Transcriber’s Notes
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No table of contents existed in the original book. A simple table of contents was created by the transcriber.
Additional transcriber's notes at the end of the text.

THE
PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,
Vol. III.

Printed by A. Strahan,
New-Street-Square, London.

THE

PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,

IN FOUR VOLUMES.
BY

MISS JANE PORTER,

AUTHOR OF THADDEUS OF WARSAW, SIDNEY'S APHORISMS, AND THE SCOTTISH CHIEFS.

I will confess the ambitious projects which I once had, are dead within me. After having seen the parts which fools play upon the great stage; a few books, and a few friends, are what I shall seek to finish my days with.

TWEDDELL.

VOL. III.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR LONGMAN, HURST, REES, ORME, AND BROWN, PATERNOSTER-ROW.
1817.

CONTENTS.

[CHAP. I.] 1 [CHAP. II.] 32 [CHAP. III.] 47 [CHAP. IV.] 77 [CHAP. V.] 94 [CHAP. VI.] 113 [CHAP. VII.] 138 [CHAP. VIII.] 152 [CHAP. IX.] 169 [CHAP. X.] 184 [CHAP. XI.] 198 [CHAP. XII.] 220 [CHAP. XIII.] 251 [CHAP. XIV.] 275 [CHAP. XV.] 287 [CHAP. XVI.] 306 [CHAP. XVII.] 325 [CHAP. XVIII.] 350 [CHAP. XIX.] 376 [CHAP. XX.] 390

THE
PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,
Vol. III.

CHAP. I.

The first thought that occurred to Louis next day, was a wish to enquire at the door of the Bavarian Palace, after the health of its noble inmates. The frank and ardent gratitude of the illustrious widow, had interested his feelings; and, adding to this, the undescribable attaching quality which lies in an obligation, such as that he had conferred on the Electress, seemed to draw him towards her with an irresistible attraction. Benefits and gratefulness, when interchanged by generous natures, are bonds, garlanded in paradise. They draw, by invisible cords, but their rivets are eternal. Gratitude looks up with endearing confidence to the bestower of its good; and the consciousness of yielding protection, like the divine source of all benevolence, fills the heart with a sweet tenderness towards its object.

With all this in his thoughts, Louis allowed prudence to put his wishes to silence; and he left it to accident, to inform him of the health or indisposition of them he had preserved.

His official duty of this morning passed with a deputation from the merchants of Ostend. He had received his father's commands to that purpose, to hold a conference with them respecting the sanction which the Spanish Monarch had granted to their Indian trade, to the great umbrage of the mercantile interests of Great Britain and Holland. The Emperor had insisted on this guarantee of Spain; and the Queen, with her usual impatience, ordered it to be accorded without reserve. But Ripperda, when he yielded to the temporary necessity, had guarded it with a clause in the privileges, to which Charles as well as themselves continued to object. To know the result of the Spanish minister's further deliberation was the cause of their present embassy.

When Louis had discussed the affair with the merchants, their president retired with the young negociator, to sign, in the name of the company, several papers, which Ripperda had left for that purpose. Louis and he were then alone. When the merchant had endorsed the deeds, he took two caskets of different sizes from under his vest.—He unclasped them, and laid them open on the table. They contained unset jewels, of a value that seemed incalculable.

"These, my Lord;" said he, "are poor tributes of the high consideration in which we hold the able conduct of the Duke de Ripperda, and his secretary of legation, in this troublesome affair. I am empowered by my colleagues to say, that the larger casket is worth 30,000l., and the lesser, 20,000l. But were they millions, they would be inadequate to repay our boundless obligations to the Ambassador of Spain:—and on the renewal of our guarantee, every seven years, we will give the same."

This kind of gratitude was so little foreseen by the Duke de Ripperda, he had not given his son any directions respecting it. Louis did not feel that he required any:—It was not the gratitude that softened and subdued his heart. He closed the caskets, and putting them back into the hands of the merchant.—"Sir," said he, "the Ambassador of Spain, and his Secretary, are sufficiently repaid for the discharge of their duties to their country, and to the world in general, by the approbation and prosperity of those they serve. Rewards of any other kind, they cannot accept; as they neither understand, nor value them."

The dignity with which Louis said this, as he laid the implied bribe from his hand, struck the president for a moment speechless; but hastily recovering himself, he held the caskets forth a second time, and was opening his lips to enforce their acceptance, when Louis, rather haughtily, as well as sternly, put out his arm with a repelling motion, and interrupted him.—But in the moment he spoke, Orendayn entered the apartment to pass through. Seeing it occupied, he apologized, and hastily retreated, though not so fast, but his sordid eye caught the glittering treasure. Louis resumed. "Sir," said he, "do not irrecoverably offend the son of the Duke de Ripperda, by shewing him that you have mistaken his father! If either he, or I, have influence in these affairs, when the guarantee is to be renewed, we must forget that we have heard of, or seen these caskets, before we can put our hands to a second grant. You will excuse me now, Sir, if I withdraw." With the word, he bowed and left him. The confused merchant gathered up his caskets and his charter, and, with the air of a culprit, stole out the room.

At the usual hour of stirring abroad, Louis bent his course to the Princess de Waradin's, to enquire of her health after the late alarm. As he drove along, he passed the crowded ruins of the Opera-house, now lying a smoking mass of stone and smouldering timber. He shuddered to think, but for his perseverance, the amiable boy he had seen, would have been left a helpless orphan; and the lovely mother, who had led him to behold her son as he slept, at this moment a blackened corse under the steaming pile before him. That he had been instrumental in saving two fellow-creatures, from so horrible a death, dilated his bosom with aweful gratitude; and when he alighted at the house of the Princess de Waradin, he sympathised with unaffected piety, in her thanksgivings to heaven, for the escape of herself and her daughter.

Amelia was indisposed, and in her chamber. Her mother did not lose the opportunity of enforcing upon Louis, her daughter's conviction, that she owed the preservation of her life to him. He combated the idea with frank eagerness, shewing the little share he had in exertions, in which so many had assisted. But it was useless for him to disqualify those claims on her gratitude she was determined to think he possessed; and, insinuating that Amelia alone could repay them, he felt more embarrassed than gratified with her flattering pertinacity.

The views which the Princess de Waradin had upon Louis, made her use every maternal art to domesticate him in her family; but the hurrying vortex into which he was plunged, rendered that impossible. Every house of consequence at Vienna was open to him; and in all he found different orders of amusement, according to the character of the several sets. Though the rank of these circles might be on the same level, yet the component parts, by an involuntary attraction, formed themselves into distinct societies, according to their different degrees of constitutional gaiety, mental qualifications, or hereditary prejudices. In some, he was wearied by everlasting state ceremonies, and the stiffness and stupidity inseparable from a superstitious regard to formalities. In others, he was occasionally entertained, interested, or disgusted, in proportion as he met with amiable manners, personal kindness, or riotous excess.

To kill time seemed the great purpose of amusement, in the world to which he was now introduced. Whether he dined with statesmen, with military, or with philosophers; though the conversation at table might be to his soul's content; of "battles fought, and glory won;" of the "gordian knot" of policy; or the high-reaching thoughts of those who analyse the universe:—still the evening ended the same. They all proposed adjourning, some to one place and some to another; and many to scenes of idle dissipation, against which his taste revolted. However, he remembered his father's advice, "to wear his own superiority, meekly!" and seldom refused to accompany them to places, whence he generally returned wearied, offended, and displeased.

The gambling table; the board spread to excess; the smiles of meretricious beauty; all were found, in the scenes to which his new acquaintance introduced him. He thought, "If of such stuff be the pleasures of young men, it is well they are dissipations of mind, as well as of time; else, how could reflection bear the retrospect of the best hours of human life, spent in such base vassalage to the lowest propensities! It is a disordered state of being, in which nothing is seen, and felt, and heard, but through the medium of delirium. I cannot mingle with it; I cannot make this sacrifice of my time and feelings, even to comply with the wishes of my father."

He wrote to Ripperda, to this effect. But the answer he received, would not permit him to withdraw. The Duke told him, that he was called upon to know, and to act with mankind; and how could he do either, if he only saw them at their hours of form? He must attend them in the undress of their minds; when the passions unveiled their hearts. There would then be no need of a window in the bosom, to understand how each man might be stimulated or restrained. With regard to his own situation in this crucible of character; as he felt disgust at what was temptation to others, he ought more readily to submit himself to the apparent trial.

"You have genius, and distinction sufficient, already," added Ripperda, "to create jealousy enough. If you have a mind above the common recreations of man, let that be, I repeat, to the private satisfaction of your own heart; it will keep your judgment cool, and your proceedings independent. But while you act with men, and would incline them to your purpose, you must appear to partake their nature. Let me hear, when I return, that you go wherever you are invited. Your companions will be too much absorbed in their own pursuits, to mark whether you are an actor, or a spectator; but go with them."

Louis compared these principles with that of Wharton, I mingle with the dross of the earth, to extract its gold! They were the same; they were specious to the adventurous virtue of youth: and rinding his partiality to the English Duke, strengthened by this sympathy in maxim with his father, he more readily determined to struggle against the delicacy of his taste, and to pass through things so discordant to him, with sealed ears and eyes. During the lengthened absence of Ripperda, which was prolonged by the Emperor much beyond the time he proposed; Louis saw all that a luxurious capital could present to the seduction of youth and affluence. There were circles of dissipation, of a higher class than those to which he had first been introduced; and these were at the houses of a class of nobility, who lived to pleasure alone. If vice were there, she was arrayed by the graces, with splendor, and softness, sophistries, and flatteries, to make man forget he was mortal, and had ought to do in life, but sail with the fabling syrens, down the silver sea of time. No voice of sorrow was ever heard in its air; no sigh of care ever breathed on its flowery shores; no tear ever dimmed the eternal lustre of that sky. Human nature's curse of travail and woe; man's distresses, and sympathy for pain, were all here excluded. The blest inhabitants lived for themselves alone; and all was revelry, from the rising to the setting sun; from moon-light, to the morning star. But Louis had a heart and a soul, as well as eyes and ears; and still he found no satisfaction in such waste of enjoyments. The bosoms that panted there, beat with animal life alone; and the souls which animated their bodies, were asleep in their vapoury cell.

As he passed through the crowded chambers, in which his spirit felt a happy solitude, the conversations of Mr. Athelstone often occurred to him; and he leaned pensively against many a rosy-wreathed arcade, musing on the prophetic lessons of his earliest friend.

