When Louis entered the cloister which led to the Sieur's apartment, he
met Martini hurrying towards him.
"Well arrived, Signor!" cried he, "I was coming to the Chateau in quest
of you. There is a noble bustle in my master's chamber."
"By your countenance, no ill news?" said Louis, though not
unapprehensive that some mischievous consequence had transpired from
his unfortunate surprisal by the Electress of Bavaria.
"Not that I know of," cried Martini; "but a little motion more than
ordinary always makes me merry. I love stirring, gloriously! And my
master and a _booted-and-spurred_ have been at high words these two
hours." With nothing so much in his mind, as some anticipated exposure
from the malice of the Electress, Louis proceeded to the chamber with
a more eager step than inclination. He found the Sieur on his couch,
with the table before him spread with opened packets, and a person
standing beside him in the dress of a courier. At some distance stood
two other travellers. The courier was talking in Italian with great
earnestness. Ignatius listened with his usual lofty attention: but when
his vigilant eye caught the figure of Louis advancing from behind a
dark curtain which divided the apartment, he put up his hand with an
air of authority to the speaker, who instantly became silent.
"Louis," said the Sieur, addressing his pupil in German, "here is news
from Madrid, to raise me from the tomb; had the poniards of my enemies
been keen enough to have laid me there!--France, whose bonds were so
ruinously dear to the heart of the King of Spain, has cut the cord
herself; and, by a stroke of insult, for which even his partiality
cannot find an excuse."
Louis's heart was lightened of the apprehensions with which he had
entered; and, with glad congratulations, reflected the unusual
animation which shone in the eyes of Ignatius. The Sieur then ordered
the courier to retire with Martini, who would take care of him, until
he could see him again. The other two travellers also obeyed the
beckon of his hand; and in Spanish, he directed them likewise, to put
themselves under the protection of the Italian valet.
The room being left to the statesman and his secretary, the Sieur,
with a less reserved air, motioned Louis to approach him; and when
they were seated, the former opened a circumstantial detail of what
had occasioned this abrupt rupture between the courts of Versailles
and Saint Ildefonso. During the late regency of the Duke of Orleans,
a treaty of marriage had been entered into between the young King of
France, Louis XV. and Philip's daughter the Infanta Maria-Anna, then
a mere child. According to the custom of the times, she was sent to
Paris, to receive an education befitting the future bride of a French
Monarch; and, at a certain age she was to be solemnly affianced. On the
death of the Duke of Orleans, and the promotion of the Duke of Bourbon
to the functions of prime-minister, the cabinet of France seemed to
change its measures with regard to Spain; at least encroachments
were made, which aroused the suspicions of Philip's Queen; and she
tried to awaken the jealousy of her husband against the new minister.
Attached to the house from whence he sprung, and inclined to put the
best construction on all its actions, it was no easy task to make the
royal grandson of Louis the Fourteenth comprehend that the Duke of
Bourbon never considered the interest of Spain in his policy. Some
transactions, more than dubious in their principle and tendency, at
last made King Philip allow a possibility that he might confide too
implicitly in his French relations; and, after much argument from the
Baron Ripperda, and more entreaty from his Queen, he was at length
persuaded to counterpoise the self-aggrandising spirit they had
detected, by commencing a secret negociation with Austria. Still,
however, habitual partiality to his native country hung about the heart
of Philip, and caused great uneasiness in the minds of the Queen and
the Baron, under whose auspices the mysterious embassy set forth. As
the negociation rapidly proceeded, the King often dropped hints on the
consequences of precipitancy; and frequently filled them with alarm,
lest he should at last refuse his royal sanction to the completion of
their labours, and so involve themselves and their cause in utter
infamy.
