The picture which my distracted fancy thus set before the eye of my
mind, was not altogether verified in the event. After a thousand
fruitless inquiries and perquisitions, I found, to my utter
astonishment, that Charles, arresting his career at the town of
Fribourg, had returned upon his steps, and sought a second time the
metropolis of Austrian Hungary. This was of the class of those events
which we sometimes meet with in the world, that baffle all calculation,
and strike us like magic, or like madness, in their authors.
I had nothing to do, as I conceived, on this occasion, but to follow
the example of my son, and like him to resume the route of Presburg.
I yet hoped to witness, if not to co-operate in, the reconciliation
of Charles and Pandora. My spirits in this respect were revived, and
my prospects made brighter, by the thoughts that these virtuous and
meritorious lovers were at last likely to be once again inclosed within
the cincture of the same city. Add to which, my Venetian confederate
had not yet made his appearance at Presburg; and not only was I under
engagements to give him the meeting there, but it was also clear
that his errand could not be brought to its proper close without my
assistance.
I once more entered the city to which Pandora owed her birth. Charles
de Damville had preceded my arrival several days. I should without
delay have repaired to his apartments, but that I found at my own
lodgings a letter from Benedetto Cabriera of Venice, informing me that
he was now in Presburg, and to avoid all cause for suspicion, had taken
up his residence in a remote quarter of the town. From the enquiries
I made, I became satisfied that my son had in some degree resumed
his usual occupations, and that there was no appearance of his again
immediately quitting the metropolis. I therefore felt my transaction
with Cabriera more urgent than an immediate conference with Charles.
Though I had sought that conference with earnest expedition, yet I
dreaded it. It might require the maturest consideration and the nicest
management, to render it effectual for the purposes I sought. I found
from certain intelligence that Damville and Pandora had yet had no
explanation with each other. I therefore regarded my exertions for that
purpose as a final effort; and I was willing that every thing should be
in train, and the portion of Pandora fully adjusted, before I entered
upon that interesting scene. With Cabriera I had little difficulty. The
documents and evidences of his tale we had concerted at Venice; and I
presently found that he told his story so plausibly, and supported it
so consistently, that it was admitted by every one without the smallest
suspicion.
No sooner had Cabriera opened his business to the parties to whom the
cognisance of it most properly belonged, than I once more presented
myself to the beautiful and engaging niece of Nadasti. The instant I
entered her apartment, I was shocked with the extreme change of her
personal appearance. All the airiness, alertness and vivacity, that
had once so exquisitely adorned her, were gone. The roses in her cheek
were faded, and had given place to a delicate, but sickly paleness.
Her arms, though always what is called white, had before been round,
and had been distinguished by the purest hue of health. They were
now emaciated, skinny, and colourless. Her eyes were hollow, and
her eyelids inflamed with weeping. All these changes had taken place
in about five weeks that had elapsed since I saw her last. I was so
struck with the sight, that I involuntarily started, and could scarcely
command myself enough to refrain from tears. It was plain that she
carried an arrow in her bosom, which one hand only in the universe
could extract with safety. As I approached, she raised her lovely head
that had been depressed with grief, and lifted her white arms with an
expression of despair.
“Come nearer, my sweet Henry,” said she, “I rejoice to see you; though
you have proved my worst enemy, the destroyer of my peace. But your
intentions, my kind boy, my brother, for such I will still call you,
have always been good and innocent. But, ah, Henry, you have deluded
me; you urged me to banish despair; and every day I see more reason to
despair.”
I asked if she had not seen the chevalier since his return to Presburg.
“It were better for me,” replied Pandora, “if I had not seen him. What
has really happened, is worse than if I had been denied to see him. I
have met him every day in the apartments of my aunt. To an indifferent
eye it would have appeared as if he neither sought nor avoided me. He
carries himself towards me with a cold and constrained civility. But he
neither demands an interview, nor allows me the opportunity to utter a
word to him in private. Oh, D’Aubigny, I see too well that I have lost
him for ever. When he fled my presence, when he resolved to seek some
distant region, cruel as that conduct was, it convinced me that I was
of some importance to him. But now he passes by me in stern neglect;
he has utterly driven me from his heart. Indeed, my brother, this last
blow is too much; I feel that I shall never recover it.”
