Not a word passed between Louis and his father, while they drove home.
Count de Patinos was in the carriage; and would have sat mute also, had
not the Duke, with his usual power over all tempers, brought the sullen
youth to converse freely on the entertainments of the evening.
As soon as they alighted, Ripperda desired his son to accompany him to
his cabinet. Louis was in such heavy internal distress, he hailed the
command as a summons to unburthen his unloaded bosom; and to receive
that advice, or rather support, in the fulfilment of his resolution, he
found he so woefully required. He followed his father with alacrity.
When the Duke had closed the door, and saw that his son had thrown
himself into a seat, he took a place near him.
"Now," said he, "the time is come, when you are to give the confidence
you promised me. I no longer consider myself the arbiter of your
conduct. That responsibility I leave to yourself. The extensive duties
of my own destiny are sufficient for me. I, therefore, shall advise,
but I command no more. You must rise or fall by your own resolves;
and, if I guess right, you stand now, on a point of no insignificant
decision. Tell me, what has passed between the Countess Altheim and
you, to give rise to the extraordinary scene of this evening; and to
sanction the request which the Empress made to me at parting, that I
would go to her to-morrow, _to decide on the fate of one, who was dear
to her, as her own life_!--Have you pledged yourself to the Countess?"
"I hope not," earnestly replied Louis. "I do not understand you!"
returned his father, "by what has just occurred, she has shewn to the
whole court, what she wishes people to suppose has passed between you;
and you must be aware that the favorite of Elizabeth is not to be
treated with idle gallantry. What grounds, then, have you to hope, that
you have not pledged yourself beyond recall? Or, did the warning voice
of the Sieur Ignatius come to late?"
"It came too late," replied Louis, "to save me from the intoxication of
her beauties; and no prudence on my part, could counteract the effects
of that luckless rencontre with the Electress of Bavaria. Yet, in the
wildest tumults of my heart, I still wrestled with myself; in the very
moment of my greatest weakness, I recollected the Sieur's admonition,
and, re-awakened to filial duty, checked the vow on my lips; and,
telling her I was not my own, I trust, I saved my honour." Ripperda
shook his head, "Louis, did I not warn you against the power of beauty?"
"You did!" vehemently replied he, "and, from this hour, I forswear it
for ever!"
Being ignorant of the real cause of this abjuration, it surprised
the Duke. He had supposed that Louis's disorder had arisen from a
consciousness of having transgressed the spirit, if not the letter, of
the Sieur's injunctions, and that Otteline's emotion was to be dated
from fear that his father would not sanction the romantic passion of
her lover. For many reasons, the Duke had no wish to sanction it; and
while he regretted that woman was fair, and youth susceptible, he was
pleased to hear the unexpected exclamation from his son. He did not
remark on it, but required a recital of particulars, word for word, of
all that had passed between him and the Countess, that he might be an
impartial judge of Louis's freedom, or his bonds.
He obeyed ingenuously, till he came to the parts where her conduct
might be translated into a direct wooing of himself. Ripperda saw him
hesitate, and the generous colour that mounted to his down-cast eyes.
"Proceed," said he, "I can divine what your honour, or your delicacy
inclines you to conceal. She played upon your open nature, to make
you believe she loved you so passionately, she could not await your
time of drawing the secret from her! I know the sex, Louis. For more
than thirty years, I have been an object of their various practices.
And, once for all, you may receive it as an unerring rule, that, when
a woman runs before a man in the profession of her love, her love
is nothing more than profession. Her views are something baser."
Ripperda pursued the subject; and Louis was, at last, brought to
acknowledge, that the Countess had given him reason to believe that she
loved him devotedly,--too devotedly; and then, without with-holding a
circumstance, he related the whole affair, from the commencement of
their acquaintance, till the moment when he wished to close it for
ever. But, he confessed that what had happened in the music-room, had
roused all within him to rebellion, though his judgement was as stern
as ever against the pleadings of his infatuated senses.
"Oh, Sir!" cried he, "I love, and I despise her. And yet, when I stood
over her insensible form, which had become so, from the wound I had
inflicted, I could not but ask myself,--Am I a god, that I should thus
ruthlessly condemn human error, and break the heart that loves me?"
