LOVE AND DIPLOMACY.
“Pray pardon me,
For I am like a boy that hath found money —
Afraid I dream still.”
Ford or Webster.
It was on a fine September evening, within my time
(and I am not, I trust, too old to be loved), that Count
Anatole L — , of the impertinent and particularly
useless profession of attaché, walked up and down before
the glass in his rooms at the “Archduke Charles,”
the first hotel, as you know, if you have travelled, in
the green-belted and fair city of Vienna. The brass
ring was still swinging on the end of the bell-rope, and,
in a respectful attitude at the door, stood the just-summoned
Signor Attilio, valet and privy councillor
to one of the handsomest coxcombs errant through
the world. Signor Attilio was a Tyrolese, and, like
his master, was very handsome.
Count Anatole had been idling away three golden
summer months in the Tyrol, for the sole purpose,
as far as mortal eyes could see, of disguising his fine
Phidian features in a callow mustache and whiskers.
The crines ridentes (as Eneas Sylvius has it) being now
in a condition beyond improvement, Signor Attilio had
for some days been rather curious to know what course
of events would next occupy the diplomatic talents of
his master.
After a turn or two more, taken in silence, Count
Anatole stopped in the middle of the floor, and eying
the well-made Tyrolese from head to foot, begged to
know if he wore at the present moment his most becoming
breeches, jacket, and beaver.
Attilio was never astonished at anything his master
did or said. He simply answered, “Si, signore.”
“Be so kind as to strip immediately, and dress yourself
in that travelling suit lying on the sofa.”
As the green, gold-corded jacket, knee-breeches,
buckles, and stockings, were laid aside, Count Anatole
threw off his dressing-gown, and commenced encasing
his handsome proportions in the cast-off habiliments.
He then put on the conical, slouch-rimmed hat, with
the tall eagle's-feather stuck jauntily on the side, and
the two rich tassels pendant over his left eye; and, the
toilet of the valet being completed at the same moment,
they stood looking at one another with perfect gravity
— rather transformed, but each apparently quite at home
in his new character.
“You look very like a gentleman, Attilio,” said the
count.
“Your excellency has caught to admiration, l'aria
del paese,” complimented back again the sometime
Tyrolese.
“Attilio!”
“Signore?”
“Do you remember the lady in the forest of
Friuli?”
Attilio began to have a glimmering of things. Some
three months before, the count was dashing on at a
rapid post-pace through a deep wood in the mountains
which head in the Adriatic. A sudden pull-up
at a turning in the road nearly threw him from his
britska; and looking out at the “anima di porco!” of
the position, he found his way impeded by an overset
carriage, from which three or four servants were endeavoring
to extract the body of an old man, killed
by the accident.
There was more attractive metal for the traveller,
however, in the shape of a young and beautiful woman,
leaning, pale and faint, against a tree, and apparently
about to sink to the ground, unassisted. To bring a
hat full of water from the nearest brook, and receive
her falling head on his shoulder, was the work of a
thought. She had fainted quite away, and taking her,
like a child, into his arms, he placed her on a bank by
the road-side, bathed her forehead and lips, and chafed
her small white hands, till his heart, with all the distress
of the scene, was quite mad with her perfect
beauty.
Animation at last began to return, and as the flush
was stealing into her lips, another carriage drove up
with servants in the same livery, and Count Anatole,
thoroughly bewildered in his new dream, mechanically
assisted them in getting their living mistress and dead
master into it, and until they were fairly out of sight,
it had never occurred to him that he might possibly
wish to know the name and condition of the fairest
piece of work he had ever seen from the hands of his
Maker.
An hour before, he had doubled his bono mano to
the postilion, and was driving on to Vienna as if to sit
at a new congress. Now, he stood leaning against the
tree, at the foot of which the grass and wild flowers
showed the print of a new-made pressure, and the
postilion cracked his whip, and Attilio reminded him
of the hour he was losing, in vain.
He remounted after a while; but the order was to
go back to the last post-house.
