L. Mühlbach

“ What would all the treasures of the earth avail, if I did not have him! What would I care for castles, diamonds, and carriages if he were not with me! I am expecting him—he may be here at any moment. So tell me, father—describe quickly how everything has happened. I have not seen you for three days; I do not know what has occurred, for, strangely, nothing has reached the public."
"The emperor enjoined the most inviolable silence upon us all," said Schulmeister gloomily. "The whole affair has been treated and concealed as the most profound secret. ”

“ Leonore de Simonie must not leave the pure, proud sphere in which she lives; she must remain what she is, the queen of the drawing-room."
"Is this your final answer?" she asked, turning deadly pale.
"My final one."
"Well, then, hear me! You shall know who I am; you shall at least learn that you might accept every sacrifice from me without ever being obliged to blush in my presence. You thrust me from you, that is, you thrust me into death! Yes, I will die, I wish to die, but first you shall hear from my lips the truth, that you may not grieve, may not shed a single tear for me. ”

“ Terrible indeed had been those two days of the battle of Aspern or Esslingen. The infuriated foes hurled death to and fro from the mouths of more than four hundred cannon. The earth shook with the thunder of their artillery, the stamping of their steeds; the air resounded with the shouts of the combatants, who assailed each other with the fury of rage and hate, fearing not death, but defeat; scorning life if it must be owed to the conqueror's mercy, neither giving nor taking quarter, and in dying, praying not for their own souls, but for the defeat and humiliation of the enemy! ”

“ I love you precisely because you are the poor adventurer you call yourself. Thank heaven that you are no sensible, prudent, deliberate gentleman, who longs for titles and orders, for money and position, but the clever adventurer who calls nothing his own save his honor, seeks nothing save peril, loves nothing save—"
"Loves nothing save Leonore," he ardently interrupted. "Believe me, it is so! I love nothing save you, and, until I knew you, I did not know even love, only hate."
"Hate?" she asked, smiling. "And whom did you hate, my loved one?" ”

“ Austria was struggling to avenge Austerlitz, France not to permit the renown of that day to be darkened.
"We will conquer or die!" was the shout with which the Austrians, for the twenty-first time, had begun the battle against the enemy, who pressed forward across three bridges from the island of Lobau in the middle of the Danube, and whom the Austrians hated doubly that day, because another painful wound had been dealt by the occupation of their capital—beautiful, beloved Vienna—the expulsion of the emperor and his family, and the possession of the German city. ”

“ I ask myself when this sun, which has shone upon me through one beautiful, splendid day, will set?"
"It will never set, unless by your desire," she cried, putting her arms around his neck and bending to imprint a kiss upon his brow.
"It will set, for I am not created to live in sunshine and enjoy happiness. My life belongs to my native land! I have sworn to consecrate it to my country, and I must keep my oath. I dare not give myself up to love until I have done enough for hate; I dare not enjoy happiness ere I have fulfilled vengeance." ”

“ I did not wish to die of starvation, and the tempter came to me in my father's form, whispering, 'Have money and you will have honor! Help yourself, for men and women will not aid you. They turn contemptuously away because you are poor. To-morrow, if you are rich, they will pay court to you, honor, and love you. I offer you the means to become rich. Give me your hand, Leonore, despise the people who leave us to die, and follow me.' I gave him my hand, I followed him, I became Napoleon's spy. ”

“ France now depends upon a single life; a single person forms her dynasty, and when he sinks into the grave, France will be exposed to caprice, to chance; every door to intrigue will be opened. We must secure France from every peril. We have now seen, for the first time, that the proud emperor is only a mere mortal. Had the bullet which wounded his foot at Regensburg struck his head, France would probably be, at the present moment, in the midst of civil war, and the Legitimists, the Republicans, and the adherents of Napoleon would dispute the victory with each other. ”

“ I will repay you—I will guard yours from the demons of disgrace and shame; you shall have no cause to blush in the presence of the man whom you love. On the day that I bring from the emperor half a million as my property and yours, your past and mine will both be effaced, and we will enter upon a new life, in a new world! Let the spy, Schulmeister, the adventuress Leonore de Simonie; be buried, and new people, new names, rise from the budding seeds of the half million. ”

“ I hate Napoleon and I love the legitimate king of France. So I have no choice. I will risk my life to serve the king, for the kings of France have been kind and gracious lords to my family for centuries, and we owe them all that we are. I am ready to prove my gratitude by deeds, and I hope that, if I fall in the service of the king, he will have pity on my wife and my two children as soon as he himself returns to France. I will fulfill your commands. I will play the part of one who is blind and deaf. I will see and hear nothing, warn no one, unless I am forced to warn the conspirators. ”

“ Speak one word—say that you are ready to fly with me—I will arrange everything for our escape; will guide us both to liberty, to happiness. Speak this one word, and I will sever every tie that binds me to the world; my future and my life will belong to you alone. We will strip off all the luxury that surrounds us as the glittering snake-skin with which we have concealed our real natures, and escape into the solitude as free, happy children of God. If such a life of peace and rest does not satisfy you; if you wish to labor and create, be useful to mankind, we can find the opportunity. ”

“ Return to the world, my worshipped one! Keep your love, your fidelity! Wait for me. Even though years may pass, the hour of liberty will at last strike and then I will return to you!"
"No, no!" she impetuously exclaimed. "I will not leave you; I will cling to you. You must not repulse me. The emperor has given your servant the right to stay with you. I am your servant. I shall stay!"
"Leonore, I entreat you, do not ask what is impossible. There are sacrifices which a man can never accept from the woman he loves—which humiliate him as they ennoble her. I should blush before your nobility ”

