Volume I Part 9 (2/2)
”Nothing easier,” said Chopard. ”I am _Maitre de Chapelle_ to the King of Westphalia.”
Villaret bowed low.
”And I am the Private Secretary and Privy Purse of his majesty.”
Villaret bowed again--a slight smile of very peculiar omen flitting across his cunning features, while, turning hastily, he whispered a word in the ear of the waiter. ”And this gentleman here?” said he, looking at Jerome, who, with his legs resting on a chair, was coolly awaiting the termination of the explanation. ”And this gentleman, if I might make so bold, what office does he hold in his Majesty's service?”
”I am the King of Westphalia!” said Jerome.
”Just as I suspected. Francois,” said the landlord insolently, ”go fetch the gendarmes.”
”No, no, _parbleu!_” said Jerome, springing up in alarm; ”no gendarmes, no police. Here, take my watch--that is surely worth more than your bill? When I reach home I'll send the money.”
The landlord, more than ever convinced that his suspicions were well grounded, took the watch, which was a very handsome one, and suffered them to depart in peace.
They had not been gone many minutes when, on examining the watch, the landlord perceived that it bore the emblematic ”N” of the Emperor within the case, and at once suspecting that it had been stolen from some member of the imperial household, he hurried off in terror to communicate his fears to the commissary of police. This functionary no sooner saw it that he hastened to Fouche, the minister, who, making himself acquainted with the whole details, immediately hurried off to the Tuileries and laid it all before the Emperor. The watch had been a present from Napoleon to Jerome; but this was but a small part of the cause of indignation. The derogation from dignity, the sacrifice of the regard due to his station, were crimes of a very different order; and, summoned to the imperial presence, the new-made king was made to hear, in terms of reproachful sarcasm, a lesson in his craft that few could impart with such cutting severity.
As for the _Maitre de Chapelle_ and the Secretary, an agent of the police waited on each before they were well awake, with strict injunctions to them to maintain a perfect secrecy on the whole affair; and while guaranteeing them an annual pension in their new offices, a.s.suring them that the slightest indiscretion as to the mystery would involve their ruin and their exile from France for ever.
It was years before the landlord learned the real secret of the adventure, and, in commemoration of it, called his house ”Le Cafe du Roi,” a circ.u.mstance which the Government never noticed, for the campaign of Russia and the events of 1812-13 left little time to attend to matters of this calibre.
The Cafe du Roi is now a shop where artificial flowers are sold; as nearly like nature perhaps, or more so, than poor Jerome's royalty resembled the real article.
CHAPTER VII.
Baden-Baden. It is like a dream to me now to think of that long, dusty road from Paris, with its rattling pavement, its noisy postilions, shouting ostlers, bowing landlords, dirty waiters, garlic diet, and hard beds; and here I sit by my open window, with a bright river beneath my feet, the song of birds on every side, a richly wooded mountain in front, and at the foot a winding road, which ever and anon gives glimpses of some pa.s.sing equipage, bright in all the b.u.t.terfly glitter of female dress, or, mayhap, resounding with merry laughter and sweet-voiced mirth. How brilliant is every thing!--the cloudless sky, the sparkling water, the emerald gra.s.s, the foliage in every tint of beauty, the orange-trees and the cactus along the terraces, where lounging parties come and go; and then the measured step of princely equipages, in all the panoply of tasteful wealth! Truly, Vice wears its holiday suit in Baden, and the fairness of this lovely valley seems to throw a softened light over a scene where, as in a sea, the stormy waves of every bad pa.s.sion are warring.
When, in all the buoyant glow of youth and health, I remembered feeling shocked, as I strolled through the promenade at Carlsbad, at the sight of so many painful objects of sickness and suffering; the eager, almost agonising, expressions of hoping convalescence; the l.u.s.treless stare of those past hope; the changeful looks of accompanying friends, who seemed to read the fate of some dear one in the compa.s.sionate pity of those who pa.s.sed, were all sights that threw a chill, like death, over the warm current of my blood. Yet never did this feeling convey the same intense horror and disgust that I felt last night as I walked through the Cursaal.