Three or four months at a solitary albergo in the
neighborhood of this adventure, passed by the count
in scouring the country on horseback in every direction,
and by his servant in very particular ennui, brings
up the story nearly to where the scene opens.
“I have seen her!” said the count.
Attilio only lifted up his eyebrows.
“She is here, in Vienna!”
“Felice lei!” murmured Attilio.
“She is the princess Leichstenfels, and, by the
death of that old man, a widow.”
“Veramente?” responded the valet, with a rising
inflexion; for he knew his master and French morals
too well not to foresee a damper in the possibility of
matrimony.
“Veramente!” gravely echoed the count. “And
now listen. The princess lives in close retirement.
An old friend or two, and a tried servant, are the only
persons who see her. You are to contrive to see this
servant to-morrow, corrupt him to leave her, and recommend
me in his place, and then you are to take
him as your courier to Paris; whence, if I calculate
well, you will return to me before long, with important
despatches. Do you understand me?”
“Signor, si!”
In the small boudoir of a masio de plaisance, belonging
to the noble family of Leichstenfels, sat the
widowed mistress of one of the oldest titles and finest
estates of Austria. The light from a single long win
dow opening down to the floor and leading out upon
a terrace of flowers, was subdued by a heavy crimson
curtain, looped partially away, a pastille lamp was
sending up from its porphyry pedestal a thin and just
perceptible curl of smoke, through which the lady
musingly passed backward and forward one of her
slender fingers, and, on a table near, lay a sheet of
black-edged paper, crossed by a small silver pen, and
scrawled over irregularly with devices and disconnected
worlds, the work evidently of a fit of the most
absolute and listless idleness.
The door opened, and a servant in mourning livery
stood before the lady.
“I have thought over your request, Wilhelm,” she
said. “I had become accustomed to your services,
and regret to lose you; but I should regret more to
stand in the way of your interest. You have my permission.”
Wilhelm expressed his thanks with an effort that
showed he had not obeyed the call of mammon without
regret, and requested leave to introduce the person
he had proposed as his successor.
“Of what country is he?”
“Tyrolese, your excellency.”
“And why does he leave the gentleman with whom
he came to Vienna?”
“Il est amoureux d'une Viennaise, madame,” an
swered the ex-valet, resorting to French to express
what he considered a delicate circumstance.
“Pauvre enfant!” said the princess, with a sigh
that partook as much of envy as of pity; let him
come in!”
And the count Anatole, as the sweet accents reached
his car, stepped over the threshold, and in the coarse
but gay dress of the Tyrol, stood in the presence of
her whose dewy temples he had bathed in the forest,
whose lips he had almost “pried into for breath,”
whose snowy hands he had chafed and kissed when the
senses had deserted their celestial organs — the angel
of his perpetual dream, the lady of his wild and uncontrollable,
but respectful and honorable love.
The princess looked carelessly up as he approached,
but her eyes seemed arrested in passing over his features.
It was but momentary. She resumed her
occupation of winding her taper fingers in the smoke-curls
of the incense-lamp, and with half a sigh, as if
she had repelled a pleasing thought, she leaned back
in the silken fauteuil, and asked the new-comer his
name.
“Anatole, your excellency.”
The voice again seemed to stir something in her
memory. She passed her hand over her eyes, and
was for a moment lost in thought.
“Anatole,” she said (oh, how the sound of his own
name, murmured in that voice of music thrilled
through the fiery veins of the disguised lover!)
“Anatole, I receive you into my service. Wilhelm
will inform you of your duties, and — I have a fancy
for the dress of the Tyrol — you may wear it instead
of my livery, if you will.”
And with one stolen and warm gaze from under his
drooping eyelids, and heart and lips on fire, as he
thanked her for her condescension, the new retainer
took his leave.
