Chapter V: Part 5

"Madam," exclaimed he, "I am now a ruined man! the malice of his enemies has cast my fortunes, with my father, to the ground; but he shall not be humbled in his son. Virtue is the soul of his being, virtue is my inheritance; and I implore of Your Majesty to say, of what I am accused? Who are my accusers?"

She looked up; and mistaking the ravages of anguish on his fine countenance, for those of guilt, she shuddered with a loathing sensation, and answered indignantly.

"How dare that false tongue profane the name of virtue, by connecting it with that of your father and yourself?--The world teems with your accusers; and he bears witness to their veracity, by not having ventured one line to me in his defence."

She then steadily ennumerated the Duke's imputed treacheries. That it was past a doubt, his clandestine coalition with the Duke of Wharton; that their secret meetings had been traced; that he had commenced a correspondence with James Stuart; and that, from what motives, his mad ambition could alone tell; it was well known he was playing in Madrid the counterpart of Wharton's political game at Vienna. In short, he covertly abetted every machination against the Empire, and the house of Brunswick:--"and," concluded the Empress, "I am constrained to believe, that, to me and mine, his overthrow is as timely, as it is irrevocable."

This charge on his father transported Louis beyond the forms of ceremony; and with all the eloquence of truth and filial piety, he burst forth into a defence of his integrity, which, to any other than the possessed ears of Elizabeth, must have carried resistless conviction; but with an impetuosity equal to his own, she interrupted him:--

"Cease!" cried she, "Hard, unblushing parricide of all thy father's fame! Dissembling, cozening de Montemar! In every word, and look, and gesture, I see the tempter of Ripperda's ruin! He was Honour's self, till he brought the serpent to his bosom, in the shape of his perfidious son. Shame to thee, young man, and think of the price for which you sold him to Duke Wharton."

Louis was confounded by this charge upon himself, as the instigator of his father's asserted treasons; but he did not shrink, or withdraw his assured eye from the face of the Empress.

"That Wharton was my friend," said he, "I did not withhold from Your Majesty; that my father was, and is, his implacable enemy, I have just affirmed: and that it is not in the power of Duke Wharton, or of any other man, to draw us from our allegiance to Spain, and our fidelity to you--name our accusers, and I am ready to maintain it with my blood."

Elizabeth had now restrained the feelings, which some pleading recollections of Ripperda had awakened, and with haughty composure, she replied:--

"You may revenge the discovery of your falsehood, by the lives of your accusers; but the times are past, when truth was proved by bloodshed. Yet, as you demand it, I shall not refuse you knowledge of your crimes. They are simple, but they are comprehensive.--First, your nightly visitations to the Electress of Bavaria, under the disguise of the Chevalier de Phaffenberg!--"

"It is false!" cried Louis, placing his hand on his heart, and looking up to heaven; "by the eternal judgment, I swear it is false!"

Elizabeth raised her hands in horror.

"Matchless villain!" cried she.

Then frowning terribly, with a redoubling detestation in every feature, she rapidly continued:--

"And have you the audacity to swear, you never visited her at all? That you did not steal from her house by a secret passage, on the night of the destruction of the opera-house? That you have not had clandestine meetings with the arch-counsellor of her treasons? And that this rebellious pair, have not stimulated your presumption, to draw my daughter to disgrace her rank by listening to a passion from you?"

Louis was too much appalled by the two leading charges, to shew any surprise at the third. Had Wharton then betrayed that they had met? That the preserver of his mistress, had once entered her palace?--The blood which mantled on his cheek at the accusation, faded before this direful suspicion; and his eyes, dropping under the indignant beams of the Empress, told her that in this instance at least, his face was honest.

"You do not dare repeat the perjury!" cried she; "leave my presence."

"Not as a guilty man!" cried he, looking up with the bold desperation of innocence; "I have now, nothing to gain or to lose with the Empress of Germany, but my honour; and again I affirm, that under no name but that of Louis de Montemar, did I ever enter the palace of the Electress of Bavaria. I never did enter it but once, and that was on the night Your Majesty mentions. I have also met the Duke of Wharton, by accident, in the courts of this palace, and in various assemblies; and by compulsive necessity, twice in the garden of the chateau:--but we never meet again!" Here Louis stopped. For these charges had so struck on his heart, (as he believed they could only have been inflicted by the threatened vengeance of his friend;) that he forgot the one respecting the Princess.

"You own that you have visited the Electress, and communed with her emissary!" cried Elizabeth, "avow your object, and it will answer to the point to which your effrontery has not yet spoken. Was it to dethrone my husband, and make my daughter a prisoner to the Bavarian Empress? It would have crowned the adventure, to have rewarded her champion with the hand of a captive Princess!"

Stung to the soul, Louis threw himself at her feet, to proclaim his innocence of all these inferences, before heaven and her. But she started back, as from a viper in her path.