The Duke of Bourbon was indeed actuated by different principles, both
political and personal, from those which had impelled the Duke of
Orleans to propose new bonds of alliance between the royal families
of France and Spain. He disliked the Spanish marriage altogether;
and, besides so many years must elapse before the Infanta could be of
age for the espousals; and the health of the anticipated bridegroom
was so precarious, it seemed no improbability that his death, in
the mean-while, might transfer the royal succession to the house of
Orleans. This was an aggrandisement of that ambitious family, which,
the no less ambitious Duke of Bourbon could not contemplate with
patience; and at this juncture Duke Wharton appeared at his elbow, as
if conjured there on purpose to set the two great heads of the House of
Bourbon at lasting enmity. He suspected that something clandestine was
going on between the courts of Spain and Austria; and he left Vienna
for Paris, a few days after his rencontre with Louis de Montemar on the
Danube. He revealed to the Duke of Bourbon all that he had discovered;
and urged him to save his branch of the royal stock, from being
over-topped by that of Orleans or of Spain; by immediately adopting an
entire new policy from that of his predecessor. As a first movement,
he proposed a marriage for the young King with some Princess of
maturer years than the Spanish Infanta. Bourbon readily embraced this
suggestion, which had been some time floating in his own mind. And,
on the two Dukes consulting who this Princess should be, (each having
his own particular reasons), their choice fell on Maria, the daughter
of Stanislaus Letzinsky, the ex-king of Poland. Wharton undertook to
prepare the mind of His Majesty to accept the alternative; and in the
interview, he found that the docile Louis was easily prevailed on to
exchange a bride still in the school-room, for a blooming young woman,
full of accomplishments and graces.
The views of Wharton in this manoeuvre, were still directed to his
favourite project of reinstating the Stuarts. At present, France, and
Spain, and Austria, were all equally estranged from their cause. By
creating a rupture between the two former powers, he divided their
interests; implicated their allies; and necessarily threw France
again into the scale of the Stuart and Bavarian claims. Philip had
declared himself openly for George of Brunswick; and was on the point
of signing the pragmatic sanction; this Wharton knew: and by mixing
the adversaries of the latter scheme of succession, with the political
rivals of England, he returned to Vienna with a promised accession to
his party, that made him omnipotent in the Bavarian councils.
To prevent any opposition to the proposed alliance, from the
remonstrances of Spain, as soon as the Duke of Wharton had left Paris,
(which he did with the negligent air of a mere visitor to the widowed
Queen at St. Germain's;) the Duke of Bourbon pursued the advantage that
nobleman had gained for him, and persuaded the King to send the Infanta
back to Madrid without any previous notice to her royal parents. She
was accompanied by a lady of honour, and an ecclesiastic of high
dignity, to be her protectors on the way; and to deliver a suitable
apology on the urgency of the case, to the King and Queen of Spain.
When the abbot and his young charge were so unexpectedly announced to
the presence of the royal pair, the good priest was too much agitated,
to fulfil his instructions with the diplomatic dignity he was enjoined.
He fell at once on his knees, and declared his errand in confusion and
anguish of spirit. The astonishment and grief of Philip shewed itself
in silence and tears; but the mortification of his Queen burst into
rage and invective. When the abbot offered the letters of explanation,
she dashed them out of his hand; and tearing the picture of Louis the
Fifteenth from her bracelet, trampled it under her feet. All now was
uproar. The French ambassador, and every French consul were ordered to
depart the Spanish territories without delay; and when Philip did find
words to express his sense of the injury he had received from the hand
he most trusted, he declared he never would be reconciled to France,
till the Duke of Bourbon should repair to Madrid and ask his pardon on
his knees. "Hah!" cried the Queen, "It shall not be long, before that
French cyclops finds the arrows of more than one King in his eye!" And,
to make good her threat, she immediately dispatched a trusty messenger
to Ignatius; giving him full powers to relinquish all the contested
points which had retarded the negociation; and at any sacrifice to
conclude a marriage between her son Don Carlos, and the Arch-duchess
Maria-Theresa, the presumptive heiress to the Imperial Crown. Some
other instructions, dear to the policy of Ripperda, were added; which,
if brought to bear, would give the preponderance of power, still more
to Spain and Austria; and place the French, where she had dashed the
portrait of their Monarch, at her feet.
