Chapter VII: Front Matter (7)

A loud outcry of admiration burst from the whole assembly. Colvellino alone seemed to resent the loss of the honour. His countenance lowered, and grasping the self-devoted Friar's sleeve, he said, in a tone of wrath but ill stifled, "Friar, remember your promise. No parleying now. No scruples. Beware of treachery to the cause. But to make all secure, I tell you that you shall be watched. As Grand Chamberlain, I myself shall be on the steps of the altar, and the slightest attempt at evasion shall be punished by a dagger at least as sharp as ever was carried by a priest in either church or chamber." Fra Jiacomo bowed his head to his girdle, and only asked, in a tone of the deepest meekness, "Count, have I deserved this? Noble lords of Hungary, have I deserved this? Is treason laid rightly to my charge? If you doubt me, let me go." He turned to the door as he spoke, but even Colvellino's disdain felt the folly of losing so willing an accomplice, and one who, besides, was now so much master of the conspiracy. "Well, then, so be it," murmured the Count; "the cause will be disgraced by the instrument. But this Emperor at least will molest Hungary no more." Fra Jiacomo bowed but the deeper. All was now concerted for the deed. The conspirators were appointed to wait in the church of Saint Veronica, behind the cathedral, for the signal of Leopold's death, and thence to proceed to the convent where the heir of Ladislaus was kept, and proclaim him King. Colvellino listened to the latter part of the arrangement with a smile of scorn. They were separated by the sound of the cannon announcing the dawn of the great ceremonial.

* * * * *

The morning of the coronation found all Presburg awake. The streets were thronged before day with citizens; nobles hastening to the palace; troops moving to their various posts in the ceremony; peasants pouring in from all the provinces, in all the wild festivity and uncouth dialects of the land of the Huns. Then came the magnates, riding on their richly-caparisoned horses, and followed by their long train of armed attendants, a most brilliant and picturesque display. The equipages contained all that the kingdom could boast of female beauty and high birth, and the whole formed a singular and vivid contrast of the strange, the lovely, the bold, and the graceful, the rude and the magnificent, the Oriental and the Western--all that a feudal, half-barbarian people could exhibit of wild exultation--and all that an empire as old as Charlemagne could combine of antique dignity and civilised splendour.

The sun, which so seldom condescends to shine on regal processions, threw his most auspicious beams on the city of Presburg on this memorable day. But it was in the cathedral that all the opulence of the imperial and national pomp was displayed. The aisles were hung with tapestry and banners of the great feudal families, and crowded with the body-guards of the Emperor, and the richly-costumed heyducs and chasseurs of the Hungarian lords. The centre aisle was one canopy of scarlet tissue, covering, like an immense tent, the royal train, the great officers of the court, and the Emperor as he waited for the consecration. Farther on, surrounding the high altar, stood a circle of the Hungarian prelacy in their embroidered robes, surrounding the Archbishop of Presburg, and in their unmoving splendour looking like a vast circle of images of silver and gold. Above them all, glittering in jewels, looked down from clouds of every brilliant dye, and luminous with the full radiance of the morning, the Virgin Mother, in celestial beauty, the patroness of Presburg, a wonder-working Madonna, "whom Jews might kiss, and infidels adore."

At length, to the sound of unnumbered voices, and amid the flourish of trumpets, and the roar of cannon from all the bastions, Leopold entered the golden rails of the altar, ascended the steps, followed by the great officers of the kingdom, and laid his hand upon the crown. At that moment the Grand Chamberlain, Count Colvellino, had knelt before him to present the book of the oath by which he bound himself to maintain the rights and privileges of Hungary. In the act of pronouncing the oath the Emperor was seen to start back suddenly, and the book fell from his hand. At the same moment a wild scream of agony rang through the cathedral; there was a manifest confusion among the prelacy; the circle was broken, some rushed down the steps; some retreated to the pillars of the high altar; and some seemed stooping, as if round one who had fallen. Vases, flowers, censers, images--all the pompous ornaments which attend the Romish ritual on its great days--were trampled under foot in the tumult; and prelate, priest, and acolyte were flung together in the terror of the time. The first impression of all was, that the Emperor had been assassinated, and the startled flying nobles, and the populace at the gates, spread the report through the city, with the hundred additions of popular alarm. But the imperial body-guard instantly drawing their swords, and pressing their way through the nobles and multitude up to the altar, soon proved that the chief terror was unfounded, by bringing forward the Emperor in their midst, and showing him to the whole assemblage unhurt. He was received with an acclamation that shook the dome.

