The most important part of the whole undertaking yet remained to be performed. This was the abduction of Princess Clementina from her house, situated in quite another part of the town, and conducting her through the streets to the hostelry. We have seen that on the night in question the servants of the Sobiesky household had retired at eleven o'clock, and that Monsieur Châteaudoux was seen loitering about the gate half an hour later, evidently for the purpose of choosing a propitious moment to let the princess out of the house. By one o'clock the princess was already in the hostelry. She had donned the same attire as the three gentlemen who accompanied her wore—viz., a long white cloak and a broad hat. The distance between the two houses was considerable; and, what was worse, the party had to pass the only bridge that led across the Inn, the hostelry being situated on the other side of the river. While they were groping their way through the crazy lanes and winding streets of the town an incident occurred which came near exemplifying the old adage about the cup and the lip. The party were placed for a quarter of an hour or thereabouts in the most imminent risk of detection. The minutes which proved such pleasant reading for the emperor contain such ample information, paraded in the most pompous style, of this most ludicrous adventure, that we do not hesitate to give the reader a short extract. We must premise that the night was extremely dark, and a violent storm of sleet and snow was raging at the time. This, however, did not prevent the Rumormeister—or, as we might translate the word, the "riotmaster," whose duties were those of a police sergeant and night watchman—from being out on patrol, accompanied by several trusty men, on the lookout, not for robbers and thieves, but for students. It seems that the frequenters of the Innsbruck University gave great and constant trouble to this most important of town functionaries. By all that we hear of their mad excesses and their riotous conduct, we can conclude that "Gown versus Town" was a constant war-cry in those dark days of Innsbruck. The "riotmaster"—evidently a most conscientious personage, judging from his conduct on that auspicious night—was of course constantly the object of the students' spite and revenge. To quote the words of this much-exposed individual, we find "that he completed his first round that night by ten o'clock. He had met some students, but they did not commence any riot or fight. At twelve o'clock, while on his second round, he was approaching the meat-booths"—a row of stalls of which some time previously the students had made a clean sweep—"when by the light of his lantern he and his men perceived some persons standing about. As the thought struck him that these might be students, he firmly advanced with the intention of catching the evil-doers and giving them a sound thrashing." On getting quite close to the booths he and his men heard a "subtile woman's voice." At this moment three figures issued from the gloom, while a fourth followed them at a little distance, and passing by him they turned the corner of the street leading to the Inn bridge. Our confidence in the courage of the riotmaster is rudely shaken by his next remark: "I called out Good-night! but they did not answer me; and after vainly searching behind the booths for the female whose voice we had heard, but whom we did not perceive among the four persons that left, we proceeded with due caution to follow these suspicious personages." When they reached the bridge, the butcher's man, leading three oxen and carrying a lantern, met them, and him the riotmaster asked if he had not seen four students on the bridge. Upon receiving a negative reply, the whole matter seemed more suspicious than ever, and he was just ordering his men to search below the bridge, where the students might have secreted themselves, when the butcher himself came up and told him he had met four persons on the other side of the bridge. "Thereupon," says the report, "we returned to our quarters, confident that they were only French people"—meaning outlandish or foreign folk.
But to return from this ludicrous interlude, the details of which the privy councillors narrate with the most self-assured satisfaction as evidence of the active zeal of their town functionary. The party on reaching the inn divided itself, the three gentlemen ascending the stairs, while the Princess Clementina hid herself in the carriage. Our friend the Kellnerin was still up, and met the gentlemen on the landing, "whereupon they seemed annoyed, and told me I might go to bed, for they did not require me any more." The girl once away in her bedroom, it was easy enough to bring the princess up stairs unobserved. Although we can without difficulty follow the whole undertaking from step to step, there is one point which the documents before us fail to clear up—when and where Mrs. Misset's maid took the place of the princess, and what became of her afterward.
It seems to us that Wogan exaggerated the difficulties of the scheme, or at least omitted to take into account the astounding stupidity of the Kellnerin, and in fact of everybody with whom the party came in contact. For all that the Kellnerin observed, they might have dispensed with the "sick lady" altogether, and yet have driven away from the house with two princesses instead of one. Of such an extraordinarily unsophisticated nature was this simple handmaiden that, when helping the sick lady down stairs to the carriage, she noticed that the skirt of her dress was wet, and that the dress itself was of brown taffeta, similar to the one the princess generally wore (proving thereby that she had frequently seen the princess). Nevertheless, no suspicion crossed her mind, though she knew that the party had arrived in a closed carriage, and that the ladies had not gone out.
