ALOYSIUS VON G------ was the son of a citizen of distinction, in the
service of -------, and the germs of his fertile genius had been early
developed by a liberal education. While yet very young, but already
well grounded in the principles of knowledge, he entered the military
service of his sovereign, to whom he soon made himself known as a young
man of great merit and still greater promise. G------ was now in the
full glow of youth, so also was the prince. G------ was ardent and
enterprising; the prince, of a similar disposition, loved such
characters. Endued with brilliant wit and a rich fund of information,
G------ possessed the art of ingratiating himself with all around him;
he enlivened every circle in which he moved by his felicitous humor, and
infused life and spirit into every subject that came before him. The
prince had discernment enough to appreciate in another those virtues
which he himself possessed in an eminent degree. Everything which
G------ undertook, even to his very sports, had an air of grandeur; no
difficulties could daunt him, no failures vanquish his perseverance.
The value of these qualities was increased by an attractive person, the
perfect image of blooming health and herculean strength, and heightened
by the eloquent expression natural to an active mind; to these was added
a certain native and unaffected dignity, chastened and subdued by a
noble modesty. If the prince was charmed with the intellectual
attractions of his young companion, his fascinating exterior
irresistibly captivated his senses. Similarity of age, of tastes, and
of character soon produced an intimacy between them, which possessed all
the strength of friendship and all the warmth and fervor of the most
passionate love. G------ rose with rapidity from one promotion to
another; but whatever the extent of favors conferred they still seemed
in the estimation of the prince to fall short of his deserts. His
fortune advanced with gigantic strides, for the author of his greatness
was his devoted admirer and his warmest friend. Not yet twenty-two
years of age, he already saw himself placed on an eminence hitherto
attained only by the most fortunate at the close of their career. But
his active spirit was incapable of reposing long in the lap of indolent
vanity, or of contenting itself with the glittering pomp of an elevated
office, to perform the behests of which he was conscious of possessing
both the requisite courage and the abilities. Whilst the prince was
engaged in rounds of pleasure, his young favorite buried himself among
archives and books, and devoted himself with laborious assiduity to
affairs of state, in which he at length became so expert that every
matter of importance passed through his hands. From the companion of
his pleasures he soon became first councillor and minister, and finally
the ruler of his sovereign. In a short time there was no road to the
prince’s favor but through him. He disposed of all offices and
dignities; all rewards were received from his hands.
G------ had attained this vast influence at too early an age, and had
risen by too rapid strides to enjoy his power with moderation. The
eminence on which he beheld himself made his ambition dizzy, and no
sooner was the final object of his wishes attained than his modesty
forsook him. The respectful deference shown him by the first nobles of
the land, by all who, in birth, fortune, and reputation, so far
surpassed him, and which was even paid to him, youth as he was, by the
oldest senators, intoxicated his pride, while his unlimited power served
to develop a certain harshness which had been latent in his character,
and which, throughout all the vicissitudes of his fortune, remained.
There was no service, however considerable or toilsome, which his
friends might not safely ask at his hands; but his enemies might well
tremble! for, in proportion as he was extravagant in rewards, so was he
implacable in revenge. He made less use of his influence to enrich
himself than to render happy a number of beings who should pay homage
to him as the author of their prosperity; but caprice alone, and not
justice, dictated the choice of his subjects. By a haughty, imperious
demeanor he alienated the hearts even of those whom he had most
benefited; while at the same time he converted his rivals and secret
enviers into deadly enemies.
