The doctor had instantly given the alarm at the palace, with the result that the Princess’s flight was discovered within two hours after it had taken place. Now the uproar in the Ducal household was, it seems, beyond description. Two detachments of dragoons were at once sent in pursuit of the two carriages which were known to have left the town that night. (How we blessed Anna’s shrewder scheme!) When they returned, empty-handed of course, the nature of the trick was perceived. Prince Eugen—whose fury, it appears, was something quite appalling to behold, not only because of the reassertion of the Princess’s independence, but because the man whom he had taken so much trouble to obliterate had presumed to be alive after all!—Prince Eugen, according to his wont, took matters into his own hands. He sallied forth with his henchman the doctor, to make inquiries for himself in the town. The result of these was the discovery of the passage of one Hans Meyerhofer’s cart out by the South Gate after closing hours. This man was known to the doctor (whose stables he supplied with fodder) as being Anna’s cousin, and the connection of the Princess’s nurse with the scheme of escape was well demonstrated by her own disappearance. This discovery was sufficient for the Margrave, and (very much, it would appear, against the real wishes of the Duke, whose most earnest desire was to proceed with as little scandal as possible) he with half a dozen troopers instantly set forth in pursuit on the road to Prague. Of these troopers, as we had seen, most had broken down on the way, and none had been able to keep up with the higher mettled mount of their leader—fortunately for us.
It was after his departure that Madam Lothner wrote. She was convinced, as she characteristically remarked, that the Prince would be successful, and that the most dire misfortunes were about to fall upon everybody—all through the obstinacy of M. de Jennico, who really could not say he had not been warned. Nevertheless, on the chance of their having escaped, either to England or to Tollendhal (and she addressed her letter to Tollendhal, trusting that it would be forwarded), she could not refrain from pouring forth her soul into her beloved Princess’s bosom—and so forth and so on. In fact, the good woman had wanted a confidant, and had found it on paper.
Our next information regarding the Court of Lausitz came from a very different source, and was of a totally different description. It was the announcement in the Vienna News-Sheet of the death of Eugen, Margrave of Liegnitz-Rothenburg, through a fall from his horse upon a hunting expedition. It was also stated that, yielding at last to her repeated requests, the Duke had consented to the retirement into a convent of his only daughter, Princess Marie Ottilie, such having been (it was stated) her ardent desire for more than a year. The name of the convent was not given.
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Here this memoir, begun in such storm and stress, within and without, continued in such different moods and for such varied motives, ends with the mantle of peace upon us, with the song of birds in our ears.
Tollendhal, that I knew beautiful in the autumn; Tollendhal, the shrine of our young foolish love, is now beautiful with the budding green all round it under a dappled sky. But never had the old stronghouse looked to me so noble as when I brought my bride back to it in the snow. As the carriage at last entered upon the valley road and we saw it rise before us, high against the sky, white-roofed and black-walled, stern, strong, and frowning, while the winter sun flashed back a warm, red welcome to the returning masters, from some high window here and there, I felt my heart stir. And as I looked at Ottilie I saw in her eyes the reflection of the same fire.
Our people had been prepared for our coming by messengers from Prague. The court of honour was thronged, and we entered amid acclamations such as would have satisfied the heart of a king coming to his own again. We had broken the bread and tasted the salt; we had drunk of the wine on the threshold; we had been conducted in state; and at last, at last we found ourselves alone in the old room where my great-uncle’s portrait kept its silent watch! János, who, his work of trust done, had fallen back into his place of heiduck as simply as the faithful blade falls back into the scabbard, had retired to his station outside the door. Without rang the wild music of the gipsies to the feasting people, and the tremors of the czimbalom found an answer in the very fibres of my soul—to such music she had first come to me in my dreams!
The walls of the room were all ruddy with the reflection of the bonfire in the courtyard: the very air was filled with joy and colour. And there was my great-uncle’s portrait—he was simpering with ineffable complacency; and there the rolled-up parchment; and there the table where we had quarrelled, and where, since then, I had poured forth such mad regrets. Oh! my God! what memories!... and there was my wife!