CHAPTER XXV. - COUNTESS MARY WALEWSKA.

News of the highest importance reached Castle Finkenstein, where Napoleon had been residing since the battle of Eylau. Dantzic had fallen. It had been compelled to surrender, with its immense matériel and supplies. In vain had been the heroic defence of the garrison, the energy of General Kalkreuth, commander of the fortress, the ardor and courage of the soldiers, the unflagging self-abnegation of the citizens; in vain, the bloodshed, the mutilated limbs, the destruction of property! Lefebvre, the French general, had drawn the circle of his besieging forces closer around the devoted city, and fresh troops poured into his ranks, while every day the garrison was becoming weaker. Only the most vigorous succor could have saved Dantzic. General Kalkreuth had long hoped for it. England, now the ally of Russia and Prussia, had promised aid, and equipped a sloop-of-war of twenty-two guns, to force the blockade, convey ammunition into the city, and destroy the pontoon-bridge of the French; but the sloop stranded, and had to surrender. The Russians, too, had promised assistance to the city. Seven thousand embarked at Pillau, and landed at Weichselmünde; but there they were attacked by Oudinot, who captured nearly one-half, and dispersed the rest.

The last hopes of Dantzic were gone; there was no relief. Lefebvre ordered a bombardment, and then sent a flag of truce to General Kalkreuth, informing him that he would take the city by assault if the fortress did not surrender. General Kalkreuth gazed mournfully at the stranded British sloop-of-war, and, pointing it out to his officers, who surrounded him in gloomy silence, said, "That is the tombstone of Dantzic!" He then sent for the bearer of the flag of truce, and the negotiations commenced. In the mean time, shells and red-hot shot were poured into the city, killing alike the soldiers on the ramparts and the citizens in their dwellings. Lamentations and shrieks, the roar of artillery, the uninterrupted peals of the tocsin, calling out the inhabitants, mingled with the crash of the falling houses, and the wails of the wounded and dying.

General Kalkreuth pitied the city; he was unwilling to add the horrors of an assault to the agony it had already undergone. He signed the capitulation, but claimed for the garrison liberty to march out without being made prisoners of war, and the surrender of their arms. Lefebvre granted these conditions, but insisted that the Prussian troops should not engage to serve against France before the expiration of a year. General Kalkreuth accepted this clause, and the gates of Dantzic opened to the French conqueror on the 24th of May, 1807.

The Emperor Napoleon received the news of this great victory at Castle Finkenstein, not far from Tilsit. His face brightened, and he immediately sent a courier to Marshal Lefebvre, to invite him to pay him a visit at the castle. But the joy of the emperor soon disappeared. His generals, intimate friends, and servants, endeavored to cheer him. They tried all the arts of eloquence and flattery to dispel his sadness. Talleyrand attempted to amuse him by reciting, with charming médisance and pointed humor, passages from the rich stores of his memoirs, and by relating, with Attic wit, the story of his first love, which had bequeathed to him a lame foot as a remembrancer. Lannes, with the blunt humor of a true soldier, told stories of his campaigns. Duroc smilingly reminded the emperor of many an adventure they had had in Paris, when, in plain gray coats, and hats drawn over their eyes, they had wandered through the streets of the capital, to ascertain the disposition of the people, and received many a rebuke on daring to abuse Napoleon. It is true, the emperor was amused on hearing such anecdotes, but his momentary laughter revealed more vividly his dark and stormy temper.

To-day the generals resorted to another method also of amusing him. They proposed cards. He agreed, and they commenced a game of vingt-et-un. Formerly, the emperor, on playing, had always been in excellent spirits, and did not disdain even to cheat a little, frequently concealing a card or two. But now he played gravely and honestly, and the consequence was that he lost. Throwing the cards indignantly aside, and greeting the marshals with a silent nod, he crossed the room with hasty steps, and retired to his cabinet.

"He has not yet forgotten the affair of Eylau," grumbled Marshal Lannes. "It is true, we boasted of our victory there, and ordered a Te Deum to be sung, but he knows very well how things stood, and feels badly because the Emperor of Russia also had a Te Deum sung."

