XXIII
In the July of that year, while the gilding was yet untarnished upon France's brand-new Constitution—ratified by a plebiscitum obtained after the usual methods, and recording seven millions of pinchbeck votes—while the Imperial Court of the Third Napoleon played at Arcadian pastorals under the mistletoe-draped oaks and spreading beeches of St. Cloud, the question of the Candidacy of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the vacant Throne of Spain appeared in the firmament of European politics (even as the voice of Lord Granville prophesied a lengthy period of unbroken fine weather)—and broke about the ears of the Power most concerned like a stinging shower of hail.
The Spanish crown upon the head of a Hohenzollern. Rather a Montpensier, intolerable as that would have been. True, the Almanach de Gotha had offered (to General Prim, President Zorilla, and the Cortes, assembled in solemn session) only the unwelcome alternative of the legal heir to the throne going begging; true, the Spanish people were very well satisfied with the idea of being ruled by a Catholic gentleman of Royal blood, suitable age, handsome person, and military experience, married to a Portuguese princess, and possessing two healthy sons.
But that a Prussian Prince, holding a commission in Prussia's Army, should be set up like a signpost of warning on France's southern frontier, as though to keep her in mind of what would happen in the event of another war on the Rhine—was, from the Gallic point of view, intolerable. "The security and the dignity of the French nation are endangered by this candidacy!" cried Jules Favre. According to M. Thiers, "the nominacy was not only an affront to the nation, but an enterprise adverse to its interests." Gambetta cried aloud that all Frenchmen must unite for a national war. Marshal Vaillant made a memorandum in his notebook. "This signifies war, or something very like it!" And at the Council of Ministers hastily summoned to St. Cloud on the morning of the sixth of July, the Emperor passed to the Duke de Gramont, his Foreign Minister, a penciled communication. "Notify Prince Gortchakoff at Petersburg that if Prussia insists upon the accession of the Prince of Hohenzollern to the throne of Spain, it will mean war!"
What haste to clutch at the casus belli. When the Ministers quitted the Imperial Council, and the Corps Législatif opened its session, long-continued applause greeted the declaration of Gramont from the tribune that a certain unnamed Third Power, by placing one of its Princes on the throne of Charles V., threatened to disturb the equilibrium of Europe, to imperil the material interests and endanger the honor of France. "If it be impossible to prevent this," ran the peroration, "strong in your support, Messieurs, we shall perform our duty without hesitation or faltering!" Here was an ultimatum that sounded the very note of war.
Do you hear the echo of the thunderous acclamations that attended the Foreign Minister to his seat, the clapping of hands, stamping of feet, roaring of lungs that have been dust for more than forty years, or are now on the point of dissolving into their native element? Naturally because the Right were defiant, the Left called their utterances bellicose. Had the Right manifested a disposition to turn the other cheek in Scriptural fashion, the Left would have passionately taunted this band of politicians with cowardice, lack of patriotism, indifference to the sacred cause of national freedom,—would have accused them of being traitors to their country, and Heaven knows what else.
The Press threw oil upon the roaring conflagration. Were this affront submitted to, cried the Gaulois, "there would not exist a woman in the world who would accept a Frenchman's arm!" The Correspondant was "relieved to find that Frenchmen once more have become Frenchmen." The Moniteur Universel was charmed to discover that the blame for this momentous conflict could never be attributed to the French Government. The Figaro left off making a cockshy of the Imperial dignity, to admit that for once the Emperor's official mouthpiece had spoken the right word. And the Débats praised the attitude taken by the Government. "Silence at this juncture would," it cried, "have been pusillanimous. Shall the nation be accused of bowing its head for the second time, before the cannon of Sadowa?"
Lord Granville, replacing the recently deceased Clarendon at Great Britain's Foreign Ministry, mentioned to the Spanish Ambassador to England that the choice of Prince Leopold would create a sore. He wrote to Layard at Berlin that he considered France had been given good cause of resentment. Lyons, in the shoes of Lord Cowley, at the English Embassy in Paris, wrote to his chief that the unhappy affair had revived all the old animosity, though it seemed to him that "neither the Emperor nor his Ministers really wish or expect war!" The Times of July 8th was severe on the policy of Prussia; the Standard for once expressed the same opinion as the Times. The Daily Telegraph prophesied that the succession of the Prussian Prince would mean France's present humiliation and future peril. The Pall Mall Gazette poked mordant fun at the attitude of unconsciousness assumed by King William, who, between sips of Ems water, declared his ignorance of the whole affair. The Early Wire, backing and filling, kept an even keel for a day or two. Then said Mr. Knewbit confidentially to P. C. Breagh, one midsummer evening, after the early supper:
"My opinion is we are a-going to give a leg-up to this 'ere 'O'enzollern business, our Chief being—when England, Home, and Duty permit him to indulge the weakness—a red-'ot admirer of a Certain Person at Berlin. Who"—Mr. Knewbit's wink was infinitely sagacious—"is said on the strict Q.T. to have put up Field-Marshal Prim and the Government at Madrid to making the proposal to the young gentleman. For the sake of giving a jolt-up to the elderly swell at the Tuileries. We all have our ideal 'eroes," Mr. Knewbit added, "and our Chief's partiality dates from his acting in an emergency as Special War Correspondent for his own paper, durin' the Prusso-Austrian War of 1866. It was at the Battle of——that name always beats me——"
"Königgratz, perhaps?" suggested Carolan.
