‘VICTORIA.’
“But these words were written by the beautiful hand of the same lady who latterly had penned so many tender love-letters to myself. I had promised her those papers if she would call for them to-day, and you see, my friends, that she has come. But I desired to know if this really was the only object for which Baron Thugut had sent his most beautiful and sagacious agent to Rastadt, or if there were not some secondary objects at the bottom of this mission. I therefore resolved to ascertain this to-day. My astute spy had told me that Madame de Poutet was also anxious to get hold of some other important papers. I therefore feigned to-day to have abstracted the wrong papers and to have brought here a portfolio containing our correspondence with the Prussian minister and documents in relation to an alliance between France and Prussia. I told my fair friend that the loss of these papers would ruin me irretrievably, and yet I was such a love-sick fool as to drop the portfolio with the papers while engaged in tenderly kissing my hand to my dulcinea. Look, gentlemen, the portfolio is yet lying on the floor, but the papers are no longer in it. They are carefully concealed in Madame Victoria’s pocket. Oh, it was a very pretty scene, when she stole them. I watched her through a small hole which I had bored through the door this morning, and through which I could plainly see every motion of my beautiful Victoria. Yes, my beautiful Victoria stole the papers, although she knew that this loss would seriously embarrass me. However, my friends, it will be unnecessary for the republic to punish me for this theft Madame de Poutet has committed, for the papers she has got in her pocket are nothing but the faithful diary of my daily intercourse with Victoria de Poutet. I have carefully noted in it every conversation I had with her, and every favor she granted to me, and I have no objection whatever to this diary being transmitted to Minister Thugut. If he is not jealous, he will not complain of it. And now I am through with my justification, and I ask you, did I not act as a good and faithful son of the republic should? Have I done my duty? Will the country be content with me?”
“Yes,” said Roberjot, solemnly, “you have acted as a good and faithful son of the republic. You have intrepidly followed the enemy who had approached you on secret paths, into his hiding-places, and you have skilfully exposed the perfidious intrigues he had carried on against France. You have done your duty.”
“Yes, the republic will thank you for your zeal,” exclaimed Jean Debry; “you have run great risks for her sake. For a beautiful, voluptuous, and intriguing woman is even more dangerous than a venomous serpent. Like St. Anthony, you have withstood the temptress by praying to our holy mother, the great French Republic! Yes, the country will be content with you.”
“I thank you, my friends,” said Bonnier, with a happy smile; “I now stand again before you with a clear conscience, and without a blush of shame on my cheeks. You have accepted my atonement. As for this woman, we will inflict no further punishment on her. She was only a tool in Thugut’s hands; that was all. This hour has punished her sufficiently, and our profound contempt shall be the only penalty she will take away with her.”
“Yes, our profound contempt shall be the penalty she will take with her,” exclaimed Roberjot and Jean Debry at the same time.
“There is nothing more disgraceful under the sun than a woman who sells her charms,” said Roberjot.
“There is nothing more dreadful and dishonorable than an ambitious and heartless wanton!” added Jean Debry, in a voice of profound disdain.
“Victoria de Poutet,” said Bonnier, throwing the pistol aside, “every thing between us was a comedy, even this pistol, the pretended bullet of which frightened and silenced you. It was not loaded. The comedy is now at an end, and there remains nothing for you but to go to your stage-manager and to tell him that you utterly failed in performing your part. You may go now; nothing further detains you here.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Victoria, in a perfectly calm and sonorous voice; “you forget that you put the key of the door into your pocket; go, therefore, and unlock it.”
She pointed at the door with an imperious gesture, and Bonnier went to unlock it. Victoria, remaining still erect and calm in her arm-chair, looked at him while he was doing so, and only when Bonnier had opened the door and returned to the table, she rose slowly from her seat.
Now she stood there, drawing herself up to her full height, her face glowing with indignation, a deep blush mantling her cheeks, a disdainful smile playing on the slightly parted lips, the expansive white forehead deeply wrinkled, as cold as marble, and yet concealing under this marble surface a torrent of molten lava, which, as soon as it should burst forth, could not but produce death and destruction. Hers was now a diabolic beauty, and when she turned her eyes toward the three republicans, they glistened like dagger-points.
“I have to make but a brief reply to M. Bonnier’s long speech,” she said, proudly and calmly. “This is my answer: I shall obtain those papers in spite of you, and I shall revenge myself for this hour! To your last high-sounding sentences, I answer by another sentence: there is nothing more dangerous than an irritated and insulted woman, for she will revenge herself and imbrue her hands in the blood of those who have insulted her. Roberjot, Bonnier, and Debry, you have insulted me, and I tell you I shall revenge myself. Before three times three days have passed, you will have atoned with your blood for this hour, and may God have mercy on your poor souls!”
She greeted all of them with a haughty nod, and slowly turning around, she proudly crossed the room. The three men looked at her with pale and gloomy faces, and a slight shudder pervaded for a moment the hearts of the republicans, usually so bold and undaunted.
“She looked like an evil demon predicting our future!” murmured Roberjot.
“She will fulfil her word; she will try to assassinate us,” said Bonnier. “Did you not see it? Her eyes were moist; no tears were glistening in them, however, only the venom she will discharge at us. Let us be on our guard!”
