Barry Lyndon

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'Calling for his horse, he then rode to the Prince's apartments at
the palace, and asked for an instant audience. When admitted, he
produced the emerald. "This jewel," said he, "has been found on the
person of a Heidelberg Jew, who has been here repeatedly of late,
and has had many dealings with her Highness's equerry, the Chevalier
de Magny. This afternoon the Chevalier's servant came from his
master's lodgings, accompanied by the Hebrew; was heard to make
inquiries as to the route the man intended to take on his way
homewards; followed him, or preceded him rather, and was found in
the act of rifling his victim by my police in the Kaiserwald. The
man will confess nothing; but, on being searched, a large sum in
gold was found on his person; and though it is with the utmost pain
that I can bring myself to entertain such an opinion, and to
implicate a gentleman of the character and name of Monsieur de
Magny, I do submit that our duty is to have the Chevalier examined
relative to the affair. As Monsieur de Magny is in her Highness's
private service, and in her confidence I have heard, I would not
venture to apprehend him without your Highness's permission."

'The Prince's Master of the Horse, a friend of the old Baron de
Magny, who was present at the interview, no sooner heard the strange
intelligence than he hastened away to the old general with the
dreadful news of his grandson's supposed crime. Perhaps his Highness
himself was not unwilling that his old friend and tutor in arms
should have the chance of saving his family from disgrace; at all
events, Monsieur de Hengst, the Master of the Horse, was permitted
to go off to the Baron undisturbed, and break to him the
intelligence of the accusation pending over the unfortunate
Chevalier.

'It is possible that he expected some such dreadful catastrophe,
for, after hearing Hengst's narrative (as the latter afterwards told
me), he only said, "Heaven's will be done!" for some time refused to
stir a step in the matter, and then only by the solicitation of his
friend was induced to write the letter which Maxime de Magny
received at our play-table.

'Whilst he was there, squandering the Princess's money, a police
visit was paid to his apartments, and a hundred proofs, not of his
guilt with respect to the robbery, but of his guilty connection with
the Princess, were discovered there,--tokens of her giving,
passionate letters from her, copies of his own correspondence to his
young friends at Paris,--all of which the Police Minister perused,
and carefully put together under seal for his Highness, Prince
Victor. I have no doubt he perused them, for, on delivering them to
the Hereditary Prince, Geldern said that, IN OBEDIENCE TO HIS
HIGHNESS'S ORDERS, he had collected the Chevalier's papers; but he
need not say that, on his honour, he (Geldern) himself had never
examined the documents. His difference with Messieurs de Magny was
known; he begged his Highness to employ any other official person in
the judgment of the accusation brought against the young Chevalier.

'All these things were going on while the Chevalier was at play. A
run of luck--you had great luck in those days, Monsieur de Balibari--
was against him. He stayed and lost his 4000 ducats. He received
his uncle's note, and such was the infatuation of the wretched
gambler, that, on receipt of it, he went down to the courtyard,
where the horse was in waiting, absolutely took the money which the
poor old gentleman had placed in the saddle-holsters, brought it
upstairs, played it, and lost it; and when he issued from the room
to fly, it was too late: he was placed in arrest at the bottom of my
staircase, as you were upon entering your own home.

'Even when he came in under the charge of the soldiery sent to
arrest him, the old General, who was waiting, was overjoyed to see
him, and flung himself into the lad's arms, and embraced him: it was
said, for the first time in many years. "He is here, gentlemen," he
sobbed out,--"thank God he is not guilty of the robbery!" and then
sank back in a chair in a burst of emotion; painful, it was said by
those present, to witness on the part of a man so brave, and known
to be so cold and stern.

'"Robbery!" said the young man. "I swear before Heaven I am guilty
of none!" and a scene of almost touching reconciliation passed
between them, before the unhappy young man was led from the guard-
house into the prison which he was destined never to quit.