Louis de Montemar passed several hours in close conference with the
Sieur Ignatius on these events; on the circumstances which led to them,
(though the share Wharton had in the leading movement was not then
known;) on the consequent instructions from the Spanish sovereigns; and
in settling how much of the whole, Louis was to declare to the Empress
and her minister, in making the commanded concessions, so as to appear
rather to give than to concede.
"You must manage the preliminaries to-night with Sinzendorf," said
the Sieur, "But to-morrow, whether it be to return on my litter or in
my hearse, I will see the Empress myself.--When the triumphal arch is
ready," added he, with one of those smiles, which visited his dark
countenance like the shooting of a star; "the wounded hero is unworthy
its honours, that will not venture his life to pass through!"
Louis bowed his assent to the Sieur's observation, with a smile bright
as his own; and, soon after, the College bell reminded him that the
time of his audience with the Chancellor drew near. On his rising
to obey its summons, Ignatius looked up from some letters he was
writing, and told him to rejoin him in that chamber the next morning
by day-break. "To-morrow," added he, "will epitomise the history
of Europe for many a future year; and be the deciding epoch of your
destiny."
The usual time of Louis's visit to the Chancellor Sinzendorf was an
hour before midnight; immediately after His Excellency had left the
card-table of the Emperor. And, as from the intricacy of his new
communications with the minister, Louis's present conference was much
longer than ordinary, it was an hour beyond midnight before he left the
Chancellor's apartments.
Hurrying along, to get out of the interior galleries of the palace at
so unseasonable an hour, at an abrupt turning into the large lighted
rotunda where most of the passages terminated, he ran violently against
a person wrapped in a splendid pelisse. He looked up, to apologize,
and beheld Duke Wharton. Louis sprang from the side of the Duke, as
if struck back by electricity: but Wharton grasped his arm. With
an averted face, and a heart yearning to embrace the friend, whose
presence, and whose touch, obliterated all remembrance of resentment,
Louis made another ineffectual struggle to break away; but the Duke, in
a gaily affectionate voice, exclaimed,--"I have clutched you, Chevalier
Phaffenberg! and if you were Chevalier Proteus himself, you should not
elude these ten fingers!" As he spoke, he threw his other arm round the
waist of his friend, and seized his opposite arm also.
"Release me, Duke Wharton!" cried Louis, fully remembering his
double promise to Ignatius and to the Empress, and striving to
recall the circumstances at the Electress's, which had excited his
indignation:--"This is a liberty----"
"That is nothing between friends," interrupted the Duke, in the same
happy tone; "but if we are enemies, I am too old a soldier to release
the prisoner, who may only want to cut my throat!"
"Duke Wharton!" returned Louis, fearful of being subdued by accents
so eloquent of former confidence; "when you see I would avoid you,
this detention is at least ungenerous. By the friendship you claim,
and you have; no longer withhold me! one day I will thank you for your
forbearance."
"You would thank me for that, to which I make no pretensions! In this
life of hard knocks, neither broken heads nor broken hearts can be
healed by the promise of an unction. And therefore excuse me, if I do
not forbear seizing the present sweetener of the wormwood you cast at
me a week or two ago in these passages!"
Louis struggled with his subdued heart, and sighed convulsively, as he
unconsciously rested in the arms that held him prisoner.
"You have my creed of defence, in this selfish world!" resumed the
Duke, "and so, my dear de Montemar, come with me, and whatever may be
your secret services here, they shall be as safe in my breast as in
your own."
With a gasping breath, Louis declared he must not remain with him
another moment.
"What then, your Pastor-Uncle fears me, even here. He fears the lion,
when his lamb is among wolves! I tell you what Louis,--there is more
in my heart towards you, than you will believe, or may deserve! But, I
repeat, come with me, and you shall have that heart on the table!"
