In an apartment of the palace fitted up with every luxury her native
Italy could supply, sat Bona, the young and beautiful queen of Poland.
She is known to have transplanted into that northern clime, not only
the arts and civilization of her own genial soil, but also the
intrigue and voluptuousness, and the still darker crimes for which it
was celebrated. Daughter of the crafty Sforza, Duke of Milan, educated
in a city and at a court where pleasure reigned predominant, married
out of policy to a monarch many years older than her own father, it
was almost to be expected that she should seek, in the society of some
gay cavalier, a compensation for this banishment to a northern
country, and a sexagenarian spouse. Nor had she hesitated long in her
choice. Albert Glinski, Duke of Lithuania, who, though he was the
father of a son ripening into manhood, was still in the vigour of
life, and surpassed all his younger rivals in grace of manner and
charm of conversation, had soon fixed her regard, and won whatever of
affection or love the luxurious princess had to bestow.
She now sat waiting his arrival. Punctually at the hour of eight he
entered. If any observer could have watched the duke as he traversed
the corridor which led to the queen's apartment, he would have had
great difficulty in believing that it was a favoured lover that was
passing before him; so serious a brow did he wear, and so deep an air
of abstraction was there on his countenance. No sooner, however, did
he enter that apartment, than, by a sudden effort, his countenance lit
up; his manner grew free and unrestrained, and he assumed that mingled
tone of gaiety and pathos so effective with the fair sex. Never had
the queen felt more entirely convinced of the merits of her cavalier;
never had she more thoroughly approved of the choice she had made.
When this favourable disposition was at its height, the duke, adopting
gradually a more serious tone of conversation, said--
"Has it never occurred to you, charming Bona, that the most exalted of
your sex share with the humblest this one privilege--love alone must
be the motive which brings a suitor to their feet. That passion must
be genuine, must be fever-high, which makes a subject quite forget his
Queen in the lovely woman before him, and tempts him to dare the
vengeance of a Monarch, as well as of a husband."
"True, there is danger--perhaps to both of us," she replied, "but it
daunts us not."
"No;--but it is at hand."
"What mean you, Glinski?"
"We are betrayed."
"How?--by whom?"
"How, or by whom, it matters little; but that subtle demon, Count
Laski, knows that which in his hands is a warrant for our
destruction."
"What is to be done? We will bribe him. All my jewels, all my hoards
shall go to purchase his silence."
"Bribe Laski! bribe the north wind! bribe destiny itself, whose nature
it is to distribute good and ill, but to feel neither. No, but I would
have a dagger in his throat before the night were passed, but that his
short light slumbers are guarded by a slave of singular power, whom
the villains fear to attack. I had meant to beg or buy of him this
same fierce automaton, but something broke off the treaty."
"We will poison the mind of the king against him: he shall be
dismissed from all his offices."
"That poison is too slow. Besides, if he once communicate his
suspicions to the king--which at this very moment he may be doing--see
you not, that it is no longer the minister, but the jealous monarch
that we have to guard against. Hear me, Bona, one of two fates must
now be mine. Death--or thy hand, and with it the crown of Poland. Do
not start. There is for _me_ no middle station. You may be safe. A few
tears, a few smiles, and the old king will lapse into his dotage."
"You speak in riddles, Glinski; I comprehend nothing of all this."
"Yet it is clear enough. Thus it stands: the Duke of Lithuania loved
the wife of Sigismund, king of Poland. Love!--I call to witness all
the saints in heaven!--love alone prompted his daring suit. But now
that fortune has first favoured and then betrayed him, where think you
does his safety lie? Where, but in the bold enterprises of ambition?
His only place of refuge is a throne. He who has won a queen must
protect her with a sceptre. You must be mine--my very queen--you must
extend your hand and raise me to the royalty of Poland, or see my
blood flow ignominiously upon the scaffold."
"I extend my hand!" exclaimed the agitated queen, "how can a feeble
woman give or take away the crown of Poland?"
"Him who wears the crown--she can take away."
"Murder the king!" shrieked Bona.
"Or sentence me," replied the duke.
It was no affected horror that the queen here displayed. Though at a
subsequent period of her life, if history speaks true, her imagination
had grown familiar with deeds of this very nature, and she had become
skilful in the art of poisoning, she was at this time young, and
unpractised in crime, and received its first suggestions with the
horror which it naturally inspires. She had sought for pleasure only
in the society of Glinski; it was a cruel disappointment, it was a
frightful surprise, to find herself thrust suddenly, with unsandaled
feet, on the thorny path of ambition. She sank back on the couch where
they had both been sitting, and, hiding her face in both her hands,
remained in that position while the duke continued to unfold his
schemes at greater length.
He represented to her that the possession of the duchy of Lithuania,
the inhabitants of which were distinguished by their bravery and their
turbulence, would enable him--should the king opportunely die--to
seize upon the vacant throne of Poland;--that he had numerous and
powerful friends among the nobility;--that he had already drawn
together his Lithuanians, under pretence of protecting the frontier
from the incursion of predatory bands;--that he intended immediately
to place himself at their head, and march towards Cracow. Now, if at
this moment the throne should suddenly become vacant, what power on
earth could prevent him from ascending it, and claiming the hand of
his then veritable queen? And then he expatiated on the happiness they
should enjoy, when they should live in fearless union,
"Like gods together, careless of mankind."
"What is this," exclaimed Bona, suddenly starting up--"what is this
you would tempt me to? You dare not even _name_ the horrid deed you
would have me _commit_. Avaunt! you are a devil, Albert Glinski!--you
would drag me to perdition." Then, falling in tears upon his neck, she
implored him not to tempt her further. "Oh, Albert! Albert!" she
cried, "I beseech you, plunge me not into this pit of guilt. You
_can_! I feel you can. Have mercy! I implore you, I charge you on your
soul, convert me not into this demon. Spare me this crime!"
"Is it I alone," said the duke, who strove the while by his caresses
to soothe and pacify her--"Is it I alone who have brought down upon us
this distressful alternative? Neither of us, while love decoyed us on
step by step, dreamed of the terrible necessity towards which it was
hourly conducting us. But here we _are_--half-way up, and the
precipice below. We must rush still upwards. There is safety only on
the summit. Pause, and we fall. Oh, did you think that you, a queen,
could play as securely as some burgher's wife the pleasant comedy of
an amorous intrigue? No, no; you must queen it even in crime. High
station and bold deed become each other. We are committed, Bona. It is
choice of life or death. His death or _ours_. For--scarcely dare I
breathe the thought--the sudden revenge of your monarch husband, whose
jealousy at least, age has not tamed, _may_ execute its purpose before
his dotage has had time to return."
"Where do you lead me? What shall I become?" cried the bewildered
queen. "I have loved thee, Albert, but I hate not him."
"I ask thee not to _hate_"----
"They married me to Sigismund out of state policy. You I have chosen
for the partner of my heart, and I will protect you to the uttermost.
Let things rest there--'tis well enough."
"We will consult further of our plans, sweet Bona," said the duke,
and, circling her with his arm, he led the weeping queen into an
adjoining room.
The victory, he felt, was his.