THREE ACTS AND AN EPILOGUE.
played at Merchant Tailors’, 1678.
ACT I.
“Balthazar,” said a fine-looking lad in the prison of Orléans, “you are a brute!”
By way of reply to this testimonial to character, the gaoler struck the boy with his heavy bunch of keys on the head. The blow sent young Edmond staggering against the wall. He recovered himself, however, and dauntlessly repeated—
“Balthazar, you are nothing better than a brute!”
And Edmond Thierry was right. Balthazar was not only a brutal gaoler, but he took delight in his vocation. He had abandoned the honest calling of a “marbrier,” to take upon him the duties of guarding the victims whom Republican suspicion had consigned to captivity, and whom it destined to death. There is no doubt but that Balthazar was a brute.
But brute as he was, his prisoners despised him. They endured, but they defied him. His hand might smite, but his ferocity could not subdue them. They would be happy, and their determination only rendered him the more ferocious. From the old Briton gentleman, Pantin de la Guerre, to little Edmond Thierry, there was not one whom he would not daily cuff, and cuff all the harder from the conviction that they dared not, for their lives, strike again an officer of the Republic, one and indivisible.
Balthazar then was incontestably a brute; and young Thierry had just told him so, for the third time, when the youthful Madame de Charry opened the door of her cell and entered the gallery. The latter was secured at either end by an iron grating, which was always locked; but the cells themselves, twelve in number, with three or four occupants in each, were barred and fastened only at night. The “citizens” inhabiting them were untried aristocrats; and until the law condemned them to death, they were allowed the liberty of an obscure gallery, from which they could not by any means escape to freedom.
The proud beauty who, albeit so young, had been some months a widow, was passing on her way to an adjacent cell, but she paused for an instant to kiss young Edmond on the brow, and to address some words of remonstrance to Balthazar touching his treatment of the little King of the Gallery, as Thierry was called.
“May our holy mother the guillotine hug him as she did our other king, Capet!” said Balthazar. “The little reptile taunted me, because his father has escaped from Amiens and reached England; and he refused, moreover, to carry the pretty message I gave him from the public accuser, and addressed to you, citoyenne.”
The boy’s eyes filled with tears. They sprang, like the twin fountains of Benasji, from a divided source. Joy sent them gushing at the thought of his father’s escape; and sorrow paid its tribute at the peril which was then threatening his good friend, Madame de Charry.
That lady loosened her bracelet, readjusted it on her marble arm, and asked, as she did so, what the public accuser could possibly have to say to her.
“Ah! ah!” roared Balthazar, the brute; “he invites you to honour the tribunal with your presence tonight; and the faucheuse with the broad knife will send you an invitation to another party tomorrow.”
“Be it so,” said the young beauty, without apparent emotion. “In the meantime, vive le Roi! And now, my little King Edmond, let us leave citizen Balthazar to his reflections, and come with me to the soirée of Madame de Bohun.”
“They will cut off your head!” cried Balthazar, with a candour meant for cruelty.
“They!” said the lady, with great sweetness; “not if they are gallant gentlemen. They will be the very canaille of butchers indeed, if they strike off so pretty a head as mine: n’est-ce pas, mon roi?” said she to Edmond.
But the boy’s heart was too full to answer, for he loved the charming Stoic of Orléans. His courage, however, was not buried beneath his emotion; for as he entered the cell of the Countess de Bohun, he turned and gave the huge Balthazar a kick on the right shin, which made the tall savage turn pale. The giant vowed vengeance at a better opportunity, and he limped away to his kennel, cursing the authorities for keeping alive a Royalist child at the expense of the Republic, and for the particular annoyance of their own citoyen officiel.
