The Days of the King by Filip Florian Read Free Book Online

Brătianu has acquired such obvious sway over you and your ministers. In 1852, at a time when he was in contact with Mazzini and Ledru Rollin, Brătianu was involved in a conspiracy against the life of Napoleon III. I do not condemn him for what he once was, but now his omnipotence particularly chills your relations with the people here. I never imagined that you would allow Mr. Brătianu to rule in your stead, as someone has related to me
." In another letter from Madame Cornu, the prince encountered a scintillating statement, like a flaring match, which caused him to light yet another cigarette, in excess of his usual morning ration. It went like this: "
It is said that nothing is being done over there, that everything is up in the air, that the recently decreed requisitions have given rise to scandalous thefts on the part of the authorities and that these go unpunished. Corruption is the cancer eating
away at the nation. You must extirpate it vigorously
." But since the water there flowed under the bridges not of the Seine but the shallow and fetid Dímbovitza, the prince turned his mind to other matters, leaving the tumor to be excised later. At the end of June, two days after he had stroked with his fingertips and rolled in his palms his beloved lead soldier (received unexpectedly from Maria, via that pale and bewildered dentist), he saw the constitution adopted by parliament, in a stifling atmosphere, as ninety-one fans or newspapers used as fans were raised toward the ceiling of the auditorium, validating with a large majority, in fact unanimously, a law that was in fact the mother of all laws, that consecrated the hereditary in place of the elective monarchy, freedom of conscience, education, opinion, and speech, the right to assembly and association, the inviolability of the person and the home, private correspondence and private property, the indivisible nature of the state, the principles of national sovereignty, representative government and separation of powers, and qualified suffrage. He had hastened to swear a new oath to sanction and promulgate the newborn constitution, and at the close of those hours, to deliver a not particularly ardent speech, a text he had drafted with a cool head, determined not to inflame his audience. Nobody knew (or, if anyone did know, they were few, discreet, and God-fearing) that at the moment when the constitution, silent and smiling, was emerging from the press into the light of day, the ruler's younger brother, Prince Anton von Hohenzollern, sublieutenant in the First Regimental Guard of Prussia, was about to die. He had been wounded in the offensive at Rossberitz, where three bullets had stopped him from leading his platoon's charge, smashed his legs and left him to be taken prisoner shortly thereafter, without, however, snatching from his eyes the gleam (of victory?) or the strength to smile (wanly) when Crown Prince Friedrich in person espied him on a cart for the moribund and shook his hand. He was wrapped in a canvas sheet sticky with blood from the waist down. Two weeks later, when Anton, wearing on his chest the medal bestowed upon him by King Wilhelm, found himself simultaneously at the gates of heaven and beneath a layer of clayey earth, Karl Ludwig revoked the council of ministers, renouncing temporarily, and with bitterness, the services of Brătianu and Rosetti, and, with satisfaction, those of Prime Minister Catargiu, who in a sweltering and blasé Bucuresci was held to be an intriguer, allied with the former prefect of the police and the Bibescu brothers. He then allowed things to flow on in their customary Turkish style, for this was what was needed. In September, with Ghika at the head of the government, he managed to award the Strousberg railroad concession to some deputies who could picture the train snaking and whistling over their landed estates, a business affair that stretched over ninety years and 915 kilometers, departing from Vîrciorova,