But blood had been spilled--the Grand Chamberlain was found pierced to the heart. He had died at the instant from the blow. But by whom he was thus foully murdered, or for what cause, baffled all conjecture. The general idea, from the position in which he fell, was, that he had offered his life for the Emperor's; had thrown himself forward between his royal master and the assassin, and had been slain by accident or revenge. Leopold recollected, too, that, in the act of taking the book of the Oath, he had felt some hand pluck his robe; but, on looking round, had seen only the Grand Chamberlain kneeling before him. Inquiry was urged in all quarters, but in vain. Colvellino was a corpse; he remained bathed in his loyal blood, the heroic defender of his liege lord, the declared victim of his loyalty; and a reward of a thousand ducats was declared on the spot by his indignant sovereign, for the discovery of the murderer. The gates of the cathedral were instantly closed; strict search was made, but totally in vain. Order was slowly restored. But the ceremony was too important to be delayed. The crown was placed upon the Imperial brow, and a shout like thunder hailed Leopold "King of Hungary." In courts all things are forgotten.

As the stately procession returned down the aisle all was smiles and salutation, answered by the noble ladies of the court and provinces, who sat ranged down the sides according to their precedency, under pavilions tissued with the arms of the great Hungarian families. In this review of the young, the lovely, and the high-born, all eyes gave the prize of beauty, that prize which is awarded by spontaneous admiration, and the long and lingering gaze of silent delight, to the Princess of Marosin. Her dress was, of course, suitable to her rank and relationship to the imperial line, all that magnificence could add to the natural grace, or dignity of the form; but there was in her countenance a remarkable contrast to the general animation of the youthful and noble faces round her--a melancholy that was not grief, and a depth of thought that was not reverie, which gave an irresistible superiority to features, which, under their most careless aspect, must have been pronounced formed in the finest mould of nature. Her eyes were cast down, and even the slight bending of her head had a degree of mental beauty. It was clearly the unconscious attitude of one whose thoughts were busied upon other things than the pomps of the hour. It might have been the transient regret of a lofty spirit for the transitory being of all those splendours which so few years must extinguish in the grave; it might have been the reluctance of a generous and free spirit at the approach of that hour which would see her hand given by Imperial policy where her heart disowned the gift; it might be patriot sorrow for the fallen glories of Hungary; it might be romance; it might be love. But whatever might be the cause, all remarked the melancholy, and all felt that it gave a deep and touching effect to her beauty, which fixed the eye on her as if spell-bound. Even when the Emperor passed, and honoured the distinguished loveliness of his fair cousin by an especial wave of his sceptred hand, she answered it by scarcely more than a lower bend of the head, and the slight customary pressure of the hand upon the heart. With her glittering robe, worth the purchase of a principality, drawn round her as closely as if it were the common drapery of a statue, she sat not unlike the statue in classic gracefulness, but cold and unmoving as the marble.

But all this was suddenly changed. As the procession continued to pass along, some object arrested her glance which penetrated to her heart. Her cheek absolutely burned with crimson; her eye flashed; her whole frame seemed to be instinct with a new principle of existence; with one hand she threw back the tresses, heavy with jewels, that hung over her forehead, as if they obstructed her power of following the vision; with the other she strongly attempted to still the beatings of her heart; and thus she remained for a few moments, as if unconscious of the place, of the time, and of the innumerable eyes of wonder and admiration that were fixed upon her. There she sat--her lips apart, her breath suspended, her whole frame fevered with emotion, the statue turned to life--all beauty, feeling, amaze, passion. But a new discharge of cannon, a new flourish of trumpet and cymbal, as the Emperor reached the gates of the cathedral, and appeared before the assembled and shouting thousands without, urged on the procession. The magic was gone. The countenance, this moment like a summer heaven, with every hue of loveliness flying across it in rich succession, was the next colourless. The eye was again veiled in its long lashes; the head was again dejected; the marble had again become classic and cold; the beauty remained, but the joy, the enchantment, was no more.

