Part 22 (2/2)
The Bills for the Gratuitous Distribution of Lollipops, for the Wednesday and Sat.u.r.day Whole Holidays, and for the Total Abolition of Latin Grammar, followed as a matter of course. The minds of the infant electors were thus thoroughly enlisted on the Chancellor's side.
As to Moral Regeneration, that was mainly ensured by the Act for the Absolute Suppression of the Tea Trade. No man, said the Chancellor, had a right to endanger the health and happiness of his posterity by the pernicious habit of tea-drinking. Alcohol they had suppressed, and tobacco they had suppressed; but tea still remained a plague-spot in their midst. It had been proved that tea and coffee contained poisonous alkaloid principles, known as theine and caffeine (here the Chancellor displayed the full extent of his chemical learning), which were all but absolutely identical with the poisonous principles of opium, prussic acid, and atheistical literature generally. It might be said that this Bill endangered the liberty of the subject. No man had a greater respect for the liberty of the subject than he had; he adored, he idolized, he honoured with absolute apotheosis the liberty of the subject; but in what did it consist? Not, a.s.suredly, in the right to imbibe a venomous drug, which polluted the stream of life for future generations, and was more productive of manifold diseases than even vaccination itself.
”Tea,” cried the orator pa.s.sionately, raising his voice till the fresh whitewash on the ceiling of the Council Chamber trembled with sympathetic emotion; ”Tea, forsooth! Call it rather strychnine! Call it a.r.s.enic! Call it the deadly Upas-tree of Java (_Antiaris toxicaria_, Linnaeus)”--what prodigious learning!--”which poisons with its fatal breath whoever ventures to pa.s.s beneath its baleful shadow! I see it driving out of the field the harmless chocolate of our forefathers; I see it forcing its way into the earliest meal of morning, and the latest meal of eve. I see it now once more swarming over the Pyrenees from France, with Paris fas.h.i.+ons and bad romances, to desecrate the sacred hour of five o'clock with its newfangled presence. The infant in arms finds it rendered palatable to his tender years by the insidious addition of copious milk and sugar; the hallowed reverence of age forgets itself in disgraceful excesses at the refreshment-room of railway stations. This is the ubiquitous pest which distils its venom into every s.e.x and every age! This is the enchanted chalice of the Cathaian Circe which I ask you to repel to-day from the lips of the young, the pure, and the virtuous!”
It was an able and eloquent effort; but even the Chancellor's powers were all but overtasked in so hard a struggle against ignorance and prejudice. Unhappily, several of the members were themselves secretly addicted to that cup of five o'clock tea to which Don Pedro so feelingly alluded. In the end, however, by taking advantage of the temporary absence of three senators, who had gone to indulge their favourite vice at home, the Bill triumphantly pa.s.sed its third reading by an overwhelming majority of chocolate drinkers, and became forthwith the law of the Holy Roman Empire.
Meanwhile Don Carlos Montillado had crossed the stormy seas in safety, and arrived by special mule at the city of Andorra. He took up his quarters at the Guatemalan Emba.s.sy, and immediately sent his card to the Empress and the Chancellor, requesting the honour of an early interview.
The Empress at once despatched a note requesting Don Carlos to present himself without delay in the private drawing-room of the Palace. The happy lover and amba.s.sador flew to her side, and for half an hour the pair enjoyed the delicious Paradise of a mutual attachment. At the end of that period Don Pedro presented himself at the door.
”Your Majesty,” he exclaimed in a tone of surprise, ”this is a most irregular proceeding. His Excellency the Guatemalan Amba.s.sador should have called in the first instance upon the Imperial Chancellor.”
”Prince,” replied the Empress firmly, ”I refuse to give you audience at present. I am engaged on private business--on _strictly_ private business--with his Excellency.”
”Excuse me,” said the Chancellor blandly, ”but I must a.s.sure your Majesty----”
”Leave the room, Prince,” said the Empress, with an impatient gesture.
