The Pastor's Fire-side Vol. 3 (of 4)
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Title: The Pastor's Fire-side Vol. 3 (of 4)
Author: Jane Porter
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE VOL. 3 (OF 4) ***
THE
PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,
VOL. III.
Printed by A. Strahan,
New-Street-Square, London.
THE
PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
BY
MISS JANE PORTER,
AUTHOR OF THADDEUS OF WARSAW, SIDNEY'S APHORISMS,
AND THE SCOTTISH CHIEFS.
I will confess the ambitious projects which I once had,
are dead within me. After having seen the parts which fools
play upon the great stage; a few books, and a few friends,
are what I shall seek to finish my days with.
TWEDDELL.
VOL. III.
LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN,
PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1817.
THE
PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE.
CHAP. I.
The first thought that occurred to Louis next day, was a wish to
enquire at the door of the Bavarian Palace, after the health of its
noble inmates. The frank and ardent gratitude of the illustrious widow,
had interested his feelings; and, adding to this, the undescribable
attaching quality which lies in an obligation, such as that he had
conferred on the Electress, seemed to draw him towards her with an
irresistible attraction. Benefits and gratefulness, when interchanged
by generous natures, are bonds, garlanded in paradise. They draw, by
invisible cords, but their rivets are eternal. Gratitude looks up with
endearing confidence to the bestower of its good; and the consciousness
of yielding protection, like the divine source of all benevolence,
fills the heart with a sweet tenderness towards its object.
With all this in his thoughts, Louis allowed prudence to put his wishes
to silence; and he left it to accident, to inform him of the health or
indisposition of them he had preserved.
His official duty of this morning passed with a deputation from the
merchants of Ostend. He had received his father's commands to that
purpose, to hold a conference with them respecting the sanction which
the Spanish Monarch had granted to their Indian trade, to the great
umbrage of the mercantile interests of Great Britain and Holland. The
Emperor had insisted on this guarantee of Spain; and the Queen, with
her usual impatience, ordered it to be accorded without reserve. But
Ripperda, when he yielded to the temporary necessity, had guarded it
with a clause in the privileges, to which Charles as well as themselves
continued to object. To know the result of the Spanish minister's
further deliberation was the cause of their present embassy.
When Louis had discussed the affair with the merchants, their president
retired with the young negociator, to sign, in the name of the company,
several papers, which Ripperda had left for that purpose. Louis and he
were then alone. When the merchant had endorsed the deeds, he took two
caskets of different sizes from under his vest.--He unclasped them, and
laid them open on the table. They contained unset jewels, of a value
that seemed incalculable.
"These, my Lord;" said he, "are poor tributes of the high consideration
in which we hold the able conduct of the Duke de Ripperda, and his
secretary of legation, in this troublesome affair. I am empowered by
my colleagues to say, that the larger casket is worth 30,000_l._, and
the lesser, 20,000_l._ But were they millions, they would be inadequate
to repay our boundless obligations to the Ambassador of Spain:--and on
the renewal of our guarantee, every seven years, we will give the same."
This kind of gratitude was so little foreseen by the Duke de Ripperda,
he had not given his son any directions respecting it. Louis did not
feel that he required any:--It was not the gratitude that softened
and subdued his heart. He closed the caskets, and putting them back
into the hands of the merchant.--"Sir," said he, "the Ambassador of
Spain, and his Secretary, are sufficiently repaid for the discharge
of their duties to their country, and to the world in general, by the
approbation and prosperity of those they serve. Rewards of any other
kind, they cannot accept; as they neither understand, nor value them."
The dignity with which Louis said this, as he laid the implied
bribe from his hand, struck the president for a moment speechless;
but hastily recovering himself, he held the caskets forth a second
time, and was opening his lips to enforce their acceptance, when
Louis, rather haughtily, as well as sternly, put out his arm with a
repelling motion, and interrupted him.--But in the moment he spoke,
Orendayn entered the apartment to pass through. Seeing it occupied,
he apologized, and hastily retreated, though not so fast, but his
sordid eye caught the glittering treasure. Louis resumed. "Sir," said
he, "do not irrecoverably offend the son of the Duke de Ripperda, by
shewing him that you have mistaken his father! If either he, or I,
have influence in these affairs, when the guarantee is to be renewed,
we must forget that we have heard of, or seen these caskets, before
we can put our hands to a second grant. You will excuse me now, Sir,
if I withdraw." With the word, he bowed and left him. The confused
merchant gathered up his caskets and his charter, and, with the air of
a culprit, stole out the room.
At the usual hour of stirring abroad, Louis bent his course to the
Princess de Waradin's, to enquire of her health after the late alarm.
As he drove along, he passed the crowded ruins of the Opera-house, now
lying a smoking mass of stone and smouldering timber. He shuddered to
think, but for his perseverance, the amiable boy he had seen, would
have been left a helpless orphan; and the lovely mother, who had led
him to behold her son as he slept, at this moment a blackened corse
under the steaming pile before him. That he had been instrumental in
saving two fellow-creatures, from so horrible a death, dilated his
bosom with aweful gratitude; and when he alighted at the house of the
Princess de Waradin, he sympathised with unaffected piety, in her
thanksgivings to heaven, for the escape of herself and her daughter.
Amelia was indisposed, and in her chamber. Her mother did not lose the
opportunity of enforcing upon Louis, her daughter's conviction, that
she owed the preservation of her life to him. He combated the idea
with frank eagerness, shewing the little share he had in exertions, in
which so many had assisted. But it was useless for him to disqualify
those claims on her gratitude she was determined to think he possessed;
and, insinuating that Amelia alone could repay them, he felt more
embarrassed than gratified with her flattering pertinacity.
The views which the Princess de Waradin had upon Louis, made her use
every maternal art to domesticate him in her family; but the hurrying
vortex into which he was plunged, rendered that impossible. Every
house of consequence at Vienna was open to him; and in all he found
different orders of amusement, according to the character of the
several sets. Though the rank of these circles might be on the same
level, yet the component parts, by an involuntary attraction, formed
themselves into distinct societies, according to their different
degrees of constitutional gaiety, mental qualifications, or hereditary
prejudices. In some, he was wearied by everlasting state ceremonies,
and the stiffness and stupidity inseparable from a superstitious regard
to formalities. In others, he was occasionally entertained, interested,
or disgusted, in proportion as he met with amiable manners, personal
kindness, or riotous excess.
To kill time seemed the great purpose of amusement, in the world to
which he was now introduced. Whether he dined with statesmen, with
military, or with philosophers; though the conversation at table might
be to his soul's content; of "battles fought, and glory won;" of the
"gordian knot" of policy; or the high-reaching thoughts of those who
analyse the universe:--still the evening ended the same. They all
proposed adjourning, some to one place and some to another; and many to
scenes of idle dissipation, against which his taste revolted. However,
he remembered his father's advice, "to wear his own superiority,
meekly!" and seldom refused to accompany them to places, whence he
generally returned wearied, offended, and displeased.
The gambling table; the board spread to excess; the smiles of
meretricious beauty; all were found, in the scenes to which his new
acquaintance introduced him. He thought, "If of such stuff be the
pleasures of young men, it is well they are dissipations of mind, as
well as of time; else, how could reflection bear the retrospect of the
best hours of human life, spent in such base vassalage to the lowest
propensities! It is a disordered state of being, in which nothing
is seen, and felt, and heard, but through the medium of delirium. I
cannot mingle with it; I cannot make this sacrifice of my time and
feelings, even to comply with the wishes of my father."
He wrote to Ripperda, to this effect. But the answer he received, would
not permit him to withdraw. The Duke told him, that he was called
upon to know, and to act with mankind; and how could he do either,
if he only saw them at their hours of form? He must attend them in
the undress of their minds; when the passions unveiled their hearts.
There would then be no need of a window in the bosom, to understand
how each man might be stimulated or restrained. With regard to his own
situation in this crucible of character; as he felt disgust at what was
temptation to others, he ought more readily to submit himself to the
apparent trial.
"You have genius, and distinction sufficient, already," added
Ripperda, "to create jealousy enough. If you have a mind above the
common recreations of man, let that be, I repeat, to the private
satisfaction of your own heart; it will keep your judgment cool, and
your proceedings independent. But while you act with men, and would
incline them to your purpose, you must appear to partake their nature.
Let me hear, when I return, that you go wherever you are invited. Your
companions will be too much absorbed in their own pursuits, to mark
whether you are an actor, or a spectator; but go with them."
Louis compared these principles with that of Wharton, _I mingle with
the dross of the earth, to extract its gold!_ They were the same; they
were specious to the adventurous virtue of youth: and rinding his
partiality to the English Duke, strengthened by this sympathy in maxim
with his father, he more readily determined to struggle against the
delicacy of his taste, and to pass through things so discordant to him,
with sealed ears and eyes. During the lengthened absence of Ripperda,
which was prolonged by the Emperor much beyond the time he proposed;
Louis saw all that a luxurious capital could present to the seduction
of youth and affluence. There were circles of dissipation, of a higher
class than those to which he had first been introduced; and these were
at the houses of a class of nobility, who lived to pleasure alone.
If vice were there, she was arrayed by the graces, with splendor,
and softness, sophistries, and flatteries, to make man forget he was
mortal, and had ought to do in life, but sail with the fabling syrens,
down the silver sea of time. No voice of sorrow was ever heard in its
air; no sigh of care ever breathed on its flowery shores; no tear
ever dimmed the eternal lustre of that sky. Human nature's curse of
travail and woe; man's distresses, and sympathy for pain, were all here
excluded. The blest inhabitants lived for themselves alone; and all
was revelry, from the rising to the setting sun; from moon-light, to
the morning star. But Louis had a heart and a soul, as well as eyes and
ears; and still he found no satisfaction in such waste of enjoyments.
The bosoms that panted there, beat with animal life alone; and the
souls which animated their bodies, were asleep in their vapoury cell.
As he passed through the crowded chambers, in which his spirit felt
a happy solitude, the conversations of Mr. Athelstone often occurred
to him; and he leaned pensively against many a rosy-wreathed arcade,
musing on the prophetic lessons of his earliest friend.
All around was prosperity and enjoyment. But he recollected, that his
uncle had said, "sweet are the uses of adversity!--Bitter to the taste,
but aromatic in effect, they preserve nature from corruption. Man, in
the indolence of repletion, breaks out with infinite disorders; and
like the ocean, whose constant motion keeps its waters pure, requires
exercise of mind and body. If it be not active to good, it will be to
evil, for what lies between is stagnation. Unchanging prosperity cloys
by possession; and the sated spirit looks around for new excitements.
It is then that the passions and the appetites wander abroad in the
stimulating search, and are easily tempted to forbidden paths." The
Pastor of Lindisfarne had once paused on the page of Shakespeare, which
his nephew was reading to his cousins:--
"Yet marked I where the bolt of _Cupid_ fell!
It fell upon a little western flower;
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound;
And maidens call it _Love in Idleness_."
"Not love, my children," cried the venerable instructor; "love was
bestowed by heaven on man, to be a help-mate to his labours. It is
wantonness, that is the offspring of idleness. But the _son of the
bondswoman_, arrays himself like the _heir of promise_, and the sons
and daughters of earth, are a while mocked by his pretensions!"
When Louis saw this scene performed before him, he thought how
melancholy it was to behold the cheat; how wretched to see the
blessings of life transformed into its bane. To view men and women of
rank and talents, and abundant power to become the benefactors and
examples of mankind, immerese all in one broad system of selfishness,
till a dangerous delusion spread over every faculty, and the character
exhibited one mass of sentimental weakness, intemperate passions,
splendid follies, and hardened vice!
In many of these parties, Louis met Duke Wharton; but he never staid
more than a few minutes, though those few were hailed by an adulation
that might have detained a prouder spirit. He ever left sighs behind;
and Louis shared the regret; though still his friend passed him by
unheeding; except, sometimes by a smile from a distance, or a glance of
the eye, as they mingled in the crowd.
By a similar wordless communion, Louis found the impression he had
made on the Electress, was not effaced. In riding through the Prato,
he often met her carriage; and she always leaned forward, with looks
he could not mistake; and when she thought herself unobserved, she
kissed her hand to him, with all the eagerness of suppressed, but
ardent gratitude. He generally gazed wistfully after her carriage;
for the image of Wharton united with her idea. He was her counsellor,
her friend. How great must be her qualities, to have secured such a
distinction!--Louis would not believe that she could have been privy to
the murderous policy of some of her agents: he had seen enough in his
last interview, to excite his fancy to complete the flattering picture;
and where his imagination kindled, his heart was too apt to glow.
Things were in this state, when the Imperial family, and with them the
Duke de Ripperda, arrived suddenly from the country. As soon as he
alighted at his own house, Louis flew to welcome him.
"Follow me," replied the Duke.
Louis saw a contraction on his father's brow, which he noted as a
herald of disagreeable tidings, yet he did not linger in obeying. They
entered the saloon.
"I see you anticipate what I have to tell you," said the Duke. "The
Empress is resolved on your marrying her favourite."
Louis was momentarily shocked by this announcement, but rallying
himself with the hope that he had offended Otteline past forgiveness,
he answered; "could I be weak enough to second the Empress's wishes;
after what I said to Countess Altheim in our last conference, she must
reject me." "If she loved you she would. But as it is all one to her,
by what means she ascends to distinction; she cares not whether it be
on your heart, or over her own delicacy. The Empress, too, forgets
her own consequence, in eagerness to aggrandise her favourite. She
protests that you have given Otteline every proof of attachment; that
circumstances demanded it; and your honour is pledged to redeem the
reputation she has lost on your account."
As his father recapitulated her patroness's discourse, in which, more
earnest than judicious, she allowed too much of the selfish aim in
the views of her friend to be seen; the entire remains of Louis's
infatuation, (which still lurked in the shape of pity), passed away
like a mist; and with faculties, at once cleared from every suggestion
of vanity or tenderness, he strongly declared that he never would
marry Countess Altheim. He allowed, that he had shewn too many signs
of headlong passion; but he repeated, in his extremest phrenzy, he
had warned her that he was at his father's disposal alone: and, for
her reputation being sacrificed, that could be no longer an argument,
since the avowed object of his visits to the Empress would sufficiently
confute the slander grounded on them.
"It must not be avowed that your discovered visits to these apartments
were to the Empress. The Emperor knows that you negociated with
Sinzendorff; but am I to remind you, that should he ever suspect her
private interference in the affair, his latent jealousy would find its
object, and the consequence I need not repeat."
"Then," exclaimed Louis, in a sudden agony of spirit, "I am lost!"
"Not if your father can extricate you," returned the Duke; "but I fear
you must marry her."
Though his heart had just told him the same, the words uttered by his
father were like a death-stroke; and knocking his clenched hand upon
his breast, he groaned aloud.
"De Montemar," said the Duke, "does not the spirit you so devoutly
dedicated to glory, does it not suggest the means of performing this
hard act of duty to your country; and yet not allow it to trouble you
beyond the present hour?"
"Impossible," returned he; "in marrying the Countess Altheim, I shall
marry my disgrace and my abhorrence."
"The act must pass for that of headstrong passion; or, perhaps, a
little more in your own way, as an act of romantic justice to the woman
who has incurred dishonour for your sake.--Passion always finds its
apology with men; so the world may smile, but it will forgive you; and
when she is your wife----"
"My wife! never, never!" interrupted Louis, "my name shall never be
rendered infamous by giving the world to suppose that it was possible
for me to make her my wife, whom even her future husband could
persuade from virtue. How could the Empress sully her matron-lips with
the vile suggestion? I never dishonoured the Countess Altheim, in word
or deed; and I will not act as if I had been such a villain. I will not
brand myself as a seducer, a dupe, or a madman! One of the three he
must be, who unites himself to the reputation she has incurred, by her
own arts and follies alone!"
The Duke permitted him to exhaust himself before he again spoke.
Equally averse with Louis, to his son's union with the mere minion of
any crowned head, he was aware that open opposition in this instance,
would embarrass all his other objects. The Queen of Spain's fury
against France, and her eagerness for revenge, had put the Spanish
interest totally into the power of the Empress. In her first rage, she
had written a letter to Elizabeth, of unguarded relinquishment; which
Ripperda vainly attempted to qualify. The Empress saw the advantage
Isabella had yielded, and in spite of her friend's representations, she
maintained it in the amplest sense. Spain had, therefore, by the fury
of its Queen, given up all check upon the non-execution of the most
momentous articles in the treaty. She soon found the effects of her
rashness; and in letters of despair to Ripperda, acknowledged that it
now wholly depended on his fidelity and contrivance, whether Austria
should fulfil its engagements, or the business end in loss and disgrace.
Another reason, besides her infatuated attachment to the companion
of her childhood, urged Elizabeth to insist on the engagement of de
Montemar with Countess Altheim, Ripperda marked her manner; and foresaw
the vexatious delays she would throw in the way of the execution of the
treaty, if he should appear to thwart her wishes. When she arrived
from Baden, at the Luxemburg, it was not long before she granted him
a private interview; and, notwithstanding all the influence of her
partiality in his behalf, when he attempted to give his own reasons
against his son marrying at so early an age, she turned on him with
a look and demeanour, more like that with which Catherine de Medicis
repelled the insinuations of Cardinal Mazarin, when he sought to betray
her into sanctioning a marriage between his niece and the king; than
the familiar confidence with which Elizabeth had always regarded the
Duke de Ripperda. Ripperda understood her suspicion, and her scorn; and
had he not possessed a political self-command, equal to his towering
pride, the reply of his eyes and his voice at that moment, would have
severed a friendship which had lasted eighteen years, and dashed to
atoms the present vaunted fabric of peace to Europe for succeeding
generations. He affected not to have observed the air with which she
had uttered these otherwise innoxious words.
"Your son is old enough to be the colleague of politicians; and surely
he is not too young to be the protector of an amiable and tender woman,
whose only strength lay in my love, and her spotless name. The last
she has lost through his handsome face, her fidelity to me, and the
malignancy of the Electress of Bavaria; and, my love, and his honour,
must and shall restore, what he and I have destroyed!"
In short, she gave him to understand, more than had ever passed
between Otteline and his son; but sufficient to convince him, that she
considered Louis bound beyond release; and that his attached mistress
was so assured of the same, there was nothing on the earth could induce
her to withdraw her claim. She accused Louis of cold, dissembling
vanity; treated with disdain the high principle which had impelled
his rejection of her friend; and added, that she should influence the
Emperor not to permit the reversionary investiture of Don Carlos into
the possession of the Italian Dukedoms, to take place on the person of
Louis, till Otteline should appear at the ceremony as Marchioness de
Montemar.
After this insinuation, Ripperda saw there was no resource but to
dissimulate and gain time. But, knowing the sincerity of his son in
all his transactions; he found it necessary to alarm his delicacy and
honour, to induce him to embrace, without consideration, any prospect
of escape from so disreputable a union. The base exaggerations of
Otteline, in her representations to the Empress of his conduct, and his
own desperate entanglement with her, wrought him almost to phrenzy.
The Duke owned, that as circumstances were, there was a necessity
for the marriage; or, at least, an appearance of preparing for its
celebration. Should events compel the ceremony, Louis might extricate
himself from its domestic discomforts, as soon as the affairs between
the two countries were brought to a happy consummation. He might then
leave his bride, and never see her more; being well assured, that she
would be fully satisfied in the enjoyment of her new rank, by the
side of her infatuated mistress. But this was taking the case at the
worst, for could they mislead the Empress and her favourite by apparent
compliance, and real delays in the performance, events might start
forward to elude the whole.
"I cannot, Sir," cried Louis, "I cannot compromise myself one moment on
so abhorrent a subject! How could I look up, if I were to be pointed at
wherever I moved, as the future husband of this justly contemned widow
of Count Altheim? My Lord, command me in every thing but this! Send me
from Vienna,--banish me where you will, but do not entangle me farther
with that insidious woman! Do not subject me to the consciousness, that
I am any way deserving the punishment of being ensnared beyond the
power of extrication."
"Louis," replied the Duke, "there is nothing that I can command, or
counsel you to do, to unite the preservation of your private freedom,
with your public duty, but a temporary system of deceiving the Empress
and her favourite. When you entered a political career, you engaged
on oath, to sacrifice every thing; your bosom's passions, and even
your reputation with men, to the service of your country, should it be
demanded. You are now called upon to perform the first part of this
vow."
"Yes, Sir, but I did not engage to sacrifice my conscience. That
belongs to God alone; and, I will perish, or keep it so."
"Then you must marry the Countess Altheim," calmly, rejoined his father.