Amongst those who watched all his movements with jealousy and envy, and
who were silently preparing instruments for his destruction, was Joseph
Martinengo, a Piedmontese count belonging to the prince’s suite, whom
G------ himself had formerly promoted, as an inoffensive creature,
devoted to his interests, for the purpose of supplying his own place in
attending upon the pleasures of the prince--an office which he began to
find irksome, and which he willingly exchanged for more useful
employment. Viewing this man merely as the work of his own hands, whom
he might at any period consign to his former insignificance, he felt
assured of the fidelity of his creature from motives of fear no less
than of gratitude. He fell thus into the error committed by Richelieu,
when he made over to Louis XII., as a sort of plaything, the young Le
Grand. Without Richelieu’s sagacity, however, to repair his error, he
had to deal with a far more wily enemy than fell to the lot of the
French minister. Instead of boasting of his good fortune, or allowing
his benefactor to feel that he could now dispense with his patronage,
Martinengo was, on the contrary, the more cautious to maintain a show of
dependence, and with studied humility affected to attach himself more
and more closely to the author of his prosperity. Meanwhile, he did not
omit to avail himself, to its fullest extent, of the opportunities
afforded him by his office, of being continually about the prince’s
person, to make himself daily more useful, and eventually indispensable
to him. In a short time he had fathomed the prince’s sentiments
thoroughly, had discovered all the avenues to his confidence, and
imperceptibly stolen himself into his favor. All those arts which a
noble pride, and a natural elevation of character, had taught the
minister to disdain, were brought into play by the Italian, who scrupled
not to avail himself of the most despicable means for attaining his
object. Well aware that man never stands so much in need of a guide and
assistant as in the paths of vice, and that nothing gives a stronger
title to bold familiarity than a participation in secret indiscretions,
he took measures for exciting passions in the prince which had hitherto
lain dormant, and then obtruded himself upon him as a confidant and an
accomplice. He plunged him especially into those excesses which least
of all endure witnesses, and imperceptibly accustomed the prince to make
him the depository of secrets to which no third person was admitted.
Upon the degradation of the prince’s character he now began to found his
infamous schemes of aggrandizement, and, as he had made secrecy a means
of success, he had obtained entire possession of his master’s heart
before G------ even allowed himself to suspect that he shared it with
another.
It may appear singular that so important a change should escape the
minister’s notice; but G------ was too well assured of his own worth
ever to think of a man like Martinengo in the light of a competitor;
while the latter was far too wily, and too much on his guard, to commit
the least error which might tend to rouse his enemy from his fatal
security. That which has caused thousands of his predecessors to
stumble on the slippery path of royal favor was also the cause of
G------‘s fall, immoderate self-confidence. The secret intimacy between
his creature, Martinengo, and his royal master gave him no uneasiness;
he readily resigned a privilege which he despised and which had never
been the object of his ambition. It was only because it smoothed his
way to power that he had ever valued the prince’s friendship, and he
inconsiderately threw down the ladder by which he had risen as soon as
he had attained the wished-for eminence.
Martinengo was not the man to rest satisfied with so subordinate a part.
At each step which he advanced in the prince’s favor his hopes rose
higher, and his ambition began to grasp at a more substantial
gratification. The deceitful humility which he had hitherto found it
necessary to maintain towards his benefactor became daily more irksome
to him, in proportion as the growth of his reputation awakened his
pride. On the other hand, the minister’s deportment toward him by no
means improved with his marked progress in the prince’s favor, but was
often too visibly directed to rebuke his growing pride by reminding him
of his humble origin. This forced and unnatural position having become
quite insupportable, he at length formed the determination of putting an
end to it by the destruction of his rival. Under an impenetrable veil
of dissimulation he brought his plan to maturity. He dared not venture
as yet to come into open conflict with his rival; for, although the
first glow of the minister’s favor was at an end, it had commenced too
early, and struck root too deeply in the bosom of the prince, to be torn
from it abruptly. The slightest circumstance might restore it to all
its former vigor; and therefore Martinengo well understood that the blow
which he was about to strike must be a mortal one. Whatever ground
G------ might have lost in the prince’s affections he had gained in his
respect. The more the prince withdrew himself from the affairs of
state, the less could he dispense with the services of a man, who with
the most conscientious devotion and fidelity had consulted his master’s
interests, even at the expense of the country,--and G------ was now as
indispensable to him as a minister as he had formerly been dear to him
as a friend.