All around was prosperity and enjoyment. But he recollected, that his uncle had said, "sweet are the uses of adversity!—Bitter to the taste, but aromatic in effect, they preserve nature from corruption. Man, in the indolence of repletion, breaks out with infinite disorders; and like the ocean, whose constant motion keeps its waters pure, requires exercise of mind and body. If it be not active to good, it will be to evil, for what lies between is stagnation. Unchanging prosperity cloys by possession; and the sated spirit looks around for new excitements. It is then that the passions and the appetites wander abroad in the stimulating search, and are easily tempted to forbidden paths." The Pastor of Lindisfarne had once paused on the page of Shakespeare, which his nephew was reading to his cousins:—

"Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell!
It fell upon a little western flower;
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound;
And maidens call it Love in Idleness."

"Not love, my children," cried the venerable instructor; "love was bestowed by heaven on man, to be a help-mate to his labours. It is wantonness, that is the offspring of idleness. But the son of the bondswoman, arrays himself like the heir of promise, and the sons and daughters of earth, are a while mocked by his pretensions!"

When Louis saw this scene performed before him, he thought how melancholy it was to behold the cheat; how wretched to see the blessings of life transformed into its bane. To view men and women of rank and talents, and abundant power to become the benefactors and examples of mankind, immerse all in one broad system of selfishness, till a dangerous delusion spread over every faculty, and the character exhibited one mass of sentimental weakness, intemperate passions, splendid follies, and hardened vice!

In many of these parties, Louis met Duke Wharton; but he never staid more than a few minutes, though those few were hailed by an adulation that might have detained a prouder spirit. He ever left sighs behind; and Louis shared the regret; though still his friend passed him by unheeding; except, sometimes by a smile from a distance, or a glance of the eye, as they mingled in the crowd.

By a similar wordless communion, Louis found the impression he had made on the Electress, was not effaced. In riding through the Prato, he often met her carriage; and she always leaned forward, with looks he could not mistake; and when she thought herself unobserved, she kissed her hand to him, with all the eagerness of suppressed, but ardent gratitude. He generally gazed wistfully after her carriage; for the image of Wharton united with her idea. He was her counsellor, her friend. How great must be her qualities, to have secured such a distinction!—Louis would not believe that she could have been privy to the murderous policy of some of her agents: he had seen enough in his last interview, to excite his fancy to complete the flattering picture; and where his imagination kindled, his heart was too apt to glow.

Things were in this state, when the Imperial family, and with them the Duke de Ripperda, arrived suddenly from the country. As soon as he alighted at his own house, Louis flew to welcome him.

"Follow me," replied the Duke.

Louis saw a contraction on his father's brow, which he noted as a herald of disagreeable tidings, yet he did not linger in obeying. They entered the saloon.

"I see you anticipate what I have to tell you," said the Duke. "The Empress is resolved on your marrying her favourite."

Louis was momentarily shocked by this announcement, but rallying himself with the hope that he had offended Otteline past forgiveness, he answered; "could I be weak enough to second the Empress's wishes; after what I said to Countess Altheim in our last conference, she must reject me." "If she loved you she would. But as it is all one to her, by what means she ascends to distinction; she cares not whether it be on your heart, or over her own delicacy. The Empress, too, forgets her own consequence, in eagerness to aggrandise her favourite. She protests that you have given Otteline every proof of attachment; that circumstances demanded it; and your honour is pledged to redeem the reputation she has lost on your account."

As his father recapitulated her patroness's discourse, in which, more earnest than judicious, she allowed too much of the selfish aim in the views of her friend to be seen; the entire remains of Louis's infatuation, (which still lurked in the shape of pity), passed away like a mist; and with faculties, at once cleared from every suggestion of vanity or tenderness, he strongly declared that he never would marry Countess Altheim. He allowed, that he had shewn too many signs of headlong passion; but he repeated, in his extremest phrenzy, he had warned her that he was at his father's disposal alone: and, for her reputation being sacrificed, that could be no longer an argument, since the avowed object of his visits to the Empress would sufficiently confute the slander grounded on them.

"It must not be avowed that your discovered visits to these apartments were to the Empress. The Emperor knows that you negociated with Sinzendorff; but am I to remind you, that should he ever suspect her private interference in the affair, his latent jealousy would find its object, and the consequence I need not repeat."

"Then," exclaimed Louis, in a sudden agony of spirit, "I am lost!"

"Not if your father can extricate you," returned the Duke; "but I fear you must marry her."

Though his heart had just told him the same, the words uttered by his father were like a death-stroke; and knocking his clenched hand upon his breast, he groaned aloud.

"De Montemar," said the Duke, "does not the spirit you so devoutly dedicated to glory, does it not suggest the means of performing this hard act of duty to your country; and yet not allow it to trouble you beyond the present hour?"

"Impossible," returned he; "in marrying the Countess Altheim, I shall marry my disgrace and my abhorrence."

"The act must pass for that of headstrong passion; or, perhaps, a little more in your own way, as an act of romantic justice to the woman who has incurred dishonour for your sake.—Passion always finds its apology with men; so the world may smile, but it will forgive you; and when she is your wife——"

"My wife! never, never!" interrupted Louis, "my name shall never be rendered infamous by giving the world to suppose that it was possible for me to make her my wife, whom even her future husband could persuade from virtue. How could the Empress sully her matron-lips with the vile suggestion? I never dishonoured the Countess Altheim, in word or deed; and I will not act as if I had been such a villain. I will not brand myself as a seducer, a dupe, or a madman! One of the three he must be, who unites himself to the reputation she has incurred, by her own arts and follies alone!"

The Duke permitted him to exhaust himself before he again spoke.

Equally averse with Louis, to his son's union with the mere minion of any crowned head, he was aware that open opposition in this instance, would embarrass all his other objects. The Queen of Spain's fury against France, and her eagerness for revenge, had put the Spanish interest totally into the power of the Empress. In her first rage, she had written a letter to Elizabeth, of unguarded relinquishment; which Ripperda vainly attempted to qualify. The Empress saw the advantage Isabella had yielded, and in spite of her friend's representations, she maintained it in the amplest sense. Spain had, therefore, by the fury of its Queen, given up all check upon the non-execution of the most momentous articles in the treaty. She soon found the effects of her rashness; and in letters of despair to Ripperda, acknowledged that it now wholly depended on his fidelity and contrivance, whether Austria should fulfil its engagements, or the business end in loss and disgrace.

Another reason, besides her infatuated attachment to the companion of her childhood, urged Elizabeth to insist on the engagement of de Montemar with Countess Altheim, Ripperda marked her manner; and foresaw the vexatious delays she would throw in the way of the execution of the treaty, if he should appear to thwart her wishes. When she arrived from Baden, at the Luxemburg, it was not long before she granted him a private interview; and, notwithstanding all the influence of her partiality in his behalf, when he attempted to give his own reasons against his son marrying at so early an age, she turned on him with a look and demeanour, more like that with which Catherine de Medicis repelled the insinuations of Cardinal Mazarin, when he sought to betray her into sanctioning a marriage between his niece and the king; than the familiar confidence with which Elizabeth had always regarded the Duke de Ripperda. Ripperda understood her suspicion, and her scorn; and had he not possessed a political self-command, equal to his towering pride, the reply of his eyes and his voice at that moment, would have severed a friendship which had lasted eighteen years, and dashed to atoms the present vaunted fabric of peace to Europe for succeeding generations. He affected not to have observed the air with which she had uttered these otherwise innoxious words.

"Your son is old enough to be the colleague of politicians; and surely he is not too young to be the protector of an amiable and tender woman, whose only strength lay in my love, and her spotless name. The last she has lost through his handsome face, her fidelity to me, and the malignancy of the Electress of Bavaria; and, my love, and his honour, must and shall restore, what he and I have destroyed!"

In short, she gave him to understand, more than had ever passed between Otteline and his son; but sufficient to convince him, that she considered Louis bound beyond release; and that his attached mistress was so assured of the same, there was nothing on the earth could induce her to withdraw her claim. She accused Louis of cold, dissembling vanity; treated with disdain the high principle which had impelled his rejection of her friend; and added, that she should influence the Emperor not to permit the reversionary investiture of Don Carlos into the possession of the Italian Dukedoms, to take place on the person of Louis, till Otteline should appear at the ceremony as Marchioness de Montemar.

After this insinuation, Ripperda saw there was no resource but to dissimulate and gain time. But, knowing the sincerity of his son in all his transactions; he found it necessary to alarm his delicacy and honour, to induce him to embrace, without consideration, any prospect of escape from so disreputable a union. The base exaggerations of Otteline, in her representations to the Empress of his conduct, and his own desperate entanglement with her, wrought him almost to phrenzy. The Duke owned, that as circumstances were, there was a necessity for the marriage; or, at least, an appearance of preparing for its celebration. Should events compel the ceremony, Louis might extricate himself from its domestic discomforts, as soon as the affairs between the two countries were brought to a happy consummation. He might then leave his bride, and never see her more; being well assured, that she would be fully satisfied in the enjoyment of her new rank, by the side of her infatuated mistress. But this was taking the case at the worst, for could they mislead the Empress and her favourite by apparent compliance, and real delays in the performance, events might start forward to elude the whole.

"I cannot, Sir," cried Louis, "I cannot compromise myself one moment on so abhorrent a subject! How could I look up, if I were to be pointed at wherever I moved, as the future husband of this justly contemned widow of Count Altheim? My Lord, command me in every thing but this! Send me from Vienna,—banish me where you will, but do not entangle me farther with that insidious woman! Do not subject me to the consciousness, that I am any way deserving the punishment of being ensnared beyond the power of extrication."

"Louis," replied the Duke, "there is nothing that I can command, or counsel you to do, to unite the preservation of your private freedom, with your public duty, but a temporary system of deceiving the Empress and her favourite. When you entered a political career, you engaged on oath, to sacrifice every thing; your bosom's passions, and even your reputation with men, to the service of your country, should it be demanded. You are now called upon to perform the first part of this vow."

"Yes, Sir, but I did not engage to sacrifice my conscience. That belongs to God alone; and, I will perish, or keep it so."

"Then you must marry the Countess Altheim," calmly, rejoined his father.

"In the hour that I do," replied Louis, "I shall have given my heart's dearest blood to the country I have never seen! to the country I will never see! I will abjure the world, and retire to die a despised wretch, where I may not hear the derision I have plucked upon the name of de Montemar."

