nor convent, nor humble hermitage, to be seen; nothing but a moss-grown
stone pinnacle, rising out of the centre of the area, surmounted by a
cross. The greensward around appeared to have been sacred from the tread
of man or beast, and the surrounding trees bent toward the cross, as if
in adoration.
The cavalier felt a sensation of holy awe. He alighted and tethered
his steed on the skirts of the forest, where he might crop the tender
herbage; then approaching the cross, he knelt and poured forth his
evening prayers before this relique of the Christian days of Spain.
His orisons being concluded, he laid himself down at the foot of the
pinnacle, and reclining his head against one of its stones, fell into a
deep sleep.
About midnight, he was awakened by the tolling of a bell, and found
himself lying before the gate of an ancient convent. A train of nuns
passed by, each bearing a taper. The cavalier rose and followed them
into the chapel; in the centre of which was a bier, on which lay the
corpse of an aged nun. The organ performed a solemn requiem: the nuns
joining in chorus. When the funeral service was finished, a melodious
voice chanted, "_Requiescat in pace!_"--"May she rest in peace!" The
lights immediately vanished; the whole passed away as a dream; and the
cavalier found himself at the foot of the cross, and beheld, by the
faint rays of the rising moon, his steed quietly grazing near him.
When the day dawned, the cavalier descended the hill, and following the
course of a small brook, came to a cave, at the entrance of which was
seated an ancient man, clad in hermit's garb, with rosary and cross,
and a beard that descended to his girdle. He was one of those holy
anchorites permitted by the Moors to live unmolested in dens and caves,
and humble hermitages, and even to practise the rites of their religion.
The cavalier checked his horse, and dismounting, knelt and craved a
benediction. He then related all that had befallen him in the night, and
besought the hermit to explain the mystery.
"What thou hast heard and seen, my son," replied the other, "is but type
and shadow of the woes of Spain."
He then related the foregoing story of the miraculous deliverance of the
convent.
"Forty years," added the holy man, "have elapsed since this event, yet
the bells of that sacred edifice are still heard, from time to time,
sounding from under ground, together with the pealing of the organ, and
the chanting of the choir. The Moors avoid this neighborhood, as haunted
ground, and the whole place, as thou mayest perceive, has become covered
with a thick and lonely forest."
The cavalier listened with wonder to the story of this engulphed
convent, as related by the holy man. For three days and nights did they
keep vigils beside the cross; but nothing more was to be seen of nun or
convent. It is supposed that, forty years having elapsed, the natural
lives of all the nuns were finished, and that the cavalier had beheld
the obsequies of the last of the sisterhood. Certain it is, that from
that time, bell, and organ, and choral chant have never more been heard.
The mouldering pinnacle, surmounted by the cross, still remains an
object of pious pilgrimage. Some say that it anciently stood in front
of the convent, but others assert that it was the spire of the sacred
edifice, and that, when the main body of the building sank, this
remained above ground, like the top-mast of some tall ship that
has foundered. These pious believers maintain, that the convent is
miraculously preserved entire in the centre of the mountain, where, if
proper excavations were made, it would be found, with all its treasures,
and monuments, and shrines, and reliques, and the tombs of its virgin
nuns.
Should any one doubt the truth of this marvelous interposition of the
Virgin, to protect the vestal purity of her votaries, let him read the
excellent work entitled "España Triumphante," written by Padre Fray
Antonio de Sancta Maria, a bare-foot friar of the Carmelite order, and
he will doubt no longer.
* * * * *
THE COUNT VAN HORN.
During the minority of Louis XV., while the Duke of Orleans was Regent
of France, a young Flemish nobleman, the Count Antoine Joseph Van Horn,
made his sudden appearance in Paris, and by his character, conduct, and
the subsequent disasters in which he became involved, created a great
sensation in the high circles of the proud aristocracy. He was about
twenty-two years of age, tall, finely formed, with a pale, romantic
countenance, and eyes of remarkable brilliancy and wildness.