"I do not believe, Marshal, that that is the cause of the emperor's grief," said Talleyrand, shrugging his shoulders. "Napoleon is not in the habit of mourning for past events, but a failure incites him to renewed exertions, and inspires his genius to perform fresh and daring exploits. Although the lion for once may have seen his prey slip from his grasp, it does not render him dispirited. He only shakes his mane, and crouches for a new bound."

"Then you believe, M. Minister, that the emperor is planning another battle?" joyfully asked Lannes.

"I am convinced of it, but do not believe that to be the reason of his ill-humor. The furrows on his brow express his sorrow for the death of young Napoleon—his little nephew—the grandson of the empress!"

"Ah, bah!" exclaimed Lannes, "it would really be worth while for a great chieftain to mourn for a child eight years of age!"

"He does not mourn for the child, but for the successor," said Talleyrand. "You know, the son of his brother Louis and his stepdaughter Hortense was to be his heir—the future Emperor of France. You see how difficult it is to say in advance who is to be the heir of a throne. Some accident—a brick falling from a roof, an attack of the measles, a contemptible cough—may bring about the ruin of dynasties and the rise of new ones. The hopes of Josephine have been buried with young Napoleon Louis. Poor empress! her downfall is inevitable, for the emperor must think henceforth of an heir—of a legitimate union. Alas! how many tears will that cost poor Josephine's heart!"

"I am sure, Prince de Benevento, when you deplore the fate of the empress, you suggest great sufferings for her. But we know the subtle diplomacy of the minister who says that language was given for the sole purpose of concealing our thoughts. Hence, prince, I am in the habit of believing exactly the reverse of what you say. You are sure to overthrow Josephine and have already selected her successor. Tell us who is she? Upon whom do you intend to confer the honor of giving an heir to the emperor?"

"Let us rather put this question to our taciturn friend Duroc," said Talleyrand, softly laying his hand on the shoulder of the grand marshal, who was standing in front of them with folded arms. "Please take notice that the grand marshal has not added a single word to our conversation—that he has listened calmly to our suppositions about the emperor's melancholy, and has not assisted us in ferreting out the truth. It is evident, therefore, that he is aware of it, and that it does not affect him painfully. Pray tell us, grand marshal, who is right—the Duke de Montebello or myself?"

"Perhaps, prince, both of you are mistaken," said Duroc, "and perhaps, again, both of you are right. Who is able to fathom the thoughts and secrets—but I believe the emperor is calling me!" And he approached the door of the imperial cabinet and listened.

"Duroc!" cried the emperor, "Duroc!"

The grand marshal took leave of the two gentlemen with a careless bow and hastened away. Napoleon sat on an easy-chair at the open window, supporting his head on his hand, and gazing out on the landscape. He seemed to have entirely forgotten that he had called the grand marshal, and did not even notice the latter after he had entered. An air of profound sadness was depicted in his features.

"Your majesty called me," said Duroc, approaching.

Napoleon started and turned his head slowly toward the grand marshal. "It is true," he said, "I called you, Duroc. I was ungracious, and left you without saying a kind word to you. I am sorry. You may repeat my words to the other two princes." He gave his small white hand to Duroc, who pressed it against his breast with an expression of tenderness. "I thank your majesty for this fresh proof of your magnanimity," he said, "and shall communicate it to the other two princes."

He was about to withdraw, but the emperor detained him. "Tell me, first, Duroc, whether they were very angry with me? Did old Lannes grumble? Did Talleyrand comment in his usual manner?"

"Oh, sire!" exclaimed Duroc, reproachfully, "all three of us were filled only with grief; we were considering what might be the cause of your majesty's melancholy."

"Well, and what did you guess? and what Lannes?"

"He believed your majesty was striving to crown the battle of Eylau with a brilliant victory, and that you were planning a new battle."

