Part 1

THE

PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,

VOL. III.

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

THE

PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE,

IN FOUR VOLUMES.

BY

MISS JANE PORTER,

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

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

VOL. III.

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

THE PASTOR'S FIRE-SIDE.

CHAP. I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Follow me," replied the Duke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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