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Updated: May 18, 2025
Luckily for Schiller his work was not long left to make its way as 'mere literature'. Among those to whom he had sent the sheets was a Mannheim bookseller, named Schwan, who had an eye for dramatic merit. Before Schwan had read many pages it came over him that here was a prize for the stage, and he hurried with it to Baron Dalberg, intendant of the Mannheim theater.
Princes Schwarzenberg and Lichtenstein represented Austria; while Talleyrand and Dalberg were there to plead for the House of Bourbon: De Pradt and Baron Louis were afterwards summoned. The Czar opened the deliberations by declaring that there were three courses open, to make peace with Napoleon, to accept Marie Louise as Regent for her son, or to recall the Bourbons.
"A diplomat should watch the newspapers," said I, and pointed to this item in the Court News of that morning's issue: "His Excellency the Honorable Richard Courtney, the newly accredited American Ambassador, is expected to arrive to-day. He is accompanied by Major Dalberg, the Military Attaché.
After her came limping the godly Talleyrand, dragging his pure moiety by his side, both with downcast and edifying looks. The Christian patriots, Gravina and Lima, Dreyer and Beust, Dalberg and Cetto, Malsburgh and Pappenheim, with the Catholic Schimmelpenninck and Mohammed Said Halel Effendi, all presented themselves as penitent sinners imploring absolutions, after undergoing mortifications.
A single line, sealed with his seal, in that big book just beside me, and plain Armand Dalberg, Major in the Army of the United States of America, would be Heir Presumptive to one of the great Kingdoms of Earth. And Dehra! I could get no further. Crown and Kingdom faded and I saw only a woman's face. Then the King coughed, and I came sharply back to life, and visions fled.
It was now Schiller's turn to be foxy. He replied that he was very well, and that as for the play, 'Louise Miller', it was a tragedy with a copious admixture of satirical and comic elements that would probably render it quite unfit for the stage. Dalberg replied that the specified defects were merits, he would like to see the manuscript.
Talleyrand, Dalberg, Beurnonville, Jaucourt, and l'Abbé de Montesquiou at once formed a Provisional Government; but the soul of it was Talleyrand. The Czar gave the word, and Talleyrand acted as scene-shifter. The last tableau of this constitutional farce was reached on the following day, when the Senate and the Corps Législatif declared that Napoleon had ceased to reign.
Presently, these ended and the characters seemed to be in ancient script, which, gradually grew more modern. At one of these later pages, the King stopped and addressed me: "You have said that, unless Hugo's rights and the Dalberg legitimacy of his descendants were preserved, by special Decree, made during Hugo's life, you would decline to return to Court."
No great wonder, therefore, that Dalberg lost faith in Schiller and concluded that he had exhausted his vein. Through a friend he suggested a return to medicine. Curiously enough Schiller grasped at the idea, professing that a medical career was the one thing nearest his heart.
The federal assembly was to sit at Frankfort, and Dalberg, the former elector of Mayence, now grandduke of Frankfort, was nominated by Napoleon, under the title of Prince Primate, president. Napoleon's uncle, and afterward his stepson, Eugene Beauharnais, were his destined successors, by which means the control was placed entirely in the hands of France.
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