“And does the chevalier,” cried I, “appear at his ease? Does he exhibit
the wonted symptoms of his health and triumphant spirit?”
“Away; too pleasing deluder!” replied Pandora. “Cheat me not with false
hopes! flatter me not with unreal expectations! Damville does not
appear to be well or happy. But you have deceived me too much; the
disappointments that you prepared for me are too excruciating. I feel
now at no time so high a degree of gloomy satisfaction and composure,
as when I press despair firmly to my breast.
“But you, Henry,” continued she, “are probably uninformed of my
last and severest misfortune. I had a great uncle in the list of
the adventurers that achieved the conquest of Peru; he has died,
and unexpectedly bequeathed me a fortune, that sets the portionless
Pandora upon a level with the wealthy heiresses of the great palatine
himself. For a long time want of fortune was the only obstacle that
stood between me and all my hopes of happiness. Now that poverty is no
longer an evil to me, and wealth no longer desirable, I have obtained
this unwelcome acquisition. You can have no conception how painful a
sensation is produced by this mockery, the gift of ample possessions to
the votary of despair.”
I endeavoured somewhat to encourage Pandora; but she obstinately
rejected my soothings. I was the less importunate on this subject,
as, since the return of my son, I persisted to persuade myself that I
should soon have something more substantial to offer her on his part,
than mere guesses and conjectures. The day after this conversation, I
boldly sought the presence of the chevalier. Till then, I had, since
our return to Presburg, avoided to meet him. I now resolved to force
from him a hearing; to assure him, with the most solemn asseverations,
of my own innocence, and the constancy of his mistress; to represent to
him in how eminent a degree the newly acquired estate of Pandora was
calculated to facilitate their mutual wishes; and finally, to offer him
any pledge he should desire of the sincerity of my declarations, even
to the banishing myself from the presence and intercourse of him and
the lovely Pandora for ever.
When I saw my son, his appearance and air advanced a forcible claim
on my compassion. I will not now describe them. Suffice it, that they
completely proved, how true was the sympathy, even to the minutest
particulars, between him and his mistress. The difference was only
in kind, and not in degree: hers a defenceless, a delicate and truly
feminine grief; while his, amidst all its aggravations, had something
in it of the champion and the hero. When he felt most severely, he
seemed to disdain himself for what he felt; and, though his struggles
were excruciating, he resolutely smoothed his manly front, and the
loftiness of his spirit produced on his cheek a generous and a settled
blush.
I have just said that I had resolved to force from him a hearing. I was
mistaken in my calculations on this point. Dejected as his habits had
lately been, he no sooner saw me, than he advanced towards me with a
fierce and imperative demeanour, that absolutely startled me.
“How is it, man!” cried he, “that you are at this hour out of custody?”
“Custody!” interdicted and astonished, repeated I.
“Yes, custody! If such a wretch as thou art, be permitted to go at
large, what human institution, what human possessions, shall ever be
secure?”
“Good God,” said I, “what am I to understand by your present rage?
I know that you have considered me as your personal enemy and the
underminer of your happiness. But, when first you accused me of this
crime, you treated me in a manner less violent and disdainful than that
which you now employ.”
“I brook not to explain. Read that letter. I received it at Fribourg.
That letter brought me back from the confines of France to the spot
where now we meet.”
I took up the letter. Its contents were nearly as follow:--
LETTER.
“My dear Friend,--You will permit me to call you so, since to
me, and me only, you have recently thought proper to confide
your projects, and your unfortunate passion for the charming
Pandora. What you related to me on the subject convinced me
how much she was unworthy of your love, and how basely she has
conducted herself towards you. Yet you will yourself feel some
compassion for her, when you learn who it is upon whom she
has bestowed this unmerited preference. Know then that this
wretched D’Aubigny is no other than the notorious Chatillon,
the infamous impostor, who, by his machinations about a
year ago preserved the Turkish provinces of Hungary from
being conquered by the christian arms. The man is moreover a
magician, the pretended or real possessor of the philosopher’s
stone. He is therefore doubly worthy of death, first as a
traitor, the abettor and comforter of the common enemy of the
christian faith, and, secondly, as a dealer in the black art,
and a man notoriously sold and delivered over to the devil.