* * * * *

The Baron von Herbert was sitting at a desk in the armoury of the palace. Javelins rude enough to have been grasped by the hands of the primordial Huns; bone-headed arrows that had pierced the gilded corslets of the Greeks of Constantinople; stone axes that had dashed their rough way through the iron headpieces of many a son of Saxon chivalry; and the later devices of war--mail, gold-enamelled, silver-twisted, purple-grained--and Austrian, Italian, and Oriental escutcheons gleamed, frowned, gloomed, and rusted, in the huge effigies of a line of warriors, who, if weight of limb, and sullenness of visage, are the elements of glory, must have fairly trampled out all Greek and all Roman fame.

A key turned in the door, and the Emperor entered hastily, and in evident perturbation. He turned the key again as he entered. The Baron stopped his pen, and awaited the commands of his sovereign. But Leopold was scarcely prepared to give counsel or command. He threw a letter on the table.

"Read this, Von Herbert," said he, "and tell me what you think of it. Is it an impudent falsehood, or a truth, concerning the public safety? Read it again to me."

The Baron read:--

"Emperor, you think yourself surrounded by honest men. You are
mistaken. You are surrounded by conspirators. You think that,
in offering a reward for Colvellino's murderer, you are
repaying a debt of gratitude. You are mistaken. You are
honouring the memory of a murderer. You think that, in giving
the hand of the Princess of Marosin to Prince Charles of
Buntzlau, you are uniting two persons of rank in an honourable
marriage. You are mistaken. You are pampering a coxcomb's
vanity, and breaking a noble heart. You think that, in sending
your Pandours to scour the country, you can protect your court,
your palace, or yourself.

"You are mistaken. The whole three are in _my_ power.

"SPERANSKI."

The Baron laid down the paper, and gravely paused for the Emperor's commands. But the Emperor had none to give. He put the simple query--"Is this a burlesque or a reality? Is the writer a charlatan or a conspirator?"

"Evidently something of both, in my conception," said the Colonel; "the paper is not courtly, but it may be true, nevertheless. The writer is apparently not one of your Majesty's chamberlains, and yet he is clearly master of some points that mark him for either a very dangerous inmate of the court, or a very useful one."

Leopold's anxious gesture bade the Baron proceed. He looked again over the letter, and commented on it as he passed along.

"'Surrounded by conspirators!' Possible enough. The Hungarian nobles never knew how to obey. They must be free as the winds, or in fetters. The mild government of Austria is at once too much felt and too little. No government or all tyranny, is the only maxim for the magnates. If not slaves, they will be conspirators."

"Then this rascal, this Speranski, tells the truth after all?" said the Emperor.

"For the fact of conspiracy I cannot answer yet," said Von Herbert; "but for the inclination I can, at any hour of the twenty-four." He proceeded with the letter--"You are honouring the memory of a murderer."

"An atrocious and palpable calumny!" exclaimed the Emperor. "What! the man who died at my feet? If blood is not to answer for honour and loyalty, where can the proof be given? He had got, besides, everything that he could desire. I had just made him Grand Chamberlain."

Von Herbert's grave countenance showed that he was not so perfectly convinced.

"I knew Colvellino," said he, "and if appearances were not so much in his favour by the manner of his death, I should have thought him one of the last men in your Majesty's dominions to die for loyalty."

"You are notoriously a philosopher, Von Herbert," said Leopold, impatiently. "Your creed is mistrust."

"I knew the Grand Chamberlain from our school-days," said the Baron, calmly. "At school he was haughty and headstrong. We entered the royal Hungarian guard together; there he was selfish and profligate. We then separated for years. On my return as your Majesty's aide-de-camp, I found him the successor to an estate which he had ruined, the husband of a wife whom he had banished from his palace, the Colonel of a regiment of Hulans which he had turned into a school of tyranny, and Grand Chamberlain to your Majesty, an office which I have strong reason to think he used but as a step to objects of a more daring ambition."