By what means the Italian accomplished his purpose has remained a secret
between those on whom the blow fell and those who directed it. It was
reported that he laid before the prince the original draughts of a
secret and very suspicious correspondence which G------ is said to have
carried on with a neighboring court; but opinions differ as to whether
the letters were authentic or spurious. Whatever degree of truth there
may have been in the accusation it is but too certain that it fearfully
accomplished the end in view. In the eyes of the prince G-----
appeared the most ungrateful and vilest of traitors, whose treasonable
practices were so thoroughly proved as to warrant the severest measures
without further investigation. The whole affair was arranged with the
most profound secrecy between Martinengo and his master, so that G------
had not the most distant presentiment of the impending storm. He
continued wrapped in this fatal security until the dreadful moment in
which he was destined, from being the object of universal homage and
envy, to become that of the deepest commiseration.
When the decisive day arrived, G------ appeared, according to custom,
upon the parade. He had risen in a few years from the rank of ensign to
that of colonel; and even this was only a modest name for that of prime
minister, which he virtually filled, and which placed him above the
foremost of the land. The parade was the place where his pride was
greeted with universal homage, and where he enjoyed for one short hour
the dignity for which he endured a whole day of toil and privation.
Those of the highest rank approached him with reverential deference,
and those who were not assured of his favor with fear and trembling.
Even the prince, whenever he visited the parade, saw himself neglected
by the side of his vizier, inasmuch as it was far more dangerous to
incur the displeasure of the latter than profitable to gain the
friendship of the former. This very place, where he was wont to be
adored as a god, had been selected for the dreadful theatre of his
humiliation.
With a careless step he entered the well-known circle of courtiers,
who, as unsuspicious as himself of what was to follow, paid their usual
homage, awaiting his commands. After a short interval appeared
Martinengo, accompanied by two adjutants, no longer the supple,
cringing, smiling courtier, but overbearing and insolent, like a lackey
suddenly raised to the rank of a gentleman. With insolence and
effrontery he strutted up to the prime minister, and, confronting him
with his head covered, demanded his sword in the prince’s name. This
was handed to him with a look of silent consternation; Martinengo,
resting the naked point on the ground, snapped it in two with his foot,
and threw the fragments at G-----‘s feet. At this signal the two
adjutants seized him; one tore the Order of the Cross from his breast;
the other pulled off his epaulettes, the facings of his uniform, and
even the badge and plume of feathers from his hat. During the whole of
the appalling operation, which was conducted with incredible speed, not
a sound nor a respiration was heard from more than five hundred persons
who were present; but all, with blanched faces and palpitating hearts,
stood in deathlike silence around the victim, who in his strange
disarray--a rare spectacle of the melancholy and the ridiculous--
underwent a moment of agony which could only be equalled by feelings
engendered on the scaffold. Thousands there are who in his situation
would have been stretched senseless on the ground by the first shock;
but his firm nerves and unflinching spirit sustained him through this
bitter trial, and enabled him to drain the cup of bitterness to its
dregs.
When this procedure was ended he was conducted through rows of thronging
spectators to the extremity of the parade, where a covered carriage was
in waiting. He was motioned to ascend, an escort of hussars being
ready-mounted to attend to him. Meanwhile the report of this event had
spread through the whole city; every window was flung open, every street
lined with throngs of curious spectators, who pursued the carriage,
shouting his name, amid cries of scorn and malicious exultation, or of
commiseration more bitter to bear than either. At length he cleared the
town, but here a no less fearful trial awaited him. The carriage turned
out of the high road into a narrow, unfrequented path--a path which led
to the gibbet, and alongside which, by command of the prince, he was
borne at a slow pace. After he had suffered all the torture of
anticipated execution the carriage turned off into the public road.
