“This is where the King generally walks about this hour. He may be alone, or he may be with his friend.”
Johann glanced round. The place seemed suited for his purpose. The foliage of the plants would afford him a hiding-place, where he could lurk until the opportunity came for him to carry out his purpose.
“That will do,” he said briefly.
Karl glanced at his face as if meditating another appeal for mercy, but found no encouragement to speak. He turned and hurried away, sick at heart, while Johann selected a nook in which to conceal himself.
It is hardly necessary to add much to the reasons given by Johann for his presence in the Castle. He had come there as the emissary of the society to which he referred in his conversation with Karl, a society founded ten years before, in the reign of Leopold IX.
Originally the society had consisted of five persons. Of these one was dead. Another had long since made a home in the United States of America. The third was he who had taken advantage of the old King’s death to abandon the paths of conspiracy, and who had become the servant and confidant of Leopold’s successor. Two of the original members still remained: one, a man remarkable for his size and for his thick red beard, had succeeded to the post of president; the other was Johann himself.
For some years after Maximilian’s accession the work of the society had seemed at a standstill. But it is a truth often illustrated in history that the spirit of revolt engendered by the oppressions of a strong bad king breaks out under the rule of a mild but weak successor. Maximilian’s offence towards his subjects had been simple indifference. A dreamer and a poet, he had shown himself utterly averse to the practical business of kingship, and, absorbed in his æsthetic pursuits, he had left the cares of government to his Chancellor. While the Minister was engaged in levying taxes, and keeping a tight rein on public opinion, the young King was withdrawing himself from the sight of his subjects, and spending his time in some distant hunting-lodge with a few favourite companions, or perhaps assisting at the production, on a lavish scale, of one of those operas which were beginning to make his intimate friend Bernal celebrated throughout Europe.
It was not long before these caprices began to take an extravagant turn, which gave an opening for the public discontent. Once a fancy seized Maximilian, he never stopped to count the cost, and his Ministers found that the best way to preserve their power was to furnish him ungrudgingly with the funds required to satisfy his whims. It was natural that the revolutionary party should seize on this ground of attack, and hold up the thoughtless young King as a vampire, draining the life-blood of the people to supply his selfish luxuries.
Matters had just been brought to a head by Maximilian’s last crowning extravagance, the celebrated palace of Seidlingen.
Seidlingen had been over three years in preparation. Riding one day in the mountains which border the northwest of Franconia, the King had come upon a beautiful little valley shut in on all sides by lofty hills. In the middle of the valley lay a deep blue lake, several miles in extent, overshadowed by the mountains, and bordered by dark pine forests. Charmed with the romantic situation, Maximilian had conceived the idea of erecting a palace on the very edge of the lake, and transforming the valley into a veritable fairy kingdom, in which he might roam undisturbed. How many millions had actually been spent in realising this splendid dream were not accurately known. It was supposed that the Ministers, afraid to disclose the truth, had distributed a large part of the cost among various heads of civil and military expenditure. All that public opinion could do was to take note of the colossal works involved, and from them to arrive at some estimate of the appalling cost.