CHAPTER VI. Mondragone

MONDRAGONE

"'Tis a grave responsibility to play the dragon to a pretty woman."

This was the assertion with which Celio Benvoglio, private secretary of her Highness, Princess Pauline Bonaparte Borghese, invariably prefaced the following story, and had I a like knack in telling it, you would admit the demonstration of that proposition. By dragon you will understand that his Excellency, Prince Camillo Borghese, signified a guardian and protector. To constitute Celio Malespini a spy and reporter was no more in the thought of the Prince than it could have been in Celio's performance. He was young, and as chivalric an admirer of the Princess as he was loyal in his devotion to her husband. Had he discovered anything equivocal in her conduct, wild horses could not have torn her secret from him, and it is possible that the Prince counted upon this when he said:

"Celio, the Princess is very young and impulsive; that she is a foreigner and therefore inexperienced in our strict etiquette will not excuse her slightest mistake in the eyes of our severe Roman dames, who would be prejudiced against the sister of Napoleon were she as circumspect as the Madonna. Her beauty has already made them envious, her wit and light-heartedness is considered levity. They will delight in wagging their tongues maliciously on the least shadow of suspicion. In appointing you secretary to the Princess I place you in a position where you will be able to guard her from the appearance of evil. Understand well that I have no fear of its reality, but where there are windows overlooking one's garden the neighbours may see more than the owner, more even than actually occurs."

"Have no fear, my lord," the young secretary rashly promised. "You know the Tuscan proverb in regard to avoiding the suspicion of fruit stealing. Ah, well, no visitor shall be allowed to tie his shoestrings among your strawberries or to use his handkerchief under your plum tree."

So the Prince went away to Florence and Celio found that he had more than he had bargained for. Not that Pauline Bonaparte committed actual indiscretions; but she was wild for admiration, loved dress, and knew how to dress well, setting off her marvellous beauty with that combination of style and taste that the French call chic, which the heavier intellects of the Roman modistes with all their pretence to fashion can never attain, and which the imperious Roman matrons could never forgive.

One of these, hoping to rob this audacious rival of the advantage of Parisian modishness, gave a fête in which the guests were requested to appear in classical costume, whose severe simplicity she fancied would be more becoming to the plenitude of her own Juno-like charms than to the slight figure of the French girl. But the Princess vanquished her hostess for she came as a Bacchante in a robe of her own designing, bordered with vine leaves embroidered in gold and belted beneath the breasts with a golden girdle. A mantle of panther's fur swept from her shoulders, her arms and her bust were laden with heavy necklaces and bracelets taken from some Etruscan tomb, and she waved a golden thyrsus. Her entrance illuminated the ball-room and the character which she represented gave her authority for giving free vent to her natural vivacity and dancing with the utmost grace and abandon. Her victory over the male part of the assembly was complete for they saw no one else that evening.

They were wrong who supposed that her beauty was enhanced by dress; on the contrary it was limited by the clothing which it adorned. The sculptor Canova proved this in his portrait statue of her as Venus Victorious, and then her detractors, affecting to be greatly scandalised, changed their tune and declared that it was false that the Princess was too fond of dress, that on the contrary a greater regard for it would have been more decent.

The young secretary was not a little troubled by the caprice of his patroness to thus display her beauty to the world. "But why not, my Celio?" she had argued. "The Prince, my husband, has bestowed upon me a great title for which I feel my obligation to his noble family, and I shall pay it with interest, for I shall leave the Borgheses this incomparable statue, and the glory of having possessed one Princess whose beauty cannot be denied or equalled."

Why Prince Borghese should have deputed this dragon service to another instead of undertaking it himself, is a question which I cannot answer. Some misunderstanding doubtless there was, or two people who loved each other would never have agreed that it was better to live apart, but the Prince carried a sore and longing heart with him to Florence, and it may be that the Princess was no happier, though she had more bravado.

"I will come when you send for me and not before," her husband said to her, "and I trust you understand the motives which underlie my self-banishment."

"I am grateful to them at least," was her equivocal retort. "Has your Highness any preference as to my residence during your absence?"

"None," he replied sadly, "but I shall be happier if you do not make choice of your Neapolitan villa."

She flashed at him indignantly, "You wish to estrange me from my family, from my sister Caroline."

"I have only the highest respect for her Majesty, the Queen of Naples," he replied; "her devotion to her husband is undoubted. I could wish--" and here the Prince paused.