"Base hypocrite!" cried she, "I am not to be moved by subtilty.--I know how you dedicated that attitude to the dishonour of your future sovereign. But she is now rescued from your arts--this foot crushed your pernicious resemblance, as the heaven you outrage, will one day do yourself. You may grovel in the dust, but I will hear no more."

Louis rose calmly from his knee.

"Empress," said he, "I solicit for justice no more; but I owe it to my honour, to declare, that my presence in the Bavarian palace was occasioned by a service I had accidentally performed to one of its inhabitants. My meetings with Duke Wharton were an attempt to penetrate into a conspiracy which I knew was forming against my father; but I failed in my purpose. The enemies of the Duke de Ripperda have annihilated his political life, and plunged his son into the same abyss of calumny; but I am not yet sunk to baseness, nor hypocrisy. It was not to the Empress of Germany I knelt, but to the power of justice in her person. But that is past; and I feel, that could birth give dignity, my ancestors of Nassau reigned in this very palace! And, if devotion to their successor, be a virtue in their posterity, mine have been faithful to the Emperor, to the last article in the treaty; and I have been devoted to Your Majesty, to the sacrifice of my happiness. This we have done! But, young as I am, I have lived to see, that when power is lost, birth is nothing; and virtue, nothing, but to the possessor's heart!"

The face of Elizabeth blazed with resentment.

"And this is your answer to your daring passion for my daughter?"

"The Emperor knows, I never dared to love the Princess," replied Louis, "and to the honour of his Imperial word, I refer Your Majesty."

Louis bowed with a backward step, as he was preparing to withdraw.

"Incomparable insolence!" exclaimed she; "stop, and know that he is your accuser!" Louis smiled with so insufferable an air of scornful superiority, that she was momentarily struck dumb; but violently extricating her powers of speech, she sternly replied:--

"Every aim of that towering spirit is known to him and to me; but every aim is crushed!"

"Human power cannot crush my aims!" rejoined Louis; "they are to uphold my father's honour and my own truth. And while he deserves the reverence of the world, what can prove that they are lost!"

The Empress's hand was on her beating forehead, but she turned, even fiercely to his question.

"The position in which he now lies, by the determined falsehoods of his son!" replied she, "return to him, covered with dishonour; return to him, bearing the curse of the friend of his virtue--of the mother of Maria Theresa! Return to him, spurned by the Countess Altheim; and abhorred and stigmatized by all honest men!"

Elizabeth left the blameless victim of all this wrath, standing in the middle of the floor. Every word she breathed, every anathema she denounced, seemed urged by the quick revenge of Duke Wharton! All justice, all fair inference was denied him! His father and himself were alike shut out from the bosom of friendship; were alike betrayed by them in whom they had most confidently trusted! The burthen was almost too much for him to bear. And rushing from the apartment; he knew no more of what he said or did, till he found himself thrown upon a chair, and alone, in his own chamber.

CHAP. XIII.

The official transfers were soon made. Monteleone received the diploma of _Chargé des Affaires_. The Emperor and Empress refused the usual forms of admitting the recalled minister to a parting audience; and not a man, Spaniard, nor Austrian, appeared within the gates of the _Palais d'Espagne_, to pay a farewell compliment, to the son of their benefactor and friend.

The finger of royal disgrace was on him; and all fled the spot on which it lay. Solitude was around his lately crowded courts; silence in every room; and when business took him abroad, avoidance met him in every passing countenance. The ladies, who had opened their houses to him, now shut up their daughters till he had left the city; but few needed the precaution; for with his fortunes had vanished the most powerful charms, even of Louis de Montemar. This mortification, however, was spared him; as in the lofty consciousness of his own integrity, and as high a disdain of the injustice he had received, he went no where to solicit compassion nor propitiate candour. But had he known their present sentiments, the assurance that Countess Altheim breathed the same, would have been sufficient in his eyes to transform the deed of banishment to one of welcome liberty. In the midst of all this gloom of misery, his freedom from her, shone like a star in the dark hemisphere, that promised night was not to remain for ever.

When his lonely carriage passed the barrier, (for all his state attendants were left to the new ambassador,) he threw himself back, and exclaimed. "How did I enter you, proud, ungrateful city? Full of hope, and enterprise, and honour! How do I quit you? Bereft by you of all! Ruined, dishonoured, desolate!"

The barb was in his heart. It was there, in the image of Wharton; and it corroded with a slow and deadly poison. Still as he journeyed forward, and compared events with time, he could not but feel some satisfaction, when he found by calculation, that had he been weak enough to yield to the proposal he had rejected, and accepted the discovery of the authors of this vast overthrow, by the surrender of his innocence; it would still have been too late to prevent his father's fall in Spain. The Empress had shewn herself too entirely prejudiced, to have been affected by any document he could have presented. And while he thought on this, with gratitude to heaven for his firmness; he conceived a deeper horror of the friend, who might have seduced him to such guilt, and left him no other payment than unavailing remorse, and deserved infamy. In his own person, he was now convinced of the truth of his father's charge against this once beloved Wharton. That _he could bereave, but not bestow_! In the garden of the Chateau, he had promised a preservation he could not have performed; on the same spot he had threatened a vengeance he had now taken! Louis attributed all Elizabeth's accusations to the resentment of his treacherous friend; and by that act considered himself despoiled by Wharton of all that was most dear to him.

