Having partaken of a slight refreshment, which the solitary domestic
of the mansion set before him, Louis desired to be conducted to his
bed-chamber. The man opened a door at the further extremity of the
saloon, and the weary traveller followed into an apartment even more
desolate than the one he had left. The dull cold light of a winter
moon, shrouded in snow-clouds, gleamed through the mouldering remnants
of what had once been damask curtains. These perishing relics of
departed grandeur were all of furniture that presented itself to the
eye of Louis, as he looked around for a place of rest. At last, in a
distant recess deep in darkness, the candle he held in his hand shewed
a mass of something heaped together. He approached, and found his own
travelling palliasse on the floor, and his baggage so disposed, as to
supply the place of chair and table.
In recognizing even these poor necessaries to the repose he needed,
Louis cast not a thought on the comforts he did not see, but thanking
God for the good provided, stretched himself upon his hard bed, and
soon was wrapped in balmy slumber.
After a night of profound sleep, the bright smile of the awakened sun
played on his eye-lids, and starting from his pallet, with his usual
morning-spring of joy he hailed the brilliancy of the opened day. In an
apartment close to his chamber he found that luxury of the continent
(which even this deserted mansion retained), a bath, and having enjoyed
its refreshment, with spirits ready for whatever task might be assigned
him, he prepared to meet again his mysterious visitor.
On re-entering the saloon, the gloominess which had appalled him the
preceding evening was no longer there; it had disappeared before the
chaser of shadows, and he advanced to a window to see what evidence of
neighbourhood would present itself without.
A view, as novel as it was gay and picturesque, burst upon his sight.
Under the windows stretched a high balustraded terrace, with broad
stone-steps leading down to a garden intersected with parterres and
long vistas foliaged with glittering icicles. The ground was white with
snow, which had been falling all night, and nothing having tracked the
deserted walks, it lay in shining smoothness as far as the low wall
which bounded the garden. Beyond the parapet, trees of loftier growth
stretched their ample arms over a plain that banked the mighty waters
of the Danube, now arrested by the mightier hand of winter into a vast
substantial causeway.
At this early hour in the morning, and on that long line of ice, whose
limits were lost in the horizon, all Vienna and its surrounding country
seemed assembled. Carriages of various forms and colours elevated on
sledges, and filled by their owners of as various quality and habits,
swept along in every direction. Men and women mounted on scates,
darted past each other with the velocity of light; some with baskets
of merchandize on their heads, and others, simply wrapped in their
bear-skins, speeded forward on errands of business or of pleasure.
Many of the sledged carriages took the direction of a beautiful island
in the midst of the river. It was crowned with cedars, and every tree
of perpetual green; they parted their verdant ranks to give place to
a sloping glade, on whose smooth bosom stood a splendid but fantastic
mansion. A thousand strains of music pierced the distant air, while the
gay _traineaux_ advanced in succession before its gilded colonades.
Louis gazed and listened. How different was this unexpected, this
glittering scene, from the sombre-suited winters of Northumberland!
There, the black and sterile rocks frowned horrible over the frozen
stream, which lay in death-like stillness under their gloomy shade. But
yet that awful pause of nature was dear to his contemplative and happy
mind. It filled him with recollections of the gracious voice, which had
spoken the world into existence from the sterner solitude of chaos! And
then, when his mood for loneliness changed, he had only to quit his
meditations amongst these caverns of cold and silence, to emerge at
once into the warm, social circle of endearing kindred, and animating
friends!
While, with a fixed eye, he was thus musing on the present and the
past, Gerard entered the room, and placed a tray with breakfast on the
table. Louis enquired for Senor Castanos. The man answered, he was
engaged. "With whom?"
"I do not know."
"Then I am not to expect him at breakfast?"
"He went out at sun-rise."
Louis asked no more questions, seeing that all around him were under
the same law of la _Trappe_.
His lonely meal was soon dispatched; and as he found it impossible
to fasten his attention to a book, or even to writing to the friends
he loved, until he knew when he was to be removed from his strange
situation; he left the table, and returned to his contemplations at the
window. He was standing with folded arms, his eyes rambling over the
ever-varying scene on the river, and sometimes wishing to be one in the
animated groupe; when, hearing a step on the floor, he turned round,
and beheld his expected visitor.
He wore the same enveloping dress as before, and, as before, shook
aside the overhanging plumes of his hat as he advanced into the room.