"That I were more like her," the Princess finished his sentence.

"I never said so, Pauline," he said impulsively, "or wished that you were like any other than yourself."

His last words should have softened her, but, pained and indignant at his desertion, she hardly heeded them; how was she to know that Camillo Borghese was, under his cold exterior, very honestly in love with his wife and just now cruelly tortured with jealousy of her brother-in-law, the dare-devil Murat? For the latter was as unscrupulous as he was handsome, as Napoleon was to find to his cost, though in recognition of his services as a dashing leader of cavalry he had rewarded him with the hand of his sister Caroline and the crown of Naples.

Hitherto the Princess had not even remarked the bold admiration of her brother-in-law, and after the departure of her husband she wept and sulked for days, when suddenly an event of great political importance, which was also of deep personal interest to herself, threw into the background every other consideration.

Napoleon's abdication and the treaty of Fontainebleau came upon his friends with the shock of an earthquake. Especially to his sister Pauline it was as though the foundations of the earth were tottering. He had been the Providence of all his family, dividing the nations between them; but Pauline had been his favourite, he had loved her sincerely, and she had responded with the utmost devotion.

"I will go to him in his trouble," she declared, and though her secretary could not see how her presence could aid the deposed Emperor, he could not but approve her generous impulse.

She met her brother at Hyères near the frontier of France, from which point he embarked for the Island of Elba. The allies had granted him the lordship of the island, with an income to support a pseudo court; but the framers of that treaty, and Napoleon himself, knew well that its terms were a farce and his kingdom in reality a prison.

What transpired between the Princess and her brother in that brief interview Celio did not know. Each passed from it calmed and cheerful. There was a kindlier look in the Emperor's face, a more assured elasticity in his step as the English sailors who transported him to his exile shouted their, "Better luck next time"; and sparks were lighted in the eyes of the Princess which every one who saw her noted, though none guessed what hidden fires of resolve fed their flashes.

Fountain in Gardens of the Villa Borghese]

They called her that season the Firefly, and many misinterpreted her illy suppressed excitement and the scrutiny of those lambent eyes sending out their flame signals in search of answering lights. Even her secretary did not know that the dark shadows which ringed them were not due to the balls and other frivolities in which she was so conspicuous; but to complicated and dangerous schemes which robbed her of sleep at night, and were never forgotten as she danced and chatted and coquetted while the most astute diplomats laid their hearts and their secrets at her feet.

She received strange visitors too at the magnificent Villa Borghese, just outside the Porta del Popolo, wild-eyed agitators and suspects who had never before been permitted to enter those aristocratic gates. The first had come disguised in a marble-cutter's blouse as an assistant of Canova; but he had dropped a word which the noble model understood, and the fire signals had flashed between them. After the sculptor had left the casino his assistant tarried, and Celio, dismissed by his mistress but lingering at the threshold, heard fragments of the man's talk: "Liberty, united Italy, and death to the Austrians."

Later, when he attempted to warn the Princess that if the man were not a maniac he was more dangerous, she asked him bluntly if her husband had constituted him her dragon, and thereafter in half contemptuous banter she gave him the nickname of "Mondragone."

It was the name also of another villa belonging to the Borghese, the most sightly of all the boldly seated summer resorts of the nobility at beautiful Frascati. Not one of these commands a view comparable to the one from its terrace of the Pope's Chimneys, so named from the strange monumental constructions which are so conspicuous that, with a glass, they are plainly visible from Rome.

So when the Princess announced, "I love Mondragone," her secretary did not flatter himself that the equivocal utterance bore any reference to himself. Had he also had the wit to perceive that if she indeed cared for the villa or for any other object at this time, it was only for some service which it might render her brother, his duties as dragon would have occasioned him far less of mental anguish.

Celio was writing one day in a room adjoining the apartment which Canova had used as his studio in the casino of Villa Borghese, when he was startled by a heavy step in the room which he had supposed unoccupied. Throwing aside the portière he instantly recognised from report the imposing figure which confronted him. On a lesser man so gorgeous a costume as the one which now dazzled the astonished eyes of the secretary would have suggested the mountebank; but there was something regal as well as Oriental in Joachim Murat's appearance, and the barbarous colour extravagances of his dress became him like those of a sultan.