"But his death--his courageous devotion of himself--the dagger in his heart!" exclaimed the Emperor.

"They perplex, without convincing me," said the Baron.

He looked again at the letter, and came to the words, "Breaking a noble heart."

"What can be the meaning of this?" asked Leopold, angrily. "Am I not to arrange the alliances of my family as I please? Am I to forfeit my word to my relative, the Prince of Buntzlau, when he makes the most suitable match in the empire for my relative the Princess of Marosin? This is mere insolence, read no more."

The Baron laid down the letter, and stood in silence.

"Apropos of the Princess," said Leopold, willing to turn the conversation from topics which vexed him, "has there been any further intelligence of her mysterious purchase--that far-famed plunder of the Turk, her Hungarian _chef d'oeuvre_?"

"If your Majesty alludes to the Princess's very splendid watch," said the Baron, "I understand that all possible inquiry has been made, but without the effect of tracing any connection between its sale and the unfortunate assassination of the Turkish envoy."

"So, my cousin," said the Emperor, with a half smile, "is to be set down by the scandalous Chronicle of Presburg as an accomplice in rifling the pockets of Mohammed? But the whole place seems full of gipsyism, gossiping, and juggling. I should not wonder if that superannuated belle, the Countess Joblonsky, lays the loss of her _pendule_ to my charge, and that the Emperor shall quit Hungary with the character of a receiver of stolen goods."

"Your Majesty may be the depredator to a much more serious extent, if you will condescend but to take the Countess's heart along with you," said the Colonel, with a grave smile. "It is, I have no doubt, too loyal not to be quite at your Majesty's mercy."

"Hah!" said Leopold; "I must be expeditious then, or she will be _devote_, or in the other world--incapable of any love but for a lapdog, or turned into a canonised saint. But in the mean time look to these nobles. If conspiracy there be, let us be ready for it. I have confidence in your Pandours. They have no love for the Hungarians. Place a couple of your captains in my antechamber. Let the rest be on the alert. You will be in the palace, and within call, for the next forty-eight hours."

The Emperor then left the room. Von Herbert wrote an order to the Major of the Pandours for a detachment to take the duty of the imperial apartments. The evening was spent at the opera, followed by a court ball; and the Emperor retired, more than satisfied with the dancing loyalty of the Hungarian beaux and belles.

* * * * *

The night was lovely, and the moon shone with full-orbed radiance upon the cloth of gold, embroidered velvet curtains, and high enchased silver sculptures of the imperial bed. The Emperor was deep in a midsummer night's dream of waltzing with a dozen winged visions, a ballet in the Grand Opera given before their Majesties of Fairyland, on the occasion of his arrival in their realm. He found his feet buoyant with all the delightful levity of his new region; wings could not have made him spurn the ground with more rapturous elasticity. The partner round whom he whirled was Oberon's youngest daughter, just come from a finishing school in the Evening Star, and _brought out_ for the first time. But a sudden sound of evil smote his ear; every fairy drooped at the instant; he felt his winged heels heavy as if they were booted for a German parade; his blooming partner grew dizzy in the very moment of a whirl, and dropped fainting in his arms; Titania, with a scream, expanded her pinions, and darted into the tops of the tallest trees. Oberon, with a frown, descended from his throne, and stalked away in indignant majesty.

The sound was soon renewed; it was a French quadrille, played by a Golden Apollo on the harp--a sound, however pleasing to earthly ears, too coarse for the exquisite sensibilities of more ethereal tempers. The God of Song was sitting on a beautiful pendule, with the name of _Sismonde_ conspicuous on its dial above, and the name of the Countess Joblonsky engraved on its marble pedestal below. The Emperor gazed first with utter astonishment, then with a burst of laughter; his words had been verified. He was in a new position. He was to be the "receiver of stolen goods" after all. But in the moonlight lay at his feet a paper; it contained these words:--

"Emperor--You have friends about you, on whom you set no value;
you have enemies, too, about you, of whom you are not aware.
Keep the _pendule_; it will serve to remind you of the hours
that may pass between the throne and the dagger. It will serve,
also, to remind you how few hours it may take to bring a noble
heart to the altar and to the grave. The toy is yours. The
Countess Joblonsky has already received more than its value.