'That night the Duke looked over the papers which Geldern had
brought to him. It was at a very early stage of the perusal, no
doubt, that he gave orders for your arrest; for you were taken at
midnight, Magny at ten o'clock; after which time the old Baron de
Magny had seen his Highness, protesting of his grandson's innocence,
and the Prince had received him most graciously and kindly. His
Highness said he had no doubt the young man was innocent; his birth
and his blood rendered such a crime impossible; but suspicion was
too strong against him: he was known to have been that day closeted
with the Jew; to have received a very large sum of money which he
squandered at play, and of which the Hebrew had, doubtless, been the
lender,--to have despatched his servant after him, who inquired the
hour of the Jew's departure, lay in wait for him, and rifled him.
Suspicion was so strong against the Chevalier, that common justice
required his arrest; and, meanwhile, until he cleared himself, he
should be kept in not dishonourable durance, and every regard had
for his name, and the services of his honourable grandfather. With
this assurance, and with a warm grasp of the hand, the Prince left
old General de Magny that night; and the veteran retired to rest
almost consoled, and confident in Maxime's eventual and immediate
release.

'But in the morning, before daybreak, the Prince, who had been
reading papers all night, wildly called to the page, who slept in
the next room across the door, bade him get horses, which were
always kept in readiness in the stables, and, flinging a parcel of
letters into a box, told the page to follow him on horseback with
these. The young man (Monsieur de Weissenborn) told this to a young
lady who was then of my household, and who is now Madame de
Weissenborn, and a mother of a score of children.

'The page described that never was such a change seen as in his
august master in the course of that single night. His eyes were
bloodshot, his face livid, his clothes were hanging loose about him,
and he who had always made his appearance on parade as precisely
dressed as any sergeant of his troops, might have been seen
galloping through the lonely streets at early dawn without a hat,
his unpowdered hair streaming behind him like a madman.

'The page, with the box of papers, clattered after his master,--it
was no easy task to follow him; and they rode from the palace to the
town, and through it to the General's quarter. The sentinels at the
door were scared at the strange figure that rushed up to the
General's gate, and, not knowing him, crossed bayonets, and refused
him admission. "Fools," said Weissenborn, "it is the Prince!" And,
jangling at the bell as if for an alarm of fire, the door was at
length opened by the porter, and his Highness ran up to the Generals
bedchamber, followed by the page with the box.

'"Magny--Magny," roared the Prince, thundering at the closed door,
"get up!" And to the queries of the old man from within, answered,
"It is I--Victor--the Prince!--get up!" And presently the door was
opened by the General in his ROBE-DE-CHAMBRE, and the Prince
entered. The page brought in the box, and was bidden to wait
without, which he did; but there led from Monsieur de Magny's
bedroom into his antechamber two doors, the great one which formed
the entrance into his room, and a smaller one which led, as the
fashion is with our houses abroad, into the closet which
communicates with the alcove where the bed is. The door of this was
found by M. de Weissenborn to be open, and the young man was thus
enabled to hear and see everything which occurred within the
apartment.

'The General, somewhat nervously, asked what was the reason of so
early a visit from his Highness; to which the Prince did not for a
while reply, farther than by staring at him rather wildly, and
pacing up and down the room.

'At last he said, "Here is the cause!" dashing his fist on the box;
and, as he had forgotten to bring the key with him, he went to the
door for a moment, saying, "Weissenborn perhaps has it;" but seeing
over the stove one of the General's couteaux de chasse, he took it
down, and said, "That will do," and fell to work to burst the red
trunk open with the blade of the forest knife. The point broke, and
he gave an oath, but continued haggling on with the broken blade,
which was better suited to his purpose than the long pointed knife,
and finally succeeded in wrenching open the lid of the chest.

'"What is the matter?" said he, laughing. "Here's the matter;--read
that!--here's more matter, read that!--here's more--no, not that;
that's somebody else's picture--but here's hers! Do you know that,
Magny? My wife's--the Princess's! Why did you and your cursed race
ever come out of France, to plant your infernal wickedness wherever
your feet fell, and to ruin honest German homes? What have you and
yours ever had from my family but confidence and kindness? We gave
you a home when you had none, and here's our reward!" and he flung a
parcel of papers down before the old General; who saw the truth at
once;--he had known it long before, probably, and sank down on his
chair, covering his face.

'The Prince went on gesticulating, and shrieking almost. "If a man
injured you so, Magny, before you begot the father of that gambling
lying villain yonder, you would have known how to revenge yourself.
You would have killed him! Yes, would have killed him. But who's to
help me to my revenge? I've no equal. I can't meet that dog of a
Frenchman,--that pimp from Versailles,--and kill him, as if he had
played the traitor to one of his own degree."