"And will that be obedience to your conscience?" asked the Duke, "if so, mark its inconsistency, and sometimes doubt its text. Before I quitted the Empress, I brought her to apologise to me, for the offensive innuendos she had dropped at the beginning. I brought her to tears, when I reminded her how I had served her and her daughter, in the establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction. But before I accomplished this conquest over a self-willed and powerful sovereign, I removed every impression from her mind that I had any other objection to the proposed union, than your youth, and the lady being so much your senior. In the moment of reconciliation, I smoothed your path. I alleged that my duty towards my new country, obliged me to write thither, to ask permission of the King and Queen of Spain to form a foreign alliance, before I could formally give my consent. In this, the Empress acquiesced. Here then, is one delay secured. Meanwhile, should you appear to concur heartily in the arrangement, I have little doubt of winning upon Elizabeth to grant the investiture before the messenger can return; the engine will then be restored to our own hand; and we may protract and excuse, and finally break away without danger."

"No, Sir," replied Louis, "I abhor this marriage, because of the want of all honourable principle in the woman who had infatuated me; and I never will move one step to avoid it, by becoming the thing I abhor. If my liberty is only to be regained by acting a falsehood,—a treacherous falsehood! I submit to my cruel destiny, and I will marry her."

"That is to yourself alone," replied the Duke, rising from his chair with a disturbed, and even a severe countenance. "But, remember, it is your duty to await the return of my messenger from Spain."

"I will wait, my father, as long as you please. But, I repeat, it is with no purpose to deceive. If I ever appear again in the presence of the Countess Altheim, to permit her to consider me as her future husband; it must be with the intention, on my part, to become so at the prescribed time. My weak vassalage to beauty has brought me to this; and heavy will be the punishment, but it is more tolerable than my own utter contempt." "You must visit her this evening."

"Not alone, my Lord! That never shall be exacted from me. Till she bears my name, no power shall compel me to be alone with her!"

"Who, then, must be your companion? I cannot."

"Tell the Empress, I demand it of her tenderness for the Countess's honour, that some person be always present when we meet. Should I ever find it otherwise, in that instant I will withdraw."

"In that, you are right," replied his father; and quitted the apartment.

CHAP. II.

Elizabeth's reply to Ripperda's note, respecting the delicate scruple of his son, told him that herself would be present at the scene of reconciliation.

To go to this portentous interview, was, to Louis, like setting forth to execution. A curtain seemed to have dropped between him and all the world. It closed out, not only every domestic comfort, but every aim of ambition. Fame was now robbed of its glory; and the ardour of pursuit, turned into a joyless resolve of fulfilling his task from a sense of duty alone. His heart felt like a petrifaction in his breast; his veins were chilled; and, with a cloud over every faculty, he paced his way, as a man in a dream, through the often trod, but now hateful galleries of the Imperial Palace. He knew not how his faultering steps bore him into the boudoir where he expected to see Otteline, but instead of her pleading or resentful form, he found himself in the august presence of the Empress.

She advanced to meet him, all smiles; but what her first words were, he knew not. She observed his pale looks, and the distracted wandering of his eyes; but she would not notice either.

"Whatever was your quarrel with Otteline, in your last meeting;" continued she, "her gentle spirit is ready to grant you forgiveness. Shall I conduct you to her feet?"

"To her presence, Madam," replied Louis, recalling his attention; "I shall be honoured in following Your Majesty; but not to her feet. I cannot ask her forgiveness, for addressing her with candour."

Elizabeth looked sternly at him.

"Young man, you are not come here, to brave the Empress of Germany! Beware, Louis de Montemar, of insulting my friend, beyond, even her persuasions to pardon!"

"I come to speak the truth;" replied he, "to declare that I am ready to fulfil every claim that Countess Altheim demands of my honour; but also to throw myself on Your Majesty's justice to me, and tenderness for her; by a frank avowal, that I shall contract this marriage against my heart, and against my conviction, that my honour does not acknowledge the pledge she asserts."

The Empress remained indignantly silent, while he briefly recapitulated the cause of his repugnance to the union she was determined to accomplish.

"It is as impossible for me to restore her to my esteem," added he, "as to relinquish my nature. But if, under the circumstances I have mentioned, Your Majesty deems me bound, where no engagement was made; and when I have already told her, that our hearts are as separated as our natures;—I am ready to submit to become her husband, with the cold, soul-less duty, the name may enforce."

Louis stood firm, though pale and respectful, before the resentful gaze of Elizabeth.

"Sir," said she, "you know how to insult; and you know how to attempt to wrest from a tender woman, the rights you have given her over your honour,—But I am her protectress; and shall hold the chain that binds you, until death severs it. Young man, I know more of that vain heart, than I can easily pardon.—And yet, you dare to tell me, that your honour made no engagement with Countess Altheim, because you did not say, in veritable words—I offer you my heart, my hand, my fortune, and my life! But, did you not weep on her hand? Did you not press it to your breast, while you vowed you loved, adored, and lived only in her smile? Did you not proffer her your life, to clear her aspersed fame? Did you not pledge her your heart; were you not sensible that you were master of hers? and what was all this, but a bond to be hers; a pledge, that you were hers? What is honour, if it be only a word and not an action? and, in this case, an interchange of soul for soul?—All this has passed between you, and yet you talk of your honour being your own!"

Louis stood impressed, but not confounded by the truth of this appeal. While he felt the reproach to many of his sex, he might have said with Hamlet:—

"Let the galled jade wince; my withers are unwrung!"

Elizabeth observed a change in his countenance, and with all the woman in her Imperial heart, she exclaimed, "Oh, man, man!" But checking herself from completing the apostrophe, she turned proudly away, and walked up the room. She returned, and addressed him.

"I have condescended to argue thus with you, because you are the son of the Duke de Ripperda. His unswerving probity disdains subterfuge; act as becomes his son, and I may forget, what Otteline is too ready to pardon."

Louis looked up. The noble candour in his eyes almost dazzled the stedfast, doubting gaze of Elizabeth.

"Had I sought a subterfuge," replied he, "I should have merited the utmost of Your Majesty's disdain; but from the first moment that I found myself too sensible to her charms, I struggled against the disclosure; and when circumstances extorted the confession from me, with the declaration of my love, I also declared that I was not at my own disposal. These reproaches, do not, then hold on me. For had she still appeared, what I then supposed her; had my father refused his consent, I would have proved my fidelity by never giving my hand to any other woman."

"Your father gives his consent!" answered the Empress, "and as you yield obedience to his commands, it is well they coincide with the bonds of your honour. I accept your offered terms for my friend; your hand, with the consideration due to your wife. For know, vain boy, that Otteline has a spirit as dignified as it is tender; and will not brook obloquy, either from her lover, the world, or her husband!"

Louis would have spoken, but she put out her hand in sign of silence.

"Follow me, Marquis," cried she, "and the consequences of the next two hours be on your own head."

The consequences he already felt in his heart; and, without further look of remonstrance, or attempt to utter another word, he bowed and obeyed.

She opened a door in the farthest apartment, and discovered the beautiful favourite, seated on a sofa awaiting them. She was luxuriant in every charm. And perhaps the flush of a smothered indignation, irradiated her complexion with redoubled brilliancy. But all was worse than lost upon the senses of Louis. Every beauty appeared to him, like the serpents on the Gorgon's head, wreathing to sting him. She rose as the Empress entered.

"Otteline," cried Her Majesty with a proud smile; "I have brought you a penitent. Can you pardon and receive him again to your heart?"

"Oh, Wharton!" exclaimed the inmost soul of Louis, at that moment recollecting the rejected warning of his friend; "This Semiramis and her subtle confidant, have, indeed, bound me in a toil unto death!"

As he approached, the Countess made some answer, which he rather heard in its tones than its words; for almost instantly, Elizabeth had put the hand of Otteline into his. He held it, but it was without pressure; without recognizance of the delight with which he once grasped it. "Now," continued the Empress, "I am happy since I see the son of my earliest counsellor, thus affiance himself to the cherished friend of my youth!"

As she spoke, she pressed their hands together, while a mortal coldness shot through the heart of Louis, at this consummation of his fate; and stupified, he neither saw nor heard for a few moments. In this interval the Empress disappeared. Otteline sunk, weeping into a chair. He turned his eyes upon her; but no sympathy was in their beams; no belief in the semblance of her tears. She looked up and met his rigid observation. Her beautiful eyes swam, like sapphire gems in the summer dew. A soft attraction was in their lucid rays. A melancholy smile, gave utterance to her faultering accents; and holding out the hand he had dropped, she gently, timidly, and tenderly articulated,

"De Montemar! Is it a mutual forgiveness? The hand that is now yours, is a feeble pledge of the reconciliation of my heart!"

Louis did not approach her. He felt there was poison in that honeyed tongue; and though he came to commit himself to her for ever, he shrunk from being cozened again, by her charms or her art, to become a willing sacrifice. Could he now unite himself to her from any other impulse than hard, extorting duty, he felt how deep would be his degradation in his own thoughts; and he looked down to shut all these witcheries from his eyes.

After a minute's pause, while he stood painfully silent, she resumed in great emotion.

"What is it I have done, to deserve this harsh contempt? Oh, de Montemar, I have only proved myself, a fond, a feeble woman? For your sake, I gave way to the suggestions of a zeal, that would have carried me, as surely on the points of your enemies' daggers, as to violate the letter which gave notice of your danger.—And thus am I repaid!"

With a suffocating gasp, she fell back into the chair on which she sat, and covered her face with her hands. Her whole frame was shook, as if life were indeed passing in agonizing throes from her body. The heart of man could not bear this. Could these mortal struggles be indeed dissimulation?—Whatever they might be, he could not look on them unmoved. He hastily approached her, and touched her hand. It was cold as death, but the plastic fingers closed on his agitated pressure. He trembled fearfully as he drew it away from her pale face, and beheld those matchless features convulsed with mental agony. Again her eyes opened upon him, as he hung over her. They fixed themselves on his face, with a languid, but pleading sorrow.

"Countess!" said he in a voice of anguish. "Oh, call me Otteline—your Otteline!" cried she, impetuously grasping his arm, and hiding her face on it; "or, repeat that word, and release me, by killing me! But, I have survived your esteem, and why should I longer wish to live?"

His heart was subdued; and with tears starting from his own eyes, he exclaimed. "And is it possible that you do really love me?"