"In the hour that I do," replied Louis, "I shall have given my heart's
dearest blood to the country I have never seen! to the country I will
never see! I will abjure the world, and retire to die a despised
wretch, where I may not hear the derision I have plucked upon the name
of de Montemar."
"And will that be obedience to your conscience?" asked the Duke, "if
so, mark its inconsistency, and sometimes doubt its text. Before
I quitted the Empress, I brought her to apologise to me, for the
offensive innuendos she had dropped at the beginning. I brought her to
tears, when I reminded her how I had served her and her daughter, in
the establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction. But before I accomplished
this conquest over a self-willed and powerful sovereign, I removed
every impression from her mind that I had any other objection to the
proposed union, than your youth, and the lady being so much your
senior. In the moment of reconciliation, I smoothed your path. I
alledged that my duty towards my new country, obliged me to write
thither, to ask permission of the King and Queen of Spain to form a
foreign alliance, before I could formally give my consent. In this, the
Empress acquiesced. Here then, is one delay secured. Meanwhile, should
you appear to concur heartily in the arrangement, I have little doubt
of winning upon Elizabeth to grant the investiture before the messenger
can return; the engine will then be restored to our own hand; and we
may protract and excuse, and finally break away without danger."
"No, Sir," replied Louis, "I abhor this marriage, because of the want
of all honourable principle in the woman who had infatuated me; and I
never will move one step to avoid it, by becoming the thing I abhor. If
my liberty is only to be regained by acting a falsehood,--a treacherous
falsehood! I submit to my cruel destiny, and I will marry her."
"That is to yourself alone," replied the Duke, rising from his chair
with a disturbed, and even a severe countenance. "But, remember, it is
your duty to await the return of my messenger from Spain."
"I will wait, my father, as long as you please. But, I repeat, it is
with no purpose to deceive. If I ever appear again in the presence
of the Countess Altheim, to permit her to consider me as her future
husband; it must be with the intention, on my part, to become so at the
prescribed time. My weak vassalage to beauty has brought me to this;
and heavy will be the punishment, but it is more tolerable than my own
utter contempt." "You must visit her this evening."
"Not alone, my Lord! That never shall be exacted from me. Till she
bears my name, no power shall compel me to be alone with her!"
"Who, then, must be your companion? I cannot."
"Tell the Empress, I demand it of her tenderness for the Countess's
honour, that some person be always present when we meet. Should I ever
find it otherwise, in that instant I will withdraw."
"In that, you are right," replied his father; and quitted the
apartment.
CHAP. II.
Elizabeth's reply to Ripperda's note, respecting the delicate scruple
of his son, told him that herself would be present at the scene of
reconciliation.
To go to this portentous interview, was, to Louis, like setting forth
to execution. A curtain seemed to have dropped between him and all the
world. It closed out, not only every domestic comfort, but every aim of
ambition. Fame was now robbed of its glory; and the ardour of pursuit,
turned into a joyless resolve of fulfilling his task from a sense of
duty alone. His heart felt like a petrifaction in his breast; his veins
were chilled; and, with a cloud over every faculty, he paced his way,
as a man in a dream, through the often trod, but now hateful galleries
of the Imperial Palace. He knew not how his faultering steps bore him
into the _boudoir_ where he expected to see Otteline, but instead of
her pleading or resentful form, he found himself in the august presence
of the Empress.
She advanced to meet him, all smiles; but what her first words were, he
knew not. She observed his pale looks, and the distracted wandering of
his eyes; but she would not notice either.
"Whatever was your quarrel with Otteline, in your last meeting;"
continued she, "her gentle spirit is ready to grant you forgiveness.
Shall I conduct you to her feet?"
"To her presence, Madam," replied Louis, recalling his attention; "I
shall be honoured in following Your Majesty; but not to her feet. I
cannot ask her forgiveness, for addressing her with candour."
Elizabeth looked sternly at him.
"Young man, you are not come here, to brave the Empress of Germany!
Beware, Louis de Montemar, of insulting my friend, beyond, even her
persuasions to pardon!"
"I come to speak the truth;" replied he, "to declare that I am ready to
fulfil every claim that Countess Altheim demands of my honour; but also
to throw myself on Your Majesty's justice to me, and tenderness for
her; by a frank avowal, that I shall contract this marriage against my
heart, and against my conviction, that my honour does not acknowledge
the pledge she asserts."
The Empress remained indignantly silent, while he briefly recapitulated
the cause of his repugnance to the union she was determined to
accomplish.
"It is as impossible for me to restore her to my esteem," added he,
"as to relinquish my nature. But if, under the circumstances I have
mentioned, Your Majesty deems me bound, where no engagement was made;
and when I have already told her, that our hearts are as separated
as our natures;--I am ready to submit to become her husband, with the
cold, soul-less duty, the name may enforce."
Louis stood firm, though pale and respectful, before the resentful gaze
of Elizabeth.
"Sir," said she, "you know how to insult; and you know how to attempt
to wrest from a tender woman, the rights you have given her over your
honour,--But I am her protectress; and shall hold the chain that binds
you, until death severs it. Young man, I know more of that vain heart,
than I can easily pardon.--And yet, you dare to tell me, that your
honour made no engagement with Countess Altheim, because you did not
say, in veritable words--_I offer you my heart, my hand, my fortune,
and my life!_ But, did you not weep on her hand? Did you not press it
to your breast, while you vowed you loved, adored, and lived only in
her smile? Did you not proffer her your life, to clear her aspersed
fame? Did you not pledge her your heart; were you not sensible that you
were master of hers? and what was all this, but a bond to be hers; a
pledge, that you were hers? What is _honour_, if it be only a word and
not an action? and, in this case, an interchange of soul for soul?--All
this has passed between you, and yet you talk of your honour being your
own!"
Louis stood impressed, but not confounded by the truth of this appeal.
While he felt the reproach to many of his sex, he might have said with
Hamlet:--
"Let the galled jade wince; my withers are unwrung!"
Elizabeth observed a change in his countenance, and with all the woman
in her Imperial heart, she exclaimed, "Oh, man, man!" But checking
herself from completing the apostrophe, she turned proudly away, and
walked up the room. She returned, and addressed him.
"I have condescended to argue thus with you, because you are the son
of the Duke de Ripperda. His unswerving probity disdains subterfuge;
act as becomes his son, and I may forget, what Otteline is too ready to
pardon."
Louis looked up. The noble candour in his eyes almost dazzled the
stedfast, doubting gaze of Elizabeth.
"Had I sought a subterfuge," replied he, "I should have merited the
utmost of Your Majesty's disdain; but from the first moment that I
found myself too sensible to her charms, I struggled against the
disclosure; and when circumstances extorted the confession from me,
with the declaration of my love, I also declared that I was not at my
own disposal. These reproaches, do not, then hold on me. For had she
still appeared, what I then supposed her; had my father refused his
consent, I would have proved my fidelity by never giving my hand to any
other woman."
"Your father gives his consent!" answered the Empress, "and as you
yield obedience to his commands, it is well they coincide with the
bonds of your honour. I accept your offered terms for my friend; your
hand, with the consideration due to your wife. For know, vain boy, that
Otteline has a spirit as dignified as it is tender; and will not brook
obloquy, either from her lover, the world, or her husband!"
Louis would have spoken, but she put out her hand in sign of silence.
"Follow me, Marquis," cried she, "and the consequences of the next two
hours be on your own head."
The consequences he already felt in his heart; and, without further
look of remonstrance, or attempt to utter another word, he bowed and
obeyed.
She opened a door in the farthest apartment, and discovered the
beautiful favourite, seated on a sofa awaiting them. She was luxuriant
in every charm. And perhaps the flush of a smothered indignation,
irradiated her complexion with redoubled brilliancy. But all was worse
than lost upon the senses of Louis. Every beauty appeared to him, like
the serpents on the Gorgon's head, wreathing to sting him. She rose as
the Empress entered.
"Otteline," cried Her Majesty with a proud smile; "I have brought you a
penitent. Can you pardon and receive him again to your heart?"
"Oh, Wharton!" exclaimed the inmost soul of Louis, at that moment
recollecting the rejected warning of his friend; "This _Semiramis_ and
her _subtle confidant_, have, indeed, bound me in a toil unto death!"
As he approached, the Countess made some answer, which he rather heard
in its tones than its words; for almost instantly, Elizabeth had put
the hand of Otteline into his. He held it, but it was without pressure;
without recognizance of the delight with which he once grasped it.
"Now," continued the Empress, "I am happy since I see the son of my
earliest counsellor, thus affiance himself to the cherished friend of
my youth!"
As she spoke, she pressed their hands together, while a mortal coldness
shot through the heart of Louis, at this consummation of his fate; and
stupified, he neither saw nor heard for a few moments. In this interval
the Empress disappeared. Otteline sunk, weeping into a chair. He turned
his eyes upon her; but no sympathy was in their beams; no belief in the
semblance of her tears. She looked up and met his rigid observation.
Her beautiful eyes swam, like sapphire gems in the summer dew. A soft
attraction was in their lucid rays. A melancholy smile, gave utterance
to her faultering accents; and holding out the hand he had dropped, she
gently, timidly, and tenderly articulated,
"De Montemar! Is it a mutual forgiveness? The hand that is now yours,
is a feeble pledge of the reconciliation of my heart!"
Louis did not approach her. He felt there was poison in that honeyed
tongue; and though he came to commit himself to her for ever, he shrunk
from being cozened again, by her charms or her art, to become a willing
sacrifice. Could he now unite himself to her from any other impulse
than hard, extorting duty, he felt how deep would be his degradation in
his own thoughts; and he looked down to shut all these witcheries from
his eyes.
After a minute's pause, while he stood painfully silent, she resumed in
great emotion.
"What is it I have done, to deserve this harsh contempt? Oh, de
Montemar, I have only proved myself, a fond, a feeble woman? For your
sake, I gave way to the suggestions of a zeal, that would have carried
me, as surely on the points of your enemies' daggers, as to violate
the letter which gave notice of your danger.--And thus am I repaid!"
With a suffocating gasp, she fell back into the chair on which she sat,
and covered her face with her hands. Her whole frame was shook, as if
life were indeed passing in agonizing throes from her body. The heart
of man could not bear this. Could these mortal struggles be indeed
dissimulation?--Whatever they might be, he could not look on them
unmoved. He hastily approached her, and touched her hand. It was cold
as death, but the plastic fingers closed on his agitated pressure. He
trembled fearfully as he drew it away from her pale face, and beheld
those matchless features convulsed with mental agony. Again her eyes
opened upon him, as he hung over her. They fixed themselves on his
face, with a languid, but pleading sorrow.
"Countess!" said he in a voice of anguish. "Oh, call me Otteline--your
Otteline!" cried she, impetuously grasping his arm, and hiding her face
on it; "or, repeat that word, and release me, by killing me! But, I
have survived your esteem, and why should I longer wish to live?"
His heart was subdued; and with tears starting from his own eyes, he
exclaimed. "And is it possible that you do really love me?"
In that moment she was on her knees beside him. She clasped her
hands; and looked up with such beaming beauty in every feature,
such effulgence in her dewy eyes; that his were rivetted on her, as
they would have been on a kneeling angel. Her lips appeared vainly
to attempt sounds, that were too big for utterance; and, finding it
impracticable, she turned towards him, and meeting the relenting
expression of his anguished countenance, she smiled like heaven, and
threw herself upon his breast. Louis's heart heaved, and panted under
the beautiful burden it sustained, as her sighs breathed on his cheek,
and her tender tears bathed it; but, even in that moment of female
victory, the excess of his emotion smote on that betrayed heart: and
sensible to all the shame of his defeat, the rapid current in his
veins, chilled to its former ice; and, with a tremor, far from ecstacy,
he replaced her in her chair, and, almost unconsciously knelt down by
her side.--But the attitude was dictated by his humbled sense of his
own weakness, not, indeed, addressed to her; though he now believed she
loved him; and while he looked on her agitated frame, he thought to
himself:--
"If I cannot be happy myself, in the degradation to which I am doomed;
at least, I do not leave you miserable! I will cherish, and protect;
and, perhaps, recall that fond heart, to respect the principles of her
husband!" As he thus thought, he raised her hand to his lips; and, by
that action, sealed to himself, the compact to be hers.
"My de Montemar!" murmured the Countess, feeling the import of this
mute symbol. At this crisis, she heard a light step in the room.
She looked round, and beheld the young Arch-duchess, standing pale,
and fixed in the middle of the floor, with her eyes rivetted on the
kneeling figure of Louis.
"The Princess!" exclaimed Otteline, in a voice of surprise, to Louis.
He started from his knee, and in the confusion of his feelings,
retreated a few paces back. The gentle Maria Theresa smiled mournfully,
but did not speak. Taking her hand, the Countess enquired her commands.
The Princess still kept her eyes fixed on Louis, while, in a suppressed
and unsteady voice, she answered her governess.
"My mother wishes to speak with you. But, perhaps, had she known the
Marquis was here, she would not desire you to leave him. God bless you,
Marquis!" cried he, addressing him with agitated earnestness; "Be kind
to my Otteline; for, when you are married, I shall never see her
more."
With the last words, she tore her eyes from his face, and threw herself
into the bosom of the Countess.--Otteline looked her adieu to her
lover, as in a tumult of undescribable disorder he hurried out of the
room.
CHAP. III.
Though Ripperda had made it a point with the Empress, that there should
be no public intimation given of the proposed marriage of her favourite
with his son, until the Queen's consent should arrive; it is probable
Her Majesty might have sent it abroad by a private whisper, had she not
seen the prudence of not stimulating the ill offices of the Princess de
Waradin, and others, by any hint that the heir they courted for their
daughters was promised to their proudest enemy.
When Elizabeth appeared to grant this silence as a favour, she insisted
that it should not deter Louis from making his daily visits at the
Altheim apartments; it was a respect due to the amiable forbearance of
his future bride; and it should always be in the presence of one of
her confidential ladies, who was also a friend of the Countess.
Louis had now abandoned himself to his fate. But he had hardly given
full sway to compulsive duty, and to the pleasing credulity that was
re-awakened by compassion, before a thousand circumstances arose, to
bid all his former repugnance return. The veil of imagination had been
too forcibly rent from his eyes, ever to pass again between him and
the object of his past idolatry. Unblinded by its delusions, every
succeeding day shewed him clearer views of a character she vainly
sought to disguise in assumed sentiment and delicacy. He perceived
that her defects were not merely those of a perverting education, but
of a radically warped mind. She had no spontaneous taste for moral
greatness. Grandeur was her object; but it was that of station, of
splendour, of dictating power. But still she loved him! loved him with
a devotion, a fondness, a bewitching fascination, that, at times,
made him almost forget she was not the perfection that might have
been the mistress of his soul. The beautiful deception never lasted
many minutes; and his heart sighed for its partner, with a sterile
consciousness that spoke of desolation, and dreariness, and solitude,
through the whole of his after-life.
In moments like these, how often has a frequent quotation of his
Pastor-Uncle occurred to him! "He that does a base thing in zeal for
his friend, burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together.
Such proof of love is conspiracy, not friendship!"
In the midst of this banishment of his hopes, from ever knowing
the sweets of domestic comfort again, he received large packets
from the dear home, where his best instructor presided, and where
perfect happiness dwelt with humility and innocence. The counsel of
the venerable man strengthened him in every disinterested rule of
life; but the letters of his aunt, and his cousins, made his yearning
heart overflow with rebellious regrets. The spirit of virtue and of
tenderness breathed through every eloquent line that dropped from the
pen of Cornelia.
"Ah, sister of my soul!" cried he, "I could fly with thee into
the bosom of paradise! Here is all celestial purity, all divine
aspirations! and I wished to wander from such a heaven! I longed to
busy myself in the ambitious turmoil of the world! I am in that world;
and, what is my achievement? I find myself chained to the foot of a
woman, my noble Cornelia would despise! I dare not confess to those who
love and honour me, so degrading a disappointment of their hopes."
He turned to the gentle accents of his sweet Alice, breathed in a
letter which had been wet with her grateful tears. Don Ferdinand had
complied with her petition. He had written to her mother, and avowed
his love for her daughter. But throwing himself upon her pity, he
implored her not to betray him to his father; and to assure her that
he meant nothing disobedient to him, nothing clandestine to her in the
demand, he released Alice from every vow, only reserving one claim on
her compassion; to be allowed, at some future day, to throw himself at
her feet; should the issue of certain circumstances, which still gave
him the privilege to hope, hereafter induce his father to consent to
his happiness.
Alice added that her mother had written to Don Ferdinand, that she
pardoned what had passed, in consideration of the amplitude of the
restitution; that she should preserve his blameable conduct from his
father's eye, since it was repented of, and relinquished; but, that
he must not suppose she yielded any encouragement to the continuance
of his attachment for her daughter, as she desired, that here all
correspondence must cease.
"But," added Alice, "I know he will be true to what he has written; and
I know I shall always love him dearer, for having taken that dreadful
load from my heart. I am therefore quite sure I shall be content to
await his father's consent, should it not come these many years. If
you knew how happy I am now, since I can lift up my eyes in my dear
mother's presence, and no longer feel ashamed at being pressed to the
affectionate bosom of my blameless sister; you would be ready to pour
as many tears of joy over the welcome of the little strayed lamb, as
your kind heart shed floods of sorrow that melancholy night, when you
found her so sadly wandered from her fold! Oh, my Louis, shall my
gratitude to you ever find words to express it?"
Mrs. Coningsby's letter was not less energetic in thanks to her nephew
for the judicious advice he had given to her almost infant Alice; and
for the activity of his exertions, to bring it to effect.
Louis smiled with glistening eyes, over these letters; for he was yet
to learn the science of forgetting his own privations, in the fullness
of others. The comparison now only aggravated the pangs in his breast;
and rising from meditations that subdued, agitated, and maddened him,
he rushed into crowds for that dissipation of thought he vainly sought
in the exercises of study, or the fulfilment of his official duties.
Count Koninseg had lately introduced him to a house, in which he
moved about at perfect ease, and met with every gratification to put
his usual indifference to gay society, to the test. It was the abode
of the Count d'Ettrees, a French adventurer of rank, whose wife and
sister formed an attraction of wit and beauty, that rivalled every
other assembly in Vienna. Under their magic auspices, every amusement
was presented that capricious fancy could desire or devise; and all
lavished with a splendor of luxury, and an elegance of taste, which
must soon have been exhausted, had not the fountain as it flowed
returned by another channel to its native bed. Count d'Ettrees drew a
revenue from that spirit for play, which his display of means excited
in his guests.
Louis could never be induced to touch a card, or the dice-box,
despising them both as sordid and senseless in principle; but found
ample entertainment in the conversations of, indeed, an epitomised
world. In these assemblies he saw persons from all countries and of all
parties; but they were the chosen of all. For, to make the attraction
the greater, so select was the Count in the rank and pretensions of
those whom he admitted, it was deemed the highest proof of consequence,
and of being _un bel esprit_, to be seen in this privileged circle. The
Countess Claudine and her sister-in-law, Angelique d'Ettrees were
ostensibly women of character, and really women of talent. But, while
all around shewed a gorgeous pageant of amusement, wit, and genius;
ruin lurked in the rooms, dedicated to play; infidelity and pride
animated the philosophic colonade; poetry and Voltaire, Rousseau and
bewildering sentiment, discoursed alike with talents, or with beauty;
and vice sapped the unwary footstep where-ever it trod.
At present, Louis was too self-absorbed by the struggles within him,
to look deep into what was passing around him. It was sufficient for
him that the varying intellectual enjoyments of the place, wrested
him from his thoughts; and he gave himself up to all their power
with a desperate avidity. He found his mind roused and exercised, by
discussions with men of genius; he was delighted with the brilliant
wit of the women, and the graceful frankness of their manners; and,
perhaps, he was unconsciously propitiated by the indirect flattery
which was offered to himself, by the Countess and her sister, and
which, being paid to his talents alone, he received without suspicion.
One evening, while he was thus engaged, he observed de Patinos and Duke
Wharton enter together. It was the first time he had seen the Duke in
the hotel d'Ettrees. The Spaniard descried Louis at the same instant,
as he sat between the Countess and her sister Angelique. De Patinos
drew his arm almost immediately from Wharton, and approached the group;
but when near, he stopped, and turned away, casting a furious look at
Ma'amselle d'Ettrees. She soon left her seat, and Louis afterwards
saw her and the Spaniard in close conversation, while they, at times,
turned round and glanced at him, as if he were the object of their
discourse. De Patinos seemed very sullen, and Angelique very earnest.
Soon after they parted, with a sarcastic laugh from the Spaniard, and
Ma'amselle mingled with the crowd.