It was a singular world that, which Balthazar held in durance within his stronghold of Orléans. It was an aristocratic, pleasure-seeking world: within one confined gallery all the pomps and vanities of the earth,—all the weaknesses of nature,—all the vices and some of the virtues of humanity reigned triumphant. The sword of Damocles hung over every head, but the symbol was taken for the oriflamme of pleasure. The fashions and pursuits of the old world were not forgotten within the prison walls. The rich arranged their domiciles with as much care and anxiety as though the boudoirs they fitted up in their dungeons were taken for a fixed term of years, instead of an uncertain tenure of minutes. Fashion had its rigid laws, Etiquette was enshrined, and Ennui denounced. The duties, dresses, and pleasures of the day were distinctly defined; and the duties generally consisted in getting ready the dresses for the better enjoyment of the pleasures. The separation of castes was rigorously observed, and common misfortune was not permitted to level ranks; the noble captive might be courteous to the commoner in captivity, but he would not associate with him. The wife of a noble would not visit the cell which contained the spouse of a professional man. During the day visits were not only regularly made between parties of the same degree, but were punctually returned; else discord arose thereat. Contests at chess, trials at cards, games at forfeits, shuttlecock, and ball, were matters of daily occurrence during the days, weeks, or months that preceded condemnation or enlargement. The high-caste nobility got up pic-nic dinners amongst themselves. Those who were of the very top cream of even that high caste found tea for large parties. Music was no rarity; singing awoke the echoes of every cell. In short, the habits, customs, manners, morals, frivolities, fashions, and virtues of the upper classes were openly practised. The greatest care was exhibited in matters of toilet. As republican simplicity grew more republican and more simple without, aristocratic fashions waxed more royal and more sumptuous within. A head after the fashion of Brutus, was never seen upon noble shoulders. Among the ladies there was a mania for flowers, feathers, and many-coloured ribbons. Some wore their own hair, and some wore wigs, but in either case the hair was curled and powdered, and the fair wearer was rouged, Spanish-whitened (where blanc d’Espagne was to be procured), pencilled, and plastered into all the beauty that could be achieved by burying her own beneath poisonous paint, black-lead, and adhesive mouches.
At Orléans the necessity for some change of air, and for taking some exercise, caused the younger people, on certain days of the week, when permitted, to have recourse to the vast courtyard of the prison. Fashion here reigned as she had been wont to do at the Tuileries. Here were given concerts al fresco; and les graces became the favourite game of the hour. It even occasionally happened—for Love, like Virtue, will make his way into strange places—that affections were aroused, and attachments between young hearts worthy of a purer locality sprang up, throwing a charm over the wearisomeness of captivity. Death stood on permanent guard, looking over the wall of that vast prison; and his gaunt, long arm often plunged into the crowd below, and dragged up a victim. But each individual there, caring little for the teaching of the past or the prospects of the future, endured and yet forgot everything. Each considered every fellow-captive exposed to death, but none was without hope for himself. Like the selfish Neapolitans, who, when they see a neighbour borne to the grave, shrug their shoulders, and cry, “Salute a noi!” so did the Orléans prisoners, on losing an old companion, bury sympathy for the departed in congratulations at their own escape.
It was early in a summer’s afternoon when Madame de Charry, with Edmond, entered the cell whose oldest occupant and recognized proprietor was the Countess de Bohun, a lady who had once borne the honoured name of De Girardin. A large party was assembled, and, save the locality, the hour, and the absence of lights, there was little to distinguish it from a party in the Chaussée d’Antin. Some were at cards, some were looking at pictures, some were circulating scandal, and a few were sipping eau sucrée, heightened as to flavour with a little capillaire. François Vouillet, the son of a chair-mender, was there playing the guitar. His poverty had not saved him from the suspicion of holding aristocratic opinions, nor had his misfortune procured for him any commiseration from the aristocrats. He attended among them as a hired musician, and he played for the dinner which he could not purchase. The appearance of the new-comers interrupted the song, for a shout of Vive le Roi hailed the arrival of Edmond, and the most courteous welcomings that of his companion. M. de Bohun, who was attired in a flannel dressing-gown, and the only individual in the cell not in full dress, advanced to Madame de Charry and gallantly kissed her on the brow.