”Leave the room at once!”
”Leave the room, fellow, when a lady speaks to you,” cried the impetuous young Guatemalan, drawing his sword, and pus.h.i.+ng Don Pedro bodily out of the door.
The die was cast. The Rubicon was crossed. Don Pedro determined on a counter-revolution, and waited for his revenge. Nor had he long to wait.
Half an hour later, as Don Carlos was pa.s.sing out of the Palace on his way home to dress for dinner, six stout constables seized him by the arms, handcuffed him on the spot, and dragged him off to the Imperial prison. ”At the suit of his Excellency the Chancellor,” they said in explanation, and hurried him away without another word.
The Empress was furious. ”How dare you?” she shrieked to Don Pedro.
”What right have you to imprison him--the accredited representative of a Foreign Power?”
”Excuse me,” answered Don Pedro, in his smoothest tone. ”Article 39 of the Penal Code enacts that the person of the Chancellor is sacred, and that any individual who violently a.s.saults him, with arms in hand, may be immediately committed to prison without trial, by her Majesty's command. Article 40 further provides that Foreign Amba.s.sadors and other privileged persons are not exempt from the penalties of the previous Article.”
”But, sir,” cried the angry little Empress (she was too excited now to remember that Don Pedro was a Prince), ”I never gave any command to have Don Carlos imprisoned. Release him at once, I tell you.”
”Your Majesty forgets,” replied the Chancellor quietly, ”that by Article I of the Const.i.tution the Sovereign reigns but does not govern. The prerogative is solely exercised through the Chancellor. _L'etat, c'est moi!_” And he struck an att.i.tude.
”So you refuse to let him out!” said the Empress. ”Mayn't I marry who I like? Mayn't I even settle who shall be my own visitors?”
”Certainly not, your Majesty, if the interests of the State demand that it should be otherwise.”
”Then I'll resign,” shrieked out the poor little Empress, with a burst of tears. ”I'll withdraw. I'll retire. I'll abdicate.”
”By all means,” said the Chancellor coolly. ”We can easily find another Sovereign quite as good.”
The shrewd little ex-actress looked hard into Don Pedro's face. She was an adept in the art of reading emotions, and she saw at once what Don Pedro really wished. In a moment she had changed front, and stood up once more every inch an Empress. ”No, I won't!” she cried; ”I see you would be glad to get rid of me, and I shall stop here to baffle and thwart you; and I shall marry Carlos; and we shall fight it out to the bitter end.” So saying, she darted out of the room, red-eyed but majestic, and banged the door after her with a slam as she went.
Henceforward it was open war between them. Don Pedro did not dare to depose the Empress, who had still a considerable body of partisans amongst the Andorran people; but he resolutely refused to release the Guatemalan legate, and decided to accept hostilities with the Central American Republic, in order to divert the minds of the populace from internal politics. If he returned home from the campaign as a successful commander, he did not doubt that he would find himself sufficiently powerful to throw off the mask, and to a.s.sume the Imperial purple in name as well as in reality.
Accordingly, before the Guatemalan President could receive the news of his son's imprisonment, Don Pedro resolved to prepare for war. His first care was to strengthen the naval resources of his country. The Opposition--that is to say, the Empress's party--objected that Andorra had no seaboard. But Don Pedro at once overruled that objection, by dint of several parallel instances. The Province of Upper Canada (now Ontario, added the careful historical student) had no seaboard, yet the Canadians placed numerous gunboats on the great lakes during the war of 1812. (What research!) Again, the Nile, the Indus, the Ganges, and many other great rivers had been the scene of important naval engagements as early as B.C. 1082, which he could show from the evidence of papyri now preserved in the British Museum. (What universal knowledge!) The objection was frivolous. But, answered the Opposition, Andorra has neither lakes nor navigable rivers. This, Don Pedro considered, was mere hair-splitting. Perhaps they would tell him next it had no gutters or water-b.u.t.ts. Besides, we must accommodate ourselves to the environment.
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