Temple Bar (Volume 9)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1863. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... saved him from cross-examination, and was an indubitable passport for him. Besides, Aachen, like most other German baths, has always been a free-and-easy kind of place in the way of introductions; and a man who can pay 200 thalers a week for a first floor, and who gives away good dinners and diamonds, seldom runs the risk of being looked at askance. Play ran high--mountains high, indeed--during the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle. The pig-headed King of Prussia and the stiff-andstarched Austrian Kaiser did not gamble, but the archdukes did; and the British nobility only regretted that the comparatively tame and milksop games of roulette and trente et quarante reigned supreme in lieu of hazard. The impulsive Czar of Russia, when he was not raving religious mysticism, was far from averse to a bout at the green table. The great Duke played heavily, and lost or won his handfuls of Napoleons with unvarying equanimity. The ambassadors looked upon card-playing as an essential part of diplomacy; and, to be sure, some pretty little secrets of state have from time to time been revealed over the tapis vert. Was it not one night, or rather early morning, in Paris, that, playing at the Duchesse de Luynes', Talleyrand took out his watch, remarked that it had stopped, and asked what time it was? Just four, said a bystander. (They played deep and late at the Duchesse de Luynes'.) Has the Prince de Conde, ask-d Talleyrand, in his imperturbable manner, any children beyond the Due d'Enghien? What nonsense you are talking! put in the Duchess. You know all the great houses in France by heart, and that the Duke is the only son. Alors, said M. de Talleyrand, putting down a trump, la maison de Conde estjinie. At that same hour and moment the Due d'Enghien had been shot ...