“You are becoming Republican in your tastes,” said that exquisite lady, as she pointed to the flannel robe de chambre.
“Madame,” said the Count, laughing, “I am twice as aristocratic as the Prince de Ligne, the very quintessence of a knight and a nobleman. It is not two years since we visited him at Vienna, and he received the Countess and myself in no other dress than his shirt.”
“Oh!” exclaimed all the ladies at once.
“It is true,” exclaimed Madame de Bohun, corroboratively, “and yet short of the truth: he had one arm withdrawn from the sleeve, and within it he took my own, and led me into the apartment of his young daughter-in-law.”
It was within an hour of the evening period for locking up, when the wife of Balthazar entered the room with but scant attention to ceremony, and telling Edmond as she passed him, that she had just well-beaten her husband for his cruelty towards the “little king” of the prison, she advanced towards Madame de Charry and whispered something in her ear. With all her courage, the fair creature slightly trembled; but she arose, begged the Chevalier Fabien to play out her cards, and promised speedily to return. An inquiring look was directed to her by all the company, but she gave it no reply, either by word or gesture. She left the cell, accompanied by the gaoler’s wife, and followed by Edmond. The latter, in speechless fear, saw her descend to the courtyard between two gendarmes. The wicket was locked upon him, but from the window he beheld her rudely pushed into a building in which the revolutionary tribunal was wont to hold its bloody sittings.
The “little king” burst into tears, a weakness of which he became half-ashamed when he felt the arm of the gaoler’s wife passed round his neck, and heard words of condolence fall from the lips of the subduer of the prison tyrant.
From this period they stood in utter silence for a quarter of an hour, at the end of which time they saw Madame de Charry brought out from the building and made to enter a cart, which was driven and backed up to the steps expressly to receive her. At the sound of a broken glass and a boy’s scream, her face, pale and dignified, was turned to the window, through which Edmond had thrust his head. She smiled the sweet smile of a dying saint, and the radiancy of a martyr seemed to glow around her as she pointed to heaven, and with her eyes still fixed on the boy, uttered the words, “Espérance! Adieu!” In another moment the cart received two more victims, and, with its load of courageous misery, soon after disappeared beneath the archway that led to the exterior of the prison. Before the chimes of the cathedral had struck the next quarter, three lives had been sacrificed, and Monsieur de Fabien had just won the game with his cousin’s cards.
“Citizen Fabien!” roared the voice of Balthazar at the door of the cell.
“May I not speak a word with Madame de Charry before you lock us up for the night?” said the Chevalier.
“The Citoyenne Charry has been dead these ten minutes,” answered the brute with his usual bluntness, “and Citizen Fabien will never be locked up here again.”
“Bah!” said the Chevalier, who not only felt sick, but looked so.
“The authorities are at the door, ready to read to you the decree which discharges you from custody. The tribunal is growing tender; it has demanded but three lives today. It sees no ground for accusing you, and it has ordered the Citizen Edmond Thierry to find his way to his father,—if he can. The ungrateful villain nearly threw me on my back as I opened the wicket to set him free.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said De Fabien, who suddenly recovered both his courage and his colour, “I wish you a good night, and luck like mine. I am now eligible to the bals à la guillotine, for I have had a relative who has been beheaded.”
“Poor Madame de Charry!” exclaimed the sympathetic ladies, as the tears ran down their cheeks with laughing at the Chevalier’s drollery.
“Poor me!” said M. de Bohun, “for now Edmond is gone, who will sew on a button for me, or mend a rent in my clothes?”
ACT II.
The Dean of St. Patrick’s has immortalized an Irish festival of the eighteenth century, by declaring that
Some such memories will cling for ever about the last of the great European Congresses,—that of Vienna. It will be a costly reminiscence for Europe as long as the world endures; and no one is likely to forget the assembly of monarchs and statesmen who, after arranging the affairs of the universe, amused themselves by enacting the French vaudeville of ‘La Danse Interrompue,’ and, in the very middle of that ominously-named piece, received intelligence that Napoleon had escaped from Elba, and had thus interrupted their dance indeed.
