On a bright cold day in April 1719, a travelling carriage with three postillions dashed, full of the importance which always attends a fashionable well-built vehicle, into the famous but not progressive town of Innsbruck. The carriage contained four persons, said to be going to Loretto on pilgrimage–the Comte and Comtesse de Cernes, with the brother and sister of the comtesse; and as the aristocratic party alighted at their hotel, they created some sensation among those who clustered round the porch in the clear sharp twilight. The comtesse and her sister were very much enveloped in furs, and wore travelling masks, which effectually screened their faces from the vulgar gaze, and diverted the curiosity of the homely Tyrolese to the undisguised figures of the comte and the comtesse’s brother. The former was the statelier of the two, but the latter was universally pronounced to be ein herrlicher Mensch. There was a certain sprightly grace in his movements which yet did not detract from the dignity essential in those days to a gentleman, and which would have saved him from being addressed with too great familiarity. The news soon circulated among the loungers that the fresh arrivals were Flemings; and the pleasant blue eyes of the comte and his brother-in-law–though certainly not the sprightly grace of the latter–accorded with these floating accounts of their origin.

The pretty Tyrolese hostess, whose face was so charmingly set off by the trim smartness of her velvet bodice and scarlet petticoat, together with various silver chains, gleefully returned to her parlour and her burly good-tempered husband, after attending the ladies to their apartments. She had seen the Comtesse de Cernes without her furs and travelling mask, dressed in lilac camlet turned up with silk; so handsome, so gracious, so talkative, that the hostess thought she must be French; for the hostess had seen plenty of French people before now, besides Flemings. The comtesse was dark-haired and dark-eyed; her sister, who had also divested herself of her mask, did not equal her in appearance. Every one at the inn was glad that the amiable party from Flanders were going to rest there four days.

Their supper was ordered in a private room, where the host and hostess waited on them in person, and consequently had the best of it with the loungers afterwards. The two gentlemen were in good spirits, and the hostess thought their talk none the less amusing for being in a language which she did not understand. Their laughing looks and easy action conveyed to her mind a sufficient sense of fun to make her fair face shine placidly in sympathy. Altogether they were the liveliest Flemings she had ever seen; and their good-humour seemed to be shared by the three postillions, two of whom were Walloons and one Italian, and who were making themselves very popular among the habituÉs of the inn.

‘Well, this is a pleasant little town of yours, mes amis,’ said the vivacious Walloon outrider, who contrasted strikingly with his great, tall, quietly smiling companion. ‘One could die of ennui here as well as at Liege.’

‘No, you could not,’ returned a long spare poetic Tyrolese, who spent most of his evenings at the inn, but never drank; notwithstanding which peculiarity he and the host were warm friends. ‘We mountain-folk are not dull; our hills and our torrents permit of no dullness.’

‘Very well perhaps for you who are born to it, to hang by your eyelids on rocky ledges, or balance yourselves over what are called in verses the silver threads of waterfalls, in pursuit of an undoubtedly clever and pretty little animal; but all that would be dull work to us. And then you have not a noblesse. What should we do without ours? There would be no one to whom one could be postillion.’

‘We are our own noblesse,’ said the spare poetic Tyrolese.

‘And you cannot say, Claude,’ observed the tall Walloon, ‘that Innsbruck is without noblesse at the present moment; nay more, it contains royalty in the shape of two captive princesses!’

‘One of them the grand-daughter of the hero who saved this empire from the Turks, for which the Emperor now keeps her in durance.’

‘Take care, Monsieur,’ said the host (he pronounced ‘Monsieur’ execrably); ‘we are all the Kaiser’s loyal subjects here in Tyrol.’

‘Pardon, mein Wirth,’ replied Claude, who pronounced German as badly as the host did French. ‘You know we men who run about the world laugh at everything, and too often let our tongues run faster than our feet.’

‘And after all,’ observed the Italian, ‘it is doing the young princess no bad turn to prevent her marrying a prince out of place, who is not likely to recover his situation.’

The Flemings spent the few days of their sojourn at Innsbruck in visiting the churches and seeing what was to be seen in the town. The Comtesse de Cernes’s brother was the busiest of the party. On the morning after his arrival he met in a church porch a rather impish-looking boy in the dress of a ‘long-haired page,’ and the two held a brief colloquy. To this stylish page, in whom the rather shapeless Slavonic type of countenance was widened out by smiles of assurance, the gentleman from Flanders delivered a letter, together with a wonderful snuff-box, cut out of a single turquoise, ‘for his mistress to look at.’ On the three remaining days likewise the two met in different spots; the boy restored the snuff-box, and brought some letters written in a fashionable pointed hand, in return for those with which the Fleming had intrusted him.