Punctually at two o'clock the party drove off, the two ladies and two of the gentlemen inside, the third on horseback acting as outrider. At the very first station after Innsbruck, Schönberg on the Brenner road, some delay occurred, for the great depth of snow obliged them to add two more horses to the four they already had, and the whole house had to be roused. Nothing of importance seems to have occurred in crossing the high Brenner Pass, although the huge masses of snow on the slopes of the mountains threatened every minute to bury the travellers. At Trent they received the second check, which, from the results that seemed at first inevitable, was far more serious than that at Schönberg. That very morning the margravine of Baden had passed through Trent, and her numerous carriages had required every one of the post-horses stabled in the town. The postmaster, Count Wolkenstein, the very man whom the privy councillors had warned some months previously to keep a sharp lookout on all travellers, helped them out of the scrape by providing private horses—a matter of some difficulty.
On Saturday night (29th of April) at ten o'clock, Princess Clementina had reached Venetian territory at Peri, and was saved. This was half an hour before the privy councillors at Innsbruck had received the first intimation of her absence. The grand reward of liberty, we presume, fully compensated the youthful princess for the fatigues and absorbing excitement of the preceding eight and forty hours. Little as we may sympathize with the cause for which this brave little party were fighting, we cannot deny them the praise that in the face of the difficulties which stood in their way, much as they may have been lightened by the inordinate slowness of mind in general at Innsbruck, the undertaking was a decidedly plucky one and deserved the successful issue it had.
Princess Clementina's gentleman-in-waiting, the oft-mentioned Châteaudoux, fared less happily in his attempt to follow his mistress. The day after the princess's flight from Innsbruck, and before the slightest suspicion had been aroused in the minds of the privy councillors, Châteaudoux, having in due form received permission to undertake a journey to Italy on business matters, as on a former occasion, left Innsbruck. He had delayed his departure too long, however, for though he had a clear start of nearly twenty-four hours, the lieutenant who commanded the pursuit of the princess overtook him close to the frontier and led him back to Roveredo, where he remained eighty-five days in confinement. The important papers and his mistress's jewels were taken from him and sent to Innsbruck, whence the papers wandered by the usual route to the emperor: the jewels, however, were handed to the princess-mother.
From Peri the fugitives hastened to Bologna, where, as we know, the marriage ceremony was solemnized by proxy,[7] Lord Dunbar being the Pretender's representative. From Bologna the princess proceeded to Rome, where a royal reception was given her at the hands of the highest dignitaries of Church and State. A medal well known to numismatists commemorates the incident of the flight. On the obverse we see Princess Clementina's bust and the inscription "Clementina, Queen of Great Britain, France, Scotland and Ireland:" the reverse represents her riding in a car drawn by a spirited team and guided by Amor, the god of love, as coachman. The words, "I follow fortune and the good cause," and below, "To Deluded Guardians, 1719," surround this novel design, which reminds us somewhat of the incidents peculiar to a Gretna-Green runaway match.
[7] The marriage was consummated on the 1st of September at Monte Fiascone.
At Rome, where the Pretender and his wife took up their permanent residence, and where they were treated as became their rank of titular king and queen of England, that gifted but foolish adventurer, Baron Pöllnitz, frequently met them. The description which he gives in his Mémoires of Princess Clementina's person and appearance is worth quoting. "The queen," so he styles her, "is a princess who really deserves to be a queen. Without being a beauty of the first rank, she combines in her person resistless charms. She has a sterling character, and never did one find greater humility and tender-heartedness. She is obliging, compassionate and charitable: her piety is sincere, and her life is that of a saint.... Did she possess a kingdom, she would assuredly make it her first aim to discharge conscientiously her queenly duties. Nature has bestowed upon her those gifts that would ensure her success. She has remarkable powers of comprehension and a truly wonderful memory. She speaks the Polish, German, French, Italian and English tongues so perfectly as to leave it an open question which of these is her mother-language. Of all royal personages with whom I have had the honor of coming into contact, she is the most worthy of general veneration, and I would wish to see her happy."
Unfortunately, Fate bereft this unhappy princess of the chance of proving the truth of the old adage about fools speaking the truth.[8]