The Duke was a long time silent, after his son had ceased speaking.
Then looking up, he abruptly said, "Louis de Montemar, you are the
first man of your sort, with whom I ever came in contact. I see of what
spirit you are; but it will not do in the station you fill, or in the
times in which we live. The world is always changing, and you must go
with it, or it will leave you. I ought not to have left you so long at
Lindisfarne!"
Louis turned his eye on his father.
"I do not blame your instructor for educating you like himself. But the
style is obsolete, Louis. Had you been intended for a desert island, it
might have been well; but a citizen of the world requires other maxims.
The fault is mine, that I did not bring you to me before. Now, you
come into society, like an unarmed man into the midst of his enemies;
and, instead of hastening to shelter, you expose yourself to their
weapons, by acts of impotent hostility. You must content yourself in
maintaining your own principles; to stretch another's virtue to your
standard, you will always find a vain work of supererogation. In all
that you have described, the Countess Altheim has only acted as any
ambitious woman would have done; and ambition is not less rooted in the
sex, than in ourselves. She must not, therefore, be contemned for that.
Neither do I object to her, on account of her obscure birth. The blood
of your family is too essentially illustrious, not to raise to its own
elevation, whatever we mingle with its stream. But I wish to strengthen
our hands in Spain, by a marriage between my heir and one of its native
daughters. Besides, the Countess Altheim is dangerous in herself. Her
haughty spirit would embroil you with this, and every court, to which
you might conduct her; and persons might be inclined to disrespect the
man who could suffer the weakness of passion to subject him to an union
so universally despised."
During this discourse, the confidential warning of the Chancellor
seemed to sound again in the ear of Louis. He recollected the hints
which Wharton had dropped on the same subject; and, with sickening
attention, listened to his father, who, in less reserved language,
related every leading event of the life of the beautiful favourite.
No word glanced at her honour, as a chaste woman; but, every sentence
completed the portrait of mean-spirited, insatiable ambition. Shocked
to the soul, by the description of Count Altheim, whose character was
of such grossness, that it seemed impossible for a virtuous woman to
consent to be his wife; Louis hastily exclaimed, as the Duke rose to
depart. "I will never see her more! I will never trust myself again,
with any of her betraying sex! Henceforth, my dearest father," cried
he, with a feverish smile, "I will have no mistress but glory! Why,
why, did I ever withdraw my eyes from her divine face?" "She always
suffers, when woman disputes her rights," returned the Duke.
Louis kissed his father's hand, and retired to his own apartments.
His spirit felt beaten and bruised. It cowered under a sense of
self-degradation; and throwing himself on his bed, he passed a night of
painful retrospection, on all that he had seen and heard of her, who
was so lately the object of his untameable wishes.
"Cold, calculating, and unprincipled!" cried he, "and to such a woman,
did I give the first flames of my heart! Did I light up the sacred
altar to a fiend, in the form of the Queen of Heaven!--Wretch that
I am, to have so debased what was most noble within me! To sigh for
a piece of painted clay; to adore--and, even now, to weep over a
creature, whose soul, if I could behold it divested of its beautiful
garments, would disgust me by its sordid, earthward visage!" The
morning found his agitated spirits subsided to a calm. The intemperance
of passion was extinguished in his breast, and as he relinquished the
desire of possessing her, who had now lost every grace in his eyes, he
strengthened in the hope, that the killing words he had last pronounced
to her, were final to her views on him.
Noon brought several animated visitors, to interrupt the studies
which were his usual morning occupation, and generally, unfailing
tranquillizers. These young Austrians came to invite him to share in
various sorts of diversions for the day and the evening; and an hour
passed gaily on, in the vivid conversations of versatile youth. A few
of the Spaniards made their entrance, and disappeared again. De Patinos
was not among them; he had reproached those who had shewn a wish to
cultivate the kindness of Louis, with a mean submission to the minion
of temporary fortune; they, therefore, merely made their bow, and
without joining in the discourse, soon took their leave.
Louis found an amusing diversity of character in the Austrian group.
