Louisa of Prussia and Her Times | Page 5

procession which now made its appearance.
This procession consisted of twelve wagons, apparently not destined to
receive living men, but the remains of the dead. The broad and heavy
wheels were not surmounted by ordinary carriage-boxes, but by
immense iron trunks, large enough to enclose a coffin or a corpse; and
these trunks were covered with heavy blankets, the four corners of
which contained the imperial crown of Austria in beautiful embroidery.
Every one of these strange wagons was drawn by six horses, mounted
by jockeys in the imperial livery, while the hussars of the emperor's
Hungarian bodyguard rode in serried ranks on both sides.
The horses drew these mysterious wagons slowly and heavily through
the streets; the wheels rolled with a dull, thundering noise over the
uneven pavement; and this noise resounded in the ears and hearts of the
pale and terrified spectators like the premonitory signs of some new
thunderstorm.
What was concealed in these mysterious wagons? What was taken
away from Vienna in so careful a manner and guarded so closely?
Everybody was asking these questions, but only in the depth of his own
heart, for nobody dared to interrupt the painful and anxious silence by a
loud word or an inquisitive phrase. Every one seemed to be fascinated
by the forbidding glances of the hussars, and stunned by the dull
rumbling of the wheels.
But, when finally the last wagon had disappeared in the next street,

when the last horseman of the hussar escort had left the place, the eyes
of the anxious spectators turned once more toward the speakers who
had previously addressed them, and told them of the misfortunes of
Austria, and of the brilliant victories of the youthful French General
Bonaparte.
"What do those wagons contain?" shouted the crowd. "We want to
know it, and we must know it!"
"If you must know it, why did you not ask the soldiers themselves?"
shouted a sneering voice in the crowd.
"Yes, yes," said another voice, "why did you not approach the wagons
and knock at the trunks?--may be the devil would have jumped out and
shown you his pretty face!"
The people paid no attention to these sneering remarks. The painful
uncertainty, the anxious excitement continued unabated, and everybody
made surmises concerning the contents of the wagons.
"The trunks contain perhaps the coffins of the imperial ancestors,
which have been removed from the Kapuzinergruft, in order to save
them from the French," said an honest tailor to his neighbor, and this
romantic idea rolled immediately, like an avalanche, through the vast
crowd.
"They are removing the remains of the old emperors from Vienna!"
wailed the crowd. "Even the tombs are no longer safe! They are saving
the corpses of the emperors, but they are forsaking us--the living! They
abandon us to the tender mercies of the enemy! All who have not got
the money to escape are lost! The French will come and kill us all!"
"We will not permit it!" shouted a stentorian voice. "We want to keep
the remains of Maria Theresa and of the great Emperor Joseph here in
Vienna. As long as they lived they loved the people of the capital, and
they will protect us in death. Come, brethren, come; let us follow the
wagons--let us stop them and take the bodies back to the
Kapuzinergruft [Footnote: Vaults of the Capuchins]".
"Yes, let us follow the wagons and stop them," yelled the crowd, which
now, when it could no longer see the flashing and threatening weapons
of the soldiers, felt exceedingly brave.
Suddenly, however, these furious shouts and yells were interrupted by a
powerful voice which ordered the people to desist, and they beheld a
tall man who, with cat-like agility, climbed upon the iron lamp-post in

the centre of the square.
"Stop, stop!" roared this man, extending his arms over the crowd as if,
a new Moses, he wanted to allay the fury of the sea and cause it to
stand still.
The crowd instantly obeyed this tremendous voice, and all these
indignant, anxious, and terrified faces now turned toward the speaker
who stood above them on top of the lamp-post.
"Don't make fools of yourselves," said he--"don't give these
Hungarians--who would be only too glad to quench their present rage
in German blood--a chance to break your bones. Have you any arms to
compel them to show you the wagons and their contents? And even if
you were armed, the soldiers would overpower you, for most of you
would run away as soon as a fight broke out, and the balance of you
would be taken to the calaboose. I will do you the favor, however, to
tell you all about those wagons. Do you want to know it?"
"Yes, yes, we do!" shouted the crowd, emphatically. "Be quiet