"SPERANSKI."

* * * * *

The Countess Joblonsky _had been_ the handsomest woman in Paris twenty years before. But in Paris, the reign of beauty never lasts supreme longer than a new Opera--possibly, among other reasons, for the one that both are exhibited without mercy for the eyes or ears of mankind. The Opera displays its charms incessantly, until all that remain to witness the triumph are the fiddlers and the scene-shifters. The Belle electrifies the world with such persevering attacks on their nervous system, that it becomes absolutely benumbed. A second season of triumph is as rare for the Belle as the Opera, and no man living ever has seen, or will see, a third season for either. The Countess retired at the end of her second season, like Diocletian, but not, like Diocletian, to the cultivation of cabbages. She drew off her forces to Vienna, which she entered with the air of a conqueror, and the rights of one; for the fashion that has fallen into the "sere and yellow leaf" in Paris, is entitled to consider itself in full bloom at Vienna. At the Austrian capital she carried all before her, for the time. She had all the first of the very first circle in her chains. All the Archdukes were at her bidding; were fed at her _petits soupers_ of five hundred hungry noblesse, _en comite_; were pilfered at her loto-tables; were spell-bound by her smiles, laughed at in her boudoir, and successively wooed to make the fairest of Countesses the haughtiest of Princesses. Still the last point was incomplete,--she was still in widowed loveliness.

The coronation suddenly broke up the Vienna circle. She who had hitherto led or driven the world, now condescended to follow it; and the Countess instantly removed her whole establishment, her French Abbe, her Italian Chevaliers, ordinaires and extraordinaires, her Flemish lapdogs, her Ceylonese monkeys, and her six beautiful Polish horses, to Presburg, with the determination to die _devote_, or make an impress on the imperial soul, which Leopold should carry back, and the impression along with it, to Vienna. But cares of state had till now interposed a shield between the Emperor's bosom and the lady's diamond eyes. She had at last begun actually to despair; and on this morning she had summoned her Abbe to teach her the most becoming way for a beauty to renounce the world. She was enthroned on a couch of rose-coloured silk, worthy of Cytherea herself, half-sitting, half-reposing, with her highly rouged cheek resting on her snowy hand, that hand supported on a richly bound volume of the Life of La Valliere, delicious model of the wasted dexterity, cheated ambition, and profitless passion of a court beauty, and her eyes gazing on the letter which this pretty charlatan wrote on her knees, in the incredible hope of making a Frenchman feel. The Countess decided upon trying the La Valliere experiment upon the spot, writing a letter to the Emperor, declaring the "secret flame which had so long consumed her," "confessing" her resolution to fly into a convent, and compelling his obdurate spirit to meditate upon the means of rescuing so brilliant an ornament of his court from four bare walls, the fearful sight of monks and nuns, and the performance of matins and vespers as duly as the day.

At this critical moment, one of the imperial carriages entered the _porte cochere_. A gentleman of the court, stiff with embroidery, and stiffer with Austrian etiquette, descended from it, was introduced by the pages in attendance, and with his knee almost touching the ground, as to the future possessor of the diadem, presented to the Countess a morocco case. It contained a letter. The perusal of the missive brought into the fair reader's face a colour that fairly outburned all the labours of her three hours' toilette. It requested the Countess Joblonsky's acceptance of the trifle accompanying the note, and was signed Leopold. The case was eagerly opened. A burst of brilliancy flashed into the gazers eyes. It was the superb watch, the long-talked of--the watch of the Princess Marosin, and now given as an acknowledgment of the personal superiority of her handsome competitor. She saw a crown glittering in strong imagination above her head. The Life of La Valliere was spurned from her. The Abbe was instantly countermanded. The Countess had given up the nunnery; she ordered her six Polish steeds, and drove off to make her acknowledgments to the Emperor in person.