His curling hair, black and long, fell upon a green velvet cloak heavily embroidered with gold which hung from his shoulders displaying a sky-blue frogged tunic, whose breast was covered with jewelled crosses and beribboned decorations. The crimson breeches which met the high boots of yellow morocco were braided with gold in the Polish fashion and fitted closely his shapely thighs, but the tarnished and battered cavalry sabre clanking at his side occasioned him no inconvenience, and it needed but a glance at the broken plumes of the ruby-clasped aigrette which decorated a shabby wide-brimmed hat to convince the beholder that this was no gala costume but the habitual garb of a soldier. He was spurred and played nonchalantly with his riding-whip as he returned Celio's questioning glance with a smile, half arrogant, half familiar. Wheeling upon his heel without deigning any explanation of his presence, he returned to his contemplation of the portrait statue of the Princess, and the young secretary's blood boiled as he saw that the expression of contemptuous familiarity on the sensual face had been elicited not by his insignificant self but by the masterpiece of Canova.

"A fair portrait doubtless," he said indifferently, "for I recognise certain points of resemblance to her sister, whose perfections, however, the Princess Borghese cannot hope to emulate."

"Pardon me, sir," stammered the secretary in tones which he vainly strove to render icy,--"but this is the Villa Borghese and not a public museum."

The intruder looked down with amused bonhommie. "I am an acquaintance of the Prince," he vouchsafed, "and have been invited by him to view his art collections."

Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese

Portrait statue by Canova at Villa Borghese]

Celio bridled with increased importance. "Prince Borghese's specimens of antique sculpture are in the palazzo where, if the Signor will announce himself, he will doubtless be accorded the privilege of seeing them. This palazzita is the private boudoir of the Princess."

"So much the better," the other laughed. "But when she commanded that statue she doubtless contemplated the possibility of its being admired by other eyes than her own. No insult is intended, my young popinjay. It is all in the family. Restrain your indignation and inform the Princess that the King of Naples is waiting here in obedience to her appointment."

The secretary was not pleased with this message, and he liked still less the manner in which it was received, for the Princess hurried to meet her brother-in-law and allowed him to salute her gallantly upon both cheeks, and to address her as "Paulette."

Celio, excused from attendance, had no opportunity, though he stood sentinel in the loggia, to overhear their conversation. Finally the Princess summoned him. "Order my carriage," she commanded, "and the caleche, and ask the attendance of my first lady-in-waiting. Tell Maurice to arrange a lunch-hamper quickly. His Majesty insists he must set out this afternoon for Naples. We will accompany him as far as Mondragone and picnic there."

So they dashed away on the road to Frascati, the Princess lolling alone in her open carriage, for Murat had declined the seat beside her, though he kept his horse recklessly near her wheels, Celio following with the maid of honour and the lunch basket in the caleche, and one of Murat's orderlies (the other had been dispatched to order his suite to meet him at Mondragone) bringing up the rear.

At the wildest and steepest part of the road the party halted, and the Princess alighting announced her intention of taking a short cut across the hills while the carriages followed the more circuitous driveway. Murat threw his reins to his orderly, and Celio, true to his self-constituted duties as dragon, left the maid of honour dozing in the caleche and followed his mistress. She had brought a tall staff, knotted with a tri-colour ribbon, which she used as an alpenstock, springing lightly over the steep boulders, while the athletic Murat kept pace with the easy swinging stride of a mountaineer. Suddenly Celio saw him catch the Princess by the arm and both stood as though instantaneously frozen. Then, as the secretary came panting up, Murat handed the Princess to him, and taking a few steps forward and apparently addressing the landscape, for Celio saw no one said in a voice of calm but inflexible authority: "Lay down your gun, and come from behind that rock."

To Celio's astonishment a villainous appearing brigand advanced and knelt at Murat's feet.

"Why did you not shoot me when I was at the lower turn of the road, my friend?" Murat demanded; "you had the better opportunity then, for I had not discovered you, and I was for several minutes within your range."

"True, your Majesty," replied the bandit, "but I said to myself, 'that is too magnificent a figure of a man to kill, even though he is a king.'"

Murat laughed. "I will return the compliment," he said, writing rapidly on a card. "You have too much discrimination and obey orders too well to be a brigand. I wonder now if you have heard of a secret organisation called the Carbonari? I thought so" (replying by an almost imperceptible gesture to a signal made by the bandit); "you see you have made a mistake, for I also am a member of the order. All in time, my good fellow, and you shall use your rifle against the Austrians. Take this to the recruiting office of the Neapolitan army at Castel di Rocca. Never fear, it is no trap. This young man will read it for you." And the secretary read: "Give this brave fellow a place in the Corps of Calabrian Sharpshooters, and assure Captain Castiglione that he can be relied upon for expert guerilla service. Giacomo Rè."