In that moment she was on her knees beside him. She clasped her hands; and looked up with such beaming beauty in every feature, such effulgence in her dewy eyes; that his were rivetted on her, as they would have been on a kneeling angel. Her lips appeared vainly to attempt sounds, that were too big for utterance; and, finding it impracticable, she turned towards him, and meeting the relenting expression of his anguished countenance, she smiled like heaven, and threw herself upon his breast. Louis's heart heaved, and panted under the beautiful burden it sustained, as her sighs breathed on his cheek, and her tender tears bathed it; but, even in that moment of female victory, the excess of his emotion smote on that betrayed heart: and sensible to all the shame of his defeat, the rapid current in his veins, chilled to its former ice; and, with a tremor, far from ecstacy, he replaced her in her chair, and, almost unconsciously knelt down by her side.—But the attitude was dictated by his humbled sense of his own weakness, not, indeed, addressed to her; though he now believed she loved him; and while he looked on her agitated frame, he thought to himself:—

"If I cannot be happy myself, in the degradation to which I am doomed; at least, I do not leave you miserable! I will cherish, and protect; and, perhaps, recall that fond heart, to respect the principles of her husband!" As he thus thought, he raised her hand to his lips; and, by that action, sealed to himself, the compact to be hers.

"My de Montemar!" murmured the Countess, feeling the import of this mute symbol. At this crisis, she heard a light step in the room. She looked round, and beheld the young Arch-duchess, standing pale, and fixed in the middle of the floor, with her eyes rivetted on the kneeling figure of Louis.

"The Princess!" exclaimed Otteline, in a voice of surprise, to Louis.

He started from his knee, and in the confusion of his feelings, retreated a few paces back. The gentle Maria Theresa smiled mournfully, but did not speak. Taking her hand, the Countess enquired her commands. The Princess still kept her eyes fixed on Louis, while, in a suppressed and unsteady voice, she answered her governess.

"My mother wishes to speak with you. But, perhaps, had she known the Marquis was here, she would not desire you to leave him. God bless you, Marquis!" cried he, addressing him with agitated earnestness; "Be kind to my Otteline; for, when you are married, I shall never see her more."

With the last words, she tore her eyes from his face, and threw herself into the bosom of the Countess.—Otteline looked her adieu to her lover, as in a tumult of undescribable disorder he hurried out of the room.

CHAP. III.

Though Ripperda had made it a point with the Empress, that there should be no public intimation given of the proposed marriage of her favourite with his son, until the Queen's consent should arrive; it is probable Her Majesty might have sent it abroad by a private whisper, had she not seen the prudence of not stimulating the ill offices of the Princess de Waradin, and others, by any hint that the heir they courted for their daughters was promised to their proudest enemy.

When Elizabeth appeared to grant this silence as a favour, she insisted that it should not deter Louis from making his daily visits at the Altheim apartments; it was a respect due to the amiable forbearance of his future bride; and it should always be in the presence of one of her confidential ladies, who was also a friend of the Countess.

Louis had now abandoned himself to his fate. But he had hardly given full sway to compulsive duty, and to the pleasing credulity that was re-awakened by compassion, before a thousand circumstances arose, to bid all his former repugnance return. The veil of imagination had been too forcibly rent from his eyes, ever to pass again between him and the object of his past idolatry. Unblinded by its delusions, every succeeding day shewed him clearer views of a character she vainly sought to disguise in assumed sentiment and delicacy. He perceived that her defects were not merely those of a perverting education, but of a radically warped mind. She had no spontaneous taste for moral greatness. Grandeur was her object; but it was that of station, of splendour, of dictating power. But still she loved him! loved him with a devotion, a fondness, a bewitching fascination, that, at times, made him almost forget she was not the perfection that might have been the mistress of his soul. The beautiful deception never lasted many minutes; and his heart sighed for its partner, with a sterile consciousness that spoke of desolation, and dreariness, and solitude, through the whole of his after-life.

In moments like these, how often has a frequent quotation of his Pastor-Uncle occurred to him! "He that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread that ties their hearts together. Such proof of love is conspiracy, not friendship!"

In the midst of this banishment of his hopes, from ever knowing the sweets of domestic comfort again, he received large packets from the dear home, where his best instructor presided, and where perfect happiness dwelt with humility and innocence. The counsel of the venerable man strengthened him in every disinterested rule of life; but the letters of his aunt, and his cousins, made his yearning heart overflow with rebellious regrets. The spirit of virtue and of tenderness breathed through every eloquent line that dropped from the pen of Cornelia.

"Ah, sister of my soul!" cried he, "I could fly with thee into the bosom of paradise! Here is all celestial purity, all divine aspirations! and I wished to wander from such a heaven! I longed to busy myself in the ambitious turmoil of the world! I am in that world; and, what is my achievement? I find myself chained to the foot of a woman, my noble Cornelia would despise! I dare not confess to those who love and honour me, so degrading a disappointment of their hopes."

He turned to the gentle accents of his sweet Alice, breathed in a letter which had been wet with her grateful tears. Don Ferdinand had complied with her petition. He had written to her mother, and avowed his love for her daughter. But throwing himself upon her pity, he implored her not to betray him to his father; and to assure her that he meant nothing disobedient to him, nothing clandestine to her in the demand, he released Alice from every vow, only reserving one claim on her compassion; to be allowed, at some future day, to throw himself at her feet; should the issue of certain circumstances, which still gave him the privilege to hope, hereafter induce his father to consent to his happiness.

Alice added that her mother had written to Don Ferdinand, that she pardoned what had passed, in consideration of the amplitude of the restitution; that she should preserve his blameable conduct from his father's eye, since it was repented of, and relinquished; but, that he must not suppose she yielded any encouragement to the continuance of his attachment for her daughter, as she desired, that here all correspondence must cease.

"But," added Alice, "I know he will be true to what he has written; and I know I shall always love him dearer, for having taken that dreadful load from my heart. I am therefore quite sure I shall be content to await his father's consent, should it not come these many years. If you knew how happy I am now, since I can lift up my eyes in my dear mother's presence, and no longer feel ashamed at being pressed to the affectionate bosom of my blameless sister; you would be ready to pour as many tears of joy over the welcome of the little strayed lamb, as your kind heart shed floods of sorrow that melancholy night, when you found her so sadly wandered from her fold! Oh, my Louis, shall my gratitude to you ever find words to express it?"

Mrs. Coningsby's letter was not less energetic in thanks to her nephew for the judicious advice he had given to her almost infant Alice; and for the activity of his exertions, to bring it to effect.

Louis smiled with glistening eyes, over these letters; for he was yet to learn the science of forgetting his own privations, in the fullness of others. The comparison now only aggravated the pangs in his breast; and rising from meditations that subdued, agitated, and maddened him, he rushed into crowds for that dissipation of thought he vainly sought in the exercises of study, or the fulfilment of his official duties.

Count Koninseg had lately introduced him to a house, in which he moved about at perfect ease, and met with every gratification to put his usual indifference to gay society, to the test. It was the abode of the Count d'Ettrees, a French adventurer of rank, whose wife and sister formed an attraction of wit and beauty, that rivalled every other assembly in Vienna. Under their magic auspices, every amusement was presented that capricious fancy could desire or devise; and all lavished with a splendor of luxury, and an elegance of taste, which must soon have been exhausted, had not the fountain as it flowed returned by another channel to its native bed. Count d'Ettrees drew a revenue from that spirit for play, which his display of means excited in his guests.

Louis could never be induced to touch a card, or the dice-box, despising them both as sordid and senseless in principle; but found ample entertainment in the conversations of, indeed, an epitomised world. In these assemblies he saw persons from all countries and of all parties; but they were the chosen of all. For, to make the attraction the greater, so select was the Count in the rank and pretensions of those whom he admitted, it was deemed the highest proof of consequence, and of being un bel esprit, to be seen in this privileged circle. The Countess Claudine and her sister-in-law, Angelique d'Ettrees. were ostensibly women of character, and really women of talent. But, while all around shewed a gorgeous pageant of amusement, wit, and genius; ruin lurked in the rooms, dedicated to play; infidelity and pride animated the philosophic colonade; poetry and Voltaire, Rousseau and bewildering sentiment, discoursed alike with talents, or with beauty; and vice sapped the unwary footstep where-ever it trod.

At present, Louis was too self-absorbed by the struggles within him, to look deep into what was passing around him. It was sufficient for him that the varying intellectual enjoyments of the place, wrested him from his thoughts; and he gave himself up to all their power with a desperate avidity. He found his mind roused and exercised, by discussions with men of genius; he was delighted with the brilliant wit of the women, and the graceful frankness of their manners; and, perhaps, he was unconsciously propitiated by the indirect flattery which was offered to himself, by the Countess and her sister, and which, being paid to his talents alone, he received without suspicion.

One evening, while he was thus engaged, he observed de Patinos and Duke Wharton enter together. It was the first time he had seen the Duke in the hotel d'Ettrees. The Spaniard descried Louis at the same instant, as he sat between the Countess and her sister Angelique. De Patinos drew his arm almost immediately from Wharton, and approached the group; but when near, he stopped, and turned away, casting a furious look at Ma'amselle d'Ettrees. She soon left her seat, and Louis afterwards saw her and the Spaniard in close conversation, while they, at times, turned round and glanced at him, as if he were the object of their discourse. De Patinos seemed very sullen, and Angelique very earnest. Soon after they parted, with a sarcastic laugh from the Spaniard, and Ma'amselle mingled with the crowd.

Without any known cause of offence, a tacit acknowledgement of mutual dislike was shewn by Louis and de Patinos. For some time, their civilities had been merely confined to a cold bow at meeting in the Palais d'Espagne; when they met elsewhere, they passed as strangers. Baptista Orendayn was de Patinos's shadow in all things. But the conciliating manners of Louis, and (when he could emerge from his bosom regrets) his brilliant powers of amusement, had won the other Spaniards to court his society, and regard him with more confidence. This desertion from his party, incensed de Patinos the more; and a lurid fire burnt in his angry eye, whenever it encountered his admired rival.

As Louis left the side of the animated Countess d'Ettrees, and was passing away through the rooms, in a crowd of attendants rather than of company, his shoulder pressed against that of Wharton. They turned their heads, and their eyes met. Louis snatched his friend's hand, and in the grasp, the embrace of his heart was felt. Wharton's luminous smile played on his lip, as he whispered.