To pa.s.s from the mellow moonlight, dappling the pathway among the trees and kissing the rippling stream, from the calm, mild air of a summer's night, when every leaf lay sleeping and none save the nightingale kept watch, into the glare and glitter of a gilded saloon, is somewhat trying to the jarred nerves of sickness. But what was it to the sight of that dense crowd around the play-table, where avarice, greed of gain, recklessness, and despair are mingled, giving, even to faces of manly vigour and openness, expressions of low cunning and vulgar meaning?
There is a terrible sameness in the gambler's look, a blending of slavish terror with a resolution to brave the worst, almost demoniacal in its fierceness. I knew most of the persons present; I need not say, not personally, but from having seen them before at various other similar places. Many were professed gamblers, men who starved and suffered for the enjoyment of that one pa.s.sion, living on the smallest gain, and never venturing a stake beyond what daily life demanded; haggard, sad, wretched-looking creatures they were, the abject poverty of their dress and appearance vouching that this _metier_ was not a prosperous one. Others farmed out their talents, and played for those who were novices. These men have a singular existence; they exact a mere per-centage on the winning, and are in great request among elderly ladies, whose pa.s.sion for play is modified by the fears of its vicissitudes. Then there were the usual sprinkling of young men, not habitually gamblers, but always glad to have the opportunity of tempting Fortune, with here and there some old votary of the ”table” satisfied to witness the changeful temper of the game without risking a stake.
Into many vices men are led by observing the apparent happiness and pleasure of others who indulge in them. Not so with regard to play.
No man ever became a gambler from this delusion, there being no such terrible warning against the pa.s.sion as the very looks of its votaries.
But it is not in such a low _tripot_ of vice I care to linger. It was a ball-night, and I turned with a sense of relief from the aspect of sordid, vulgar iniquity, to gaze on its more polished brother (_quore_, sister?) in the _salle de danse_.
Here there was a large--I might almost call it a brilliant--company a.s.sembled: a less exclusive a.s.semblage cannot be conceived; five francs and clean gloves being the only qualification needed. The guests were as varied, too, in nation as in rank. About equal numbers of German and French, several Russians, and a large proportion of English, with, here and there, a bilious-looking American, or a very dubious Marquis from beyond the Alps. Many of the men I knew to be swindlers and blacklegs of the very lowest stamp; some others I recognised as persons of the highest station in my own country. Of the lady part of the company the disparities were even greater.
There was, it is true, a species of sifting process discernible, by which the various individuals fell among those of their own order; but though this was practicable enough where conversation and grouping were concerned, it was scarcely attainable in other circ.u.mstances, and thus, the Mazurka and the Polka a.s.sembled ingredients that should never have been placed in close propinquity.
The demoralising influence of such _reunions_ upon the daughters of our own land need not be insisted upon. Purity of mind and simplicity of character are no safeguard against the scenes which, in all the propriety of decorum, are ever occurring. And how terribly rapid are the downward steps when the first bloom and blush of modesty have faded! It demands but a very indifferent power of observation to distinguish the English girl for the first time abroad from her who has made repeated visits to foreign watering-places; while even among those who have been habituated to the great world at home, and pa.s.sed the ordeal of London seasons, there is yet much to learn in the way of cool and self-possessed effrontery, from the habits of Baden and its brethren.
I was dreadfully shocked last night by meeting one I had not seen for many years before. How changed from what I knew her once!--what a terrible change! When first I saw her, it was during a visit I made to her mother's house in Wales; her brother was an Oxford friend, and brought me down with him for the shooting season to Merioneths.h.i.+re.
Poor fellow! he died of consumption at two-and-twenty, and left all he possessed--a handsome estate--to his only sister. Hence all her misery!
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