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"Ah! ah! ah!" said the Grand Duke, casting his eye first toward the portmanteau and then toward the carriage, "can it be that you are leaving Noumaria? We shall miss you, Comte." "I was summoned very hastily, or I would have paid my respects to your Highness " "Indeed," said the Grand Duke, "your departure is of a deplorable suddenness " "It is urgent, your Highness "
The Grand Duchess seemed to disapprove of her bereavement, mildly, but only said, "Well, after all !" She saw to it that the ponds about the palace were dragged conscientiously, and held an interview with the Chief of Police, and more lately had herself declared Regent of Noumaria.
Still, it is a comfort you are the Emperor of Noumaria and have a kind heart." "Oh, and a many other possessions, my dear! and I again assure you that I intend to deal fairly with you."
"I have earlier perceived, my father, that you prize human life very highly." The Prince de Gatinais struck sharply upon the table. "I prize the welfare of France. To secure this it is necessary that you and no other reign in Noumaria. But for the girl you would have yielded just now. So to the welfare of France I sacrifice the knave at my feet, the child yonder, and my own soul.
"You and Nelchen are much at one there," the Marquis lightly replied; "yet, for my part, I fancy that Providence is not particularly interested in who happens to be the next Grand Duke of Noumaria." The Prince struck with his hand upon the arm of his chair. "You dare to jest! Louis, your levity is incorrigible. France is beaten, discredited among nations, naked to her enemies.
Yet I give you a key. It is profoundly to be deplored that little Louis de Soyecourt, who cannot draw a contented breath outside of his beloved Paris, should be forced to marry Victoria von Uhm, in his cousin's place, yes, for Gaston will arrange that, of course, and afterward be exiled to a semi-barbarous Noumaria, where he must devote the rest of his existence to heading processions and reviewing troops, and signing proclamations and guzzling beer and sauerkraut.
And now he got his reward, for the Prince de Gatinais opened his keen old eyes, a trifle dazedly, and drew a deep breath which shook his large frail body through and through. "Let us recognize that we are de Soyecourts, you and I," he repeated, in a new voice. "After all, I cannot drag you to Noumaria by the scruff of your neck like a truant school-boy.
"Plainly, Gaston cannot fight the rascal, since Hop-o'-my-thumb is now, most vexatiously, transformed into a quasi-Royal Personage, Assassination, I fear, is out of the question. So all our English plans will go to pot. A Frenchman will reign in Noumaria, after we had not only bought old Ludwig, but had paid for him, too!
And Jurgen cried to his father: "The lewd fiend Cannagosta told you I was the Emperor of Noumaria, and I do not deny it even now. But do you not perceive I am likewise your son Jurgen?" "Why, so it is," said Coth, "now that I look at the rascal. And how, Jurgen, did you become an emperor?" "Oh, sir, and is this a place wherein to talk about mere earthly dignities?
But everything in Hell seems rather strange, and the place is not at all as it was rumored to be by the priests and the bishops and the cardinals that used to be exhorting me in my fine palace at Breschau." "And where, did you say, is this palace?" "In Noumaria, where I am the Emperor Jurgen.
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