Among the most useful of the personages who figured at Vienna during the celebrated period of 1814-15 there was none whose utility could be compared with that of a gay and generous young Frenchman, who was known by the sobriquet of “the King of Good Fellows.” He did not serve much, it is true, for the furtherance of political purposes; but he was always indispensable, and never missing, when a ball, a masquerade, a concert, or a pic-nic was in question, and some difficulty opposed its successful accomplishment. Little was known of him, save that he had been attached to the French Legation at Lisbon; but whispers were circulated to the effect that in the days of the exile of the French nobility, he had earned a livelihood in London by application of the needle, while it was more loudly asserted that he had given lessons on the guitar in the English capital, and that he and his father had played duets, under the patronage of Banti, at the Pantheon. Two or three out of the dozen of Talleyrand’s discreet secretaries confidently affirmed, that when a boy he had been confined in the prison of Orléans, “on suspicion of being suspected” by the Republic. But Baron Thierry himself was profoundly silent on his antecedents; and he was wont to say that the memories of the past were of a very unsubstantial nature, and that his designs for the present and the future were to make the most of all opportunities, and get a crown, if he could, since one might perhaps be had at the mere cost of setting up a pretension to it.
People laughed at the idea of Baron Thierry becoming a monarch; but at such mirth the baron assumed a gravity that was very majestic, and which looked like determination.
“Who is that pretty child whom your Majesty keeps so close to your side tonight?” said a lady to Thierry at a ball given by Wellesley Pole. The lady was remarkable for her natural beauty and her bad taste. She wore her husband’s “Garter” as an ornament round her head, and Honi soit qui mal y pense glittered in diamonds upon her radiant brow.
“She is the half of an imperial princess,” replied the Baron, in a whisper; “and she and I are characters in a romance of an hour. Watch us well, and you will see the dénouement.”
The Baron had scarcely uttered the words when the lovely and childless Czarina of Russia passed by his side. The Czarina paused for a moment at an open window, and then stepped on to the balcony overlooking a handsome garden. No one accompanied, and no one followed her. The Baron however occupied the centre of the window, and the angelic-looking child, at his bidding, passed on to the balcony, and stood by the imperial lady’s side. Lady Castlereagh, and some three or four persons who were aware that Thierry was contriving something for the especial gratification of the Czarina, contrived to witness what passed without appearing to do so.
The scene that ensued was curious, touching, and rapid. The Czarina burst into tears, kissed the wondering child with a fiery and uncontrollable emotion, and gazed upon her with an almost frantic look of mingled love, jealousy, and despair. The Baron slightly coughed, the Czarina re-entered the salon, and the spectators appeared unconscious of anything but the imperial presence, and the reverence due to it. Lady Castlereagh alone heard her say to the Baron, as she passed. “Thanks for your courtesy, Monsieur le Baron. Tell her mother I envy and forgive her!”
“Who is her mother?” asked Lady Castlereagh.
“Madame Krudener, the mistress of Alexander, the pious Czar. The Czarina has just kissed her rival’s child, and her heart is breaking that she is not the mother of it.”
The night that succeeded was a brilliant one at the imperial palace of Austria. In a small room adjoining the great gallery was assembled a strange group. A very handsome young man, in the costume and with the attributes of Jupiter, was walking to and fro, eating a slice of pine-apple, and declaring that the Count de Wurbna was mad. A somewhat older but a fine-looking personage, easily recognizable as Mars, was lying recumbent on a sofa, repeating the declaration that De Wurbna was mad. These two theatrical deities were, in their mortal positions, no other than Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and the Count de Zichy. De Wurbna was seated on a stool, bending forward to fasten his sandal. His dress, his lyre, and his insignia told at once that he was Phœbus Apollo. There was nothing like insanity about him; but when he raised his head, the beholder was constrained to confess that there was something about him very unlike the lover of Daphne and Coronis. In fact, he wore a very formidable pair of mustachios. However appropriate this adornment might be to the Apollo Corybassides, who disputed the dominion of Crete with Jupiter himself, it little suited the fair son of Latona, the only one of all the gods whose oracles were in general repute throughout the world. Be this as it may, the Viennese Apollo, whose transcendent beauty had designated him as the only man who could fittingly represent the graceful god, strictly refused to sacrifice his cherished moustache. Madame de Wilhelm, the destined Venus of the tableaux vivans about to be represented, had suggested that his head should be turned from the spectators; but the proud Minerva of the night, the Countess Rosalie Rzewouska (the original of M. Sue’s Fleur de Marie), declared that the suggestion lacked wisdom, and that, if adopted, Miss Smith, the daughter of the Admiral Sir Sidney, would spoil her Juno, and laugh outright, as she did at everything.