Happy to exonerate his venerable uncle, Louis impetuously declared
that his interdict was withdrawn; but that other motives, not then to
be explained, rendered a temporary estrangement as compulsory as ever.
Wharton exulted in this amnesty from Mr. Athelstone; and urged it, with
every argument and device in his magic circlet. He was prevailing,
vehement, and gaily reproachful; but, as he persevered in all beyond
the usual measure of patience, Louis could not but at last feel such
constancy very like persecution; and very unlike what he should have
anticipated from the free spirit of the Duke. "But," whispered a
monitor within him, "was the Duke's wanton sport with your concealment,
when he recognised you, even under a false name, in the discourse at
the Electress's; was it consistent with belief in his candour? With his
present professions of attachment?"
As Louis stood in his trammelling arms, and with a downward face
thought of these things, he became displeased; and, with a firm air,
repeated his request to be released. The Duke persisted to hold him
fast, with some gay badinage on the coil of the crested dragon; but
Louis, determined to be no longer put from his duty, said, even
sternly,--"Duke Wharton, let me go? This compulsion is insufferable, I
will not be detained."
"De Montemar," returned the Duke, in a solemn voice, immediately
releasing one arm, while he still held the other; "I have wrestled
thus long with your caprice, to shew you that I had forbearance; but I
now read your changeful heart: go where it leads you. I once thought
it was devoted to friendship, and to noble sacrifice! But," added he,
after a short pause, and with a disdainful smile, "you are not what
you were--you cling to the foot of the ladder, I believed you even too
proud to mount,--and so I bid you farewell!"
As he spoke, he relaxed his hand from the grasp he held of Louis's arm,
and with a smothered sigh, which he sought to hide under a cough, he
turned hastily across the corridor. Louis's heart smote him.
"I have been selfish and arrogant! I have been accessible to ill
impressions; and, even now, to suspicions of the motives of him, I once
so devoutly honoured.--Alas!" said he, to himself, "I have not acted
like a friend! I might have broken from him, since duty required it,
but I need not thus have wounded him!"
As at one instant of time all these thoughts flashed over his mind,
he stood, without attempting to follow his friend; but he could not
help exclaiming,--"Wharton!" Wharton still passed on. "He quits me
in deserved resentment!" said Louis, his heart overflowing with
contrition; and extricating his feet from the spot, where they had
seemed rooted, he made two or three swift steps towards him.
"Wharton!" repeated he, when he drew near, "that farewell must not be
for ever!"
Wharton turned round with a lofty and serious air;--"and, why should
you wish it otherwise?"
"Because," returned Louis, catching his hand, "I value your friendship
as my life, but not beyond my honour." Wharton gazed a moment on his
agitated countenance. In a softened voice, though yet maintaining his
unusual gravity, he replied, "you could not suppose I should ask you to
betray that in yourself, which is my own impugnable estate!"
Louis did not speak; but, with bent eyes, to conceal the tears which
filled them, pressed the Duke's hand. Wharton returned the cordial
re-assurance; and with a smile playing through his seriousness, he
added, "and least of all, when one of the dear sex, I have so long
adored to my cost, holds your honour in the charming fetters you have
just been hugging to your heart!"
Louis dropped the hand he was so affectionately clasping; and exclaimed
with energy, "by that honour, I swear that no amorous passion brought
me hither to-night!"
"Nor any night? nor any morning?" replied Wharton, with more of his
wonted gaiety! "I will believe just what you please; only make me a
vow that she shall not absorb you entirely; and, though I admire the
lady and love the sex, I will promise never to wish a reversion in my
favour!"
Louis was vexed at this wild speech. He saw, that so far from Wharton
having a suspicion that political objects employed him at Vienna, he
really believed that his friend's visits to the palace were actuated by
a passion for the Countess Altheim. Louis could not shut his eyes on
another conviction; that the Duke dishonoured the nature of the passion
he supposed, by regarding it rather as an affair _pour passer le tems_,
than as a serious attachment for life. But, in spite of his admiration
of the Countess, and of what had passed between them, he felt an
insurmountable repugnance to say in solemn, considered language, that
his visits to her were to terminate in an indissoluble union; and,
with a sudden bitterness of spirit towards Wharton himself, and the
entanglements of his situation, he exclaimed, with a severe look at his
friend, "you distract me, by this determination to believe that I am
engaged in the sort of connection that my soul abhors."
