CHAPTER XXI.

      RESEARCHES.

       Table of Contents

      The house which Rodolph had in the Allée des Veuves was not his usual place of residence; he lived in one of the largest mansions in the Faubourg St. Germain, situated at the end of the Rue Plumet and the Boulevard des Invalides.

      To avoid the honours due to his sovereign rank, the prince had preserved his incognito since his arrival in Paris, his chargé d'affaires at the court of France having announced that his master would pay his official and indispensable visits under the name and title of the Count de Duren. Thanks to this usage (a very common one in the Northern courts), a prince may travel with as much liberty as pleasure, and escape all the bore of ceremonious introductions. In spite of his slight incognito, Rodolph kept up in his mansion full state and etiquette. We will introduce the reader into the hôtel of the Rue Plumet, the day after the Chourineur had started for Algiers.

      The clock had just struck ten, A.M. In the middle of a large salon on the ground floor and which formed the antechamber to Rodolph's business chamber, Murphy was seated before a bureau, and sealing several despatches. A groom of the chambers, dressed in black and wearing a silver chain around his neck, opened the folding-doors and announced:

      "His Excellency M. le Baron de Graün."

      Murphy, without ceasing from his employment, received the baron with a nod at once cordial and familiar.

      "M. le Chargé d'Affaires," said he, smiling, "will you warm yourself at the fire? I will be at your service in one moment."

      "M. the Private Secretary, I await your leisure," replied M. de Graün, gaily, and making, with mock respect, a low and respectful bow to the worthy squire.

      The baron was about fifty years of age, with hair gray, thin, and lightly curled and powdered. His chin, rather projecting, was partly concealed in a high cravat of white muslin, starched very stiffly, and of unimpeachable whiteness. His countenance was expressive of great intelligence, and his carriage was distingué; whilst beneath his gold spectacles there beamed an eye as shrewd as it was penetrating. Although it was only ten o'clock in the morning, M. de Graün wore a black coat—that was etiquette—and a riband, shot with several bright colours, was suspended from his buttonhole. He placed his hat on a chair and took his station near the fireplace, whilst Murphy continued his work.

      "His royal highness, no doubt, was up the best part of the night, my dear Murphy, for your correspondence appears considerable?"

      "Monseigneur went to bed at six o'clock this morning. He wrote, amongst other letters, one of eight pages to the Grand Marshal, and dictated to me one equally long to the Chief of the Upper Council, the Prince Herkhaüsen-Oldenzaal, his royal highness's cousin."

      "You know that his son, Prince Henry, has entered as lieutenant in the guards in the service of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria?"

      "Yes; monseigneur recommended him most warmly as his relation; and he really is a fine, excellent young man, handsome as an angel, and as good as gold."

      "The fact is, my dear Murphy, that if the young Prince Henry had had his entrée to the grand ducal abbey of Ste. Hermenegilde, of which his aunt is the superior, the poor nuns—"

      "Baron! baron! why—"

      "My dear sir, the air of Paris—But let us talk seriously. Shall I await the rising of his royal highness to communicate all the particulars which I have procured?"

      "No, my dear baron. Monseigneur has desired that he should not be called before two or three o'clock in the afternoon; he desires, also, that you send off this morning these despatches by a special courier, instead of waiting till Monday. You will entrust me with all the particulars you have acquired, and I will communicate them to monseigneur when he wakes. These are his orders."

      "Nothing can be better, and I think his royal highness will be satisfied with what I have collected. But, my dear Murphy, I hope the despatch of the special courier is not a bad sign; the last despatches which I had the honour of sending to his royal highness—"

      "Announced that all was going on well at home; and it is precisely because my lord is desirous of expressing as early as possible his entire satisfaction, that he wishes a courier to be despatched this very day to Prince Herkhaüsen-Oldenzaal, Chief of the Supreme Council."

      "That is so like his royal highness; were it to blame instead of commend, he would observe less haste."

      "Nothing new has transpired with us, my dear baron—nothing at all. Our mysterious adventures—"

      "Are wholly unknown. You know that, since the arrival of his royal highness in Paris, his friends have become used to see him but little in public; it is understood that he prefers seclusion, and is in the habit of making frequent excursions to the environs of Paris, and, with the exception of the Countess Sarah Macgregor and her brother, no person is aware of the disguises assumed by his royal highness; and neither of the personages I have mentioned have the smallest interest in betraying the secret."

      "Ah! my dear baron," exclaimed Murphy, heaving a deep sigh, "what an unfortunate thing it is that this accursed countess should be left a widow at this very important moment!"

      "She was married, I think, in 1827 or 1828?"

      "In 1827, shortly after the death of the unfortunate child, who would now be in her sixteenth or seventeenth year, and whose loss his royal highness seems daily more to deplore."

      "Far more so, indeed, than he appears to feel for the loss of his legitimate offspring."

      "And thus, my dear baron, we may account for the deep interest his royal highness takes in the poor Goualeuse, arising as it does from the fact that the daughter so deeply deplored would, had she lived, have been precisely the same age as this unfortunate young creature."

      "It is, indeed, an unfortunate affair that the Countess Sarah, from whom we fancied we were for ever freed, should have become a widow exactly eighteen months after his royal highness had been deprived by death of the wife with whom he had passed years of wedded happiness. The countess, I am persuaded, looks upon this double freedom from all marriage vows as a signal intervention of Providence to further her views."