But what is the world? The Countess had come at an inauspicious time. She found the streets crowded with people talking of some extraordinary event, though whether of the general conflagration, or the flight of one of the Archduchesses, it was impossible to discover from the popular ideas on the subject. Further on, she found her progress impeded by the troops. The palace was double-guarded. There had evidently been some formidable occurrence. A scaffold was standing in the court, with two dead bodies in the Pandour uniform lying upon it. Cannon, with lighted matches, were pointed down the principal streets. The regiment of Pandours passed her, with Von Herbert at their head, looking so deeply intent upon something or other, that she in vain tried to obtain a glance towards her equipage. The Pandours, a gallant-looking but wild set, rushed out of the gates, and galloped forward to scour the forest like wolf-dogs in full cry. The regiment of Imperial Guards, with Prince Charles of Buntzlau witching the world with the best-perfumed pair of mustaches, and the most gallantly embroidered mantle in any hussar corps in existence, rode past, with no more than a bow. All was confusion, consternation, and the clank of sabre-sheaths, trumpets, and kettle-drums. The Countess gave up the day and the diadem, returned to her palace, and began the study of La Valliere again.

The story at length transpired. The Emperor's life had been attempted. His own detail to his Privy Council was--That before daylight he had found himself suddenly attacked in his bed by ruffians. His arms had been pinioned during his sleep. He called out for the Pandour officers who had been placed in his antechamber; but to his astonishment, the flash of a lamp, borne by one of the assailants, showed him those Pandours the most active in his seizure. Whether their purpose was to carry him off, or to kill him on the spot; to convey him to some cavern or forest, where they might force him to any conditions they pleased, or to extinguish the imperial authority in his person at once, was beyond his knowledge; but the vigour of his resistance had made them furious, and the dagger of one of the conspirators was already at his throat, when he saw the hand that held it lopped off by the sudden blow of a sabre from behind. Another hand now grasped his hair, and he felt the edge of a sabre, which slightly wounded him in the neck, but before the blow could be repeated, the assailant fell forward, with a curse and a groan, and died at his feet, exclaiming that they were betrayed. This produced palpable consternation among them; and on hearing a sound outside, like the trampling of the guards on their rounds, they had silently vanished, leaving him bleeding and bound. He had now made some effort to reach the casement and cry out for help, but a handkerchief had been tied across his face, his arms and feet were fastened by a scarf, and he lay utterly helpless. In a few moments after, he heard steps stealing along the chamber. It was perfectly dark; he could see no one; but he gave himself up for lost. The voice, however, told him that there was no enemy now in the chamber, and offered to loose the bandage from his face, on condition that he would answer certain questions. The voice was that of an old man, said he, but there was a tone of honesty about it that made me promise at once.

"I have saved your life," said the stranger; "what will you give me for this service?"

"If this be true, ask what you will."

"I demand a free pardon for the robbery of the Turkish courier, for shooting the Turkish envoy, and for stabbing the Grand Chamberlain in your presence."

"Are you a fool or a madman who ask this?"

"To you neither. I demand, further, your pardon for stripping Prince Charles of Buntzlau of his wife and his whiskers together--for marrying the Princess of Marosin--and for turning your Majesty into an acknowledged lover of the Countess Joblonsky."

"Who and what are you? Villain, untie my hands."

The cord was snapped asunder.

"Tell me your name, or I shall call the guards, and have you hanged on the spot."

"My name!" the fellow exclaimed, with a laugh,--"Oh, it is well enough known everywhere,--at court, in the cottages, in the city, and on the high-road--by your Majesty's guards, and by your Majesty's subjects. I am the Pandour of Pandours--your correspondent, and now your cabinet counsellor. Farewell, Emperor, and remember--Speranski!"

"The cords were at the instant cut from my feet. I sprang after him; but I might as well have sprung after my own shadow. He was gone--but whether into the air or the earth, or whether the whole dialogue was not actually the work of my own imagination, favoured by the struggle with the conspirators, I cannot tell to this moment. One thing, however, was unquestionable, that I had been in the hands of murderers, for I stumbled over the two bodies of the assassins who were cut down in the melee. The first lamp that was brought in showed me also, that the two Pandour captains had been turned into the two Palatines of Sidlitz and Frankerin, but by what magic I cannot yet conjecture."