Most of them held commissions in the Imperial service, and were full of
the campaign against Turkey, which the valour of Prince Eugene had just
brought to a close. Others, were merely jocund spirits, "hot with the
fires of youth, and high in blood." And a few, had a philosophic turn;
some in the strait, but most in the crooked path: and these latter,
were the least agreeable of the set; as they united an ostentatious
assumption of purity of intellect, with a systematic corruption of
morals. Louis soon comprehended them, and treated them with marked
avoidance. The military young men were decidedly his favourites, their
profession was that of his own secret preference, and their manners
were most congenial to his taste. There was a brave ardour in their
deportment, and a careless enunciation of their sentiments, which,
whether wrong or right, had no aim but the utterance of the moment;
and, commonly, could as easily be turned from the wrong to the right,
as from the right to wrong. The faction was in their blood, not in
their understanding; and when the one was cooled, the other might soon
be recalled to order.
While Louis was attending to Count Koninseg's account of the tremendous
battle of Belgrade, a messenger arrived from the Duke de Ripperda. He
brought a letter for the Marquis de Montemar. With a blanched cheek, he
broke the seal; but the contents were a reprieve. The Duke told him,
he had not yet seen the Empress. She was gone to the Baths at Baden,
with Maria Theresa, who had sustained a relapse; and Countess Altheim
was their companion. The Emperor, had retired with his Council, for
a few days to the Luxemburg, to avoid the persecution of the foreign
ministers; and thither, by his command, Ripperda had accompanied him.
Louis closed the letter with a renovated countenance. He was left to do
the honours of the Embassador's table, not only to its usual guests,
but to a party of noble Austrians, whom Ripperda had invited. The Duke
being absent, the Spaniards were haughty and reserved at dinner, as
they affected to be, when they encountered Louis apart; and, as soon as
the desert was placed, de Patinos, and another of the name of Orendayn,
rose from their seats; and, with cold bows to the young secretary of
legation and his guests, quitted the room, to join societies more
agreeable to their humour.
Till the opera hour, the time passed merrily with the Austrian
group; and forgetful of his bosom's care, by their animated host.
The ring-leader of the Spaniards' discontent being gone, in the
person of de Patinos, the rest of the young grandees fell in with
the cheerfulness of the company. Subjects of taste, war, and beauty,
ruled the glowing hours; but on the latter subject, Louis discoursed
uneasily, and he was glad to see Koninseg look at his watch, and point
to it as a signal for adjourning to the theatre.
"My aunt, will be impatient," cried he, "she is determined, that he who
danced with Amelia at her first ball, shall conduct her to her first
opera."
It was also the first opera to Louis. He had never seen any in England;
and until now, he had no opportunity of visiting that at Vienna. The
_Palais de Espagne_ soon poured forth its gay inmates; and Louis and
Count Koninseg turned towards the mansion of the Princess de Waradin.
It was lit up in the fullest splendor, although no other visitors were
expected but de Montemar, and her nephew. The artless Amelia smiled
and blushed, and smiled again, when her mother, putting her arm into
Koninseg's, requested Louis to take charge of her daughter. He politely
obeyed, and led her to the carriage, while she prattled all the way
with the volubility of a giddy child, delighted at being treated like a
woman.
The opera-house presented but a gloomy appearance, from the extreme
scarcity of light, till the curtain drew up, and discovered a brilliant
chandelier, which hung directly over the actors. The illumination
of the stage cast the audience into deeper obscurity; therefore, of
the company in the boxes Louis had very little cognizance, while the
dresses and decorations of the opera, and the exquisite singing, might
have filled him with admiration, had not the style of the music,
reminded him of the first time he had heard the like, when the fair
Italian sung in his uncle's castle. He recollected his consequent
feelings that night; and humiliated in the remembrance, compared those
hours of infatuation, with his admiration of Otteline, and exclaimed to
himself--"What a slave have I been, to my eye and ear! Music, I shall
never like again; and beauty I shall abhor!"
As there was little of the latter, excepting youth and a blooming
complexion, in the smiling Amelia, to warn him of his abjuration; her
incessant questions and remarks on what was going forward on the stage,
amused him; and his attention to what she said, gratified the views of
her mother.