'"The blood of Maxime de Magny," said the old gentleman proudly, "is
as good as that of any prince in Christendom."

'"Can I take it?" cried the Prince; "you know I can't. I can't have
the privilege of any other gentleman in Europe. What am I to do?
Look here, Magny: I was wild when I came here; I didn't know what to
do. You've served me for thirty years; you've saved my life twice:
they are all knaves and harlots about my poor old father here--no
honest men or women--you are the only one--you saved my life; tell
me what am I to do?" Thus from insulting Monsieur de Magny, the poor
distracted Prince fell to supplicating him; and, at last, fairly
flung himself down, and burst out in an agony of tears.

'Old Magny, one of the most rigid and cold of men on common
occasions, when he saw this outbreak of passion on the Prince's
part, became, as my informant has described to me, as much affected
as his master. The old man from being cold and high, suddenly fell,
as it were, into the whimpering querulousness of extreme old age. He
lost all sense of dignity; he went down on his knees, and broke out
into all sorts of wild incoherent attempts at consolation; so much
so, that Weissenborn said he could not bear to look at the scene,
and actually turned away from the contemplation of it.

'But, from what followed in a few days, we may guess the results of
the long interview. The Prince, when he came away from the
conversation with his old servant, forgot his fatal box of papers
and sent the page back for them. The General was on his knees
praying in the room when the young man entered, and only stirred and
looked wildly round as the other removed the packet. The Prince rode
away to his hunting-lodge at three leagues from X----, and three
days after that Maxime de Magny died in prison; having made a
confession that he was engaged in an attempt to rob the Jew, and
that he had made away with himself, ashamed of his dishonour.

'But it is not known that it was the General himself who took his
grandson poison: it was said even that he shot him in the prison.
This, however, was not the case. General de Magny carried his
grandson the draught which was to carry him out of the world;
represented to the wretched youth that his fate was inevitable; that
it would be public and disgraceful unless he chose to anticipate the
punishment, and so left him. But IT WAS NOT OF HIS OWN ACCORD, and
not until he had used EVERY means of escape, as you shall hear, that
the unfortunate being's life was brought to an end.

'As for General de Magny, he quite fell into imbecility a short time
after his grandson's death, and my honoured Duke's demise. After his
Highness the Prince married the Princess Mary of F----, as they were
walking in the English park together they once met old Magny riding
in the sun in the easy chair, in which he was carried commonly
abroad after his paralytic fits. "This is my wife, Magny," said the
Prince affectionately, taking the veteran's hand; and he added,
turning to his Princess, "General de Magny saved my life during the
Seven Years' War."

'"What, you've taken her back again?" said the old man. "I wish
you'd send me back my poor Maxime." He had quite forgotten the death
of the poor Princess Olivia, and the Prince, looking very dark
indeed, passed away.

'And now,' said Madame de Liliengarten, 'I have only one more gloomy
story to relate to you--the death of the Princess Olivia. It is even
more horrible than the tale I have just told you.' With which
preface the old lady resumed her narrative.

'The kind weak Princess's fate was hastened, if not occasioned, by
the cowardice of Magny. He found means to communicate with her from
his prison, and her Highness, who was not in open disgrace yet (for
the Duke, out of regard to the family, persisted in charging Magny
with only robbery), made the most desperate efforts to relieve him,
and to bribe the gaolers to effect his escape. She was so wild that
she lost all patience and prudence in the conduct of any schemes she
may have had for Magny's liberation; for her husband was inexorable,
and caused the Chevalier's prison to be too strictly guarded for
escape to be possible. She offered the State jewels in pawn to the
Court banker; who of course was obliged to decline the transaction.
She fell down on her knees, it is said, to Geldern, the Police
Minister, and offered him Heaven knows what as a bribe. Finally, she
came screaming to my poor dear Duke, who, with his age, diseases,
and easy habits, was quite unfit for scenes of so violent a nature;
and who, in consequence of the excitement created in his august
bosom by her frantic violence and grief, had a fit in which I very
nigh lost him. That his dear life was brought to an untimely end by
these transactions I have not the slightest doubt; for the
Strasbourg pie, of which they said he died, never, I am sure, could
have injured him, but for the injury which his dear gentle heart
received from the unusual occurrences in which he was forced to take
a share.

