Part 5

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAP. VI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 in Spain, 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 designs in 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 ancient heroes 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 informed of 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 Queen of 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 smothered sigh; "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 the _tapis_. 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 the proposed 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 and imploring, 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 a frightful 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, into one 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.