"On this envelope is written 'Confidential and Special,' monseigneur."
The archduke took the letter and read it. It was from M. Pascal, and was expressed in these familiar words:
"After mature reflection, monseigneur, instead of waiting upon you Thursday I will see you to-morrow at three o'clock; it will depend upon you absolutely whether our business is concluded and signed during that interview. Your devoted
One moment of lively hope, soon tempered by the recollection of the eccentricities of M. Pascal's character, thrilled the prince, who, however, said, coldly:
"Write M. Pascal on the list of audiences for to-morrow at three o'clock."
An aide-de-camp was then presented, who asked if the prince could receive Count Frantz de Neuberg.
After a few more moments' work with his secretary of ordinance, he gave the order to introduce Frantz.
Frantz presented himself, blushing, before the prince, his godfather, for the young count was excessively timid, and unsophisticated to a degree that would make our experienced lads of twenty laugh. Brought up by a Protestant pastor in the depth of a German village belonging to one of the numerous possessions of the archduke, the godson of the Royal Highness had left this austere solitude, only to enter at sixteen years a military school devoted to the nobility, and kept with puritanical strictness. From that school, he went, by order of the prince, to serve in the Russian army as a volunteer in the wars of the Caucasus. The rude discipline of the camp; the severity of manners which characterised the old general to whom he had been sent and especially recommended by his royal godfather; the chain of sad and serious thought peculiar to brave but tender and melancholy souls; the sight of the fields of battle during a bitter war which knew no mercy nor pity; the habitual gravity of mind imparted to these same souls by the possibility if not the expectation of death, coolly braved every day in the midst of the most frightful perils; the mystery of his birth, to which was joined the pain of never having known the caresses of a father or a mother,--all had conspired to accentuate the natural reserve and timidity of his character, and increase the ingenuousness of his sincere and loving heart. In Frantz, as in many others, heroic courage was united with extreme and unconquerable timidity in the ordinary relations of life.