VI
After all the witnesses had been examined and cross-examined, and bullied and threatened in the approved fashion, Mâitre Duval addressed the jury on behalf of the dead man's relatives. In the course of this he delivered a powerful speech, full of passion and invective, drawing a parallel between this affaire d'honneur and the historic one between Alceste and Oronte in Molière's drama. According to him, Dujarier was a shining exemplar, while de Beauvallon was an unmitigated scoundrel, with a "past" of the worst description imaginable. Having once, years earlier, pledged a watch that did not belong to him, he had "no right to challenge anybody, much less a distinguished man of letters, such as the noble Dujarier." The various causes of the quarrel were discussed next. Counsel thought very little of them.
De Beauvallon had complained that Dujarier had "cut" him. "Is it an offence," enquired M. Duval, "for one man to avoid another? Upon my word, M. de Beauvallon will have to kill a number of people if he wants to kill all those who decline the honour of his companionship." As for the gambling quarrel, this was not serious. What, however, was serious was that, on the morning of the encounter, de Beauvallon had gone to a shooting gallery and had some private practice with the very pistols that were afterwards used. This gave him an unfair advantage. "If," was the advocate's final effort to win a verdict, "M. de Beauvallon is acquitted, the result will be not only a victory for an improperly conducted duel, but the very custom of the duel itself will be dishonoured by such a decision."
Léon Duval having sat down, the President turned to the defendant's counsel.
"The word is with you, M. Berryer," he said.
Mâitre Berryer, a master of forensic oratory, began his address by contending that duelling was not prohibited by the law of France. In support he quoted Guizot's dictum: "Where the barbarian murders, the Frenchman seeks honourable combat; legislation on the subject is profitless; and this must be the case, since the duel is the complement of modern civilization."
The judges were unprepared to accept this view off-hand; and, after consulting with the assessors, the President insisted that, whatever M. Berryer might say, duelling was illegal in France. Although he did not tell him so, it was also quite as illegal in England, where Lord Cardigan had, a little earlier, only just wriggled out of a conviction for taking part in one by a combination of false swearing and the subservience of his brother peers.
Not in the least upset, M. Berryer advanced another point. As might have been expected of so accomplished an advocate, he had little difficulty in demolishing the elaborate, but specious and unsupported, hypothesis built up by the other side. Hard facts did more with the stolid and unimaginative Rouen jury than did picturesque embroideries.
"Is the accusation true?" demanded the President.
"On my honour and on my conscience, before God and before man," announced the foreman, "the declaration of the jury is that it is not true."
As a result of this finding, de Beauvallon was acquitted of the charge of murder. But he did not escape without penalty, for he was ordered to pay 20,000 francs "compensation" to the mother and Dujarier's relatives.
"He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow." Convinced that there had been a miscarriage of justice and a vast amount of false swearing, the dead man's friends set to work to collect other evidence. By a stroke of luck, they got into touch with a gardener, who said that he had seen de Beauvallon, in company with d'Ecquevillez, having some surreptitious pistol practice on the morning of the duel. Thereupon, the pair of them were rearrested and tried for perjury. Being convicted, d'Ecquevillez was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment and de Beauvallon to eight years. But neither couple stopped in durance very long. The revolution of 1848 opened the doors of the Conciergerie and they made good their escape, the one of them to Spain, and the other to his Creole relatives in Guadeloupe.
CHAPTER VII
"HOOKING A PRINCE"
I
mmediately after the Rouen trial, Lola left France, returning once more to Germany. Perhaps the Irish strain in her blood made her a little superstitious. At any rate, just before starting, she consulted a clairvoyante. She felt that she had her money's worth, for the Sibyl declared that she would "exercise much influence on a monarch and the destiny of a kingdom." A long shot, and, as it happened, quite a sound one.
Her intention being, as she had candidly informed Dumas, to "hook a prince," she studied the Almanach de Gotha, and familiarised herself with the positions and revenues of the various "notables" accorded niches therein.
Germany was obviously the best field to exploit, for that country just then was full of princes. As a matter of fact there were no less than thirty-six of them waiting to be "hooked." The first place to which she went on this errand was Baden, where, according to Ferdinand Bac, she "bewitched the future Emperor William I. The Prince, however, being warned of her syren spell, presently smiled and passed on."