The party were to set out on their southward way at two o’clock on the morning of the 28th of April. The evening of the 27th was overshadowed by clouds, driven by a sharp north-east wind. Notwithstanding the aspects of the weather, the brother of the Comtesse de Cernes, standing in the midst of his little party in their private room, donned his cocked-hat and surtout.

‘Well, Wogan,’ said the comte, ‘if practice makes perfect, you are a professor in the art of effecting escapes. After having burst your way out of Newgate, and been valued at five hundred English guineas (much below your worth of course), and cooled yourself for some hours on the roof of a London house, and reached France safely after all, you ought to be able to abstract a young lady from the careless custody of Heister and his sentinels.’

‘I shall be ashamed if I fail, after wringing from Prince Sobieski his consent to the attempt, and after his giving me the Grand Vizier’s snuff-box; but I always find that doing things for other people is more difficult than doing them for one’s self.’

‘I should say she was a clever girl,’ remarked the comte, ‘and her page a clever page.’

‘I wonder if Jannetton is ready?’ said the comtesse, retiring into the bedroom occupied by the ladies, whence she soon emerged with her sister, who wore her paletot, and was smiling sufficiently to shew two rows of exquisitely white teeth. The comtesse on the contrary seemed somewhat affected. ‘Adieu, Jannetton, mais au revoir. There will be no danger to you, and the Archduchess will take care that you join me in Italy.’

Jannetton vowed she had no fears; and went forth into the deepening twilight, being shortly afterwards followed by the gentleman in cocked-hat and surtout. Curiosity did not now dog the Flemish pilgrims, as it had done while they were altogether novelties, and the adventurers slipped out unobserved. Meanwhile the ‘long-haired page’ was busy at one of the side-doors of the castle, where he was often wont to converse with the sentinel on duty.

‘I don’t envy you your trade, Martin,’ he said, standing within the porch, to the hapless soldier pacing up and down in the keen wind. ‘Glory is one thing and comfort another; but after all, very often no one hears of the glory, whereas the comfort is a tangible benefit. With the wind in the north-east and a snow-storm beginning, I at least would rather be comfortable than glorious.’

‘A man who has seen campaigns thinks but little of a snow-storm, Herr Konska.’

‘But they generally put you into winter-quarters,’ said Konska, not wishing the sentinel to pique himself on his hardihood.

‘No matter; a soldier learns what hardship is. I wish you could see a shot-and-shell storm instead of a snow-storm, or a forest of bayonets poked into your face by those demons of Irish in the French service.’

‘Well, I say it is a shame not to treat you men better who have braved all that. See here; there is not even a sentry-box where you can nurse your freezing feet. Ugh!’ And Konska withdrew, presumably to warmer regions, while the soldier preserved a heroic appearance as he paced shivering on his narrow beat. But a few minutes later Konska, stealing back to the door, saw that his martial friend was no longer at his post. The impish page pointed for a moment in ecstasy to a tavern temptingly visible from the sentry’s beat. Then he darted back in delight to whence he came.

While the snow-clouds were gathering over Innsbruck, and before the Flemish chevalier had put on his surtout, two ladies conversed in low tones in a chamber of the castle, of which General Heister was then the commandant. Only one lady was visible; rather elderly, very stately, and somewhat careworn in appearance. But that the other speaker was of gentle sex and rank might be presumed from the tones of a voice which issued from the closed curtains of the bed. It might even be the voice of a young girl.

‘I hope you will not get into trouble, mamma,’ said the mysterious occupier of the bed.

‘Hardly, if you write a proper letter on the subject of your departure, as the Chevalier Wogan advises. You must cover my complicity by begging my pardon.’

‘I am afraid you must write it yourself, mamma, as I am hors de combat.’

‘That would not be to the purpose, my dear child: the general would know my handwriting. I will push a table up to you; no one will disturb us now till your substitute comes.’ She carried a light table, furnished with inkstand and papetiÈre to the side of the bed, and made an aperture in the curtains, whence emerged the rosy bright-eyed face of a girl–who certainly did not look the invalid she otherwise appeared to be–and a white hand with an aristocratic network of blue veins.

