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 ofhonour, 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 theword of honourof an ambassador!—But there were a few drops of blood on the point ruffles and bosom of Richelieu; which, being observed by Count Routembergalone, 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.
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 anxiousson 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! Respecthim 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 toact 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 deRipperda, 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 thesubject. 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 ofMadrid 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 leftCharge 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 theGolden 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; buthis 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.
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 aperson 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 ofdrapery 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'sgratitude. 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. Namethe 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 presentfrom 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 toldme 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 measuredswords!" 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 thatline 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 hisattendants. 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 menjumped 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 thechariot 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; andenvied 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.
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 thepapers 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 ofSpain, 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 aptlyadapted 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!"
"Still as they talk of his condition,So wonderful his expedition,He's with them like an apparition!"
As soon as he recovered from the immediate effects of his wound, he set forward on his new pursuit; and he did not move to and fro upon the earth on a vain errand. Before his rencontre with Ripperda at the Cardinal's, he had penetrated all the secrets of the Altheim apartments. The jealousy of Count Routemberg, respecting some of the objects of the Spanish policy; and the private dispositions of the Emperor on the same subject, he had also mastered, by having secured the key of Routemberg's bosom, the beautiful and avaricious Countess d'Ettrees. The secret wishes of half the nobility inSpain, were also unfolded to him by the envy of de Patinos; and the venality of Orendayn was at his service.
Wharton was fully aware of the disgust that Maria Theresa had taken to Don Carlos; likewise of her romantic prepossession for the person and manners of Louis, and of the Empress's design to hasten the betrothment on this account. The Duke saw his vantage ground; and Ripperda's last conduct determined him to storm the breach he had made in these secret counsels.
It was easy to gain the ear of Routemberg, through the woman he worshipped. Through her insinuations, and the graver representations of His Excellency's confessor, (who knew the value of Wharton's gold,) the minister was made to suspect much dangerous matter in Ripperda's complicated influence at Vienna. Claudine d'Ettrees accused him of more sway with the Empress, than was consistent with her high station; that his designsin marrying a prince of Spain, to the heiress of the empire, were very apparent; while a secret connection he had with the leader of the Bavarian faction, was totally inexplicable. To circumvent his prime movement, the confessor gave hints of the wisdom of uniting the Arch-duchess to a prince, whose interests must be wholly German; and Francis of Lorraine, a ward of the Emperor, and who was just returning from his travels in Italy, was suggested as the properest person. Routemberg detested Ripperda; and gave such efficient credence to every representation, that he beset the Emperor night and day, till he brought him to accord with all his new views.
Proof was given to him, of Elizabeth having admitted Ripperda to private political discussions in the Altheim apartments. Also, that her daughter was desperately attached to Louis; and that the worst consequences might be anticipated from the ambition of the father,and the power of the son, when the innocent Princess should be entirely in their hands; as must be the case, should she marry the man she abhorred, and be continually in the society of the man she preferred, and who had an interest in preserving the preference.
Wharton had recently seen the Prince of Lorraine at Venice. And the circumstance which inspired the idea of his supplanting the Spanish match, was a general resemblance in his person, countenance, and manner, to him who now filled the heart of the youthful Princess. The Duke found no difficulty in awakening the wishes, which were necessary to his scheme, in the mind of young Lorraine. His ambition was easily aroused, to aspire to the heiress of an empire; and his imagination was not displeased with the picture Wharton drew of his proposed bride.
"In your progress," rejoined the Duke, "you may consult me, as the ancientheroes did their gods; but I must be equally invisible."
Every impression was made on the Emperor's mind, that Wharton desired. And to carry forward his measures against the Spanish minister, and his Empress, without a chance of impediment, Charles kept all that had been discovered to him, locked in his own breast.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, was filled with alarms respecting her daughter's unhappy infatuation. Her former placid temper had changed to irritability; and her conduct at times became so strange and desponding, the anxious mother was in hourly fear of her doing something rash with regard to Louis. Since the departure of Otteline, by unlucky accident, she had met him twice alone in the Altheim boudoir; and her repugnance to the Prince of Spain seemed so to encrease, the Empress saw no resource, but to hasten the day of affiance.
The Emperor was no sooner informedof her intentions; than he made a feint of sparing his daughter's feelings during the preparations; and took her with him to pass the intermediate time at the summer palace.
Elizabeth had always intended that the marriage of her favourite should be solemnized the morning of the day in which the young bridegroom was appointed to represent Don Carlos at the Imperial altar. Louis had always understood this; and she feared to give his dislike of Otteline such advantage, as to yield him opportunity to retract his engagement, should she reserve no great political object to hold him in check. In this dilemma, she determined to throw herself upon his honour; and from her knowledge of his romantic generosity, she thought she could easily bring him to pledge it; and then she believed Otteline secure.