“I have received this information from the most unquestionable
authority. A soldier in my old corps, who has lately escaped
from a Turkish prison, no sooner saw him than he identified
his person. I happened to be near the fellow at the moment,
when, by an unexpected exclamation, he betrayed his discovery.
It immediately struck me that the circumstance might be of
importance to your interests; and, therefore, taking the
soldier aside, I charged him not to mention to any one what
he had observed. To render his secrecy the more secure, I
have since removed him to a garrison at some distance from
Presburg; and I have myself mentioned the circumstance to no
living creature, that I might first receive your instructions
on the subject, and act in all respects concerning it as you
shall judge proper. The blackness of the character of the
man sets all exaggeration at defiance. This very individual,
whom you liberated from the bowels of the earth, who by the
most treacherous arts won your confidence, and upon whom you
lavishly heaped every imaginable distinction, was all the while
conscious to himself, that he was the character that of all
that live you hated most; in one word, the renegado Chatillon.
He acted consistently with his preceding conduct and his recent
disingenuousness, when he seduced from you the affections of
the woman of your choice.
“I am concerned to add, that, on the very day that I made
this discovery, this Chatillon D’Aubigny disappeared from
Presburg, nor can I by any effort learn whither he is gone. It
is impossible he should have been informed by any human means
of the detection that had happened. But indeed it is vain
to attempt to form any reasonable conjecture, respecting a
character so mysterious and inexplicable.
“Your devoted friend,
“ANDREW, count of BATHORI.”
“Well, sir,” seeing I had finished the perusal, “and what have you now
to allege? When I saw you simply as the favoured lover of Pandora,
however treacherous and dishonourable I might deem your conduct towards
me, I quitted the field. I did not trust myself to be a judge in my
own cause. I did not confide in my estimate of your unworthiness,
when I was myself wholly concerned. I had some time before received
an invitation from the duke d’Aumale, who was collecting a number of
generous and high-spirited nobles to accompany Mary queen of Scots to
the barbarous fields of her native realm. I at first declined, I now
accepted, the invitation; I set out for Paris to join him. I found
that letter waiting my arrival at Fribourg, and I returned. Deeply as
Pandora has sunk in my esteem, I determined I would never allow her to
be thrown away upon the infamous Chatillon.
“You haunt my steps. I heard of you again and again on my route as
I returned from Fribourg. I arrive at Presburg, and presently after
you again make your appearance. What further villanies have you to
act? What new treacheries have you devised against me? This morning I
consented to the representations of count Bathori, and agreed that you
should be delivered up to justice. Why then are you not in custody?
“When I consider the mystery and inscrutableness of your character,
I am lost in conjecture. You are said to be a magician, a dealer in
the unhallowed secrets of alchymy and the _elixir vitæ_. In cases
like this, all the ordinary rules of human sagacity and prudence are
superseded, the wisest man is a fool, and the noblest spirit feels the
very ground he stood on struck from under his feet. How can I know
that the seduction of Pandora’s affections is not owing to magical
incantations, who in that case is rather an object for compassion than
for censure? How can I tell that the fraternal resemblance borne by
your features to my own, and the sudden and ardent partiality that
rose in my breast when first I saw you, have not been produced by the
most detested arts? Magic dissolves the whole principle and arrangement
of human action, subverts all generous enthusiasm and dignity, and
renders life itself loathsome and intolerable.
“This is to me the most painful of all subjects. I had a father whom
I affectionately loved: he became the dupe of these infernal secrets.
I had a mother, the paragon of the creation: that father murdered
her. All the anguish I ever felt, has derived its source from alchymy
and magic. While the infamous Chatillon thus stands before me, I feel
all the long-forgotten wounds of my heart new opened, and the blood
bursting afresh from every vein. I have rested, and been at peace; and
now the red and venomed plague, that tarnished the years of my opening
youth, returns to blast me. Begone, infamous, thrice-damned villain!
and let me never see thee more!
