“That Your Excellency comes accredited from a government that no longer exists. But We will waive that, since the said power existed at the moment of Your Excellency’s departure.”
This was to harmonize the absurdity with the Ritual. Maximilian liked to play at receiving an American representative. It grieved him sorely that the United States had never recognized his dignity, but that it had consistently rated him as merely “the Prince Maximilian.”
Driscoll’s first words cut short the make-believe.
“You’d hardly call them credentials,” he said. “Our president, it is true, helped me on my way, but I have nothing from 247him to you. And yet I bring more than Mr. Jefferson Davis could send. Here,” and he produced the memorandum from the Confederate generals of the Trans-Mississippi department, which in his belt Jacqueline had had restored to him with his other effects.
Maximilian took the note handed him, but stared at the emissary. Charlotte had induced the monarch to grant the audience. She had hinted at its importance, but not until now did Maximilian recognize his guest. Driscoll was attired in the full uniform of a lieutenant colonel of cavalry, which, by the way, was what he had carried so jealously in the bundle behind his saddle. From the dignified young officer in gray back to the desperado young giant in homespun proved considerable of a reach for the Hapsburg; but at last, by virtue of much caressing of his silky beard with delicate finger tips, he arrived.
“So, it was you the marshal saved!” he exclaimed. “Yes, yes, I should have remembered sooner. Colonel Lopez told me. A capable, faithful officer, is Lopez! I could not but approve the finding of his court martial. And yet, against his urgent advice, I have decided to pardon you.”
“To apologize, you mean?”
The Emperor looked hurt. As a foil for his royal clemency, there should be humble gratitude. Maximilian often mistook fawning for such.
“Isn’t it a bit odd,” Driscoll queried whimsically, “that an ambassador should be arrested?”
“Jove, that’s a fact! I hadn’t thought.”