The man went away trembling with emotion but Murat called to him: "Come back, you have forgotten your gun," and stood carelessly regarding the view with his back turned while the would-be assassin regained possession of his weapon.

The Princess clapped her hands. "I understand now," she said, "why you bore a charmed life when you came dashing out of the smoke of the battle-field, sweeping within a few feet of the muzzles of the enemy's guns. It needed not the command of the Czar that you were not to be fired upon,--the gunners could no more have done so than this poor outlaw. I comprehend also how you have managed to augment the roll of your army, which on your accession included but fifty thousand names, to its present list of seventy-five thousand, and at the same time have so marvellously reduced the number of brigands in your kingdom."

"Partly in this way," he acknowledged, lightly, "but the Austrian officers would be surprised to know how many of my best disciplined soldiers have had the advantage of their drilling."

"Deserters?" the Princess asked.

"And whole companies in Northern Italy waiting for the first symptoms of a war with Italy to desert en masse."

When the party reached Mondragone the custodian, surprised at their coming (for the villa had been long unoccupied), unbarred the shutters and let the light into the dusty salons.

"It is roomy enough for a barracks," Murat remarked as he wandered through suite after suite of the great tenantless rooms.

"I forbid you so to use it," the Princess jested, "though you may occupy Mondragone yourself when you lay siege to Rome."

"It would not be a bad headquarters," he said as they came out upon the terrace. "Imagine a semaphore in the place of those monstrous and absurd columns--what are they, by the way? One could waft signals from Rome to Calabria and from the Adriatic to the Tirrenian."

That was an exaggeration, of course, but Mondragone would have been a good station in such a signal service.

"Those absurd columns," the Princess replied, "might themselves serve as semaphores. They are chimneys, colossal enough to serve a foundry, though they do duty to simple kitchens, those which prepared the excellent dinners with which Pope Paul V. entertained his guests. When the smoke rises from that one I can see the cloudy column from my windows at Rome."

"And I could see it far on the road from Naples," he mused, and then the two wandered away from their watching dragon and leaning on the balustrade with their faces toward the magnificent view earnestly discussed projects which had nothing to do with that unrivalled panorama.

Celio was in torment. What was Murat saying in that low, guarded voice, while his hand clenched and crushed the roses that swarmed over the balustrade and scattered their petals to the wind? Why did the Princess's colour come and go as she listened, her cheek much too near his passionate lips?

Since there was no way of overhearing this equivocal conversation, it must at all hazards be interrupted, and Celio prematurely announced the al fresco supper. Here, while he fluttered behind them in a pretence of service, he heard both too much for his peace of mind and too little for his complete enlightenment.

At first the talk was of family matters, chiefly of Napoleon at Elba, with whom Pauline begged her brother-in-law to be reconciled, for this was in the summer of 1814, when Murat, foreseeing that Napoleon's star had set, had signed a treaty with the allies.

"One would think I had done enough for your brother," he said, moodily. "I left my kingdom to lead the cavalry of the grande armée in the Russian campaign. I gained his victories and I commanded the escadron sacrée which protected his person in the retreat, and what is my reward?"

"What is your present position?" the Princess asked.

"I am your brother-in-law," Murat replied, "but, as I wrote Napoleon, I conferred as much honour as I received when I married your sister, and, as for my kingship, the Emperor wished only a devoted servant whom he could command, and he has discovered his mistake."

The eyes of Pauline Bonaparte shot fire while the other spoke. "You are very stupid to talk in this way to me, Joachim," she said, commanding herself in time. "You needed Napoleon--you need him now, for your scheme will never succeed unless he supports you. It is your good fortune that he needs you enough to forgive your defection. The family stands or falls together, mon ami."

"Evidently your mother does not think so," Murat replied, with pique. "I have just brought Madame Mère a present of eight fine carriage-horses. She declined them with thanks, and would not see me when I called on her in Rome. As for my loving brother-in-law, your noble husband----"

"Why should you mind Camillo's sulks since I do not? He and Madame Mère have such amusing ideas. It was not so much Caroline's correspondence with your 'dear Metternich' which offended them and my brother, too. They have never forgotten that little affair of the silver lemon squeezer. Ah, mon ami! you had had too much champagne when you brewed that bowl of punch at the officers' dinner."