Without any known cause of offence, a tacit acknowledgement of mutual
dislike was shewn by Louis and de Patinos. For some time, their
civilities had been merely confined to a cold bow at meeting in the
_Palais d'Espagne_; when they met elsewhere, they passed as strangers.
Baptista Orendayn was de Patinos's shadow in all things. But the
conciliating manners of Louis, and (when he could emerge from his bosom
regrets) his brilliant powers of amusement, had won the other Spaniards
to court his society, and regard him with more confidence. This
desertion from his party, incensed de Patinos the more; and a lurid
fire burnt in his angry eye, whenever it encountered his admired rival.
As Louis left the side of the animated Countess d'Ettrees, and was
passing away through the rooms, in a crowd of attendants rather than
of company, his shoulder pressed against that of Wharton. They turned
their heads, and their eyes met. Louis snatched his friend's hand, and
in the grasp, the embrace of his heart was felt. Wharton's luminous
smile played on his lip, as he whispered.
"Something better than _the garden of the Hourii_! Socrates, or
Alcibiades de Montemar?"
Louis did not answer, for at that moment he met the glance of Orendayn,
who was just entering. He bowed with obsequious lowliness, both to him
and the Duke, and passed on. Wharton and Louis had withdrawn their
hands at the same instant they caught his eye; and the Duke turned
into the circle. They were conscious however, to having been observed,
but whether with a malicious or an indifferent observation, Louis
did not pause to think on. Indeed, persons of all parties conversed
so indiscriminately in this Elysian society, where nothing seemed
considered but the free enjoyment of all which was delightful in the
human mind, that he saw nothing to apprehend in the simple circumstance
of having been known to speak to Duke Wharton in so privileged a scene;
and for any inferences, which the busy ignorance or ill nature of
Orendayn might chuse to draw, it could be a matter of no consequence,
as most of the Spanish grandees in Ripperda's suite conversed openly
with Wharton; and Orendayn, though a nobleman, was known to be a
character of contemptible craft and falsehood.
Thus, Louis continued to throw away the time that was once so precious
to him. But it was no longer the friend, with which he joyed to "take
sweet counsel," and lay open a bosom that knew no guests but hope and
exultation. It was become a heavy monitor of remembrance, to remind
him in solitary hours, of the blank his youthful infatuation and hard
destiny had made of his present and future days. His official duties
done, his home saw him no more, till their recurrence recalled his
steps, or the hour of rest demanded him to his pillow.
An hour, each morning, was passed in the Altheim apartments,
where the Empress often met him with unvarying graciousness; and
Otteline received him with as stationary smiles. But the vesture
of art cannot elude the penetration of every day. In spite of her
vigilance, he became master of her secret; and, no longer deceived
into self-complacency, by the idea that she loved him, he saw himself
consigned to be the prey of frigid, unfeeling, circumventing ambition.
From her, he rushed to Princess de Waradin's, to his military
associates, the _Hotel d' Ettrees_; or into any vortex that would hurry
him from himself, and present him with other meditations than Otteline
and his misery.
The Empress and Ripperda were now sailing forward on the unruffled sea
of success. He had brought her to yield him such implicit confidence,
that she exerted her own influence with the Emperor, to hasten the
investiture of Don Carlos in the Duchies of Parma and Placentia.
Charles promised that the official documents should immediately be
finished; and the ceremony be performed with the earliest dispatch.
He put into the Duke's hand, his final renunciation, for himself and
his posterity, of all claims on the succession of Spain; and he gave
him written bonds for the payment, at certain seasons, of a large debt
of many millions, owed by the Empire to the Spanish monarchy. He also
signed several new articles to the secret treaty; one of which was, to
relinquish the Netherlands to Don Carlos, as a dowry with his intended
bride.
About this time Cardinal de Giovenozzo arrived from Rome, on a special
mission from the Pope; and with the usual caution of the reigning
Pontiff, all parties were to be conciliated to the measures he
proposed. To this end, his first proceeding was to collect round his
table the foreign Ambassadors, and the leading men of the different
factions at Vienna.
At one of these entertainments, it chanced that the Duke de Ripperda
and the Duke of Wharton were placed at the same table. If there were
any man in the world whom Ripperda absolutely hated, it was this rival
of his politics; and he hated him, because he was the only man, who had
ever effectively crossed them. But while he cherished this hatred, he
would not own to himself that it was mixed with any fear of the talents
he affected to despise. He, therefore, took no notice of the Duke at
table, but by a stiff bow; and he would not, even have granted that,
had it not been at the board of the representative of the Father of
Christendom, where such mutual recognition of universal brotherhood in
the Catholic church, was a regular ceremonial.
During dinner, some observations were made by Wharton, respecting the
balance of power in Italy, which extracted two or three angry flashes
from the eye of Ripperda; but he disdained to appear to attend to any
thing advanced by him, and continued, with an air of indifference,
drinking wine with the British Ambassador, and conversing with the
Cardinal at whose right hand he sat. The animated Wharton proceeded in
his remarks, at the end of the table he occupied; and in a strain of
argument and eloquence that gradually attracted every ear, until even
Giovenozzo himself bowed without reply, to some passing observation of
Ripperda, and bent forward to catch what Wharton was asserting relative
to the Pontiff's rights, in the transfer of principalities in Italy.
This temporary triumph of the English Duke, over the imposing presence
of Ripperda, stung him to the quick; and, for a moment he laid open the
wound, by the impatient scorn with which he glanced on the resistless
speaker. The Portuguese minister, who sat next him, remarked on the
powerful consequences of the last argument of Wharton. Ripperda
contemptuously replied.--
"Wind is sometimes mistaken for thunder."
Wharton caught the words, and with a gay but pointed laugh, looked
towards the top of the table.
"Jove wields both in his rod; and the lighter the stroke, the quicker
the smart."
"When the bolt is launched against presumption," retorted Ripperda, "it
harrows up the dirt that blinds the multitude."
Wharton smiled. "I have no ambition to be the glorious malefactor!"
And bowing to the Duke, the reference could not be mistaken. Some of
the company did not repress the answering smile that flickered on every
lip. It was too much for the incensed pride of Ripperda, and starting
from his chair he turned indignantly to the Cardinal.
"When Your Eminence understands the distinction between the accredited
representative of the King of Spain, and the lurking emissary of a
dethroned, and medicant Sovereign; then the Ambassador of His Catholic
Majesty may appear where he is not to be insulted."
Every person had risen from their seats in consternation; and
Giovenozzo, not the least alarmed of the party, seized the Duke's arm,
and began a confused apology for the attention he had paid to Wharton;
and even attempted an excuse for the English Duke.
"I beg Your Eminence, not to trouble yourself with my apology," cried
the unruffled Wharton;--"I meant all I said. And, I am obliged to
the candour of the Spanish Ambassador, for so publickly declaring
the distinction that is indeed between us! He is the representative
of a King in the plenitude of power; at the head of the fountain of
riches and honours; and the stream flows bounteously! I am the lurking
emissary of a dethroned and mendicant monarch: but it has not yet been
my good fortune to play the successful _Gaberlunzie_ in the courts of
rival sovereigns, or to beg alms for my Prince, at the gate of the Duke
de Ripperda!"
Ripperda, turned on him with an eye of flame. His soul was on fire;
and, at that moment insensible to every thing but the expression of his
burning hatred, he sternly exclaimed:
"Were not Duke Wharton as impotent as he is vain, I might stoop to
chastise what offends me: but I pardon, what I pity."
"And I," replied the Duke, "am proud to imitate so great an example!"
Ripperda, almost beside himself with wrath, struck the hilt of his
sword fiercely with his hand. Wharton turned gaily on his heel, and
asked some indifferent question of the Duke de Richelieu.
The Cardinal followed Ripperda out of the apartment. Alarmed at the
consequence of suffering him, who seemed to hold the balance of
Christendom in his hands, to quit his roof unappeased, he drew the
enraged Duke into another room, and vainly tried to assuage his fury.
Ripperda's pride was in arms, at being so insolently braved before
all the nations of Europe, in the persons of their Ambassadors. He
was angry with himself, at having shewn himself susceptible of insult
from the man, it was his policy to teach others to despise; and in a
disorder of mind he had never known before, he poured on the Cardinal
all his resentments against the Duke and himself. He saw that nothing
could redeem him to the vantage ground he had so intemperately
abandoned, but an ample and formal apology from Wharton; and, he told
Giovenozzo, he must force the English Duke to make that restitution;
else he should act from a conviction that they had been invited
together, to insult the politics of Spain in the person of its minister.
The Cardinal feared Ripperda; and flattered himself, that he might work
upon the zeal and good-nature of Wharton, to serve the interest of His
Holiness by this concession. When Ripperda arose to withdraw, on being
informed that his carriage was ready, Giovenozzo attended him to the
foot of the stairs, and absolutely promised to bring him the demanded
apology next day.
But unfortunately, the company in the dining-room, supposing that
Ripperda had been sometime gone, moved to depart also. In the hall,
Wharton again met his proud antagonist; and, in the instant when most
unhappily the spirit of discord seemed to have extended itself to
their respective domestics. Wharton's carriage and that of Ripperda
had drawn up at the same moment; and their coachmen were disputing the
right to maintain the door. From words, they had recourse to whips.
"A comfortable way of settling a controversy!" exclaimed Wharton, who
stepped forward, to order his servant to draw off; but Ripperda, who
felt the late scene festering in his heart, and supposing a different
intention, and a new affront in the Duke's prompt advance; cried aloud,
with an air of derision:--"Less haste, my Lord! or the whip of my
coachman, may chance to brush Your Grace's skirts!"
"If it did," replied Wharton, with a glance that told he understood the
remark; "I should know where to repay the impertinence."
Ripperda was again in a blaze.
"Insolent!" cried he.
Wharton, who had checked his advancing step, on the first word from
his antagonist, now leaned towards him; and whispered:
"The lion may be chafed beyond its bearing! It is possible for the
father of Louis de Montemar to go too far with the Duke of Wharton!"
This assumption of forbearance to him, Ripperda felt as the climax of
insult; and starting back, with all the pride and resentments of his
nature rushing through his veins, he touched the hilt of his sword with
a significant glance, and in a subdued voice, replied:
"If you do not shroud cowardice under the name of my son, you will
follow me!"
This had cleft the threatened cord; and, in one moment the two Dukes
had vanished through the colonades of the hall, into an interior and
lonely court of the building.
In the same instant they found themselves alone, the drawn sword of
Ripperda was in his hand, and he called on Wharton to defend himself.
There was no time for further forbearance or parley. Wharton had hardly
warded off the first thrust of his determined antagonist, before a
second and a third were repeated with the quickness of lightning.
The glimmer of the lamps, which lit this little solitary quadrangle,
marked each movement of the weapon with a gleam on its polished steel;
and Wharton continued rather to defend than attack. But a noise of
approaching steps, withdrawing his attention for a moment from his
guard, a desperate lunge from the infuriate arm of his adversary, ran
him through the breast, and he fell. The blood sprang over his hand, as
he laid it on the wound.--His proud destroyer stood confounded at the
sight.
"I forgive you my death!" cried Wharton, "but I guess your son will
not. Rash Duke, to you he dies in me!" The tongue of Ripperda clove
to the roof of his mouth; and in the next instant the Cardinal and the
French Ambassador appeared at his side. As the bloody scene presented
itself, Giovenozzo shut the door, and bolted it behind him, to prevent
further entrance. Richelieu hurried to the prostrate Duke, and spoke
to him. Wharton looked up, and in hardly articulate accents, said,
"bear witness, Richelieu, that I acquit the Duke de Ripperda. He was in
wrath, and I provoked him. Let not his high character be dishonoured by
my death."
This was the first time that Ripperda's lofty consciousness of
consistent greatness had ever shrunk before the eye of man; he could
not brook the strange humiliation, and with asperity he haughtily
exclaimed; "my honour does not require protection. I know that I have
been intemperate and rash. But let the world know it as it is: I have
done nothing that I am not prepared to defend." Wharton raised himself
on his arm to reply; but in the exertion he fainted and fell.
The Cardinal, (in consternation at the report he must give to the Pope
of such an affray under his holy roof,) implored his implacable guest
to pass into the oratory, which was on the opposite side of the court,
and await him there, till the French Ambassador and he had borne the
insensible Wharton to a place where his state might be examined.
Ripperda complied in silence; and Giovenozzo, wrapping his scarlet
scarf around the bleeding body of Wharton, between him and Richelieu,
bore him round the back of the oratory, into one of the penitential
cells. His Eminence having been a brother of the Order of Mercy,
understood surgery; and staunching the Duke's wound, so as to leave
him for a short time in safety, though still insensible; he came forth
with Richelieu. The French Duke gave him his word of honour, that if
Ripperda could be induced to keep silence on this terrible affair,
whether Wharton lived or died, the secret should never escape from him.
Richelieu had his own views in this secrecy; and took his part, in
returning to the hall to quench suspicion there. Those who had lingered
to know the issue, with what degree of credence suited them, listened
to his hasty account, that he and the Cardinal had just arrived in time
to laugh at their zeal; for Wharton had given a merry explanation of
his ill-timed raillery to the Duke; laying it to the account of the
Cardinal's bright Falernian; and Ripperda, with the dignity of a great
mind, having accepted the apology; no more was said about it.
All appeared to believe this statement, for there was no disputing
the _word of honour_ of an ambassador!--But there were a few drops
of blood on the point ruffles and bosom of Richelieu; which, being
observed by Count Routemberg alone, told him a different story; and he
remained a few minutes behind the rest. When the hall was cleared of
all but himself and the French minister, he did not speak, but pointed
significantly to the testimonies on the ruffles and frill. Richelieu
was hurrying out some excuse, invented on the moment; but Routemberg,
(who was president of the Emperor's council,) whispered something in
the embassador's ear. They both smiled, shook hands, and parted.
When Ripperda returned to his palace, he entered the room where his son
was completing some especial communications to Spain. Louis put them
into the hand of his father. As he did so, he beheld that form and face
which, a few hours before, had left him gallantly habited, and bright
in lofty complacency; now discomposed, pale and haggard. He gazed
on the alteration with surprise, while Ripperda seemed to read the
dispatch with a moveless eye. "It will do," said he, laying it on the
table. He mechanically took up one of the candles, and was turning away
to his own chamber. Louis could keep silence no longer.
"You are ill, my Lord!" cried he, "or something terrible has happened!"
"What is there terrible to have happened?" returned Ripperda, pausing
as he approached the door, and looking on his son.
"Nothing, that I can guess," replied Louis, "but your looks, my father,
are not as when you left me!"
"How often have I told you, de Montemar," returned the Duke, "never to
guess at a stateman's looks! I have come from a party of many vizards,
and you must not be surprised that mine has changed in the contact. I
am well; let that satisfy you."
With these words the Duke withdrew.
CHAP. IV.
Morning reported all that had passed at the table of the Cardinal.
What happened in the hall, was slightly mentioned; for little of
that had been generally heard; but an account was circulated, that
notwithstanding the good offices of Giovenozzo had produced a shew of
reconciliation, some serious consequences might be anticipated.
When Ripperda entered to his son the next day, he perceived by his
pallid hue and averted eyes, that he had heard something of the affray.
Without preface, he abruptly asked, what had been told him of the
Duke of Wharton's behaviour the preceding night. The informant of
Louis had shaped the story under a flattering veil for his father; and
the anxious son had heard nothing but of the insolence and scoffing
speeches of the English Duke; and of the dignified forbearance of
Ripperda.
The blood that accused his friend in his heart, rushed to his face,
when he repeated what had been told him.
"And how," demanded Ripperda, "do you mean to act towards the man who
could so taunt, deride, and insult your father?"
"Though he twice preserved my life," returned Louis, "he has now
wounded me in a more vital part; and I shall ever after regard him as a
stranger."
Ripperda shook his head, and laid his hand on his son's arm. "And what
would be your decision, were I to reverse the charge?"
Louis looked on the flushed countenance of his father.
"Man is fallible, Louis!" cried he, "and, after thirty years
of undeviating self-control----" Ripperda broke off, in the
acknowledgements he believed it magnanimous to make, and in the
bitterness of his mortification thrusting his son from him, he
exclaimed,--"How must I hate the man who burst my fettered passions,
and, for one desperate moment, made me their victim, and his sport!"
Louis did not speak, in his astonishment at what he hoped would end in
some acquittal of his friend; but the pleasurable feeling was quickly
smothered by this tremendous burst from his father; and he saw revived
before him, the terrible moment in which the Sieur Ignatius clenched
his dagger at his breast. Without a word, or a look upward, he stood,
awefully expecting him to proceed.
After a minute's pause, the Duke turned desperately calm to his son.
"Discredit the vile flatterers, who would tell you, that Wharton alone
was the aggressor. We met like hostile bulls, and wonder not that we
should plunge at once upon each other's horns! Respect him still, for
he is a noble enemy; but I am his, for ever."
Louis threw himself at his father's feet.
"My gracious father! oh that the visible pleadings of my heart, that
its dearest blood, could make you regard him as a friend!"
There are hearts that cannot bend where they have injured. Ripperda's
was of this proud mettle; and looking down on his kneeling son, he
exclaimed:--"Impossible! that has passed between us which has made our
enmity eternal. Your conduct in the affair I leave to yourself. But I
can trust to you, that you will not compromise your father's honour by
broadly shewing fellowship with his most open enemy."
Louis pressed his father's hand to his lips; that hand which was hardly
washed from the stain of Wharton's blood! But he was ignorant of that
part of the horrid tale; and the Duke, in a milder voice, bade him rise.
"You will not soon be called upon to act a Roman part between your
father and your friend!" continued he. "I saw Cardinal de Giovenozzo
this morning; and he tells me that Wharton has disappeared."
This information was balm to Louis, as it seemed to promise a peaceful
termination to so threatening an affair. That his friend had withdrawn,
was a pledge of his pacific wishes; and, with a lightened countenance,
Louis rose from his knee.
Ripperda said no more; and his son was left to his meditations.
Whatever details he afterwards heard of the affair, were so confused
and contradictory, he could form no certain criterion, which was most
to blame. But Giovenozzo at last put all to silence, by a declaration,
that he should deem all further discussion of a transaction which
passed under his roof, as an impertinent interference with his
responsibility. He pronounced, that neither the Duke de Ripperda,
nor the Duke of Wharton, could have acted otherwise than they did,
consistently with their own dignities; and he insinuated to Louis,
that a third person, whom he could not mention, was the origin of
a dissention, which had ended in a manner to reflect honour on his
father. The Cardinal then hinted, that Wharton had vanished on some
occult mission, to circumvent the Italian investiture.
"And so," added the smiling ecclesiastic, "I doubt not, he seeks to
revenge the triumphant magnanimity of his transcendant rival."
From all this, though Louis could not learn much to criminate his
friend, he gained enough to impress him with an encreased conviction of
his father's greatness of mind; that a generosity, something like his
own romantic nature, had impelled the few words of self-blame which had
dropped from him in their first, and, indeed, only conference on the
subject. After that discussion, it was never resumed; and the whole
matter dying away from people's tongues and memories, Ripperda appeared
in every circle as usual, bright and serene as the cloudless sky in
midsummer.
The favour in which he was held at Court was made more apparent than
ever; and though the dispatches which were to bring the royal assent
to Louis's marriage, seemed unaccountably delayed; yet to shew that no
doubt remained in Elizabeth's mind, of the father and son's sincerity,
she permitted the solemn installment of the latter in the name of Don
Carlos, into the reversion of the two long-disputed Italian dukedoms.
This important rite was just completed, when a packet was put into
Ripperda's hand from Spain. It brought his recall to the council of his
sovereign.
The various objects of the treaty with Vienna had so alarmed the other
kingdoms of Europe, that the cabinet of Madrid was besieged day and
night by the clamour of their respective envoys. Grimaldo, the prime
minister, enfeebled by age, and adverse to the new system of politics,
had begged to resign his office. Philip granted the petition; and
now sent for Ripperda, to take the supreme chair himself; and, (in
the King's own words,) to consummate the greatness of Spain. Their
Majesties desired that the Marquis de Montemar should be left _Charge
des Affaires_; and that the Duke himself would immediately set forth on
his return.
Ripperda examined farther into the packet, to find the expected consent
for his son's marriage; but it was not there; and no notice taken of
the application he had made for it. On questioning the messenger,
whether he had omitted to bring any part of his charge, the man told
him that a special courier, which was Castanos, had been dispatched a
few days before him; and he was not less surprised than alarmed, to
find him not arrived, as he knew he brought dispatches of great value.