"I will forget him!" cried he to himself, "my honoured father, I come to thee, to stand by thee alone! To uphold and cheer thee! To uphold and cheer myself, with the conviction that I yet possess thee! To glory in the virtue that has given thee the fate of Aristides!"

In a pass of the Appenines, Louis's solitary vehicle was met by a courier from Spain. He brought a credential from Martini, which announced him as his brother Lorenzo, who had lately been received by Ripperda into his household in the quality of a page. The young man came full speed, to meet the recalled minister; and to hasten his arrival at Madrid; where the Duke lay, in a state to hear no other counsellor, to receive no other comfort.

Lorenzo got into the carriage with his master's son; and detailed the particulars of his mission, as they proceeded rapidly to Genoa. Louis listened to the narrative with unshrinking fortitude.

Immediately on Ripperda's return from Vienna, the King had published an edict, that a revision of all sentences, and a review of all transactions by judges, governors, collectors, and every other kind of royal officers, should be subjected to the cognizance of the Duke of Ripperda. This immense accession of authority put the individual interest of every man in Spain into his hands; and made him no less terrible in the city and provinces, than formidable to the grandees, and an object of jealousy to the King's sons. In short, he was such a minister, as never had been seen before; a kind of Vicar-general, whose power wanted nothing of supreme sovereignty, but the permanency of a throne.

Lorenzo observed, that his brother had owned to him, that, from the Duke's free exercise of one branch of this extensive authority, he had foreseen a rupture between his master and the majority of the Spanish nobility. Since his return from Vienna, his manner to them, and to society at large, was completely changed. He no longer conciliated, but compelled. He summoned the greatest and most powerful of the grandees before his tribunal, whether the appeal came from prince or peasant; and did such strict justice, that none could reproach, though all murmured: the great, for being made to feel there was a power above their wills; and the little, that the laws of Spain should be dispensed by a man who had been born out of her dominions. While his home policy was good, and efficient; and his outward politics were only held in the balance, by the tergiversation of Austria, there were yet men in the cabinet who privately ridiculed his plans as a mere political romance. And he found it so. For what is speculatively right, is generally practically wrong. Men's probable actions are calculated by the law of reason; but their performance is usually the result of caprice.

In the midst of the universal discontent excited by the agents of his numerous rivals and enemies, the main mine was sprung, and Ripperda's fortunes received their final blow. The King and Queen of Spain were made to believe the most contradictory, preposterous, and terrible things of his private intentions. And, in one hour, he received three successive messages from the King, to inform him, that his offices in the state, the army, and the commercial interests of his country, were taken from him. That Grimaldo, the Marquis de Castellor, and the Count de Paz, filled his places; and that a courier was dispatched to Vienna, to recall his son.

Lorenzo related, that the intelligence of the first messenger, which took from him the office of prime minister, was delivered in such a manner as to excite so unguarded an indignation in the Duke, that he extended his reproaches on his enemies, even to the King; and in the tempest of his wrath, uttered things of His Majesty, the report of which doubly incensed the Monarch and his Queen. This messenger was Baptista Orendayn, the nephew of the Count de Paz. The new ministers were well aware of his insidious powers to insult and to betray, and they selected him to convey their triumph to the Duke. Ripperda, having exhausted himself under the influence of the young sycophant's irritating sympathy, remained in gloomy silence during the communications of the two succeeding messengers. When they were all departed from him, he sat for an hour motionless, in intense thought, with his hands clasped in each other, and his eyes fixed on the floor. Martini passed to and fro in the room, without notice from his master. At last the Duke suddenly started up, as one out of a trance.

"I will go to the Queen!" cried he.

It was now about nine o'clock, in a fine autumnal evening. He directed his carriage to the _Buen Retiro_. He arrived, but was refused admittance. He returned to his palace, and called for his secretary; but no secretary was to be found. Not one of the officers of any of his late numerous offices were now in attendance. All were fled with the stream of power; and nothing but amazed and alarmed family domestics, were seen gliding about the galleries, in silence and dismay.

Castanos, however, presented himself; and by him Ripperda wrote to his son and the Empress, and dispatched him to Vienna: but Monteleone encountered him on the way. He soon found the old Spaniard had a price; and having purchased the perusal of the packet, suffered the son's hurried billet to pass; but the resistless appeal to Elizabeth he committed to the flames.