He was of one of the most ancient and highly-esteemed families of
European nobility, being of the line of the Princes of Horn and
Overique, sovereign Counts of Hautekerke, and hereditary Grand Veneurs
of the empire.
The family took its name from the little town and seigneurie of Horn, in
Brabant; and was known as early as the eleventh century among the little
dynasties of the Netherlands, and since that time by a long line of
illustrious generations. At the peace of Utrecht, when the Netherlands
passed under subjection to Austria, the house of Van Horn came under the
domination of the emperor. At the time we treat of, two of the branches
of this ancient house were extinct; the third and only surviving branch
was represented by the reigning prince, Maximilian Emanuel Van Horn,
twenty-four years of age, who resided in honorable and courtly style
on his hereditary domains at Baussigny, in the Netherlands, and his
brother, the Count Antoine Joseph, who is the subject of this memoir.
The ancient house of Van Horn, by the intermarriage of its various
branches with the noble families of the continent, had become widely
connected and interwoven with the high aristocracy of Europe. The Count
Antoine, therefore, could claim relationship to many of the proudest
names in Paris. In fact, he was grandson, by the mother's side, of the
Prince de Ligne, and even might boast of affinity to the Regent (the
Duke of Orleans) himself. There were circumstances, however, connected
with his sudden appearance in Paris, and his previous story, that placed
him in what is termed "a false position;" a word of baleful significance
in the fashionable vocabulary of France.
The young count had been a captain in the service of Austria, but had
been cashiered for irregular conduct, and for disrespect to Prince Louis
of Baden, commander-in-chief. To check him in his wild career, and
bring him to sober reflection, his brother the prince caused him to be
arrested and sent to the old castle of Van Wert, in the domains of Horn.
This was the same castle in which, in former times, John Van Horn,
Stadtholder of Gueldres, had imprisoned his father; a circumstance which
has furnished Rembrandt with the subject of an admirable painting. The
governor of the castle was one Van Wert, grandson of the famous John Van
Wert, the hero of many a popular song and legend. It was the intention
of the prince that his brother should be held in honorable durance, for
his object was to sober and improve, not to punish and afflict him. Van
Wert, however, was a stern, harsh man of violent passions. He treated
the youth in a manner that prisoners and offenders were treated in the
strong-holds of the robber counts of Germany in old times; confined him
in a dungeon and inflicted on him such hardships and indignities that
the irritable temperament of the young count was roused to continual
fury, which ended in insanity. For six months was the unfortunate youth
kept in this horrible state, without his brother the prince being
informed of his melancholy condition or of the cruel treatment to which
he was subjected. At length, one day, in a paroxysm of frenzy, the count
knocked down two of his gaolers with a beetle, escaped from the castle
of Van Wert, and eluded all pursuit; and after roving about in a state
of distraction, made his way to Baussigny and appeared like a sceptre
before his brother.
The prince was shocked at his wretched, emaciated appearance and his
lamentable state of mental alienation. He received him with the most
compassionate tenderness; lodged him in his own room, appointed three
servants to attend and watch over him day and night, and endeavored by
the most soothing and affectionate assiduity to atone for the past act
of rigor with which he reproached himself. When he learned, however, the
manner in which his unfortunate brother had been treated in confinement,
and the course of brutalities that had led to his mental malady, he was
roused to indignation. His first step was to cashier Van Wert from his
command. That violent man set the prince at defiance, and attempted to
maintain himself in his government and his castle by instigating the
peasants, for several leagues round, to revolt. His insurrection might
have been formidable against the power of a petty prince; but he was put
under the ban of the empire and seized as a state prisoner. The memory
of his grandfather, the oft-sung John Van Wert, alone saved him from a
gibbet; but he was imprisoned in the strong tower of Horn-op-Zee. There
he remained until he was eighty-two years of age, savage, violent, and
unconquered to the last; for we are told that he never ceased fighting
and thumping as long as he could close a fist or wield a cudgel.
