After she had withdrawn, the Marchioness would not permit her daughter to quit the side of the couch on which she reclined; but continued discoursing of the interesting son of the fugitive Duke, and recapitulating all the kindnesses which his English relatives had shewn to her darling Ferdinand in Lindisfarne.
"Marcella," said she, "we must repay part of that vast debt, to this inestimable young man. Your brother has not exaggerated his merits. For, never did I seeexquisite beauty so unconsciously possessed; nor heroic indifference to the world's idols, expressed with such noble simplicity."
When Louis rejoined the kind hostess, his misfortunes and his manners had so happily propitiated, she was seated with her meditative daughter in the evening saloon; which opened to a small lake, surrounded by aromatic groves. She rose to receive him.
Relieved from immediate alarm for his father's personal safety, by knowing that his projected asylum was the one least likely to occur to his pursuers, Louis's agitated mind had sunk into a kind of torpid repose. He took the seat offered to him, by the Marchioness; and listened to her conversation with soothed attention. There was something in her figure and air, which so reminded him of the cherishing mother of his youth, Mrs. Coningsby, that his harassed soul seemed to have regained its home, while he drankin her sweet maternal comfortings. She appeared to know by intuition the fittest medicine for his spirit; but she only spoke from her own noble nature, and it mingled direct with his. She expatiated on his father's character; on the envy of his rivals; and dated his fall to their ambition alone. She dwelt on the high reverence in which he was held by the King and Queen; and affirmed, that justice must be done him, both by Sovereign and people, when experience should have taught them how they had cast away their benefactor.—
"Meanwhile," said she, "how glorious he is in suffering magnanimously for his virtues!"
"So to suffer, is the Cross that makes our virtues Christian!" observed Marcella in a low voice, hardly aware that she had uttered what was passing in her thoughts.
The remark was so like what he wouldhave expected from the lips of his first christian teacher, that Louis turned towards the speaker. He turned to look on her; recollecting that she was not merely the daughter of the amiable woman who was so maternally solicitous about him; but the disinterested sister, whose self-sacrifice was to empower her brother to complete the happiness of Alice Coningsby. Though she had been the first to welcome him to this hospitable refuge, in most inhospitable Spain, he had noticed her so little, he could not have recognised her in any other garb. He now perused her pensive countenance. It was fair and meek, and touched with the tenderest sensibility. Her eyes were hidden with their downward lashes; and the shadow of her veil tempered the dazzling whiteness of her forehead, while the dark and glossy tresses that braided its arching brows, gave her the air of a youthful Madonna. Her soft white hand at that moment pressingthe cross to her bosom, completed the picture. Unconscious of observation, she was then breathing an internal prayer for the Duke and his son; and continuing her meditations on their fate, did not raise her eyes from the floor.
Louis looked on her, but it was as he would have looked on a lovely image of the consecrated being she resembled; and again he turned to the voice of her mother.
The Marchioness finding him so composed, entered fully into all she knew of the rise and progress of the conspiracy which had ruined his father. She recounted the various perfidies of the inmates of the Palais d'Espagne; which had been confided to her, in the exultation of triumph, by Donna Laura. She narrated particulars in the correspondence between de Patinos and his father, the Marquis de Castellor; and gave instances of even deeper double-dealing in Baptista Orendayn, the nephew of theCount de Paz. Indeed, she hoped, the Marquis, her husband, would be able to prove, by what she could impart, that Orendayn was concerned with a subborned band of ruffians who attacked the Duke de Ripperda in the Appenines; and would certainly have destroyed him there, but for the fortunate intervention of a stranger.
This assassination was the device of his Spanish rivals. And it was as well known by the Marchioness's informants, that the attempt which was made on the Duke in the porch of the Jesuits' college, was the work of certain Austrians at the court of Vienna; and not at all arising from the partizans of the Electress. The Bavarians had never gone farther than to way-lay for the state papers; and under the leading of Count Stalhberg, they had taken the dispatches from Castanos; which, being examined by the party, were afterwards returned.
In recapitulating this host of jealousadversaries, she asserted that none were so actively hostile to Ripperda as the Austrian junto; at the head of which was Count Routemberg, whose darling policy was to place eternal barriers between any future junction of the empire and Spain. In his house the confederation was formed, that was to accomplish the destruction of Ripperda and his plans; and by a secret management it was supported and impelled by the Emperor himself.
