2. On the same day the Minister Von Schleunes (out of complacency to the Princess) paid a visit at Le Baut's house, and communicated to the lady and Clotilda the current rumors about Flamin's birth. Both ladies had to believe that Victor must have disclosed the secret to the Prince, in order to save his unhappy friend. How could they have helped imitating him, when the iron pear[[185]] of the oath was taken from the tongue and out of the mouth, and since one may violate a vow of secrecy when one would otherwise have to violate truth, and the tender souls rejoiced now so heartily at the opening of the door of the year of Jubilee into the prison of their darling?—In one word, the Minister brought back nothing but confirmations of the hypotheses of his son.
3. On the same day, the merchant Tostato was examined by Count O. respecting his shop-partner, and Victor by the confessor respecting the author of the pastoral or bucolic letter in the watch, and then heard. Here, too, Matthieu, as was to be expected, had the truth entirely on his side. Victor was now too proud, too good, too resigned, to conceal anything.
4. All the tallies of sins in Kussewitz and everywhere fitted into each other; even from Victor's former mediatorial office, which he once discharged with the Prince for Agnola, from his little indiscretions, from his satires, from his dressing up the juvenile soldiery in breeches, from his journey with the Prince, there was now spelled out nothing but draughts and ground-strokes of a sketched plan of battle against the throne. In fact it was necessary, January was obliged, the more spy-glasses he directed at this meteorological phenomenon of lies, to behold it only so much the greater.
I have forgotten the Princess, who made believe that she was very much offended and wholly ignorant in the matter of the billet, and could hardly be contented with the punishment, that the hero of the Dog-Post-Days should be forbidden the court. The court! thee, good Victor! thee,—who wilt soon forbid thyself the earth!
January easily overlooked past offences, but he strictly punished future ones. And since, moreover, Mat, like a rattlesnake, rattled so terribly, not to give warning, but, as more recent naturalists have found in the case of the real rattlesnake, for the sake of making the victim stiff and fearful: accordingly his Lordship was tumbled down so out of January's heart over all the steps of the throne, that it could not have helped him at all, even if he had immediately stept forth out of the air. Flamin was found without his help.—To the house of the three Englishmen permission was sent to take passage for their island, when they pleased. They sent back word, they needed only one day to reach their island, and waited only for their travelling companion. By the island, however, they meant the Isle of Union,—and by the travelling companion the fettered Flamin, whom they wanted to persuade to go along with them.
I am pleased that my Victor was forbidden the court. Dismissal from court is generally a favor,—(now a deliverance from court-services may well deserve that name,)—which is not always bestowed on the worthiest, but often on a devil like Louvois,[[186]] as well as on an apostle like Tessin.[[187]] But does it not amount to taking away from an eminent favor, an order pour le mérite, all its value, when one tosses it to knaves, whereas it ought to be laid up as the greatest and last reward, as a premium and pike-bearer's reward,[[188]] as an ovation, for the most honest, candid, and oldest man at court?
In the next chapter one may hold himself prepared for an uproar, the like of which is heard in few German chapters; the alarm-cannons of the court-party, the knocking down of scaffoldings and upsetting of chairs, in getting from the criminal court, I shall be able to hear even over on my island. The black-haired and black-hearted court-page, when he is discharged from arrest, with his ironical mien and his peculiar low voice,—the ripieno-voice of his most malicious scorn, as it is with others that of the most exalted enthusiasm,—will stalk round everywhere and say, he wishes his Lordship would appear, he has hitherto labored in his matters to the best of his ability. At court one sometimes becomes sublime by an eminent wickedness,[[189]] as, according to Burke, no smell is sublime except the most stinking of all, and no taste except the bitterest. And just so every one easily conceals there his compassionate interest in the falling favorite, like the wise father, who, at the fall of a child, disguises his compassionate face under a comic one.
On the 21st of October, Matthieu is set at large, and is at liberty to go to Flamin,—he has begged the favor for himself—to announce to him his freedom and promotion at once.... In a few days the incidents, and my protocol of them, might run out of the hour-glass of one and the same time, if the dog should come regularly; but he comes when he will.