In the mean time a course of kind and gentle treatment and wholesome
regimen, and, above all, the tender and affectionate assiduity of his
brother, the prince, produced the most salutary effects upon Count
Antoine. He gradually recovered his reason; but a degree of violence
seemed always lurking at the bottom of his character, and he required
to be treated with the greatest caution and mildness, for the least
contradiction exasperated him.
In this state of mental convalescence, he began to find the supervision
and restraints of brotherly affection insupportable; so he left the
Netherlands furtively, and repaired to Paris, whither, in fact, it
is said he was called by motives of interest, to make arrangements
concerning a valuable estate which he inherited from his relative, the
Princess d'Epinay.
On his arrival in Paris, he called upon the Marquis of Créqui, and other
of the high nobility with whom he was connected. He was received with
great courtesy; but, as he brought no letters from his elder brother,
the prince, and as various circumstances of his previous history had
transpired, they did not receive him into their families, nor introduce
him to their ladies. Still they fêted him in bachelor style, gave him
gay and elegant suppers at their separate apartments, and took him to
their boxes at the theatres. He was often noticed, too, at the doors of
the most fashionable churches, taking his stand among the young men
of fashion; and at such times, his tall, elegant figure, his pale but
handsome countenance, and his flashing eyes, distinguished him from
among the crowd; and the ladies declared that it was almost impossible
to support his ardent gaze.
The Count did not afflict himself much at his limited circulation in the
fastidious circles of the high aristocracy. He relished society of a
wilder and less ceremonious cast; and meeting with loose companions to
his taste, soon ran into all the excesses of the capital, in that most
licentious period. It is said that, in the course of his wild career, he
had an intrigue with a lady of quality, a favorite of the Regent; that
he was surprised by that prince in one of his interviews; that sharp
words passed between them; and that the jealousy and vengeance thus
awakened, ended only with his life.
About this time, the famous Mississippi scheme of Law was at its height,
or rather it began to threaten that disastrous catastrophe which
convulsed the whole financial world. Every effort was making to keep the
bubble inflated. The vagrant population of France was swept off from the
streets at night, and conveyed to Havre de Grace, to be shipped to the
projected colonies; even laboring people and mechanics were thus crimped
and spirited away. As Count Antoine was in the habit of sallying forth
at night, in disguise, in pursuit of his pleasures, he came near being
carried off by a gang of crimps; it seemed, in fact, as if they had been
lying in wait for him, as he had experienced very rough treatment at
their hands. Complaint was made of his case by his relation, the Marquis
de Créqui, who took much interest in the youth; but the Marquis received
mysterious intimations not to interfere in the matter, but to advise the
Count to quit Paris immediately; "If he lingers, he is lost!" This has
been cited as a proof that vengeance was dogging at the heels of the
unfortunate youth, and only watching for an opportunity to destroy him.
Such opportunity occurred but too soon. Among the loose companions with
whom the Count had become intimate, were two who lodged in the same
hotel with him. One was a youth only twenty years of age, who passed
himself off as the Chevalier d'Etampes, but whose real name was Lestang,
the prodigal son of a Flemish banker. The other, named Laurent de Mille,
a Piedmontese, was a cashiered captain, and at the time an esquire
in the service of the dissolute Princess de Carignan, who kept
gambling-tables in her palace. It is probable that gambling propensities
had driven these young men together, and that their losses had brought
them to desperate measures: certain it is, that all Paris was suddenly
astounded by a murder which they were said to have committed. What made
the crime more startling, was, that it seemed connected with the great
Mississippi scheme, at that time the fruitful source of all kinds of
panics and agitations. A Jew, a stock-broker, who dealt largely in
shares of the bank of Law, founded on the Mississippi scheme, was the
victim. The story of his death is variously related. The darkest account
states, that the Jew was decoyed by these young men into an obscure
tavern, under pretext of negotiating with him for bank shares to the
amount of one hundred thousand crowns, which he had with him in his
pocket-book. Lestang kept watch upon the stairs. The Count and De Mille
entered with the Jew into a chamber. In a little while there were heard
cries and struggles from within. A waiter passing by the room, looked
in, and seeing the Jew weltering in his blood, shut the door again,
double-locked it, and alarmed the house. Lestang rushed downstairs, made
his way to the hotel, secured his most portable effects, and fled the
country. The Count and De Mille endeavored to escape by the window, but
were both taken, and conducted to prison.