"He is right," exclaimed Napoleon, energetically. "We are not yet at the end of our struggle, and the brave men who were buried under the snow of Eylau must be avenged. I shall soon bid the sun of Austerlitz and Jena shine on the plains of Prussia, and dazzle the eyes of the Emperor of Russia. I will bring him to his knees and make him cry 'Pater peccavi!' I will show him what it is to menace me; and when I unfurl my banner on the Kremlin of Moscow, Alexander shall bear the train of my purple cloak. The world belongs to me! Woe unto him who stands in my way—I will crush him as the elephant crushes the worm! Lannes is right; I am planning a new battle. But it is not this that makes me sad. What did Talleyrand say—Talleyrand, Prince de Benevento, with the keen nose and the impenetrable smile?"

"Talleyrand said it was not the planning of future battles, but that you were mourning for the little son of the King of Holland."

"Ah, indeed, Talleyrand is not altogether mistaken," exclaimed Napoleon, heaving a sigh; "my heart is mourning for young Napoleon. He was my darling, and I had accustomed myself to regard him as my heir. He was blood of my blood, and there was something shining in his eyes that seemed to me to be a beam of my own mind. I loved the boy. And now—what did Talleyrand say besides, Duroc?" asked Napoleon, interrupting himself. "You are silent. Be frank; I want to know it all!"

"Sire," said Duroc, timidly, "the Prince de Benevento lamented the fate of the empress, for he believes the death of little Prince Napoleon Louis to be a mournful—nay, a fatal event for her, inasmuch as your majesty would now be under the necessity of having a successor to the noble and adored Empress Josephine, and an heir-apparent to your empire."

"And he was impudent enough to lament her fate!" exclaimed Napoleon, "he who has striven for years to overthrow her—he who always united with my family to prove to me the right of disowning her. Ah, poor dear Josephine! I ought never to have thought of listening to their insinuations; I was hitherto her most faithful defender, for I love her, and know that she is a sincere friend."

"An empress, sire," said Duroc, "who would be an ornament to any throne, and whose grace, amiability, and kind-heartedness, have won as many subjects for your majesty as your battles. Sire, all France loves and worships the Empress Josephine; all France would weep with her if her enemies succeed in removing her from her throne, and from the side of her adored husband, and the tears and imprecations of a whole people would be the festive welcome with which France would receive a new empress!"

"You paint in very glaring colors," exclaimed Napoleon, gloomily, "but, then, I know you to be one of Josephine's admirers. She is really a good wife, and I never had room for complaint. But for one consideration, I should never think of separating from her. Fate is against her, and I am afraid it will compel me—ah, let us not dare to pry into the future. Let us rather attend to the present. You have told me the suppositions of Lannes and Talleyrand, but not your own. What did you say?" He looked at Duroc with his eagle eyes, and repeated, "What did you say?"

"Sire," replied Duroc, "I said nothing."

"You said nothing, because you know what ails me," said Napoleon, vehemently, "because you can fathom the pain, the anger, and grief of my heart!"

He rose from his easy-chair, and paced the room, with his arms behind him. "Duroc," he said, after a long pause, and in a husky, tremulous voice, "is it not a disgrace that this should happen? The world is bowing to me, and recognizing me as its master, and a woman dares resist me—a fair, delicate little creature that I could crush, as it were, in my hands—that an angry breath from my mouth could destroy as a lily in the blast of the desert. Duroc, she dares resist me, and opposes a cold, stubborn silence to my request—nay, to my fervent supplications!"

"Sire, she is married," said Duroc, timidly, "she is married, and—"

"She is married to a husband whom she does not—cannot love," exclaimed Napoleon, impetuously. "He is a white-haired old man—a man of sixty years, to whom her parents have sold her!"

"But her husband is said to love his beautiful wife passionately."