* * * * *

A more puzzling affair never had bewildered the high and mighty functionaries of the imperial court. They pondered upon it for the day, and they might have added the year to their deliberations without being nearer the truth. The roll of the Pandours had been called over. None were missing except the two captains; and certainly the two conspirators, though in the Pandour uniform, were not of the number.

More perplexity still. The imperial horse-guards returned in the evening terribly offended by a day's gallop through the vulgarity of the Hungarian thickets, but suffering no other loss than of a few plumes and tassels, if we except one, of pretty nearly the same kind, Prince Charles of Buntzlau. The Prince had been tempted to spur his charger through a thicket. He led the way in pursuit of the invisible enemy; he never came back. His whole regiment galloped after him in all directions. They might as well have hunted a mole; he must have gone under ground--but where, was beyond the brains of his brilliantly dressed troopers. He was _un prince perdu_.

Leopold was indignant at this frolic, for as such he must conceive it; and ordered one of his aides-de-camp to wait at the quarters of the corps, until the future bridegroom grew weary of his wild-goose chase, and acquaint him that the next morning was appointed for his marriage. But he returned not.

Next morning there was another fund of indignation prepared for the astonished Emperor. The bride was as undiscoverable as the bridegroom. The palace of the Princess de Marosin had been entered in the night; but her attendants could tell no more than that they found her chamber doors open, and their incomparable tenant flown, like a bird from its gilded cage. All search was made, and made in vain. The Prince returned after a week's detention by robbers in a cave. He was ill received. Leopold, astonished and embarrassed, conscious that he was treading on a soil of rebellion, and vexed by his personal disappointments, broke up his court, and rapidly set out for the hereditary dominions.

He had subsequently serious affairs to think of. The French interest in Turkey roused the Ottoman to a war. Orders were given for a general levy through the provinces, and the Emperor himself commenced a tour of inspection of the frontier lying towards Roumelia. In the Croatian levy, he was struck peculiarly with the Count Corneglio Bancaleone, Colonel of a corps of Pandours, eminent for beauty of countenance and dignity of form; for activity in the manoeuvres of his active regiment, and one of the most popular of the nobles of Croatia. The Emperor expressed himself so highly gratified with the Count's conduct, that, as a mark of honour, he proposed to take up his quarters in the palace. The Count bowed; reluctance was out of the question. The Emperor came, and was received with becoming hospitality; but where was the lady of the mansion? She was unfortunately indisposed. The Emperor expressed his regret, and the apology was accepted; but in the evening, while, after a day of reviews and riding through the Croatian hills, he was enjoying the lovely view of the sun going down over the Adriatic, and sat at a window covered with fruits and flowers, impearled with the dew of a southern twilight, a Hungarian song struck his ear, that had been a peculiar favourite of his two years before, during his stay in Presburg. He inquired of the Count who was the singer. Bancaleone's confusion was visible. In a few moments the door suddenly opened, and two beautiful infants, who had strayed away from their attendants, rambled into the room. The Count in vain attempted to lead them out. His imperial guest was delighted with them, and begged that they might be allowed to stay.

The eldest child, to pay his tribute to the successful advocate on the occasion, repeated the Hungarian song. "Who had taught him?" "His mother, who was a Hungarian." Bancaleone rose in evident embarrassment, left the room, and shortly returned leading that mother. She fell at the Emperor's feet. She was the Princess of Marosin, lovelier than ever; with the glow of the mountain air on her cheek, and her countenance lighted up with health, animation, and expressive beauty. Leopold threw his arms round his lovely relative, and exhibited the highest gratification in finding her again, and finding her so happy.

But sudden reflections covered the imperial brow with gloom. The mysterious deaths, the conspiracies, the sanguinary violences of Presburg, rose in his mind, and he felt the painful necessity of explanation.