A circumstance which occurs in this part of the Count's story, seems to
point him out as a fated man. His mother, and his brother, the Prince
Van Horn, had received intelligence some time before at Baussigny, of
the dissolute life the Count was leading at Paris, and of his losses at
play. They despatched a gentleman of the prince's household to Paris, to
pay the debts of the Count, and persuade him to return to Flanders; or,
if he should refuse, to obtain an order from the Regent for him to quit
the capital. Unfortunately the gentleman did not arrive at Paris until
the day after the murder.
The news of the Count's arrest and imprisonment on a charge of murder,
caused a violent sensation among the high aristocracy. All those
connected with him, who had treated him hitherto with indifference,
found their dignity deeply involved in the question of his guilt or
innocence. A general convocation was held at the hotel of the Marquis de
Créqui, of all the relatives and allies of the house of Horn. It was
an assemblage of the most proud and aristocratic personages of Paris.
Inquiries were made into the circumstances of the affair. It was
ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the Jew was dead, and that he had been
killed by several stabs of a poniard. In escaping by the window, it was
said that the Count had fallen, and been immediately taken; but that De
Mille had fled through the streets, pursued by the populace, and had
been arrested at some distance from the scene of the murder; that the
Count had declared himself innocent of the death of the Jew, and that
he had risked his own life in endeavoring to protect him; but that De
Mille, on being brought back to the tavern, confessed to a plot to
murder the broker, and rob him of his pocket-book, and inculpated the
Count in the crime.
Another version of the story was, that the Count Van Horn had deposited
with the broker, bank shares to the amount of eighty-eight thousand
livres; that he had sought him in this tavern, which was one of his
resorts, and had demanded the shares; that the Jew had denied the
deposit; that a quarrel had ensued, in the course of which the Jew
struck the Count in the face; that the latter, transported with rage,
had snatched up a knife from a table, and wounded the Jew in the
shoulder; and that thereupon De Mille, who was present, and who had
likewise been defrauded by the broker, fell on him, and despatched him
with blows of a poniard, and seized upon his pocket-book; that he had
offered to divide the contents of the latter with the Count, _pro rata_,
of what the usurer had defrauded them; that the latter had refused the
proposition with disdain, and that, at a noise of persons approaching,
both had attempted to escape from the premises, but had been taken.
Regard the story in any way they might, appearances were terribly
against the Count, and the noble assemblage was in great consternation.
What was to be done to ward off so foul a disgrace and to save their
illustrious escutcheons from this murderous stain of blood? Their
first attempt was to prevent the affair from going to trial, and their
relative from being dragged before a criminal tribunal, on so horrible
and degrading a charge. They applied, therefore, to the Regent, to
intervene his power; to treat the Count as having acted under an access
of his mental malady; and to shut him up in a madhouse. The Regent was
deaf to their solicitations. He replied, coldly, that if the Count was a
madman, one could not get rid too quickly of madmen who were furious in
their insanity. The crime was too public and atrocious to be hushed up
or slurred over; justice must take its course.
Seeing there was no avoiding the humiliating scene of a public trial,
the noble relatives of the Count endeavored to predispose the minds of
the magistrates before whom he was to be arraigned. They accordingly
made urgent and eloquent representations of the high descent, and noble
and powerful connexions of the Count; set forth the circumstances of his
early history; his mental malady; the nervous irritability to which he
was subject, and his extreme sensitiveness to insult or contradiction.
By these means they sought to prepare the judges to interpret every
thing in favor of the Count, and, even if it should prove that he had
inflicted the mortal blow on the usurer, to attribute it to access of
insanity, provoked by insult.