Louis was recovered from the amazement into which the mystery of his
new guardian's address had thrown him on their first interview; but
he did not attempt to dispel the awe impressed by his deportment, and
his relation as the Baron de Ripperda's friend; and, therefore, he
greeted his re-appearance with a collected, but a profoundly respectful
demeanor.
The Sieur Ignatius approached him.
"I need not enquire of your health this morning: you look well and
cheerful; and these are signs of a constitution indispensable to the
fulfilment of your future duties."
Louis answered with a grateful smile, that he had to thank Heaven for a
vigorous frame, and for a destiny which, hitherto had not afforded him
an excuse for being otherwise than cheerful.
"The cheerfulness of a life passed in retirement," observed Ignatius,
"being the effect of active amusements rather than of active duties,
is habit and not principle; and must be re-moulded with stouter
materials, to stand the buffets of the world. Louis, you are called
from the happiness of self-enjoyment to that of self-neglect. You are
called upon to toil for mankind."
"Point but the way, Sir!" cried Louis, in a subdued but earnest voice;
"and I trust, you shall not find me turn from it."
"It is in all respects different from the one you have left. Fond old
age, and female partiality, have hitherto smoothed your path. In the
midst of this effeminacy, I know you have meditated on a manly life,
on the career of fame, its triumphs, and its crown. But between the
starting point and the goal, there is a wide abyss. The imagination of
visionary youth overleaps it: but, in fact, it must be trod with strong
unwearied feet; with wariness, privation, and danger." The eyes of
Louis, flashing the brave ardours of his heart, (and which he believed
were now to be summoned into licenced exercise,) gave the only answer
to the Sieur's remarks, but it was eloquent of the high expectations he
had raised.
"Young man," continued his austere monitor, "I come to lay open this
momentous pass to you; and, once entered, you are no longer your own.
You belong to mankind: you are devoted to labour for them:--And, above
all, to sacrifice the daintiness of a pampered body; the passions of
your soul; the affections of your heart; to the service of the country,
which was that of your ancestors, and to which your father is now
restored."
"I am ready, Sir," exclaimed Louis, "to take my post, be it where it
may, and I trust that I shall maintain it as becomes my father's son."
"At present," replied the Sieur, "it is within these walls."
Louis looked aghast. The animation of hope springing forward to
military distinction, faded from his countenance.--"Within these
walls!--How?--What can be done here?--I believed--I thought the army--"
This incoherent reply was suddenly arrested by the steady fixture of
Ignatius's eyes. A pause ensued, doubly painful to Louis, on account
of the shock his expectations had received, and because he had so
weakly betrayed it. With the tint of shame displacing the paleness of
disappointment, he stood before his father's friend, looking on the
ground; at last the Sieur spoke.
"What army do you speak of?"
With encreased embarrassment, Louis replied: "the Spanish army; that
which the Marquis Santa Cruz gave my uncle to understand was soon to
march against Austria, to compel the Emperor to fulfil his broken
treaties."
"And to meet that army in the heart of the Austrian capital," said
Ignatius, "you thought was the object of your present summons?"
Unable to speak, from a humiliating consciousness of absurdity, Louis
coloured a deeper scarlet, and again cast his eyes to the ground.
"No," continued the Sieur, "there are ways of forcing sovereigns to do
their duties, besides that which the sword commands. If it will sooth
your disappointment, to think that you labour in one of these, believe
what you wish, and rest satisfied."
"I am satisfied," returned Louis, "and ready to be confined within
these walls, at whatever employment, and for whatever time, my father
may chuse to dictate."
"Follow me."
As Ignatius pronounced this command, he opened the saloon door, and
crossing the gallery, stopped before another door at its extremity.
He unlocked it; and Louis, who had obeyed his peremptory summons,
followed him into a room furnished with an escritoire, and a large
table covered with implements for writing.
"This, Louis de Montemar, is your post," cried the Sieur, closing the
door and bolting it. "Here you must labour for Spain and your own
destiny; and here," added he, in a decisive voice; "you must take an
oath of inviolable secrecy, that neither bribery of wealth, honours,
nor beauty; nor threats of ruin, torments, nor of death; shall ever
induce you to betray what may be confided to you in this chamber."
Appalled at this demand, Louis did not answer. The Sieur examined his
changing countenance.
"You cannot hesitate to give me this pledge of honour!"
"Honour does not need such a pledge," replied Louis, turning on him the
assured look of conscious worth; "trust me, and you shall find, that
in no case where honour enjoins silence, death itself can compel me to
speak."