She told him she was anxious to comply with a private letter from the Queenof Spain, to hasten the union between her son and the princess; and she would do so, provided he would promise to perform his engagement with Otteline as soon as she should arrive. Isabella had already implied her consent, though its formalities were yet to be declared. On the strength of this, and his father's granted approbation, Elizabeth demanded of him to say that he would marry Otteline, on any day she would name; and on such a pledge, the Empress would rest on his good faith, and the betrothment should proceed. All hope of escaping this hated union had long been over with Louis; and on Elizabeth representing that some strange clouds had lately hung over her husband's brow, which might burst, she knew not where, to the subversion of all the Spanish plans, the young patriot was the more readily persuaded to give the word of honour she required.
"But," added Louis, with a smotheredsigh; "in the august ceremony of next week, I conjure Your Majesty not to command me to be proxy!"
The Empress turned round.
"De Montemar! That is a bold petition. By what presumption, dare you offer it to the mother of the Arch-duchess Maria Theresa?"
"Her Highness is young, and fearful of the engagements to which that rite will bind her; and, as, in spite of myself, my heart will dare to compassionate even a Princess, in a moment of such aweful responsibility, I dread my weakness might dishonour the solemnity."
"And you have no weakness, but compassion for your future Princess?" asked Elizabeth, turning her Pallas-like eyes, full upon him.
Louis felt their appeal; and while a blush of mingled sensibility and modesty, coloured his manly cheek, he laid his hand on his breast and answered, "None; on the life I would dedicate to her service, and to that of her illustrious mother!"
The Empress turned from him, and walked up the room. Her own discretion seconded his plea; and when she approached him again, it was with a gracious countenance, and to say that his petition should be considered with indulgence.
But when the Emperor returned with his daughter from the Luxemburg, a competitor, more formidable than the image of de Montemar had taken its station in the breast of the young Princess. The Prince of Lorraine had been introduced to her rescue, in a contrived moment of danger on the lake; and, in the confusion of fear, believing her preserver to be Louis, she had thrown herself in speechless gratitude upon his bosom. Her father, approaching, explained to her, that he who had saved her from a watery grave, was Francis of Lorraine; and every day afterwards, during her residence at the Luxemburg, she gladly admitted him to her presence. The young Prince was of the same age with Louis; and possessed so much of his grace of mind, as well as person, that he had no difficulty (by tender and unobtrusive attentions,) in transforming her fanciful attachment to De Montemar, into a grateful passion for himself.
The understanding of Maria Theresa was beyond her years; but it was tinctured by the systems of expediency amongst which she had imbibed her education. She was therefore prepared to sustain her part in the drama Routemberg was bringing on thetapis. Her father, apparently moved by her abhorrence of the Spanish Prince, and her predilection for the German one, sanctioned their mutual vows; but engaged her to keep the whole affair secret from her mother, until he could find a safe opportunity of breaking with the Spaniard. He exhorted her to persist in refusing her presence on theproposed day of betrothment; he would secretly support her resistance; and throw obstacles in the way of the Empress's measures, until all should be obtained from Spain, and they might finally throw off the mask.
The resolute opposition which Elizabeth now met with from her, who had, hitherto, appeared like a drooping lilly, yielding unresistingly to the heavy shower that bowed her to the earth, amazed and perplexed her. As Charles had been careful to conceal his daughter's interviews with the Prince of Lorraine, and Francis did not come to Vienna; the Empress could trace no cause for this extraordinary change: and when she talked to her husband, of Maria Theresa's stubborn refractoriness, he coldly replied—
"The Marquis de Montemar has been admitted too familiarly to her presence. He is, as seeming fair, as his father: he may be equally false."Surprised at this unexpected, and, she was sure, unprovoked aspersion on the Duke, the Empress cautiously took up the defence of his unswerving truth.
"He is unworthy your confidence;" replied the Emperor, "for, after all his affected hostility to Wharton, as the instigator of every vexatious act from the Bavarian conspiracy, I have discovered from unquestionable evidence, that he has secret intelligence with him. On what subjects, ambition, boundless and wild as his own, can alone guess. Look to his son, Elizabeth, and to our daughter."
Charles would not explain farther, and left the Empress in encreased perplexity.
In vain she interrogated her daughter; in vain she insisted on her union with Don Carlos: she was resolute in not answering a word to any of the charges her mother put to her, as the reason for her refusal. When the Empress was angry, Maria Theresa remained sullenly firm; when her mother was tender andimploring, the hapless Princess wept in silence, but would not yield.
One morning Elizabeth entered her daughter's apartment, with a determination not to leave it, until she had brought her to the point, whence, she was resolved there should be no escape. She spoke, persuaded, threatened, implored; but the Princess was more obstinate than ever; though, so agitated by her mother's language, that she fell back in hysterical emotion into her chair. The violence of her disorder discomposed her dress, and the vest of her robe bursting open, the eye of her mother caught the glitter of something like the setting of a picture. With an immediate impulse she snatched it from the bosom of her daughter; and beheld, what she believed, the portrait of de Montemar.
Her eyes, for a moment, fixed themselves with a horrid conviction of a wide and nameless treachery. She looked from the picture to her daughter, with afrightful glare, in their before mild aspect. Maria Theresa, alarmed out of her hysterics, had sprung from her seat, and stood before her mother, with her hands clasped, in speechless supplication.
"And when did he give you this?" demanded Elizabeth, in a hollow, and almost suffocated voice.