'All her Highness's movements were carefully, though not ostensibly,
watched by her husband, Prince Victor; who, waiting upon his august
father, sternly signified to him that if his Highness (MY Duke)
should dare to aid the Princess in her efforts to release Magny, he,
Prince Victor, would publicly accuse the Princess and her paramour
of high treason, and take measures with the Diet for removing his
father from the throne, as incapacitated to reign. Hence
interposition on our part was vain, and Magny was left to his fate.

'It came, as you are aware, very suddenly. Geldern, Police Minister,
Hengst, Master of the Horse, and the colonel of the Prince's guard,
waited upon the young man in his prison two days after his
grandfather had visited him there and left behind him the phial of
poison which the criminal had not the courage to use. And Geldern
signified to the young man that unless he took of his own accord the
laurelwater provided by the elder Magny, more violent means of death
would be instantly employed upon him, and that a file of grenadiers
was in waiting in the courtyard to despatch him. Seeing this, Magny,
with the most dreadful self-abasement, after dragging himself round
the room on his knees from one officer to another, weeping and
screaming with terror, at last desperately drank off the potion, and
was a corpse in a few minutes. Thus ended this wretched young man.

'His death was made public in the COURT GAZETTE two days after, the
paragraph stating that Monsieur de M----, struck with remorse for
having attempted the murder of the Jew, had put himself to death by
poison in prison; and a warning was added to all young noblemen of
the duchy to avoid the dreadful sin of gambling, which had been the
cause of the young man's ruin, and had brought upon the grey hairs
of one of the noblest and most honourable of the servants of the
Duke irretrievable sorrow.

'The funeral was conducted with decent privacy, the General de Magny
attending it. The carriages of the two Dukes and all the first
people of the Court made their calls upon the General afterwards. He
attended parade as usual the next day on the Arsenal-Place, and Duke
Victor, who had been inspecting the building, came out of it leaning
on the brave old warrior's arm. He was particularly gracious to the
old man, and told his officers the oft-repeated story how at
Rosbach, when the X----contingent served with the troops of the
unlucky Soubise, the General had thrown himself in the way of a
French dragoon, who was pressing hard upon his Highness in the rout,
had received the blow intended for his master, and killed the
assailant. And he alluded to the family motto of "Magny sans tache,"
and said, "It had been always so with his gallant friend and tutor
in arms." This speech affected all present very much; with the
exception of the old General, who only bowed and did not speak: but
when he went home he was heard muttering "Magny sans tache, Magny
sans tache!" and was attacked with paralysis that night, from which
he never more than partially recovered.

'The news of Maxime's death had somehow been kept from the Princess
until now: a GAZETTE even being printed without the paragraph
containing the account of his suicide; but it was at length, I know
not how, made known to her. And when she heard it, her ladies tell
me, she screamed and fell, as if struck dead; then sat up wildly and
raved like a madwoman, and was then carried to her bed, where her
physician attended her, and where she lay of a brain-fever. All this
while the Prince used to send to make inquiries concerning her; and
from his giving orders that his Castle of Schlangenfels should be
prepared and furnished, I make no doubt it was his intention to send
her into confinement thither: as had been done with the unhappy
sister of His Britannic Majesty at Zell.

'She sent repeatedly to demand an interview with his Highness; which
the latter declined, saying that he would communicate with her
Highness when her health was sufficiently recovered. To one of her
passionate letters he sent back for reply a packet, which, when
opened, was found to contain the emerald that had been the cause
round which all this dark intrigue moved.

'Her Highness at this time became quite frantic; vowed in the
presence of all her ladies that one lock of her darling Maxime's
hair was more precious to her than all the jewels in the world: rang
for her carriage, and said she would go and kiss his tomb;
proclaimed the murdered martyr's innocence, and called down the
punishment of Heaven, the wrath of her family, upon his assassin.
The Prince, on hearing these speeches (they were all, of course,
regularly brought to him), is said to have given one of his dreadful
looks (which I remember now), and to have said, "This cannot last
much longer."