“Wretch that you are!” continued Charles; for he saw me motioning to
withdraw,--I felt that all further expostulation and discussion on
my part was useless,--“wretch that you are! what is it that you are
about to do? Think no to escape my vengeance! In the midst of all the
tumultuous passions you waken in my breast, I still feel in myself the
soldier and the man of honour. I am not a thief-taker or a bailiff.
You are within my power, and that is your present protection. I will
not now deliver you up to the justice of the state, but will hurl
against you my personal defiance. I am willing to meet you man to man:
I thirst to encounter you as my worst and most mortal foe, who has
perpetrated against me the basest injuries, and excited in my bosom the
most hateful sensations. Though you were fenced with all the legions of
hell, I fear you not; and seeing that, after all that is past, you have
once again intruded into my presence, I here bind myself by all that is
sacred to pursue you to the death.”
What could I answer to such an attack? I saw at once that the case,
as to all future harmony between me and my son was desperate and
irremediable. What hope could I entertain further? What had hitherto
been the result of our ill-fated intercourse? Every offence and
prejudice that can gall the human mind had been brought forward in it
in turn. I had wounded Damville in the most sensible point of private
life, and had blasted his hopes there where he stored them all. I had
offended his most rooted political prepossessions, by aiding the Turk,
and feeding a nation that perished with hunger. I was an equivocal
character, assuming different names, and wandering over the world with
different pretences. Last of all, I had revived in his mind the images
of his father and his mother,--all that had once been most dear, and
now was most painful, to his recollection; and had tortured his fancy
with nameless horrors. These sentiments could never be removed. All the
explanations in the world could never reconcile me to his mind; and I
felt that I had that within, which, in what was to come, as it had in
what was past, must for ever annihilate all confidence between us. At
once therefore I accepted his challenge, arranged with him the terms of
a hostile encounter on the following morning, and immediately after bid
adieu to Presburg, and to the sight of every soul contained within its
walls, for ever.
This is, I powerfully feel, the last adventure that I shall ever have
the courage to commit to writing. A few minutes more, and I will lay
down my pen, and resolve in the most solemn and sacred manner never to
compose another line. Indeed, all other adventures must necessarily
be frigid and uninteresting, compared with that which I have now
described. Great God, what a fate was mine! Anxious as I had been to
prove myself in the most momentous respects the benefactor of my son,
dismissing all other thoughts and cares from my mind, journeying with
this sole object in view, from Presburg to Venice, and from Venice to
Presburg, from Hungary to the banks of the Rhine, and from the banks of
the Rhine back again to Hungary,--the whole scene was now terminated
by a declaration on his part, that nothing could appease the animosity
he cherished against me, short of rioting in the blood of his father’s
heart. I was reduced to the necessity either of lifting my sword
against my son, of running myself upon the point of his weapon, or of
forfeiting the engagement between us, and suffering him to brand me as
a coward in the face of Christendom. I mention not this, because the
variety of objects of choice produced in me the slightest hesitation.
Weary as I was of life, I could cheerfully have consented to die, but
not to stain the sword of Charles de Damville with my vital blood. I
prevented him from being the assassin of his father’s life; I could
not prevent him from being the assassin of his father’s character. He
was assiduous and indefatigable in spreading against me the blackest
invectives, which he regarded as the most unerring truths. All Hungary
has resounded for thirty years with the atrocities of the sieur de
Chatillon; what is here recorded contains the whole and unvarnished
truth on the subject. This narrative however shall never see the light,
till the melancholy hour when Charles de Damville shall be no more.