While Louis listened to this information, which agreed so fatally with Wharton's last conference in the garden of the chateau, he became more and more bewildered on the motives of his false friend.
At last the Marchioness mentioned that name, which never could be heard by him with indifference; his confidence, or his detestation must rest upon it. He was thinking of the accumulated treachery of Wharton, when she pronounced his name. He started as if it took him by surprise. In her eagerness she did not observe his emotion, but dwelt on the English Duke's clandestine interviews with Grimaldo, de Paz, and the Queen; shewing their results in the King's inflexibility to Ripperda's demands to be heard; and his subsequent warrant, to silence the injured minister's appeal in the sealed dungeons of the Inquisition.
In the height of her representations, Louis, with a tremendous fire in his before faded eye, grasped the arm of the Marchioness, and desperately exclaimed,
"Cease that theme—or it will make me a murderer!"
His manner alarmed the Marchioness, and terrified Marcella. The former, however, restrained herself, and mildly pressing down the hand that clasped her's, detained him on his seat; while Marcella started from her chair, and gazed upon his flashing countenance with dismay.His terrific guilty words yet rung in her ears. For a moment his eye caught the expression of her's; and he answered the horror in her face by the exclamation,
"I loved, and trusted him—and he has betrayed my father!"
He turned away as he spoke, and walked to the other end of the room. The eyes of the Marchioness and her daughter met with an anguish of commiseration in each, neither of them could utter. Marcella looked again at his agitated movements, as his back was towards her. His words, "I loved, and trusted him—and he betrayed my father!" had smote upon her filial heart; and tears gushing into her eyes, she glided from his presence, to pray and weep in secret.
When Louis recovered himself, he scarcely remarked that Marcella had withdrawn.
In hopes to sooth him, the Marchionessasked two or three questions respecting Wharton. Twice he attempted to speak, before he could give any voice to what he wished to say; at last he hastily articulated.
"Spare me on this subject. I would forget him, if God will grant me that gracious oblivion; for that is the only way by which I can remain guiltless of his blood!"
"Rash de Montemar!" cried the Marchioness, pitying while she reproved; "were my holy daughter here, she would tell you, that if you have hope of heaven's pardon for your own errors, you must forgive your enemies!"
An agonized smile gleamed on his convulsed lip.
"My own enemies, I could forgive, and load with benefits. There are some, were they my enemies alone, I could love in spite of every injury; and pray for them, as for the peace of my own soul. But when they extend their malice to my father; when they betray his trusting faith, and give him to the murderous gripe of them who lurk for his honour and his life: they are his enemies, and I cannot forgive them."
"Yet, do not risk your life, which is now his sole comfort," cried she, "Appeal to Heaven, and it will avenge you."
Again Louis walked from her. He felt that, inexorably as he now believed he hated Wharton, and horrible as was the idea of meeting him arm to arm; yet, even that would be more tolerable to him than to invoke Almighty power for vengeance.
A sad confusion of right and wrong, struggled in his breast; but the better principle prevailed; and, even while the pressure of new convictions against Wharton, crowded upon him, he felt that the bitterest pang of all, would be an assurance that by such guilt on guilt, his false friend had forfeited themercy of his God. In his fiercest throes of resentment, he could yet say with the Divine Spirit, "I have no pleasure in the death of a sinner; but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live!"
The Marchioness marked his unuttered emotion, and with self-blame at the amplitude of her communications, apologised for her indiscretion, and proposed his seeking composure in rest. He gladly acquiesced; while he begged her, not to distress herself by regretting what she had said; for it was necessary to his father's preservation and to his own, that he should know all his enemies, and the extent of their malice.
It was now within an hour of midnight. On Louis entering his chamber, he sent away Lorenzo; that he, at least, might enjoy the sleep that fled his master's eyes. In a few minutes he was alone, in a magnificent apartment, where every tranquillizing luxury invited to repose. But the downy couch would then have been a bed of thorns to him. He continued to walk the room from hour to hour, in perturbed meditation on all that he had seen and heard through the day.
His spirit was on the wing to rush through every obstacle to his father's feet; to labour day and night, to redeem the reputation sacrificed by his flight; and to avenge himself on the slanderous world, by some glorious assertion of the names of de Montemar and Ripperda.