‘Will that do, mamma?’ she asked, after covering a page with writing equally elegant and difficult to read. ‘Have I apologised and stated my reasons for going, eloquently enough? Oh, how I hope that I shall some day be a queen in my own capital, and that you and papa will come and live there!’

The mamma sighed, as swift imagination presented to her mind all the obstacles to so glorious a consummation; but she expressed herself well satisfied with the letter, which she placed on the toilet table. ‘I shall leave you now,’ she said; ‘you will find me in my room when you wish to bid me farewell.’ She spoke with a certain stately sadness as she left the apartment. The next person who entered it was the Comtesse de Cernes’s sister in her paletot, with a hood drawn forward over her face. She only said: ‘Que votre Altesse me pardonne!’ (Pardon me, your Highness.)

Instantly the curtains divided once more, and the whole radiant vision of the mysterious invalid, clad in a dressing-gown richly trimmed with French lace, and shewing a face sparkling with animation, sprang forth laughing: ‘You are the substitute?’

‘Yes, your Highness!’

‘I am sure I thank you very heartily, as well as Madame Misset and the Chevalier Wogan, and all the kind and loyal friends who are taking so much trouble for my consort and for me. The Archduchess will take good care of you, Jannetton.’

Jannetton again shewed her teeth in a courtly smile as she courtesied deeply. She was already persuaded that she would be well cared for, in reward for the mysterious services she had come to render the captive lady. She disencumbered herself of her paletot, and looked amazingly like a very neat French waiting-maid until she had bedizened herself in the young lady’s beautifully worked dressing-gown. Then she speedily disappeared behind the curtains of the bed; while the invalid, wrapping herself in the paletot, rushed into the next room to embrace with tears and smiles her anxious mamma, who said but little, and was now only eager to hurry her away. There too she took possession of her page, and a small box which was to accompany her flight down the dark staircases. ‘Your Highness will find all safe,’ said the solemn page, who was careful to suppress outer signs of his innate roguishness in the presence of his mistresses.

‘The sentinel will not know me?’ said the young lady.

‘I am sure that he will not. Even if by chance he should look out from the window of the tavern where he is now ensconced, it is not very likely that he would know your Highness.’

The black clouds which obscured the blueness of the April night had broken forth into a lashing storm of hail and wind before the young girl and the page sallied forth into the darkness. She could hardly keep her footing in the wet deserted streets; her hood was blown back, and her fair hair became dangerously visible; her paletot was splashed with the mud thrown up by her tread, and battered with hail; still she laughed at all difficulties, for a hero’s blood flowed in her veins, and now and then steadied herself by a touch on the page’s shoulder as they floundered on. At the corner of a street they suddenly came upon a dark figure, whose first appearance as it crossed her path caused the fugitive to start back in some alarm. But it was only the Comtesse de Cernes’s brother; and the young lady’s mind was relieved when with a swift grace he bent for a moment over her hand with the words: ‘My princess, soon to be my sovereign, accept the homage, even in a dark street and a hail-storm, of your loyal servant, Charles Wogan.’

‘Oh, my protector and good angel! is it indeed you?’ replied the young lady. ‘Be assured that I would gladly go through many dark streets and hail-storms to join my consort!’

And certainly this was a generous expression to use concerning a consort whom she had never seen. She and the Flemish chevalier were apparently old friends; and he had soon conducted her to the inn, which the page Konska, however, was not to enter with his mistress; he was to wait in a sheltered archway until the Comte de Cernes’s travelling carriage should pick him up on its way out of Innsbruck in the darkness of early morning. With a grimace he departed for this covert, while his mistress was hurried into the warm atmosphere of the Comtesse de Cernes’s bedroom, where that would-be Loretto pilgrim knelt and kissed her hand. But better even than loyal kisses were the bright wood-fire, the posset, and the dry clothes which also awaited her in this room.

‘And you are Madame Misset, the noble Irish lady of whom my good angel Wogan speaks in his letters! How can I thank you for the trouble you take for me! I regard him quite in the place of my papa. But you all seem to be as good as he is!’

‘Madame,’ replied the lady thus addressed, with all the loyalty of eighteenth-century speech, ‘your Highness knows that it is a delight to a subject to serve such a sovereign as our gracious prince; and all that I have done is at my husband’s bidding.’

‘With such subjects, I am sure it will not be long before he regains his throne. Ah, this delightful fire! Do you know, Madame, it is snowing and hailing outside as if it were January!’

