The Sieur Ignatius did as he had determined. He went, and alone, to the
Empress the following morning. What he had to propose, soon made her
call the chancellor to the conference; and during the discussion, the
Sieur so ably adapted the mutual pretensions of the rival monarchs,
to the eagerness of their consorts to conclude a treaty, that nothing
remained to be done, when he left the apartment, but to obtain the
Imperial sign manual, to what the Empress and her minister so heartily
approved.
As Ignatius put a large casket of golden arguments, for certain members
of the council, into the hands of Sinzendorff, Elizabeth promised that
the Emperor's decision should be sent to Vienna, as soon as he could
collect his counsellors around him at the Luxemburg; to which palace
he meant to go next morning, for a few days. Meanwhile she recommended
to the Sieur, and through him, to his secretary, that they should keep
in strict seclusion; for she apprehended the indiscreet stir which the
Queen of Spain had made on the affront put upon her daughter, would
excite an immediate attention in the ambassadors at Madrid, to some
anticipation of her meditated revenge. All know that the political
train laid by these honourable spies of nations, is as subtle as it is
long, devious, and invisible; and where suspicion once points, it is
but the word of a moment to set the whole in a blaze. To avert such a
catastrophe to Isabella's too open threats against France, Ignatius
adopted this advice, as it coincided with his own judgment; and,
accordingly, he seemed to immure himself as during his wounds; but he
was amply occupied in arrangements, which only awaited the fiat of the
Emperor, to be brought into immediate action.
During this suspense, Ignatius received accounts from Sinzendorff,
which proved the wisdom of their caution. He informed him, that
visits at unseasonable hours had been repeatedly exchanged between
the French and other foreign ambassadors resident at Vienna; and that
he knew, from indisputable authority, that a messenger had arrived
from Paris, who was closeted with the French minister for many hours;
and that the same night His Excellency was seen, without any of his
accustomed attendants, gliding into the palace of the Electress of
Bavaria. In another letter, Sinzendorff communicated to the Sieur,
that he had certain intelligence of a private supper which had been
given the preceding evening in the Electress's _boudoir_; and no women
were present but herself and her Lady of the Key; while the men were
the French ambassador, the Dutch Minister, a French philosopher from
Berlin, the fierce ex-chancellor Count Stahlberg, and the Duke of
Wharton. What was the subject of their deliberations, Sinzendorff could
give no information; but he did not doubt that it brooded mischief to
the present crisis between Austria and Spain.
In Louis's nocturnal visits to the College, he gladly saw that little
inconvenience remained to the Sieur from his dangerous attack,
excepting incidental head-aches, and the scar on his forehead, which
being recently cicatrised, he still covered with a black fillet.
The cadaverous hue of his complexion was hardly deepened by his
confinement; but Louis occasionally saw a more than common fire flash
from his over-shadowed eye, as he accidentally looked up from the
papers he scrutinized. During the investigation, he never spoke more
than to ask a question, or to give a direction respecting the business
on which he was engaged; and generally answered his pupil's respectful
adieu for the night, with a silent, though gracious nod.
Louis's long hours of solitude, (for the whole of the Imperial family
had accompanied the Emperor to his spring palace;) were passed at the
Chateau. And after he had performed his, now brief vocation for the
day, he generally read German authors from the Jesuits' library; or
walked in the weedy wilderness, which had once been a garden. He now,
neither regarded the swift-flowing Danube, nor the gay groups, which
on foot or in carriages, appeared in the distance on its margin. His
meditations were all self centered; on the past, the present, and the
future. Often, during his deep reverie, he wondered at himself, that
his mind should wander, and at such a crisis, from the great affair in
which he was a sharer. A year ago, had he speculated on what would
have occupied his thoughts in so important a political era of his life,
he should have said,--"Exultation in the grand results of my father's
patriotic genius; and satisfaction that my noviciate talents had been
employed in the glorious atchievement!"
But on the reverse, while he sat at the feet of statesmen, and was
the agent between negociating sovereigns, he found himself dwelling,
hour after hour, on the private feelings of his heart. He was ready
to quarrel with himself for this wretched perversity. In the quiet
vales of Northumberland, he had lived in the full enjoyment of these
feelings; but then his vagrant thoughts refused to dwell on tranquil
happiness. He panted for distant realms, fields of toil, of perils, and
renown. He was now in the midst of some of these invoked stations for
action; and yet his inconsistent spirit would not abide in the scenes
it had chosen! His meditations would extricate themselves from their
patriotic objects, and with obstinate tenacity fasten themselves on the
most selfish considerations:--on the friend he had loved, and had fled
from! on the woman, he believed he loved, and yet was glad to fly!