The disappointment Elizabeth sustained in this procrastination of the
marriage of her favourite, was absorbed for a time in her regrets
for the recall of her friend. Louis could think only of his father's
glorious summons, to perfect the happiness of his country; and when,
in the midst of his preparation for departure, Castanos did arrive,
this affectionate son, hardly cast a thought on the reprieve, that he
brought no dispatches.
Castanos told Ripperda, he had been beset on the road, in the mountains
of Carinthia, by a band of armed men, who rifled and left him for dead.
A poor herdsman found him, and took him to his hut; where, having
recovered strength to pursue his journey, he came forward, to apprise
his master that he had lost the dispatches, and with them a casket of
jewels from Don Carlos to the Arch-duchess. The bruises on Castanos's
person bore witness to the truth of his assault; and the Empress and
her favourite, were obliged to resign themselves to await a courier
from Ripperda himself, when he should have arrived in Spain.
On the third day after the declaration of his recall, Ripperda took his
official leave, and presented his son in his new office. At parting,
the Emperor invested the Duke with the Star of the _Golden Fleece_;
in which order, he was the only exception to an undeviating line of
Sovereign Princes. The Empress presented him with her picture set in
brilliants; and when the Court broke up, she told him to follow her, to
receive the farewell commands of her daughter.
Louis waited in the anti-room, while his father entered the apartment,
where the still invalid Princess sat on a sofa, supported by the
Countess Altheim. Louis could not help seeing the lovely group, through
the half-obscuring draperies of the open door. The Princess was pale
and thin; and, though dressed superbly, seemed fitter for her chamber.
When Ripperda drew near, a faint colour tinged her cheek.
"The Duke approaches you, my love," said the Empress, "to bear your
commands to Don Carlos; and to receive from your hands, the portrait of
his future bride."
"Where is it?" said the Princess, turning hurryingly to Otteline.
The Countess drew a beautiful miniature from its case, which lay on the
sofa near her, and presented it to her young charge. Maria Theresa held
it in her hand, and looked on it a few seconds with a languid smile.
"It is very pretty, and very fair!" said she, "Do not you think so,
Duke?" added she, putting it into Ripperda's hand, who received it on
his knee; "But tell the Spanish Prince, I shall be much fairer before
he looks on it." And then she cast down her eyes, and sat perfectly
still and silent.
"What means my love, by so strange a message?" enquired the Empress.
The Princess did not answer, but merely sighed, and looked round,
uneasily. Elizabeth repeated the question, with enquiries, whether she
wished to send the Prince any thing else, that she looked about so
searchingly.
"O, no," replied the young creature, shaking her head, and rising from
her chair; "I only wish to give this rosary to the Duke of Ripperda,
for himself;--himself, alone!" cried she, and clasping her fair hands,
as she dropped it into his, she turned hastily round with a glowing
cheek, and flew out of the apartment.
At the moment of her last raising her eyes, she had caught a glimpse of
Louis, as he stood in a distant corner of the other room half concealed
in its draperies, but regarding with a pitying eye the resigned victim,
who, like himself, was to be offered up to the ambition of others.
In evident emotion, Elizabeth put her hand on the arm of Ripperda, and
withdrawing with him into a part of the room out of sight,--Otteline
advanced to his son.
Louis's soul was full of sympathy for the interesting Maria Theresa;
the import of whose melancholy message to Don Carlos, he well defined:
and his compassion for such thraldom, extending to himself, made him a
very unfit companion for his own future bride. He could have wept over
the sweet, and faded Theresa; while the blooming cheek and rosy smile
of Otteline, at such a season! withered him as she approached; and he
stood sad and absorbed, after he had given her the ceremonious salute
of the day.
The Countess had found her account in not striving to change these
fitful moods in her lover. But while she suppressed the risings of her
haughty soul, she often said within herself. "Disdainful tyrant!--My
hour is coming!--When I am your wife, then you shall feel what you have
done by trampling on the slave, who only waits a few magic words, to be
your sovereign!"
For the whole of the remainder of the day, Ripperda's house was
crowded with ministers, foreign embassadors, and persons of various
descriptions. It was past midnight, before the last of these levies
was dismissed; in the midst of all of which, Louis had seen his father
like a presiding deity. He seemed the umpire of Europe; and as if
the monarchs of each realm stood before him in the persons of their
delegates, to hear from his lips the fiat of their weal or woe. To all
he was as gracious as he was peremptory: and while he asserted the
greatness of Spain, and proclaimed her claims in the various quarters
of the globe, he breathed nothing but peace and prosperity to the
nations that sought her amity.
Ripperda did not go to rest the whole night. He remained until morning,
instructing his son on the objects entrusted to his completion. Louis
received these lessons as distinctly, as a mirror receives the image of
the face that looks on it; but where that fled, these were stationary,
and remained indelibly stamped on his mind.
With the rising orb of day, the travelling equipage was announced.
Ripperda rose from his seat. Louis started up also, with an emotion to
which he would not give voice.
"I have spoken of all that relates to your public duty;" resumed the
Duke, "I wish your private concerns were in as fair a prospect. But
in my last conference with the Empress, I found myself obliged to
pledge her my word, (and to seriously intend its performance,) to
suffer no hesitation in the Queen's consent to your marriage with the
favourite. But cheer yourself under the sacrifice. Believe, that in
giving Otteline your name, you perform an act of self-devotion, of a
consequence to the interests of your country, I cannot now explain,
but it is worthy the price. Like your father, my son, you must live to
virtue alone; live for mankind; live to future ages!--Do this, and all
common concerns will be lost in the imperishable glory!"
Louis threw himself on his father's bosom.
"For this once!" cried he, in the full voice of filial affection; "For
this once, let me be pressed to the heart that inspires me to virtue!
The heart that I most honour and love in the world!--Oh, my father, may
I be like unto thee; and all minor enjoyments shall be nothing to me!"
The Duke strained him to his breast. Louis's cheek was wet with tears;
but his own flowed; so he knew not whether his father's mingled there.
Ripperda strove to break from him, with an averted face. Louis clasped
his hands, as he sunk on his knees; "Bless me, Oh, my father!" cried
he, "Bless me, ere you leave me to this dangerous world!"
The Duke paused, and looked for a moment on the bent head of his son.
"Bless you, Louis!" said he, "But be firm in yourself, and you will
need no beadsman's orison."
Louis hardly heard the latter sentence, in his growing emotions; and
pressing the hem of his father's garment to his lips, it slid from his
hand as the Duke drew it away, and disappeared through the door.
CHAP. V.
Ripperda was gone. Day rolled over day; and the most splendid
preparations continued to be privately made for the betrothment of
Maria Theresa, and the marriage of Otteline; but the Empress had still
to count the hours with impatience, until the ceremonial consent should
arrive.
Meanwhile, the conduct of Louis, in the management of the intricate
affairs confided to him, gained the universal suffrage of the foreign
ministers with whom he conferred; who united in saying, that had he
been the son of the obscurest individual, his talents and strict fair
dealing, would have ensured him every honour that he now received as
the son of Ripperda.
Routemberg, the prime minister, affected to treat him with peculiar
confidence; and he was with him when a packet arrived from his father.
He opened it; and it contained the very dispatches which had been
taken by the robbers from Castanos. The Duke accompanied them with a
few lines, dated from a post-house in Carinthia, saying, that he had
recovered them in a very extraordinary manner, which he should describe
in his first letters from Spain; but he now lost no time in dispatching
them forward to Vienna, under the care of Martini.
Subsequent considerations made Ripperda withhold this adventure; but it
was briefly as follows.
Just as the Spanish suite had passed into the mountainous tracks of
Carinthia, and Ripperda had entered the solitary post-house in the
forest of Clagenfurt, he was followed into his apartment by the master
of the house. The man told him in a mysterious manner, that a person
in a strange foreign habit, had waited for His Excellency some hours
in an upper chamber; and he now requested to speak with the Duke for a
few minutes on a subject of consequence; but that it must be in a room
without light.
Ripperda desired that the person might be told, it was not his custom
to admit strangers to his presence, and never to suffer dictation in
the manner he was to receive them.
In a few seconds the innkeeper returned with a charged pistol, which
he presented to Ripperda, with this message. "The person who sent
that, was as little accustomed to arbitrary decisions as the Duke de
Ripperda. He had matters of moment to impart to him. If he did not
chuse to receive them on the stranger's terms,--well,--and they should
rest with himself; but if he decided otherwise, he must admit the
communication under the obscurity of total darkness. If he suspected
personal danger, he was at liberty to stand on his guard during the
interview, either with his sword or that pistol."
There was something in the boldness of the demand, and the gift of the
pistol, that stimulated the curiosity of Ripperda. He could protect his
life from a single arm; and from a more supported treachery he had an
armed guard in his suite.
Without further hesitation, he told the innkeeper to return the pistol
to him from whom he had brought it; to take the lamp from the room, and
to introduce the stranger.
When the door re-opened, a man was let in, the outline of whose figure
and apparel the Duke caught a glimpse of, in the reflected light from
the outer chamber. The person was tall, seemed in a military garb, by
the clangor of a heavy sword, in an iron scabbard, striking against
the door-post as he approached. But there was a great involvement
of drapery about him; and the black plumage of his head brushed the
door-top, as he stooped and entered. The door closed on his back; and
the twain were in total darkness.
"Your business, Sir?" demanded Ripperda, with a tone of superiority.
"It is to confer an obligation on the proudest man in Christendom,"
returned a hoarse and rough voice, in as lofty a strain. "Ten days
ago your courier was stopped in these mountains, and robbed of his
travelling case. The contents are a padlocked casket and a sealed bag.
It fell in my way; and I restore them to you."
"Brave stranger!" returned Ripperda, "whoever you are, accept my
thanks. Point but the way, and the proudest man in Christendom would
feel himself prouder in being allowed to repay such an obligation."
"I doubt it not," replied the stranger, sarcastically; "but my taste is
not man's gratitude. If it were, I should starve in this generation."
"Try the man on whom you have just conferred this favour! Pardon me,
but by your language, you appear to have been outraged by mankind? Let
me make restitution? I love a brave spirit, and could employ and reward
it."
The stranger laughed scornfully.
"Mine is Esau's birth-right, and I have employed it manfully; witness
this sword!" cried he, striking it down with his hand upon the hilt,
and rattling its steel against the floor; "witness that bag of policy
and riches I despise; which the Duke de Ripperda now holds in his hand
as the gift of an outlaw and an enemy!"
"You are a fearless man," returned the Duke, "and have proved yourself
an honourable one! You know my power. Name the country that has
outlawed you, and I will obtain your pardon. Name the price to make
you my friend, and I will pay it."
"Ripperda," replied the stranger, "I leave that behind, which will
direct you where to find its owner. If you use it wisely, it may be
Ulysses' hauberk; if you reject it, the shirt of Nessus were a cooler
winding-sheet!--Farewell."
Before Ripperda could unclasp his lips to reply, the stranger had
opened the door, and passed through it like a gliding shadow.
The moment he had disappeared, the Duke called for lights, and the
landlord brought them in.
When Ripperda was alone, he examined the case his rugged visitor had
put into his hand. He broke the seals of the bag, in which he found
the key of the casket; and on looking over the contents of both,
missed none of the jewels, whose answering list was amongst the
dispatches. The jewels were a magnificent present from Don Carlos
to the Arch-duchess Maria Theresa; and a necklace, inscribed by the
Queen's own hand for Countess Otteline Altheim; but amongst none of the
papers was there any trace of the expected consent. The present of the
necklace seemed a presumptive proof that Her Majesty did not intend to
withhold it; but, until it was formally given, Ripperda could add no
further sanction from himself. However, to inform the Empress, as soon
as possible, of even this promise of Isabella's acquiescence, he lost
no time in summoning two or three of the young noblemen, who, wearied
of Vienna, had chosen to return with him to Spain. He told them of
his having recovered the dispatches, by the gift of the leader of the
banditti he believed; and of his intention to forward them that night
to Vienna, if they had any commands to send by the messenger he should
dispatch.
Don Baptista Orendayn, who was present, eagerly offered a suggestion
that Martini ought to be the messenger, as the most trusty person; and
Ripperda, pleased with his zeal, having ordered a sufficient suite
to attend whomever he should select, adopted his advice, and saw the
faithful Italian set off on his return to the Austrian capital, just as
the dawn opened behind the farthest mountains.
His equipages were getting ready for the prosecution of his own
journey; and, not having found any letter or memorandum from the
stranger himself, in the case which had held the casket; he was
wondering to what mysterious manner of tracing him he could have
referred, since none certainly had presented itself, when the landlord
entered the apartment; he carried a scarlet mantle in his arms, and
laying it on the table before the Duke.
"My Lord," said he, "the person you saw last night, left this cloak in
the chamber where he waited for you. He told me to bring it to Your
Excellency in the morning."
Ripperda's eye fell upon the mantle,--it was discoloured a dark red
in many places, he nodded his head, and the man withdrew. Ripperda
then took it from the table, supposing a name or a direction might
be affixed to it; but on the ample folds disengaging themselves, he
started with a shudder.--He had seen it before!--It was marked with the
keys of Saint Peter!--It was embroidered on the shoulder with the arms
of Giovenozzo!--It was stained with the blood of Duke Wharton!
Ripperda dropped it from his hand.
"Accursed Wharton!" exclaimed he, now recollecting, in the disguised
tones of the stranger's voice, some notes of the Duke's, "this insult
shall not be pardoned! I am not to be cajoled nor menaced into peace
with you, my most detested, most insolently triumphing enemy. We have
once measured swords!" and his eye glanced on the blood-stained scarf;
"when they next meet, the blow may be surer!"
Wharton's graces of mind, body, and political management, formed the
only character which had ever peered with that of his haughty rival. He
was the only man who had ever foiled Ripperda by secret machination. He
had made him feel that he had an equal, that he might have a superior.
He had discovered that the all-glorious boast of Spain was not exempt
from the infirmities of common men. He had wrought him to commit an
injury, and he had stood between him and the world's cognizance. To
be so humbled in the knowledge of any living being, was the vultures
of Prometheus to the proud heart of Ripperda. Wharton, by the present
action, had declared his triumph,--had presumed to promise, or to
threat! and the hatred of his enemy was now wound up to a height that
could know no declension, till its cause was laid low in the silence
of death.
A wood-fire burnt on the hearth of the room Ripperda occupied. He
thrust the Cardinal's mantle into it, and stood over the smouldering
cloth, till the whole was consumed to ashes.
Comprehending that Wharton must have set his emissaries to way-lay
the Spanish dispatches, merely to afford him the opportunity he had
boasted, of conferring an obligation on his rival, Ripperda assuaged
his enraged thoughts by devising schemes of revenge as he rapidly
pursued his journey towards the seat of his power.
He met with no accident nor obstacle, till on the night of the 25th of
July. The tops of the hills were laden with thunder-clouds, and the
turbid atmosphere laboured with the stifling Sirocco. His long train
of attendants had dispersed themselves amongst the narrow and shelving
roads, which traverse that line of the Appenines, which form the mural
diadem of the gulph of Genoa. Ripperda's equipage wound down a long
and twisting defile between two precipitous rocks. The intricacies and
abrupt turns in the road separated him from his immediate followers. It
was the darkest hour of twilight, when there was just enough of gleam
from the lurid sky, to shew the outline of objects.
As the Duke's carriage turned a jutting cliff, he found it suddenly
stop, and then heard a volley of oaths from his drivers, mingled with
more direful imprecations from strange voices. While he was letting
down the glass to enquire the cause, the lash of whips accompanied the
mutual swearing, and he felt the struggle of his horses to force their
way forward. The next moment a pistol was fired at their head, and a
deep groan shewed it had taken too true an aim. As the window dropped,
Ripperda saw the wounded postilion fall on the neck of his horse. But
he saw no more. The carriage door was instantly opened, and before he
could snatch a pistol from his own belt, he was dragged from the seat
by the collected strength of several arms. Having thrown him upon the
flinty way, one man of colossal bulk, cast himself upon the prostrate
and struggling Duke, and kneeling upon his body, with both his knees,
coolly and determinately put a pistol close to the temple of his
victim. Ripperda had now grasped his own weapon, and with one hand,
striking aside the arm of his antagonist, the pistol went off; where
that ball fell he knew not, but with his other hand, at the same moment
he lodged the contents of his own pistol in the heart of the ruffian.
The wretch tumbled aside, with a convulsive recoil, and was no more.
His comrades, deeming the Duke's destruction sure, were rifling the
carriage, while others were posted at the entrance of the defile, to
prevent a rescue from his attendants. One of them turning round at
the double report of the pistols, and seeing his coadjutor thrown
motionless off the body of Ripperda, who sprang on his legs, alarmed
his fellows, and rushed towards their prey. The Duke saw he must sell
his life dearly, for he was determined never to yield it to such base
assailants, and drawing his sword, set his back against the precipice,
and held them at bay. But the strength of his arm, and the bravery of
his heart could not have defended him long against their determined
attack.
The men, whose poniards his sword parried, had recourse to fire-arms,
and two pistols were fired at him.
"He stands yet!" cried one of the ruffians, "give him another volley."
A volley did sound, and instantly; but it came from the rocks above,
and three of the villains fell. The rest drew back a few paces in
surprise, and in the moment several men jumped from the shelving
precipice to the side of the Duke. The conflict closed, and became
desperate. Ripperda was bleeding fast from the graze of a ball on his
head; and though he assisted his defenders with a resolute heart,
he was nearly fainting. A party of his new friends had cleared the
entrance of the road, for the approach of his followers; and the
discomfited ruffians, foreseeing further contention must end in their
utter destruction, laid hands suddenly on their wounded and dead;
and throwing them over a chasm in the precipice, were presently lost
themselves amongst the bushy recesses of the perpendicular rocks.
The persons who had come thus opportunely to the rescue of Ripperda,
assisted his servants to bind his wound; and to place him, now as
insensible as his lifeless postillion, in the carriage. Martini was on
his mission to Vienna; but another valet was put into the chariot to
support the Duke. The man respectfully enquired of him who appeared the
superior of the group, what name he should say, when his master should
ask for his brave deliverer?
"Some day, I will tell it to him, myself;" returned he, "meanwhile I
shall exchange swords, as a memento of this hour."
He closed the carriage door, and ordered the trembling postilions to
drive on. The valet, calling from the chariot window, implored his
further protection; he nodded his head in acquiescence; and, with his
train, escorted the alarmed party safe through the defile. As it opened
into the champaigne country, the remainder of the suite, under the
leading of Don Baptista Orendayn, approached from another road. At this
sight, the gallant travellers turned their horses' heads, and leaving
Ripperda to his friends, galloped across the plain in an opposite
direction. The Duke had recovered only to a dreamy recollection. But
his medical staff having gone before him to Genoa, when he arrived
there, his wound was properly dressed; and a day's repose left him no
apparent effects of his adventure, but the bandage on his head; and
his regret, that such immediate insensibility had deprived him of the
opportunity of thanking his deliverer. He spoke to Orendayn about his
gallant preserver: but the young Spaniard could give no account of
him; as he was lost among the mountains at the time of the attack. He,
however, informed Ripperda, that while enquiring his way, the Alpine
cottagers had told him of a noted banditti, which prowled in their
neighbourhood in search of prey; and he did not doubt these assailants
were the very troop. He lamented with great bitterness, that the
stupidity of his guides, should have led him so far astray, when his
patron was in danger; and envied those who had come to his rescue,
with many encomiums on their timely valour.
Ripperda was pleased with the exchange of the swords; as the fabrick of
the one which had been left in the place of his, was of a fashion that
proved its owner to be a gentleman, as well as a brave man. Strange as
it may seem, the former citizen of Groningen, had now imbibed so much
of Spanish prejudice, he would have been sorry to have thought that his
eagle-crested rapier, might now be suspended at the side of a man of
ignoble blood, even though the hand that hung it there was that of his
deliverer.
On the morning of Ripperda's recommencing his journey, he put the sword
into his belt. It had once saved his life! And he wore, and wielded it
hereafter, in many a menacing and perilous scene.
CHAP. VI.
The Duke de Ripperda no more troubled his son with a narrative of
this attack in the Appenines, than he satisfied his curiosity, by
the promised relation of the adventure in Carinthia. The one passed
from his mind, as it was attended by no apparent consequences; and
the other, though it lived in it, was connected with Wharton, and the
memory of a transaction he would gladly obliterate for ever.
Martini set out to rejoin his master, as soon as he had delivered his
trust; and when Louis opened it, he found the Queen's commands to
himself, that he should be the representative of Don Carlos, in the
betrothing ceremony with the Arch-duchess. He sighed as he laid the
papers on the table; for he thought the task would be a harder one than
even his own immolation.