Month after month passed on — to Count Anatole in
a bewildering dream of ever deepening passion. It
was upon a soft and amorous morning of April, that a
dashing equipage stood at the door of the proud palace
of Leichstenfels. The arms of E — blazed on the
panels, and the insouciants chasseurs leaned against
the marble columns of the portico, waiting for their
master, and speculating on the gayety likely to ensue
from the suite he was prosecuting within. How could
a prince of E — be supposed to sue in vain?
The disguised footman had ushered the gay and
handsome nobleman to his mistress' presence. After
rearranging a family of very well-arranged flowerpots,
shutting the window to open it again, changing
the folds of the curtains not at all for the better, and
looking a stolen and fierce look at the unconscious
visiter, he could find no longer an apology for remaining
in the room. He shut the door after him in a
tempest of jealousy.
“Did your excellency ring?” said he, opening the
door again, after a few minutes of intolerable torture.
The prince was on his knees at her feet!
“No, Anatole; but you may bring me a glass of
water.”
As he entered with a silver tray trembling in his
hand, the prince was rising to go. His face expressed
delight, hope, triumph — everything that could madden
the soul of the irritated lover. After waiting on
his rival to his carriage, he returned to his mistress,
and receiving the glass upon the tray, was about
leaving the room in silence, when the princess called
to him.
In all this lapse of time it is not to be supposed that
Count Anatole played merely his footman's part. His
respectful and elegant demeanor, the propriety of his
language, and that deep devotedness of manner which
wins a woman more than all things else, soon gained
upon the confidence of the princess; and before a
week was passed she found that she was happier when
he stood behind her chair, and gave him, with some
self-denial, those frequent permissions of absence from
the palace which she supposed he asked to prosecute
the amour disclosed to her on his introduction to her
service. As time flew on, she attributed his earnestness
and occasional warmth of manner to gratitude;
and, without reasoning much on her feelings, gave
herself up to the indulgence of a degree of interest in
him which would have alarmed a woman more skilled
in the knowledge of the heart. Married from a convent,
however, to an old man who had secluded her
from the world, the voice of the passionate count in
the forest of Friuli was the first sound of love that had
ever entered her ears. She knew not why it was that
the tones of her new footman, and now and then a look
of his eyes, as he leaned over to assist her at table,
troubled her memory like a trace of a long-lost dream.
But, oh, what moments had been his in these fleeting
months! Admitted to her presence in her most
unguarded hours — seeing her at morning, at noon, at
night, in all her unstudied and surpassing loveliness —
for ever near her, and with the world shut out — her
rich hair blowing with the lightest breeze across his
fingers in his assiduous service — her dark full eyes,
unconscious of an observer, filling with unrepressed
tears, or glowing with pleasure over some tale of love
— her exquisite form flung upon a couch, or bending
over flowers, or moving about the room in all its native
and untrammelled grace — and her voice, tender, most
tender to him, though she knew it not, and her eyes,
herself unaware, ever following him in his loitering
attendance — and he, the while, losing never a glance
nor a motion, but treasuring all up in his heart with
the avarice of a miser — what, in common life, though
it were the life of fortune's most favored child, could
compare with it for bliss?
Pale and agitated, the count turned back at the call
of his mistress, and stood waiting her pleasure.
“Anatole!”
“Madame!”
The answer was so low and deep it startled even
himself.
She motioned him to come nearer. She had sunk
upon the sofa, and as he stood at her feet she leaned
forward, buried her hands and arms in the long curls
which, in her retirement, she allowed to float luxuriantly
over her shoulders, and sobbed aloud. Over
come and forgetful of all but the distress of the lovely
creature before him, the count dropped upon the cushion
on which rested the small foot in its mourning
slipper, and taking her hand, pressed it suddenly and
fervently to his lips.
The reality broke upon her! She was beloved —
but by whom? A menial! and the appalling answer
drove all the blood of her proud race in a torrent upon
her heart, sweeping away all affection as if her nature
had never known its name. She sprang to her feet,
and laid her hand upon the bell.
“Madame!” said Anatole, in a cold proud tone.
She stayed her arm to listen.