At last, his exhausted taper went out suddenly; and, being without the means of replenishing its light, he threw himself on the bed to muse till morning.
About an hour before sun-rise, the inhabitants of the villa were aroused by the clattering of horses' hoofs upon the pavement around the house, which was speedily followed by a loud knocking at the gates.
The Marchioness and her daughter, in their dressing-gowns, met in the corridor between their rooms, with each a lamp in their hand. Alarm was in the countenance of both; which was increased to indescribable terror, when the chamberlain of the mansion appeared on the stairs, and informed them, he had looked from his window to demand the cause of such untimely disturbance; and the answer he received was from the leader of the party, who said he came to arrest the Marquis de Montemar, in the name of the King.Marcella's knees shook under her, and a mist passed over her eyes; but it was only transitory; she heard the steady orders of her mother, and rallied her own presence of mind in the same instant.
"Pedro," said the Marchioness, "doubly barricade the doors; and let no man enter, till I have spoken with the Marquis."
Pedro flew to obey his lady, and she proceeded along the gallery to the apartment of her guest. Marcella did not follow her in, but sunk into a seat, near the door of the chamber. The lock yielded to her mother's hand. She saw her enter, and could distinctly hear her footsteps as she cautiously approached the bed, and gently called on the name of de Montemar, to awaken him. At last, she heard him start from the leaden slumber, which had only recently fallen on his harassed faculties; and with an exclamation of surprise at seeing theMarchioness leaning over him at that hour, and in such evident agitation; he sprang from the bed.
The tumult at the outside of the house, strenuously demanding admittance, and the replies from within to withhold it for a time, explained the alarm to Louis, almost before his trembling hostess could speak the words of his arrest. Being fortunately dressed, he stepped forward with an immediate tranquillity succeeding his first appalled thought, that, by this new detention, his father would yet be left to his cruel suspicions. But he suddenly recollected, that Lorenzo might seek him, if he could not; and that when his father knew how he was detained, he could no longer doubt his filial duty. This passed through his mind in a moment; and taking the agitated hand of the Marchioness, he told her his wish respecting Lorenzo; and entreating her not to be distressed at what could not essentially injure him,begged her to order her servants to request the officers to be patient for a few minutes only, when he would instantly put himself into their hands.
"Never!" cried she, "you are my husband's guest, and you shall not be forced from his house during his absence. Ill should I repay the family who fostered my son, were I to surrender their darling into the hands of his enemies. I am aware they may break open my doors; but there is a place in this villa they cannot discover. Come with me, and you shall be safe, till the way is clear for your complete escape."
Surprised at this proposal, Louis did not interrupt her; but when she paused, and put her arm on his, to draw him towards the offered asylum, he earnestly thanked her, yet repeated that it was his fixed intention to obey the arrest of the king.
"What?" cried she, "this is despair, beyond their hopes! They will confine, perhaps torture you! They could not have obtained this warrant from the King, had they not made him believe that you are accessary to the crimes with which they charge your father. They will try to compel you to confession; and, though you are blameless, you will suffer the cruelest ordeal of transgression. They fear your talents; and, if the laws refuse to be their emissary; when you are in the solitude of a prison, how many means will present themselves, of ridding them of what they fear!"
In great emotion, she followed up these representations with renewed beseeching that he would accompany her to a temporary concealment.
"It is for my father's enemies to fly;" returned he, in a firm though gentle tone; "they are guilty of treachery to the confidence of their Sovereign, and flight may do them service. But I am innocent of offence against this country; my father has been its benefactor. Iwill therefore stay, to meet any trial they may devise, to impugn him in my person. And, if my defence of his integrity fail with his unjust judges; and, should I even fall in the attempt, honest men will form a truer judgement; and, such hearts as yours, and those I left in England, will still respect Ripperda and his son."
In despair at his resolution, the Marchioness reminded him, that the father whom he so justly revered, acted on a different principle. He was innocent, and menaced; and he fled.
"And there," returned Louis, "he gave the advantage to his enemies, that sanctions the arrest of his son. He should have demanded open trial. All Europe would have supported the demand; and in the face of Europe he would have been acquitted. To this I would yet urge him. His proud rivals will not dare suffer his return; and theircowardice will, of itself, pronounce his triumph."