“I thought Thierry could do anything,” said Jupiter. “He has superintended the getting up of all our costumes; and he engaged, a fortnight ago, to render De Wurbna reasonable.”
Apollo caressed his very objectionable hirsutory adornment, humming as he did so, “Du, du liegst mir im Herzen.” He smiled as Mars asserted that if Thierry had entered into any such engagement, Apollo would be shaved, and the heathen goddesses in raptures. The ubiquitous and indefatigable Baron had, at all events, done his best, but hitherto he had failed. At the eleventh hour however he thought of the claim which he had on the Czarina Elizabeth, for whom he had contrived the strange gratification of kissing the daughter of her husband’s mistress. He procured an audience, and stated the predicament into which he and the court-players were thrown by the obstinacy of Apollo. The Czarina had recourse to her sister of Austria, but the two imperial ladies knew not how to solve the difficulty. The Emperor of Austria was called in, and then the difficulty began to wear an aspect less redoubtable.
The mythological deities were yet disputing in their luxurious green-room, when an officer of the Imperial Guard appeared at the door, and summoned De Wurbna to the imperial presence. The latter flung a cloak over his shoulders and hastened to obey.
“My dear fellow,” said the officer, “you will not appear before the Emperor in those mustachios!”
“Why not?” said the son of Latona, who began to suspect a mystification.
“Because of this morning’s general order, which commands the entire guard to which we belong to be shaved.”
De Wurbna had already remarked the smooth lip of his Hungarian comrade, but, still doubting, he proceeded to wait upon his master the Emperor.
“I’ll wager a whole chest of Latakia,” said Mars, “that this is a feat of Thierry’s accomplishing. He is well named the ‘King of Good Fellows,’ for he knows how to meet every emergency. He deserves to get a crown in the general scramble.”
“He is a good fellow,” said Prince Leopold, “but he is about as likely to get a crown as I am.”
“Who knows?” asked De Zichy, who cared little for crowns, and felt no envy at kings. “There may be half-a-dozen political earthquakes before another score of years have been added to the register; and another remodelling of kingdoms may strangely affect the market for monarchs.”
In another moment Apollo entered, half laughing, half ashamed, and entirely shaven. The Emperor had really issued an order that the Guard should be shaved; De Wurbna had forthwith submitted, and, in his private quarters, he consummated the heavy sacrifice. The decree however, which had been issued to please the imperial ladies, only lasted for a day. It nevertheless served its purpose; and never was such honour done to the diplomatic abilities of Thierry, as when the mimic Olympus discovered that by his aid a king of men had subdued a refractory deity, and that the consistency of a mythological tableau was saved from shipwreck.
The representation went off with extraordinary éclat. The only persons among the spectators who were not enraptured with the spectacle, were the obese King of Würtemberg, who was sound asleep in his chair, and who was never awake except at dinner-time; his son, the Crown Prince, who was breathing out his soul in the ear of the young Duchess of Oldenburg; and that youthful widow herself, whose eyes beamed with a lustre born, not of the outward show, but of inward feeling.
With these exceptions, all were delighted; and when Thierry, in the intervals of the performance, took up his guitar and discoursed eloquent music, the entire audience declared that they had never heard so exquisite a voice, nor seen so king-like a fellow.