If Madame Misset felt some concern at the thought of the impending journey–if not for her own sake, at least for that of her husband, she expressed none, except on her Highness’s account. However, her Highness gaily laughed at hardship and difficulty, and was not at all depressed at having left her mother in the castle-prison. Her only fear was that she should be missed from the castle before she had got clear of Innsbruck. But matters were too well arranged for so speedy a termination of the romance. By two o’clock of the windy spring morning the travelling carriage was ready, the Tyrolese landlord and landlady little suspecting, as they sped their parting guests, that the second lady who entered it in cloak and mask was any other than that sister of the Comtesse de Cernes who had arrived four days before.

‘Oh, my good Papa Wogan!’ exclaimed the latest addition to the party of pilgrims, as they were rolled into the darkness of that wild night, ‘how delighted I am to be free again, and about to join my royal consort! I owe more than I can express to all, but most to you!’ Which she might well say, seeing that it was ‘Papa Wogan’ who had selected her as the bride of this consort to whom her devotion was so great. She chattered brightly away, with the natural vivacity of eighteen in an adventure, rejoicing in her new-found freedom however cold it might be; and the only clouded face in the carriage was that of the Comtesse de Cernes. She was anxious on account of the vivacious little man who had formerly been postillion, and who was now riding far behind the carriage with his tall companion, to keep at bay possible couriers, who might soon be hurrying to the border fortresses with news that a prisoner had escaped the vigilance of General Heister at the Castle of Innsbruck. The two gentlemen in the carriage assured her that no harm would happen to two such dashing cavaliers; but perhaps the comtesse thought that to those who are safe it is easy to talk of safety. Not that any of the party were really safe, but the cheerfulness of the young lady, whose passport was shewn at all the towns as made out for the sister of the Comtesse de Cernes, seemed to preclude the idea of peril to her companions. At Venice the mind of the comtesse was finally set at ease by the reappearance of the outriders, telling a funny unscrupulous sort of story about having fallen in on the road with a courier from Innsbruck, to whom they made themselves very agreeable, and whom they finally left hopelessly tipsy at an inn near Trent.

‘It was very wrong of you, Messieurs,’ said the escaped fugitive, ‘to make him drink so much; you ought to have tied him up somewhere. But I thank you very much for all the dangers you incurred for my sake; and I assure all of you, my good friends, that your king and queen will never forget you.’

There were no telegrams in those days; but before a week was over, all Europe, or rather all political and fashionable Europe, was talking of the escape of the Princess Clementina Sobieski, grand-daughter of the hero who repulsed the hordes of Turkey on the plains before Vienna, from her captivity at the Castle of Innsbruck, where she and her mother had–for political reasons connected with Great Britain–been placed by her cousin, the Emperor Charles VI. of Germany. It was told with indignation at the courts of London and Vienna, with laughter and admiration at those of Rome, Paris, and Madrid, how she had been carried off by a party of dashing Irish people, calling themselves noble Flemish pilgrims; and how she had left a French maid-servant in her place in the castle, and a letter to her mother apologising for her flight. The prime contriver of the adventure, it was said was that Chevalier Wogan who had been in mischief for some time past, and had made his own way with great aplomb out of Newgate.

At Venice, a singular readjustment of the dashing party took place: the vivacious outrider now appearing in the character of Captain Misset, the husband of Madame Misset, hitherto called the Comtesse de Cernes; and the tall outrider in that of Captain O’Toole, both being of the Franco-Irish regiment of Count Dillon, as was also the gallant Major Gaydon, alias the Comte de Cernes. The comtesse’s brother was now no longer related to her, but acknowledged himself to be that Charles Wogan who had really done much for the Chevalier, having fought for him, been taken prisoner for him, escaped for him, chosen his bride, and effected her liberation as cleverly as he had effected his own. In fact the Italian postillion Vezzosi was the only one of this curious group who had acted at all in propri personÂ.

The 15th of May 1719 was a gala day in Rome, when a long string of coaches and the Prince–whom a large number of British subjects, expressing their loyalty by peculiar signs of approval, considered to be rightful king of Great Britain and Ireland–went out to conduct the fugitive young lady triumphantly into the Eternal City. She now no longer had need to use the passport which franked her as the sister of the Comtesse de Cernes, being openly and joyfully welcomed as the Princess Maria Clementina Sobieski.