The fire of cannon announced the conclusion of the service; we put spurs to our horses, and soon entered the lines; and, on the strength of my credentials, I had distinguished quarters assigned to me.
I now, for the first time since I left England, began to feel the advantages of birth. In London every man is so submerged in the multitude, that he who can hold his head high enough out of the living surge to be known, must have something of remarkable buoyancy, or peculiar villany, about him. Even Parliament, except to a few of the leaders, is no distinction. The member for the shire is clipped of all his plumage at the moment of his entering that colossal poultry-yard, and must take his obscure pickings with other unnoticeable fowl. In Paris, once the Mahometan paradise of stars and garters, the central herald's office of the earth, the royal region of the Parliament aristocracy, where the beggar with a cordon on his breast outshone the banker with millions in his pocket-book, the world was changed; and to be the son or brother of a peer might have been only a speedier passport to the lamp-post. But, in Germany, the land of pedigrees, to be an "honourable" was to be one on whom the sun shone with double beams; the sex, young and old, smiled with double softness and the whole host of Serenities were doubly serene. In camp, nothing could be more hospitable or distinguished than my reception; for the soldier is always good-humoured under canvass, and the German is good-humoured every where. Perhaps he has rather too high an opinion of his descent from Goth and Vandal, but he makes allowance for the more modern savagery of Europe; and although the stranger may neither wear spectacles, nor smoke cigars, neither muzzle his visage with mustaches, nor speak the most formidable tongue on earth, the German will good-naturedly admit, that he may be a human being after all.
But the man with whom my mission brought me most immediately into contact, and to whom I was most indebted for courtesy, would have been a remarkable personage in any country of Europe; that man was the Duke of Brunswick.
On my arrival, I found two letters forwarded from London, and in the hands of an aide-de-camp of the generalissimo. The first which I opened was from the Foreign Office, a simple statement of the purpose for which I was sent—namely, to stimulate the activity of the Prussian councils, and to urge on the commander of the army an immediate march on the French capital; with a postscript, directing me, in case of tardiness being exhibited at headquarters, instantly to transmit a despatch home, and return to my post in Paris. The second letter—which I must, however undiplomatically, admit that I opened with much stronger interest—was from Mordecai. I glanced over it for some mention of the "ane braw name," and bitterly laughed at my own folly in expecting to find such communications in the letter of the hard-headed and busy Jew. All was brief and rapid.
"If this shall find you in the Prussian camp, you will have no more time for me than I have for you. Let me not clip your diplomatic hopes; but this I forewarn you, you will not obtain a single object of your journey; except, perhaps, showing that you can gallop a hundred miles in the four-and-twenty hours, and can make your way through a country of lunatics without being piked or sabred.
"The campaign is over already—over before it was begun. The battle was fought in the council at Berlin, and the allies were beaten. The duke, within the next fortnight, will be deciding on the merits of the ballet in Brunswick, and the French will be madder than ever with triumphs which they never won, preparing for conquests which are already gained, and knocking down thrones, the owners themselves supplying the pickaxes and hammers. You will see the two best armies of the Continent running away from their own shadows; the old councillors of Frederick and Maria Theresa baffled by cabinets of cobblers and tinkers; grey-beard generals, covered with orders, hunted over the frontier by boys, girls, and old women; and France, like a poissarde in a passion, with her hair flying about her ears, a knife in her hand, and her tongue in full swing, scampering half naked over Europe, to the infinite wonder of the wearers of velvet, Mechlin lace, and diadems,—ha, ha, ha!"
While I was trying to decipher this riddle, which was rather too contemptuous for my new views of things, but which I referred to the habitual feelings of a strong-headed man in humble life, brought just close enough to higher to feel his exclusion, an officer was announced as Count Varnhorst, on the staff of the duke. His countenance struck me at first sight, as one which I had seen before; and I soon discovered, that when I was a boy at Eton, he had been on a visit of a few days at Mortimer castle, in the suite of one of the Prussian princes. We had been thus old friends, and we now became young ones within the first quarter of an hour. His countenance was that of a humourist, and his recollections of the Great Frederick rendered him sarcastic on all things of the later generation.
"The duke has sent me for you," said he, "with his apology for keeping you out of bed; but he has appointed midnight for the delivery of your despatches. The truth is, that hitherto we have all slept so soundly, that we must make up for lost time by turning night into day now, just as we have turned day into night for the last twelvemonth."
"But what can you tell me of the duke?"
"Oh! a great deal; but you know that I am on his staff, and therefore bound to keep his secrets."