He offered the paper to Marianne; she did not take it, however, but only glanced at it. “Your majesty may see from it how ardently I longed for an interview with you,” she said. “Had M. von Brandt asked half my fortune for this interview with your majesty, I should have joyfully given it to him, for an hour in the presence of your majesty is worth more than all the riches of the world.”
“And yet you were going to leave me just now!” exclaimed Napoleon, reproachfully. “How ingenuous that would have been toward your friend who is standing in the anteroom with Constant, and, watch in hand, calculating the number of his gold-pieces. We will be generous and grant him three hours. Three hours—that is a good time for a rendezvous; when you leave me, then, you will pay M. von Brandt one hundred and eighty louis-d’or, and I shall receive the congratulations of my confidants.”
Marianne’s eyes flashed angrily, and a deep blush mantled her cheeks. “Sire,” she exclaimed almost menacingly, “call your officers—have me arrested like a criminal—take my life if I have deserved it, but let me leave this room!”
“Ah, you would die rather than that people should believe you had granted me a rendezvous of three hours’ duration,” asked Napoleon. “It is true, this rendezvous, if it should result peacefully and without the eclat which you hoped for when you came hither to play the part of Judith, would discredit you with your friends! Your party will distrust you as soon as it learns that, after being three hours with me, you left Schonbrunn in the middle of the night, while I was not found on my couch with a dagger in my heart. I cannot spare you this humiliation; it shall be the only punishment I shall inflict on you. You remain here!”
“Sire, let me go,” exclaimed Marianne, “and I swear to you that I will never dare again to approach you; I swear to you that I will live in some remote corner in the most profound retirement, far from the noise and turmoil of the world.”
“Oh, the world would never forgive me if I should deprive it in this manner of its most beautiful ornament,” said the emperor, smiling. “You are too lovely to live in obscurity and solitude. You will now grant me three hours, and you are free to tell everybody during the whole remainder of your life that you hate me; but it is true, people will hardly believe in the sincerity of your hatred.”
“Then you will not permit me to withdraw?” asked Marianne, with quivering lips. “You want me to stay here?”
“Only three hours, madame; then you may go. Let us improve this time and speak frankly and honestly to each other. Forget where we are; imagine we were the heads of two parties, meeting on neutral ground and telling each other the truth with respectful frankness for the purpose of thereby bringing about peace, if possible. Well, then, tell me honestly: do you really hate me so ardently as to have come hither for the purpose of assassinating me?”
“You ask me to tell you the truth,” exclaimed Marianne, her eyes sparkling with anger, “well, you shall hear it! Yes, I hate you; I swore to you in Paris, at the time when you sent me like a criminal to the frontier, the most ardent and implacable hatred, and in accordance with my oath I came hither to accomplish a work which would be a boon for Germany, nay, for the whole world. Yes, I wanted to assassinate you, I wanted to deliver the world from the tyrant who intends to enslave it. Yes, I had concealed a dagger in my bosom to kill you as Judith killed Holofernes. Had I accomplished my purpose, the world would have blessed me and paid the highest honors to my name; but now that I have failed in carrying out my plan, I shall be laughed and sneered at. Now I have told you the truth, and in order that you may not doubt it, I will show you the dagger which was intended for your breast, and which I shall now hurl down at your feet as the dragon’s feet, from which one day full-grown warriors will spring for our cause in order to combat you.”
She drew the dagger from her bosom, and, with a violent gesture, threw it at Napoleon’s feet. “Sire,” she then asked, in an imploring voice, “will you not yet order me to be arrested?”