“I want you to get me permission to wear the uniform of an Austrian staff officer.”
Bendel, who had already gone to great lengths to serve the spy, gasped at the daring of this latest request.
“But why?” he asked. “What reason can be given for such a thing?”
The blue-eyed one smiled grimly. The humor of the business was not lost on him.
“The best reason in the world,” he replied. “It is but a slight return for all I have done for the Austrian army.”
The things he had done for the Austrian army, had they been known to Kienmayer, would have caused that officer to give an order for Schulmeister’s execution at sunrise. Instead of that he gave him permission to wear the Austrian uniform. The result of this was far-reaching. It helped to make history. In a word, it placed the Austrian army—or a considerable section of it—at the mercy of the Alsatian smuggler.
Schulmeister went to Vienna, where he proclaimed himself to be the representative of General Kienmayer. Vienna, even at that time, was numbered among the gayest capitals of Europe, and the supposed secret service agent of the Austrian commander was received with open arms and treated with marked distinction. He mingled with the officers and was entertained at the cafés and altogether made a marked impression with the people. His natural qualities helped him greatly in this bold adventure. The scars on his forehead, his apparent reticence and his military bearing all helped to win the confidence of those with whom he was thrown into contact.
The Emperor Francis II was in Vienna at the time, and Schulmeister was told that he would have an opportunity of meeting him in person. He did not shrink from the ordeal. Indeed, he may be said to have courted it. The Emperor at that time had reached a critical stage of his career. He came into power at a time when the French revolution was exciting the alarm of most of the old European dynasties. Austria was in alliance with Prussia against the advances of the new republic. In 1795–96, the war between France and Austria raged fiercely on German soil. In 1796 Napoleon, whose meteoric career was astonishing the world, swept through northern Italy and the next year invaded Austria. As a consequence of this, Francis was compelled to sign the treaty of Campo Formio, by which Austria surrendered Belgium and Lombardy, receiving in return most of the dominions of the extinct Republic of Venice. Smarting under this, Francis, two years later, made an alliance with Russia and England. Again he took up arms and at the outset met with a number of successes.
But the recall of the Russian general Suvaroff and the return of Napoleon from the East, turned the tide against him. The victories won by Bonaparte at Marengo and by Morean at Hohenlinden seriously crippled the power of Austria, and Francis was reduced to the necessity of suing for peace. By the treaty of Lunéville in 1801, France was confirmed in the possession of the left bank of the Rhine. In 1804 Francis assumed the title of the Emperor of Austria, and in the following year entered into a new alliance with Russia. The following year began the contest with Napoleon which was to end so disastrously for the Austrians. This was the condition of affairs that existed when Napoleon’s chief spy found himself in the Austrian capital, clothed in the uniform of an Austrian officer.
He had not been there long before he learned that a most important council of war was to be held, at which plans were to be matured for the purpose of checking the aggressions of Napoleon. He resolved to attend that council. As before, he had the aid of Lieutenant Bendel. It was by means of this officer that he was taken into the confidence of the Secretary of the Council and told that he would be admitted to its deliberations. A less audacious man would have hesitated to attend such a meeting. Even Bendel warned him of the danger he ran.