The official transfers were soon made. Monteleone received the diploma
of _Chargé des Affaires_. The Emperor and Empress refused the usual
forms of admitting the recalled minister to a parting audience; and
not a man, Spaniard, nor Austrian, appeared within the gates of the
_Palais d'Espagne_, to pay a farewell compliment, to the son of their
benefactor and friend.
The finger of royal disgrace was on him; and all fled the spot on which
it lay. Solitude was around his lately crowded courts; silence in every
room; and when business took him abroad, avoidance met him in every
passing countenance. The ladies, who had opened their houses to him,
now shut up their daughters till he had left the city; but few needed
the precaution; for with his fortunes had vanished the most powerful
charms, even of Louis de Montemar. This mortification, however, was
spared him; as in the lofty consciousness of his own integrity, and
as high a disdain of the injustice he had received, he went no where
to solicit compassion nor propitiate candour. But had he known their
present sentiments, the assurance that Countess Altheim breathed the
same, would have been sufficient in his eyes to transform the deed of
banishment to one of welcome liberty. In the midst of all this gloom of
misery, his freedom from her, shone like a star in the dark hemisphere,
that promised night was not to remain for ever.
When his lonely carriage passed the barrier, (for all his state
attendants were left to the new ambassador,) he threw himself back, and
exclaimed. "How did I enter you, proud, ungrateful city? Full of hope,
and enterprise, and honour! How do I quit you? Bereft by you of all!
Ruined, dishonoured, desolate!"
The barb was in his heart. It was there, in the image of Wharton;
and it corroded with a slow and deadly poison. Still as he journeyed
forward, and compared events with time, he could not but feel some
satisfaction, when he found by calculation, that had he been weak
enough to yield to the proposal he had rejected, and accepted the
discovery of the authors of this vast overthrow, by the surrender
of his innocence; it would still have been too late to prevent his
father's fall in Spain. The Empress had shewn herself too entirely
prejudiced, to have been affected by any document he could have
presented. And while he thought on this, with gratitude to heaven for
his firmness; he conceived a deeper horror of the friend, who might
have seduced him to such guilt, and left him no other payment than
unavailing remorse, and deserved infamy. In his own person, he was now
convinced of the truth of his father's charge against this once beloved
Wharton. That _he could bereave, but not bestow_! In the garden of the
Chateau, he had promised a preservation he could not have performed;
on the same spot he had threatened a vengeance he had now taken!
Louis attributed all Elizabeth's accusations to the resentment of his
treacherous friend; and by that act considered himself despoiled by
Wharton of all that was most dear to him.
"I will forget him!" cried he to himself, "my honoured father, I come
to thee, to stand by thee alone! To uphold and cheer thee! To uphold
and cheer myself, with the conviction that I yet possess thee! To glory
in the virtue that has given thee the fate of Aristides!"
In a pass of the Appenines, Louis's solitary vehicle was met by a
courier from Spain. He brought a credential from Martini, which
announced him as his brother Lorenzo, who had lately been received
by Ripperda into his household in the quality of a page. The young
man came full speed, to meet the recalled minister; and to hasten his
arrival at Madrid; where the Duke lay, in a state to hear no other
counsellor, to receive no other comfort.
Lorenzo got into the carriage with his master's son; and detailed the
particulars of his mission, as they proceeded rapidly to Genoa. Louis
listened to the narrative with unshrinking fortitude.
Immediately on Ripperda's return from Vienna, the King had published
an edict, that a revision of all sentences, and a review of all
transactions by judges, governors, collectors, and every other kind
of royal officers, should be subjected to the cognizance of the Duke
of Ripperda. This immense accession of authority put the individual
interest of every man in Spain into his hands; and made him no less
terrible in the city and provinces, than formidable to the grandees,
and an object of jealousy to the King's sons. In short, he was such a
minister, as never had been seen before; a kind of Vicar-general, whose
power wanted nothing of supreme sovereignty, but the permanency of a
throne.
Lorenzo observed, that his brother had owned to him, that, from the
Duke's free exercise of one branch of this extensive authority, he had
foreseen a rupture between his master and the majority of the Spanish
nobility. Since his return from Vienna, his manner to them, and to
society at large, was completely changed. He no longer conciliated, but
compelled. He summoned the greatest and most powerful of the grandees
before his tribunal, whether the appeal came from prince or peasant;
and did such strict justice, that none could reproach, though all
murmured: the great, for being made to feel there was a power above
their wills; and the little, that the laws of Spain should be dispensed
by a man who had been born out of her dominions. While his home policy
was good, and efficient; and his outward politics were only held in the
balance, by the tergiversation of Austria, there were yet men in the
cabinet who privately ridiculed his plans as a mere political romance.