While Ripperda was writing other letters, his fixed attention was at last diverted, by an unusual sort of tumult in the square before his palace. He was accustomed, at his return, or issuing from his gates, to be hailed and lackied by the acclamations of the populace. His largesses were abundant, and the uproar of vehement thanksgiving, was ever on the watch from the venal multitude. But, for the purpose of the time, the dole was now doubled at the porches of the new ministers: and the same mob, who, four-and-twenty hours before had rent the air with shouts of _long live the great Duke Ripperda!_ now tore their lungs with curses on his name, and threats of vengeance for the ruin of Spain.

The madness of the people seemed to grow on their own violence; and the fury with which they assailed his gates with flambeaux, clubs and hatchets, left little doubt that they meant to fire the palace, and massacre its inhabitants. Martini urged his master to withdraw privately from the danger.

"What?" cried Ripperda, "fly like a coward and a criminal before the ungrateful rabble of Madrid? Never; though their king were at their head, to urge the murder of their benefactor. I am dispossessed, but am not fallen; and that, myself will shew them."

As he spoke, he rushed towards the open balcony, which projected over the great gate, and extended his arm to the people, in the act to speak. The blazing lights in the apartment behind him, and the broad glare from the torches beneath, shewed in a moment the noble figure of the Duke, and his commanding gesture.

Struck with surprise, the dead silence of profound awe, for an instant stilled the whole assembly. But before the big words of vehement indignation could burst from the lips of Ripperda, a watchful emissary of his enemies fired a carabine direct at the balcony. Aggression once committed, every restraint of reverence and shame were cast away; and others, near the assassin, echoed his cry of "death to the heretic!"--Martini threw his arms around his master, and dragging him within the balcony, forcibly shut the doors. The Duke turned on him a look of unutterable meaning. "You would be more in fashion," cried he, "if you stabbed your patron! Do it, Martini, and spare me from the knives of that ungrateful mob!"

Martini urged his lord, on the only plea to which he would now listen; to save himself for future vengeance. His carriage was brought round to a private door, in a back street; and Ripperda was at last persuaded to enter it. But there was a spy in the house, who informed his enemies of what was done; and before the vehicle, which contained only the Duke and Martini, could pass into the second street towards Segovia, it was met by the howling populace, and surrounded. The windows and doors were quickly beaten in; and Martini, who had hastily covered his livery with one of his master's cloaks, was dragged out, amidst the imprecations of his determined murderers. Ripperda would not tamely witness the sacrifice of his faithful servant; and with a pistol, with which he had armed himself, shot the man who had seized Martini, through the head. He then snatched the fellow pistol from his belt, and fired it, but without effect, upon the ruffians who threw themselves upon him. He heard Martini groan under his feet, as he himself seemed to grapple with a hundred miscreants, in the last struggles for his life.

But a shield was yet held over the head of Ripperda. The tumult increased in the rear, with the clattering of horses; and, the cries of the mob; as they fled in terror before the gleaming swords of several horsemen, who pressed towards the carriage. Ripperda had already received several flesh wounds, when the stroke of his deliverer's sabre beat down the arm that held the last weapon that was aimed against him; a huge rough hanger, in the hands of a pardoned galley-slave,--who thus struck at the man whose chief offence was resistance to oppression!

His defenders sufficiently dispersed the mob, to allow their leader to dismount; and advancing to Ripperda, who had extricated himself from the writhing limbs of the wounded wretches beneath him; "Duke," said he, "follow me, and these horsemen shall guard you to safety."

Ripperda, at the same moment, felt a hand on his garment; and, in the next, Martini bruised and bleeding, had drawn himself from under the shattered carriage, whither his enemies had cast him. He raised himself, and stood by the side of his master. The horsemen drew around the group; and galloping before it, made a clear way amongst the flying populace, till they conducted Ripperda to the side of a plain travelling carriage.

Their leader, in a suppressed voice, requested the fallen statesman to enter it. Suspicion of some refined species of treachery glanced upon his mind. By a feigned rescue, he might be betrayed to an interminable captivity!

"To what asylum would that carriage convey me?" demanded he, in a tone that intimated his doubts.

"To the honour of an open enemy," was the reply; "I am Duke Wharton!"

At this part of Lorenzo's narrative, a cry, unutterable in words, burst from the engloomed but steadfast bosom of his auditor. It was the light breaking upon chaos! Regardless of the presence of the Italian, he fervently clasped his hands together, and inwardly exclaimed:--

"I thank thee, my God, for this!" Then covering his face, he gave way to the balm of tears.

Lorenzo gazed on him with sympathy, and wept also; but it was under a belief that the young Marquis was thus powerfully affected, by the simple fact of his father's rescue. The amiable page knew not that it was for the rescue of all his future fellowship with man. The sun was again in the heavens to Louis, in the fidelity of Wharton; in the generous revenge he had taken of both son and father.

Strange, inconsistent, noble, erring Wharton! The good was so blended in thee with the ill, that the soul of affection hovered about thy erratic steps, with the watchful tenacity of a guardian angel.