"Let him dare molest her with his love," exclaimed Napoleon, menacingly; "let him touch only with the tip of his finger this flower that I myself would have! She has not deserved the sorry fate of withering at the side of a decrepit old man; she serves to bloom at the heart of an emperor! Oh, how beautiful she is! When I saw her, for the first time, at the ball in Warsaw, I fell in love with her, and felt that I must possess her. Her light-colored hair was shining about her noble head like a halo; heaven seemed to be reflected in her azure eyes, and the tinge of melancholy shading her face rendered her still more charming and seductive. She was an innocent victim of the selfishness of others; I perceived it at a glance, and have loved her ever since. I took a secret oath to rescue her from her misery, and, by my love, to restore happiness to her! And yet she disdains me, Duroc!"

"No, sire, she does not disdain the exalted lover whom she worships; she is not, however, a flirt, but a virtuous wife. She will not prove faithless to her husband; she will not break the vows she took upon herself at the altar. She is engaged in a terrible struggle between duty and love, for your majesty knows very well that Madame de Walewska loves you!"

"No, no, she does not love me," exclaimed Napoleon, vehemently. "If she really loved me, she would listen to no other voice than mine! I supplicated her with the whole strength of my affection—with all the anger of a spurned admirer, with all the humility of a doting lover, but neither my anger nor my supplications were able to move her. And yet she asserts that she loves me; she dares to say that she shares my passion! Oh, she is a cold-hearted, cruel coquette; it gladdens her to behold my sufferings, and to play with my heart!"

"Sire, you are unjust," exclaimed Duroc. "Madame de Walewska is an angel of virtue and purity; she would joyfully sacrifice her life to save your majesty a sigh!"

"But she is unwilling to sacrifice to me this chimera of virtue," exclaimed Napoleon, "although she has already disregarded it by loving me. She is not courageous enough to give up the semblance after having already parted with the substance. Like all women she is timid, and incapable of a great resolution! How many letters have I not written to her since I last saw her! After the battle of Eylau—like a miserable adventurer—a knight-errant—I went in disguise to the village where she had at length promised to meet me at her brother's house. What a wretched rendezvous it was! Nothing but a farewell scene! She desires to go into a convent, and give her heart to God, because she is not allowed to give it to me. I am no Abélard, however, and do not want her to become a Héloïse! If she goes into a convent, I shall have its walls torn down, and the order she has joined abolished."

"But she will not go into a convent, sire; love will at last triumph over her virtue, and she will finally declare herself vanquished. She promised your majesty to defer the execution of her purpose for a year, but, I am sure, she will not be strong enough to close her heart so long against the passionate entreaties of a lover whom she adores. The letters which your majesty writes to her, and which she does not refuse to accept, are like hot shells thrown into the fortress of her heart. They do a great deal of mischief."

"Forsooth, it is a consolation that she does not refuse my notes. I have sent them almost every day during two months; every week I send a courier who meets her when, escaping from the Argus-eyes of her husband, she goes to the cathedral. But I receive only laconic replies. This woman is either incapable of genuine love, or she is a demon who delights in torturing me."

"Sire, does it please your majesty to partake of this fruit?" said a gentle voice behind him.

The emperor started. Absorbed in his passion—filled with the idea now agitating his soul, he had not heard the door of the cabinet softly open, and was unaware that one of the imperial pages, holding a golden fruit-plate, had entered. Duroc also had not noticed that he was present while the emperor was still speaking, and that he must have overheard the last words of his majesty. The page leaned, pale and exhausted, against the wall near the door, and the golden plate was trembling in his hands.

Napoleon cast a glowing glance on him, and rushing toward him, snatched the plate and threw it on the floor. As the peaches rolled across the room, he seized the page's arms, and drew him toward the window. "Who are you?" he asked, scarcely able to master his emotion. "Who are you? Speak, that I may hear your voice!"

The page looked in his face, aglow with anger, and his large blue eyes filled with tears. "I am a demon who delights in torturing you," he said in a low voice.