Apostola Zero, the father of the regular Italian Opera, had been
invited to Vienna by the Emperor; and to reward his acquiescence,
Charles invested him with two dissimilar, but productive
employments--Imperial historiographer, and poet of the court opera.
The grateful Italian dedicated his comprehensive genius solely to his
munificent patron; and the present performance was the first night of
a new composition he had formed on the story of Proserpine. The last
act was a representation of the infernal kingdom; laying bare the
foundations of Ætna, and exhibiting all the terrors of the subterranean
world. The curtain had hardly dropped, which it did in some confusion,
when an extraordinary bustle was heard behind the scenes. Soon after,
the theatre filled with smoke, and cries of fire were distinctly heard
from behind. Persons from the boxes jumped on the stage, while the
curtain was rent down by those before and behind it; and the scene
of horror that was discovered to those, who were not so entirely
absorbed in their fears but they could look around them, is not to
be described. The fire was seen bursting in several directions; men
were mounted aloft on the burning rafters, breaking down with their
hatchets the combustible apparatus in the way. Water was dashing and
streaming everywhere. The terrible light which filled the stage, too
well pourtrayed the inside of a raging volcano; sheets of flame, like
forked tongues, threw themselves forward from a thousand gaping mouths,
licking the ceiling, and entering the boxes. Shrieks, and groans, and
dismal cries, mingled with the iron clang of hammers, the fall of
timber, and the rush of fire and of people, assailed the ear in one
horrid moment of time.
At the first alarm, the ladies in the box with Louis, had been hurried
out by him, and some other gentlemen who had joined them in the course
of the evening. The poor little Amelia, true to nature, no sooner
thought herself in danger, than breaking from the protecting arms of
Louis, (who had caught her in them to hurry her through the pressing
crowd), she threw herself upon the bosom of her mother, and fainted
away. The Princess had more fortitude; and, assisted by hey nephew,
bore out the insensible girl, while Louis and the other gentleman made
a passage for them to the great door.
In passing the entrance of an obscure gallery, that led to an upper
range of boxes, he distinguished, in the midst of the uproar, shrieks
of peculiar distress. It was the very cry of agony and despair. Looking
round for a moment, he saw that his present charges were well enough
protected, and that he might safely leave them, to see and to succour
this terrific appeal. But even in the instant he was turning to obey
the impulse, he heard a fearful crash behind him; and a rush of people
followed, who bore him and his party, like a flood, into the square
before the theatre. All, then, was secure with them. But for the poor
suppliant, whose cries had pierced his heart, she was either lost, or
abandoned to the flames! At least, he would attempt to hear if her
voice yet sounded. Struggling his way back through the last crowds
who were making their escape, some, who felt him push by them in so
destructive a direction, cried aloud,--"Whoever you seek must have
perished. The top of the stage has fallen in, and the theatre is full
of fire."
But Louis, still fancying he heard the voice, pressed more
determinately forward, and soon found himself surrounded by smoke
alone. No sounds were distinct, but the raging of the flames in the
interior of the building, which roared in their work of destruction,
like the temple of Eolus, with all its winds. The heat was so intense,
that perspiration burst from all his pores; and the air around him was
a burning vapour. He hesitated to advance; and while his lungs filled
to suffocation, and the black smoke gleamed with horrid light, he was
stepping back, when the shriek burst forth again. Louis flew to the
sound. He rushed up a few steps into a narrow passage, answering the
cries as he advanced, in a loud voice, promising help. At the extremity
of the passage, which was short, he was interrupted by a closed door,
on the other side of which was the terrified suppliant, shaking it
with frantic violence. "I cannot open it!" cried she, in answer to his
demand.
"Stand from it, then," said he.
He was obeyed; and dashing his foot against it, it flew from its
hinges, and a lady instantly precipitated herself into his arms.
Another started from her knees, and with a hardly articulate cry of
joy, threw herself towards him. Louis clasped his almost insensible
burthen firmly to his breast, and bade her trembling companion cling
closely to him, as they must move swiftly, to have any chance of
escape. He turned round, and the lady, winding her arm in his mantle,
flew by his side, till they plunged at once into the dreadful smoke,
now red with advancing flames. He dashed impetuously forward; and his
almost stifled companion, partaking the desperate exertion, in a moment
afterwards they found themselves, with the issuing volumes, on the
platform of the portico.