"Oh," cried Louis to himself, "the germs of the tree of life are in that noble, disinterested heart! He has saved my father; and I may weep upon his bosom again!"

The happy agitation of Louis was so great; so pre-eminently did he prize the real character of the beings he loved, before their appendages of fame or power; that it was with an upraised countenance, and an open eye, he listened to the remainder of Lorenzo's narrative.

Ripperda no longer hesitated to step into the carriage of his preserver. Wharton made the bruised Martini enter also; and accompanying them himself, the voiture set off, escorted by his servants.

The whole party remained silent for some minutes. Ripperda was the first that broke the pause.

"Duke Wharton," said he, "you have at last accomplished your object! The _proudest man in Christendom_ has found no friend in his extremest necessity, but you his bitterest enemy! This is not a time in which I can express my sense of the obligation you have laid upon me. You have saved my life; you must now save my honour. One of the treasons alleged against me, is collusion with you. If I seek refuge at your lodgings, I shall confirm the falsehood of my slanderers: and I will perish, perish by their bullets or their daggers; rather than yield them the advantage of witnessing one of their perjuries, by a dubious action of my own!"

Wharton approved of this caution; and, observing that the Duke's villa at Segovia, would now be as unsafe as his palace at Madrid; he proposed to him the bold measure of proving his sincerity to the house of Brunswick, by throwing himself at once on the protection of General Stanhope, the British Ambassador in Spain. Ripperda saw the advantage of this suggestion; and the carriage was turned towards the residence of this gentleman, which was a mile out of the city, on the road to St. Ildefonso.

On arriving there, the Ambassador was from home; but Ripperda did not hesitate to assume the rights of hospitality at the house of the representative of a sovereign, to whose legal accession to the throne of England, he had obtained the acknowledgement of half Europe. Wharton went in with his companions. And while some of the servants were gone to arouze the medical attendants of the English Ambassador, to attend on the wounds of his guest, the two Dukes remained in private conference for half an hour. When Wharton withdrew, Martini, who sat in the anti-room, remarked that his countenance was clouded and even stern;--but he smiled when he passed him; and bade him take care of his noble master, for in his fidelity rested the fate of "Cæsar and his fortunes!"

General Stanhope arrived a few hours after the departure of the English Duke, (whose name had not been mentioned in the house;) and was not less surprised than perplexed at finding who had claimed his sanctuary.

The hurts of Ripperda, as well as those of his servant, had been found sufficiently deep, to authorize the surgeons in recommending immediate repose; but the Duke would not hear of any rest for himself, until he had seen the Ambassador. When Stanhope entered to him, he found his guest lying on a sofa, in a high state of fever, both from his wounds and agitation. Ripperda rose at his appearance, and in the name of honour, and the privileges of his station, claimed his protection from the immediate attack of his political enemies.

What more passed between his master and the Ambassador, Lorenzo could give no account; only, that General Stanhope re-ordered his carriage as soon as he left the chamber of his guest, which was then within an hour of day-break. He set off for Madrid, and did not return till the morning was far advanced. He was then closeted with Ripperda for two hours; and Martini heard the voice of his master very high. However, it appeared, he was to remain unmolested in the house of the Ambassador; though it was immediately surrounded by a Spanish Guard. The bustle of these proceedings proclaimed the asylum of the Duke; and Lorenzo, who had only arrived that day from the Segovian villa, (when, to his great consternation he found the house at Madrid deserted by the servants, and its bureaus ransacked by the police;) lost no time in seeking his brother and persecuted master, in their reputed sanctuary.

The Duke saw him; and while he walked the room; for the perturbation of his mind, would not permit him to take the repose his wounds demanded; he told him to go instantly to meet his son.

"You will find him," said he, "some where between this and Vienna. Describe to him what you have heard and seen. My pen would consume the paper, should I attempt to write my injuries! Tell him, that my life has been assailed by those who now sit in my seat!--Not by their own coward hands:--They spirit up the rabble to do their bloody work, that they may throw my murder on the indignation of the people! There, however, my fortune baffled them. Now, they insult my protector: they demand his promise, that I shall not escape; and when that is given, they set guards on his house, as if he were a gaoler, and I a prisoner for high-treason! But they venture not to charge it on me: their own infamy is all they dare proclaim; to treat me like the worst of criminals, before I am convicted, before I am accused!----Shew my son, these things; and let him hasten to my support. Tell him, when he is by my side, I will confront them face to face; I will let Spain, and all Europe know, that though honour is banished from the world, it lives and reigns in the bosom of William de Ripperda."

Louis listened to all these details, with various inward emotions; but he was now braced to quell the smallest outward appearance of any. He spoke little in return; but his step was firm, his eye clear, and his port erect, as he gave his orders at the port of Genoa, for immediate embarkation. A vessel was ready to sail; the wind fair, but boisterous; and under a heavy gale, he launched on the ocean that was to convey him to the land of his forefathers; that was to consign him to the dungeons of Madrid.

