"And, consequently, also one of the friends of the queen!" added Napoleon, quickly. "That woman has disdained no expedient to wage war against me; she hates me intensely, and with more energy than her feeble husband. I will pay her for this hatred, and she shall feel what it is to provoke my anger. Yes, I will humiliate her. She may now, perhaps, repent with tears what she has done. She is already a fugitive. I will drive her into the remotest corner of her country, and compel this proud queen to bow before me in the dust, and beg me on her knees for mercy! But I will not have mercy upon her; I will be inexorable! My anger shall crush her and her house, as it has crushed whosoever dared oppose me. Woe unto those who have been her willing tools; they shall atone for having served her hatred against me!—Is any thing known about the fellow who edited this paper, and wrote these wretched articles?"
"Sire, the editor is a certain Professor Lange, one of the most zealous royalists, and especially an ardent admirer of the queen."
"Then he has fled with her, I suppose, and she will instigate him on the way to pen new slanders, which, by virtue of the licentiousness of the press, he will utter against me?"
"No, sire, he has not fled, but kept himself concealed here; our police, however, ferreted out his whereabouts and arrested him. It remains for your majesty to decree what is to be done with him."
"He shall be a warning example to the German scribblers, and remind them of the penalty incurred by those who stir up resistance against me by their insults and sneers. I will silence these libellers once for all, and destroy their contemptible free press by the executioner's axe. The punishment inflicted upon Palm seemed not sufficient—let M. Lange, then, be another warning to them. Let him die as Palm died!"
"Your majesty, then, will give to the sentimental Germans another martyr, to whom they will pray, and whose death will increase their enthusiasm? Sire, martyrs are like fools. 'One fool makes many others,' and thus we might say also, 'One martyr makes many others.' Suppose you have this M. Lange shot to-day, because he is a faithful adherent of the queen, and has written in accordance with her views—to-morrow pamphleteers will spring up like mushrooms—there will be more libels against your majesty, written by those having a vain desire of dying for their beautiful queen, and in the hope that she would shed tears for them, as she did for M. Lange."
"Ah," exclaimed Napoleon, scornfully, "you are strangely inclined to mercy and reconciliation to-day. It seems a sickly fever of leniency has seized you. Then you think I ought to pardon this miserable pamphleteer instead of punishing him?"
"Sire, I believe this fellow will be much more severely punished if we do not make him a martyr, but only use him as a tool as long as it suits us. As this Professor Lange is so well versed in writing pamphlets, and sending libellous articles into the world, let him continue his trade; only let him be ordered to point his weapons against the queen, instead of your majesty, and to revile her as zealously as he reviled you."
"And do you believe he will stoop so low as to eat his own words, and to convict himself of lying? I was told he had hitherto glorified Louisa of Prussia, and abused me, with an almost frantic enthusiasm."
"Sire, let us threaten him with death—let us offer him money. He will succumb to fear and avarice. I know these journalists. They are cowardly, and always in pecuniary trouble. Lange will turn his poisoned arrows against the queen, and the admirer will become her accuser."