"I never said that it was the Empress who taught me the recipe and gave me the lemon squeezer," he retorted, flushing.

"Oh! no; nor told you that oranges and not lemons were used with Jamaica rum in the islands; nor why pretty creoles were like lemons."

"Do you mean to provoke me?" Murat exclaimed, rising quickly.

"No, mon ami, though I shared in that suspicion, too, for they called me a creole on my return from San Domingo."

Murat's jaw fell. "Do you mean that your husband thought I meant you?" he asked.

"Prince Borghese is too polite a man to voice such a suspicion, and I am too clever a woman to show that I have guessed it, but that is reason enough why I cannot accept my sister's invitation to take possession of the entrancing Neapolitan villa which you so kindly offer me."

"You are like your mother. You refuse my peace-offerings; you will not visit us?"

"Peace-offerings, yes; but make me some offerings of war, that fine army, for instance; and, by the way, if you will give me a yacht instead of the villa I may consent to be your guest. Meantime we understand each other. I will give immediate orders to my people that no fire is on any account to be lighted in the Pope's kitchens, as the chimneys are unsafe. Should I perceive a column of smoke rising from them I shall know that you are here, and I will come to you. If, on the other hand, I hear that you are in this vicinity on the business of which we spoke, I shall make Mondragone my residence; and should you perceive my smoke signal----"

"Then," he interrupted, speaking very low, but so distinctly that Celio's heart froze as he listened--"then, Paulette, be the danger what it may, heaven nor hell shall keep me from you."

They parted in the most commonplace manner, the Princess returning to Rome after the conclusion of the repast, but, though she appeared to sleep all the way, Celio marked when she alighted that her face, illuminated by the strong glare that blazed from the open door of the villa, was haggard as from long vigils.

Deeply distressed, the poor dragon spent a sleepless night, but towards morning an inspiration came to him. He saw his way to saving his lady without arousing the suspicions of her husband. She had forbidden the use of the Pope's chimneys to the guardian of the villa, plainly that they should serve solely as signals between herself and Murat. But the reason which she had given for their disuse, that they were unsafe, furnished the secretary with his pretext, and he wrote his master urging that they should be taken down.

Before the Prince had time to reply the event which he had dreaded took place. The Princess, in direct opposition to her husband's parting request, announced her determination to visit her sister at Naples. It was not in her secretary's province to remonstrate, and he was soon to gain a point of view from which the inexplicable behaviour of his mistress presented a very different aspect.

Arrived at Naples the Princess and her suite were met by Queen Caroline and installed in a charming villa near the city, and on the succeeding day the entire household were taken by the King and Queen for a short cruise in the royal yacht.

Outside the island of Ischia the party landed, and climbing to a ruined tower which commanded an extensive prospect, they plainly discerned in a hidden cove a little craft flying a flag unfamiliar at that time to Celio Benvoglio, a striped red and white pennon studded with golden bees. It was the ensign chosen by Napoleon while lord of Elba, and displayed by the six swift sailing pinnaces which made up the Emperor's little navy.

Pauline now informed her suite that she was about to pay a visit to her brother, which for important reasons must not for the present be suspected. Her maids of honour must therefore return to her Neapolitan villa, and, to keep up the fiction of her presence, announce on the morrow that the Princess had succumbed to an attack of fever. The Court physician would pay daily visits as would the King and Queen, but no others would be admitted to the secret.

With feminine fondness for intrigue the three maids of honour entered into the plan, while Celio, relieved from his tormenting suspicions accompanied his mistress to Elba.

Here, admitted to her conferences with her brother as he fulfilled new and arduous duties in the transcription of dispatches, he comprehended that the secret alliance between the Princess and Murat had been purely political, and with what tact she had won him to reconciliation and co-operation with Napoleon.

The Emperor's plans were more audacious and far-reaching than ever. In their scope the movement for the independence and unification of Italy was but a subordinate detail. Pauline knew that her brother was developing a great coup d'état, that he would presently escape from Elba and seize again the reins of power, and it was she who had first perceived and who now explained to him how the undercurrent of events in Italy might become a factor in his scheme.

