Part 12

Ripperda then spoke on the causes and terms of his re-union with Spain. And with some astonishment, and more regret, Louis comprehended that his father had also been received into the pale of its established church. Louis ventured to express his sentiments on this communication.

"It was my original religion," returned the Duke, "the free-thinking spirit of independence had betrayed me in youth to the cavils of Reformation, but time and study reconciled me to the faith of my ancestors. Two learned Jesuits at Madrid completed the work, and I am now as good a Catholic as any in the Spanish dominions. The same masters may convert my son; and then, Louis, I shall have no wish ungratified."

"I was born a protestant, Sir;" replied Louis, "and I believe I shall die one."

"Be what your conscience dictates," returned the Duke, "only remember that your father and your king are Catholics; and you will not fail in honour to their church."

Louis bowed his head in respectful acquiescence. The Duke soon after withdrew to his chamber of audience. Many of the old Spanish settlers in Austria, who had been oppressed there since the changed succession in Spain, were in waiting, to petition the ambassador of their ancient country, to interfere with the Imperial court in their behalf.

Titles were never points in the ambition of Louis but as they were symbols of pre-eminence in nobler respects; he, therefore, was not insensible to the satisfaction of having the alienated honours of his race restored to him by the virtues of his father. Such were his thoughts, when the subject occurred to him; but when the Duke de Ripperda first left the room, the mind of his son was wholly absorbed in the happiness of having at last seen, and conversed with, and been received to the heart of such a parent. That the stern Ignatius, from whom he had shrunk, while he revered him, and this benignant parent were one, amazed, while it called forth all his gratitude to heaven for the preservation of that parent through the perils of his disguise.

As he meditated on the complete change which had taken place in his father, since he had dismissed the garb of the Jesuit; and recollected the lessons he had received from him in both characters;--from the one, on the policy of assuming the thing that is not; and from the other, the recent injunction to conceal his real feelings;--he conceived a hope that the Duke de Ripperda might not be so averse to the Duke of Wharton, as the Sieur Ignatius had thought it expedient to represent. In his next discourse with his father, he determined to name the Duke; for in spite of the late reproof to his indulged sensibility, his heart yearned to utter all its affection and gratitude to the friend, who had rewarded his repeated apparent insulting avoidance, by twice having been his preserver.

After the Duke de Ripperda dismissed his Spanish suppliants, he repaired to a private council of the Austrian ministers, to discuss the preliminaries to his public reception by Their Cæsarean Majesties. Louis did not leave his apartments, till he heard the wheels of his father's carriage in the court-yard. It was then near ten o'clock at night, and the colonades and palace were lit up in every direction with lamps and chandeliers.

He hastened towards the great saloon, and met the Duke in the anti-room.--They entered together. Several persons were present, who greeted Ripperda with an equal air of deference, though with different degrees of ceremonial obeisance. Their personal ranks were distinctly marked in each individual demeanour; and when the Duke introduced Louis as his son, they paid him compliments, which the young Marquis answered with little more than respectful bows. His father immediately led the way to the supper-room; and he, with the rest of the company, followed through a suite of superb chambers lined with attendants. The entertainment was served in a style to which the Duke was accustomed, but which was novel to his son. The simple elegance of his Pastor-Uncle's table possessed every comfort; the hospitable board at Athelstone and Bamborough groaned with the weight of the feast; and the feudal state he had seen at the banquets of the chiefs of Scotland, was that of plenty with barbarous festivity;--but here, all that was elegant and hospitable, stately and grand, were united in one assemblage of courtly magnificence.

The manners of Ripperda to his company were like his entertainment.--None could forget that he was the first man at table; but the condescending graces of his conversation, and a peculiar address, to which only the individual to whom it was pointed could be conscious, charmed all that were present, with a conviction that each one in particular was his especial favourite. Louis's spirits were so absorbed in attention to his father's eloquent discourse on a variety of subjects, addressed to himself and others, that he spoke very little; and thought the time had flown, when the Duke rose from his chair, and the party, obeying the signal, bade him adieu for the night. When Louis was preparing to follow, his father stopped him.

"I am pleased with your general deportment this evening," said he. "The dignified respect with which you treated those persons, (who, though holding subordinate situations to yourself in the embassy, are your seniors in years, and all of them men of family;) while it maintains your own superiority, will conciliate their good-will; and propitiate the envy that might busy itself in search of your faults."

"Sir," said Louis, blushing at the implied arrogance, "I had no idea of shewing any thing to those gentlemen, but simple respect. And I am sorry that what I had no thought of should have appeared in my manner, to lessen the expression of that sentiment."

Ripperda shook his head, but not with gravity.

"I know you are a man of nice distinctions; and, that on the meaning of some terms, you and I have yet to agree. But I will trust your humility in some respects, to your haughtiness in others."

