Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1883-07-07
TIE
DEATHS HEAD CUIRASSIERS;
A Legend of the Old Guard.
BY CAPT. FRED. WHITAKER,
AUTHOR OF "THE PHANTOM KNIGHTS,
"RED RUDIGER," /" "NEAIo, KING OF
TRAMPS," THE IRISH CAP
TAIN" ETC, ETC.
CHAPTER XXV.
BERLIN IN 1906.

A winter and summer had passed
away from the time that Gabriel
IIenOir went to Berlin to resume his
irkSOme duties, before he again set
foot on French soil, and in all that
time he never once heard from or
saw the bride from whom he had
been so abruptly parted after the
victory of AusterlitZ.
1t had been year of restless anX-
iety TO himself, compelled to remain
in the midst of IA people who hated
him and whom he hated. His in
creased rank and consequence in
the legation had indeed rid him of
the old necessity of fighting duels to
maintain his immunity from insult,
for he could only quarrel with equals
and all the colonies in the Prussian
army were old men who had passed
the dueling age.
But the succession of petty hui
miliations and Sights he and DurOc
were forced to undergo would have
angered less patient men, and to all
their private complaints to the en-
perOr at Paris came the same res
pOnse by courier:
"We are not ready to crush Prus-
sia yet. Keep on gooi terms with
them"
To Gabriel, who was a young
man, the suspense was intOlerable,
and the tone OF conversation in the
Prussian capital eXasperating.
Accustomed to consider the en-
perOr as the first soldier in the
xryorII n.,,f Iy,n,,..t. S-nl,t ,ti,,r-, thn
cream of all warlike material, he
was Obliged To listen silently to all
sorts of slurs from old generals who
learned the trade of war under the
Great Frederick.
"You French are all very WE'LL"
said one whitehead general at a
dinner-party where he sat next to
Gabriel; "but you have never had
to fight the soldiers Of the Great
Fritz. You'll do well enough against
undisciplined Turks and Arabs, or
even against the motley levies of
Austria, where they talk dozen
languages in one corps. But the
German race is the cOnquering
stock. Our ancestors Overthrew the
Roman Empire in its pride, and
Prussia, single-handed, deiied all
Europe in the seven years war.
Your emperor did well not 10 pro-
woke the King of Prussia. He
knows that we can eat him up"
And then in January came the
added triumph to the Prussians that
Hanover was delivered up to them,
and they Dragged louder than ever.
Over and over again Gabriel came
to his chief and impIOred him to
send him back to his regiment. He
could not stand the boasts of the
Prussians.
Duroc only answered
"Patience. Our time will come"
Another irritation to Gabriel lay
in the fact that the Prince of Pots
dam had been sent to Paris in the
Prussian Legation, and that he was
Obliged to read in the MOniteaE-
the official French paper-long ac-
counts of grand balls at the TuiIer-
les, in which the names of the
prince and Mademoiselle Inez de
Real figured together in the most
conspicuous fashion.
Theold prince and princess, whom
he was obliged frequently to meet
in public, made point of ostenta-
tious politeness toward him, and
the princess especially took frequent
opportunities to tell him long stO-
rIes about "her darling boy" be-
tween whom and Gabriel she SEEM
ed to imagine devoted friendship
existed.
She told him on one occasion that