In Paris, solemn obsequies were performed for the murdered ambassadors. The seats which Bonnier and Roberjot had formerly occupied in the hall of the Corps Legislatif were covered with their bloody garments. When the roll was called and their names were read, the president rose and replied solemnly: “Assassinated at Rastadt!” The clerks then exclaimed: “May their blood be brought home to the authors of their murder!”
CHAPTER XXXI. THE COALITION.
Count Haugwitz, the Prussian minister of foreign affairs, had just returned from a journey he had made with the young king to Westphalia. In his dusty travelling-costume, and notwithstanding his exhaustion after the fatigues of the trip, as soon as he had entered his study, he had hastily written two letters, and then handed them to his footman, ordering him to forward them at once to their address, to the ambassadors of Prussia and England. Only then he had thrown himself on his bed, but issued strict orders to awaken him as soon as the two ambassadors had entered the house.
Scarcely an hour had elapsed when the footman awakened the count, informing him that the two ambassadors had just arrived at the same time, and were waiting for him in the small reception-room.
The minister hastily rose from his couch, and without devoting a single glance to his toilet and to his somewhat dishevelled wig, he crossed his study and entered the reception-room, where Lord Grenville and Count Panin were waiting for him.
“Gentlemen,” said the count after a hurried bow, “be kind enough to look at my toilet, and then I hope you will excuse me for daring to request you to call upon me, instead of coming to you as I ought to have done. But you see I have not even doffed my travelling habit, and it would not have behooved me to call on you in such a costume; but the intelligence I desire to communicate is of such importance that I wished to lose no time in order to lay it before you, and hence I took the liberty of inviting you to see me.”
“As far as I am concerned, I willingly accepted your invitation,” said Lord Grenville, deliberately, “for in times like these we can well afford to disregard the requirements of etiquette.”
“That I was no less eager to follow your call,” said Count Panin, with a courteous smile, “you have seen from the fact that I arrived at the same time with the distinguished ambassador of Great Britain. But now, gentlemen, a truce to compliments; let us come to the point directly, and without any further circumlocution. For the six months that I have been here at Berlin, in order to negotiate with Prussia about the coalition question, I have been so incessantly put off with empty phrases, that I am heartily tired of that diet and long for more substantial food.”