CHAP. XIV.

Meanwhile the cabal against the ruined Ripperda raged with redoubled fury in the Spanish cabinet. No appeals from him were suffered to reach His Majesty, while he was accused of every political crime that could criminate a minister; and amongst others, of bribery from the merchants of Ostend; and this, Baptista Orendayn protested on oath, having seen the golden caskets in the hands of his son. Charge after charge was brought forward by the Spaniards. Baron Otho de Routemberg, (a brother of the Austrian minister, and his Ambassador at Madrid) supported them all by a shew of evidence; till, at last, the King was so far persuaded of the attempt at poisoning him having originated with Ripperda, that he privately summoned a committee of the Council of Castile, and laid the proofs before their judgement.

With equal secrecy they consulted together, and declared it expedient to commit the regicide to some stronger hold than that of the English ambassador's house, till the full council could be assembled, and a solemn trial be made of the offender.

General Stanhope afterwards learnt, that while the new ministers affected great indignation at what they represented as Ripperda's clandestine intelligence with the emissaries of James Stuart, they were severally giving private audiences to Duke Wharton. Philip was entirely in the dark, as to this avenue of their intelligence; for the Duke's presence in Madrid was not generally known, though the Queen herself was more than suspected of having admitted him to a conference in the disguise of a priest. But Stanhope had proof given him, that Wharton passed several hours alone with Grimaldo, on the evening of his rescuing Ripperda from the populace; and that on the night of the sitting of the committee of the Council of Castile, he was seen gliding out of the chamber of the Queen's confessor; who immediately after, went to Her Majesty; and thence carried a message from her to the King, just as he was passing into the cabinet to decide on the judgement that was denounced on Ripperda.

The sentence that was then determined on, and sanctioned by the royal assent, was executed the following morning some hours before the usual time of rising. While all was in profound tranquillity in the city, the Chief Alcaid of the court got into a carriage equipped for travelling, and with a strong escort set forth towards the British residence. A double detachment of soldiers was already there, with orders to support him in case of resistance. It happened that the house porter had risen before his accustomed time; and supposing, from a stir he heard without, that the usual guard was going to be relieved, he opened the door to amuse himself with the ceremony. The Alcaid and his officers seized the favourable moment, and entered the house without opposition. Some of the soldiers secured the porter from creating an alarm; and the rest filling the hall, fastened the door.

The Alcaid having learnt from the terrified domestic, in what part of the residence the Duke de Ripperda slept, went with his Alquazils, and a military guard, up stairs in the described direction. The tumult they made in hurrying along the passages, awoke General Stanhope; who, hastening out of his room to investigate the cause, met the officer of justice in the lobby. A few words explained his errand; but the brave Englishman would hardly hear it to the end. He had received the King's word, that the Duke de Ripperda should remain unmolested in his house, until he was demanded to public trial; and he declared, that on the peril of his life, he would resist all illegal proceedings to the contrary.

The Alcaid presented a letter from the Count de Paz, begging His Excellency to read it at least, while he went forward to apprise the ex-minister of the sentence against him. Stanhope, having no other covering than his dressing gown, took the letter, and retired in angry haste, to read it and hurry on his cloaths. Its contents were to this effect; and they were addressed to him.

"That His Majesty, knowing the integrity of the British ambassador, appealed also to his good understanding. His Excellency must be too well acquainted with the Duke de Ripperda's delinquency, not to see the fatal consequences to the royal authority, should His Majesty bear any longer with the temerity of the Duke, in braving his sovereign with propositions in the language of a prince, rather than of a subject; and all from being in the fancied security of a foreign ambassador's house.

"Such a scandalous example, might hereafter induce some other minister of His Majesty to transgress in a similar way, under the assurance of a similar asylum; and so cover guilt from the royal justice, even within the walls of the royal courts!

"These reflections ought to engage His Excellency to surrender the Duke de Ripperda, on the first summons; and that summons is made in the name of the King, who commands it to be imparted to the British ambassador, that if he insists on the sanctuary of his house, he places the Duke equally out of the reach of His Majesty's mercy, as of his justice. If on a farther impartial inspection of his ministry, it should appear he had not only betrayed the interests of the state, but had devised the death of the King; when the delinquent was in the power of justice, then His Majesty could either make him a great example in an exemplary punishment; or, what was infinitely more precious in his sight, shew the world as great an example in pardoning so formidable a criminal."

While Stanhope was reading these, and other arguments to persuade, where force was already determined, the Alcaid and his guards approached the door of the Duke's anti-chamber. On opening it rather rudely, (for all now depended on dispatch,) Martini sprang from his mattrass, and seeing the armed men by the dawning light, demanded what they wanted?

"We must speak with your master," replied their leader.

Martini had now approached them; and recognising the office of the Alcaid by his habit, when he glanced also on the drawn swords of his attendants, he was at no loss to guess the purpose of their visit; but placing himself before the entrance of the interior chamber, with all the pride of its noble occupier elevating his own manner, he replied:

"My master is not accustomed to intrusion at an hour like this. You must await his commands till noon."

