Victory is all the sweeter when it seems
impossible. Prince Frederick had disappeared, no one knew where,
the peasant girl theory could no longer be harbored, and the
wedding was but three days hence. The Englishman had not stepped
above the horizon, and the telegrams to the four ends of the
world returned unanswered. Thus, the chancellor stood alone; the
two main props were gone from under. As he tossed on his pillows
he pondered over the apparent reticence and indifference of the
archbishop.
All was still in the vicinity of the palaces. Sentinels paced
noiselessly within the enclosures. In the royal bedchamber the
king was resting quietly, and near by, on a lounge, the state
physician dozed. The Captain of the household troop of
cuirassiers nodded in the ante-room.
Only the archbishop remained awake. He sat in his chamber and
wrote. Now and then he would moisten his lips with watered wine.
Sometimes he held the pen in midair, and peered into the
shapeless shadows cast by the tapers, his broad forehead shining
and deep furrows between his eyes. On, on he wrote. Perhaps the
archbishop was composing additional pages to his memoirs, for
occasionally his thin lips relaxed into an impenetrable smile.
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