The Marchioness clung to him, as the uproar below increased, and she thought by the extraordinary noise, that her gates were burst open.
"Alas!" cried she, "you know not the summary justice of this country! The bow-string is yet amongst us,—and you will perish in prison, unheard, unremembered!—Oh, de Montemar, in the name of all you love, hasten with me!"
"In the name of all I love and honour, dearest Madam!" returned he, straining her respected and clinging form to his grateful heart, "I must remain, and abide the ways of Providence."
"Marcella!" cried the Marchioness, looking round, and seeing her daughter, who had unconsciously started into the room on hearing the augmented tumult below; "Marcella, come hither, and by your holy eloquence conjure him tofly, and save these men the sin of murder!"
Marcella stood still, looking on the ground. Her mother continued her entreaties to him, and then again implored her daughter.
"Speak to him, my heaven-devoted child! For that father's sake, conjure him to abandon the ruinous project of abiding by the justice of his enemies!"
Marcella's complexion was the hue of death, while she gaspingly answered:
"I cannot urge the Marquis to depart from sentiments I so much honour."
Louis looked from the weeping Marchioness, who hung on him with maternal tenderness, to the daughter, pale, and trembling, but firm in the faith that nerved his soul.
"Madam," said he, "I thank you for this support," then turning to her mother, "Revered lady," cried he, "remember me in your prayers, and I shall not fear the malice of my enemies!"The words of her daughter had put the Marchioness to silence, and she leaned upon the shoulder of Louis, drowned in tears. At this moment the clamour of many feet were heard upon the stairs, and a man bursting into the room, told his mistress that Don Diego Cuellar, one of the Alcaids, had ordered the gates to be forced; and, was not only in the house, but then approaching the corridor. The Marchioness sobbed aloud, and exclaimed in wild grief, "my son, my son!" As if it were Don Ferdinald she held in her arms.
Louis supported her on his bosom, but did not hesitate to say to the servant; "tell the officer, I am at his orders. I will descend to him immediately."
But before the man could obey, Don Diego and his train were in the corridor, and in the room. A threatening denunciation was in his visage, as he advanced with his staff of office towards his prisoner. Louis perceived the storm; andto spare the sensibility of his hostess any shew of violence, he intercepted the thunder of the Alcaid, by repeating the message he had sent by the servant.
"'Tis well, Sir," replied the officer, "but the resistance which has been made, must be answered for before the council."
"I will answer for it, and all else that may be brought against me, when I am before the council;" replied Louis, "but meanwhile, I request of your courtesy as a Gentleman, to dismiss your guards till I can sooth this lady."
The manner of his prisoner, sufficiently mollified the officer; and he made a sign to his attendants to withdraw. The Marchioness then turned to the Alcaid; and, to her fearful interrogatories, he informed her how Louis had been traced to her house.
On his departure from the Alcazar, the warden thought it prudent to senda person to observe his movements. This spy followed him to the Val del Uzeda; and then, proceeding to St. Ildefonso, (where the royal family were), apprised the ministers of the escape of Ripperda, and where they might find his son. A council was convened; and it determined that Louis should be arrested, and held in strict ward, till information could be gained of the flight and views of his father.
"When that is ascertained," continued the Alcaid, "the enlargement of the Marquis de Montemar will be brought into immediate consideration."
The Marchioness, being a little assured, drew Louis aside; and in a low voice, entreated him to rely on the strenuous friendship of her husband, and to depend upon seeing her in whatever prison he might be confined. He expressed his gratitude in emphatic, but brief terms; and begged her to continue herkindness, by writing what had happened, and transmitting it by Lorenzo to his father.
Marcella stood all this while, leaning against the tapestry, in a silent astonishment of thought and feeling.
Lorenzo had been the most active below, in keeping out the officers; and, having extricated himself from them who had seized him in consequence, he now rushed into the room, and in much agitation threw himself at the feet of his master. Louis grasped the faithful hand that clung to his, and answered the fervent vows to follow him into all captivity, by an impressive whisper:—
"You must serve me here. The Marchioness will tell you how."
Then, advancing to the officer, he repeated, "Sir, I am ready."