"Seize that fellow," returned the Alcaid, motioning to his men. Two of them obeyed; and Martini was held, pinioned between them, while the Alcaid, followed by the rest, passed direct into the chamber. Since his misfortunes, the Duke's sleep was peculiarly profound, and he now lay in as composed a slumber, as if he slept in his tomb. But the Alcaid, fearing resistance from the Ambassador, should he rejoin them before Ripperda had surrendered himself, darted towards the bed; and drawing back the curtains, roughly awoke the Duke. Ripperda started up in the bed, and beheld it surrounded by gleaming sabres. Before he could speak, the officer of Justice proclaimed his errand: that he arrested him for high-treason, and came to carry him to the state-prison of Segovia.

"It shall be my corpse!" cried the Duke, snatching a sword from the unprepared hand of the soldier who stood nearest to him, and attempting to rush from the bed.

But the Alcaid had ordered a concerted sign to be made to the men below; and, while those present threw themselves upon the Duke, the other guards hastened up stairs, and filled the chamber. Stanhope came into the room at the same instant, and called loudly on the illegal proceeding; on the breach of his privileges as an ambassador, on the shameful violation of the claims of honour, and the sacred rights of hospitality!

The Duke was now insensible, from a blow he had received on the temple, in the scuffle. This sight redoubled the indignation, and the threatenings of the brave Englishman; but the Alcaid drew forth his own order, signed by the King, "to take Ripperda, dead or alive;" and then the minister found himself obliged to resist no longer. However, though he stood quiescent while the lifeless Duke was wrapped in the coverlid, and carried to the carriage, he called all around to witness, that he protested against a deed so contrary to the law of nations, and the commonest bonds of faith between man and man.

In passing through the hall, (Martini having been hurried thither by his sentinels,) when the faithful Italian saw his master in so lost a condition, he broke from his guards, and with a dreadful malediction on his murderers, rushed towards him. The soldiers attempted to beat him back; but throwing himself almost upon their swords, his attachment so affected General Stanhope, that he said to the Alcaid:

"If it be not against your positive orders, let me see, Sir, that you have some regard to humanity, in respecting the fidelity of that man.--Let him accompany his master."

The Alcaid replied, he had no orders, but what related to the person of the Duke; and therefore, to oblige his Excellency, he would permit Martini to attend his Master.

"Not to oblige me;" returned the English minister, "but to lessen the account of outrages I shall immediately charge upon this court to my own! Therefore, on the peril of your safety, pretend to augment that sum, by your own authority alone!"

The Alcaid bowed to Stanhope; and ordered Martini to be placed in the carriage with his master, between a soldier, and an officer of the police. The vehicle then drove off at a rapid gallop, followed by the Alcaid and a grand escort of armed cavalry, towards the dismal Alcazar of Segovia.

CHAP. XV.

Stanhope's indignation was as vehement, as it was sincere, at what had been done; and, to every one of the royal ministers, separately and collectively, he spoke his mind with corresponding boldness. Indeed, his remonstrances were so strong and what he urged in the Duke's favour, so powerful; that, as it came repeatedly before the King, they began to fear the issue.--Difficulties in substantiating their various allegations against Ripperda, were starting up every hour, and the charge of poisoning, was completely disproved. From all these considerations, they saw the necessity of keeping the ruined minister from any chance of gaining the royal ear; which, they augured, could hardly be prevented, when his son should arrive; whose high character, notwithstanding the aspersions of his enemies, was whispered about, from the representations of Sinzendorff. Indeed, those who had seen Louis, and knew the foibles of the Queen, were afraid, that should she see him, she might transfer that notice to the son, personal jealousy had alone withdrawn from the father. Impelled by these apprehensions, they moved every engine to convict the Duke of heresy, before Louis could arrive; and in that case, should the Inquisition once claim him as their victim, they knew the bigotry of Philip would abandon his former favourite without another question.

While these machinations were going on at Madrid, Ripperda found the Alcazar at Segovia answer every purpose of his malignant rivals, but that of subduing his spirit. They had placed him in charge of a creature of their own. And though the noble prisoner lay for several days in such extremity, that for as many nights his faithful servant despaired of his ever seeing the light of another morning, yet no physician was permitted to enter those dismal walls. A dungeon was his chamber; and the coarsest fare, his support. The men, who would not dare to administer poison or strangulation, calculated without remorse on this way of ridding themselves of an obnoxious life. When they thought him sufficiently reduced by sickness and bodily hardships, they put his soul to the torture, by sending a well-tutored priest to extort a confession of his crimes. The demand was backed by an insulting assurance, that, on such a proof of penitence, he should be allowed the indulgence of the state apartments, and the range of the garden for exercise.