Agitators had been busy in every part of the peninsula firing patriot hearts to throw off the domination of the three foreign powers which held them enslaved. The King of Naples by naturalising himself as an Italian, and compelling his French soldiers to do so, had been permitted to take part in the plot. It is possible that the revolutionists, who saw the immense advantage of the services of so able a general as Murat, intended to repudiate him after they had gained their ends. But at that time they flattered him with the hope of becoming the king as well as the deliverer of all Italy.

As Celio Benvoglio toiled over his papers he was amazed at the imagination of his mistress which had first discerned the possibility of making the cause of Italian liberty serve her brother's ambitious imperialism, and the marvellous finesse with which she had vanquished Murat's gascon envy and resentment and made him once more a tool in the hand of the Emperor. Still more he admired Napoleon's acumen and resource as he saw order coming out of chaos and all things working together for the success of his stupendous undertaking. The Emperor had planned to first secure Paris, and then, proclaiming the independence of Italy, to make common cause with her against Austria and at the head of the united French and Italian armies, one hundred thousand strong, march by way of the Julian Alps upon Vienna.

As the impressionable secretary traced the burning proclamation which Napoleon dictated to his old soldiers, he doubted not that it would fire the heart of every veteran and the great enterprise seemed infallible.

"Take again the eagles you followed at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Montmirail," pleaded their adored commander. "Range yourselves under the banners of your old chief. Victory shall march with every step. In your old age you shall say with pride, I also was one of that great army which twice entered the walls of Vienna, took Rome, Berlin, Madrid, and Moscow, and which delivered Paris from domestic treason and the occupation of strangers."

What wonder that, carried away by the immensity and daring of the conquest of the continent, the happiness of one longing heart should have seemed a very insignificant thing, and that Celio should have quite forgotten that his master, Camillo Borghese, was waiting for some reassuring word from him, that he had heard of the Princess's reckless removal to Naples, and was distracted between anger at her flagrant disregard of his wishes, suspicion of what such heartlessness might mean, and acute distress on learning of her illness? The Prince could not, on account of personal reasons, present himself at the Court of the King of Naples, but he had written repeatedly to Celio Benvoglio and these letters the first maid of honour, finding no opportunity to forward to Elba, had judged best to retain at Naples unopened until the return of the secretary.

So the days flew for the Princess and dragged for her husband, until at midnight on the twenty-seventh of February, 1815, Napoleon with his handful of devoted soldiers embarked for France, and his sister returned to Naples with instructions for Murat. Then the Neapolitan villa was suddenly vacated and the seven carriages of the Princess took up their line of march for Rome.

She had found awaiting her at Naples letters in which her husband passionately besought her to return; and, while her face flushed as she realised the motives which he attributed to Murat, her heart swelled with triumph that he believed in her in spite of all.

"He loves me!" she murmured to herself unguardedly, in the presence of her secretary.

"Then give me leave to write him," the young man cried, impulsively, "that I may relieve his anxiety. Let me bid him join you at Rome. Think, dearest madam, what he must suffer."

But at that word the Princess frowned. "And do you think I have not suffered?" she cried. "I am glad that he is jealous, since it proves that he can love. Nevertheless I would gladly summon him if I could. But do you not see, Celio, that he must not be implicated in our plots? If we fail, he must be known to have had no letters from me. I forbid you to communicate with him until I give you permission. Camillo is too honest to make a good conspirator. If I can wait, cannot you? The game may not be worth the candle, but I will play it to the end."

The little cavalcade paused at Mondragone, for the Princess had decided to spend a few weeks at her Frascati villa. Here, to her indignation, she found engineers preparing to take down the Pope's chimneys.

"On whose authority do you presume to do a thing so outrageous?" she demanded, and they showed her the order of Prince Borghese.

"Delay the execution of these instructions until such time as they are repeated," she commanded. "I have decided to take up my residence here for the present, and cannot be disturbed by repairs and alterations."

When the men were gone she faced her secretary in consternation. "Who can have incited Camillo to such a resolution?" she demanded, and the consciousness of guilt in his face was a sufficient answer.

"It was you, dear lady, who put the idea into my head," he stammered; "you said the chimneys were cracked and might set fire to the villa."

"Spy and traitor," she hissed, "you tried to make it impossible for me to communicate with Murat. It is your idiotic suspicions that have roused Camillo's jealousy."

"You have said that you were glad of that jealousy," Celio ventured; and the Princess laughed bitterly, then softening, said: "I do believe you thought yourself acting for my good, oh, foolish little dragon. Confess, my poor boy, that Pauline Borghese has the wit to take care of herself."

