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.