Don Diego beckoned two guards, who immediately drew near their prisoner. They attempted to lay their hands on the sword and pistols with which his generous hostess had re-furnished him the preceding night; but he repelled them, and demanded of the Alcaid, what was meant by this indignity.
"To disarm you, Sir," replied the officer, "such are my orders. You menaced the warden of the Alcazar, in the discharge of his duty; we are to be protected in ours, and you must yield your weapons, or have them forced from you."
"The laws require it of me, as your prisoner?"
"They do."
Louis said no more, but put his sword and pistols into the Alcaid's hands.
"He has a poniard!" cried one of the attendants, (who was indeed the spy which had watched his steps,) "I saw it in his vest, when he leaped from the window in the dungeon."
Louis had forgotten this weapon, but did not demur in relinquishing it also.
The Marchioness shuddered. "What,"cried she, "he is to have no defence? Merciless men!"
"The laws, and their honour, will defend me, Madam!" returned he, putting her hands to his lips; "I fear no man, for I have injured none."
By a sign from the Alcaid, the soldiers then closed around him, and the Marchioness sinking on the bosom of her daughter, did not see his last grateful look as he was hurried from the room.
A deeper dungeon than that which had confined the father, now received the son. The light which discovered its dismal bounds to his solitary eyes, came from a small grated aperture in the vaulted roof. Escape, then, had he meditated such an expedient, was impossible.
But so far was that idea from presenting itself to his thoughts, he never ceased lamenting that his injured father had been reduced to so equivocal an alternative. He knew not how to reconcile the imprudence of the act, with Ripperda's consummate wisdom; till, as he passed hours in these lonely musings, the events of history occurred to his memory; and he saw, that there maybe times in the lives of the most illustrious characters, when their good genius, or their good sense, seems to desert them; the faculty of judgement is taken away; and they obey the impulse of passion, with all the blind zeal of the most inconsiderate of men. Some such alienation of his better reason, Louis thought must have occurred in the experienced mind of Ripperda, before he could have taken so condemning a step; for of neither his personal courage, nor patriotic integrity, could this devoted son conceive a suspicion. From infancy to manhood, he had but one impression of his father, that—
"—— in his port divineThe image of his glorious Maker shone,Truth, wisdom, rectitude severe and pure!"
"—— in his port divineThe image of his glorious Maker shone,Truth, wisdom, rectitude severe and pure!"
And almost worshipping the human idol in his heart, as formed—
"For God only—his son, for God in him!"
"For God only—his son, for God in him!"
He loved and honoured him without measure.On the night of his arrival, he learnt that his prison was the castle of Madrid. But it was not necessary for him to enquire how strict, or how apparently long, was to be his confinement. Hour after hour, day after day, wore away; and no person was suffered to approach him; no letter permitted to reach his hand; and when he attempted to question his goaler, whether the Marchioness Santa Cruz had visited his prison; or if tidings had yet transpired of the Duke de Ripperda; his only answers were gloomy denials of all communication.
Though his portmanteau had been brought to him, the writing materials and money it contained, were taken out in his presence, and even his books of devotion shared the same fate. Indeed, the latter seemed a prize of some moment to the officer who superintended the search, for when the little bible, which had been the gift of his Pastor uncle, opened its title page to the eyeof superstition, the alarmed fanatic ordered it to be carried under a strong guard, to the grand inquisitor.
Remonstrance on this, or on any other head, was vain; and under a suspense that increased to torture, three weeks dragged away their anxious days. At times, he almost suspected that the Marchioness Santa Cruz had forgotten him; then, that Lorenzo had arrived in Gibraltar, and failed of convincing Ripperda of the truth of his son. Every frightful apprehension of doubted honour; of absolute abandonment to his enemies; and an endless captivity in this dreary dungeon, assailed him in the gloom of his uncompanioned thoughts.
Every rigor of hard fare, and severe usage, was inexorably brought upon him. His bed was on the flinty pavement; his food, the scanty portion of a criminal. But the conscience of Louis was at rest; and he soon found that "man does not live by bread alone!"Though his gaolers seemed inclined to do so much wrong in their treatment of him, he never repented that he had done rightly in submitting to the law of his new country, by yielding himself to their power. But when he writhed under the tyrannous grasp with which they held him, he could not but remember, with many a yearning comparison, the country which had fostered his infancy. There he had imbibed the mingled tides of freedom and of equity, as from the breast of a mother. Here the proud state that claimed him as her own offspring, met him with the injustice of a malignant step-dame.