"Ah," cried he, "can I have a hand in striking the sacrificial knife
into the innocent lamb, that shrinks so pleadingly from the horrid
altar!"
The Empress was not satisfied with the Queen's slowness in expressing
her consent to the marriage of Louis; and the less so, as she wanted to
have had it solemnised immediately. Otteline was summoned to Brunswick,
to attend the dying moments of her father; and Elizabeth would have
been glad to have secured Louis eternally her's, before so many leagues
should divide them.
The day that had been fixed upon between the four illustrious parents
of the intended royal pair, for the celebration of the affiancing
ceremony, now approached. All the preparations were ready; and the
adversaries to the mutual aggrandisement of Austria and of Spain,
beheld these pledging nuptials with despair. Ripperda, with whom the
whole scheme had originated, seemed omnipotent.
Indeed the splendour of his proceedings in his new office of Prime
Minister of Spain, realized the visions of all its former statesmen. He
moved forward with a magnificence of design, which surpassed Alberoni
in grandeur, and Cardinal Ximenes in boldness of spirit, and determined
execution. The eyes of Europe were fixed on the mighty hand, which
moved all their interests as the interests of his own country prompted;
and while a feeble prince sat on the throne, the minister bid fair to
make the Spanish monarchy as vast and dominant as under the sceptre of
the Emperor Charles. The pragmatic sanction, and a marriage between a
Spanish prince and the heiress to the German empire, might accomplish
this, and other plans, which were bursting to their ripening. But the
withering mildew was now breathed forth, that was intended to blast
this goodly harvest.
On the night in which Wharton was carried, even as a dead man, out of
the mansion of Giovenozzo, the Cardinal had him carefully transported
to a monastery in the neighbourhood, where he slowly recovered to life
and strength. He learnt enough from his only visitors, Giovenozzo and
de Richelieu, to know that Ripperda, not merely had disdained his
justification and his friendship, but persisted in every circle, to
treat his name with not less pointed, though silent contempt. Wharton
smiled at this littleness in so great a man, but determined that he
should feel the power he despised.
With the active English Duke, it was only to will and to do. Distances
were to him as nothing; and difficulties only stimulated him to give
his adversaries a more signal overthrow. What Swift said of Lord
Peterborough, was as aptly adapted to Wharton; for while his rivals in
the various courts of Europe were hearing of him at Rome, Paris, and
London, and marvelling whether he would not next be in South America or
Prestor-John's dominions:--
"Still as they talk of his condition,
So wonderful his expedition,
He's with them like an apparition!"
As soon as he recovered from the immediate effects of his wound, he
set forward on his new pursuit; and he did not move to and fro upon
the earth on a vain errand. Before his rencontre with Ripperda at
the Cardinal's, he had penetrated all the secrets of the Altheim
apartments. The jealousy of Count Routemberg, respecting some of the
objects of the Spanish policy; and the private dispositions of the
Emperor on the same subject, he had also mastered, by having secured
the key of Routemberg's bosom, the beautiful and avaricious Countess
d'Ettrees. The secret wishes of half the nobility in Spain, were also
unfolded to him by the envy of de Patinos; and the venality of Orendayn
was at his service.
Wharton was fully aware of the disgust that Maria Theresa had taken to
Don Carlos; likewise of her romantic prepossession for the person and
manners of Louis, and of the Empress's design to hasten the betrothment
on this account. The Duke saw his vantage ground; and Ripperda's last
conduct determined him to storm the breach he had made in these secret
counsels.
It was easy to gain the ear of Routemberg, through the woman he
worshipped. Through her insinuations, and the graver representations
of His Excellency's confessor, (who knew the value of Wharton's gold,)
the minister was made to suspect much dangerous matter in Ripperda's
complicated influence at Vienna. Claudine d'Ettrees accused him of
more sway with the Empress, than was consistent with her high station;
that his designs in marrying a prince of Spain, to the heiress of the
empire, were very apparent; while a secret connection he had with the
leader of the Bavarian faction, was totally inexplicable. To circumvent
his prime movement, the confessor gave hints of the wisdom of uniting
the Arch-duchess to a prince, whose interests must be wholly German;
and Francis of Lorraine, a ward of the Emperor, and who was just
returning from his travels in Italy, was suggested as the properest
person. Routemberg detested Ripperda; and gave such efficient credence
to every representation, that he beset the Emperor night and day, till
he brought him to accord with all his new views.
Proof was given to him, of Elizabeth having admitted Ripperda to
private political discussions in the Altheim apartments. Also, that
her daughter was desperately attached to Louis; and that the worst
consequences might be anticipated from the ambition of the father, and
the power of the son, when the innocent Princess should be entirely
in their hands; as must be the case, should she marry the man she
abhorred, and be continually in the society of the man she preferred,
and who had an interest in preserving the preference.
Wharton had recently seen the Prince of Lorraine at Venice. And the
circumstance which inspired the idea of his supplanting the Spanish
match, was a general resemblance in his person, countenance, and
manner, to him who now filled the heart of the youthful Princess. The
Duke found no difficulty in awakening the wishes, which were necessary
to his scheme, in the mind of young Lorraine. His ambition was easily
aroused, to aspire to the heiress of an empire; and his imagination was
not displeased with the picture Wharton drew of his proposed bride.
"In your progress," rejoined the Duke, "you may consult me, as the
ancient heroes did their gods; but I must be equally invisible."
Every impression was made on the Emperor's mind, that Wharton desired.
And to carry forward his measures against the Spanish minister, and his
Empress, without a chance of impediment, Charles kept all that had been
discovered to him, locked in his own breast.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, was filled with alarms respecting her
daughter's unhappy infatuation. Her former placid temper had changed
to irritability; and her conduct at times became so strange and
desponding, the anxious mother was in hourly fear of her doing
something rash with regard to Louis. Since the departure of Otteline,
by unlucky accident, she had met him twice alone in the Altheim
boudoir; and her repugnance to the Prince of Spain seemed so to
encrease, the Empress saw no resource, but to hasten the day of
affiance.
The Emperor was no sooner informed of her intentions; than he made a
feint of sparing his daughter's feelings during the preparations; and
took her with him to pass the intermediate time at the summer palace.
Elizabeth had always intended that the marriage of her favourite should
be solemnized the morning of the day in which the young bridegroom was
appointed to represent Don Carlos at the Imperial altar. Louis had
always understood this; and she feared to give his dislike of Otteline
such advantage, as to yield him opportunity to retract his engagement,
should she reserve no great political object to hold him in check. In
this dilemma, she determined to throw herself upon his honour; and from
her knowledge of his romantic generosity, she thought she could easily
bring him to pledge it; and then she believed Otteline secure.
She told him she was anxious to comply with a private letter from
the Queen of Spain, to hasten the union between her son and the
princess; and she would do so, provided he would promise to perform
his engagement with Otteline as soon as she should arrive. Isabella
had already implied her consent, though its formalities were yet
to be declared. On the strength of this, and his father's granted
approbation, Elizabeth demanded of him to say that he would marry
Otteline, on any day she would name; and on such a pledge, the Empress
would rest on his good faith, and the betrothment should proceed. All
hope of escaping this hated union had long been over with Louis; and
on Elizabeth representing that some strange clouds had lately hung
over her husband's brow, which might burst, she knew not where, to the
subversion of all the Spanish plans, the young patriot was the more
readily persuaded to give the word of honour she required.
"But," added Louis, with a smothered sigh; "in the august ceremony of
next week, I conjure Your Majesty not to command me to be proxy!"
The Empress turned round.
"De Montemar! That is a bold petition. By what presumption, dare you
offer it to the mother of the Arch-duchess Maria Theresa?"
"Her Highness is young, and fearful of the engagements to which
that rite will bind her; and, as, in spite of myself, my heart will
dare to compassionate even a Princess, in a moment of such aweful
responsibility, I dread my weakness might dishonour the solemnity."
"And you have no weakness, but compassion for your future Princess?"
asked Elizabeth, turning her Pallas-like eyes, full upon him.
Louis felt their appeal; and while a blush of mingled sensibility and
modesty, coloured his manly cheek, he laid his hand on his breast and
answered, "None; on the life I would dedicate to her service, and to
that of her illustrious mother!"
The Empress turned from him, and walked up the room. Her own discretion
seconded his plea; and when she approached him again, it was with a
gracious countenance, and to say that his petition should be considered
with indulgence.
But when the Emperor returned with his daughter from the Luxemburg, a
competitor, more formidable than the image of de Montemar had taken its
station in the breast of the young Princess. The Prince of Lorraine
had been introduced to her rescue, in a contrived moment of danger on
the lake; and, in the confusion of fear, believing her preserver to be
Louis, she had thrown herself in speechless gratitude upon his bosom.
Her father, approaching, explained to her, that he who had saved her
from a watery grave, was Francis of Lorraine; and every day afterwards,
during her residence at the Luxemburg, she gladly admitted him to
her presence. The young Prince was of the same age with Louis; and
possessed so much of his grace of mind, as well as person, that he had
no difficulty (by tender and unobtrusive attentions,) in transforming
her fanciful attachment to De Montemar, into a grateful passion for
himself.
The understanding of Maria Theresa was beyond her years; but it was
tinctured by the systems of expediency amongst which she had imbibed
her education. She was therefore prepared to sustain her part in the
drama Routemberg was bringing on the _tapis_. Her father, apparently
moved by her abhorrence of the Spanish Prince, and her predilection for
the German one, sanctioned their mutual vows; but engaged her to keep
the whole affair secret from her mother, until he could find a safe
opportunity of breaking with the Spaniard. He exhorted her to persist
in refusing her presence on the proposed day of betrothment; he would
secretly support her resistance; and throw obstacles in the way of the
Empress's measures, until all should be obtained from Spain, and they
might finally throw off the mask.
The resolute opposition which Elizabeth now met with from her, who had,
hitherto, appeared like a drooping lilly, yielding unresistingly to the
heavy shower that bowed her to the earth, amazed and perplexed her. As
Charles had been careful to conceal his daughter's interviews with the
Prince of Lorraine, and Francis did not come to Vienna; the Empress
could trace no cause for this extraordinary change: and when she talked
to her husband, of Maria Theresa's stubborn refractoriness, he coldly
replied--
"The Marquis de Montemar has been admitted too familiarly to her
presence. He is, as seeming fair, as his father: he may be equally
false." Surprised at this unexpected, and, she was sure, unprovoked
aspersion on the Duke, the Empress cautiously took up the defence of
his unswerving truth.
"He is unworthy your confidence;" replied the Emperor, "for, after all
his affected hostility to Wharton, as the instigator of every vexatious
act from the Bavarian conspiracy, I have discovered from unquestionable
evidence, that he has secret intelligence with him. On what subjects,
ambition, boundless and wild as his own, can alone guess. Look to his
son, Elizabeth, and to our daughter."
Charles would not explain farther, and left the Empress in encreased
perplexity.
In vain she interrogated her daughter; in vain she insisted on her
union with Don Carlos: she was resolute in not answering a word to any
of the charges her mother put to her, as the reason for her refusal.
When the Empress was angry, Maria Theresa remained sullenly firm; when
her mother was tender and imploring, the hapless Princess wept in
silence, but would not yield.
One morning Elizabeth entered her daughter's apartment, with a
determination not to leave it, until she had brought her to the
point, whence, she was resolved there should be no escape. She spoke,
persuaded, threatened, implored; but the Princess was more obstinate
than ever; though, so agitated by her mother's language, that she fell
back in hysterical emotion into her chair. The violence of her disorder
discomposed her dress, and the vest of her robe bursting open, the
eye of her mother caught the glitter of something like the setting of
a picture. With an immediate impulse she snatched it from the bosom
of her daughter; and beheld, what she believed, the portrait of de
Montemar.
Her eyes, for a moment, fixed themselves with a horrid conviction of
a wide and nameless treachery. She looked from the picture to her
daughter, with a frightful glare, in their before mild aspect. Maria
Theresa, alarmed out of her hysterics, had sprung from her seat,
and stood before her mother, with her hands clasped, in speechless
supplication.
"And when did he give you this?" demanded Elizabeth, in a hollow, and
almost suffocated voice.
The Princess dropped, trembling on her knees, without power of
utterance; for, not aware of her mother's mistake, she thought the
discovery of the Prince's picture in her breast, had betrayed the
secret of her father: and, on its preservation, he had taught her to
believe, entirely depended her future happiness.
"Theresa, I command you, to confess to me, the whole of de Montemar's
treachery. When did he dare to give you this?--and--unhappy, degenerate
girl! how did you dare to give the encouragement, to warrant such
treasonable presumption?"
Every word that now fell from the agitated Empress was balm to the
affrighted nerves of her daughter. Her father's secret was then safe;
and, still retaining her humble position, she said in faultering
accents; "Spare, de Montemar, my gracious mother! As I hope to see
heaven, he is guiltless of all my offences against you. But ask me no
more--I dare not answer it."
"He has bound you by a vow! or, you, wretched dupe, have disgraced your
sex----"
The mother's lips could not finish the charge she was about to put upon
her innocent child. She paused, and threw herself into a chair; for her
own heart recollected its youthful and chaste admiration of the father
of this very de Montemar, and she burst into tears. The picture fell to
the floor. Theresa looked where it lay, but forbore to touch it. Her
heart was softened at her mother's silent tears; and her own trickling
down her cheeks, she ventured to take the Empress's hand, and put it
to her lips. Elizabeth pressed the filial hand that trembled in her's;
and then Theresa faintly articulated,--
"Oh, my mother! release me from this horrid betrothment, and you shall
know every thought and deed of this agonized heart!"
The Empress dried the tears from her eyes, and turning gently on her
child,--"I pity you, Theresa," said she, "but I can do no more. You
are born a princess; and your inevitable fate is to marry, not where
your inclinations may prompt, but where the interests of your country
dictate. Your birth-right gives you a sceptre, ordains you to be the
dispenser of good or evil, to millions of dependent subjects; and you
have nothing to do with love, with private, selfish joys. We, that are
born to such destinies, must forswear the one, or resign the other."
"Then let the Electress of Bavaria take the reversion of the German
empire!" exclaimed the Princess, ardently, "let me resign all state
and power, and only make me the happy wife of ----"
She checked herself, and buried her head in her mothers lap.
"Of him you must never see again!" returned the Empress, rising from
her seat, and kissing the burning forehead of her daughter as she
replaced her in her chair.
"I pardon your youth and innocence; and yet, was it innocence to forget
the claims of Otteline upon his heart? Oh, my child, how deep must
have been his wiles! That unblushing face of falsehood; that affected
champion of honour! Never, never, will I forgive him. Theresa, you
have seen de Montemar for the last time, till you are the wife of his
prince."
As she spoke, she moved back, and found something under her foot. She
stepped aside. It was the portrait which she had crushed, crystal and
ivory, into one shattered mass. The half-smothered cry of Theresa at
the sight of the destruction, and the tears which gushed from her eyes,
as, she involuntarily sprung forward to save the obliterated relics,
confounded and penetrated her mother. While she hung, weeping, over
them, the Empress drew a troubled sigh, and quitted the apartment.
In passing to her own chamber she met the Emperor, and, in the
agitation of her maternal fears, told him all that had passed. Her
heated prepossession changed the tacit acquiescence of her daughter, in
the portrait having been that of Louis, into a positive confession that
it was so. Charles was rather surprised at so direct a falsehood from
his daughter; but as it was to maintain his secret, he rather wondered
at her presence of mind, than blamed its obliquity.
The Empress talked herself into every suspicion of Louis's arts towards
the Princess, and insulting coldness to his own affianced bride. While
the Emperor stimulated her wrath, he tried to spread it from the son
to the father, by new insinuations against the sincerity of both. He
dwelt upon certain documents he possessed, that the quarrel at the
Cardinal's, was concerted between Ripperda and Wharton, to blind the
French minister, who had suspected their private friendship. He also
mentioned the stolen glances which the Electress of Bavaria was often
observed to give to de Montemar; and that he generally replied to them
in the same clandestine way. It had been noticed in the _Prato_; and
particularly at the assemblies of the Countess Lichtenstein, where,
one night, the Electress evidently dropped her fan before him, that
he might take it up; and, as he presented it, she closed her hand
over his as she received it,--"and gave it a quick pressure, and a
glance," continued the Emperor, "that pretty plainly declared they
were no strangers." The Empress listened to all with greedy, because
prejudiced attention. But nothing of the information affected her with
regard to Ripperda; a partial spirit presided in her mind, when he was
accused; and she would believe nothing of such aimless treachery. Of
Louis she now entertained the very worst opinion; and she determined
to send for him immediately, and tax him at once with all that she had
heard, against both his father and himself.
Charles remarked, that he knew from one or two of his young
chamberlains, that Louis's profligacy was equal to his talents; that he
was a constant frequenter of the most dissipated circles in Vienna; and
therefore, he intimated the impropriety of committing the reputation
of the Arch-duchess, by even implying to so vain and unprincipled
a young man, the least hint of her preference for him; or allowing
the possibility of his daring to turn an eye of passion upon her.
Elizabeth saw the delicacy of this caution; and while she consented to
restrict her reproaches to political subjects alone, she determined to
revenge herself on his presumption and duplicity, by precipitating the
marriage she knew he abhorred.
CHAP. VII.
While this was passing at the palace, dispatches arrived from Madrid.
On breaking the seals of the packet of the latest date, Louis perceived
that the Queen supposed the Arch-duchess was now the betrothed of
her son, for it contained congratulatory letters on the event. But,
there was also another which might not be quite so pleasing to
Elizabeth, although Louis felt it came too late for him. He received
copies, of what were inclosed for the Imperial pair; and this one was
from Isabella to the Empress, retracting any consent she might have
implied, to the Marquis de Montemar's marriage with Countess Altheim.
It was written with apologies, and regrets for the necessity, but it
was positive. Ripperda accompanied this unexpected refusal, with a
laboured epistle to his imperial friend. He excused the Queen's changed
sentiments, by pleading a great point which she hoped to gain, by
uniting his son in a different direction. With sincerity, he expressed
his own distress, at being obliged to yield his wishes in favour of
the Empress's beautiful _protegée_, to the duty he owed his sovereign;
but, he concluded, with repeating, that in all essential circumstances,
Elizabeth should find she had put no vain trust in Ripperda.
After all the polite cunning of Isabella's letter, and the hard-wrung
finesse of her minister's, it was easy to discern that truth was
conveyed in neither.
The fact was simply this:--De Patinos's correspondence with his friends
at Madrid, and the whisperings of Orendayn, when he arrived there,
had gradually made their way to the Queen, with insinuations and
representations of the Empress's personal power over the Duke and his
son. So much was said, that her jealousy was at last excited, to check
it from proceeding further; and to try how far it could cope with her
own influence in the same quarter, she told Ripperda her intentions
that Louis should break with the Countess Altheim, and marry one she
should hereafter name. Not suspecting her motive, he represented the
hazard of putting so great an affront on the favourite of the Empress.
Isabella was a passionate woman; and, when self-will urged her,
she often acted as pertinaciously against her judgment, as against
her counsellors. On this subject, she would hear no reasoning; no
representation of the vexatious resentments that might be anticipated
from Elizabeth. The more he dwelt on the Empress's mortification,
the more she was resolved to excite it. She felt something of female
vanity, as well as sovereign pride, in this opportunity of shewing
her rival Elizabeth, that she could make Ripperda sacrifice his early
friend's wishes to his new mistress's commands.
Isabella was peremptory, and the dispatch was sent off; and with
additional triumph too, for letters had arrived from Vienna to some
of the attendants at court, mentioning the departure of a messenger
to Madrid with accounts of the royal betrothment. In vain Ripperda
protested against acting on such vague information; or indeed, on any
information that did not come in the regular official train. Isabella
laughed at his fears, and derided the idea that a rupture between his
son and the favourite of the Empress, could have any effect on the
marriage of her son, with the heiress of the Empire.
The messenger set off, and the issue soon followed.
While Louis was reading these dispatches, he received a summons from
Elizabeth, to attend her immediately. He took the packet that was for
Her Majesty, and proceeded to the Altheim apartments. The Empress was
there, but she hardly noticed him when he entered the room. She had
caught a glimpse of his face as he approached; and the sight of its
seeming nobleness incensed her the more against his actual dishonour.
She gave no credence to the story that had been told her of his
father's insincerity. She knew the slanderous inventions of envy, and
she confided, without a shadow of doubting, in the friend she had
trusted from her youth. But for the delinquency of his son, she had
ocular demonstration; and her indignation was hardly to be repressed.
