much I felt sure to attract his attention. But the Intendant did not venture to break in on his thoughts unasked, and presently Davout struck a bell that stood on the table. “Paper and ink,” he said to the man who came in, and he drew off his right-hand gauntlet. “ For how long? “ he asked, addressing me abruptly.
“A fortnight should suffice.”
“I will allow you ten days. That should be enough. In ten days, understand, you will cross the frontier. M. Daru will see to that. And before you leave you will communicate to him what you have discovered — if you discover anything.”
“I will, Prince. On my honour.”
He sat down and wrote half a dozen lines, signed them, cast sand upon the writing, and handed it to me. Then he looked at me — much as, I should fancy, a cat looks at a mouse. “ I grant your request,” he said, “ but mark me, young gentleman, and have a care! Plus de betises! Plus be bavardage! No prying! No observation!”
“I will observe your terms — strictly,” I answered. “On my honour, Prince.”
“It will be well for you to do so,” he riposted. “ For be assured I on my part shall do my duty as I always do my duty, and look to others to do theirs. If you deceive me, je vous feral fusilier sans facon, monsieur, c’est bien entendu.”
“Agreed, sir,” I said. “ And I thank you.” And my spirits rising marvellously I placed the precious document in my breast-pocket.
He struck the bell. “You will not halt in Spandau, and you will not approach within ten miles of Magdeburg or Stettin. You understand? Very well.” And to the servant, “You will see this gentleman — out.”
I bowed and retreated — victorious. And lest there should be any recall, lest that cunning Daru, who was eyeing me with scowling disfavour, should even now get in a word, I hastened to put a hundred yards between myself and the Embassy. Then and then only I breathed freely.
Even so, and though I was not slow to move away, I had a glimpse from a side street of the French cavalcade as it swept, in all the glitter and panoply of
war — and unmolested except by the sullen looks that followed it — down the Unter den Linden.
And a strange sight I thought it, my mind reverting to the days, no more than three years back, when countless vapouring officers cocked their hats on the Berlin sidewalks and bragged of the invincibility of Prussian arms; when moustachioed Vons and Barons, elbowing the civilian aside, boasted that happen what might to Russians and Austrians and Italians, the battalions of Frederick were invincible! Yes, a strange sight, and one that had its lesson for the nations.
The Baron’s mighty laugh, as he clapped me on the shoulder and gave me joy of a success that he had not anticipated, was the prelude to a pleasant little dinner — tete-á-tete, for the diplomatic circle was with the King at Konigsberg, and even Hatzfeldt’s parties — Hatzfeldt was playing the thankless part of Governor of Berlin — consisted in the main, the Baron told me, of Jews and tradesmen.
Poverty prevailed, men were living in garrets who had lived in palaces, and though the French garrison had retired and their generals no longer barracked in the Royal Schloss, or Marshal Victor in the Princess Louise’s palace, the French grip still held the city lifeless.
He talked much of this, but after dinner he had a serious word for me. “ You go to Kyritz to-morrow then?”
“Yes, I start at seven. I have given the necessary orders, and Jager is seeing to it.”
“Well, Griiner will keep an eye on you, no doubt. And you may trust him, if you have occasion to do so. But all the same, have a care, my friend. And if by any chance you fall on the secret of your precious papers, then above all things have a care. Look to yourself.”
I nodded. “Once let me get my hands on them, Baron—”
“Just so! Just so! But still take care! Take care, my friend. Have you pistols?”
“I bought a pair in the Jagerstrasse this afternoon.”
“Good. Then keep them about you and keep them loaded, and your eyes open. With that and Davout’s passport you should do. But the roads are covered with the flotsam of this unlucky war; every bush holds its thief, and every heath its broken-down soldier. And you’ll have need of prudence. Well, Gott befahlen and good luck to you.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 692