Better luck befell the wanderer at her next attempt to establish intimate contact with a member of the hoch geboren, Henry LXXII. His principality, Reuss-Lobenstein-Ebersdorf (afterwards amalgamated with Thuringia), had the longest name, but the smallest area, of any in the kingdom, for it was only about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. But to Lola this was of no great consequence. What, however, was of consequence was that he was a millionaire (in thalers) and possessed an inflammable heart.
A great stickler for etiquette, he once published the following notice in his Court Gazette:
"For twenty years it has been my express injunction that every official shall always be alluded to by his correct title. This injunction, however, has not always been obeyed. In future, therefore, I shall impose a fine of one thaler on any member of my staff who neglects to refer to another by his proper title or description."
But that the Prince could unbend on occasion is revealed by another notification to his subjects:
"His Most Serene Highness and All-Highest Self has graciously condescended to approve the conduct of those six members of the Reuss militia who recently assisted to put out a fire. With his own All-Highest hand he is (on production of a satisfactory birth certificate) even prepared to shake that of the oldest among them."
Risking a prosecution for lèse-majesté, a local laureate described the incident in stirring verse. An extract from this effort, translated by Professor J. G. Legge, in his Rhyme and Revolution in Germany, is as follows:
HONOUR TO WHOM HONOUR IS DUE
Quite recently in Reuss
Militia at a fire
(I'm sure it will rejoice you)
Great credit did acquire.
When this, through a memorial,
Their gracious Prince by Right
Had learned; those territorials
He to him did invite.
And when the good men shyly
Stood up before him, each
His Gracious Highness highly
Praised in a Gracious speech.
A solemn affidavit
(With parents' names and date)
Each then produced and gave it
—His birth certificate.
His Highness then demanded
The eldest of the band,
And clasped that horny-handed
With his All-Highest hand.
Now, this great deed recorded,
Who would not dwell for choice
Where heroes are rewarded
As in the land of Reuss?
Where Lola was concerned, she very soon put a match to the inflammable, if arrogant, heart of Prince Henry, and, as a result, was "commanded" to accompany him to his miniature court at Ebersdorf. She did not, however, stop there very long, for, by her imperious attitude and contempt of etiquette, she disturbed the petty officials and bourgeois citizens surrounding it to such a degree that they made formal complaints to his High-and-Mightiness. At first he would not hear a word on the subject. Such was his favourite's position that criticism of her actions was perilously near lèse-majesté and incurred reprisals. As soon, however, as the amorous princeling discovered that his bank balance was being depleted considerably beyond the amount for which he had budgeted, he suffered a sudden spasm of virtue and issued marching-orders to the "Fair Impure," as his shocked and strait-laced Ebersdorfians dubbed the intruder among them. There was also some suggestion, advanced by a gardener, that she had a habit of taking a short cut across the princely flower-beds when she was in a hurry. This was the last straw.
"Leave my kingdom at once," exclaimed the furious Henry. "You are nothing but a feminine devil!"
Not in the least discomfited by this change of opinion, Lola riposted by presenting a lengthy and detailed account for "services rendered"; and, when it had been met (and not before), shook the dust of Reuss-Lobenstein-Ebersdorf from her pretty feet.
"You can keep your Thuringia," was her parting-shot. "I wouldn't have it as a gift."
The next places at which she halted were Homburg and Carlsbad, two resorts then beginning to become popular and attracting a wealthy crowd seeking a promised "cure" for their various ills. But, finding the barons apt to be close-fisted, and the smart young lieutenants without one pfennig in their pockets to rub against another, Lola was soon continuing her travels.
In September, 1846, she found herself in Wurtemburg, where, much to her annoyance, she discovered that a certain Amalia Stubenrauch, a prepossessing damsel, who would now be called a gold-digger, had conquered the spare affections of King William, on whom Lola herself had designs. But that large-hearted monarch had, as it happened, few affections to spare for anybody just then, for, when she encountered him at Stuttgart, he was on the point of being married to Princess Olga of Russia. A correspondent of the Athenæum, who was there to chronicle the wedding festivities for his paper, registered disapproval at her presence in the district. "From the capital of Wurtemburg," he announced sourly, "Lola Montez departed in the schnellpost for Munich, unimpeded by any luggage." Somebody else, however (perhaps a more careful observer), is emphatic that she "went off with three carts full of trunks." As she always had a considerable wardrobe, this is quite possible.