Louis presented the Queen's and his father's letters. Elizabeth
commanded him to read them. He obeyed without remark, though with an
unsteady voice, as he uttered communications he knew were so hostile to
her expectation. She listened in speechless amazement, first to the
one and then to the other. When he had finished, she took them from his
hand, and turning them round in agitated silence, examined their seals
and writing.
"It is his hand!" cried she, in a tone, from which the convictions in
her bosom had rifled all its sweetness. Then turning to Louis, with all
her lately suppressed wrath, flashing from her eyes, "It is meet that
a false tongue should have read such false language! Louis de Montemar
you are a traitor to me and mine, and your father is the same. He abets
his treacherous son, to the ruin of a name, of fifty years' unblemished
honour."
Louis was not less astonished at this charge, than the Empress had been
at the communication which aroused it. But attributing her displeasure,
to a suspicion that he had wrought on his father to influence the Queen
to prevent his marriage, after the momentary shock of his, first
surprise, he calmly and respectfully answered her;--"that he was as
faithful to all his bonds, made under the sanction of Her Majesty, as
he believed, were the dictates of his father's heart. He regarded his
promises to her, and his engagements to the Countess Altheim, as now
too sacred to be broken by him, even at the command of his sovereign."
"Indeed?" Answered Elizabeth, hardly attempting to conceal her scornful
doubt of his sincerity.
Her manner amazed him; it was so unlike the aspect of fair
interpretation, with which she usually discussed a dubious subject.
"And you will marry the Countess Altheim?" continued she.
"Assuredly, Madam."
"And knowing my affection for her, you will generously leave her with
me? You will follow the suite of my daughter to Spain, and you will
become the bosom Counsellor of the wife of your Prince? I apprehend
your honour and your loyalty?"
She paused, and fixed her eyes on the calm astonishment of his. There
was a haughty condemnation in her looks, he could not misunderstand;
but still he was at a loss to account for the origin of so unmerited a
judgment; and with the confident appeal of an unburthened conscience,
he entreated to be told how he had incurred the displeasure he read in
her words and manner.
She too well remembered the Emperor's caution to explain the offence,
though the resentment of a suffering mother could not be entirely
repressed. She cast down her indignant eyes, and with petrifying
coldness replied:
"_Your_ offence is of no moment. The shadow of an eclipse, which leaves
no stain on the fair disk it would have darkened! But your father! He
cannot start from his sphere, without troubling nations, and quenching
his own rays, which should have shone to eternity!"
While the Empress spoke of Ripperda, it was rather to utter the
lamentations of her heart, over the dereliction of the coadjutor in
whom she gloried; than addressing his son, who, she now thought,
too worthless for remonstrance. She sat for a few minutes, looking
abstractedly down, grasping the letter she had received. He did not
interrupt her reverie. Conscious of no blame in himself; and equally
convinced of his father's uprightness; with patient respect, he awaited
her further explanation. At last she looked towards him, with an
austere, but calm countenance. She opened her charge against the Duke,
by repeating what the Emperor had told her of the pretended exchange of
insults between Wharton and Ripperda at the table of Giovenozzo. She
avowed that she had repelled the story as a slander; but the letter she
held in her hand, proved that Ripperda could surrender her dearest
wishes, to his own fancied interests. She warmed in resentment, as she
dwelt on his base compliance with the caprice of Isabella.
"One failure in fidelity," continued she, "is a sufficient earnest.--I
believe the rest."
As the Empress had proceeded in her allegation, Louis's countenance
brightened at the unfounded tale; and, without reserve, he unfolded to
her all his father's hostility to Wharton: all at least, that he knew;
for he was yet ignorant that the contention at the Cardinal's had ended
in bloodshed. He spoke of his own attachment to the English Duke; but,
that by the commands of his father, he had passed him by as a stranger,
and was admonished never to consider him as a friend. Having exacted
such a sacrifice from his son; and politically opposed every measure of
Wharton's during his life; was it credible, that he would now stake
the grand objects of his existence, by forming a clandestine union with
a man, with whom he had no common interest, and whose personal self he
determinately hated?
"If my father ever had a sin in his son's eyes," continued Louis, "it
was, and is the inveteracy of that hatred."
During this defence, the Empress frequently shook her head; and when it
was finished, she rose from her chair.
"It will not do!" said she, "I see the brink on which I stood, and the
consequences must come."
"Madam," replied Louis, "I conjure you, by the completion of your own
object, in supporting my father in his labours for the peace of Europe;
I conjure you, not to permit the accusations of real traitors, to turn
your confidence from as true a benefactor of the human race, as ever
devoted his life to man! Their tongues, when credited by your ears,
are of more mortal stroke, than all the daggers which struck at him
under the garb of the Sieur Ignatius."
"And what is your tongue? Dissembling de Montemar!" cried she, "had
you been true, those words, that voice, would have been evidence to
out-weigh a multitude. But you are false;--and your father suffers by
his advocate."
"In what am I false?" cried Louis, "not in affirming my father's
integrity; for I am ready to seal my evidence with my blood!--Not
in re-affirming my resolution to marry the Countess Altheim; for
I am ready to pass through the ceremony, whenever Your Majesty
commands!--But I should be false, indeed, were I to say, that I
performed my hard-wrung word of honour, with my heart as well as my
hand."
"Then you dare avow----?" demanded the Empress, turning rapidly towards
him, and then checking herself.
"No more than what I once presumed to tell Your Majesty, on the same
knee, with which I now bend before this incomprehensible displeasure.
I then said, and I now repeat, that, finding all her principles
discordant to mine, it is her own exaction, and my honour alone, that
compels me to make her my wife. Truth urges me to this last avowal; and
self-defence, that her benefactres may judge if he can be false, who
redeems his honour at the price of his happiness."
"Happiness! honour!" cried the Empress, and she laughed bitterly;
"young hypocrite, I penetrate all thy artifice!--But if you can have a
hope, that I shall pardon what _I know_, meet my Otteline at the altar
on the very day she returns from Brunswick. Treat her with the duties
of a husband, and the respect due to my friend; and once more the name
of de Montemar may be heard by me without detestation."
With these words the Empress turned away, and left the chamber. Louis
returned home, appalled and distressed, by the scene which had just
passed. He saw there were charges against himself in her bosom, which
she did not chuse to deliver; to rest under them might be dangerous;
and how could he confute what she disdained to utter?
CHAP. VIII.
In the midst of this confusion of mind, he arrived at the _Palais
d'Espagne_, and was immediately involved in a host of perplexing
discussions. Ministers and messengers awaited him in various
apartments. As supereminent talent, united with virtue and power,
has a force almost omnipotent; the powers of Europe, who aimed at
aggrandisement by dishonest policies and aggression, dreaded the
master-hand of the new minister of Spain.
This was a fact, enforced on Louis, in each succeeding audience; but
while the remonstrances, and even threats of the representatives of
these princes, assailed him in their different hours of conference;
other applicants, in the shape of consuls and agents passing to
various countries, spoke of the Spanish trade, which now embraced
the habitable globe; and added to the account, that while the sun of
Ripperda's glory thus spread its rays over the whole earth; warming,
cheering, and fructifying to the distant poles; he turned his careful
eye, with all a parent's interest, to the internal policy of Spain.
By his exhortations and his example, he persuaded the grandees to come
down from their sterile heights of indolent enjoyment; to disperse
their riches by the patronage of genius; and to excite the people
to industry by generously rewarding its labours. As for the people
themselves, they whom the unworked-for golden tides from America had
gradually sunk into stupid pride, and at last left to squallid poverty,
he aroused them from their lethargy and laziness, by appearing to
take pleasure in their interests; by visiting them in their towns and
villages; and stimulating them to bring prosperity to them all, by the
active labours of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce.
For nearly two centuries the Spanish people had been a nation of
drones; they were now become a common-wealth of bees, and the hive
filled with honey. The origin of the change was honoured as a god; and
while,
"He raised his voice, and stretched his sceptred hand,"
perhaps he sometimes forgot that he yet was mortal.
But there is a pinnacle of human success and of human opinion, on which
human foot was never yet permitted to rest. He who has attained it
grows giddy, and the fiercest winds are summoned to blow him from his
eminence. Man's enthusiasm in praise of a fellow mortal, is soon damped
by the original sin of his nature--rebellious pride! and where he
cannot find a mote in the eye he once thought omniscient, he will fancy
a beam; and proclaiming the discovery, the supposed blind guide is at
once thrust into utter darkness.
Such spirits were now at work against Ripperda, both in Spain, and
in the rival countries; and their labour in undermining, and laying
trains, was equal to the great object of their overthrow. Routemberg in
the German Court, and de Castallor, (the father of de Patinos,) in the
Spanish, permitted neither sun nor stars to set upon a pause in their
deep and dangerous machinations. Their agents were indefatigable and
subtle; and as they were various, and apparently insignificant, the
work moved onward as surely as invisibly, to the object of its aim.
The Empress was now assailed, daily and hourly, with information, which
none would have dared to hint, had she not betrayed to her husband,
some signs of doubting the perfect sincerity of Ripperda. A thousand
things were brought forward to prove his entire devotion to his new
country; the devotion indeed, of ambition; for it was made apparent
to her, that he was now its actual sovereign. Philip was a puppet in
his hand; and the queen, who had exalted Ripperda to such despotic
power, was to be propitiated, by every sacrifice to her caprice. One
of her humours was to unite the son of her minister, with a niece of
the widowed Queen of Saint Germain's. It was represented to Elizabeth,
that Ripperda had sanctioned the pragmatic deed, not so much to gratify
her, as to flatter the ambition of Don Carlos, in making him the
husband of the future Empress; and that his reconciliation to Duke
Wharton, who was alike the emissary of the Stuart, and of the Bavarian
factions, might now be accounted for: though the termination of such
complicated and opposing views were certainly beyond calculation.
These, and other innuendoes, and references to the remaining articles,
public and private, of the late treaty, were amply descanted on; and
the misled and irritated Elizabeth, (the more irritated, on account
of her personal regard for Ripperda,) was wrought to so high a pitch
of indignation, that she did not deign to answer either his, or the
queen's letters on the premature congratulation and withdrawn consent.
She resolved to harass them on one object, and to disappoint them
in the other; and while she countermanded the preparations for the
betrothment of her daughter, she hurried every arrangement for the
marriage of her favourite. From the hour of her last interview
with Louis, she never admitted him to her presence; but she wrote
to Otteline to hasten her return to Vienna, although she knew her
venerable father lay at that time at the point of death.
Elizabeth now took as much pains to proclaim the intended union of
Countess Altheim, with the son of the Duke de Ripperda, as she had
before been cautious to conceal it. The astonishment it excited,
broke out in wonder from some, and lamentations from others. It was
the conversation of every circle; and discussed according to the
dispositions, or views of the speakers. Princess de Waradin wept over
her disappointed wishes for her daughter; and Countess Lichtenstein
railed at the mortification of hers. The women, in general, were
incensed at such a triumph, for a woman they despised; and the men
smiled on each other, at the young minister's folly. Count Sinzendorff
alone felt no surprise; for he had seen Louis's entanglement, from the
moment he knew of his renewed visits at the Altheim apartments. He,
therefore, did as he said; made no further observation, but conducted
himself to his young friend with grave distance. Louis, understood it;
and durst not, then, offer an apology, by revealing the truth. Now, the
Empress had declared it; and Louis felt, that all knew his shame, in
having pledged himself to the most venal, most contemned woman, in the
German Empire!
Letters arrived from Otteline, which told her patroness that her
invalid was no more; and that a certain day should see her at the
feet of her mistress. Elizabeth suppressed the death of the old man,
resolved that nothing should delay the ceremony which should make Louis
her favourite's vassal for life; and the only time she condescended to
notice him before the arrival of his bride, was to name the day, and
command him to prepare for his nuptials. He bowed in silence, and she
passed on.
He had written a distinct account to his father, of the Empress's
charges against him, and of her inexplicable conduct to himself; he
had also enforced the necessity of fulfilling their mutual engagements
to Countess Otteline; and affirmed his own intention of immediately
obeying the commands of Elizabeth to that effect. Having dispatched
this letter, he prepared to go through the unavoidable sacrifice with
propriety and composure of heart; and he determined to act by her with
forbearance and kindness, though he felt that it was to a living death
he was consigning that heart; he was preparing himself, as one wedding
the cold tenant of the grave.
From meditations such as these, he walked abroad into the open air of
a retired glade, diverging from the gardens of the _Palais d'Espagne_,
towards the Danube. The evening gale was fresh and cheering, but still
the load was on his soul; no breeze could waft it hence, no sigh could
shake it from its deep adhesive lodgement.
"I contemned love!" said he, to himself; "I despised the tranquil and
blissful joys of heart meeting heart, in the tender and pure relation
of wedded affections. I must aspire to the agitating transports of
self-devotion, in scenes of sacrifice and peril! I must be all for
glory, or be nothing! And now, I bleed in soul, for glory, and the
result of this proud, unnatural heart, will be nothing! O, no; the
worm is there that never dies! The consciousness of having taken to my
bosom, a creature I despise; a woman, whom the world derides; and who
paralizes every feeling within me, of father, husband, friend. Yes,
ennobling love, honourable marriage," cried he, "you are revenged!"
He went on, ruminating on the vain shadow, into which his over-heated
ambition to act and to be distinguished, had involved him. He had been
bewildered in its intricacies,--but not intimidated by its thunderings
and its lightnings; he had pressed forward in the visionary atmosphere,
till the gulph met him; and, alas, in what early youth did it betray
him to this deep destruction!
He was returning homewards through an umbrageous aisle of chesnuts,
which led by the backs of the superb gardens, when he saw Duke Wharton
turn suddenly into the same avenue. There was not a creature in it
but themselves. Wharton and he were approaching each other; but the
Duke was walking musing forward, without raising his eyes, as in the
abstraction of thought, he was dashing away the pebbles in his path,
with the point of his sword.
The instant Louis beheld him, Elizabeth's accusations against his
father rushed to his mind; but their confutation came in the same
moment. He remembered how his father had execrated this noble enemy,
even at the time he declared his worth. He remembered his father had
acknowledged to him that the wine he drank at the Cardinal's had
affected him as wine never did before, and maddened his blood. In this
mood, he pressed insult upon Wharton, and Wharton revenged himself, by
screening his adversary from blame, and apologizing as the offender!
Ripperda, having brought himself to relieve his proud sense of
obligation, by this avowal to his son, had commanded his silence on the
subject for ever; but the remembrance was anchored in his heart.
At sight of this generous enemy, this faithful friend, how could he
restrain the grateful impulse to fling himself into his arms! Wharton
was alone; no one was near to report the momentary recognition!
"Duke Wharton!" cried he.
Wharton looked up, and, for an instant, around; his face lightened with
the flash of joyful surprise, and opening his arms, Louis did indeed
throw himself into them.
"Oh, this hug!" cried the Duke, as he strained him to his bounding
heart; "it is the resurrection of confidence in man. You are true,
and it matters not who is false." "True! for ever true!" cried
Louis, grasping the hand of his friend with unutterable feelings. In
proportion to his conviction, that love would henceforth be denied
him, his sensibilities pointed all to friendship; and poured into that
sacred flame the collected blaze.
"I needed these honest throbs to tell me so!" replied Wharton, "but
the world has _reported and slandered_ Louis de Montemar, as I once
prophesied."
"Oh, Wharton, how much is on my soul, that you have so generously
endured for me and mine! Again and again, I have turned from you,
when that soul followed you. I fled from you in the palace; but you
know that my residence at Vienna was then to be concealed. I treated
your clinging friendship with harshness, and yet you pardoned me; you
risqued your safety, to preserve myself and the Sieur Ignatius from
danger. And when wine had unselfed my noble father, you received his
passionate insults with forbearance and forgiveness! Wharton, had I a
thousand hearts, they should be yours, for this unconquered friendship."
"And had I as many, dear de Montemar, to transfer into your breast,
they would be insufficient to repay the life you saved to me, in that
of Maria of Bavaria."
The Duke then hastily recapitulated the Electress's account of the
transaction, and her increased gratitude for his having maintained it
so profound a secret. Louis listened with pleasure, and dwelt with
delight on the interesting Princess and her son. Wharton smiled at
his animation: and, with all his former sparkling archness, softly
repeated,--
"Dum tu, Lydia, Telephi
Cervicem roseam, & cerea Telephi
Laudas Brachia, væ meum
Fervens difficili bile tumet jecur."
Louis smiled also; but it was accompanied by a mantling cheek.
The praises of women might now have passed unnoticed, from their
familiarity; and, in general, it would have been so, but he respected
the Electress, and admiration from her recalled the blush of modest
consciousness. The Duke intimated a possibility of contriving a meeting
between her, Louis, and himself, at her villa on Mount Calenberg.
"I have much to say to you, de Montemar," added he, "much of
importance. That rare voice of thine has conjured a devil out of Philip
Wharton; and now you must have the arcana of his heart."
Louis looked on him, and grasped his hand; "and could you, indeed,
doubt me?"
"I will tell you more anon," replied Wharton; "come to-morrow night,
at ten o'clock, to Mount Calenberg. There will be no danger in such a
place, but much mystery, and, added he, with gaiety,---
"As veiled charms are fairest,
So stolen joys are dearest."
Before Louis could answer in the negative, he heard voices in the
adjoining garden. The friends were standing close to the wall; but on
these sounds they moved away; and a key presently turned in the door.
"You come?" cried Wharton, as his hand gave the pressure of farewell.
"Impossible," returned Louis.
Wharton stood for a moment.
"You must," cried he, "since she will dare it! But there can be no
discovery."
"I dare not, for my life and honour."
"For your father's life and honour, you must dare every thing! _Osez_
is my badge, and you will be wise to make it yours."
Wharton uttered this with a peculiar force of voice, and aweful
expression in his countenance. Louis was thunderstruck: and yet, how
could his father be involved in Wharton's demand? He was in Spain,
and no longer in danger from his former enemies! "My father's honour
forbids my compliance," replied he; "I dare not go to the Electress's
villa; I dare not meet, even you, by design."
The garden door at that moment opened, and a bevy of persons issued
from it. Wharton dropped the hand of his friend. "Faithless, deluded
de Montemar!" cried he; and breaking away, the friends mutually
disappeared.
CHAP. IX.
The influence of Ripperda over the minds of the King and Queen of
Spain had reached its acmé. Isabella's enthusiasm for the new minister
was more like passion than patronage; and Philip's deference to him
possessed all the fanatic zeal of the devotee who worships the object
he has beatified. The King believed he had converted Ripperda to the
Catholic faith, and he exulted in the reclaimed heretic as a future
saint.
The minister's eye kept steady to one point; to raise the country
he governed, to the utmost pinnacle of earthly grandeur. But his
manner of conducting his projects, and demeaning himself after their
accomplishment, had suffered a rapid and extraordinary change since
he returned from Vienna. During his voyage from Genoa to Barcelona
he was attacked by a delirious fever, in consequence of the wound he
had received in his rencontre with the banditti of the Appenines. It
seemed to have jarred his nerves and affected his temper; or rather
to have taken off the curb which his self-control had hitherto kept
on the motions of his passions; but this alteration did not appear at
first. His habits of universal suavity prevailed for a time, until he
launched so deeply into business, as to forget all minor considerations
in its great results. He became not merely zealous, but impetuous in
the prosecution of his objects; not merely determined on a point, but
dogmatical in its assertion. He did not now persuade the Lords of the
Council, by his always subduing eloquence; but he commanded from the
consciousness of mental superiority, and the conviction of his power to
execute all his designs. The pride of the Grandees was incensed, and
the precipitation with which he urged forward all degrees of persons,
rather offended than served them. There is a restiveness in human
nature that resists compulsion, even to its own manifest advantage.
Ripperda saw no will but his own; he was sure of its great purpose,
and, therefore, stopped not to solicit the good from others, he
believed he could do more shortly himself. He went careering forward to
his point, overturning and wounding; but as he speeded on, he left a
train of enemies behind.