Very humbly Celio confessed that this was evident, but his troubles were by no means over. A fortnight later Italy was electrified by the startling rumour that the King of Naples had declared war with Austria and was marching toward Lombardy.

The Princess was struck with consternation, for she knew that Napoleon could not so soon have perfected his arrangements for making a junction with Murat. Though she entertained no one it was noticed by her neighbours that the Pope's chimneys smoked continually, as though the most elaborate banquets were in preparation and one night the expected guest arrived.

Murat had intended to give Rome a wide berth, stealing around it by the Abruzzi. But his left wing had scouts on the western slopes of the Sabine Mountains and were instructed to keep a lookout for the smoke signal from Mondragone, and he had ridden across the mountains for a day and half a night to answer her summons.

She gave him food and a fresh horse, but she sent him back to the Castello Borghese at Monte Compatri for his lodging, with many reproaches and gloomy prophecies for his mad precipitation in anticipating the mot d'ordre of Napoleon.

Theirs was no loving tryst, but a stormy altercation, for Murat defended his act and refused her entreaties, which were rather in the nature of commands, to go back to Naples and wait for advice from his general.

"Why should I put myself under his orders?" he demanded. "Austria has taken alarm and is pouring its forces into Lombardy. If I do not secure Milan at once it will be too late and the opportunity will be lost. Who knows when Napoleon will think of us? They say he is at Paris preparing to meet the allies in Belgium. Our little rendezvous for the excursion to Vienna is apparently forgotten. He has other matters to attend to. Well, so have I. I am weary of governing for him. When I am King of Italy I will rule according to the ideas of Joachim Murat."

"You would never have been a King in name but for him," she replied hotly, "you are not fit to rule. You are a good soldier, Joachim, but you need your master."

So they parted in bitterness, and Celio, who was present at their interview, rejoiced that such was the manner of their parting, and prayed that they might never meet again, but that prayer was not to be answered.

The Princess returned to Rome and soon received information of the fulfilment of her prophecy. For a few days Murat held Bologna, then the Austrians swooped down upon him and he met them gallantly, but disastrously, near Modena. Reverse followed reverse and at Tolentino his mad campaign of six weeks ended in total defeat. His army fled in all directions, and a refugee brought word that Murat, scorning surrender, had fallen sabring desperately to the last.

Pauline received the news, pale but unshaken. "My poor sister," she said, and then quickly, "but she knows her refuge; by this time doubtless she is on her way to Napoleon." Then a great light illumined her face. "The revolution has failed, my work is done. I can now write to Camillo."

She was writing when a messenger entered with a letter from her husband. "He is coming, Celio," she cried joyfully. "He will be here in an hour. He writes that in disaster and grief his place is at my side, and he could not wait my summons. Oh, Celio, was there ever such magnanimity?"

As she rang to give orders for her husband's reception, her third maid of honour, Pippa Serbonella, a waspish, deceitful creature whom Celio had never liked, flung wide the curtain of the window and cried: "Eccellentissima, look,--the chimneys of Mondragone!"

It was true, from one of them rose a thin waving scarf of smoke, fluttering and beckoning in the light wind. The Princess caught the arm of her secretary. "Joachim is not dead!" she cried; "he is there and I must go to him."

"Not now, not now, dearest lady," pleaded the young man. "Your husband is coming. Think what that means."

"Yes, yes, I know," she gasped, wringing her hands, "but I cannot desert my brother-in-law in his extremity. I led him into this, Celio. I promised to come when he called. I must keep my promise. Stay you, and say what you will to Camillo. I will be back this evening."

With many a misgiving the wretched dragon saw her drive away, and a little later confronted the eager face of Prince Borghese.

"My wife?" he questioned, and Celio could only stammer, "She has gone out for a drive; she will be back presently."

"Did she not receive my letter?" and the Prince had his answer, for it lay with broken seal upon her escritoire.

"Did she go to meet me? Have we missed each other?" he asked.

"Not so, your Highness," Pippa Serbonella interpolated, "the Princess had another appointment," and again with significant finger and hateful smile she pointed to the smoke signal. The Prince stood transfixed, and Celio understood from their two faces that the girl had given unsolicited full reports of that correspondence written in the air. "Oh! you women, you women!" he groaned, and "I will strangle you, traitress," he whispered as she passed him.