He recalled the several warnings he had received, at home and abroad,
against the Duke; but the recollection of the natural and acquired
advantages he possessed over all other men he had known, presented
themselves of their own accord to Louis; and his spell-bound eyes, not
seeing where the scale turned, he dismissed the subject. The image of
the fair Otteline glided before his mind's eye, like the descent of
Iris from the rainbow: all brilliancy and ambrosial beauty. He had only
to articulate her name, to make the pulse pause in his heart, and a
dissolving sensibility steal over all his senses.
"And yet," he murmured to himself, "fair as thou art, I feel a chill
on my soul, whenever I think of pledging it to thee for ever. Oh,
wherefore?" cried he, "she is lovely, she is tender; but she has not
that elevated look in those beautiful eyes, which used to mingle my
highest thoughts with the soul of Cornelia! She has not that ineffable
glance of exclusive affection, which shoots direct to the heart, and
kindles a faith there, no doubts can extinguish!"
There was something in the parting words of the Duke, respecting the
Empress and her _subtle confidant_, which had adhered to the memory
of Louis, and continued to harass him with conjectures. By that
confidant, the Sieur Ignatius, or the Countess Altheim, might have
been understood; but it could not be the Sieur; as Wharton appeared so
unsuspicious of a political errand taking his friend to the palace,
that he avowed his belief at once, it was an amatory attraction.
"And was she _subtle_?" Louis's heart revolted at the question; though
he could not disguise from his clearer judgment, that she had herself
suggested to him the only incontrovertible mode of silencing the
scandal, she had thought herself obliged by duty to sanction as a truth.
"It was not what I like," said Louis, trying to excuse her to himself.
But had he uttered his own principles upon the subject, he would
have said,--"It is what I not merely blame, but shrink from, as an
unpardonable dereliction from female modesty!"
But in this case, he thought her zeal for the Empress, and her
prepossession in his favour, had obliterated from her mind all
consideration of what was due to herself; and the impelling motives
made him find an apology and a pardon for the amiable delinquent.
"Yes," cried he, "she sacrificed her native delicacy, in a double
respect to the disinterestedness of her attachment. Did I not see the
soft lustre of her eyes kindle with the blushes on her cheeks, and
look downwards, to conceal the graceful shame, as she insinuated the
delightful alternative!"
Louis was now far advanced in persuading himself that all was
delightful, which, he believed he was now bound in honour to make his
own, whether it were to his wishes or not. "Her conduct could not be
_subtility_," continued he, "for she is ignorant that I am the _son
of the rich, the great Ripperda_. Oh, Wharton, you wrong her! there
is nothing in my apparent present station to make a union with me, an
object of interest with the favourite of the Empress of Germany. She
must prefer me, for myself alone; and I am a wretch of ingratitude
ever to have found it necessary to convince myself by these doubting
arguments!"
In the midst of such musings, he was surprised one evening, by Gerard
putting into his hand a letter addressed to, "The Chevalier de
Phaffenberg." The hand-writing was unknown to him; indeed, evidently
a feigned one. He enquired whence it came. Gerard replied, he did not
know: but the letter was brought by a man in the dark, who left it
without saying a word. Louis broke the seal, and read as follows:--
"The carriage which conveys you to the Jesuits' College will be beset
to-night in your usual route through the deserted street of Saint
Xavier. The papers, of which you are to be the bearer, will be taken
from you. Resistance would be vain, for the assailants are numerous.
To avoid the loss of your trust, and perhaps of your life, should your
temerity contest the matter, take a different path to-night. But to no
one, excepting your friend the Jesuit, mention this warning. Were it
suspected, he that writes it, would soon be put beyond the power of
repeating the service."
"_Tuesday Evening._" Louis thought of the attempted assassination of
Ignatius. The letter he held in his hand was a second confirmation
that, notwithstanding the Sieur's severe precautions, the mysterious
business of himself and his secretary was so little a secret to its
enemies, that they knew exactly where to point even the most iniquitous
means, when they thought such expedient to obtain information, or to
create preventions. Who the anonymous friend was, who ran the risque
implied at the close of the letter, Louis had no hesitation to believe
must be the Duke of Wharton; for the Sieur had hinted to him, only
the night before, that he knew the Duke was one of a secret committee
who sat nightly at the Bavarian apartments. Wharton must then have
discovered that his friend's visits to the palace had a higher aim than
gallantry; and Louis felt something like a proud satisfaction in the
conviction. The letter, he trusted, would be a sufficient pledge to
Ignatius of Wharton's fidelity to his friend; and that whatever might
be his bonds to a party, they could not tie his faith to connivance
with a dishonourable act. This head of the subject being settled in his
own mind; and being enabled, by the warning, to avoid the threatened
violence; he would have given up his thoughts to the delicious
enjoyment of gratefulness to so dear a friend, had he not trembled to
think how far the Duke of Wharton's repulsed recognition of him, might
have led to so full a discovery respecting the secret movements of the
Sieur and himself.