“Yes, let us beware of the serpent’s venom!” exclaimed Jean Debry, with gloomy energy—“let us beware, and most of all, let us be men who cannot be intimidated by the furious threats of a woman.”
But Jean Debry knew neither the energy nor the power of this woman whose threats he despised. He did not know that, her anger once aroused, she would not rest until she had taken her revenge. Late in the evening of that day, when all Rastadt was sleeping, Victoria received in her house her two powerful assistants, Count Lehrbach and Colonel Barbaczy, the latter having been invited by a mounted messenger to come to her from Gernsbach.
A long and portentous conference these three persons held in the course of that night, during which they consulted about the best way to punish the French ambassadors, and to take from them the papers which Thugut wished to obtain. “We must have those papers at any price,” exclaimed Victoria, with flashing eyes.
“Oh, it will only cost a little blood!” shouted Count Lehrbach, in a hollow voice, and laughing hoarsely. “These overbearing French have trampled us under foot for two long years, and tormented us by pricking us with pins. Now we will also trample them under foot and prick them, and if our pins are longer than theirs, who will complain?”
“Thugut wants those papers, and he has forgiven us in advance if they should be a little blood-stained,” said Victoria, looking up smilingly to old Colonel Barbaczy, who, with his hands folded on his back, his large shaggy eyebrows gloomily contracted, was slowly pacing the room.
“Barbaczy! Barbaczy!” he muttered, in a low voice, “what will the world say of your old head?” [Footnote: Barbaczy’s own words.—Vide “Uteransoher Lodiacus.” Edited by Theod. Mundt, 1835. Third number, p. 208]
“The world will not grudge these hot-blooded French a little blood-letting, and it will praise your surgical skill, my dear Barbaczy,” exclaimed Lehrbach, laughing. “The responsibility, besides, does not fall on your shoulders. Who will blame you if your hot-blooded hussars commit some excesses-some highway robberies? You do not order them to assassinate anybody; you only order them to take the papers from the ambassadors, and only to use force if it cannot be helped.”
“I shall send fifty hussars to the city to-morrow,” said Barbaczy, thoughtfully. “They shall encamp in front of the Ettlinger Gate, so that no one, whosoever it may be, will be able to cross the bridges connecting the city with the suburbs without passing through their ranks.”
Victoria approached him, and laying her hands on his shoulders, she looked up to him with a fascinating smile.
“And you will send some of your most intrepid hussars to Lehrbach and to me, that we may tell the brave men what rewards are in store for them if they perform their duly in a satisfactory manner? No, my beautiful god of war, do not shake your silvery locks BO wildly—do not threaten me with your frowning brow! Think of Gurgewo, my friend! Do you remember what you swore to me at that time in the trenches when I dressed with my own hands the wound for which you were indebted to a Turkish sabre? Do you remember that you swore to me at that time you would reciprocate my service as soon as it was in your power?”
“I know it, and I am ready to fulfil my oath,” said Barbaczy, heaving a sigh.
“Well, my friend, all I ask is this: send to-morrow six of your bravest and wildest hussars to my house, and order them faithfully to carry out what Count Lehrbach and I shall tell them.”
“The hussars shall halt at your door to-morrow morning at nine o’clock,” said Barbaczy, resolutely.
“And I will admit them!” exclaimed Victoria, smiling. “You will be here, Count Lehrbach, I suppose?”
“I shall be here in order to listen to the wise lessons which the goddess Victoria will teach the sons of Mars,” replied Lehrbach, fixing his small, squinting eyes with an admiring air on Victoria’s beautiful face. “You will need no other means but your smiles and your beauty in order to inspire those brave soldiers with the most dauntless heroism. Who would not be willing to shed a little French blood, if your lips should promise him a reward?”
“And what reward are you going to promise to the soldier?” asked Barbaczy, turning to Madame de Poutet. “What are you going to ask them to do?”
“Only to seize all the papers of the ambassadors,” said Victoria.
“And to examine their bodies if any papers should be concealed there,” added Count Lehrbach, laughing.
“And their reward shall be that the hussars will be allowed to look for some other spoils,” said Victoria.
“Highway robbery and murder, then,” sighed Barbaczy, “and perpetrated by soldiers of my regiment! Highway robbery and murder!”
“Fie, what ugly words those are! and who thinks of murder?” exclaimed Victoria. “Did we Germans die, then, of the numerous kicks and blows which the French have given us for the last few years? We will only return those kicks and blows, and the French will assuredly not be so thin-skinned as to die of them on the spot.”
“Do as you please,” sighed Barbaczy. “Count Lehrbach has the right to issue orders to myself and to my troops, and I owe you the fulfilment of my oath. My hussars will occupy the city to-morrow, and I shall order the French ambassadors to depart forthwith. What is to be done after their departure you may settle with the hussars I shall send to you. I shall take no notice of it.”
“And that is a very wise resolution of yours, colonel,” said Lehrbach. “‘To know too much gives us the headache,’ says our gracious emperor, whenever he returns the dispatches to Baron Thugut without having read them. Send us, then, your hussars to-morrow, and whatever may happen, colonel, we shall not betray each other.”
“No, we shall not betray each other!” repeated Victoria and Barbaczy, with uplifted hands.
“To-morrow, then!” said Victoria. “Now, good-night, gentlemen!”