Even the King and Queen began to start from the patriotic despot they
had raised. Enamoured of his vision of happiness for Spain, he snatched
the prerogative too openly from their hands, and conceded privileges
to the people, novel to the Spanish laws. He dared to oppose the
extirpating power of the inquisition, by protecting certain Jewish
merchants from its fangs; and this being represented to Philip, as a
proof of his being a heretic in his heart, the monarch considered it
unanswerable, and determined to watch him narrowly. His most active
enemy with the Queen was Donna Laura; her nurse and confidant, an old
Italian, totally abandoned to avarice. Being irritated by his late
disdain of propitiating her as formerly, by successive magnificent
presents; she sold her interest in another quarter, and studied day
and night to destroy him in the favour of her mistress. She knew where
Isabella was particularly vulnerable; her vanity as a woman; and the
crafty dame had many stories to recount of Ripperda's early devotion
to Elizabeth. She insinuated, that it was rather to be near her than
to negociate for Spain, that he so willingly consented to go to Vienna
in disguise; and she easily corroborated her assertion, by turning
Isabella's attention to his gradually changing manner since his
return. But Isabella did not require to be reminded of the cessation of
his homage. Ripperda had lately omitted all those gallant attentions,
which spoke the lover, who may only dare to devote his heart and his
life to the pure object of his wishes, while she moves above him in
unsullied light, like Cynthia in her distant heavens.
Without adulation of this kind, Isabella could not exist; and it never
came so sweet from any lips as those of Ripperda; it never beamed with
so graceful a homage from other eyes. It was her delight to mingle
politics and chivalric devotion, in their long conferences. It was her
triumph, in the crowded court, to see his eyes fixed alone on her; and
to behold herself envied by her ladies as a woman, as much as she was
respected by them as their Queen. But when the change took place; and,
regardless of these useful arts, he became absorbed in his duties;
then, Laura taught her to believe he thought only of Elizabeth.
His enemies in the cabinet were quick to perceive when their devices
had taken effect on the King and Queen. Amongst the most formidable
of these illustrious conspirators, was the hoary headed Marquis de
Grimaldo, whose disgrace had preceded Ripperda's taking the supreme
chair. The old Grandee held a strict watch over his successor's
proceedings; and made it the business of his life to collect
observations on his minutest actions, and to misrepresent, or aggravate
them, to the ears of jealous Majesty. The Marquis de Castallor, who had
lost the office of Secretary at War, when the new minister absorbed it
in his ample grasp, joined with Grimaldo, heart and hand, to overthrow
his Colossal power. To this end they spread a distorted epitome of
his favourite views, amongst their retainers. These disseminated them
to the people, with proper commentaries, in dark hints and distant
observations. Ripperda was talked of as the son of a rebel; one who
had been born in a heretic country, and educated in its faith; who
had embraced the true church, merely from ambition; who was depriving
the Grandees of their privileges; and devising plans to reduce the
gentlemen of Spain to the rank of bourgeois and slaves, by turning
them to bodily labour and mechanic trades, and abridging them of their
evening siesta and morning revels under the shade of their groves.
While the fortress was undermining at home, they were not idle, who
were preparing to storm it from abroad. France, saw with apprehension,
His Catholic Majesty drawing such strict bonds with the house of
Austria. The States General were alarmed at the treaty of commerce.
England proclaimed a rough indignation at the demand for Gibraltar,
which Austria had made in behalf of Spain. And, it being reported
amongst the nations, that Ripperda's views were to compel by force,
what he could not obtain by negociation, his overthrow was considered
a common cause. The various silent armaments, which commenced on this
resolution, were represented in appalling colours to Philip; and as
the Court of Austria so slowly performed its part in the treaty, his
apprehensions were more easily awakened. The insincerity and insult of
this delay were doubled in effect by the private correspondence of De
Patinos to his father, who spoke mysteriously of the determination of
Charles's cabinet, from some hidden cause, not to perform any more of
their engagements.
Louis, meanwhile, unconscious of the storm that was circling round his
father's head in Spain, was stemming his way through the traversing
movements of his enemies at the Austrian Court. He contended firmly for
his political objects, but resigned himself with desperate despair,
to the current which bore his private happiness to destruction. He
had obeyed an intimation from the Empress, that Countess Altheim was
arrived, and prepared to name the day and hour for their nuptials;
and he went to her apartments to receive the abhorred appointment
from herself. She met him with all her smiles; for the memento of the
lowlines of her origin, presented to her in the domestic scene she had
just left, stimulated her joy at the prospect of being elevated out of
these humbling impressions, by the pomp of an illustrious marriage.
She had just quitted the bed of death, had just closed the eyes of a
respectable parent; and yet had vanity so steeled her soul to every
feeling of filial nature, that, banishing all, as a thing with which
she had no concern, she turned alone to views of splendid rivalry: and,
when Louis appeared, exultation in the full Court of the Empress swam
before her eyes with his entering form.
With unaffected rapture, she met his ceremonious salute, and softly
whispered, as his cold cheek touched hers, that she knew the object
of his visit. It was soon discussed. For Louis had hardly repeated
in words, what his promise to Elizabeth extorted, before her ready
favourite named the evening of the following day. He felt the paleness
of his countenance spread to his heart; and, without pulsation in his
veins, his lips parted in a vacant smile; and he suffered the glowing
hand she had put into his, to remain unnoticed in his motionless grasp.
At this moment, the Empress entered; and Otteline prevented any
involuntary exhibition of her resentment at the frozen demeanor of her
lover, by rising hastily, and as hastily informing Her Majesty that
she had obeyed her commands in naming her nuptials for the morrow.
Elizabeth read the despair of his countenance, as he started from
his seat at her approach; and, triumphing in her victory, she seemed
in that hour to forget all her inexplicable coldness, and to be as
gracious as ever. She embraced Otteline; and gave him her hand to kiss,
with repeated expressions of future confidence in the husband of her
friend.
The marriage was to be solemnised with unexampled magnificence in
the chapel of the palace; and the equipage which was to convey the
favourite to her husband's residence, was to be the gift of her
patroness. Louis summoned himself as well as he could, to perform that
with cheerfulness, which it was right to do at all; and, he conducted
himself, during the remainder of the interview, with respect to his
future bride, and extorted gratitude to her mistress.
The remainder of the day was passed in his official duties; but when
evening came, he could not endure his own thoughts; the anticipations
of to-morrow sickened and distracted him; and he rushed out, to fly
himself, and the image of her who had blighted all his prospects.
He hurried to the _Hotel d'Ettrées_; but the scenes of careless gaiety
he saw there, seemed only to chafe his mind. The sight of young men of
his own years; some, with similar pursuits, moving on with honour; and
others, worthlessly wasting their time; but all, free and untortured
by bonds like his; barbed him to the quick: and he was hurrying from
the splendid mockery, when in the outward saloon, which was almost
solitary, he was met by the Countess Claudine. She accosted him with
wonder at his early flight. In his eagerness to escape, he made some
senseless excuse. Laughing, she put her fair hand upon his arm, and
told him a little more civility to her, and a little less impatience
towards his intended bride, would, at that moment, be more becoming,
in the representative of the most gallant nation in Europe! Louis
rallied himself to reply in her own way; and putting her arm through
his, she drew him back into the rooms. In her brilliant discourse,
so sparkling with wit, so exquisite in sentiment, she united all the
varied powers of "_Bland Aspasia, and the Lesbian Maid_;" and Louis
felt grateful for the lively interest with which she, evidently tried
to amuse him, during the long protracted evening. But ere they parted,
while she was walking with him down an illuminated and solitary avenue
of orange-trees that led from the supper-room, she contrived to let him
know that every body wondered at his having persuaded Countess Altheim
to so indecorous a step, as to meet him at the nuptial altar before the
ashes of her father had been consigned to the grave. Louis repelled
this charge from himself; and declared his belief that Claudine had
received wrong information respecting the death of Monsieur de Blaggay,
as it had never been intimated to him. His fair companion shook her
head, and while she turned her full bright eyes upon his face, she
calmly said:
"Were you convinced of this fact, would you marry the woman who could
commit so unfeeling a sacrilege on the memory of her parent?"
Louis could make only one answer, and he did it with downcast eyes.
"These are questions, Madam, to which I can give no reply. At this
moment, I consider Countess Altheim as having every claim on me; and
her character is under my protection."
"Generous, de Montemar!" replied Claudine, "How have you been entangled
in this engagement! I see your heart, and I urge no more. But forgive
me, that I lament such a destiny for such a man? Had all men your
honour----"
She interrupted herself with a convulsive sigh, and wringing, rather
than pressing the hand she had unconsciously snatched, she parted from
him. Louis disbelieved the story of Monsieur de Blaggay's death; but
he was affected by the manner of his accomplished informer; and slowly
withdrawing through the now almost deserted rooms, mused on the variety
of human misery.
CHAP. X.
When that sun arose, which, he believed, was to set on him a completed
wretch, he turned from its beams with a loathing sense of what his vain
credulity and headlong passion had brought upon him; a joyless youth,
an old age of desolation! How different from his home of Lindisfarne!
But he could not bear the reflection, and with fevered impatience, he
hurried through the business of the morning.
At three o'clock, just as he had shut himself into his study, to
brood over his last hours of liberty; and to consecrate them to the
unburthening of his full soul to his venerable uncle, in a letter,
which, while he wrote, he thought it would be cruelty to send; a
billet was brought him from the Empress: it contained these lines:
"A circumstance, which shall be explained hereafter, delays your
nuptials. Otteline is gone for a few days to the Luxemburg to join
my daughter. Tomorrow, at noon, be in the boudoir, and you will meet
Elizabeth."
This was heaven's reprieve to Louis; suspension was life, and with
almost hope of some unlooked-for escape, he repaired in the evening
to the Chateau de Phaffenberg. His object in visiting that lonely
habitation, was to consult papers that remained there, on a dispatch he
was making up for Sweden.
While the gorgeous sun-set, by which he had extracted the memorandums,
dissolved into a bloomy twilight; and the soft moon was rising in
silvering glory over the hills, Louis felt the soothing aspect of
nature; and gliding through the garden door, which stood half open, he
stood for a moment viewing the scene before him.
"How beautiful is nature!" exclaimed he, "how unobtruse her loveliness,
how guileless all her charms!"
He gently descended the steps of the terrace. All was still. Not a
zephyr ruffled the leaf of a rose, and a soft breathing fragrance
bathed his reposing senses. He walked on, and thought of the rapt
liberty of the soul in the sweet serenities of beautiful solitude. No
rebellious feeling of any kind then agitated his placid bosom; every
passion was at rest,--his ambition slept in its thorny bed, and his
remembrances of Otteline were quenched in the gentle dews of a resigned
spirit. Such power has the divine hand of Nature on the son that loves
her! and thus did he glide along, with the ethereal temper of his soul
beaming in every feature, like the reflected face of heaven.
In this blessed calm, his meditations had ascended far above this
sublunary world, when he observed a man spring off the battlements
into the garden, from the very quarter where he had once clambered
himself. A second glance, recognised the figure of Duke Wharton,
who, immediately, hastened towards him. An exulting smile was on his
countenance, as he hailed him in his approach.
"This is safer ground than the _Horti Adonidis_, I fixed for our
conference!" cried he, "no envious demon would ever think of tracing
Philip Wharton to so desolate a region as this!"
"I have found it a garden of peace," replied Louis, putting out his
hand to Wharton with glad surprise; "and, were it not for fear of the
consequence of this rash seeking me, I should call it the garden of
happiness too!"
"De Montemar," cried his friend, "it does not become friendship like
ours, to be always fearing consequences, and skulking past each
other, as if our meetings had guilty errands. How different are you
in this detested court of finesse, from the free-hearted, independent
De Montemar, who won my soul on his unbondaged native mountains!
Louis, where is that open eye, that open heart? that fearless, brave,
uncuirassed bosom? All that you can gain in Vienna or at Madrid, is not
worth one of those proofs of manhood!"
Louis turned on him a countenance, in which all that Wharton had
conjured up in that noble soul, shone bright in the moon-light.
"If I have fear, it is to do wrong; and that is no change of my nature.
If I shroud my heart, it is from them who cannot understand it; if I
shroud my eye, it is from them who are not worthy to read my thoughts;
and for my shut bosom, Wharton, would it gratify you, to hear it was
unlocked to fools? You have the key of it, my friend! A triangle
encases my heart," continued he, with one of his wonted smiles; "and
you have one of its sides."
Wharton pressed his hand.
"Then Cæsar has quite forgiven Brutus?"
"What could I not forgive him?" replied Louis. All the trust of his
partial and enthusiastic heart, spoke in those words; and he thought
within himself,--"Oh, that I might give my whole life to filial love
and friendship!" As the hopeless wish passed through his soul, the
_iron entered_ with it, but did not pass away.
They walked together to a recess in the garden, where they sat down
under the full radiance of the unclouded moon.
"De Montemar," said Wharton, "this hour is portentous. Hear me to an
end; and you will then have an ample reply to your question, of why I
so named your father, when you broke from me in the avenue."
Louis was ready to listen; and his friend unfolded to him a scene in
the German court, which petrified him with astonishment, and made him
indeed maintain a breathless silence during the recital. He displayed
the insincere character of the Emperor, and explained his manoeuvres
in delaying the fulfilment of the great articles of the treaty, and
only executing the small, while he managed to draw every resignation
from the Spanish side. He imparted to Louis the secret arrangement
between Charles and the Prince of Lorraine; (though he withheld his own
share in the transaction) and shewed that the Arch-duchess was never
intended, by her father, to be the wife of Don Carlos. He also declared
that the Emperor derided the investiture he had sent to the Spanish
Prince, with the remark, when he signed it, that "swords would cut
through parchments." But the worst information was to come. He knew
that a plan was laid, to accomplish the political ruin of the Duke de
Ripperda, and by that achievement at once obliterate every engagement
that was made through him.
At this intimation Louis was all ear: For, during the varied
disclosure, he could connect its details with circumstances which had
embarrassed his diplomatic proceedings; and internal evidence stamped
the veracity of every assertion of his friend.
Wharton then explained the Empress's change towards Ripperda; in the
first instance, from her womanly jealousies respecting the Queen of
Spain, and now rendered complete, by her giving belief to the calumnies
of his rivals. She secretly abetted the Emperor's duplicity; and only
waited the completion of Louis's marriage with her heartless favourite,
to dare her former friend in the face of Europe. Louis's brain was in
a whirl. He could not doubt the proofs Wharton gave him of the facts;
but in the midst of a son's bitter anathemas against the faithless
Elizabeth and her deceitful husband, he yet found comfort in asserting
the adherence of his own sovereigns, to their chosen minister.
"You cannot judge of his security there," replied Wharton, "till you
know the machinery his enemies mean to move in that quarter."
And then he urged Louis to the necessity of obtaining this information;
and taking the sort of glorious revenge on the whole of the proud
conspirators, as would confound them, and excite the admiration of all
honest men. The information lay in the power of one who could furnish
him with the names of persons in Austria and Spain, who were sworn to
compass the ruin of Ripperda. But could the conspiracy be declared,
with its train of signatures, before it took effect, the eyes of the
public would be opened, and the Spanish Minister secured.
Louis declared his eagerness to seek such information at any hazard.
"But how is it to be obtained?" cried he.
"A bribe!" answered Wharton.
"The means are base as our enemies!"
"When a besieged city suspects a mine, do not the inhabitants dig
underground, and meet their enemy at his work?"
"Poniards to poniards!" returned Louis with a cheerless smile.
"Even so," answered Wharton, "shall I give your invisible friend _carte
blanche_?"
"Grant him every thing in my name," replied Louis, "which can be done
with honour. This conspiracy must be in my possession, before another
sun sets over my head."
"Then in this spot to-morrow evening, at the same hour," returned
Wharton, "you shall see me again; and with a document, that may free
you from another thraldom. I have my hand on many springs; and one has
started a true image of your Otteline, sculptured by herself; she dare
not forswear her work, and when it confronts her, if you will, you are
free."
"Nothing can free me there," replied Louis.
"Why, you would not hug your chains?"
"No; but they will clasp me until death. I am bound to her by every tie
of honour."
"Shew her, what I will bring you to-morrow night, and your honour will
release you."
"There is but one thing, that could release me!" cried Louis, the
ingenuous suffusion of virtue mantling his face; "Is it any charge, any
proof, of her dishonour?" Wharton laughed.
"If you mean by _dishonour_, a breach of truth, of honesty, of
delicacy, of every principle respectable to man, and graceful in woman;
you know, she is dishonoured below contempt. But if you restrict it,
to the sense in which it is commonly applied to the angelic sex, I am
not prepared to answer. She may be as chaste as unsunned snow, she is
certainly as cold: but for warm, inspiring virtue! she knows it not,
and she will wither it in every bosom to which she clings."
Louis's hand was now pressed on his aching forehead. The Duke continued.
"See, what she has done with the noble hearted Empress! And did you
know the effects of her example on the innocent Maria Theresa; how that
young creature conceals her love for the Prince of Lorraine, under the
appearance of a passion for you--."
"Impossible!" interrupted Louis. "It is the fact," replied Wharton,
"and on this argument, Elizabeth accuses you of aspiring to her
daughter, and urges your marriage with the favourite against every
opposition."
A strange emotion shook the frame of Louis: he saw the net which the
villainy of man and woman had coiled around his father and himself, and
starting from his seat, he exclaimed:
"Wharton, my only friend! Bring me the double documents; and I
will save my father and myself, or fall with him at once, into the
interminable ruin!"
"To-morrow night, then," cried Wharton, "you shall be master of your
fate."
Louis clasped the Duke in his arms; who, as he felt the full heart
of this anxious son throbbing against his side, said in a cheering
voice--"Courage, de Montemar! These conspiring fiends have not yet
found Jove's thunderbolt. Pay his ransom, and not a point of thy
father's glory shall suffer by their shears."
"Nothing, under heaven, can rob him of the glory of his virtues,"
replied Louis; "but by your aid, my tried, my faithful Wharton, he
shall not lose even an earthly ray. May the Providence which brought me
such a friend, and fastened my soul to him; may it bless your exertions
in this crisis of our fate!"
A burning crimson flushed over the cheek of Wharton, as Louis uttered
this ardent appeal to friendship and to Heaven.
"Hero-fashion?" cried the Duke, "mingle prayer with warfare! But thy
orison is for a graceless,--and half at least will be dispersed in
empty air."
"I will stand the hazard!"
Again they embraced, and separated.
CHAP. XI.
Had not Louis been forwarned by Wharton, and enabled to compare what
he saw, with what he heard, the events of the succeeding day were
calculated to lull him to security.
Elizabeth explained the delay of his marriage; and it was what the
Countess d' Ettrees had intimated, the death of Monsieur de Blaggay
having transpired. The Empress took upon herself the previous
concealment of the event; alledging to Louis, that she had done it, to
suffer no further impediment in the way of a ceremony so essential to
the happiness of her friend. She then insinuated, to her almost silent
auditor, what a proof she would regard it of his general devotion to
her, if he would urge Otteline, and petition the Emperor, to permit
the celebration of the marriage on the eighth day after the funeral
solemnity.
Louis ventured to say, that after so awful an event, the haste she
recommended, would seem so irreverent in the eyes of the world, he
could not persuade himself to commit such an outrage on propriety,
unless he might at the same time present some adequate apology to
society for his breach of its laws. While he spoke, it occurred to him,
how he might shew his innocence with regard to Maria Theresa, without
implicating even her happiness; (for he was well assured, that what he
was going to demand, would not be granted;) and he added, that he would
make his petition to the Emperor, provided Her Majesty would consent
that the Arch-duchess should be affianced on the same day. Elizabeth
started at this unexpected request; but, whatever were its motive, she
thought she could put it to silence for ever; and with a well-feigned
graciousness, replied, "yes; if you will stand the proxy!"
"I am ready Madam,--for I have sufficiently experienced the folly of my
presuming to decline it."
Baffled by this prompt assent; and astonished at the calmness with
which he continued to enforce the remonstrances of Spain on this head,
and on other delays of the Austrian cabinet,--she listened to him to
the end; and then rising from her chair, fixed her eyes on him, and
said.--
"Had I required any thing more to assure me of the nature of the man,
who has so coolly and comprehensively argued all these points; I should
find it in that coolness and those arguments on one of them. Marquis I
will reply to these subjects hereafter."
During his interviews with the different ministers, this day, he
could not but wish to have had a window in their breasts, to read
who amongst them were the enemies of his father. Observation on men,
however, had given him knowledge sufficient, to guess that the most
obsequious, the fullest in smiles and complacency, and the most
elaborate in compliment to the supreme minister in Spain, were the
persons whose names were most likely to be found in the confederation
against him. The president of the council, the crafty and luxurious
Routemberg, overpowered him with assurances of his peremptory demands
on the executive government for the fulfilment of every article in the
treaty; and, but for the information of Wharton, he should have quitted
the chamber in the fullest confidence of his father's entire influence
in the Austrian cabinet. The same game of finesse was played at his
own table; for there De Patinos had for some time assumed an air of
civility. But Louis could not trust the Spaniard's lurking and fierce
eye; neither could he relish the sycophants, who followed the tone of
their leader; yet he was polite to all: and a common observer would not
have guessed that treachery was on the one side, and antipathy on the
other. Louis had no suspicions mingled with his dislike; for he could
not suppose that young men, domesticated at his table, and sanctioned
by his father's patronage, could be cloaking a hidden arm to stab him
to the heart.