The loudest in his praise, and the best-dressed man among the eulogizers, was the nonagenarian Prince De Ligne; an old dandy, of whom his tailors made, as nearly as dress could do it, a comparatively young-looking man. He was more carefully dressed than ever on this eventful night. It was the night on which he went through the snow, to keep, at least he said so, an assignation of a tender nature on the ramparts, and where he was kept waiting so long in vain by his Cynthia of the minute, that he caught a cold which, within a very short space of time, carried him into a bronze coffin, and covered him up in a marble tomb. All Vienna laughed, except the tailors; for though he patronized these, he never paid them.
Thierry was standing by the burying-place when he first heard of the return of Napoleon.
“Well,” thought he, “there are no crowns to be had here. The kingdom of good-fellowship is a sorry monarchy. Perhaps something may turn up under the Corsican.”
ACT III.
The “Corsican” however had run out his brief second imperial career, when one of the many who had hoped to profit by his rise was prostrated by his fall. The name of this one was Thierry. With the world before him where to choose, he turned his steps to South America, and went in search of a people who might happen to be in want of a king. It was always his fortune, or misfortune, wherever such a servant of the people was required, to present his credentials only after the situation was filled up. He was at Poyais just a week subsequent to the attainment of the caciqueship of that pseudo El Dorado by Gregor M’Gregor. He was in Hayti when the garrison of St. Marc revolted against Christophe the king, and when the citizens and troops of Cape Haytien invited Boyer to relieve them of royalty and the Marquises of Marmalade. He heard the pistol shot at Sans Souci which terminated the career of Christophe and his house; and he witnessed the abject submission of the sable heir-apparent, who has not only since honoured Great Britain with his presence, but who has, at the invitation of the law, submitted (some six or seven years ago) to the rotatory penalties and the weak gruel of Brixton, for forgetting his royal dignity, and, with it, common humanity.
The Haytians were resolved upon enjoying a republic and new rum; and they declined a proposal to accept Thierry, and a promise of French protection. The crown-seeker, disgusted with the bad taste of the dingy republicans, passed over to Mexico. Things were promising there to all adventurers but himself, and Iturbide snatched an imperial crown from his hopes, if not from his hands: the wanderer, nevertheless, continued to look about him, and the opening revolt at Soto la Marina, against this same Iturbide, was hailed in his secret thoughts as an avenue to a throne. He saw the fallen potentate, under the escort of General Bowo, embark at Antiguo, near Vera Cruz, and, with his family and followers, sail in an English ship for Leghorn. With all his throne-mania, however, when Iturbide returned in the following year (1824) to Mexico, to be shot the night after his landing at Padilla, Thierry could not help thinking that if the Mexican republican government had awarded him twenty-five thousand dollars per annum, he would rather, with such a revenue, have risked European fevers at Leghorn, than have reigned in that quarter of the world where the bark grows that cures them.
He wandered further abroad, but the Indian tribes of South America deeply declined him as a prince. The islanders of the Southern Ocean laughed a negative in his face, and sent him away with a lapful of yams and a sentence of perpetual banishment. At length the erratic king-player fell among the Marquesas. The good-natured people were willing to make him whatever he desired; and in return for teaching them some useful matters touching the fashion of garments, and for profitable exercise of his medical experience, they really constituted him king of one of their smallest islands, called Nebuhwa.
But, see what is human nature! The new king became speedily tired of his new dignity; and after a brief but not inglorious reign, he abdicated with but little outlay of ceremony. He embarked one night in a French vessel, one of those political appliances which is always sure to find itself by accident wherever it has been ordered by design. His Majesty’s subjects bore their loss with philosophy, and cared so little for dynasties that they did not seek for a successor. Some old South Sea whalers however shook their heads portentously, vowed that the fellow was a political agent, and that he would turn up again somewhere for the benefit of himself and his employers.