Napoleon did not utter a word. He tore the velvet cap from the page's head, and when his long silken hair fell on his shoulders in heavy masses, a smile of unutterable bliss overspread the emperor's face. He seized the fair ringlets with his hands and kissed them; he laid them on his own head, and they covered his face like a golden veil. He then shook them off with a merry laugh, and encircled the page so violently in his arms, that he uttered a cry. "Mary, Mary," he exclaimed passionately, "you are in my arms at last—you are here! Duroc, just look at this wonderful page. Come here, and look at the angel I slandered just now!"

But Duroc did not appear. He preferred to move quietly out of the room and to lock the door after him. Napoleon, therefore, was alone with his mistress, and thanked Duroc in his heart for this discretion. He clasped the weeping and blushing lady in his arms, and tried with gentle force to remove her hands, in which she had buried her face. "Mary," he asked, in a tone of suppliant tenderness, "Mary, you weep, and yet you say you love me?"

"Yes, I do love you," she exclaimed, sinking on her knees. "I love you intensely! Ah, have mercy on me! Do not condemn me because I come hither in spite of my conscience and my honor! Napoleon, I have no longer any thing on earth but you! I have no longer a country, a family, a name! I gave up every thing for you—my life, my honor, my happiness, are yours! Remember it, and do not despise me!"

He raised her from her knees and pressed a kiss on her quivering lips. "Mary," he said, "this kiss shall have the same effect upon you as of old the gift of knighthood had on the warrior—it will impart to you a higher and more sacred life, and confer the highest honor on you! Henceforth you are mine, and shall be as immortal as myself; and when posterity mentions the name of the Emperor Napoleon, it shall at the same time remember his beautiful mistress, and repeat the name of Mary Walewska together with that of Josephine!"

"Oh," murmured Mary, "you mention the noble and generous Empress Josephine, whom I worship, and against whom I am committing a crime! May fate enable me to atone for my guilt one day by sacrificing my life for you, and proving to you and to the world that I loved you truly and faithfully."

"No, you shall live—live for me," said Napoleon, ardently; "do not complain any more, Mary; dry your beautiful eyes. Come, sit down with me and tell me how it happened that you conquered your heart, and why I see you in this disguise?" He drew her to the divan and wound his arm around her waist. She laid her head on his shoulder, and gazed up to him with dreamy eyes.

"How it happened?" she asked. "I cannot find words to tell you. I reenacted the part of Penelope. Every night I tried to fasten a coat of mail around my heart—to protect it as with a net-work of virtue and duty. But your letters were the wooers that destroyed in the day the resolutions of the night. Your complaints rent my heart; your reproaches tortured my soul. I felt at last that I was irretrievably lost—that I loved you boundlessly, and that I was anxious to prove it to you. But my husband watched me with lynx-eyed vigilance; he was constantly at my side, now threatening, in the fury of his jealousy, to assassinate me should I leave him, and now imploring me with tearful eyes to spare his honor and pity his love. I felt that I would have either to die, or renounce my married life, and enter upon a new existence—an existence of true happiness if you love me, but of suffering and self-reproach if you despise, me!"

"I love you," said Napoleon, with a proud and confident air. "Proceed."

"I have finished," she said. "My trusty lady's maid prepared every thing for my escape, and four days ago, when my husband believed me at church, I and my maid entered a travelling-coach and continued our journey day and night until we arrived at Castle Finkenstein."

"And this disguise?" asked Napoleon, pointing at the costume she was wearing.

Mary blushed and smiled. "I had it made by a tailor at Warsaw, who prepared the suits the imperial pages wore at that ball. I had not sufficient courage to enter this castle as a lady, only men living in it at the present time. I desired to enter your room without recognition or insult. I left my carriage at the neighboring village, and walked hither on foot. At the castle-gate, I inquired for Constant, your valet de chambre, and requested the servants to call him. I confided my secret to him, and he conducted me to this room. And thus, my beloved friend, I am here; I am lying at your feet, and imploring you to kill me if you do not love me, for I cannot live without your love!" She glided from the divan to the floor, and looked up to the emperor with clasped hands and imploring eyes.

Napoleon bent over her and drew her smilingly into his arms. "You shall live," he said, "for I love you and pledge you my imperial word that I will never desert you!"