The Emperor, when informed by the Duke of Bassano of the deplorable condition of this woman, at once made a special order granting Madame Dartois an annual pension of sixteen hundred francs, the first year of which was paid in advance. When the Duke of Bassano announced to the widow his Majesty's decision, and handed her the first year's pension, she fell at his feet, and bathed them with her tears.
The Emperor's fete was celebrated at Vienna with much brilliancy; and as all the inhabitants felt themselves obliged to illumine their windows, the effect was extraordinarily brilliant. They had no set illuminations;
but almost all the windows had double sashes, and between these sashes were placed lamps, candles, etc., ingeniously arranged, the effect of which was charming. The Austrians appeared as gay as our soldiers; they had not feted their own Emperor with so much ardor, and, though deep down in their hearts they must have experienced a feeling of constraint at such unaccustomed joy, appearances gave no sign of this.
On the evening of the fete, during the parade, a terrible explosion was heard at Schoenbrunn, the noise of which seemed to come from the town;
and a few moments afterwards a gendarme appeared, his horse in a gallop.
"Oh, oh!" said Colonel Mechnem, "there must be a fire at Vienna, if a gendarme is galloping." In fact, he brought tidings of a very deplorable event. While an artillery company had been preparing, in the arsenal of the town, numerous fireworks to celebrate his Majesty's fete, one of them, in preparing a rocket, accidentally set the fuse on fire, and becoming frightened threw it away from him. It fell on the powder which the shop contained, and eighteen cannoneers were killed by the explosion, and seven wounded.
During his Majesty's fete, as I entered his cabinet one morning, I found with him M. Charles Sulmetter, commissary general of the police of Vienna, whom I had seen often before. He had begun as head spy for the Emperor; and this had proved such a profitable business that he had amassed an income of forty thousand pounds. He had been born at Strasburg; and in his early life had been chief of a band of smugglers, to which vocation he was as wonderfully adapted by nature as to that which he afterwards pursued. He admitted this in relating his adventures, and maintained that smuggling and police service had many points of similarity, since the great art of smuggling was to know how to evade, while that of a spy was to know how to seek. He inspired such terror in the Viennese that he was equal to a whole army-corps in keeping them in subjection. His quick and penetrating glance, his air of resolution and severity, the abruptness of his step and gestures, his terrible voice, and his appearance of great strength, fully justified his reputation; and his adventures furnish ample materials for a romance.
During the first campaigns of Germany, being charged with a message from the French government to one of the most prominent persons in the Austrian army, he passed among the enemy disguised as a German peddler, furnished with regular passports, and provided with a complete stock of diamonds and jewelry. He was betrayed, arrested, and searched; and the letter concealed in the double bottom of a gold box was found, and very foolishly read before him. He was tried and condemned to death, and delivered to the soldiers by whom he was to be executed; but as night had arrived by this time, they postponed his execution till morning. He recognized among his guards a French deserter, talked with him, and promised him a large sum of money: he had wine brought, drank with the soldiers, intoxicated them, and disguised in one of their coats, escaped with the Frenchman. Before re-entering the camp, however, he found means to inform the person for whom the letter was intended, of its contents, and of what had happened.
Countersigns difficult to remember were often given in the army in order to attract the soldiers' attention more closely. One day the word was Pericles, Persepolis; and a captain of the guard who had a better knowledge of how to command a charge than of Greek history and geography, not hearing it distinctly, gave as the countersign, 'perce l'eglise', which mistake furnished much amusement. The old captain was not at all angry, and said that after all he was not very far wrong.
The secretary of General Andreossy, Governor of Vienna, had an unfortunate passion for gambling; and finding that he did not gain enough to pay his debts, sold himself to the enemy. His correspondence was seized; he admitted his treachery, and was condemned to death, and in confronting death evinced astonishing self-possession. "Come nearer,"
said he to the soldiers who were to shoot, "so that you may see me better, and I will have less to suffer."
In one of his excursions in the environs of Vienna, the Emperor met a very young conscript who was rejoining his corps. He stopped him, asked his name, his age, regiment, and country. "Monsieur," said the soldier, who did not know him, "my name is Martin; I am seventeen years old, and from the Upper Pyrenees."--"you are a Frenchman, then?"--"yes, Monsieur."
--"Ah, you are a miserable' Frenchman. Disarm this man, and hang him!"--
"Yes, you fool, I am French," repeated the conscript; "and Vive l'Empereur!" His Majesty was much amused; the conscript was undeceived, congratulated, and hastened to rejoin his comrades, with the promise of a reward,--a promise which the Emperor was not slow to perform.
Two or three days before his departure from Schoenbrunn, the Emperor again came near being assassinated. This time the attack was to have been made by a woman.
The Countess at this time was well known, both on account of her astonishing beauty and the scandal of her liaisons with Lord Paget, the English ambassador.