Well! in the summer of 1839, a weary party of New Zealand travellers were on their way from Hokianga to the Bay of Islands. They were one night proceeding up the river in a canoe, to a native settlement, where the foot-track to the Bay of Islands then commenced. They were drenched through with rain, and were desirous of finding food and shelter.
“There is a light on that eminence,” said one of the party, an English medical man, to the natives in the boat; “does any one live there?”
The natives laughed, and intimated that the light came from King Edmond’s palace.
“Who is King Edmond?”
“Not know. Frenchman. Not Wesleyan; not Bishop’s man. Come from Sydney;” were the four distinct replies received from the natives.
“From Sydney?” said the Doctor; “then it is no other than Thierry; the fellow was there in ’35. He proclaimed himself, ‘by the grace of God King of Nebuhwa and sovereign chief of New Zealand,’ and he showed documents to prove that he had the support of Louis Philippe and his Government. He drew upon the same French Government, and raised a considerable sum of money by the sale of the bills, which were discounted by some queer people, considering they came from so far north as Aberdeen; and which, on being forwarded to their destination, were, as might be expected, returned dishonoured. Nevertheless, with the proceeds he got together a body of retainers, chartered a ship, and came over to Hokianga.”
“What did the resident say to it?” asked a young engineer, of a native at his side.
“What resident speak, Mister Chalton? He no speak! he go mad! Church missionaries go madder; and chiefs maddest of all. Write to Queen Victoria; Queen speak:—‘New Zealand chiefs all independent. King Thierry no king.’ Church missionaries almost mad like chiefs, cause Thierry speak Hokianga land belong to him.”
“No wonder!” said the doctor, “for his Majesty declared that the Church missionaries had sold it to him, years before, for twenty tomahawks! What did he do at Hokianga?”
“Make fine coat for naked Zealander,” said one of the natives, with a grin.
“A royal tailor, by Jove!” exclaimed the medicus.
After some further discussion upon this strange personage, the travellers agreed to make for his island palace, and ask hospitality. Leaving two natives in charge of the boat and luggage, under the guidance of the other two the English travellers made their way, with difficulty, over stumps of trees and decayed logs, to the royal residence. On reaching the palace, they found, to their dismay, that it had nothing to distinguish it from the huts of the natives, save one solitary glazed window. At the back there was a hole, which served for a door; a Kawri board was fixed against it, and to this the four travellers applied their knuckles. They had not long to wait; the board was removed by an ill-dressed man, of perhaps fifty years of age, who welcomed them into a tolerably neat kitchen, well-warmed by a blazing fire. To an inquiry as to whether they could see the Baron, he announced himself as Baron, and Sovereign Chief of New Zealand. He reiterated his welcome; introduced them to his wife, who confidently believed that her husband was a sovereign, because he had told her so twenty times a day for the last three years; and he finally asked them if they were fond of music.
The guests pleaded guilty to the taste, but they also honestly confessed that they were exceedingly hungry.
“You shall have all we possess,” said the ex-King of Nebuhwa. “Kätchen,” added he to his consort, “get the bread, and bring out the Beethoven.”
The Queen took the loaf and the duet out of a large fish-kettle which lay in one corner of the apartment. The King placed upon the table a guitar, four pewter plates, a violin, and a piece of cheese. Their Majesties dispensed their hospitality with much grace, a quality that is seldom wanting where there is goodwill. They apologized for the absence of wine, spirits, and beer, but they praised the virtues of the water of Hokianga. The beverage having been poured into horns, and each guest supplied with cheese and bread, her Majesty, at a signal from the King, who had assumed the violin, took up the guitar, and in a minute they were deep in the melodious mysteries of Beethoven. That Titan’s music on the guitar was something of an anomaly; but the truth is, that the lady’s copy was written for the piano, and it was her German ingenuity that adapted it to the only instrument she possessed. The guests had long terminated their repast, and ventured, as the duet proceeded, to make an occasional remark, which was speedily hushed by the chef d’orchestre, who would tolerate no commentaries during the interpretation of so splendid a text. The duet was finished only to be recommenced; detached passages were repeated over and over again; and the guests meanwhile were awed into absolute silence by the look, speech, and action of their host. It was a singular exhibition in a singular locality:—Beethoven in New Zealand, and free-born Englishmen subdued at Hokianga by the despotism of a French monarch in a foreign territory.