"Noble, regretted England!" cried he, "I had rather be a door-keeper in thy courts, than a prince in this land of despotism!"
In these lingering weeks of anxious loneliness, every impetuous passion, and daring wish; every motive and action, or his short but eventful life, passed inreview before him; his impatience to plunge into the world, and the readiness with which he gave way to its delusions. While reflection humbled him to the dust; the consciousness of having, in all his transgressions, erred from mistake or inconsideration, but never from wilfulness, raised his head to that Being, whom the precepts of Mr. Athelstone had so often told him to "Remember in the days of his youth; and in his extremity, he should not be forgotten," These thoughts were heavenly visitants to the young captive, who lay like Joseph in bonds, with Faith, and Hope, and Innocence, his comforters. The cheering lamp which these immortal sisters lit in his heart, illumined the dark eclipse with which the recent treacheries of man had overshadowed it. Yet he never thought of Wharton but with a horror that shook his soul. He durst not look steadily on his image; for no light was there.
A fourth week commenced. It wasthe anniversary of that day in the past autumn, when Santa Cruz took his leave of Lindisfarne; and Louis stood gazing on his departing vessel, vehemently wishing to hang upon its sails, and so be transported to his father and to action! It was also the Sabbath-day! And the uncle, who a year ago had then stood by his side, admonishing the intemperate desire; he, at this dismal anniversary, was, even at that hour, in the little church of Lindisfarne, beseeching Heaven's "pity on all prisoners and captives!" unconscious he was then putting up a prayer for his own darling child!
The tears were not without balm, that filled the eyes of his nephew at the recollection.
In the midst of these meditations, the dungeon door opened, and Santa Cruz himself appeared on the threshold. Louis started from his seat,and could have cried aloud:—"Then my God has remembered me!"
But tidings from his father were also in his thoughts, and he only ejaculated that revered name.
Santa Cruz embraced him, with more agitation than his stately mien might have announced.
"The Duke de Ripperda has not been heard of;" returned he, "he must therefore be safe. By any other means than that of flight, I would his son were equally secure from his enemies!"
Fearless for himself, Louis entered at once upon his father's case. His first wish was to induce the Marquis to solicit the King to hear the son in defence of the parent; or, if that were denied, to allow Santa Cruz to present a written vindication of Ripperda's Austrian ministry. He gave the Marquis a simple narrative of every transaction, from the beginning of the business to the stage in which he left it at his recall; and, in the course of the explanation, he couldnot avoid noticing the destructive mystery into which the double conduct of Duke Wharton had involved every proceeding, even to those in which he had no explicable concern.
"You are already avenged of him," replied the Marquis, "General Stanhope transmitted to his government all the Duke de Ripperda reported to him of Wharton's secret practices in favour of the exiled Sovereign. George of Brunswick has taken alarm at so deep a scheme; and the consequence is, the confiscation of your enemy's estates, and a reward offered for his apprehension."
Louis was planet-struck at this information. The words which Wharton had spoken to him in the park of Bamborough, murmured in his ears,—"I put my life in your hands!"
"And my father has accused him!—Has set that life at a price!—The country in which we first met, is nowno more to him than to me. He is an out-law,—I, a prisoner!"
Louis was silent under these thoughts; a stricture was on his heart, but he recovered himself, while Santa Cruz proceeded in his discourse.
He had been only a few days returned to Spain. The Marchioness lost no time in informing him of all she knew relative to the fall of Ripperda, and the arrest of his son; and, urged by her, as well as his own zeal, he hastened to Madrid. He there investigated the affair. Among other nefarious particulars respecting the overthrow of the ex-minister, he learnt what was to have been its bloody consequence. The king was so pressed by the British Ambassador on the outrageous seizure of his guest; and some of the northern envoys openly pleading their conviction of the Duke de Ripperda's general integrity; the Spanish ministers feared to stem such an opposition of opinion, should they venture their predecessor in a public trial; and aware of their inability to convict him of treachery, peculation, and unlawful ambition, (the grounds of his impeachment,) they had recourse to theLettres de cachetof the Inquisition.