"My father?" exclaimed Louis. The Duke smiled.

"Ignatius might help us on this subject!" said he; "but I wish to speak with you about another order of persons. To-morrow you will be introduced to young men of the highest rank in Spain, the sons of Spanish Grandees of the first order. Wishing to see Vienna, they are nominally attached to this embassy; and though residing where they please, have places every day at my table. These you must treat with the suavity of equality and confidence; but beware of really giving them your friendship, or your trust. They are your future rivals with your sovereign. At present, their pursuit is pleasure. And, while you steadily keep your eye upon the one aim of your life--honourable distinction! to these young men you must appear as inclined to folly as themselves."

Louis's bright eye turned on his father.

"It is even so!" continued the Duke, "you must lull the circumventing watchfulness of their ambitious fathers, by seeming to share the dissipation of their sons. Me, they know, they dare not touch. But were you to appear all that I trust you are or will be, their roused jealousy would seize the accessible point; and through you, they would seek to undermine the new superstructure I am raising to the glory of the house of Ripperda. Seem, therefore, careless of advancement, and eager for pleasure; and they may quietly submit to the growth of your early honours, when they are made to believe that your encreasing folly will render them the last. Use this caution now, and a time is not far distant, when you may shew yourself in these respects, according to the sentiments which direct your present questioning looks; if, indeed, such sentiments will then be yours. They are going through an ordeal. You must prepare yourself for trials of a different nature from those you found so galling at the Chateau de Phaffenberg. There, you had only to endure; here, you are called upon to endure and to resist:--to endure, nay to court temptation; and to resist, and overcome it. You must be in the midst of every pleasure that can seduce or intoxicate the senses of man; and you must see, and taste all, without allowing yourself to feel it enjoyment. To derive enjoyment, is to yield independence; and you must be independent of all, but the resources within yourself."

Ripperda's voice sounded to his son like that of a trumpet. He loved to feel his strength; to struggle, and to conquer; though the war might only be in his own bosom. He listened, and longed for an opportunity of proving to his father, that whatever might be his sensibilities, he had no effeminacy in his soul. The Duke continued.--

"Your father does all that to which he exhorts you. He draws every one to his purpose, without permitting any thing to fix a link on him. From the age of twenty-one, I have been master of myself; and, from that circumstance, master of every human being, on whom I turned my eye, to do me service. From being the son of a banished man; and alienated from the land and honours of my race; I became a soldier, a statesman, a counsellor of nations! The country which had exiled my father, solicited the return of his son! And now, the progress of my undeviating career, has brought me to the restoration of all the rights of my name; and raised it to a reputation, that is only bounded by the limits of the civilized world! Louis what I am, you must be."

During this speech, Louis, more than once saw the proud and lightning glance of the Sieur Ignatius. He felt an answering triumph; for the throes of an eager emulation were busy in his youthful heart. Unconsciously, his countenance reflected all his father's; for then, perhaps, there was not a sentiment within him, that was not absorbed in the single blaze of ambition. The Duke rose, speaking his last sentence; and with so undefinable an air of even fearful grandeur, that, for a moment, he seemed transformed a third time before his son. But the next instant, turning from the door to which he had advanced, the awful splendours of his countenance were softened into the agreeable light of general complacency; and, in his usual tone, he bade Louis retire to his chamber; and be ready, at a certain hour on the morrow, to accompany his official presentation to the Emperor.

CHAP. XII.

The suite of apartments in the _Palais d'Espagne_, which were allotted to Louis, were spacious in themselves, and superb in their furniture; and the train of attendants and equipages assigned to his service, were as sumptuously appointed as those of the Ambassador himself. The Duke had informed him, that all these were as absolutely at his command, as if he inhabited a separate dwelling. He was to consider himself at perfect liberty; to appear at the Ambassador's table, only when his inclination suited; to form what acquaintance he pleased; to go where he liked: in short, his father resigned all controul over his time or his actions, excepting the hours which must be dedicated to diplomatic duties, and any proceedings which might eventually impede the grand objects of his life.

In the course of conversation, Louis had petitioned his father to take off the interdict which prohibited his correspondence with his friends in England. The cause for silence existing no longer, the favour was readily granted, but guarded with one condition; that he must not write of Ignatius in any other character than that of a Jesuit. That he was Ripperda's self must ever be preserved a profound secret. The Emperor was jealous of female interference, besides being suspicious of the affections of his wife; and the most vexatious consequences might be expected, should he discover that the Empress had been an agent in the late negociation. This, he would more than suspect, were he to be told that Ripperda had been _incognito_ at Vienna. For the Imperial Charles was not ignorant of the influence that accomplished Statesman had gained over the youthful mind of Elizabeth, at her father's court; and that he had even exercised it to persuade her to accept the distinction offered her, as consort to the Emperor of Germany. Early influences are generally lasting ones; and though Charles had not sufficient sensibility, ever to have felt this in his own person; he had sagacity enough to have guessed it in that of his wife, had he received a single hint of but one clandestine meeting between her and Ripperda, before that statesman made his public appearance at the Austrian Court.

