CHAPTER I
PRAGUE, 1742
The Austrian guns had ceased with the early sunset, and the desolate city of Prague was silent, encompassed by the enemy and the hard, continuous cold of a Bohemian December: in the hall of Vladislav in the Hradcany, that ancient palace of ancient kings that rose above the town, several French officers wrapped in heavy cloaks were walking up and down, as they had done night after night since the dragging siege began. In the vast spaces of the huge pillarless hall with the high arched Gothic roof, bare walls and floor, imperfectly lit by a few low-placed lamps, their figures looked slight to insignificance, and the sound of their lowered voices was a mere murmur in the great frozen stillness. At one end of the hall rose a tall carved wooden throne and rows of benches divided from the main hall by a light railing; these, which had once been the seats of the King and nobility of Bohemia, were now decayed and broken, and behind the empty chair of state was thrust a Bourbon flag tied with the blue and white colours that the French carried in compliment to the Elector of Bavaria, whom they, for many intricate reasons,—some wise, and some foolish, and none just,—were seeking to place on the Austrian throne as Charles II.
These officers, who were the unquestioning instruments of this policy of France, ceased talking presently and gathered round the degraded throne before which burnt a handful of charcoal over an iron tripod. The only near light was a heavy lamp suspended before the window; a stench of rank oil and powder filled even the cold air, which rasped the throat and the nostrils and had no freshness in it but only a great lifeless chill.
There were four of these officers, and as they stood round the struggling flame that leapt and sank on the brazier, the cross lights of fire and lamp showed a great similarity in their persons. It was noticeable how totally different they were from their surroundings; no one ever would have thought that they were of the breed that had built this vast barbaric hall or carved the bold monsters on the rude throne: in every line they stood confessed foreign, alien to this crude grandeur and of another nation, another civilization, old and thrice refined.
They were all slight men, though two were tall; they all wore under their cloaks the uniforms of the famous régiment du roi; and they all had their hair as carefully powdered and curled and their linen as fresh and elaborate as if they were at Versailles: yet it was now several months since Prince Lobkowitz and his Hungarian Pandours had driven the French into Prague.
Their manner was as similar as their persons: a composed gaiety, an unconscious courtesy, an absolute reserve and command of emotion were as common to each as the silver epaulettes and frogs of their blue uniforms. The four faces the charcoal flame lit were proud and delicate and much alike in feature, but one was distinguished, even in that light, by the fresh attractiveness of its youthful beauty—the beauty of dark colour, of soft eyes, of rich hair that pomade could scarcely disguise, of ardent lips and eager expression that even the formality of that universal noble manner could not conceal; a face beautiful and lovable, and one that had not yet looked on twenty years.
He was the youngest as he was the tallest. His companions were much of an age and much of a height, and nothing remarkable distinguished one from the other save that one wore the gorgeous uniform of a colonel, two that of captain; the youth’s rank was merely that of lieutenant. They were all silent; there was absolutely nothing to talk about. They had been shut up in Prague all the winter, and though they could easily have broken through the loose ranks of the unskilful besiegers, all thought of leaving the city was impossible until the spring. Bohemia was ice from end to end, and even in the encampment in Prague the Frenchmen died of cold.
The siege was almost without incident and quite without excitement; the Austrians made no attempt to take the city by storm, and the French made no sallies. News of the outside war was their one diversion: all Europe was in arms; Spain and England had been the last to march on to the universal battle-field; France was but one member of a coalition that endeavoured to wrest new possessions from the Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa, whom English gold and Magyar loyalty alone supported. France had signed the Pragmatic Sanction that left her heiress to her father’s empire, but that promise had been lightly enough broken when France saw her advantage in allying herself with Frederick of Prussia, who, after his seizure of Silesia, had become a power in Europe. No Frenchman had any personal feeling about the war; Prussian was the same as Austrian in the eyes of most, and very few troubled to follow the ramifications of the policy that had led the Ministers who ruled in Paris to side with the effete Elector rather than the gallant Queen of Hungary in this struggle for the succession of Charles V. Therefore, with no interest in the war, little news from home, enclosed in a foreign and half-barbarous town among a people strange and mostly unfriendly, the French, during the long months of the nominal siege, were utterly overcome with weariness and a dispirited lassitude from which these four standing over the charcoal pan in the Vladislav Hall were not wholly free.
The opening of the door at the farther end of the hall caused them all to turn with the expectancy born of monotony. Several figures entered the shadows, themselves dark and casting shadows by reason of the lantern the foremost held.
The officers moved forward. The light of dim lamp and swinging lantern was merely confusing to the sight; the advancing group threw fantastic blots of shade, and seemed to merge, subdivide, and merge again until there might have been ten people or two coming down the great bare aisle of the hall.