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Page 23
"But when I tell you that the count isn't--"
He stopped suddenly in the middle of his sentence and cast a stolen glance
at the florin which the baron had pressed into his hand.
"Announce me to Count von Kotte," said the baron pleasantly. "He will
certainly receive me."
"Your name, sir?" asked the lackey respectfully.
"Commissioner Kraus," was the reply. The man withdrew, and, a few minutes
after, returned with a smiling face.
"The count is at home and begs the gentleman to come in," he said, throwing
the door wide open and standing respectfully beside it.
Commissioner Kraus, smiling, stepped past him into the anteroom. A door on
the opposite side opened, and the tall figure of a man attired in the
Austrian uniform appeared.
"Is it really you, my dear Kraus!" he cried. "So you have returned already.
Come, come, I have longed to see you."
Holding out his hand to the visitor, he drew him hastily into the next
room.
"You have longed to see me, my dear count," said Kraus, laughing, "and yet
I was within an ace of being turned from your door. Since when have you
lived in a barricaded apartment, count?"
"Since the spies of the French governor of Vienna, Count Andreossy, have
watched my door and pursued my every step," replied the count, smiling.
"But now speak, my dear Kraus. You went to Totis? You talked with the
Emperor Francis?"
"I went to Totis and talked with the Emperor Francis."
"Good heavens! you say it with such a gloomy, solemn expression. Has the
emperor become irresolute?"
"Yes, that is it. The emperor is surrounded by adherents of the Napoleonic
party; they have succeeded in thrusting back the real patriots, the
Anti-Bonapartists, and would have rendered them wholly inactive had not
the Empress Ludovica tried to support them with all her influence. All is
not yet lost, but unless we soon succeed in making a decisive step, our
foes will completely gain the ear of the emperor, persuade him to accept
the ignoble, humiliating peace which Napoleon offered, and, from his enemy,
become his ally."
"It would be horrible if that could be done," cried the count sadly. "It is
not possible that the Emperor Francis could resolve upon such humiliation."
"They have alarmed the emperor, intimidated him; told him that his crown,
his life, were at stake; that unless he would make himself Napoleon's ally
and accept the proffered peace, the Emperor Napoleon would say of him what
he said of the Bourbons in Spain: 'The Hapsburg dynasty has ceased to
exist.' If something does not now happen, if we do not force a decision,
everything is lost. Austria will conclude a humiliating peace and, instead
of being delivered from the French tyrant's yoke, we shall be obliged to
see Austria sink into a French province, and the Emperor Francis, in spite
of his high-sounding title, become nothing more than the viceroy of the
Emperor Napoleon."
"It must not, it shall not come to that!" exclaimed the count wildly. "We
must risk everything to prevent this. 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. With this conviction, we must begin our work and arrange our
affairs as if we were going into a battle."
"My affairs are arranged, and I am ready," replied the count solemnly.
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