And he found it so. For what is speculatively right, is generally
practically wrong. Men's probable actions are calculated by the law of
reason; but their performance is usually the result of caprice.
In the midst of the universal discontent excited by the agents of his
numerous rivals and enemies, the main mine was sprung, and Ripperda's
fortunes received their final blow. The King and Queen of Spain were
made to believe the most contradictory, preposterous, and terrible
things of his private intentions. And, in one hour, he received three
successive messages from the King, to inform him, that his offices in
the state, the army, and the commercial interests of his country, were
taken from him. That Grimaldo, the Marquis de Castellor, and the Count
de Paz, filled his places; and that a courier was dispatched to Vienna,
to recall his son.
Lorenzo related, that the intelligence of the first messenger, which
took from him the office of prime minister, was delivered in such a
manner as to excite so unguarded an indignation in the Duke, that
he extended his reproaches on his enemies, even to the King; and in
the tempest of his wrath, uttered things of His Majesty, the report
of which doubly incensed the Monarch and his Queen. This messenger
was Baptista Orendayn, the nephew of the Count de Paz. The new
ministers were well aware of his insidious powers to insult and to
betray, and they selected him to convey their triumph to the Duke.
Ripperda, having exhausted himself under the influence of the young
sycophant's irritating sympathy, remained in gloomy silence during the
communications of the two succeeding messengers. When they were all
departed from him, he sat for an hour motionless, in intense thought,
with his hands clasped in each other, and his eyes fixed on the floor.
Martini passed to and fro in the room, without notice from his master.
At last the Duke suddenly started up, as one out of a trance.
"I will go to the Queen!" cried he.
It was now about nine o'clock, in a fine autumnal evening. He directed
his carriage to the _Buen Retiro_. He arrived, but was refused
admittance. He returned to his palace, and called for his secretary;
but no secretary was to be found. Not one of the officers of any of his
late numerous offices were now in attendance. All were fled with the
stream of power; and nothing but amazed and alarmed family domestics,
were seen gliding about the galleries, in silence and dismay.
Castanos, however, presented himself; and by him Ripperda wrote to
his son and the Empress, and dispatched him to Vienna: but Monteleone
encountered him on the way. He soon found the old Spaniard had a price;
and having purchased the perusal of the packet, suffered the son's
hurried billet to pass; but the resistless appeal to Elizabeth he
committed to the flames.
While Ripperda was writing other letters, his fixed attention was at
last diverted, by an unusual sort of tumult in the square before his
palace. He was accustomed, at his return, or issuing from his gates,
to be hailed and lackied by the acclamations of the populace. His
largesses were abundant, and the uproar of vehement thanksgiving, was
ever on the watch from the venal multitude. But, for the purpose of the
time, the dole was now doubled at the porches of the new ministers:
and the same mob, who, four-and-twenty hours before had rent the air
with shouts of _long live the great Duke Ripperda!_ now tore their
lungs with curses on his name, and threats of vengeance for the ruin of
Spain.
The madness of the people seemed to grow on their own violence; and
the fury with which they assailed his gates with flambeaux, clubs
and hatchets, left little doubt that they meant to fire the palace,
and massacre its inhabitants. Martini urged his master to withdraw
privately from the danger.
"What?" cried Ripperda, "fly like a coward and a criminal before the
ungrateful rabble of Madrid? Never; though their king were at their
head, to urge the murder of their benefactor. I am dispossessed, but am
not fallen; and that, myself will shew them."
As he spoke, he rushed towards the open balcony, which projected over
the great gate, and extended his arm to the people, in the act to
speak. The blazing lights in the apartment behind him, and the broad
glare from the torches beneath, shewed in a moment the noble figure of
the Duke, and his commanding gesture.
Struck with surprise, the dead silence of profound awe, for an instant
stilled the whole assembly. But before the big words of vehement
indignation could burst from the lips of Ripperda, a watchful emissary
of his enemies fired a carabine direct at the balcony. Aggression
once committed, every restraint of reverence and shame were cast
away; and others, near the assassin, echoed his cry of "death to the
heretic!"--Martini threw his arms around his master, and dragging him
within the balcony, forcibly shut the doors. The Duke turned on him a
look of unutterable meaning. "You would be more in fashion," cried
he, "if you stabbed your patron! Do it, Martini, and spare me from the
knives of that ungrateful mob!"