"Something better than the garden of the Hourii! Socrates, or Alcibiades de Montemar?"

Louis did not answer, for at that moment he met the glance of Orendayn, who was just entering. He bowed with obsequious lowliness, both to him and the Duke, and passed on. Wharton and Louis had withdrawn their hands at the same instant they caught his eye; and the Duke turned into the circle. They were conscious however, to having been observed, but whether with a malicious or an indifferent observation, Louis did not pause to think on. Indeed, persons of all parties conversed so indiscriminately in this Elysian society, where nothing seemed considered but the free enjoyment of all which was delightful in the human mind, that he saw nothing to apprehend in the simple circumstance of having been known to speak to Duke Wharton in so privileged a scene; and for any inferences, which the busy ignorance or ill nature of Orendayn might chuse to draw, it could be a matter of no consequence, as most of the Spanish grandees in Ripperda's suite conversed openly with Wharton; and Orendayn, though a nobleman, was known to be a character of contemptible craft and falsehood.

Thus, Louis continued to throw away the time that was once so precious to him. But it was no longer the friend, with which he joyed to "take sweet counsel," and lay open a bosom that knew no guests but hope and exultation. It was become a heavy monitor of remembrance, to remind him in solitary hours, of the blank his youthful infatuation and hard destiny had made of his present and future days. His official duties done, his home saw him no more, till their recurrence recalled his steps, or the hour of rest demanded him to his pillow.

An hour, each morning, was passed in the Altheim apartments, where the Empress often met him with unvarying graciousness; and Otteline received him with as stationary smiles. But the vesture of art cannot elude the penetration of every day. In spite of her vigilance, he became master of her secret; and, no longer deceived into self-complacency, by the idea that she loved him, he saw himself consigned to be the prey of frigid, unfeeling, circumventing ambition. From her, he rushed to Princess de Waradin's, to his military associates, the Hotel d' Ettrees; or into any vortex that would hurry him from himself, and present him with other meditations than Otteline and his misery.

The Empress and Ripperda were now sailing forward on the unruffled sea of success. He had brought her to yield him such implicit confidence, that she exerted her own influence with the Emperor, to hasten the investiture of Don Carlos in the Duchies of Parma and Placentia. Charles promised that the official documents should immediately be finished; and the ceremony be performed with the earliest dispatch. He put into the Duke's hand, his final renunciation, for himself and his posterity, of all claims on the succession of Spain; and he gave him written bonds for the payment, at certain seasons, of a large debt of many millions, owed by the Empire to the Spanish monarchy. He also signed several new articles to the secret treaty; one of which was, to relinquish the Netherlands to Don Carlos, as a dowry with his intended bride.

About this time Cardinal de Giovenozzo arrived from Rome, on a special mission from the Pope; and with the usual caution of the reigning Pontiff, all parties were to be conciliated to the measures he proposed. To this end, his first proceeding was to collect round his table the foreign Ambassadors, and the leading men of the different factions at Vienna.

At one of these entertainments, it chanced that the Duke de Ripperda and the Duke of Wharton were placed at the same table. If there were any man in the world whom Ripperda absolutely hated, it was this rival of his politics; and he hated him, because he was the only man, who had ever effectively crossed them. But while he cherished this hatred, he would not own to himself that it was mixed with any fear of the talents he affected to despise. He, therefore, took no notice of the Duke at table, but by a stiff bow; and he would not, even have granted that, had it not been at the board of the representative of the Father of Christendom, where such mutual recognition of universal brotherhood in the Catholic church, was a regular ceremonial.

During dinner, some observations were made by Wharton, respecting the balance of power in Italy, which extracted two or three angry flashes from the eye of Ripperda; but he disdained to appear to attend to any thing advanced by him, and continued, with an air of indifference, drinking wine with the British Ambassador, and conversing with the Cardinal at whose right hand he sat. The animated Wharton proceeded in his remarks, at the end of the table he occupied; and in a strain of argument and eloquence that gradually attracted every ear, until even Giovenozzo himself bowed without reply, to some passing observation of Ripperda, and bent forward to catch what Wharton was asserting relative to the Pontiff's rights, in the transfer of principalities in Italy.

This temporary triumph of the English Duke, over the imposing presence of Ripperda, stung him to the quick; and, for a moment he laid open the wound, by the impatient scorn with which he glanced on the resistless speaker. The Portuguese minister, who sat next him, remarked on the powerful consequences of the last argument of Wharton. Ripperda contemptuously replied.—

"Wind is sometimes mistaken for thunder."

Wharton caught the words, and with a gay but pointed laugh, looked towards the top of the table.

"Jove wields both in his rod; and the lighter the stroke, the quicker the smart."

"When the bolt is launched against presumption," retorted Ripperda, "it harrows up the dirt that blinds the multitude."

Wharton smiled. "I have no ambition to be the glorious malefactor!"

And bowing to the Duke, the reference could not be mistaken. Some of the company did not repress the answering smile that flickered on every lip. It was too much for the incensed pride of Ripperda, and starting from his chair he turned indignantly to the Cardinal.

"When Your Eminence understands the distinction between the accredited representative of the King of Spain, and the lurking emissary of a dethroned, and medicant Sovereign; then the Ambassador of His Catholic Majesty may appear where he is not to be insulted."

Every person had risen from their seats in consternation; and Giovenozzo, not the least alarmed of the party, seized the Duke's arm, and began a confused apology for the attention he had paid to Wharton; and even attempted an excuse for the English Duke.

"I beg Your Eminence, not to trouble yourself with my apology," cried the unruffled Wharton;—"I meant all I said. And, I am obliged to the candour of the Spanish Ambassador, for so publickly declaring the distinction that is indeed between us! He is the representative of a King in the plenitude of power; at the head of the fountain of riches and honours; and the stream flows bounteously! I am the lurking emissary of a dethroned and mendicant monarch: but it has not yet been my good fortune to play the successful Gaberlunzie in the courts of rival sovereigns, or to beg alms for my Prince, at the gate of the Duke de Ripperda!"

Ripperda, turned on him with an eye of flame. His soul was on fire; and, at that moment insensible to every thing but the expression of his burning hatred, he sternly exclaimed:

"Were not Duke Wharton as impotent as he is vain, I might stoop to chastise what offends me: but I pardon, what I pity."

"And I," replied the Duke, "am proud to imitate so great an example!"

Ripperda, almost beside himself with wrath, struck the hilt of his sword fiercely with his hand. Wharton turned gaily on his heel, and asked some indifferent question of the Duke de Richelieu.

The Cardinal followed Ripperda out of the apartment. Alarmed at the consequence of suffering him, who seemed to hold the balance of Christendom in his hands, to quit his roof unappeased, he drew the enraged Duke into another room, and vainly tried to assuage his fury. Ripperda's pride was in arms, at being so insolently braved before all the nations of Europe, in the persons of their Ambassadors. He was angry with himself, at having shewn himself susceptible of insult from the man, it was his policy to teach others to despise; and in a disorder of mind he had never known before, he poured on the Cardinal all his resentments against the Duke and himself. He saw that nothing could redeem him to the vantage ground he had so intemperately abandoned, but an ample and formal apology from Wharton; and, he told Giovenozzo, he must force the English Duke to make that restitution; else he should act from a conviction that they had been invited together, to insult the politics of Spain in the person of its minister.

The Cardinal feared Ripperda; and flattered himself, that he might work upon the zeal and good-nature of Wharton, to serve the interest of His Holiness by this concession. When Ripperda arose to withdraw, on being informed that his carriage was ready, Giovenozzo attended him to the foot of the stairs, and absolutely promised to bring him the demanded apology next day.

But unfortunately, the company in the dining-room, supposing that Ripperda had been sometime gone, moved to depart also. In the hall, Wharton again met his proud antagonist; and, in the instant when most unhappily the spirit of discord seemed to have extended itself to their respective domestics. Wharton's carriage and that of Ripperda had drawn up at the same moment; and their coachmen were disputing the right to maintain the door. From words, they had recourse to whips.

"A comfortable way of settling a controversy!" exclaimed Wharton, who stepped forward, to order his servant to draw off; but Ripperda, who felt the late scene festering in his heart, and supposing a different intention, and a new affront in the Duke's prompt advance; cried aloud, with an air of derision:—"Less haste, my Lord! or the whip of my coachman, may chance to brush Your Grace's skirts!"

"If it did," replied Wharton, with a glance that told he understood the remark; "I should know where to repay the impertinence."

Ripperda was again in a blaze.

"Insolent!" cried he.

Wharton, who had checked his advancing step, on the first word from his antagonist, now leaned towards him; and whispered:

"The lion may be chafed beyond its bearing! It is possible for the father of Louis de Montemar to go too far with the Duke of Wharton!"

This assumption of forbearance to him, Ripperda felt as the climax of insult; and starting back, with all the pride and resentments of his nature rushing through his veins, he touched the hilt of his sword with a significant glance, and in a subdued voice, replied:

"If you do not shroud cowardice under the name of my son, you will follow me!"

This had cleft the threatened cord; and, in one moment the two Dukes had vanished through the colonades of the hall, into an interior and lonely court of the building.

In the same instant they found themselves alone, the drawn sword of Ripperda was in his hand, and he called on Wharton to defend himself. There was no time for further forbearance or parley. Wharton had hardly warded off the first thrust of his determined antagonist, before a second and a third were repeated with the quickness of lightning. The glimmer of the lamps, which lit this little solitary quadrangle, marked each movement of the weapon with a gleam on its polished steel; and Wharton continued rather to defend than attack. But a noise of approaching steps, withdrawing his attention for a moment from his guard, a desperate lunge from the infuriate arm of his adversary, ran him through the breast, and he fell. The blood sprang over his hand, as he laid it on the wound.—His proud destroyer stood confounded at the sight.

"I forgive you my death!" cried Wharton, "but I guess your son will not. Rash Duke, to you he dies in me!" The tongue of Ripperda clove to the roof of his mouth; and in the next instant the Cardinal and the French Ambassador appeared at his side. As the bloody scene presented itself, Giovenozzo shut the door, and bolted it behind him, to prevent further entrance. Richelieu hurried to the prostrate Duke, and spoke to him. Wharton looked up, and in hardly articulate accents, said, "bear witness, Richelieu, that I acquit the Duke de Ripperda. He was in wrath, and I provoked him. Let not his high character be dishonoured by my death."