"Did I believe that your father's reconciliation to the Romish Church were hypocrisy," continued the Marquis, "I should be the first to approve his sentence. But I know the spring of these accusations; and that the penalty of imputed heresy would soon have been paid."
Santa Cruz did not stop at this observation, but candidly acknowledged that if ever the flight of an innocent man from the bonds of his country, were an act of compulsive prudence, it was in the case of Ripperda. He added,
"It is not here, as in England, that the laws govern the prince. Arbitrary power holds them in check; and, when once a man is seized, if he cannot attain the grace of his judge, he has little dependance on his justice."
The Marquis then informed Louis, that he had made personal applications to the ministers and to the queen, to beg their interference with Philip for his trial or enlargement. The ministers were inflexible; and Isabella not less firm in her refusal. All that he could extract from their clemency, (or rather from that of the queen alone,) was a hard-wrung permission to visit Louis in his cell.
"Yet," said the Marquis, "my hopes do not stop there. One step in humanity warrants the expectation of a second. I am in favour with Her Majesty. I came to be, what you propose, the medium of your father's vindication; and that will comprehend your own."
Impressed with the deepest gratitude, Louis confided to his disinterested friend, the whole contents of the packet he had left in the care of the Marchioness. According to his previous request, she had entrusted her husband with the secret of Ripperda's asylum; and now he acknowledged, that one object of his present visit, was to obtain Louis's permission to confide it also to the Queen. He urged, that it would flatter the peculiarities of her character, and might conciliate her good offices for his liberty. Being at Gibraltar, Ripperda was out of the reach of personal danger, even should the secret transpire beyond herself; and, meanwhile, the measure might do every thing for his son, and his son's final wishes in the assertion of his father's fame.
"Should her influence be seriously aroused in your behalf," said the Marquis, "you would find it resistless with the King, therefore peremptory with his ministers."
Sensible as he was that his father's asylum was chosen with honour, and that its divulgement could be productive of no possible harm, Louis had every disposition to yield to this advice. But his eagerness to adopt any honourable means of facilitating his release, ran before the progressive hopes of his zealous friend, when he found that his father was yet ignorant of his being in Spain.
He learnt from the Marquis, that as soon as he was taken from the Val del Uzeda, a reserve guard had forcibly seized Lorenzo; and borne away him also, to prison.
Soon after imparting the latter information, Santa Cruz rose to retire; promising to use his endeavours for the enlargement of the servant, as well as the master: and, bearing with him many respectful acknowledgements to the Marchioness, he embraced the grateful son of Ripperda, and bade him adieu.
END OF THE THIRD VOLUME.
Printed by A. Strahan,New-Street-Square, London.
Transcriber’s Notespage 4, the changed to they (Rewards of any other kind, they changed)page 15, immerese changed to immerse ( immerse all in one broad system)page 29, alledged changed to alleged (alleged that my duty towards)page 66, medicant changed to mendicant (mendicant monarch)page 96, inkeeper changed to innkeeper (the innkeeper returned)page 121, mannner changed to manner (Her manner amazed him)page 134, Princesss changed to Princess (Louis's arts towards the Princess)page 138, congratulory changed to congratulatory (contained congratulatory letters on the event)page 153, visting changed to visiting (by visiting them in their towns)page 187, consquences changed to consequences (to be always fearing consequences)page 201, premptory changed to peremptory (assurances of his peremptory)page 258, ungarded changed to unguarded (so unguarded an indignation)page 260, unusal changed to unusual (by an unusual sort of tumult)page 279, procceedings changed to proceedings (all illegal proceedings)page 281, question mark changed to a comma (replied their leader.)page 298, missing "of" added (Ripperda of a misfortune, unworthy of his attention)page 311, extra he removed (and with inexpressible alarm, he replied)List of Archaic and Variable Spelling (not an exhaustive list)achievement is spelled as both atchievement and achievementante-room is spelled anti-roombalustrades is spelled ballustradesceiling is spelled cielingdoted is spelled doatedmattress is spelled mattrassportray is spelled pourtrayuncontrollable is spelled uncontroulablelily is spelled lillyfrenzy is spelled phrenzyfaltering is spelled faultering
Transcriber’s Notes
List of Archaic and Variable Spelling (not an exhaustive list)