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."