"And what, dear de Montemar, does your soul abhor?" returned the
Duke, drawing his friend's arm within his, and walking with him down
the passage; "the connection mine abhors is matrimony; for a young
Xantippe, under its privilege, even now clips my sides with her
everlasting bonds, like the spikes of a penance-girdle, piercing into
my heart."
"By the current of your wild attack," said Louis, with a crimsoned
cheek, "I could not have guessed that you meant an attachment which
pointed to so serious an end."
"Serious enough, at the best!" replied the Duke, laughing; "and, in
my case, I should say it was at the worst; could I not suppose a
quality or two even less to my liking, in your fair lady! She is too
much of a female Machiavel for my easy nature, and would have me in the
state-dungeons before our honeymoon had shot her horns."
Louis was silent, and his heart beat, even audibly, with its contending
emotions. Should he speak a word more, he might betray the secret of
the Empress,--of the Sieur,--of his father,--of the Sovereign of the
country, to which that father had devoted him!
Wharton and he were now at the outward gate of the palace. Louis
attempted to withdraw his arm, but the Duke held it fast. "Nay, nay, my
eager Lover! you will not find her in the street! you must sup with me
to-night."
"Not for the world."
"How?"
"We must part here, dear Wharton, and part friends,--eternal friends!
But ask no questions."
"I will be hanged," cried the Duke, "if you are not in such awful
mystery that, if you do not go home with me, and let me see that occult
soul of thine through the chrystaline of generous Burgundy, I shall
believe (added he in a whisper) that you are too well with the Empress
herself."
"Wharton!" cried Louis, dashing the Duke from him, "you will make me
hate you."
"You dare not for your life and honours, dear petulant boy!" cried the
Duke, with a frank-hearted laugh; "and, till we meet in feast or fray,
give me thy gauntlet!" He stretched out his hand. Louis regretted the
violence with which he had spoken; but feeling the precipice on which
he stood, and dreading further detention, he gave his hand with evident
hesitation. Wharton shook it with gay cordiality, and said in his
kindest accents, "thou faithless one! dost thou suspect I am going to
realize the frog and the raven, and tear thee between my beak and claw!"
He then pressed the hand he held, with the warmth of a full heart; and
as he felt Louis's shake in the grasp, he added with strong emphasis;
"well, haste away! but I would snatch you from the snares which misled
my youthful feet, in the paths you have now entered. I would lead
you, where you may plant honour, and reap renown. Oh, de Montemar, I
would put a royal heart in that breast, whose pulses are fed by the
blood of kings!--Start not!--But thou must not grovel, and creep, and
follow--where you may rise and lead!--De Montemar, thou art enslaved
and mocked.--Come with me, and you are again free."
"Not for the best blood in my heart!" exclaimed Louis, now exulting in
his knowledge of the great cause to which he had devoted himself. "You
are mistaken Wharton; and again, I must say, farewell!"
"Be it so," returned the Duke, relinquishing his hand; "but you
will remember Philip Wharton, when it is out of the power of his
irrepressible friendship to extricate the son of the rich, the great,
Baron de Ripperda, from the bonds and bondage of a too fair Semiramis
and her subtiler confidant!"
Louis now understood that the Duke could not have meant to have
referred at all to a political slavery, which his former speech seemed
to imply; but that still he intended only to warn him against the
vassalage of the heart. Wharton certainly said enough to open the
mind of his friend to some suspicion of the perfection of his fair
mistress's character; but before he could rally himself to compose some
safe answer, the Duke had disappeared into the universal darkness of
the outer court.