This was the first time that Ripperda's lofty consciousness of consistent greatness had ever shrunk before the eye of man; he could not brook the strange humiliation, and with asperity he haughtily exclaimed; "my honour does not require protection. I know that I have been intemperate and rash. But let the world know it as it is: I have done nothing that I am not prepared to defend." Wharton raised himself on his arm to reply; but in the exertion he fainted and fell.

The Cardinal, (in consternation at the report he must give to the Pope of such an affray under his holy roof,) implored his implacable guest to pass into the oratory, which was on the opposite side of the court, and await him there, till the French Ambassador and he had borne the insensible Wharton to a place where his state might be examined.

Ripperda complied in silence; and Giovenozzo, wrapping his scarlet scarf around the bleeding body of Wharton, between him and Richelieu, bore him round the back of the oratory, into one of the penitential cells. His Eminence having been a brother of the Order of Mercy, understood surgery; and staunching the Duke's wound, so as to leave him for a short time in safety, though still insensible; he came forth with Richelieu. The French Duke gave him his word of honour, that if Ripperda could be induced to keep silence on this terrible affair, whether Wharton lived or died, the secret should never escape from him.

Richelieu had his own views in this secrecy; and took his part, in returning to the hall to quench suspicion there. Those who had lingered to know the issue, with what degree of credence suited them, listened to his hasty account, that he and the Cardinal had just arrived in time to laugh at their zeal; for Wharton had given a merry explanation of his ill-timed raillery to the Duke; laying it to the account of the Cardinal's bright Falernian; and Ripperda, with the dignity of a great mind, having accepted the apology; no more was said about it.

All appeared to believe this statement, for there was no disputing the word of honour of an ambassador!—But there were a few drops of blood on the point ruffles and bosom of Richelieu; which, being observed by Count Routemberg alone, told him a different story; and he remained a few minutes behind the rest. When the hall was cleared of all but himself and the French minister, he did not speak, but pointed significantly to the testimonies on the ruffles and frill. Richelieu was hurrying out some excuse, invented on the moment; but Routemberg, (who was president of the Emperor's council,) whispered something in the embassador's ear. They both smiled, shook hands, and parted.

When Ripperda returned to his palace, he entered the room where his son was completing some especial communications to Spain. Louis put them into the hand of his father. As he did so, he beheld that form and face which, a few hours before, had left him gallantly habited, and bright in lofty complacency; now discomposed, pale and haggard. He gazed on the alteration with surprise, while Ripperda seemed to read the dispatch with a moveless eye. "It will do," said he, laying it on the table. He mechanically took up one of the candles, and was turning away to his own chamber. Louis could keep silence no longer.

"You are ill, my Lord!" cried he, "or something terrible has happened!"

"What is there terrible to have happened?" returned Ripperda, pausing as he approached the door, and looking on his son.

"Nothing, that I can guess," replied Louis, "but your looks, my father, are not as when you left me!"

"How often have I told you, de Montemar," returned the Duke, "never to guess at a stateman's looks! I have come from a party of many vizards, and you must not be surprised that mine has changed in the contact. I am well; let that satisfy you."

With these words the Duke withdrew.

CHAP. IV.

Morning reported all that had passed at the table of the Cardinal. What happened in the hall, was slightly mentioned; for little of that had been generally heard; but an account was circulated, that notwithstanding the good offices of Giovenozzo had produced a shew of reconciliation, some serious consequences might be anticipated.

When Ripperda entered to his son the next day, he perceived by his pallid hue and averted eyes, that he had heard something of the affray. Without preface, he abruptly asked, what had been told him of the Duke of Wharton's behaviour the preceding night. The informant of Louis had shaped the story under a flattering veil for his father; and the anxious son had heard nothing but of the insolence and scoffing speeches of the English Duke; and of the dignified forbearance of Ripperda.

The blood that accused his friend in his heart, rushed to his face, when he repeated what had been told him.

"And how," demanded Ripperda, "do you mean to act towards the man who could so taunt, deride, and insult your father?"

"Though he twice preserved my life," returned Louis, "he has now wounded me in a more vital part; and I shall ever after regard him as a stranger."

Ripperda shook his head, and laid his hand on his son's arm. "And what would be your decision, were I to reverse the charge?"

Louis looked on the flushed countenance of his father.

"Man is fallible, Louis!" cried he, "and, after thirty years of undeviating self-control——" Ripperda broke off, in the acknowledgements he believed it magnanimous to make, and in the bitterness of his mortification thrusting his son from him, he exclaimed,—"How must I hate the man who burst my fettered passions, and, for one desperate moment, made me their victim, and his sport!"

Louis did not speak, in his astonishment at what he hoped would end in some acquittal of his friend; but the pleasurable feeling was quickly smothered by this tremendous burst from his father; and he saw revived before him, the terrible moment in which the Sieur Ignatius clenched his dagger at his breast. Without a word, or a look upward, he stood, awefully expecting him to proceed.

After a minute's pause, the Duke turned desperately calm to his son.

"Discredit the vile flatterers, who would tell you, that Wharton alone was the aggressor. We met like hostile bulls, and wonder not that we should plunge at once upon each other's horns! Respect him still, for he is a noble enemy; but I am his, for ever."

Louis threw himself at his father's feet.

"My gracious father! oh that the visible pleadings of my heart, that its dearest blood, could make you regard him as a friend!"

There are hearts that cannot bend where they have injured. Ripperda's was of this proud mettle; and looking down on his kneeling son, he exclaimed:—"Impossible! that has passed between us which has made our enmity eternal. Your conduct in the affair I leave to yourself. But I can trust to you, that you will not compromise your father's honour by broadly shewing fellowship with his most open enemy."

Louis pressed his father's hand to his lips; that hand which was hardly washed from the stain of Wharton's blood! But he was ignorant of that part of the horrid tale; and the Duke, in a milder voice, bade him rise.

"You will not soon be called upon to act a Roman part between your father and your friend!" continued he. "I saw Cardinal de Giovenozzo this morning; and he tells me that Wharton has disappeared."

This information was balm to Louis, as it seemed to promise a peaceful termination to so threatening an affair. That his friend had withdrawn, was a pledge of his pacific wishes; and, with a lightened countenance, Louis rose from his knee.

Ripperda said no more; and his son was left to his meditations.

Whatever details he afterwards heard of the affair, were so confused and contradictory, he could form no certain criterion, which was most to blame. But Giovenozzo at last put all to silence, by a declaration, that he should deem all further discussion of a transaction which passed under his roof, as an impertinent interference with his responsibility. He pronounced, that neither the Duke de Ripperda, nor the Duke of Wharton, could have acted otherwise than they did, consistently with their own dignities; and he insinuated to Louis, that a third person, whom he could not mention, was the origin of a dissention, which had ended in a manner to reflect honour on his father. The Cardinal then hinted, that Wharton had vanished on some occult mission, to circumvent the Italian investiture.

"And so," added the smiling ecclesiastic, "I doubt not, he seeks to revenge the triumphant magnanimity of his transcendant rival."

From all this, though Louis could not learn much to criminate his friend, he gained enough to impress him with an encreased conviction of his father's greatness of mind; that a generosity, something like his own romantic nature, had impelled the few words of self-blame which had dropped from him in their first, and, indeed, only conference on the subject. After that discussion, it was never resumed; and the whole matter dying away from people's tongues and memories, Ripperda appeared in every circle as usual, bright and serene as the cloudless sky in midsummer.

The favour in which he was held at Court was made more apparent than ever; and though the dispatches which were to bring the royal assent to Louis's marriage, seemed unaccountably delayed; yet to shew that no doubt remained in Elizabeth's mind, of the father and son's sincerity, she permitted the solemn installment of the latter in the name of Don Carlos, into the reversion of the two long-disputed Italian dukedoms.

This important rite was just completed, when a packet was put into Ripperda's hand from Spain. It brought his recall to the council of his sovereign.

The various objects of the treaty with Vienna had so alarmed the other kingdoms of Europe, that the cabinet of Madrid was besieged day and night by the clamour of their respective envoys. Grimaldo, the prime minister, enfeebled by age, and adverse to the new system of politics, had begged to resign his office. Philip granted the petition; and now sent for Ripperda, to take the supreme chair himself; and, (in the King's own words,) to consummate the greatness of Spain. Their Majesties desired that the Marquis de Montemar should be left Charge des Affaires; and that the Duke himself would immediately set forth on his return.

Ripperda examined farther into the packet, to find the expected consent for his son's marriage; but it was not there; and no notice taken of the application he had made for it. On questioning the messenger, whether he had omitted to bring any part of his charge, the man told him that a special courier, which was Castanos, had been dispatched a few days before him; and he was not less surprised than alarmed, to find him not arrived, as he knew he brought dispatches of great value.

The disappointment Elizabeth sustained in this procrastination of the marriage of her favourite, was absorbed for a time in her regrets for the recall of her friend. Louis could think only of his father's glorious summons, to perfect the happiness of his country; and when, in the midst of his preparation for departure, Castanos did arrive, this affectionate son, hardly cast a thought on the reprieve, that he brought no dispatches.

Castanos told Ripperda, he had been beset on the road, in the mountains of Carinthia, by a band of armed men, who rifled and left him for dead. A poor herdsman found him, and took him to his hut; where, having recovered strength to pursue his journey, he came forward, to apprise his master that he had lost the dispatches, and with them a casket of jewels from Don Carlos to the Arch-duchess. The bruises on Castanos's person bore witness to the truth of his assault; and the Empress and her favourite, were obliged to resign themselves to await a courier from Ripperda himself, when he should have arrived in Spain.

On the third day after the declaration of his recall, Ripperda took his official leave, and presented his son in his new office. At parting, the Emperor invested the Duke with the Star of the Golden Fleece; in which order, he was the only exception to an undeviating line of Sovereign Princes. The Empress presented him with her picture set in brilliants; and when the Court broke up, she told him to follow her, to receive the farewell commands of her daughter.

Louis waited in the anti-room, while his father entered the apartment, where the still invalid Princess sat on a sofa, supported by the Countess Altheim. Louis could not help seeing the lovely group, through the half-obscuring draperies of the open door. The Princess was pale and thin; and, though dressed superbly, seemed fitter for her chamber.

When Ripperda drew near, a faint colour tinged her cheek.

"The Duke approaches you, my love," said the Empress, "to bear your commands to Don Carlos; and to receive from your hands, the portrait of his future bride."

"Where is it?" said the Princess, turning hurryingly to Otteline.