“ We must stake our blood, our lives, to save Austria and Germany!"
"Ah, if you speak and think thus, count, you are one of us; you will wish to have a share in our work of liberation."
"Yes, I demand my share, and the greater and more perilous it is, the more welcome it will be."
"We all risk our lives," said Kraus solemnly, "and if we are defeated, we shall all be lost; for the Emperor Francis will not protect us—he will abandon us to Napoleon's wrath, in order to prove that he had no part in our plans. ”

“ Within a week Napoleon must be removed; for every day beyond endangers us the more. He has a suspicion of our plans; he has a whole legion of spies in the army, in Vienna, acting in concert with friends and foes, to watch the designs of the conspirators. For he is perfectly conscious that a conspiracy exists, and some inkling even of the conversation of his generals at Castle Ebersdorf has reached his ears. It caused such an outburst of fury that he was attacked with convulsions, and for three days ate nothing until Roustan had tasted it, because he was afraid of being poisoned. ”

“ The virtuous Baron von Kolbielsky would certainly be very much astonished if he made the discovery that your major-domo has the honor of being your father, and that the father of the proud baroness is no other than the well-known spy Schulmeister, who has rendered the Emperor Napoleon so many useful services, and whose name Kolbielsky has so often mentioned in my presence with scornful execration. No, he must not learn all this. We will conceal our past, we will begin a new life, and since we shall then be rich enough, it will not be difficult for us to remain noble and virtuous. ”

“ Beautiful Leonore de Simonie certainly appeared to be thoroughly in earnest in her purpose to divert their minds from their great grief. Every evening her drawing-rooms were thrown open for the reception of guests; every evening all the generals, French courtiers, and people who belonged to good society in France were present; every evening more and more Germans and Viennese went to Madame de Simonie's, until it seemed as if she afforded Viennese and Parisian society a place of meeting where, forgetting mutual aversion and hatred, they associated in love and harmony. ”

“ But Kolbielsky released himself from the sweet embrace and gently pushed her back. "That can never be—never will I accept such a sacrifice from you. No, you shall not bury your beauty, your youthful bloom in a living tomb. Your tender foot is not made to tread the rough paths of life. The proud Baroness de Simonie, accustomed to the splendor, luxury, and comfort of existence must not drag out her life in unworthy humiliation. I thank you, love, for the sacrifice you wish to make, but nothing will induce me to accept it. ”

“ Thrice a hundred thousand men had confronted each other on this memorable 6th of July, 1809; eight hundred cannon had shaken the earth all day incessantly with their terrible thunder, and the course of their balls was marked on both sides with heaps of corpses. Both armies had fought with tremendous fury and animosity, for the Austrians wished to add fresh laurels to the fame just won at Aspern, the French to regain what the days of Esslingen at least rendered doubtful: the infallibility of success, the conviction that victory would ever be associated with their banners. ”

“ The emperor does not wish to have anything known about it; no one must deem it possible that people have dared to seek to take his life, to attempt to capture him. I never saw him in such a fury as when I first told him the plan of the conspirators. His eyes flashed lightnings, he stamped his feet, clenched his little hands into fists, and stretched them threateningly toward the invisible conspirators. He vowed to kill them all, to take vengeance on them all for the unprecedented crime. ”

“ No, my sweet love, you shall not for my sake renounce the world of pleasure and splendor whose queen you are, even though you wish it, and perhaps even long for the peace and quiet of solitude. I must not accompany you thither, must not be faithless to myself. For the most terrible and inconsolable thing which can befall a man is to be faithless to himself and turn from the way which he himself has chosen, and from the goals which he himself has appointed. ”

“ Was it not Baron von Moudenfels who arranged the secret connection with the conspirators in the French army, and negotiated with Oudet?"
"Yes, the same man. He is a great patriot and a daring fellow. He hates Napoleon, and if he once has him in his grasp, he will die rather than suffer him to escape, though Napoleon should offer a kingdom as a ransom. Now farewell, count, and may God grant that we see each other again successful! May the guardian angel of our native land protect us in the perils which we must bravely meet." ”

“ I will inform the man you love who you are, and, believe me, he will turn from you with contempt and loathing; he will not follow you into the paradise of solitude into which you would fain escape with him. Listen, Leonore, and weigh my words. We have gone too far for return ever to be possible, therefore we must press forward, steadily forward! Whoever has once sold himself to the devil can never hope to transform himself once more into an angel. ”

“ They might fill my soul with such anguish and terror, that they would occupy it even in slumber, and I might tell in my dreams what I certainly would not disclose in waking, though I were exposed to the tortures of the rack. Oh, love, I fear your secrets, and I fear that they threaten you with peril! Give them up. If my love has any power over you, I entreat you: renounce them. Resign all your plans of hate and vengeance! ”

“ Many are in the league with me, struggling with me toward the same goal. No one knows the others, but in the decisive hour we shall all work together for the one great object. And this hour will soon come; all the preparations are made, all the plans are matured. It is approaching. The great hour of sacred vengeance is approaching. You do not wish me to initiate you into my secrets, Leonore, and I now feel that you are right, for every sharer in these secrets is imperiled by them, and I will not draw you, my beloved one, into the dangerous circle, where I am bound. ”

“ The waves roared and danced recklessly on, wholly unmindful of the emperor's wrathful exclamation; they sang and thundered a poem of their might, jeering him: "Beware of offending us, for we can avenge ourselves; we hold your fate in our power. Beware of offending us, for we are bearing you on our backs in a fragile boat, and the Cæsar and his empire weigh no more than the lightest fisherman with his nets. Beware of offending us, for you are nothing but an ordinary man; mortal as the poorest beggar, and, if we choose, we will drag you down to our cold, damp grave. ”