He ran forward into the middle of the square, with his motionless load.
Dangers of a different kind, now menaced them. The flying rafters from
the consuming building, the pressure of people, with the throng of
carriages, and every confusion attendant on so tremendous a scene. In
an agitated voice, his companion asked him, whether he had strength to
bear his insensible burthen to the opposite side of the quadrangle.
Louis replied in the affirmative. She told him to go strait onwards to
the convent of Saint Magdalen; and, as he obeyed, she clung closely to
his arm.
When they arrived at the back of the convent, she let go her hold, and
taking a key from her bosom, opened a little low door in the building,
and whispered Louis to enter. When he was in, she locked the door
again, and bid him follow her in silence. She walked hastily along a
narrow stone passage, faintly lit by a few glimmering lamps. Opening an
iron-grating at the end, she issued into a garden, which she as swiftly
crossed; Louis still following, while the lady he carried, appeared to
be reviving under the influence of the fresh air. A high dark structure
rose on the other side, the top of which was illumined by the reflected
flames, which now rose in spires from the burning theatre. In the side
of this building was an arched door, surmounted by a cross. The lady
opened it, and Louis followed her into a little chapel; thence, through
several winding passages; till they brought him to a superb room, where
he laid his charge, now warm with returning animation, on a sofa.
His fair guide instantly applied essences to the recovering senses of
the lady, and in a few minutes she opened her eyes. He could only see
this happy change, by the gleam which fell on them, as the lids slowly
raised; for the apartment was immense, and only one wax-light stood
on a distant table. A moment after, she spoke in a low, inarticulate
voice; and looking round on the chamber, and then on Louis, who stood
by her, she caught the hand of her anxious companion, and exclaimed
with a cry of joy, "We are saved!--and, by whom!"
Her head dropped on the arm she had seized, and tears followed this
burst of feeling. Her friend bent only her head, and whispered
something in her ear, which Louis could not hear. The agitated lady
replied, "No, no;" then raising herself from her weeping position, and
sitting up on the couch, she said to Louis,--"I have no words in which
to thank my preserver, and, I will not seek any to deceive him. Even
by this light, I can see that I owe my life to the intrepid humanity of
the Marquis de Montemar."
The other lady obeyed the motion of her friend's hand, and set the
solitary candle on a stand near them. In the full light, Louis
recognized the face of the Electress of Bavaria, in the person he had
carried from the flames. He had no thought in the recognition, but
satisfaction at having rescued female helplessness from so direful a
death; and his reply was in unison with his feelings. It was not the
Princess he saw before him, nor the enemy of himself and his father;
but a woman, agitated from past terror, and grateful to him for having
averted its horrid consummation.
She explained the dreadful state of despair, in which he had found
her. For, hastening with her only attendant, Madame de Altenstein,
through the box to the inner passage door, while attempting to open
it, in the confusion of alarm she turned the key wrong, and having
strained the lock by the violence of her first application, no effort
could move it. She had then no resource, but cries for help, but
they passed unnoticed. And when the terrible crash, at the outcry of
the fallen roof, assailed her ear, in aimless phrenzy she would have
rushed back into the box, and leaped over into the flames, had not her
friend prevented her, by clinging to her knees. Again she flew to the
door;--again she rent the air with her unavailing shrieks,--"till you
came," continued she, "like a good angel, to my rescue!"
How different did the Electress appear now in the eyes of Louis, from
what she had seemed in the two former times of his seeing her. In
the boudoir of Countess Altheim, she looked, and expressed herself,
with the proud acknowledgement of a superior, to the vassals who had
done her service. At the fête in _la Favorita_, she gazed around in
haughty carelessness, and remarked with contemptuous sarcasm, on every
object. But now, she leaned on the sofa, conversing with him, with the
frankness of one who felt that danger and obligation had rendered them
equal; and her fine black eyes, large and luminous, as those of the
wild gazel, shone on him with eloquent gratitude. In all she said, the
force of her character appeared, in the strength of her understanding,
and the energy of her feelings.