Exposed to the sultry summer-heat, without refreshment or human
consolation, he passed seven dreadful hours in journeying to the place
of destination--a prison fortress. It was nightfall before he arrived;
when, bereft of all consciousness, more dead than alive, his giant
strength having at length yielded to twelve hours’ fast and consuming
thirst, he was dragged from the carriage; and, on regaining his senses,
found himself in a horrible subterraneous vault. The first object that
presented itself to his gaze was a horrible dungeon-wall, feebly
illuminated by a few rays of the moon, which forced their way through
narrow crevices to a depth of nineteen fathoms. At his side he found a
coarse loaf, a jug of water, and a bundle of straw for his couch. He
endured this situation until noon the ensuing day, when an iron wicket
in the centre of the tower was opened, and two hands were seen lowering
a basket, containing food like that he had found the preceding night.
For the first time since the terrible change in his fortunes did pain
and suspense extort from him a question or two. Why was he brought
hither? What offence had he committed? But he received no answer; the
hands disappeared; and the sash was closed. Here, without beholding the
face, or hearing the voice of a fellow-creature; without the least clue
to his terrible destiny; fearful doubts and misgivings overhanging alike
the past and the future; cheered by no rays of the sun, and soothed by
no refreshing breeze; remote alike from human aid and human compassion;
--here, in this frightful abode of misery, he numbered four hundred and
ninety long and mournful days, which he counted by the wretched loaves
that, day after day, with dreary monotony, were let down into his
dungeon. But a discovery which he one day made early in his confinement
filled up the measure of his affliction. He recognized the place. It
was the same which he himself, in a fit of unworthy vengeance against a
deserving officer, who had the misfortune to displease him, had ordered
to be constructed only a few months before. With inventive cruelty he
had even suggested the means by which the horrors of captivity might be
aggravated; and it was but recently that he had made a journey hither in
order personally to inspect the place and hasten its completion. What
added the last bitter sting to his punishment was that the same officer
for whom he had prepared the dungeon, an aged and meritorious colonel,
had just succeeded the late commandant of the fortress, recently
deceased, and, from having been the victim of his vengeance, had become
the master of his fate. He was thus deprived of the last melancholy
solace, the right of compassionating himself, and of accusing destiny,
hardly as it might use him, of injustice. To the acuteness of his other
suffering was now added a bitter self-contempt, contempt, and the pain
which to a sensitive mind is the severest--dependence upon the
generosity of a foe to whom he had shown none.
But that upright man was too noble-minded to take a mean revenge.
It pained him deeply to enforce the severities which his instructions
enjoined; but as an old soldier, accustomed to fulfil his orders to
the letter with blind fidelity, he could do no more than pity,
compassionate. The unhappy man found a more active assistant in the
chaplain of the garrison, who, touched by the sufferings of the
prisoner, which had just reached his ears, and then only through vague
and confused reports, instantly took a firm resolution to do something
to alleviate them. This excellent man, whose name I unwillingly
suppress, believed he could in no way better fulfil his holy vocation
than by bestowing his spiritual support and consolation upon a wretched
being deprived of all other hopes of mercy.
As he could not obtain permission from the commandant himself to visit
him he repaired in person to the capital, in order to urge his suit
personally with the prince. He fell at his feet, and implored mercy for
the unhappy man, who, shut out from the consolations of Christianity, a
privilege from which even the greatest crime ought not to debar him, was
pining in solitude, and perhaps on the brink of despair. With all the
intrepidity and dignity which the conscious discharge of duty inspires,
he entreated, nay demanded, free access to the prisoner, whom he claimed
as a penitent for whose soul he was responsible to heaven. The good
cause in which he spoke made him eloquent, and time had already somewhat
softened the prince’s anger. He granted him permission to visit the
prisoner, and administer to his spiritual wants.
After a lapse of sixteen months, the first human face which the unhappy
G------ beheld was that of his new benefactor. The only friend he had
in the world he owed to his misfortunes, all his prosperity had gained
him none. The good pastor’s visit was like the appearance of an angel--
it would be impossible to describe his feelings, but from that day forth
his tears flowed more kindly, for he had found one human being who
sympathized with and compassionated him.