Martini urged his lord, on the only plea to which he would now listen;
to save himself for future vengeance. His carriage was brought round to
a private door, in a back street; and Ripperda was at last persuaded to
enter it. But there was a spy in the house, who informed his enemies of
what was done; and before the vehicle, which contained only the Duke
and Martini, could pass into the second street towards Segovia, it was
met by the howling populace, and surrounded. The windows and doors were
quickly beaten in; and Martini, who had hastily covered his livery with
one of his master's cloaks, was dragged out, amidst the imprecations
of his determined murderers. Ripperda would not tamely witness the
sacrifice of his faithful servant; and with a pistol, with which he
had armed himself, shot the man who had seized Martini, through the
head. He then snatched the fellow pistol from his belt, and fired it,
but without effect, upon the ruffians who threw themselves upon him.
He heard Martini groan under his feet, as he himself seemed to grapple
with a hundred miscreants, in the last struggles for his life.
But a shield was yet held over the head of Ripperda. The tumult
increased in the rear, with the clattering of horses; and, the cries of
the mob; as they fled in terror before the gleaming swords of several
horsemen, who pressed towards the carriage. Ripperda had already
received several flesh wounds, when the stroke of his deliverer's sabre
beat down the arm that held the last weapon that was aimed against him;
a huge rough hanger, in the hands of a pardoned galley-slave,--who
thus struck at the man whose chief offence was resistance to oppression!
His defenders sufficiently dispersed the mob, to allow their leader to
dismount; and advancing to Ripperda, who had extricated himself from
the writhing limbs of the wounded wretches beneath him; "Duke," said
he, "follow me, and these horsemen shall guard you to safety."
Ripperda, at the same moment, felt a hand on his garment; and, in
the next, Martini bruised and bleeding, had drawn himself from under
the shattered carriage, whither his enemies had cast him. He raised
himself, and stood by the side of his master. The horsemen drew around
the group; and galloping before it, made a clear way amongst the
flying populace, till they conducted Ripperda to the side of a plain
travelling carriage.
Their leader, in a suppressed voice, requested the fallen statesman to
enter it. Suspicion of some refined species of treachery glanced upon
his mind. By a feigned rescue, he might be betrayed to an interminable
captivity!
"To what asylum would that carriage convey me?" demanded he, in a tone
that intimated his doubts.
"To the honour of an open enemy," was the reply; "I am Duke Wharton!"
At this part of Lorenzo's narrative, a cry, unutterable in words, burst
from the engloomed but steadfast bosom of his auditor. It was the light
breaking upon chaos! Regardless of the presence of the Italian, he
fervently clasped his hands together, and inwardly exclaimed:--
"I thank thee, my God, for this!" Then covering his face, he gave way
to the balm of tears.
Lorenzo gazed on him with sympathy, and wept also; but it was under a
belief that the young Marquis was thus powerfully affected, by the
simple fact of his father's rescue. The amiable page knew not that
it was for the rescue of all his future fellowship with man. The sun
was again in the heavens to Louis, in the fidelity of Wharton; in the
generous revenge he had taken of both son and father.
Strange, inconsistent, noble, erring Wharton! The good was so blended
in thee with the ill, that the soul of affection hovered about thy
erratic steps, with the watchful tenacity of a guardian angel.
"Oh," cried Louis to himself, "the germs of the tree of life are in
that noble, disinterested heart! He has saved my father; and I may weep
upon his bosom again!"
The happy agitation of Louis was so great; so pre-eminently did
he prize the real character of the beings he loved, before their
appendages of fame or power; that it was with an upraised countenance,
and an open eye, he listened to the remainder of Lorenzo's narrative.
Ripperda no longer hesitated to step into the carriage of his
preserver. Wharton made the bruised Martini enter also; and
accompanying them himself, the voiture set off, escorted by his
servants.
The whole party remained silent for some minutes. Ripperda was the
first that broke the pause.
"Duke Wharton," said he, "you have at last accomplished your object!
