The Washington herald., 1912-11-24
CHAPTER m-continusd.


To be perfectly frank, this lady, who
had come to Paris some six weeks ago
accredited to the French court on a
microscopic mission to the dauphiness
from the court of Vienna, was in
Vienna a person of considerable OBJ
scurity with more natural wit than
money. and fine talent for adventure.
Her husband, Baron Linden, was dead
He had been a small partner in large
bank that had come to grief, and had
died leaving his wife nothing but his
debts and her jewelry. Either as a
bold stroke of policy or urged by a
natural honesty, she paid the small
creditors by the sale of her jewelry, es-
tablished a name for honesty, made
friends with several fnanciers, disclos-
ed a faculty for knowing bad specula-
tons from good ones, and bloSsomed.
She possessed that rarest of human
gifts, an instinct for things that were
genuine, and the fnanciers of Vienna
who were her friends, being men of
genius, discovered this instinct, and
being men of affairs, made use of il.
Just then Europe was in a condition
Of ferment and unrest almost analogous
to its condition to-day. The deep dis
content of the masses, crushed beneath
the ambitions of a few men; that dis
content which to-day is expressed in
socialism and anarchism, was then
alive under a different name-or per-
haps nameless.
Voltaire was bres6ng to pieces the
shackles of religion; Rousseau at the
Cafe de Regence was preaching the
right TO think; a thousand men, some
in the gutter, some near the throne,
were preparing the great explosion of
the Revolution.
Rumors of this heaying amid the
people filed the world, but were not
understood; scarcely appreciated, eN-
cept by the Jew financierS of Vienna.
Wishing to find out the truth of things,
they sought an agent, hence the jour
ney to Paris of Madame la Baronne
Linden; hence a backstairs intrigue
by which our charming friend was in
trusted with a present from the en-
press to the dauphiness, made one of
those informal couriers common be-
tween European courts at that. period
when a present of lace called for a
special commissioner to carry it, and
a Perigord pie stamped on its cover
with the royal arms went in state like
an ambassador.
It was the humor of love that. the
agent of the Viennese Gundarmanns
should have discovered in her re-
searches into the state of France a
conspirator against the monarchy as
as herself-though of the
male sex-the Comte Armand de
Lussac.
Received at the court, living IN a
well-furnished house rented in the Rue
Cog Heron, she had made during her
short sojourn in the capital a consid-
cradle impression on the world of Paris
and Versailles, and many enemies,
whose enmity gave her that deep salts
faction which the enmity of the un-
successful and plain creates in the Sue
cessful and beautiful
The love she had inspired in De
Lussac had created for her willing as
sassin in the person of Madame Ia
Comtesse d'Harlancourt, whose hus-
band we have seen buttonholing De
Sartinesal Versailles; Madame de Joy
euse, and Madame de Senlis hailed
her Just for herself and De Sar-|
tines, from her suspected intimacy
with De Lussac, whose steps he was
following with the persistence of a
hound and whose political intrigues he
more than suspected, had for her a
deep mistrust.
This lady, having bowed to Mes
DANES de Joyeuse and de Stenlis, ad-
vanced and without addressing them
turned her attention and tongue on
Monsieur Behrens, who was approach
ing with the silk which Madame de
Stenlis had wished to see.
my dear Behrens," said the new
conner, addressing him tout court with
the manner of person addressing a
favorite dog, when you have recov-
cred from the disability under which
you are laboring l wish to ask you a
question"
SAnd that. Madafne?" cried Beh-
rens, casting the roll of silk on the
floor at the feet of Madame de Stenlis,
twitching up a few yards of it, festoon-
ing it that she might see the lights
and shades, bowling to Madame Lin
den as though she were the dauphi-
ness, smiling, all at the same time; a