“You play superbly, Baron,” at length said one of the four travellers.
“Sir,” said the sovereign chief, “it is impossible to play ill on such an instrument as this. I adore my wife; I love my subjects, whom I would dress like Parisians if they would only heed me; but I venerate my violin.”
“He has caught heathenism, and worships his fiddle,” whispered Chalton to a missionary on his right hand.
“This violin, Sir,” resumed the Baron, “has seen as many lands as the Wandering Jew. It had been all over the world before it got into the hands of Platt; and it has been all over the world since it left them.”
“And who is Platt?” said the missionary.
“Platt, Sir,” answered the Baron, “was one of the first violin-players in England; but he was afflicted with modesty, and consequently was only known to his friends. He led your Duke of Cumberland’s private band at Kew,—and what a well-dressed band that was! it did honour to its tailor; and it had a European reputation for excellence. I wish I were as rich as a duke, and possessed so great a maestro di capella.”
The Baron then proceeded to enlarge upon his position and prospects, entered into discussion on his rights, and pronounced himself a sterling king, in spite of Lord Stanley, the British Queen, or the English Ministry. “I would make these islanders,” said he, “the best-dressed people out of France,—and if they could but acknowledge my principles, I would myself furnish them with paletots; but they denounce my tyranny, and laugh at me when I offer to put them into the dignity of trousers.”
To hear this mock potentate speak of his people, his dominions, religious toleration, the rights of man, and the duties of monarchs, one might have concluded that he really was a recognized sovereign, with an actual kingdom, a people to protect, parties to reconcile, a faith to uphold, and responsibilities to oppress him. Beyond his musical instruments, his solitary instrumental duet, his fish-kettle, an old ‘Journal des Modes,’ and some needles, he can scarcely be said to have had at this moment a single possession incontestably his own.
As the party of travellers, after sleeping in the hut, proceeded on the following morning to their boat, they were accompanied to the beach by their entertainer, who expressed his hopes of meeting with them again. But this was not to be.
THE EPILOGUE.
Four years afterwards, a solitary English traveller, named Chalton, was standing in the centre of a wide district, near to where the last-mentioned guests had spent a summer night in 1839. He was apparently in search of some locality, and two chiefs were closely watching him. A couple of Wesleyan natives were not far off. They were assisting him in making a survey for a road.
“There used to be a hut on that hill in the distance,” said he to one of the chiefs.
“King Thierry’s hut,” answered both the chiefs at once.
“True,” rejoined the inquirer; “why is it no longer there?”
“Zealanders’ gods are not sleeping,” replied one of the chiefs. “Thierry and his priests were cruel to his people. The island spirits told us, in our dreams, to punish him. We burned the hut down last moon.”
“And Thierry and his wife?” asked the astounded engineer.
“The good lady perished in the flames. The people from the other side of the island saved King Thierry.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Chalton, partly relieved; “what are they going to do with him?”
“Oh, nothing!” cried the chiefs, somewhat eagerly.
“The Government will not let the people keep him a captive.”
“The Government can’t get him,” said one of the chiefs.
“And the tribe haven’t got him,” said the other.
“Why, what have they done to him?”
“Hem!” growled somewhat unctuously the elder chief of the two, “they have eaten him!”
Such is said to have been really the fate of the little prisoner who used to mend the garments of M. de Bohun in the prison of Orléans; of the costumier of the court masquerades at the Congress of Vienna; and of the wandering adventurer in distant seas, where he could find no one who would either acknowledge his fiats or accept his fashions. He was unable to establish himself in the world either as monarch of men or as makers of their habits.
And having thus spoken of a mock king, let us consider now our English liege ladies at their respective toilets.