He saw that he must apprise Ignatius of the knowledge his enemies had
acquired of his proceedings; and, in doing so, shew the letter he had
just received; and, while he declared his belief that Duke Wharton
was the friendly writer, be obliged to narrate what he had hitherto
concealed:--his meeting, and at last enforced discourse with the Duke.
As Louis reflected on the real harmlessness of that discourse; and on
the necessity, at the present momentous juncture, to make his guardian
master of every circumstance that might bear at all towards it; he
felt the folly of his reserve: and though at the time he had persuaded
himself that his silence arose from reluctance to agitate needlessly
a wounded man, his conscience now accused him of mental cowardice, in
shrinking from the pain he anticipated to himself in the torturing
discussion.
"In flying one stroke," said he, "I have incurred twenty. Had I
spoken at the time, I should only have had to narrate an event which
happened without my seeking; and the worst could only have been the
Sieur's suspicions of the Duke wishing to draw me to the Bavarian
interest. But now, he may see something clandestine in my silence; and
at best consider me imprudent and mean, if not absolutely insincere
and worthless." Though harrassed by these reflections, he was not
negligent of his trust. When he got into the carriage that was to
convey him as usual to the College, it was himself only he committed
to the casualties of the evening. He did not take one of the papers
with him; thinking it possible that the assailants, missing their prey
in the old deserted street, would way-lay him (as their emissaries had
probably done Ignatius,) in the college porch. The warning-letter,
(which he held in his hand, to tear piece-meal should he be attacked;)
he thought would fully account to the Sieur for this precaution.
Having placed his pistols in his waistcoat, he ordered the coachman to
drive to the College by a circuit in an opposite direction from Saint
Xavier's; and being obeyed; without any sign of molestation he reached
the Jesuit's cell at the accustomed hour.
The result of this dreaded interview with the stern friend of his
father, was very different from what Louis had expected. On his
entrance, he presented the anonymous warning, as his apology for not
having risqued the usual evening quota of state-papers through the
threatened danger. Ignatius examined the hand writing and the seal. The
former was a cramped text; the latter, a common diapered stamp.
"Who in Vienna can know you, to be thus interested in you, even as the
Chevalier de Phaffenberg? You have been seen by none out of the routine
of our business; excepting, indeed, that one accidental meeting with
the Electress of Bavaria and her attendant! Surely a five minutes'
glimpse of your handsome person, Louis," added the Sieur with a half
smile, "could not have wrought so potently on the latter lady, as to
excite her to such perilous intervention!"
"I am not quite the coxcomb to suppose it," returned Louis with an
answering smile, but a flushed cheek, from the consciousness of what
he had to confess. Without circumlocution, or reserve, but with eyes
cast down, and a varying complexion, he began and continued the whole
narration of Duke Wharton's seeing him twice in the galleries of the
palace; his escape from him the first time, and the Duke's consequent
remarks to the Countess Altheim: but that on their second recontre
he had found it impossible to break away, without suffering the
conversation, which he now circumstantially repeated.
Ignatius spoke not a word during the agitated recital of his pupil.
While making his confession, Louis did not venture to look up under
this awful silence; but when he concluded, and his eyes were still
riveted to the ground, the Sieur put his hand on his, and said in an
emphatic voice--"This honest narrative has established your character
with me. I see by your looks, that it is not left to another to lecture
you on the danger of your late concealments: I leave you, therefore,
in that respect to your own admonitions. But I will not withhold my
entire approbation of the dexterity with which you parried every
question of that serpent Englishman. Do not frown at the severity of
the epithet. Did you know him, as well as he is known at Paris and in
this capital, you would not doubt that he has many properties of that
wreathing reptile besides his glassy surface!"
"And yet, Sir," cried Louis, "I believe it is he who has ventured his
safety to give me this warning!"
"It may be," returned the Sieur, "and he no less a serpent still. But
for your escape, and that of the papers, I am obliged to him, and we
will dismiss the subject. There is another, on which I must give you a
necessary hint; the Countess Altheim."