"Königgratz—when this 'ere Bismarck spurs his big brown mare up to Colonel von Somebody to ask him why, seeing the 'eavy losses occurring in his neighborhood from Austrian Artillery—he didn't ride forward with his Cuirassiers to find out where the shells came from? Took our Chief's fancy uncommon, that did, as the iron sugar-plums was dropping freely in the neighborhood, and when he had rode on, swearing at the Colonel like anything you can imagine—the old man picked up a cigar-stump he'd pitched away, and keeps it to this hour in the pen-tray of the silver inkstand the Proprietors presented him with when he came home."
Said P. C. Breagh reflectively:
"It's the rule, invariably. Men love Bismarck or lampoon him—swear by him—or swear at him. He's the devil or a demigod—there's no alternative!"
"Good!" said Mr. Knewbit, leaning back in his Windsor chair, and rubbing the ear of the ginger Tom with the toe of one of his carpet slippers. "Tell us a bit more. Anything you can lay hold of. I want to see him stand out a bit clearer in my mind."
"He gets his name from the Wendish—I've read in the Kleine Anekdotenbuch," said P. C. Breagh, "that 'Bismarck' really means 'beware of the thorns.' And there's a golden sprig of blackberry-bramble among the family quarterings, so perhaps there's something in it, after all. An ancestor of his who lived in the sixteenth century was a tailor—and a natural son of Duke Philip of Hesse, by the way! Duke Philip was a lineal descendant of St. Elizabeth of Hungary—who in her turn was descended from the Emperor Charlemagne——"
"Lor' bless my soul!" said Mr. Knewbit, rubbing his knees.
"And he—this man you want to know about!—was born the younger son of a Pomeranian country squire, and entered the University of Göttingen in 1831. They say that he permitted study to interfere so little with the more serious business of amusement that the name of Mad Bismarck was given him then, and had stuck to him even when he passed his examination as Referendar, and began to practice law in the Municipal Court of Aix-la-Chapelle."
Mr. Knewbit, drinking in the information at every pore, nodded "More"—and P. C. Breagh obliged him:
"He served his year as Volunteer at Potsdam in the Jägers of the Guard, and then went home to the paternal estate of Kneiphof, and began sowing wild oats—acres and acres of them. The officers of the garrison were a hard-drinking set of fellows, and the county Junkers scorned to be outdone by them—so they hunted and shot and danced and made love to the local beauties—they dined and supped and gambled and fought duels. In fact, they did all the things men usually do when they mean to have a high old time and don't care a damn for the consequences," said P. C. Breagh, "and when you regularly hail smiling morn with cold punch, beer, and corn-brandy, and wind up the night with quart-beakers of champagne and porter, the consequences must be——"
"A taut skin and a fiery eye next morning," interpolated Mr. Knewbit, "and a tongue like a foul oven-plate or a burned kettle-bottom. But—my stars!—what a constitution that man must have to be as hale and as hearty, and as upright as they say he is, at fifty-five, and with a family of grown-up sons! One wonders how his sweetheart ever had the courage to marry such a—such a Ring-tailed Roarer.... But Love's a thing you can't account for nohow."
"I have heard that the Fräulein Puttkammer's family objected to the engagement," said P. C. Breagh, "but he seems to have got over their prejudices in a way peculiarly his own. By betrothing himself privately to the Fräulein first, and then calling openly to inquire how the family felt about it," he added, in response to the interrogative hoist of Mr. Knewbit's eyebrows, "and taking the precaution, upon entering the room—to hug the young lady before all her friends."
"The hugging would settle the thing—in Germany?" asked Mr. Knewbit.
"To a dead certainty."
"Without any male cousin or anything of that kind getting up and calling the hugger out?" asked Mr. Knewbit dubiously.
"When a man is six feet two inches in height, is as strong as a bull, and possesses a well-earned reputation as a fencer and pistol-shot, even male cousins," returned P. C. Breagh, "are content to sit still and let him hug."
"And then he married her and went into politics—and to-day, when the Press says 'Prussia,' it means him!" cried Mr. Knewbit. "What our Chief likes, and what fetches me!—is his cool owdaciousness. If ever I chance to find myself in Berlin," he added, "before visiting any State Collection of Art Objects ever brought together—I'd choose to 'ave a look at that man!"