She explained the nature of the whisper which her confidential
attendant had made in her ear, while she lay on her arm. It told her
the Marquis de Montemar was her preserver; and it asked permission to
dismiss him without farther discovery, "But," continued the Electress,
"would I not trust with my fortune, he who has preserved my life?"
She then said, that should it be known to her enemies, that she had
been at the Opera, they would blazon it abroad, as a decisive blow to
her hold on the affections of the people. The year of mourning for her
husband, was not yet expired; and should it be reported that she had
been at any public place, before that stated period, the superstitious
populace of Vienna, regarding it as a sacrilegious irreverence to
the memory of the dead; would consider her, who had committed the
act, as deserving excommunication from the Church,--repudiation from
the Imperial family; and a declaration from the Empire, that she had
forfeited all claims to her birthright.
"It is mere prejudice, that is against me;" said she, "but a prejudice,
having nothing to do with reason, is inaccessible to argument; hence, I
can only avoid its sentence by concealment."
In excuse for the rashness of having incurred so great a risk, for
so trifling a gratification, she pleaded her attachment to music,
the innocence of the amusement, and the frequency with which she had
enjoyed its stolen pleasures without discovery. By the indulgence of
the abbess of Saint Magdalen, who was the aunt of Madame de Altenstein,
she passed through the convent garden, which joined the Bavarian
palace; and thence, gliding along by remote passages in the sacred
dwelling, always reached the Opera-house in security. No other person
than Madame de Altenstein was ever her companion; and therefore, when
danger came, as no one knew she was there, she had none to watch her
safety, or to seek her preservation.
Louis listened to her animated discourse with admiration; but at times,
saw a _fierté_ in her manner, that recalled to his recollection her who
had sanctioned the several attempts on his father's life and his own.
She rose from the sofa, with a countenance full of noble sensibility;
"come with me," said she, "and I will shew you the heir of my
gratitude."
He obeyed the motion of her hand, as she passed before him with a light
step into an adjoining room. It was a bed-chamber, and in the bed lay a
boy in profound sleep. She approached him, and drew Louis to her side.
She turned her eyes, brimming in radiant tears, from the child, to her
preserver; and putting the hand of the little sleeper, into that of
Louis, she gently pressed them together.
"This is my son," said she, in a suppressed voice, "and thus I commit
him to the honour of a generous enemy."
Louis bent his lip to the cherubic hand that lay in his; and without a
word, glided back with the Electress into the apartment they had left.
She then told him, that as the fortunes of herself and her son,
depended on maintaining the affections of the major part of the
citizens of Vienna; her fate was now in the power of his lips. In
such a crisis, what was she to expect from his honour to her, or his
devotedness to the Empress?
"My silence, on what has passed," replied Louis.
"Then I am your friend for ever!" cried the Electress, her eyes
flashing a triumphant fire, and her lips parting with the smile of
conscious power; "you, and you alone, shall share my confidence, with a
man worthy to have been the adviser of Augustus. Come to me to-morrow
night at this hour, and I will bind you, heart to heart, with the glory
of manhood, undaunted Wharton!"
Louis started back.--She laid her hand on his arm.
"I know your bonds to the Empress, my ambitious, and unjust rival! Your
father's views, and her glozing tongue, have fastened you there, beyond
recall. It is not, then, your services as a partizan that I invoke;
but to give your society to my private circle. You are my preserver!
I repay you with my friendship; and that sentiment alone, I require in
return."
She now held his hand. He felt there was no deception in this demand;
no covert device; and the noble frankness of the speaker, so reminded
him of the beloved friend whose heart she had offered him, that with
irrepressible emotion he sunk upon his knee, and clasping the gracious
hand he held, earnestly yet respectfully between his, he replied.
"My veneration, illustrious Princess, must ever be yours. But I am
born to withstand my heart!--and while, in reverence to you, I keep an
eternal silence on what has happened; in fidelity to myself, I must
never venture again into this gracious presence!"