At that name, the conscious blood rushed into the before-blanched cheek
of Louis, and his heart beat with an alarm to which he could assign
no cause. The Sieur paused a moment or two, regarding his pupil with a
steady look before he went on.
"You have too much of the woman in your face, young man;" said he,
"to keep your own secret, however faithful you may be of another's.
I see the pretty favourite has gained her point with your heart; but
do not allow your lips to commit your honour, till this public affair
is finished, and you may consult your father's opinion of such an
alliance. A rash step here would offend him for ever."
Louis bowed his acquiescence to this command, but it was not with a
constrained air. The Sieur saw that he was grateful for the gentleness
with which his confession had been treated, and respectfully obedient
to the injunction which concluded the discourse.
Louis returned to the Chateau by the same track he had left it, and
therefore reached his home in safety. The next day passed as the
former; and having just finished his hermit stroll under the silver
light of a bright March moon, he was slowly retracing his steps to the
house, when he met Gerard approaching him with information that the
Sieur Ignatius awaited him in the saloon. This unexpected visit alarmed
Louis. He instantly feared that some fatal turn had taken place with
regard to the completion of their labours, and that the Sieur had come
to announce it. He hastened however to his summons.
Wrapped as before in his large dark mantle, Ignatius was standing in
the middle of the room. The black fillet which pressed down his heavy
eye-brows, and the hearse-like plumes that pended over them, cast such
flickering shadows over his grey visage, that he seemed to Louis, as he
stood in the moon-light, more like the awful spectre of his guardian,
than his living self.
Louis thought he saw his fears confirmed. He approached, he drew very
near to him, and still the Sieur did not speak. Louis could not bear
the suspense, and exclaimed, "Sir, you have ill news to tell me?"
"Look on my face," replied Ignatius, in a tone of voice from which
neither good nor evil could be gathered, "and try to read what sort of
news the disciplined blood of a tried politician will declare."
Louis fixed his eyes as he was commanded, but it was with apprehension;
for he thought this beginning was to prepare him for the ruin of their
cause. His eyes shrunk from the proud fire which shone in the steady
gaze of the Sieur. It might arise from the pride of triumph, or be
the bright emanation of determined fortitude! But the latter idea
possessed his pupil. The extent of the misfortune he dreaded to hear;
as, again and again he had been warned that his father's honour was
involved in the fate of this treaty.
"Speak, dear Sir!" cried he, "I cannot guess what has happened, from
your countenance."
"Yet," said Ignatius, "it is easy to interpret what you believe ought
to be legible there, from yours! But, Louis de Montemar, if you are
to follow your father's career, to this moveless complexion you must
come at last. Else, vain will it be to discipline your tongue, if your
unmanageable blood betray the story. Know then, that our labours have
been successful. The Emperor has given his full consent to every demand
of Spain."
"Thank God!" exclaimed Louis, clasping his hands, and dropping into a
chair. The Sieur seated himself beside him, and without noticing his
emotion, (for all the son was then in Louis's heart) he entered into
the details of the business. The Imperial family had returned that
morning to Vienna. The Empress immediately summoned Ignatius to attend
her. He obeyed; and received from Her Majesty those particulars of the
Emperor's assent, which were now recounted to the attentive secretary.
The Sieur then added, that after he quitted the palace, he referred for
further instructions to a packet which the last dispatch from Spain had
brought in the Queen's letter-case; and which being superscribed to
himself, with the additional words, "only to be opened in the event of
the Emperor acceding to our proposals;" he had laid it aside until the
present, which was the appointed moment.
"As the conditions were fulfilled," continued the Sieur, "I broke the
seal; and the contents are these. A letter from the King, commanding
me to announce to their Cæsarean Majesties the entrance of his
ambassador into Vienna, in the course of eight-and-forty hours after
the information should be communicated to them. And that ambassador,
Louis de Montemar," added Ignatius, "is your father."
Louis sprang from his seat. The Sieur rose also, and continued; "in
reward of his high services, the King makes him his representative
here, with the restitution of his father's title and honours, and an
establishment answerable to all these dignities."
This part of the information, Ignatius addressed to ears that heard him
not. The word _father_! that sacred idea, which had so long filled the
heart and the hopes of Louis, which had seemed the goal whither all
his ambitions and his duties pointed; this holy image had sealed up
his sense, only to dwell upon the idea of his expected presence. With
the announcement of his near approach, Louis thought of nothing else;
and covering his face with his hands, the tears of filial love,--of
filial triumph,--of gratitude to heaven, that he should at last behold
that honoured countenance, poured from his eyes, and bathed his hands.
