Kitabı oku: «The Great Court Scandal», sayfa 15

Chapter Twenty Eight
Conclusion

The greatest flutter of excitement was caused throughout Germany – and throughout the whole of Europe, for the matter of that – when it became known through the press that the Queen of Marburg had returned.

Reuter’s correspondent at Treysa was the first to give the astounding news to the world, and the world at first shrugged its shoulders and grinned.

When, however, a few days later, it became known that the Minister Heinrich Hinckeldeym had been summarily dismissed from office, his decorations withdrawn, and he was under arrest for serious peculation from the Royal Treasury, people began to wonder. Their doubts were, however, quickly set at rest when the Ministers Stuhlmann and Hoepfner were also dismissed and disgraced, and a semi-official statement was published in the Government Gazette to the effect that the King had discovered that the charges against his wife were, from beginning to end, a tissue of false calumnies “invented by certain persons who sought to profit by her Majesty’s absence from Court.”

And so, by degrees, the reconciliation between the King and Queen gradually leaked out to the English public through the columns of their newspapers.

But little did they guess that the extradition case pressed so very hard at Bow Street last August against the two jewel-thieves, Redmayne, alias Ward, and Guy Bourne, had any connection with the great scandal at the Court of Marburg.

The men were extradited, Redmayne to be tried in Berlin and Bourne at Treysa; but of their sentences history, as recorded in the daily newspapers, is silent. The truth is that neither of them was sentenced, but by the private request of his Majesty, a legal technicality was discovered, which placed them at liberty.

Both men afterwards had private audience of the King, and personally received the royal thanks for the kindness they had shown towards the Queen and to little Ignatia. In order to mark his appreciation, his Majesty caused a lucrative appointment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where a knowledge of English was necessary, to be given to Roddy Redmayne, while Guy Bourne, through the King’s recommendation, was appointed to the staff of an important German bank in New York; and it has been arranged that next month Leucha – who leaves her Majesty and Ignatia with much regret – goes to America to marry him. To her place, as Ignatia’s nurse, the faithful Allen has now returned, while the false de Trauttenberg, who, instantly upon Hinckeldeym’s downfall, went to live in Paris, has been succeeded by the Countess de Langendorf, one of Claire’s intimate friends of her days at the Vienna Court, prior to her marriage.

What actually transpired between Hinckeldeym and his Sovereign on that fateful night will probably never be known. The people of Treysa are aware, however, that a few hours after “their Claire’s” return the President of the Council was commanded to the royal presence, and left it ruined and disgraced. On the following day he was arrested in his own mansion by three gendarmes and taken to the common police-office, where he afterwards attempted suicide, but was prevented.

The serious charges of peculation against him were, in due course, proved up to the hilt, and at the present moment he is undergoing a well-merited sentence of five years’ imprisonment in the common gaol at Eugendorf.

Count Carl Leitolf was recalled from Rome to Treysa a few days later, and had audience in the King’s private cabinet. The outcome was, however, entirely different, for the King, upon the diplomat’s return to Rome, signed a decree bestowing upon him di moto proprio the Order of Saint Stephen, one of the highest of the Marburg Orders, as a signal mark of esteem.

Thus was the public opinion of Europe turned in favour of the poor, misjudged woman who, although a reigning sovereign, had, by force of adverse circumstances, actually resigned her crown, and, accepting favours of the criminal class as her friends, had found them faithful and devoted.

Of the Ministers of the Kingdom of Marburg only Meyer retains his portfolio at the present moment, while Steinbach has been promoted to a very responsible and lucrative appointment. The others are all in obscurity. Ministers, chamberlains, dames du palais and dames de la cour, all have been swept away by a single stroke of the pen, and others, less prone to intrigue, appointed.

Henriette – the faithful Henriette – part of whose wardrobe Claire had appropriated on escaping from Treysa, is back again as her Majesty’s head maid; and though the popular idea is that little real, genuine love exists between royalties, yet the King and Queen are probably the very happiest pair among the millions over whom they rule to-day.

Her Majesty, the womanly woman whose sweet, even temperament and constant solicitude for the poor and distressed is so well-known throughout the Continent, is loudly acclaimed by all classes each time she leaves the palace and smiles upon them from her carriage.

The people, who have universally denounced Hinckeldeym and his unscrupulous methods, still worship her and call her “their Claire.” But, by mutual consent, mention is no longer made of that dark, dastardly conspiracy which came so very near wrecking the lives of both King and Queen – that dastardly affair which the journalists termed “The Great Court Scandal.”

The End.