The Countess drew a beautiful miniature from its case, which lay on the sofa near her, and presented it to her young charge. Maria Theresa held it in her hand, and looked on it a few seconds with a languid smile.

"It is very pretty, and very fair!" said she, "Do not you think so, Duke?" added she, putting it into Ripperda's hand, who received it on his knee; "But tell the Spanish Prince, I shall be much fairer before he looks on it." And then she cast down her eyes, and sat perfectly still and silent.

"What means my love, by so strange a message?" enquired the Empress.

The Princess did not answer, but merely sighed, and looked round, uneasily. Elizabeth repeated the question, with enquiries, whether she wished to send the Prince any thing else, that she looked about so searchingly.

"O, no," replied the young creature, shaking her head, and rising from her chair; "I only wish to give this rosary to the Duke of Ripperda, for himself;—himself, alone!" cried she, and clasping her fair hands, as she dropped it into his, she turned hastily round with a glowing cheek, and flew out of the apartment.

At the moment of her last raising her eyes, she had caught a glimpse of Louis, as he stood in a distant corner of the other room half concealed in its draperies, but regarding with a pitying eye the resigned victim, who, like himself, was to be offered up to the ambition of others.

In evident emotion, Elizabeth put her hand on the arm of Ripperda, and withdrawing with him into a part of the room out of sight,—Otteline advanced to his son.

Louis's soul was full of sympathy for the interesting Maria Theresa; the import of whose melancholy message to Don Carlos, he well defined: and his compassion for such thraldom, extending to himself, made him a very unfit companion for his own future bride. He could have wept over the sweet, and faded Theresa; while the blooming cheek and rosy smile of Otteline, at such a season! withered him as she approached; and he stood sad and absorbed, after he had given her the ceremonious salute of the day.

The Countess had found her account in not striving to change these fitful moods in her lover. But while she suppressed the risings of her haughty soul, she often said within herself. "Disdainful tyrant!—My hour is coming!—When I am your wife, then you shall feel what you have done by trampling on the slave, who only waits a few magic words, to be your sovereign!"

For the whole of the remainder of the day, Ripperda's house was crowded with ministers, foreign embassadors, and persons of various descriptions. It was past midnight, before the last of these levies was dismissed; in the midst of all of which, Louis had seen his father like a presiding deity. He seemed the umpire of Europe; and as if the monarchs of each realm stood before him in the persons of their delegates, to hear from his lips the fiat of their weal or woe. To all he was as gracious as he was peremptory: and while he asserted the greatness of Spain, and proclaimed her claims in the various quarters of the globe, he breathed nothing but peace and prosperity to the nations that sought her amity.

Ripperda did not go to rest the whole night. He remained until morning, instructing his son on the objects entrusted to his completion. Louis received these lessons as distinctly, as a mirror receives the image of the face that looks on it; but where that fled, these were stationary, and remained indelibly stamped on his mind.

With the rising orb of day, the travelling equipage was announced. Ripperda rose from his seat. Louis started up also, with an emotion to which he would not give voice.

"I have spoken of all that relates to your public duty;" resumed the Duke, "I wish your private concerns were in as fair a prospect. But in my last conference with the Empress, I found myself obliged to pledge her my word, (and to seriously intend its performance,) to suffer no hesitation in the Queen's consent to your marriage with the favourite. But cheer yourself under the sacrifice. Believe, that in giving Otteline your name, you perform an act of self-devotion, of a consequence to the interests of your country, I cannot now explain, but it is worthy the price. Like your father, my son, you must live to virtue alone; live for mankind; live to future ages!—Do this, and all common concerns will be lost in the imperishable glory!"

Louis threw himself on his father's bosom.

"For this once!" cried he, in the full voice of filial affection; "For this once, let me be pressed to the heart that inspires me to virtue! The heart that I most honour and love in the world!—Oh, my father, may I be like unto thee; and all minor enjoyments shall be nothing to me!"

The Duke strained him to his breast. Louis's cheek was wet with tears; but his own flowed; so he knew not whether his father's mingled there. Ripperda strove to break from him, with an averted face. Louis clasped his hands, as he sunk on his knees; "Bless me, Oh, my father!" cried he, "Bless me, ere you leave me to this dangerous world!"

The Duke paused, and looked for a moment on the bent head of his son.

"Bless you, Louis!" said he, "But be firm in yourself, and you will need no beadsman's orison."

Louis hardly heard the latter sentence, in his growing emotions; and pressing the hem of his father's garment to his lips, it slid from his hand as the Duke drew it away, and disappeared through the door.

CHAP. V.

Ripperda was gone. Day rolled over day; and the most splendid preparations continued to be privately made for the betrothment of Maria Theresa, and the marriage of Otteline; but the Empress had still to count the hours with impatience, until the ceremonial consent should arrive.

Meanwhile, the conduct of Louis, in the management of the intricate affairs confided to him, gained the universal suffrage of the foreign ministers with whom he conferred; who united in saying, that had he been the son of the obscurest individual, his talents and strict fair dealing, would have ensured him every honour that he now received as the son of Ripperda.

Routemberg, the prime minister, affected to treat him with peculiar confidence; and he was with him when a packet arrived from his father. He opened it; and it contained the very dispatches which had been taken by the robbers from Castanos. The Duke accompanied them with a few lines, dated from a post-house in Carinthia, saying, that he had recovered them in a very extraordinary manner, which he should describe in his first letters from Spain; but he now lost no time in dispatching them forward to Vienna, under the care of Martini.

Subsequent considerations made Ripperda withhold this adventure; but it was briefly as follows.

Just as the Spanish suite had passed into the mountainous tracks of Carinthia, and Ripperda had entered the solitary post-house in the forest of Clagenfurt, he was followed into his apartment by the master of the house. The man told him in a mysterious manner, that a person in a strange foreign habit, had waited for His Excellency some hours in an upper chamber; and he now requested to speak with the Duke for a few minutes on a subject of consequence; but that it must be in a room without light.

Ripperda desired that the person might be told, it was not his custom to admit strangers to his presence, and never to suffer dictation in the manner he was to receive them.

In a few seconds the innkeeper returned with a charged pistol, which he presented to Ripperda, with this message. "The person who sent that, was as little accustomed to arbitrary decisions as the Duke de Ripperda. He had matters of moment to impart to him. If he did not chuse to receive them on the stranger's terms,—well,—and they should rest with himself; but if he decided otherwise, he must admit the communication under the obscurity of total darkness. If he suspected personal danger, he was at liberty to stand on his guard during the interview, either with his sword or that pistol."

There was something in the boldness of the demand, and the gift of the pistol, that stimulated the curiosity of Ripperda. He could protect his life from a single arm; and from a more supported treachery he had an armed guard in his suite.

Without further hesitation, he told the innkeeper to return the pistol to him from whom he had brought it; to take the lamp from the room, and to introduce the stranger.

When the door re-opened, a man was let in, the outline of whose figure and apparel the Duke caught a glimpse of, in the reflected light from the outer chamber. The person was tall, seemed in a military garb, by the clangor of a heavy sword, in an iron scabbard, striking against the door-post as he approached. But there was a great involvement of drapery about him; and the black plumage of his head brushed the door-top, as he stooped and entered. The door closed on his back; and the twain were in total darkness.

"Your business, Sir?" demanded Ripperda, with a tone of superiority.

"It is to confer an obligation on the proudest man in Christendom," returned a hoarse and rough voice, in as lofty a strain. "Ten days ago your courier was stopped in these mountains, and robbed of his travelling case. The contents are a padlocked casket and a sealed bag. It fell in my way; and I restore them to you."

"Brave stranger!" returned Ripperda, "whoever you are, accept my thanks. Point but the way, and the proudest man in Christendom would feel himself prouder in being allowed to repay such an obligation."

"I doubt it not," replied the stranger, sarcastically; "but my taste is not man's gratitude. If it were, I should starve in this generation."

"Try the man on whom you have just conferred this favour! Pardon me, but by your language, you appear to have been outraged by mankind? Let me make restitution? I love a brave spirit, and could employ and reward it."

The stranger laughed scornfully.

"Mine is Esau's birth-right, and I have employed it manfully; witness this sword!" cried he, striking it down with his hand upon the hilt, and rattling its steel against the floor; "witness that bag of policy and riches I despise; which the Duke de Ripperda now holds in his hand as the gift of an outlaw and an enemy!"

"You are a fearless man," returned the Duke, "and have proved yourself an honourable one! You know my power. Name the country that has outlawed you, and I will obtain your pardon. Name the price to make you my friend, and I will pay it."

"Ripperda," replied the stranger, "I leave that behind, which will direct you where to find its owner. If you use it wisely, it may be Ulysses' hauberk; if you reject it, the shirt of Nessus were a cooler winding-sheet!—Farewell."

Before Ripperda could unclasp his lips to reply, the stranger had opened the door, and passed through it like a gliding shadow.

The moment he had disappeared, the Duke called for lights, and the landlord brought them in.

When Ripperda was alone, he examined the case his rugged visitor had put into his hand. He broke the seals of the bag, in which he found the key of the casket; and on looking over the contents of both, missed none of the jewels, whose answering list was amongst the dispatches. The jewels were a magnificent present from Don Carlos to the Arch-duchess Maria Theresa; and a necklace, inscribed by the Queen's own hand for Countess Otteline Altheim; but amongst none of the papers was there any trace of the expected consent. The present of the necklace seemed a presumptive proof that Her Majesty did not intend to withhold it; but, until it was formally given, Ripperda could add no further sanction from himself. However, to inform the Empress, as soon as possible, of even this promise of Isabella's acquiescence, he lost no time in summoning two or three of the young noblemen, who, wearied of Vienna, had chosen to return with him to Spain. He told them of his having recovered the dispatches, by the gift of the leader of the banditti he believed; and of his intention to forward them that night to Vienna, if they had any commands to send by the messenger he should dispatch.

Don Baptista Orendayn, who was present, eagerly offered a suggestion that Martini ought to be the messenger, as the most trusty person; and Ripperda, pleased with his zeal, having ordered a sufficient suite to attend whomever he should select, adopted his advice, and saw the faithful Italian set off on his return to the Austrian capital, just as the dawn opened behind the farthest mountains.

His equipages were getting ready for the prosecution of his own journey; and, not having found any letter or memorandum from the stranger himself, in the case which had held the casket; he was wondering to what mysterious manner of tracing him he could have referred, since none certainly had presented itself, when the landlord entered the apartment; he carried a scarlet mantle in his arms, and laying it on the table before the Duke.