Ignatius gazed on him,--gazed on his heaving,--his sobbing breast. A
tear of sympathy, started into even his Stoic eye, as he turned away,
and walked in silence down the room.
It was some minutes before Louis could recall himself from the inward
temple of his soul, where his grateful heart had prostrated him
before the Giver of all Good. When he looked up, he saw the Sieur at
a distance, with his back to him, and leaning near the window which
looked towards the Danube. Louis approached him;--"your goodness," said
he, "has pardoned a son, shewing some natural emotion at so sudden
an intimation of soon seeing the most honoured, the most beloved of
parents?"
"Such sins are easily forgiven," returned Ignatius, with downward
eyelids. "To-morrow, at this hour, your father will be at the _Palais
d'Espagne_; the residence, under the late dynasty, of the Spanish
ambassador at Vienna. You must be there to greet him."
Louis's eyes answered in the affirmative, for his lips denied their
office; and the Sieur proceeded in his further orders. He said, that
circumstances rendered it necessary that he should meet the Duke;
therefore, as time pressed, his pupil must perform all that was to be
done at the palace; and go that night at ten o'clock to the Chancellor
Sinzendorff, and deliver to him those three packets. Ignatius had
laid several on the table before the entrance of Louis; which he only
just now observed: there were other packets to be presented the same
night to the Empress; "of whom," continued the Sieur, "Sinzendorff
will see the propriety of requesting an immediate audience, to give
you the opportunity of announcing the instant approach of the Duke de
Ripperda, as the Spanish ambassador; and, when you do it, Louis, you
must intimate that the nomination of the Duke is meant as a peculiar
mark of the Spanish King's friendship for their Cæsarean Majesties, in
thus parting with a man to do them honour, whose presence is as dear to
his heart, as invaluable to his interests."
"This will be a hard trial of my diplomatic skill," rejoined Louis,
with a happy smile; "to speak of him only as an ambassador."
"You will not, however, shew yourself his son," replied the Sieur, "if
you do not put that restraint upon your feelings. Whatever may be his
years, he is yet but a puling boy, who is not master of his face, and
the veins which color it. Remember, it is a _man_, I have engaged to
present in you to the Duke of Ripperda; and that it is he, who exacts
of you to name him this night in the Empress's _boudoir_, with as cool
an aspect as if you were announcing the arrival of a perfect stranger."
"Ah, Sir!" exclaimed Louis, "who can name the Duke de Ripperda, with
the cool utterance which they might give to almost any other man? Is
he not loved every where, where known? And where he is only heard
of, is he not universally honoured? And can a son name such a father
without emotion? Oh, Sir, send some other messenger, if I am to act an
impossibility!"
"Well," replied Ignatius, throwing back his lofty plumes, and drawing
his hand over his brow, "do your best in this commission, as you have
done in other circumstances of management, and I do not doubt that the
father you are so proud of, will be satisfied with his son." "I will
do my best," cried Louis, seeing that the Sieur was moving to depart,
"and, oh, dearest Sir, tell my revered father how impatient I am to
meet him--to kneel at his feet--to be clasped in his arms!"--The last
words were hardly articulated, from his encreasing emotion, and as the
crowding tears again started to his eyes, he dashed them off:--ere he
drew his hand from before them, the Sieur had left the apartment,--and
he saw him no more!
When the happy Louis found himself alone, he threw himself into a chair
to indulge the luxury of his feelings, to bless the time-honoured
name of his father; to weep with mingled recollections over the
long interval which had passed since his widowed arms had resigned
him, a babe, to the tears of his grandfather, now numbered with the
dust. He thought of that good old man's tender care. Of the paternal
guardianship of his uncle of Lindisfarne, of his benediction when they
parted, and the sacred letter which he put into his hand, as the last
legacy of his dying mother. In that, she spoke to her only son, as from
her seat in Heaven, exhorting him to love and honour his father, as the
object in his heart nearest to his God! The letter, Louis soon drew
from the case in which he preserved it; and pressing it to his lips,
on his knees, as he would have done her sacred hand, he there uttered
the fullness of his heart in vows to obey her behest; and to love that
father, on whom his conscious eyes had never rested, with, indeed, a
double portion of his spirit, for the sake of that father's own noble
nature; and for her's, who had resigned her life, in giving him to
existence.
These reflections diffused a holy stillness over the happiness which
now occupied the heart of Louis. And as the time approached for the
fulfilment of his duty at the palace, he collected the royal packets;
and putting them in his bosom, wrapped himself in his cloak; and, as
the clock struck ten, he entered the carriage with a blissful serenity
over his mind, that seemed to breathe of paradise.