'All that day and the next the Princess Olivia passed in dictating
the most passionate letters to the Prince her father, to the Kings
of France, Naples, and Spain, her kinsmen, and to all other branches
of her family, calling upon them in the most incoherent terms to
protect her against the butcher and assassin her husband, assailing
his person in the maddest terms of reproach, and at the same time
confessing her love for the murdered Magny. It was in vain that
those ladies who were faithful to her pointed out to her the
inutility of these letters, the dangerous folly of the confessions
which they made; she insisted upon writing them, and used to give
them to her second robe-woman, a Frenchwoman (her Highness always
affectioned persons of that nation), who had the key of her
cassette, and carried every one of these epistles to Geldern.

'With the exception that no public receptions were held, the
ceremony of the Princess's establishment went on as before. Her
ladies were allowed to wait upon her and perform their usual duties
about her person. The only men admitted were, however, her servants,
her physician and chaplain; and one day when she wished to go into
the garden, a heyduc, who kept the door, intimated to her Highness
that the Prince's orders were that she should keep her apartments.

'They abut, as you remember, upon the landing of the marble
staircase of Schloss X----; the entrance to Prince Victor's suite of
rooms being opposite the Princess's on the same landing. This space
is large, filled with sofas and benches, and the gentlemen and
officers who waited upon the Duke used to make a sort of antechamber
of the landing-place, and pay their court to his Highness there, as
he passed out, at eleven o'clock, to parade. At such a time, the
heyducs within the Princess's suite of rooms used to turn out with
their halberts and present to Prince Victor--the same ceremony being
performed on his own side, when pages came out and announced the
approach of his Highness. The pages used to come out and say, "The
Prince, gentlemen!" and the drums beat in the hall, and the
gentlemen rose, who were waiting on the benches that ran along the
balustrade.

'As if fate impelled her to her death, one day the Princess, as her
guards turned out, and she was aware that the Prince was standing,
as was his wont, on the landing, conversing with his gentlemen (in
the old days he used to cross to the Princess's apartment and kiss
her hand)--the Princess, who had been anxious all the morning,
complaining of heat, insisting that all the doors of the apartments
should be left open; and giving tokens of an insanity which I think
was now evident, rushed wildly at the doors when the guards passed
out, flung them open, and before a word could be said, or her ladies
could follow her, was in presence of Duke Victor, who was talking as
usual on the landing: placing herself between him and the stair, she
began apostrophising him with frantic vehemence:--

'"Take notice, gentlemen!" she screamed out, "that this man is a
murderer and a liar; that he lays plots for honourable gentlemen,
and kills them in prison! Take notice, that I too am in prison, and
fear the same fate: the same butcher who killed Maxime de Magny,
may, any night, put the knife to my throat. I appeal to you, and to
all the kings of Europe, my Royal kinsmen. I demand to be set free
from this tyrant and villain, this liar and traitor! I adjure you
all, as gentlemen of honour, to carry these letters to my relatives,
and say from whom you had them!" and with this the unhappy lady
began scattering letters about among the astonished crowd.

'"LET NO MAN STOOP!" cried the Prince, in a voice of thunder.
"Madame de Gleim, you should have watched your patient better. Call
the Princess's physicians: her Highness's brain is affected.
Gentlemen, have the goodness to retire." And the Prince stood on the
landing as the gentlemen went down the stairs, saying fiercely to
the guard, "Soldier, if she moves, strike with your halbert!" on
which the man brought the point of his weapon to the Princess's
breast; and the lady, frightened, shrank back and re-entered her
apartments. "Now, Monsieur de Weissenborn," said the Prince, "pick
up all those papers;" and the Prince went into his own apartments,
preceded by his pages, and never quitted them until he had seen
every one of the papers burnt.

'The next day the COURT GAZETTE contained a bulletin signed by the
three physicians, stating that "her Highness the Hereditary Princess
laboured under inflammation of the brain, and had passed a restless
and disturbed night." Similar notices were issued day after day. The
services of all her ladies, except two, were dispensed with. Guards
were placed within and without her doors; her windows were secured,
so that escape from them was impossible: and you know what took
place ten days after. The church-bells were ringing all night, and
the prayers of the faithful asked for a person IN EXTREMIS. A
GAZETTE appeared in the morning, edged with black, and stating that
the high and mighty Princess Olivia Maria Ferdinanda, consort of His
Serene Highness Victor Louis Emanuel, Hereditary Prince of X----,
had died in the evening of the 24th of January 1769.

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