Louis readily engaged for circumspection; aware that his correspondence with the friends of his youth, would be on subjects of absorbing interest to them; purely egotistical:--while his own anxiety was to know the success of his application to Don Ferdinand; and how far the general comfort of the family was restored by Alice's released vows.

Before he could lay his head, (which was all awake with life and happiness,) upon his pillow; he sat down to pour out his full heart to the venerable confidant of his earliest wishes, to the unerring guardian of his impassioned soul. As he wrote, the fierce flames of the wild ambition, which, an hour before, had rushed through his veins with a proud disdain of every obstacle, gradually subsided under the gentle ascendancy of the meek spirit with which he now conversed. The mild precepts of his benign instructor seemed again to whisper in his ear:--"Fly temptation. But when it pursues, or meets you, arm against it in the panoply of faith and virtue, and be not overcome. If you sink in a contest you did not seek; you may be pitied, and forgiven. If you fall in a conflict you provoked, men will deride, and God condemn you!"

Louis shuddered at his late presumptuous impulse; and blessing the pious cares, which could influence his mind, even at so wide a distance of place and time, he continued to write. With what a reposing, smiling rapture at his heart, did he bend over the sheet on which he was now permitted to transmit all the feelings of that heart to the most indulgent, as well as wisest of friends!

A few words at the beginning, had explained his silence, by acknowledging, (without particularizing circumstances,) the mysterious nature of the affairs in which he had been engaged:--and then followed all the affection of a son; all the frank communications, where secrecy did not bind him, that would be grateful to the venerable man. But there was one subject he did not dare to touch on:--whenever it rose before him, he turned away, as from a lovely but a condemned spirit. His heart thrilled and trembled; and pressing it, he exclaimed--"I need not seek a contest!"

When he had closed this long epistle, with entreaties for frequent communications from the dear inhabitants of the Pastorage, whether they were at Morewick or in Lindisfarne; he addressed a letter to Sir Anthony, as full of duty, as of descriptions and remarks calculated for his entertainment: and then, retiring to his pillow, found, what he did not expect, an immediate and sound sleep.

The morning brought Martini into his apartment. He came with a note from Ripperda, informing his son, that the Emperor would receive the Embassy at noon; he must therefore be in the saloon, habited in the Spanish mode, and according to his rank, half an hour before the time of going to the Imperial Palace. Louis was finishing his packet for England, when the confidential valet presented his message. He read the letter, and wrote his reply of obedience. Martini took the answer, with a bow of profound respect; but it had nothing of the obsequious homage, which degrades the person who pays it, without honouring him on whom it is bestowed. "Your Excellency will pardon, I trust," said he, "my former omissions of due reverence to the son of my master! I was ignorant, until now, that I attended other than the Chevalier de Phaffenberg; and according to the commands of the Duke, I was to consider him, as no more than his secretary, and the poor _cadet_ of a ruined house. But it was a noble one: and I trust, my Lord, that though I might fail in honour to the Duke de Ripperda's son, you will not accuse me of insolence to the Chevalier de Phaffenberg?"

"Worthy Martini!" cried Louis, rising from his seat, and shaking the hand of the valet, with true English warmth; "I have nothing to complain of from you. I honour your fidelity to your master, and your regard for the fallen in fortune. I am proud to claim equality with such sentiments! From this hour consider me as your friend."

Martini, with the ardour of his country, threw himself on his knees, and fervently kissed the hand that pressed his; then hastily rising, with glistening eyes, and his hands clasped on his breast, he bowed and hastened from the apartment.

This little incident particularly pleased Louis. He had found a simple and a generous feeling in the confidential servant of a statesman; while all else, above, around, in that transforming sphere, seemed devoted to selfishness, or to artifice, of however refined a fabrick. Musing on this, he submitted himself, without discussion, to be habited according to the fashion of his new country.

For Ripperda himself, when his son met him in the saloon, he was one bright effulgence of princely honours. His sword, his belt, his gartered knees; and all the jewelled insignia of Spanish chivalry, glittered on his person. The diamond coronet of his ancestors encircled his cap, surmounted by the crest of his family, a golden eagle, under a plume of snow white feathers.--They waved before the bird of Jove, like fleecy clouds in the face of the sun. But gorgeous as were these ornaments, they were not so brilliant as the countenance they were placed to adorn; the brightness of a high soul was there, that seemed rather to suffer the decorations of rank, than to require them.