The Princess dropped, trembling on her knees, without power of utterance; for, not aware of her mother's mistake, she thought the discovery of the Prince's picture in her breast, had betrayed the secret of her father: and, on its preservation, he had taught her to believe, entirely depended her future happiness.
"Theresa, I command you, to confess to me, the whole of de Montemar's treachery. When did he dare to give you this?—and—unhappy, degenerate girl! how did you dare to give the encouragement, to warrant such treasonable presumption?"
Every word that now fell from the agitated Empress was balm to the affrighted nerves of her daughter. Her father's secret was then safe; and, still retaining her humble position, she said in faultering accents; "Spare, de Montemar, my gracious mother! As I hope to see heaven, he is guiltless of all my offences against you. But ask me no more—I dare not answer it."
"He has bound you by a vow! or, you, wretched dupe, have disgraced your sex——"
The mother's lips could not finish the charge she was about to put upon her innocent child. She paused, and threw herself into a chair; for her own heart recollected its youthful and chaste admiration of the father of this very de Montemar, and she burst into tears. The picture fell to the floor. Theresa looked where it lay, but forbore to touch it. Her heart was softened at her mother's silent tears; and her own trickling down her cheeks, she ventured to take the Empress's hand, and put it to her lips. Elizabeth pressed the filial hand that trembled in her's; and then Theresa faintly articulated,—
"Oh, my mother! release me from this horrid betrothment, and you shall know every thought and deed of this agonized heart!"
The Empress dried the tears from her eyes, and turning gently on her child,—"I pity you, Theresa," said she, "but I can do no more. You are born a princess; and your inevitable fate is to marry, not where your inclinations may prompt, but where the interests of your country dictate. Your birth-right gives you a sceptre, ordains you to be the dispenser of good or evil, to millions of dependent subjects; and you have nothing to do with love, with private, selfish joys. We, that are born to such destinies, must forswear the one, or resign the other."
"Then let the Electress of Bavaria take the reversion of the German empire!" exclaimed the Princess, ardently, "let me resign all state and power, and only make me the happy wife of ——"
She checked herself, and buried her head in her mothers lap.
"Of him you must never see again!" returned the Empress, rising from her seat, and kissing the burning forehead of her daughter as she replaced her in her chair.
"I pardon your youth and innocence; and yet, was it innocence to forget the claims of Otteline upon his heart? Oh, my child, how deep must have been his wiles! That unblushing face of falsehood; that affected champion of honour! Never, never, will I forgive him. Theresa, you have seen de Montemar for the last time, till you are the wife of his prince."
As she spoke, she moved back, and found something under her foot. She stepped aside. It was the portrait which she had crushed, crystal and ivory, intoone shattered mass. The half-smothered cry of Theresa at the sight of the destruction, and the tears which gushed from her eyes, as, she involuntarily sprung forward to save the obliterated relics, confounded and penetrated her mother. While she hung, weeping, over them, the Empress drew a troubled sigh, and quitted the apartment.
In passing to her own chamber she met the Emperor, and, in the agitation of her maternal fears, told him all that had passed. Her heated prepossession changed the tacit acquiescence of her daughter, in the portrait having been that of Louis, into a positive confession that it was so. Charles was rather surprised at so direct a falsehood from his daughter; but as it was to maintain his secret, he rather wondered at her presence of mind, than blamed its obliquity.
The Empress talked herself into every suspicion of Louis's arts towards the Princess, and insulting coldness to hisown affianced bride. While the Emperor stimulated her wrath, he tried to spread it from the son to the father, by new insinuations against the sincerity of both. He dwelt upon certain documents he possessed, that the quarrel at the Cardinal's, was concerted between Ripperda and Wharton, to blind the French minister, who had suspected their private friendship. He also mentioned the stolen glances which the Electress of Bavaria was often observed to give to de Montemar; and that he generally replied to them in the same clandestine way. It had been noticed in thePrato; and particularly at the assemblies of the Countess Lichtenstein, where, one night, the Electress evidently dropped her fan before him, that he might take it up; and, as he presented it, she closed her hand over his as she received it,—"and gave it a quick pressure, and a glance," continued the Emperor, "that pretty plainly declared they were no strangers."The Empress listened to all with greedy, because prejudiced attention. But nothing of the information affected her with regard to Ripperda; a partial spirit presided in her mind, when he was accused; and she would believe nothing of such aimless treachery. Of Louis she now entertained the very worst opinion; and she determined to send for him immediately, and tax him at once with all that she had heard, against both his father and himself.
Charles remarked, that he knew from one or two of his young chamberlains, that Louis's profligacy was equal to his talents; that he was a constant frequenter of the most dissipated circles in Vienna; and therefore, he intimated the impropriety of committing the reputation of the Arch-duchess, by even implying to so vain and unprincipled a young man, the least hint of her preference for him; or allowing the possibility of his daring to turn an eye of passion upon her.Elizabeth saw the delicacy of this caution; and while she consented to restrict her reproaches to political subjects alone, she determined to revenge herself on his presumption and duplicity, by precipitating the marriage she knew he abhorred.