“Some time after the imperial restoration had given way to the royal one in France, the mystery was explained. Fouché, cette revolution incarnée, as the prince called him, no sooner saw his old master and benefactor restored to power, than he imagined the means of betraying him, and accordingly despatched the messenger, who presented himself to Prince Metternich. Fouché was minister of police, and probably all the world would have agreed with him in thinking that if any man in France could safely send off a secret messenger it was himself. But all the world would have been mistaken, and so was Fouché. The Argus eyes of Napoleon discovered the proceeding. The first messenger was seized and examined on his return. The minister of police was informed of the discovery, and coolly assured by his imperial master that he would probably be hanged. The second messenger was then despatched by Napoleon himself with exactly the same instructions as the envoy who met him from Vienna, to the effect that he was to listen to all that might be said to him, and when questioned himself, confess, what was the exact truth, that all he knew of the mission on which he came was that he was expected to remember and repeat all that he should hear.”
On the 30th of November in that year I witnessed the by far most gorgeous pageant I ever saw—for I was not in Westminster Abbey on the 21st of June, 1887—the installation of eleven Knights of the Golden Fleece. As a pageant, nothing, I think, could exceed the gorgeous and historic magnificence of this ceremony; but no “Kings of the Isles brought gifts,” nor was the imperial body-guard composed of sovereign princes or their representatives. In significance, that show and all others such, even the meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold itself, is eclipsed by the ever-memorable day which England has just seen. But it was not only a very grand but a very interesting sight, the whole details of which may be found by those interested in such matters very accurately described in the volume by my mother which I have so often quoted.
On the very next day I saw another sight which I think it probable no subsequent sight-seer in Vienna during all the half-century that has elapsed since that day has seen, or any will see in the future. It was a sight more monstrously contrasted with the scene I had yesterday witnessed than it could well enter into the human mind to conceive. It was a visit to the vast, long-disused catacombs under the cathedral church of St. Stephen. It was then about sixty years, as I was told—now more than a hundred—since these vaults were used as a place of sepulture. Here, as in many other well-known instances, the special peculiarities of soil and atmosphere prevent all the usual processes of decay, and the tens of thousands of corpses which have been deposited there—very many uncoffined and unshrouded during the visitation of the plague in 1713—have become to all intents and purposes mummies. They retain not only the form of human beings, but in many cases the features retain the ghastly expression which was their last when the breath of life left them. The countless forms, which never apparently from the day they were deposited there had been subjected to any sort of arrangement whatever, lay in monstrous confused heaps, mingled with shattered remains of coffins. The skin in every case had become of the consistency of very thick and tough leather, not quite so thick as that used for the sole of a stout shoe, but a good deal thicker than what is generally used for the upper leather even of the stoutest. There was not the slightest disagreeable odour in any part of the vaults. In the course of a long life I have seen very many strange sights, but never any one to match that in weird strangeness and impressive horror. If any sight on earth merits the degraded epithet “awful,” it must be that of those fearsome catacombs.
What I have written here conveys but a very imperfect notion of all that we saw and felt during our progress through that terrible succession of vaults. But I abstain from chronicling the sights of this charnel-house for the same reason that I refrained from any attempt at describing the cloth of gold and the velvets and the silks and satins of the previous day. The detailed description of them may all be found in my mother’s book, in the fortieth chapter of which the reader so inclined may sup full of horrors to his heart’s content. I will content myself with testifying to the perfect accuracy and absence of exaggeration in the account there given.
My mother expresses disapproval of the authorities who permit such an exhibition, and she is very vague as to the means by which we obtained admission to it. Nor does my memory furnish any clear information upon this point, but I have a strong impression that it was all an affair of bribery, managed “under the rose” (what a phrase for such an exploit!) by backstairs influence in some way. I do not think that the first comer, with however large a fee in his hand, could have caused the door of that chamber of horrors to be opened to him. There are, it is true, sundry words and incidents in my mother’s account which seem to indicate that the showman guide, who attended us, was in the habit of similarly attending others; but I am persuaded that my mother was in error in supposing, if she did suppose, that to be the case. Unquestionably the man was at home in the gruesome place, and well acquainted with all the parts of it, but I have reason to be persuaded that his familiarity with it arose simply from the habit of pillaging the remains of the coffins for firewood!
Not long after this memorable expedition to the catacombs I received a communication from Birmingham which rendered it necessary for me to leave Vienna and turn my face homewards.
CHAPTER XVII.
I left Vienna by the carriage which carried the imperial mail, shortly before Christmas, in very severe weather. It would be impossible to construct a more comfortable carriage for the use of those to whom speed is no object. It carried only two passengers and the courier, and was abundantly roomy and well cushioned. It carried, of course, also all the mails from Hungary and from Vienna to the north and westward, including those to Munich and Paris and London. And to the best of my recollection all these despatches, printed as well as written, were carried in the hind boot of our conveyance. If they were not there I can’t guess where they were!
I remember that I was tremendously great-coated, having, besides my “box-coat,” a “buffalo robe,” which I had brought back with me from America, and I have no recollection of suffering at all from cold. We proceeded in very leisurely fashion; and I well remember the reply of the courier to my question, how long we were to remain at the place at which we were to dine, given with an air of mild surprise at my thinking such a demand necessary. “Till we have done dinner!” said the courier—“Bis wir gespeist haben!” The words seem still to echo in my ears! To me, whose experiences were of the Quicksilver mail!
When we had done dinner, and he asked me with leisurely courtesy if I had dined well, he said, in answer to my confessing that I could have wished nothing more, unless it were a cup of coffee, if perchance there were one ready, “No doubt the hostess will make us one. It is best fresh made!” And so, while the imperial mail, and all the Paris and London letters, and the post-horses, waited at the door, the coffee was made and leisurely discussed!