The _proudest man in Christendom_ has found no friend in his extremest
necessity, but you his bitterest enemy! This is not a time in which I
can express my sense of the obligation you have laid upon me. You have
saved my life; you must now save my honour. One of the treasons alleged
against me, is collusion with you. If I seek refuge at your lodgings,
I shall confirm the falsehood of my slanderers: and I will perish,
perish by their bullets or their daggers; rather than yield them the
advantage of witnessing one of their perjuries, by a dubious action of
my own!"
Wharton approved of this caution; and, observing that the Duke's
villa at Segovia, would now be as unsafe as his palace at Madrid; he
proposed to him the bold measure of proving his sincerity to the house
of Brunswick, by throwing himself at once on the protection of General
Stanhope, the British Ambassador in Spain. Ripperda saw the advantage
of this suggestion; and the carriage was turned towards the residence
of this gentleman, which was a mile out of the city, on the road to St.
Ildefonso.
On arriving there, the Ambassador was from home; but Ripperda did
not hesitate to assume the rights of hospitality at the house of the
representative of a sovereign, to whose legal accession to the throne
of England, he had obtained the acknowledgement of half Europe.
Wharton went in with his companions. And while some of the servants
were gone to arouze the medical attendants of the English Ambassador,
to attend on the wounds of his guest, the two Dukes remained in private
conference for half an hour. When Wharton withdrew, Martini, who sat
in the anti-room, remarked that his countenance was clouded and even
stern;--but he smiled when he passed him; and bade him take care of his
noble master, for in his fidelity rested the fate of "Cæsar and his
fortunes!"
General Stanhope arrived a few hours after the departure of the English
Duke, (whose name had not been mentioned in the house;) and was not
less surprised than perplexed at finding who had claimed his sanctuary.
The hurts of Ripperda, as well as those of his servant, had been found
sufficiently deep, to authorize the surgeons in recommending immediate
repose; but the Duke would not hear of any rest for himself, until he
had seen the Ambassador. When Stanhope entered to him, he found his
guest lying on a sofa, in a high state of fever, both from his wounds
and agitation. Ripperda rose at his appearance, and in the name of
honour, and the privileges of his station, claimed his protection from
the immediate attack of his political enemies.
What more passed between his master and the Ambassador, Lorenzo could
give no account; only, that General Stanhope re-ordered his carriage
as soon as he left the chamber of his guest, which was then within an
hour of day-break. He set off for Madrid, and did not return till the
morning was far advanced. He was then closeted with Ripperda for two
hours; and Martini heard the voice of his master very high. However, it
appeared, he was to remain unmolested in the house of the Ambassador;
though it was immediately surrounded by a Spanish Guard. The bustle of
these proceedings proclaimed the asylum of the Duke; and Lorenzo, who
had only arrived that day from the Segovian villa, (when, to his great
consternation he found the house at Madrid deserted by the servants,
and its bureaus ransacked by the police;) lost no time in seeking his
brother and persecuted master, in their reputed sanctuary.
The Duke saw him; and while he walked the room; for the perturbation of
his mind, would not permit him to take the repose his wounds demanded;
he told him to go instantly to meet his son.
"You will find him," said he, "some where between this and Vienna.
Describe to him what you have heard and seen. My pen would consume the
paper, should I attempt to write my injuries! Tell him, that my life
has been assailed by those who now sit in my seat!--Not by their own
coward hands:--They spirit up the rabble to do their bloody work,
that they may throw my murder on the indignation of the people! There,
however, my fortune baffled them. Now, they insult my protector: they
demand his promise, that I shall not escape; and when that is given,
they set guards on his house, as if he were a gaoler, and I a prisoner
for high-treason! But they venture not to charge it on me: their
own infamy is all they dare proclaim; to treat me like the worst of
criminals, before I am convicted, before I am accused!----Shew my son,
these things; and let him hasten to my support. Tell him, when he is by
my side, I will confront them face to face; I will let Spain, and all
Europe know, that though honour is banished from the world, it lives
and reigns in the bosom of William de Ripperda."
Louis listened to all these details, with various inward emotions; but
he was now braced to quell the smallest outward appearance of any. He
spoke little in return; but his step was firm, his eye clear, and his
port erect, as he gave his orders at the port of Genoa, for immediate
embarkation. A vessel was ready to sail; the wind fair, but boisterous;
and under a heavy gale, he launched on the ocean that was to convey him
to the land of his forefathers; that was to consign him to the dungeons
of Madrid.