The Duke was surrounded by the young Spanish Grandees, in the habits of their quality; but varied in colour and decoration, according to the caprice of the wearer. The real officers of the embassy were arrayed in one sumptuous uniform, and all distinguished with the golden cross of _Montesa_.

Ripperda presented his son to the nobles. Most of them, though young men, were Louis's seniors; but they saluted him with that respect which is usual in despotic governments, to persons holding powerful stations under the Sovereign. The intimation his father had given him of their general pursuits, did not incline him in their favour; and, with, perhaps, too lofty an air of cold politeness, he met their first advances to social acquaintance. Some of them mistook this dignity of principle, (which acted without intention,) for the insolence of inflated vanity, at being placed above his compeers; and they who thought so, eyed him with resentment. Others conceived it to be mere reserve of disposition:--for none could derive it, from awkward shyness in a new situation. Every thing that Louis said or did was with a grace peculiar to himself; an ease, that spoke the high-born man; and a mind, conscious that no adventitious circumstance can really add to the consequence of him who builds his character on virtue.

The King and Queen of Spain had issued orders, that no expence should be spared to give their Embassador every dignity in the eyes of the Imperial Court; and the equipages and retinue which composed the suite of Ripperda, struck the inhabitants of Vienna with amazement; as nothing had equalled the pomp of this, his public entrance, since the coronation of the Emperor.

The audience chamber was crowded, and the foreign ambassadors were there, to mark the reception of the Spanish plenipotentiary. Charles received him with testimonies of respect he had never bestowed on any other Embassador; and which filled those present with apprehensions of what those secret articles might be, which thus humbled the Emperor of Germany before the minister of his former rival. Louis, and the Spanish noblemen, were presented by Ripperda. Charles said a few words of ceremony to the young grandees, but signalized the son of the Embassador by his particular notice; and, in a lowered voice, that none else might hear, complimented him on the talents he had shewn for negotiation, during the illness of the Sieur Ignatius.

At the meeting of the council the preceding evening, Ripperda had intimated to the Chancellor Sinzendorff, that the Chevalier de Phaffenberg (whom the Chancellor had taken occasion to praise,) was his son; and in the morning Sinzendorff had explained the circumstance to the Emperor, with his remarks on the genius and strait forward integrity of the young politician.

When His Majesty turned to withdraw, he told the Spanish Embassador, that the Chancellor would conduct him to the Empress, who was in readiness to receive the letter and picture he brought from the Prince of Spain, to the Arch-Duchess, her daughter.

As soon as the Emperor had quitted the chamber, Ripperda and his suite followed Sinzendorff towards the grand saloon. As Louis turned to obey, his heart anticipated the emotions he should feel in again seeing Otteline; in again meeting the persuading looks of her gracious mistress and confidant. But how different did the Imperial Elizabeth appear in her court, to the benignant Princess, who was all ease and smiles in the _boudoir_ of her beautiful favourite! She sat coldly regal, with the Austrian ladies of rank, standing behind, and on each side of her.

When the Duke de Ripperda approached the Imperial chair, Louis observed the reserved majesty of Elizabeth's countenance dilate into an expression of proud exultation: it haughtily swept the circle, while she stretched out her hand to the Spanish Embassador, as bending on his knee, he presented the royal packet. She half rose to receive it, and then her lips and eyes beamed all the graciousness upon his father, which Louis had so often felt shining on himself. But there was a glowing flush on her cheek, and a something softer in her eye, when the Duke pressed the hand to his lips, which she had given for the salute of ceremony. Louis then saw, it was the friend, and not the minister, that Elizabeth of Brunswick welcomed from her Imperial throne; and, at the same time, he could not but notice, that the position of his father, rather spoke the air of a Prince at the feet of beauty, than the prostration of a subject to exalted power.

"It is the mind alone," thought Louis, "that debases actions, or ennobles them! One man would crouch and cringe like a slave, while this bends his knee, like Alexander before a sister princess!"

Had Louis pursued his observation, he would have understood that it was the dignity and peculiarity of this homage, which made it so estimable in the eyes, even of an Empress.

When the Duke presented his son and the Spanish Nobles, Louis cast down his eyes; which, indeed, had never wandered from his father and herself: so fearful was he of encountering that face, whose resistless charms were only too apparent to his imagination. What the condescending Elizabeth said to him, he knew not, neither was he conscious how he had gone through the ceremony of presentation, till he felt her ivory fingers gently press his hand, in silent congratulation of what she supposed was then busy in his heart. He dreaded the purport of this worldless language; and with a tremor pervading his whole body, he rose from his knee, and falling back into the Spanish group, tried to recover self-possession.