The Electress was not aware that the agitation which rendered his voice
and his looks so touching, as he remained at her feet, was excited
by tender remembrances of the friend he again abjured, in rejecting
her society. She was pleased with what she regarded as proofs of
sensibility to herself and her cause; and urged him, that if he feared
to make his visits openly, they might be paid in secret. With brevity,
and ingenuous freedom, he showed how impossible it was for the son of
Ripperda, in his present notorious situation, (as the great promoter of
all that concerned the pragmatic sanction;) to visit the adversary of
such a decree, either openly or in secret. If openly, he must assign
a reason for such apparent contradiction in conduct; and the only
adequate reason, could not be given without injury to the Electress.
Secret visits could not be made without a chance of detection; and that
incurred, the ruin of his own honour must be the consequence.
"I see the cogency of your arguments," returned she, "but I grieve to
allow them unanswerable. Fortune may yet favour us. You have twice
assisted me in distress. If it happens a third time," added she,
smiling impressively, "take care of your destiny!--At present I grant
your release.--Silence must be our mutual bond, till we can meet in
open day!"
"Silence, inviolable silence!" returned Louis, as he put her hand to
his lips, and rose to withdraw.
"Altenstein," cried she, "give me that casket."
The lady obeyed; and the Electress, pressing a spring, opened it. She
took out a small miniature of herself, set in plain gold.
"I intended this for the bosom of my best counsellor;" said she, "but
he will not object the transfer to him who has preserved my life. Take
it de Montemar. It will not, by word or action, betray your esteem for
Maria of Bavaria."
"I need not the picture, since the image is stamped on my heart!" said
Louis, pressing it to his breast, and then laying it back into the open
casket; "I must not be the possessor of so dangerous a treasure."
A vivid colour kindled on the cheek of the Electress; and with a little
elevation of her head, she closed the lid of the box upon the portrait,
and said, "For a brave man, Marquis, you are a very coward!--But it
shall be as you say.--Farewell, till more propitious hours."
Louis bowed.
"Altenstein," continued she, "shall conduct you out by a private door;
and then----Farewell!"
She stretched her hand to him. He again put it to his lips; and as she
instantly withdrew, he mechanically obeyed the summons of Madame, to
follow her.
As the faithful _Lady of the Key_, (who certainly did not appear to
have her name for nothing,) dismissed Louis from a little obscure
door, into a back street, he observed three men approaching; at sight
of him, they evidently drew back into the shadow; and as he passed
them, the gleam of the lamps attached to this part of the Bavarian
residence, fell on his face. Of this he was unconscious, and thinking
no more of the eves-droppers, (on whom his absorbed attention had not
cast a second look,) he walked swiftly along.
The observers were no other than Duke Wharton, and the two Spaniards,
de Patinos and Orendayn. As soon as he had passed, de Patinos
exclaimed; "surely, that is de Montemar!"
"And from the Bavarian palace by stealth!" remarked Orendayn, "what can
it mean?"
Wharton was not less surprised than his companions, at a rencontre
with Louis at so incredible a place; and the more so, to see him issue
from a portal, which, to this instant, was sacred to his own regress
at hours of untimely counsel. But surprise did not appear in him, by
look, start, or exclamation.
"No;" replied he, with perfect indifference, "it is one Phaffenberg,
who, I believe, has been thought like the Spanish secretary."
"By heaven," said the Count, "I never was so deceived in my life! The
air of his figure, and the turn of his profile, I could have sworn to;
but I now recollect, de Montemar went out a gay coxcomb, in embroidery
and plumage, and this person is rather in dingy apparel."
"A poor scrivener!" replied Wharton, "so I know not how he could be
otherwise."
With this observation they proceeded down the street, towards the
consuming theatre. De Patinos believed he had been mistaken, and
dismissed the subject of the hated de Montemar. But Orendayn, not
less vindictive than his countryman, was more crafty; and suspecting
the manner of Wharton, (his eyesight not being sufficiently clear
to give him conviction,) walked on in silence, ruminating on future
observation. For the Duke himself, though he discoursed on a thousand
subjects, he thought of none but Louis, till he could hear his
appearance at that door accounted for by the Electress herself.