Said P. C. Breagh:
"I've seen the Iron Chancellor just once—in '67—passing through Schwärz-Brettingen on his way to Berlin. It was in my first semester at the University, and just after the Constitution of the North German Bund was put into force by Royal Patent. The Social Democrats had protested against the withdrawal of the Prussian garrison from the independent State of Luxembourg—wanted to rush Germany into war over the business, and they, as well as the Ultramontaine, having plenty of followers among the students—both parties formed up on the platform of the railway-station, and gave the Count three groans."
"How did he take 'em—the groans, I mean?'
"Rather as if he liked them, now I come to think of it. I can see him now, in civil dress, black frock-coat, vest and trousers, with a white choker something like a Lutheran clergyman's. And he jammed his great black felt hat down on his head and thrust his huge body half out of the carriage window. His eyes—fierce blue eyes heavily pouched underneath, and blazing from under shaggy eyebrows—swept over us as though we were a lot of squeaking mice—though he was laughing in a good-tempered sort of way. And he shouted something in dialect—they said it was a common Pomeranian proverb, 'Let not live men fight over a dead dog!'"
"Meaning——?"
"Meaning, one would suppose, that the Luxembourg garrison was a right which had been given up as unimportant, and therefore was of no more value than a dead dog, set against the cost of a new war."
"I'm obliged for your information," said Mr. Knewbit, pushing back his chair and getting up to reach his brass tobacco-box from the high kitchen mantelshelf. "In return I'll give you a bit o' news—which may be of walley to you. You have been talking A.1 journalism, young man, as different from the stuff you commonly put on paper as gold is from this metal"—he tapped the brass tobacco-box—"and—my advice is—For the future, write only of what you know; have felt, and heard and seen!"
He sucked despairingly at the wooden pipe he was filling and, finding it foul, stuck the stem in the spout of the boiling kettle—a practice abhorred of Miss Ling—and left it to be cleaned as he continued:
"Big things are going on in the world at this moment—things worth watching and waiting for. Damme!—though I'm not a swearer as a rule," said the little man, "if I don't wish I could change places with something that has wings. The great man we have been a-talking of is at this minute at his country-seat in Pomerania—that's the estate he bought with the grant—sixty thousand pounds English, it came to—the German Parliament voted him after the Prussian-Austrian War. And the King of Prussia is at Ems, a-drinking the waters, and the French Ambassador has been sent there by the Emperor Napoleon III. to obtain a special audience, I'm told. And if you or me could swop jobs with a fly on the wall at one place or the other—being a German insect it would be likely to understand their crack jaw language—me or you would be able to supply a leaded half-column for Special Issue that would fairly set the world afire. See this!"
He took the short poker from the top of Miss Ling's kitchen-range, and, pushing back his chair, rose and approached the wall, which was destitute of pictures, and distempered in an economical brown color.
"Look here, I say!..." began P. C. Breagh.
"The breath of genius inflates me," said Mr. Knewbit, who had had more than his allowance of beer at supper. "The impulse to prophesy stimulates me. Look at this!"
He wielded the poker deftly as he spoke. And on the brown distemper appeared in huge white letters:
WILL THERE BE WAR?
YES!
HOHENZOLLERN QUESTION NO DEAD DOG TO FRANCE!
GAUL, AND TEUTON RIPE FOR CONFLICT.
BISMARCK'S VIEWS!
"But, there, my inspiration gives out," said Mr. Knewbit, replacing the poker on the range and shaking his head mournfully, "unless it was possible to change with that fly on the wall—and take him at one of his expansive, confidential moments—if he ever has any—neither me nor any other man living will ever be able to give Bismarck's real views upon this or any other subject dealing with Politics. Who's this?"
The hall-door had slammed a moment previously. There had been a step upon the oilcloth-covered basement staircase, and now it bore Miss Ling's first-floor lodger, Herr von Rosius, the "quiet gentleman," who taught German to English students and English to Germans at the Institute of Languages in Berners Street, W.—across the threshold of her tidy kitchen, pipe in mouth and hat in hand.
"Meine Herren, I haf to beg your pardons! I seek the Fräulein Ling——" he was beginning, when suddenly the tall, broad-shouldered figure in the ill-fitting checked tweed clothes was petrified into rigidity. The felt hat he had civilly removed dropped from his hand, his jaws clenched on his inseparable meerschaum. Bolt upright, crimson to the hair, and staring through his steel-rimmed spectacles, he stood confronting the huge white letters that disfigured Miss Ling's brown distemper.
"Kreuzdonnerwetter! was ist dies?" Carolan heard him mutter in his own tongue. "Es ist in jedermanns Mund!" Then he recovered himself almost instantly, picked up his hat, and gave good-evening in his stiff, yet civil, way.