To give full effect to these representations, the noble conclave
determined to bring upon the judges the dazzling rays of the whole
assembled aristocracy. Accordingly, on the day that the trial took
place, the relations of the Count, to the number of fifty-seven persons,
of both sexes, and of the highest rank, repaired in a body to the Palace
of Justice, and took their stations in a long corridor which led to the
court-room. Here, as the judges entered, they had to pass in review this
array of lofty and noble personages, who saluted them mournfully and
significantly, as they passed. Any one conversant with the stately pride
and jealous dignity of the French noblesse of that day, may imagine the
extreme state of sensitiveness that produced this self-abasement. It was
confidently presumed, however, by the noble suppliants, that having once
brought themselves to this measure, their influence over the tribunal
would be irresistible. There was one lady present, however, Madame de
Beauffremont, who was affected with the Scottish gift of second sight,
and related such dismal and sinister apparitions as passing before
her eyes, that many of her female companions were filled with doleful
presentiments.
Unfortunately for the Count, there was another interest at work, more
powerful even than the high aristocracy. The all-potent Abbé Dubois, the
grand favorite and bosom counsellor of the Regent, was deeply interested
in the scheme of Law, and the prosperity of his bank, and of course in
the security of the stock-brokers. Indeed, the Regent himself is said to
have dipped deep in the Mississippi scheme. Dubois and Law, therefore,
exerted their influence to the utmost to have the tragic affair pushed
to the extremity of the law, and the murder of the broker punished in
the most signal and appalling manner. Certain it is, the trial was
neither long nor intricate. The Count and his fellow prisoner were
equally inculpated in the crime; and both were condemned to a death the
most horrible and ignominious--to be broken alive on the wheel!
As soon as the sentence of the court was made public, all the nobility,
in any degree related to the house of Van Horn, went into mourning.
Another grand aristocratical assemblage was held, and a petition to the
Regent, on behalf of the Count, was drawn out and left with the Marquis
de Créqui for signature. This petition set forth the previous insanity
of the Count, and showed that it was a hereditary malady of his family.
It stated various circumstances in mitigation of his offence, and
implored that his sentence might be commuted to perpetual imprisonment.
Upward of fifty names of the highest nobility, beginning with the Prince
de Ligne, and including cardinals, archbishops, dukes, marquises, etc.,
together with ladies of equal rank, were signed to this petition. By
one of the caprices of human pride and vanity, it became an object of
ambition to get enrolled among the illustrious suppliants; a kind of
testimonial of noble blood, to prove relationship to a murderer! The
Marquis de Créqui was absolutely besieged by applicants to sign, and had
to refer their claims to this singular honor, to the Prince de Ligne,
the grandfather of the Count. Many who were excluded, were highly
incensed, and numerous feuds took place. Nay, the affronts thus given to
the morbid pride of some aristocratical families, passed from generation
to generation; for, fifty years afterward, the Duchess of Mazarin
complained of a slight which her father had received from the Marquis
de Créqui; which proved to be something connected with the signature of
this petition. This important document being completed, the illustrious
body of petitioners, male and female, on Saturday evening, the eve of
Palm Sunday, repaired to the Palais Royal, the residence of the Regent,
and were ushered, with great ceremony but profound silence, into his
hall of council. They had appointed four of their number as deputies, to
present the petition, viz.: the Cardinal de Rohan, the Duke de Havré,
the Prince de Ligne, and the Marquis de Créqui. After a little while,
the deputies were summoned to the cabinet of the Regent. They entered,
leaving the assembled petitioners in a state of the greatest anxiety.
As time slowly wore away, and the evening advanced, the gloom of the
company increased. Several of the ladies prayed devoutly; the good
Princess of Armagnac told her beads.
The petition was received by the Regent with a most unpropitious aspect.
"In asking the pardon of the criminal," said he, "you display more zeal
for the house of Van Horn, than for the service of the king." The noble
deputies enforced the petition by every argument in their power. They
supplicated the Regent to consider that the infamous punishment in
question would reach not merely the person of the condemned, not
merely the house of Van Horn, but also the genealogies of princely
and illustrious families, in whose armorial bearings might be found
quarterings of this dishonored name.
"Gentlemen," replied the Regent, "it appears to me the disgrace consists
in the crime, rather than in the punishment."