Thus far the cause of the chancellor had prospered. Poland had been
preserved from the horrors of a civil war. The king's life had also
been saved, and a great crime prevented; the career of assassination
and of poisoning, into which the queen afterwards entered, was at all
events postponed. As a public man, the minister was fully triumphant.
But the minister was a father; at this side he was vulnerable; and
fortune dealt her blow with cruel and unexpected severity.
We have seen with what stern fidelity to his ministerial duty, and at
how great a peril to his daughter's happiness, the chancellor had
arrested Augustus Glinski. The rebellion quelled, the author of it
punished and decapitated, there seemed no just motive for holding
longer in imprisonment a youth who could not be accused of having any
guilty participation in the crime of his father. He accordingly
proposed his release. But the anger of the king against the late duke,
who to his political offence had added that of personal ingratitude,
(for it was Sigismund himself who had bestowed on him the powerful
duchy of Lithuania,) was still unappeased, and he insisted upon
including the son in the guilt and punishment of his parent. The
representations of the minister were here unavailing; he would listen
to nothing but the dictates of his own vindictive feelings.
Count Laski detailed the manner of his arrest, and explained the
singular interest he felt in the pardon and liberation of this youth;
adding, that if Angustus Glinski died upon the scaffold, he feared the
life of his daughter. But even this was unavailing. The old monarch
thought he was displaying a great acuteness when he detected, as he
imagined, in this plea of a daughter's happiness, a scheme of selfish
aggrandizement. "Ha! ha!" said he, "so the wind sits in that quarter.
A good match--duchess of Lithuania! I would rather you asked for the
dukedom yourself, and married your daughter to another."
It was in vain that the minister again repeated his simple and true
statement; it was in vain that he limited his request to the life of
the younger Glinski, consenting to the forfeiture of his title and
estates; Sigismund was resolved this time not to be _overreached_ by
his subtle minister. The language of entreaty was new to Laski; he
had tried it, and had failed. It was new to Laski to endure tamely the
misconstruction of his motives, or the least impeachment of his
veracity. He had no other resource, no other response, left than the
resignation of his ministerial office. But the obstinacy and anger of
the king were proof against this also. The danger which threatened his
reign had been dispelled. He could afford to be self-willed. He would
not be controlled. In short, Count Laski left the royal presence--a
discarded minister.
In a monarchy uncontrolled and unaided by representative assemblies,
the power which is secured perhaps to one of the weakest of men or
women, perhaps to a child, has often struck the observer of human
affairs as a strange anomaly. But the insecure and precarious
foundation of the power of the great minister in such a monarchy, is
scarcely less curious to contemplate. The sagacious counsellor, the
long-experienced governor, who has for years wielded the powers of the
state, may be reduced to obscurity and impotence by a word--a word of
puerile passion, kindled perhaps by a silly intrigue. A great ruler is
displaced at the caprice of a dotard. When Count Laski entered the
presence of the king, he was in reality the governor of Poland; Europe
acknowledged him amongst the controllers and directors of human
affairs; his country expected many signal improvements at his hands;
the individual happiness of thousands depended upon him; but this
power, which had devised great schemes, and which was the rock of
support to so many, could itself be shaken and overthrown in a moment,
by the splenetic humour of an angry old man.
Who shall describe the grief and despair of Maria when she heard of
the cruel resolution which the king had taken, of the dreadful fate
which threatened Augustus Glinski? As she sat this time in her Gothic
chamber, and in her accustomed chair, what a mortal paleness had
settled upon her countenance! Her eye glared out, and was fixed on the
vacant wall, as if a spirit had arisen before her, and arrested her
regard. There _was_ a spirit there. It was the form of the young
Augustus, whom she saw withering and wasting in his dungeon; a dungeon
which would deliver him up only to the scaffold. After the events
which had occurred all idea of a union with Augustus, presuming that
his life should be spared, had been resigned. How could he, on whom
the maxims of that age especially imposed the duty of revenging his
parent, ally himself to her? How could he choose for his second father
the very man who had deprived him of his first and natural parent? If
she could but hear that he had broken loose from imprisonment, that he
was but safe--this was all that she felt entitled to wish or to pray
for. It need hardly be added that it was additional bitterness to
reflect, that but for his unhappy attachment to herself, his arrest
and captivity would never have taken place.
Again, in the same angle of the apartment, the Arab slave might have
been seen standing, silent and motionless as before, regarding with
deep interest and commiseration the beautiful daughter of Laski. The
secret which she was about, on one occasion, to betray to Hakem, had
now betrayed itself to his own observation. She loved--she loved the
son of him whom he had assassinated, or executed. There was a profound
sadness on the features of the slave.
The silence of the room was suddenly broken by Maria, who, turning to
the slave, exclaimed in a tone of anguish--"Hakem, you must save him!
you must save him!" This was said in mere desperation, certainly not
with any distinct hope that it was in the power of Hakem to obey.
When, therefore, she heard his voice reply, in a calm but saddened
tone, "I will!" she was almost as much surprised as if she had not
addressed herself to him. She rose to be assured that it was he who
spoke; to bid him repeat his consolatory promise; to question him on
his means of fulfilling it: but Hakem was no longer there; he had
suddenly quitted the apartment. It seemed as if some voice in the air
had sported with her grief.