But the Prince had other occupation for him at that moment. "Now tell the whole truth," he commanded sternly, and the secretary told it, exulting that against her will the malicious maid-of-honour must confirm his statement that while the Princess had been supposed to be at Naples she was really with Napoleon at Elba.

A look of relief smoothed Borghese's forehead for an instant. "I never doubted my wife," he declared proudly, "nevertheless the King of Naples has certain explanations to make to me. Celio there was in that cabinet a case of pistols which the Emperor gave me."

"The Princess took them with her this morning," Pippa vouchsafed officiously.

"Ah!" the Prince drew in his breath. "It is of no consequence," he added. "General Murat will require but one and will doubtless lend me the other. Quick, Celio, our horses. The Princess has only an hour the start of us. We will overtake them at Mondragone."

They passed her in fact at Frascati where they saw her carriage standing unharnessed before the inn. "She is resting," said the Prince, "we will not disturb her until after our business at Mondragone is finished."

At the gate an astonished servant took their horses, and as the Prince walked through the shady cypress avenue his brain cooled and he formed a resolution differing from the one that had brought him to the villa. Upon the fountain terrace they saw the man they had come to seek. Not the galliard of his last visit, but a hunted refugee, his gaudy hussar uniform soiled and torn, the ballas ruby which had buckled his aigrette shot from his hat, and a tiny rill of blood trickling from his matted hair upon the golden bees that ornamented the sky-blue velvet tunic. Stretched prone upon a marble bench, sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion, his sword-arm beneath his head, the other trailing relaxed upon the ground, he was entirely at the mercy of the man who looked down upon his haggard face.

The Prince studied it for a moment in silence, then, with finger on lip, drew Celio into the loggia. "Let him rest," he whispered, "time enough when he awakes."

Ere that happened footsteps were heard and the voice of the Princess calling, "Joachim, where are you?"

Murat sprang up instantly.

"Paulette, is it you?"

"It is I. O mon Dieu; how you have changed! but we heard you were killed. Thank God, that is not true."

"I am beaten, which is worse," he said bitterly. "You were right, you see, quite right, all is lost--why do you not say 'I told you so'?"

"No," she exclaimed, "all is not lost. Go at once to Napoleon, confess your error, and atone for it."

"He will never forgive me," Murat replied; "and why should he, with his army of three hundred thousand men and an Imperial Guard of forty thousand chosen veterans? What have I to offer him? My troops have deserted me. I have nothing to fight with and nothing for which to fight."

"My brother needs you," the Princess insisted. "He may have soldiers enough, but he knows there is no such leader of cavalry in all the world as you, and he is about to engage in a crucial struggle with Wellington. You have your marvellous leadership to offer. You say you have nothing to fight for. Think of your honour, and of Caroline."

"Ah! I had forgotten her, poor child. I will do as you say, Paulette. You have the brains of your family in your little head. Perhaps that is the reason the good God made Caroline more attractive. Well, one more fight for her sake, and she shall thank you for it. I shall get to Naples in some way, then by sea to Marseilles, and then to Napoleon."

"Good!" cried the Princess. "Did you find your horse in the stables? I gave orders to have him well cared for until you claimed him. I have brought a disguise and arms and money. Now, off with you, for I can waste no more time. Ah! how much we have already wasted, Joachim, in this mad pursuit of ambition, when only love was worth the while. My sister will rejoice to retire with you to private life and to know of my happiness, for Camillo is waiting for me at Rome, and all the cruel misunderstanding is over!"

Thus ended Celio Benvoglio's dragon-service, for the Prince, forced either to overhear or interrupt the foregoing conversation, had fortunately chosen the former alternative. And here, perchance, should the story end, for the after-history of Joachim Murat is a tragical addendum to that happy dénouement.

Pauline overestimated her brother's magnanimity, Napoleon coldly refused the profferred services of his brother-in-law, confessing afterwards that this implacability lost him the battle of Waterloo, for Ney could not equal Murat in his skilful manoeuvring of horse.

Murat, desperate, took refuge in Corsica, where he raised a little band of two hundred and fifty men, and landed near Naples, believing that his old troops would rally to his standard. Indifferent, or perhaps unable to help him, they abandoned him to his fate.

He faced his executioners with unbandaged eyes and himself gave the order to fire.

According to the account of an eye-witness, he first kissed the miniature of his wife, which he carried within the case of his watch, and with the request, "Spare my face," directed the aim of the soldiers to his breast.

Their firmness did not equal his own, and he was obliged to twice give the command before it was obeyed.