The pastor was filled with horror on entering the frightful vault. His
eyes sought a human form, but beheld, creeping towards him from a corner
opposite, which resembled rather the lair of a wild beast than the abode
of anything human, a monster, the sight of which made his blood run
cold. A ghastly deathlike skeleton, all the hue of life perished from a
face on which grief and despair had traced deep furrows--his beard and
nails, from long neglect, grown to a frightful length-his clothes rotten
and hanging about him in tatters; and the air he breathed, for want of
ventilation and cleansing, foul, fetid, and infectious. In this state
be found the favorite of fortune;--his iron frame had stood proof
against it all! Seized with horror at the sight, the pastor hurried
back to the governor, in order to solicit a second indulgence for the
poor wretch, without which the first would prove of no avail.
As the governor again excused himself by pleading the imperative nature
of his instructions, the pastor nobly resolved on a second journey to
the capital, again to supplicate the prince’s mercy. There he protested
solemnly that, without violating the sacred character of the sacrament,
he could not administer it to the prisoner until some resemblance of the
human form was restored to him. This prayer was also granted; and from
that day forward the unfortunate man might be said to begin a new
existence.
Several long years were spent by him in the fortress, but in a much more
supportable condition, after the short summer of the new favorite’s
reign had passed, and others succeeded in his place, who either
possessed more humanity or no motive for revenge. At length, after ten
years of captivity, the hour of his delivery arrived, but without any
judicial investigation or formal acquittal. He was presented with his
freedom as a boon of mercy, and was, at the same time, ordered to quit
his native country forever.
Here the oral traditions which I have been able to collect respecting
his history begin to fail; and I find myself compelled to pass in
silence over a period of about twenty years. During the interval
G------ entered anew upon his military career, in a foreign service,
which eventually brought him to a pitch of greatness quite equal to that
from which he had, in his native country, been so awfully precipitated.
At length time, that friend of the unfortunate, who works a slow but
inevitable retribution, took into his hands the winding up of this
affair. The prince’s days of passion were over; humanity gradually
resumed its sway over him as his hair whitened with age. At the brink
of the grave he felt a yearning towards the friend of his early youth.
In order to repay, as far as possible, the gray-headed old man, for the
injuries which had been heaped upon the youth, the prince, with friendly
expressions, invited the exile to revisit his native land, towards which
for some time past G------‘s heart had secretly yearned. The meeting
was extremely trying, though apparently warm and cordial, as if they had
only separated a few days before. The prince looked earnestly at his
favorite, as if trying to recall features so well known to him, and yet
so strange; he appeared as if numbering the deep furrows which he had
himself so cruelly traced there. He looked searchingly in the old man’s
face for the beloved features of the youth, but found not what he
sought. The welcome and the look of mutual confidence were evidently
forced on both sides; shame on one side and dread on the other had
forever separated their hearts. A sight which brought back to the
prince’s soul the full sense of his guilty precipitancy could not be
gratifying to him, while G------ felt that he could no longer love the
author of his misfortunes. Comforted, nevertheless, and in
tranquillity, he looked back upon the past as the remembrance of a
fearful dream.
In a short time G------ was reinstated in all his former dignities, and
the prince smothered his feelings of secret repugnance by showering upon
him the most splendid favors as some indemnification for the past. But
could he also restore to him the heart which he had forever untuned for
the enjoyment of life? Could he restore his years of hope? or make
even a shadow of reparation to the stricken old man for what he had
stolen from him in the days of his youth?
For nineteen years G------- continued to enjoy this clear, unruffled
evening of his days. Neither misfortune nor age had been able to quench
in him the fire of passion, nor wholly to obscure the genial humor of
his character. In his seventieth year he was still in pursuit of the
shadow of a happiness which he had actually possessed in his twentieth.
He at length died governor of the fortress where state prisoners are
confined. One would naturally have expected that towards these he would
have exercised a humanity, the value of which he had been so thoroughly
taught to appreciate in his own person; but he treated them with
harshness and caprice; and a paroxysm of rage, in which he broke out
against one of his prisoners, laid him in his coffin, in his eightieth
year.