Notwithstanding these numerous avocations, the hours seemed to move
on leaden pinions till the sun set, and he descried the moon's fair
cressent silvering the gilded doom of Saint Michael's church. Then
was the moment of his appointment with, he believed, the only bosom
which beat true to him, in that wide metropolis; the only tongue that
spoke to him without guile; the only hand that would venture to shield
his father from the professing friends, who, like those who slew his
great ancestor, the Prince of Orange; pressed on him with caresses, to
destroy him more securely.
On the answer which Wharton was to bring him from the too well-informed
oracle of all this evil, depended the success of the conspiracy, or
its failure! In short, in a few minutes, he might have the safety of
his father, and the preservation of Europe in his hand. He could not
disconnect these two ideas in his mind; and when they were united with
the magnanimous friendship of Wharton, hope in that union silenced
every argument to fear.
The friend in whom he trusted did not make the heart sick by delay. He
was mounting the parapet, at the moment Louis appeared on the terrace.
"Brother of my soul!" cried the latter, as their hands met; "to meet
you thus, labouring for me and mine; proving the nobleness of that
misjudged spirit!--I would endure again, all the pain your information
gave me last night, to purchase to my father and my uncle, conviction
of this unexampled friendship!"
"Root the conviction in your own heart, de Montemar, and I care not who
plucks at the branches."
Louis urged his friend to the history of his embassy; and Wharton told
him, he had seen the written memorandum of the whole scheme against
his father. He informed him, there were persons at the Austrian
court that were to accuse Ripperda to the king of Spain, of a plan
of self-aggrandizement as bold as it was dangerous. He was to be
represented as playing a double game at Vienna and at Madrid; and that
the interests of both nations were alternately to bend, according
to the veering of his own personal views. He was to be charged with
clandestine communications with France and Portugal; and of being the
secret instigator of the late attempt to poison his royal master. His
object in so nefarious an act, was supposed to be the certainty he
had of being dictator of the kingdom, while under the sceptre of a
minor. In short, every wild, preposterous, and sanguinary instigation
of ambition, was to be alleged against him. The charges were to be
supported at Madrid, by a powerful majority of grandees; and should the
scheme go on, there could be no doubt of the impeachment of Ripperda
under a cloud of false witnesses; and most probably, the perpetration
of some iniquitous sentence against his life. The signatures at the
bottom of this memorandum, were hidden from Wharton's view, when he was
allowed to read it.
"For," added he, "the possessor will reveal them to no eyes but your
own. However, I read enough in the body of the document, to see that
Charles and Elizabeth, and her kinsman of England, are deep in the
plot."
The suspense with which Louis listened to this perfidious
confederation, was almost insufferable.
"And this it is," exclaimed he, "to put our trust in
princes!--Ungrateful, treacherous Elizabeth!"
Wharton seized the moment of speechless indignation which followed
this agonized apostrophe; and pourtraying in vivid colours, the utter
selfishness of Charles and the house of Brunswick, he urged Louis, by
every consequent argument, to abjure the worthless cause; and to take
a powerful and noble revenge, by embracing that of legitimacy, in the
rights of the Electress in Germany, and those of James Stuart, in the
land of his maternal ancestors.--The reasoning of Wharton was forcible
and clear, full of energy and conviction, and an eloquence, that might
have charmed an angel from its orb, '_to list his sweet and honey'd
sentences_.'
He urged, that the discovery of the plot to the King and Queen of
Spain, before it could be brought to bear against Ripperda, would
give him just the advantage of turning a full charged battery upon
the enemy who had planted it for his destruction.--In that instant of
proved fidelity to the royal pair, and in their proud shews of perfect
confidence in him, he might change their politics from the north to the
south pole.--A word from him to Philip, would revoke his guarantee to
the pragmatic sanction; the Electress's son would have a direct path to
the throne on the death of the Emperor; and a brave army of Spaniards
would put Philip in possession of Gibraltar. While this was transacting
on the continent, England itself might shrink under the foot of
Ripperda; for Wharton intimated, that by the armed assistance of some
powers, whose politics he had turned into the same direction, it would
be no difficult achievement to replace James Stuart on the throne of
his ancestors. "Here, Louis de Montemar", exclaimed the Duke, "is a
revenge worthy the descendant of heroes and of sovereigns! Though you
wear not crowns, you may dispense them; and Cæsar can do no more!"
Louis grasped the hand of his friend.--"Oh, Wharton! I am weary
of sovereigns, and crowns, and sceptres. They are the price of
men's souls; of all their earthly happiness, of all their future
felicity!--Talk not to me of embracing the cause of any one of them.
When I clasp the splendid nothings, they crumble into dust in my
hands."--
Louis walked forward with a rapid pace. His soul was tossed on the
billows of a tempestuous ocean, in the midst of which he saw his father
perishing.--He stopped abruptly. "But where is this document?--How can
I obtain it?"
"It is yours, on a condition; and with it the implement of your release
from Otteline!" "I care not for my own release, but for my father! my
betrayed, my virtuous father!--Name the condition."
Wharton did not answer immediately, but walked a few moments by the
side of his friend, with his eyes bent downwards; then, looking
suddenly up, while the bright moon shone full upon his varying
countenance, he gaily said:--
"Is there any thing it is possible for me to propose, that could move
you to precipitate yourself over that stone wall, as you did from the
rocks of Bamborough?"
"No;" replied Louis, with a wan and wintery smile; "nothing that you
would propose."
"Having met my novice at the Eleusinian mysteries," cried Wharton
laughing, "I marvel I should seem to question his initiation!--The way
is now plain before us.--Go with me to-night, when that blabbing duenna
in the sky is gone to bed, and you shall have the whole policy of
Austria in your bosom."
"Where?" said Louis, not understanding the Duke, and strangely doubtful
of his manner.
"That disclosure is beyond my credentials. But when you are there, the
awful secret of conspiracy will not be revealed in caverns, dungeons,
and darkness. You will find a place to take the grateful soul, and lap
it in Elysium!"
The pulse in Louis's temples beat hard; yet he was determined not to
anticipate, but make Wharton explain himself.
"I do not understand you; who is it I am to see?"
"A woman; a lovely, fond woman!"
The manner of his saying this, was a stroke, like that of an iron rod
on the heart of his friend; and he cast the hand from him, that clasped
his arm.
"What, for another leap?" cried the Duke; "but you are out of
practice, and may break more necks than your own!"
"And what is my resource?" desperately demanded Louis.
"A simple one; to smile upon a woman. A pleasant one; to be beloved by
one who can fix no bonds on you but those of love, while she bestows
herself upon you, and gives you the life and honour of your father!"
"With the loss of my own, and the perdition of my soul! Is this the
alternative I expected to hear from the lips of my only friend, in this
fearful extremity of my fate!"
Louis had covered his raging temples with his hand, and he hastened
forward with distracted swiftness.
"De Montemar! This is folly or deception," cried Wharton. "There
are virtues for every season of life; and I thought you had been
made sensible that it is the privilege of manhood to make all nature
subservient to his interest and his pleasure. What took you, night
after night, to the scenes in which I have met you? Anchorites are not
accustomed to pay those courts a second visit; and you are not the
better in my honest eyes, for preserving the cowl, when I know its vows
have been broken?"
Louis knew that he had deserved this inference; and he inwardly
reproached his father's policy, in thinking it wisdom to incur such
suspicion on his blameless life. How would the involuntary accusation
have been embittered, had he known that the Empress drew the same
conclusion! He would then have doubly felt, that his sacrifice to such
vile appearance, instead of propitiating his rivals, had dishonoured
him with his friends, and become an instrument in the hands of his
enemies. Humbled to the soul, he merely replied.
"Wharton, you injure me."
"It may be so; and I am sorry for it," answered the Duke, "though I
cannot guess how. I offer you the sublime duty of rescuing your father
from treason; and the enjoyment of a banquet, rifled from the sanctuary
of your deadliest foe! Can you be a man, and proof against such sweet
revenge?"
Louis strode on in perturbed silence. Wharton continued his arguments
with vehemence and subtle consistency, on the supposition that he must
admit his friend's repugnance to be sincere. Still, Louis did not
reply; but proofs of his contending soul convulsed the features his
agitated hand tried to conceal. The Duke, as well as his friend, had
much at stake in bringing this part of his negociation to bear. He
tried the effect of ridicule on the wretched and despairing Louis; and
to one of his arguments, he at last extorted a reply.
"I will not purchase even the life of my father, by my own conscious
guilt. If I am proof against my own heart, in so dear a cause, shall I
not be proof against the poor allurements of vanity and sense? And are
such arguments yours? Oh, Wharton! I cannot call that peculiarly manly,
which are the peculiar pursuits of the lowest of our species. Any man
may succumb to his appetites and his passions! You say most men do; and
that you, even you, sometimes find it policy and pastime to follow in
the track!" He paused, and then added with a piercing look, and a smile
of despair, "what, if the boy de Montemar has ambition to go beyond ye!"
"Yes; I know you do not want ambition," replied the Duke, with an
answering smile, "I remember, some dozen months ago, with that same
eagle glance, you likened yourself to Ammon's godlike son! He did not
reject the flaming brand that fired the palace of his enemies, nor the
lovely Thais that presented it!"
"Wharton," said Louis, looking on him with severity, "had Clytus been
such a counsellor, he would have deserved the javelin of his friend?"
"My breast is ready," cried the Duke, "if thou hast the heart to throw
it!"
"I would I could, and cut away the worser part of thine!" answered
Louis, "I have seen more of it to-night, than I wish to remember."
"But what message," returned Wharton, "am I to remember, to carry to
her, who is awaiting your slow appearance? Is she to give you herself,
your father's safety, and your own freedom? Or, do you reject all? For
_all_ you must accept, or none; and then the scrupulous de Montemar,
may go wash his hands of the name he has consigned to infamy; and
beatify the paternal head he relinquishes to the block!"
This demand was made with scornful seriousness; with a ruthless
application to the feelings of a son. Louis felt the firm
collectiveness of a man determined to live or die by one line of
action. He turned on Wharton with a fixed eye.
"Tell her," returned he, "that father and son may perish together; that
their names may be followed by falsehood to the scaffold and the grave;
but I never will purchase exemption from any one of these evils, by the
prostitution of my heart and my conscience to vice in man or woman!"
Wharton grasped his arm.
"What superstition is this? What madness?--This message would undo you!"
"With whom, Wharton?"
"With the woman you scorn. Her revenge would exasperate your enemies!"
"Let it!" returned Louis, "since she has bereft me of my
friend.--Wharton, we are no more to each other!"
"De Montemar?"
"In my extremest need, when I threw myself on your breast for counsel
and for aid; when I believed you Heaven's delegated angel, to save
my father and myself; you would have betrayed him to the dishonour of
being bought by the guilt of his son; you would have betrayed me to
hell's deepest perdition!"
As Louis spoke with the stern calmness of a divorced heart, Wharton
became other than he had ever seen him. With the fires of resentment
flashing from his resplendent eyes, he too collected the force of his
soul in the mightiness of a last appeal. He spoke with rapidity for
many minutes. He repeated, and redoubled his arguments; and then he
added in a calmer voice:
"My heart is a man's heart, and therefore is sensible to this stroke
from ungrateful friendship. But you now know that I can shame your
superstition, by bearing insult upon insult, when my patience may
recall you to yourself!"
"I am recalled to myself," returned Louis; "my superstition is, to
depend on God alone for the preservation of my father. If he fall, God
has his wise purpose in the judgement, and I shall find resignation.
For you, Wharton--that I have loved so long and so steadily--there may
be a pang there--when he I trusted above all men, has proved himself my
direst enemy!"
"Your enemy, de Montemar? your direst enemy? The words have passed your
lips, were engendered in your heart, and my ears have heard them! It
is easier to hate, than to love; to discard a friend, than to accept a
mistress; to plunge into the gulph of ruin, than to avoid it through
a path of happiness! Madman! Did I not pity the folly I marvel at, I
would rouse you by a tale. But no more. When you next hear of, or see
Philip Wharton, you will understand the import of your own words.--You
shall know what he is, when he proclaims himself the enemy of Ripperda
and de Montemar!"
Louis stood immoveable, with his eyes on the ground, while Wharton
vehemently uttered this denunciation. He remained some time, like a
pillar transfixed in the earth, after the Duke had disappeared. The
first thing that recalled him to motion, was the profound stillness
around, after the sounds of that voice, which till now, was ever to him
the music of heaven. The horrible conviction of all that had passed,
pressed at once upon his soul; the dear and agonizing remembrance of
how he had loved him; and raising his arms to the dark heavens with a
fearful cry of expiring nature, he threw himself upon the ground.
The falling dew, and the howling wind raised him not from that bed of
lonely despair. And when he did leave the dismal scene of this last act
of his miseries, it was like the spectre of the man who had entered
it.
CHAP. XII.
Wharton left Vienna, the morning after his separation from Louis in the
garden of the chateau. From that day, Louis moved through his duties
like a man in a dream. He had dispatched a special courier to his
father, with as much of the conspiracy, as he had collected from his
now estranged friend; and he confessed how the whole might have been in
his possession, could he have brought his conscience to accord with the
condition.
Hoping that even this obscure intimation might be some beacon to
his father; himself went perturbedly on; racked with suspence, and
feeling alone and unarmed amidst a host of ambushed foes. Except when
obliged to go abroad on business, he shut himself within the walls of
his house; for he now doubted every man who approached him; and the
specious courtesies of women were yet more intolerable.
The Empress did not condescend to intimate how she had considered
his proposition respecting the ceremony of her daughter; but she
sent her chamberlain to inform him, that the Emperor had fixed the
day of her favourite's nuptials, when they should be solemnized in a
private manner. Louis loathed the very characters of Otteline's name;
and shuddered at any new bonds to a society, associated to him with
every disastrous remembrance. His soul was stricken; and the evils
which appeared in visionary approach before his father's path, and
his own, seemed too big for conflict. He felt he could have sustained
the fiercest fields of war; could have died with an upward eye, and
an exulting spirit on its honourable bed. But to be a hero under
the attacks of the coward breath of man; to stand before an obloquy
that threatened the annihilation of his father's glory, and his own
respected name; was more than he dared to contemplate: and in appalled
expectation, he mechanically prepared to obey the unwelcome behests of
Elizabeth.
He was giving his slow orders to a _maitre d'hotel_ respecting
some arrangements for his future bride, when a letter was put into
his hands, which had come by a circuitous route from Sardinia; and
which he ought to have received a month or two ago. It was from Don
Ferdinand d'Osorio. Until the public reception of Ripperda at Vienna,
Don Ferdinand was ignorant where to address the cousin of his beloved
Alice; and to express, what he felt, his sense of the justice of her
appeal against his extorted bonds; and to acknowledge the delicacy with
which Louis had seconded her remonstrances. When he heard that the
Marquis de Montemar was in Germany with his father, he lost no time
in writing; and entrusted his letter to a Sardinian gentleman going
to Vienna. But the traveller took a wide tour; and did not bring the
letter to its destination until two months after its date.
Louis dismissed his servant, and breaking the seal, read as follows:--
"_My dear de Montemar_,
"I should be ashamed to confess the justice of all your remarks on my
conduct with regard to your sweet cousin, my ever-beloved Alice, could
I not at the same time assure you that I have obeyed her wishes to the
fullest extent, and followed your advice implicitly. I have written to
her, and to Mrs. Coningsby; and she is perfectly free: every bond is
relinquished, but that of the heart. If her's be as firm as mine, we
may confidently await the holy vows, which, I trust, will yet unite
us.
"You must have seen enough of my excellent father, to know that
he has one error amongst his many perfections; and that it is an
irreconcileable abhorrence of the Protestant religion. However,
though I should despair of ever bringing him to tolerate its tenets,
I have a hope of compassing his consent to my marriage with its
gentle professor. Marcella, my only, and very dear sister, (and
who was intended from her cradle for a nunnery,) must assist me in
this project. She loves me ardently; and her power with my father,
except on one point, is almost omnipotent. It is this point, on which
I ground my proceedings: she must obey him; and may gratify her
enthusiastic nature, by serving me against herself. Her doom, poor
girl! is rather a hard one, as it was absolutely fixed before she was
born. My father's youthful passions, (which are now hushed to such
monastic stillness!) were the cause of her dedication. I will tell
you the story; and then you may judge of my chance of success through
her means.
"When my father was a young man, his character was too much like my
own, self-willed and impetuous; and in affairs of love, as you will
see by the sequel, he was even more determined than his son. At an
early age, he acquired a great reputation in the army; and at the
conclusion of the war in Italy, went on a party of pleasure to Vienna;
then the gayest city in the world.
"During the reign of the Austrian monarchs in Spain, many of our
grandees intermarried with the German nobility. It so happened between
our family and that of the Austrian Sinzendorff's. My father, then
full of life and enterprize, went to the old Count Sinzendorff's. The
present Chancellor of that name was then young and thoughtless; and
boasted to his cousin, of the great beauty of his youngest sister;
who his family had chosen to sacrifice to the fortunes of the elder
branches, by consigning her to a nunnery at the age of nineteen.--My
father accompanied Sinzendorff to the convent, where they passed
some hours with the beautiful novice; for she had yet four months
of probation, before she was to pronounce the irrevocable vows.
Suffice it to say, a mutual passion was conceived between the two
cousins, and my father persuaded her to elope with him.--They fled
into Switzerland, where they were married. In the course of time,
absolution for the sacrilege was obtained from the Pope; but my father
could never obtain it from himself.--His wife's first and second
children died in the birth. They were both daughters. He believed it
a judgment on his crime, and tried to reconcile offended heaven, by
making a vow, that should his next infant be spared, and of the same
sex; and he live to the appointed period, he would dedicate it to a
monastic life, at the same age in which he seduced her mother from
the altar. The next child was myself. Two or three more infant deaths
intervened before the birth of Marcella. But from the hour in which
she saw the light, and continued to live, a golden crucifix was hung
to her neck, and she was always addressed by the name of the little
nun.
"As she grew in beauty and sweetness, my mother regretted the
determined immolation of her child; but my father would listen to
no pleadings, to spare such variety of excellence to the world. He
demanded the sacrifice for the appeasing of his conscience; and poor
Marcella, though educated with all the accomplishments of her sex,
and full of as many graces as ever charmed in woman, silently awaited
her gloomy destiny. I remember having often seen my father stand
impenetrable to my mother's reproaches for consigning all this youth
and loveliness to the cloister, and then he has calmly answered:--
"Antoinetta, I have covered the blameless offering with all these
garlands, to render her a more costly sacrifice at my hands; to make
my heart drop blood when she is led to the altar; and then, your sin
and mine, my erring wife, may find a veil!
"My mother doated on my sister, and she could not see the justice
of expiating her own offence, by the misery of her child.--In this
spirit, she too, made a vow; and that was, never to be separated from
her daughter, till her father's cruel dedication shut her from the
world. By a most unhappy fatality, the governess my mother engaged
for Marcella when a child, was the widow of one of the illustrious
cavaliers who came to the continent, with your James II. She was a
learned and a pious woman, and brought up my sister in all her own
principles.--My father led too busy a life, to investigate deeper
than the fruits; and those, he said were good. But a year ago, the
English lady died; and on her death-bed, she declared herself a
Protestant! In short, Marcella had been too long under her tuition,
to become a willing _devotee_ to the monastic rites of the Romish
Church. A superstitious horror of this discovery prevented my father
questioning her on the subject; but he proposed her immediate removal
to a convent. My mother opposed her vow to his; not to suffer her
child to leave her, till the time of her being professed.--Marcella
cast herself on her knees, and implored, by every thing sacred in
earth and heaven, that her father would not compel her to take vows
against which her soul revolted. She engaged to live a life of
celibacy; and never to see any persons but her own family; if he would
spare her those dreadful oaths, and allow her to remain for ever with
her mother. But in the essential point, my mother and sister pleaded
in vain. He granted her continuance at home, till the year of her
noviciate; but that year must come, and it will commence next January.
"Being aware, from my father's pertinacity on these subjects, that
if my sister does not then resign herself to her fate, she will be
dragged to meet it, (though he would rather purchase her free consent
at any price;) I determined on trying to turn her sad destiny to my
happiness. When I pledged my faith to your dear cousi
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