“I leave you for ever.”
And again, with the quick revulsion of youth and
passion, her woman's heart rose within her, and she
buried her face in her hands, and dropped her head in
utter abandonment on her bosom.
It was the birthday of the emperor, and the courtly
nobles of Austria were rolling out from the capital to
offer their congratulations at the royal palace of
Schoenbrunn. In addition to the usual attractions
of the scene, the drawing-room was to be graced by
the first public appearance of a new ambassador,
whose reputed personal beauty, and the talents he had
displayed in a late secret negotiation, had set the whole
court, from the queen of Hungary to the youngest
dame d'honneur, in a flame of curiosity.
To the prince E — there was another reason for
writing the day in red letters. The princess Leichstenfels,
by an express message from the emperess,
was to throw aside her widow's weeds, and appear
once more to the admiring world. She had yielded
to the summons, but it was to be her last day of splendor.
Her heart and hand were plighted to her Tyrolese
minion; and the brightest and loveliest ornament
of the court of Austria, when the ceremonies of the
day were over, was to lay aside the costly bauble
from her shoulder, and the glistening tiara from her
brow, and forget rank and fortune as the wife of his
bosom!
The dazzling hours flew on. The plain and kind
old emperor welcomed and smiled upon all. The
wily Metternich, in the crime of his successful manhood,
cool, polite, handsome, and winning, gathered
golden opinions by every word and look; the young
duke of Reichstadt, the mild and gentle son of the
struck eagle of St. Helena, surrounded and caressed
by a continual cordon of admiring women, seemed forgetful
that opportunity and expectation awaited him,
like two angels with their wings outspread; and haughty
nobles and their haughtier dames, statesmen, scholars,
soldiers, and priests, crowded upon each other's
heels, and mixed together in that doubtful podrida,
which goes by the name of pleasure. I could moralize
here had I time!
The princess of Leichstenfels had gone through the
ceremony of presentation, and had heard the murmur
of admiration, drawn by her beauty, from all lips. Dizzy
with the scene, and with a bosom full of painful and
conflicting emotions, she had accepted the proffered
arm of Prince E — to breathe a fresher air upon
the terrace. They stood near a window, and he was
pointing out to his fair but inattentive companion the
various characters as they passed within.
“I must contrive,” said the prince, “to show you
the new envoy. Oh! you have not heard of him.
Beautiful as Narcissus, modest as Pastor Corydon,
clever as the prime minister himself, this paragon of
diplomatists has been here in disguise these three
months, negotiating about — Metternich and the devil
knows what — but rewarded at last with an ambassador's
star, and — but here he is: Princess Leichstenfels,
permit me to present — ”
She heard no more. A glance from the diamond
star on his breast to the Hephæstion mouth and keen
dark eye of Count Anatole, revealed to her the mystery
of months. And as she leaned against the window
for support, the hand that sustained her in the
forest of Friuli, and the same thrilling voice, in almost
the same never-forgotten cadence, offered his impassioned
sympathy and aid — and she recognised and remembered
all.
I must go back so far as to inform you, that Count
Anatole, on the morning of this memorable day, had
sacrificed a silky but prurient mustache, and a pair
of the very sauciest dark whiskers out of Coventry.
Whether the prince E — recognised in the new
envoy the lady's gentleman who so inopportunely
broke in upon his tender avowal, I am not prepared to
say. I only know (for I was there) that the princess
Leichstenfels was wedded to the new ambassador in
the “leafy month of June;” and the prince E — ,
unfortunately prevented by illness from attending the
nuptials, lost a very handsome opportunity of singing
with effect —
“If she be not fair for me” —
supposing it translated into German.
Whether the enamored ambassadress prefers her
husband in his new character, I am equally uncertain;
though from much knowledge of German courts and
a little of human nature, I think she will be happy if
at some future day she would not willingly exchange
her proud envoy for the devoted Tyrolese, and does
not sigh that she can no more bring him to her feet
with a pull of a silken string.
