The Quest of Glory - Marjorie Bowen (most interesting books to read txt) 📗

CHAPTER I # PRAGUE, 1742

The Austrian guns had ceased with the early sunset, and the desolate

city of Prague was silent, encompassed by the enemy and the hard,

continuous cold of a Bohemian December: in the hall of Vladislav in the

Hradcany, that ancient palace of ancient kings that rose above the town,

several French officers wrapped in heavy cloaks were walking up and

down, as they had done night after night since the dragging siege began.

In the vast spaces of the huge pillarless hall with the high arched

Gothic roof, bare walls and floor, imperfectly lit by a few low-placed

lamps, their figures looked slight to insignificance, and the sound of

their lowered voices was a mere murmur in the great frozen stillness. At

one end of the hall rose a tall carved wooden throne and rows of benches

divided from the main hall by a light railing; these, which had once

been the seats of the King and nobility of Bohemia, were now decayed and

broken, and behind the empty chair of state was thrust a Bourbon flag

tied with the blue and white colours that the French carried in

compliment to the Elector of Bavaria, whom they, for many intricate

reasons,—some wise, and some foolish, and none just, were seeking to

place on the Austrian throne as Charles II.

 

These officers, who were the unquestioning instruments of this policy of

France, ceased talking presently and gathered round the degraded throne

before which burnt a handful of charcoal over an iron tripod. The only

near light was a heavy lamp suspended before the window; a stench of

rank oil and powder filled even the cold air, which rasped the throat

and the nostrils and had no freshness in it but only a great lifeless

chill.

 

There were four of these officers, and as they stood round the

struggling flame that leapt and sank on the brazier, the cross lights of

fire and lamp showed a great similarity in their persons. It was

noticeable how totally different they were from their surroundings; no

one ever would have thought that they were of the breed that had built

this vast barbaric hall or carved the bold monsters on the rude throne:

in every line they stood confessed foreign, alien to this crude grandeur

and of another nation, another civilization, old and thrice refined.

 

They were all slight men, though two were tall; they all wore under

their cloaks the uniforms of the famous régiment du roi; and they all

had their hair as carefully powdered and curled and their linen as fresh

and elaborate as if they were at Versailles: yet it was now several

months since Prince Lobkowitz and his Hungarian Pandours had driven the

French into Prague.

 

Their manner was as similar as their persons: a composed gaiety, an

unconscious courtesy, an absolute reserve and command of emotion were as

common to each as the silver epaulettes and frogs of their blue

uniforms. The four faces the charcoal flame lit were proud and delicate

and much alike in feature, but one was distinguished, even in that

light, by the fresh attractiveness of its youthful beauty—the beauty of

dark colour, of soft eyes, of rich hair that pomade could scarcely

disguise, of ardent lips and eager expression that even the formality of

that universal noble manner could not conceal; a face beautiful and

lovable, and one that had not yet looked on twenty years.

 

He was the youngest as he was the tallest. His companions were much of

an age and much of a height, and nothing remarkable distinguished one

from the other save that one wore the gorgeous uniform of a colonel, two

that of captain; the youth’s rank was merely that of lieutenant. They

were all silent; there was absolutely nothing to talk about. They had

been shut up in Prague all the winter, and though they could easily have

broken through the loose ranks of the unskilful besiegers, all thought

of leaving the city was impossible until the spring. Bohemia was ice

from end to end, and even in the encampment in Prague the Frenchmen died

of cold.

 

The siege was almost without incident and quite without excitement; the

Austrians made no attempt to take the city by storm, and the French made

no sallies. News of the outside war was their one diversion: all Europe

was in arms; Spain and England had been the last to march on to the

universal battle-field; France was but one member of a coalition that

endeavoured to wrest new possessions from the Empress-Queen, Maria

Theresa, whom English gold and Magyar loyalty alone supported. France

had signed the Pragmatic Sanction that left her heiress to her father’s

empire, but that promise had been lightly enough broken when France saw

her advantage in allying herself with Frederick of Prussia, who, after

his seizure of Silesia, had become a power in Europe. No Frenchman had

any personal feeling about the war; Prussian was the same as Austrian in

the eyes of most, and very few troubled to follow the ramifications of

the policy that had led the Ministers who ruled in Paris to side with

the effete Elector rather than the gallant Queen of Hungary in this

struggle for the succession of Charles V. Therefore, with no interest in

the war, little news from home, enclosed in a foreign and half-barbarous

town among a people strange and mostly unfriendly, the French, during

the long months of the nominal siege, were utterly overcome with

weariness and a dispirited lassitude from which these four standing over

the charcoal pan in the Vladislav Hall were not wholly free.

 

The opening of the door at the farther end of the hall caused them all

to turn with the expectancy born of monotony. Several figures entered

the shadows, themselves dark and casting shadows by reason of the

lantern the foremost held.

 

The officers moved forward. The light of dim lamp and swinging lantern

was merely confusing to the sight; the advancing group threw fantastic

blots of shade, and seemed to merge, subdivide, and merge again until

there might have been ten people or two coming down the great bare aisle

of the hall.

 

When the light above the throne at last flung its feeble illumination

over them, it disclosed a stout Bohemian servant carrying a lantern, a

young man in a splendid dress of scarlet and fur, and a woman rather

clumsily muffled in a military cloak which was caught up so as to show

her riding-boots and fantastic long spurs.

 

The officers saluted; the lady paused and looked at her companion, who

returned the salute and said in good French, “We are prisoners, I

believe.”

 

“Austrians?” asked the Colonel.

 

“No: Poles. On our way to Paris. We were captured by the Pandours, who

routed our escort, and then by a Bohemian regiment, who considered us

enemies”—he smiled engagingly. “But I have induced them to allow me an

audience of M. de Belleisle, who, I am certain, will allow us on our

way.”

 

“Why, doubtless,” returned the Frenchman, with disinterested courtesy;

“but it is severe weather for travelling, and in time of war, with a

lady.”

 

“My sister,” said the young Pole, “is used to the cold, for she has

lived all her life in Russia.”

 

The lady lifted a face pale with fatigue and shadowed with anxiety; her

black hair was very unbecomingly twisted tight round her head, and she

wore a fur cap of fox’s skin drawn down to her ears.

 

“I have a good reason to wish to hasten to Paris,” she said. “I am

summoned there by the Queen.”

 

She made an impatient gesture to the Bohemian who conducted them, and

with a weary little bow followed him through the small door that had

been cut in the high blank wall.

 

With a more elaborate courtesy her companion followed her, his heavy

tread echoing in the stillness even after the door had closed behind

him.

 

“I wish I were bound for Paris,” remarked the young Colonel, M. de

Biron.

 

One of the captains lightly echoed his wish; the other glanced at the

lieutenant and said in a very pleasing voice—

 

“No, M. le Duc, wish for a battle, which would suit us all better.”

 

M. de Biron smiled.

 

“You are very sanguine, Luc.”

 

“How sanguine, Monsieur?”

 

“You speak as if war was what it used to be in the days of Amathis de

Gaul: forays, single combats, pitched battles, one cause—reward,

honour, glory.”

 

The faint smile deepened on Luc de Clapiers’ face; he made no reply, but

the lieutenant flushed quickly and answered—