Yet in the midst of the anguish, the disappointment of every cherished
hope, which rends my soul, I have one consolation, and that an
invaluable one, in the virtues, the glory, and the happiness of my
son. I said I would forget every gratification and sentiment of my own
in him; I am now more than ever instigated to do so. When I quitted
Presburg, I left Cabriera behind me in that city, and I took care to
obtain a parting interview with him. He afterwards gave me the meeting,
as we then concerted, at Trieste in the duchy of Carniola. It happened,
as I had flattered myself the event would prove, that, the visible
source of umbrage being removed, Charles and Pandora in no long time
came to a mutual understanding, and were finally made happy in each
other. I had been the fortunate means of supplying to this excellent
and incomparable creature the only defect under which she laboured,
a want of fortune; her uncle, having no longer a pretence to oppose
their mutual passion, united their hands; and, at the time of which I
am speaking, they were regarded as the most graceful and accomplished
couple in the whole Hungarian dominions. The chevalier de Damville
is considered in that country as the great bulwark of the Christian
frontier, and the most generous and illustrious pupil in the school of
the Bayards and the Scanderbegs. Cabriera, worn out with years and
fatigues, but still grasping and avaricious to his latest hour, expired
in my arms in the city of Trieste; and by his death yielded me this
contentment, that henceforth the only obvious means for detecting my
beneficent fraud in securing the dower of Pandora was for ever removed.
That the reader may enter the more fully into my sentiment of
congratulation upon the happiness of my son, and rise from the perusal
of my narrative with a more soothing and pleasurable sensation, I will
here shortly recapitulate the good qualities that had been unfolded
in this truly extraordinary young man from his earliest infancy.
He was a child, only nine years of age, at the period of the truly
affecting and exemplary behaviour the reader may remember him to have
displayed, while I was at Paris squandering the property of my family
at the gaming-table. In the alienation of mind produced in me by
that dreadful catastrophe, he was my constant attendant, my careful
nurse, and my affectionate friend. When, twelve months after, we were
driven by our calamities out of Switzerland, and I lay extended to
all human appearance on the bed of death, Charles was the comforter
of his mother, the friend of his sisters, and even, young as he was,
contributed to the maintenance of my starving family by the labour
of his infant hands. At Dresden, as yet no more than seventeen years
of age, he was assailed by one of the severest trials with which the
mind of man can in any case be beset. But he hesitated not a moment.
Obliged to choose between poverty and innocence, with the sacrifice
of all his habitudes, and the loss of every friend, on the one side,
and wealth, new to his enjoyment, with ignominy or an equivocal
character, on the other, his determination was instant and unalterable.
Cast, at so immature an age, alone and portionless, upon the world,
he almost immediately, by his gallantry, his winning qualities,
and his virtues, gained to himself a friend in one of the greatest
captains of the age. Unaided by the brilliancy of family or fortune,
he acquired the character of the bravest soldier in Hungary, where
all were brave. This last trial, to which I had been the undesigning
means of subjecting him, was none of the least arduous. Love often
entails imbecility on the noblest of mankind: but Charles surmounted
the most perilous attacks of this all-conquering passion. When he
thought Pandora unworthy, he tore himself from her, and would not
admit a struggle. When he believed she loved another, he disdained to
claim a heart that seemed alienated from him, and himself joined the
hands of his mistress and his rival. He might have died; he could not
disgrace himself. I was the hero’s father!--but no! I am not blinded
by paternal partiality;--but no! he was indeed what I thought him, as
near the climax of dignity and virtue as the frailty of our nature will
admit. His virtue was at length crowned with the most enviable reward
the earth has to boast,--the faithful attachment of a noble-minded
and accomplished woman. I am happy to close my eventful and somewhat
melancholy story with so pleasing a termination. Whatever may have
been the result of my personal experience of human life, I can never
recollect the fate of Charles and Pandora without confessing with
exultation, that this busy and anxious world of ours yet contains
something in its stores that is worth living for.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] To this story, in the book from which I have quoted it, is
subjoined the following reference:--“_Mémoires Historiques_, 1687,
tom. i. p. 365.” Being desirous of giving my extract from the oldest
authority, I caused the British Museum, and the libraries of Oxford and
Cambridge, to be searched for this publication, but in vain. The story
and the reference are, not improbably, both of them the fictions of the
English writer.
[2] Johnson’s Occasional Prologue on Garrick’s assuming the management
of Drury-lane Theatre.
[3] Charles V.
[4] Henry VIII.
[5] Antonio de Leyva.
[6] The constable of Bourbon.
[7] Mistresses of Francis I.
[8] The battle of Cerisolles.
[9] This incident is told, nearly in the words of St. Leon, by Thuanus,
_Historiæ Sui Temporis_, _lib._ 2. _cap._ 14.
LONDON:
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