Bancaleone had left the room; but an attendant opened the door, saying that a Pandour had brought a despatch for his Majesty. The Pandour entered, carrying a portefeuille in his hand. The Emperor immediately recognised him, as having often attracted his notice on parade, by his activity on horseback and his handsome figure. After a few _tours d'addresse_, which showed his skill in disguise, the Count threw off the Pandour, and explained the mystifications of Presburg.

"I had been long attached," said he, "to the Princess of Marosin, before your Majesty had expressed your wishes in favour of the alliance of Prince Charles of Buntzlau. I immediately formed the presumptuous determination of thwarting the Prince's objects. I entered, by the favour of my old friend, Colonel von Herbert, as a private in his Pandours, and was thus on the spot to attend to my rival's movements. The Pandours are, as your Majesty knows, great wanderers through the woods, and one of them, by some means or other, had found, or perhaps robbed, a part of the Turkish courier's despatches. These despatches he showed to a comrade, who showed them to me; they were of importance, for they developed a plot which the Turks were concerting with some profligate nobles of Presburg, to carry off your Majesty into the Turkish dominions, a plot which waited only for the arrival of the Turkish envoy. I got leave of absence, joined some of the rabble of gipsies who tell fortunes, and rob when they have no fortunes to tell. We met the Turk, a melee ensued, he was unfortunately killed; but I secured the despatches. The Turk deserved his fate as a conspirator. His papers contained the names of twenty Magnates, all purchased by Turkish gold. The Magnates were perplexed by his death. They now waited for the arrival of a Romish priest, who was to manage the ecclesiastical part of your Majesty's murder. I went into the woods again, caught the Cardinal alive on his march, put him into the hands of the gypsies, who, feeling no homage for his vocation, put him on a sanative and antipolitical regimen of bread and water for a fortnight, and then dismissed him over the frontier. On the day of the coronation, your Majesty was to have died by the hands of Colvellino. I volunteered the office. Colvellino followed me, to keep me to my duty. I plucked your robe to put you on your guard; saw the Grand Chamberlain's dagger drawn to repay me for my officiousness, and in self-defence was forced to use my own. He was a traitor, and he died only too honourable a death."

"But the magic that changed the Pandour captains into Palatines? That Speranski too, who had the impudence to lecture me in my bonds?" asked the Emperor, with a smile.

"All was perfectly simple," said the Count; "the two captains were invited to a supper in the palace, which soon disqualified them for taking your Majesty's guard. Their uniforms were then given to two of the Palatines, who undertook to carry off your Majesty, or kill you in case of resistance. But no man can work without instruments. One of the gypsies, who was to have acted as postilion on the occasion, sold his employment for that night to another, who sold his secret to me. I remained in the next chamber to your Majesty's during the night. I had posted a dozen of the Pandours within call, in case of your being in actual danger. But my first purpose was to baffle the conspiracy without noise; however, the ruffians were more savage than I had thought them, and I was nearly too late. But two strokes of the sabre were enough, and the two Palatines finished their career as expeditiously at least as if they had died upon the scaffold. In this portefeuille are the Turk's despatches, the Cardinal's prayers, Colvellino's plot, and the Magnate's oaths."

Leopold rose and took him by the hand. "Count, you shall be my aide-de-camp, and a general. You deserve every praise that can be given to skill and courage. But the watch, the pendule, the trap for that prince of parroquets, Buntzlau?" said Leopold, bursting out into a laugh fatal to all etiquette.

"Your Majesty will excuse me," said the Count; "these are a lady's secrets, or the next to a lady's, a man of fashion's. Mystification all. Magic everywhere; and it is not over yet. The Vienna paper this morning met my astonished eye with a full account of the marriage of his Serene Highness of Buntzlau with the illustrious widow of the Count Lublin nee Joblonsky. Capitally matched. He brings her his ringlets, she brings him her rouge. He enraptures her with the history of his loves; she can give him love for love at least. He will portion her with his debts, and she is as equal as any Countess in Christendom to return the politeness in kind. _Vive le beau marriage!_ A coxcomb is the true _cupidon_ for a coquette all over the world."

THE BEAUTY DRAUGHT.

[_MAGA._ DECEMBER 1840.]