"My Lord," said he, "the person you saw last night, left this cloak in the chamber where he waited for you. He told me to bring it to Your Excellency in the morning."

Ripperda's eye fell upon the mantle,—it was discoloured a dark red in many places, he nodded his head, and the man withdrew. Ripperda then took it from the table, supposing a name or a direction might be affixed to it; but on the ample folds disengaging themselves, he started with a shudder.—He had seen it before!—It was marked with the keys of Saint Peter!—It was embroidered on the shoulder with the arms of Giovenozzo!—It was stained with the blood of Duke Wharton!

Ripperda dropped it from his hand.

"Accursed Wharton!" exclaimed he, now recollecting, in the disguised tones of the stranger's voice, some notes of the Duke's, "this insult shall not be pardoned! I am not to be cajoled nor menaced into peace with you, my most detested, most insolently triumphing enemy. We have once measured swords!" and his eye glanced on the blood-stained scarf; "when they next meet, the blow may be surer!"

Wharton's graces of mind, body, and political management, formed the only character which had ever peered with that of his haughty rival. He was the only man who had ever foiled Ripperda by secret machination. He had made him feel that he had an equal, that he might have a superior. He had discovered that the all-glorious boast of Spain was not exempt from the infirmities of common men. He had wrought him to commit an injury, and he had stood between him and the world's cognizance. To be so humbled in the knowledge of any living being, was the vultures of Prometheus to the proud heart of Ripperda. Wharton, by the present action, had declared his triumph,—had presumed to promise, or to threat! and the hatred of his enemy was now wound up to a height that could know no declension, till its cause was laid low in the silence of death.

A wood-fire burnt on the hearth of the room Ripperda occupied. He thrust the Cardinal's mantle into it, and stood over the smouldering cloth, till the whole was consumed to ashes.

Comprehending that Wharton must have set his emissaries to way-lay the Spanish dispatches, merely to afford him the opportunity he had boasted, of conferring an obligation on his rival, Ripperda assuaged his enraged thoughts by devising schemes of revenge as he rapidly pursued his journey towards the seat of his power.

He met with no accident nor obstacle, till on the night of the 25th of July. The tops of the hills were laden with thunder-clouds, and the turbid atmosphere laboured with the stifling Sirocco. His long train of attendants had dispersed themselves amongst the narrow and shelving roads, which traverse that line of the Appenines, which form the mural diadem of the gulph of Genoa. Ripperda's equipage wound down a long and twisting defile between two precipitous rocks. The intricacies and abrupt turns in the road separated him from his immediate followers. It was the darkest hour of twilight, when there was just enough of gleam from the lurid sky, to shew the outline of objects.

As the Duke's carriage turned a jutting cliff, he found it suddenly stop, and then heard a volley of oaths from his drivers, mingled with more direful imprecations from strange voices. While he was letting down the glass to enquire the cause, the lash of whips accompanied the mutual swearing, and he felt the struggle of his horses to force their way forward. The next moment a pistol was fired at their head, and a deep groan shewed it had taken too true an aim. As the window dropped, Ripperda saw the wounded postilion fall on the neck of his horse. But he saw no more. The carriage door was instantly opened, and before he could snatch a pistol from his own belt, he was dragged from the seat by the collected strength of several arms. Having thrown him upon the flinty way, one man of colossal bulk, cast himself upon the prostrate and struggling Duke, and kneeling upon his body, with both his knees, coolly and determinately put a pistol close to the temple of his victim. Ripperda had now grasped his own weapon, and with one hand, striking aside the arm of his antagonist, the pistol went off; where that ball fell he knew not, but with his other hand, at the same moment he lodged the contents of his own pistol in the heart of the ruffian. The wretch tumbled aside, with a convulsive recoil, and was no more.

His comrades, deeming the Duke's destruction sure, were rifling the carriage, while others were posted at the entrance of the defile, to prevent a rescue from his attendants. One of them turning round at the double report of the pistols, and seeing his coadjutor thrown motionless off the body of Ripperda, who sprang on his legs, alarmed his fellows, and rushed towards their prey. The Duke saw he must sell his life dearly, for he was determined never to yield it to such base assailants, and drawing his sword, set his back against the precipice, and held them at bay. But the strength of his arm, and the bravery of his heart could not have defended him long against their determined attack.

The men, whose poniards his sword parried, had recourse to fire-arms, and two pistols were fired at him.

"He stands yet!" cried one of the ruffians, "give him another volley."

A volley did sound, and instantly; but it came from the rocks above, and three of the villains fell. The rest drew back a few paces in surprise, and in the moment several men jumped from the shelving precipice to the side of the Duke. The conflict closed, and became desperate. Ripperda was bleeding fast from the graze of a ball on his head; and though he assisted his defenders with a resolute heart, he was nearly fainting. A party of his new friends had cleared the entrance of the road, for the approach of his followers; and the discomfited ruffians, foreseeing further contention must end in their utter destruction, laid hands suddenly on their wounded and dead; and throwing them over a chasm in the precipice, were presently lost themselves amongst the bushy recesses of the perpendicular rocks.

The persons who had come thus opportunely to the rescue of Ripperda, assisted his servants to bind his wound; and to place him, now as insensible as his lifeless postillion, in the carriage. Martini was on his mission to Vienna; but another valet was put into the chariot to support the Duke. The man respectfully enquired of him who appeared the superior of the group, what name he should say, when his master should ask for his brave deliverer?

"Some day, I will tell it to him, myself;" returned he, "meanwhile I shall exchange swords, as a memento of this hour."

He closed the carriage door, and ordered the trembling postilions to drive on. The valet, calling from the chariot window, implored his further protection; he nodded his head in acquiescence; and, with his train, escorted the alarmed party safe through the defile. As it opened into the champaigne country, the remainder of the suite, under the leading of Don Baptista Orendayn, approached from another road. At this sight, the gallant travellers turned their horses' heads, and leaving Ripperda to his friends, galloped across the plain in an opposite direction. The Duke had recovered only to a dreamy recollection. But his medical staff having gone before him to Genoa, when he arrived there, his wound was properly dressed; and a day's repose left him no apparent effects of his adventure, but the bandage on his head; and his regret, that such immediate insensibility had deprived him of the opportunity of thanking his deliverer. He spoke to Orendayn about his gallant preserver: but the young Spaniard could give no account of him; as he was lost among the mountains at the time of the attack. He, however, informed Ripperda, that while enquiring his way, the Alpine cottagers had told him of a noted banditti, which prowled in their neighbourhood in search of prey; and he did not doubt these assailants were the very troop. He lamented with great bitterness, that the stupidity of his guides, should have led him so far astray, when his patron was in danger; and envied those who had come to his rescue, with many encomiums on their timely valour.

Ripperda was pleased with the exchange of the swords; as the fabrick of the one which had been left in the place of his, was of a fashion that proved its owner to be a gentleman, as well as a brave man. Strange as it may seem, the former citizen of Groningen, had now imbibed so much of Spanish prejudice, he would have been sorry to have thought that his eagle-crested rapier, might now be suspended at the side of a man of ignoble blood, even though the hand that hung it there was that of his deliverer.

On the morning of Ripperda's recommencing his journey, he put the sword into his belt. It had once saved his life! And he wore, and wielded it hereafter, in many a menacing and perilous scene.

CHAP. VI.

The Duke de Ripperda no more troubled his son with a narrative of this attack in the Appenines, than he satisfied his curiosity, by the promised relation of the adventure in Carinthia. The one passed from his mind, as it was attended by no apparent consequences; and the other, though it lived in it, was connected with Wharton, and the memory of a transaction he would gladly obliterate for ever.

Martini set out to rejoin his master, as soon as he had delivered his trust; and when Louis opened it, he found the Queen's commands to himself, that he should be the representative of Don Carlos, in the betrothing ceremony with the Arch-duchess. He sighed as he laid the papers on the table; for he thought the task would be a harder one than even his own immolation.

"Ah," cried he, "can I have a hand in striking the sacrificial knife into the innocent lamb, that shrinks so pleadingly from the horrid altar!"

The Empress was not satisfied with the Queen's slowness in expressing her consent to the marriage of Louis; and the less so, as she wanted to have had it solemnised immediately. Otteline was summoned to Brunswick, to attend the dying moments of her father; and Elizabeth would have been glad to have secured Louis eternally her's, before so many leagues should divide them.

The day that had been fixed upon between the four illustrious parents of the intended royal pair, for the celebration of the affiancing ceremony, now approached. All the preparations were ready; and the adversaries to the mutual aggrandisement of Austria and of Spain, beheld these pledging nuptials with despair. Ripperda, with whom the whole scheme had originated, seemed omnipotent.

Indeed the splendour of his proceedings in his new office of Prime Minister of Spain, realized the visions of all its former statesmen. He moved forward with a magnificence of design, which surpassed Alberoni in grandeur, and Cardinal Ximenes in boldness of spirit, and determined execution. The eyes of Europe were fixed on the mighty hand, which moved all their interests as the interests of his own country prompted; and while a feeble prince sat on the throne, the minister bid fair to make the Spanish monarchy as vast and dominant as under the sceptre of the Emperor Charles. The pragmatic sanction, and a marriage between a Spanish prince and the heiress to the German empire, might accomplish this, and other plans, which were bursting to their ripening. But the withering mildew was now breathed forth, that was intended to blast this goodly harvest.

On the night in which Wharton was carried, even as a dead man, out of the mansion of Giovenozzo, the Cardinal had him carefully transported to a monastery in the neighbourhood, where he slowly recovered to life and strength. He learnt enough from his only visitors, Giovenozzo and de Richelieu, to know that Ripperda, not merely had disdained his justification and his friendship, but persisted in every circle, to treat his name with not less pointed, though silent contempt. Wharton smiled at this littleness in so great a man, but determined that he should feel the power he despised.

With the active English Duke, it was only to will and to do. Distances were to him as nothing; and difficulties only stimulated him to give his adversaries a more signal overthrow. What Swift said of Lord Peterborough, was as aptly adapted to Wharton; for while his rivals in the various courts of Europe were hearing of him at Rome, Paris, and London, and marvelling whether he would not next be in South America or Prestor-John's dominions:—

"Still as they talk of his condition,
So wonderful his expedition,
He's with them like an apparition!"