and bowed low before a woman of forty to forty-five years of age, who had evidently possessed great beauty and was indeed still beautiful. Perhaps, if the "Almanach de Gotha" were consulted, it would be found that the lady was rather older than this, but as the proverb says: "A woman is as old as she looks," and I see no reason why queens should be excepted.
The lady was Queen Marie Louise Augusta Catherine, daughter of Charles Frederic, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and known throughout Europe as the Queen Augusta. She was of medium height—is best described by the essentially French word attrayant. She wore on her left arm the feminine Order of Queen Louise of Prussia. She passed the minister slowly and somewhat haughtily, saluting him indeed, but without her usual kindness. By the doors through which she passed the count understood she had been with the king, and was now returning to her own apartments.
The queen had left the door belonging to the king's apartment open behind her, and the usher now intimated that the minister might enter. He waited, however, until the door had closed upon the queen.
"Yes," he said, "it is true that I was not born a baron, but let us see what the future will do for me."
And then he passed forward. The various lackeys or chamberlains whom he met hastened to open the doors leading to the audience-room. Reaching it the chamberlain announced in a loud voice: "His Excellency Count von Bismarck."
The king started and turned round. He was standing before the chimney-piece, and heard the name of von Bismarck with some surprise, it being barely a quarter of an hour since the minister had left him. The count wondered if the king had already heard what had happened to him in the interval.
He bowed low before His Majesty.
"Sire," he said, "an event of great importance has recalled me to Your Majesty, but I see with regret that the moment is unfavourable—"
"Why?" enquired the king.
"Because I have just had the honour of meeting the queen in the ante-room, and not having the happiness of being in Her Majesty's good graces—"
"Well, count, I admit that she does not see eye to eye with you."
"She is wrong, sire, for my devotion belongs equally to my king and to my queen, and the one cannot become Emperor of Germany without the other becoming Empress."
"A dream, my dear count, in which Queen Augusta unfortunately believes, but which is not the dream of a reasonable being."
"Sire, the unity of Germany is as much decreed in the design of Providence as the unity of Italy."
"Excellent," said the king, laughing; "can there be a united Italy while the Italians possess neither Rome nor Venice?"
"Italy is in formation, sire. She began her march in '59 and will not stop on the way. If she looks like stopping, she is only taking breath. Indeed, have we not promised her Venice?"
"Yes, but it is not we who will give it her."
"Who then?"
"France? who has already given her Lombardy, and has let her take the duchies and Naples. France!" said the king. "France let her take all that with quite the best will in the world."
"Is Your Majesty aware of the contents of the telegraphic despatches which arrived when I was here and which were delivered as I left?"
"Yes, I know. The Emperor Napoleon's speech at Auxerre," answered the king with some embarrassment. "You refer to that, do you not?"
"Well, sire, the emperor's speech means war—war not only against Austria but against Germany. It means Venice for Italy and the Rhine provinces for France."
"You really think so?"
"I mean that if we give France time to arm, the question without becoming desperate becomes grave, but that if we fall promptly and vigorously upon Austria, we shall be on the Moldau with three hundred thousand men before France can reach the Rhine with fifty thousand."
"Count, you do not give the Austrians their proper value; the swagger of our young men has gone to your head."
"Sire, if I appear to adopt the opinions of the heir-apparent and of Prince Frederic Charles, I can only say that the prince having been born on June 29th, 1801, is scarcely a young man; but the fact is, that in these matters I rely on my own opinion only, and I say deliberately in a war against Prussia, Austria will certainly be beaten."
"Really?" said the king doubtfully. "Yet I have heard you speak in high terms of both their generals and their soldiers."
"Certainly."
"Well then, it does not seem to me so remarkably easy to conquer good soldiers commanded by good generals."
"They have good, soldiers, sire, they have good generals, but we shall beat them because our own organization and arrangement are superior to theirs. When I persuaded Your Majesty to undertake the war on Schleswig which Your Majesty did not desire to do—"
"If I had not desired to make war on Schleswig it would never have been made!"
"That is very true, sire, but Your Majesty hesitated; I had the courage to insist, and Your Majesty approved of my reasons."
"Yes, and what is the result of the war on Schleswig? War throughout Germany!"
"True, sire, in the first place I like a situation that calls for resolute action; and as I consider war in Germany inevitable, I congratulate you."
"Will you explain whence comes your confidence?"
"Your Majesty forgets that I made the campaign with the Prussian army. I did not do it for the mere pleasure of hearing cannon, of counting the dead, and of sleeping on the battlefield, where I assure you one sleeps very badly, or for the purpose of giving you what was nevertheless well worth having, two posts on the Baltic, of which Prussia stood in great need. No, I made the campaign with the object of trying the Austrians, and I repeat that they are behind us in everything—discipline, armaments, use of arms: they have bad rifles, bad artillery, and worse powder. In a war against us Austria will be beaten from the very commencement, for we have everything which she has not, and Austria once vanquished, the supremacy in Germany must inevitably fall from her hands into those of Prussia."
"And how is Prussia with a population of eighteen millions to maintain her superiority over sixty? Only look at her pitiful appearance on the map."
"That is exactly the point. I have looked at her for three years, and now is the time to mould her anew. Prussia is a great serpent whose head is at Thionville, while her tail is at Memel, and which has a lump in her stomach because she has swallowed half Saxony. She is a kingdom cut in two by another—Hanover—in such a fashion that you cannot get home without going abroad. You must understand, sire, Hanover is bound to become part of Prussia."
"But what will England say to this?"
"England is no longer in the age of Pitt and Cobourg. England is the very humble servant of the Manchester School, of Gladstone, Cobden, and their scholars; England will do no more for Hanover than she did for Denmark. Must we not take Saxony also?"
"France will never allow us to meddle with Saxony, if only in memory of the king who was faithful to her in 1813."