Ripperda rejected these insidious proffers, with indignation. Sometimes the language of his Inquisitor provoked him beyond self-controul and, between the delirium of illness, and the phrenzy of despair, he, more than once, was left raving, or insensible, in the arms of his servant. As time wore away, and no tidings of Louis or Lorenzo arrived, his enemies took advantage of this circumstance; and on Martini incautiously dropping a hint of the young Marquis's future revenge on the injurers of his father, the priest intimated that Louis was in too good an understanding with his own interests, to unite them again with a discarded traitor, though he were his parent.

This imputation on his son was too much for the small remnant of patience that remained to the Duke. He was now reduced to a maddening state of mental irritation; to an exasperated hatred of human nature; and denouncing Austria and Spain in one wide malediction, he fiercely commanded their agent to leave his presence. The man, however, sat unmoved in soul or in countenance, while Martini looked with anguish on his master; as on a noble galley he had lately seen proudly stemming its steady way through the raging sea, but now beheld bereft of rudder and compass, and at the mercy of every wind.

The malignant priest waited for a momentary calm, and then threw out some dark hints, that in a few days Ripperda would be removed to a surer durance; and on a double charge of having secretly maintained the principles of heresy in himself; and entrusted the interests of His Catholic Majesty to his son, whom he knew to be a professed heretic. The Duke listened to this in gloomy silence; but when the subtle agent proceeded to say, that this son had offered his evidence to witness the same, Ripperda started from his chair. He now knew no bounds to his wrath; and he proclaimed it in such a manner, that the terrified priest flew before him. Insult and outrage seemed to have given that bodily vigour to Ripperda, which medicine and surgery had taken no pains to restore.

"Revenge is within me, like a new principle of life!" cried he, to Martini; "I will free myself. And then they shall feel the strength that lies in this single arm!"

Martini learnt from the servants of the prison, that the priest's denunciation was no vain threat; for preparations were silently making for the Duke's removal to the Inquisition, as soon as the King could be brought to sign the warrant. All knew that such a warrant was the signal of death; and of such a death, that human nature shuddered at the bare idea of its horrors. Martini hastened to his master with the intelligence. He found him leaning over a map of the world, which lay on the table before him. Ripperda attended to all he said, with profound attention. When he had finished speaking, he commanded him to withdraw for an hour; after which time, he would tell him his resolution.

It was two hours, before the Duke called him in from the anti-chamber, which was his usual station as his master's guard; and then he calmly told him that it was his determination to effect his own escape, and to take his revenge from the pillars of Hercules. As he spoke, he pointed with his finger to the spot on the map which marked the Rock of Gibraltar. Martini readily came into all his master's plans; and gladly heard him discuss them, with all his former sobriety of manner, and decision of command.

"But," asked the faithful servant, "should the Marquis visit this prison when we are gone, how is he to know where to follow you?"

"My actions shall proclaim to him and to the world where to follow me!" replied the Duke; "If he be the parricide these people represent, he will then repent the poor part he has now taken; and see the policy, if not the duty, of being true to the fortunes of such a father. But, if these wretches have slandered him, and he be indeed my son,--then I will make that England, which fostered him, what I would have made this ungrateful, ruined country!"

Martini saw that a temporary mist clouded the mind of his master; but that noble nature had been so smitten by universal ingratitude, he did not wonder it should doubt every dubious appearance. He, however, had seen enough of Louis, to admire and to love him; and he zealously exerted himself to overthrow the suspicions against him which occasionally arose in the mind of his father. Something influenced by his reasoning, Ripperda employed the greatest part of the day in writing a large packet for his son. He inclosed it under a cover to the Marquis Santa Cruz, who had a villa in the neighbourhood. Martini delivered it the same night into the hands of the Marchioness, her husband being still in Sardinia; but she assured the faithful servant of her care of its contents.

Ripperda's attention was next directed to put his plan of escape, in train for execution. It was modelled by the difficult situation of the Alcazar. This state prison stands on the summit of a huge rock, overlooking the city of Segovia on one side; and on the other, which is nearly perpendicular, and covered with matted underwood to a thickness almost impenetrable, it precipitates down to a fosse, filled from the river Atayada. The castle was erected by the Moors; and is fortified according to their ancient mode. The large old square towers are bound round their battlements with a heavy stone-work of chains, proclaiming from afar the subjection in which the Moresco princes formerly held the Spanish land. This once formidable fortress, like their banished race, was, in many parts, in a state of decay; and, in others, totally destroyed. Some of the buttresses were mouldering away; and, where one of the towers had fallen, its ruins dammed up part of the ditch; at least it raised a causeway under the water, so high that a person acquainted with its direction, might pass over very safely, knee-deep in the stream.

In a dungeon of the corresponding tower, on this side of the castle, was the prison of Ripperda.

Martini prepared a couple of stout mules, and concealed them amongst the thickets on the opposite side of the fosse. In that part, it was little better than a morass, from the occasional overflowing of the waters at the rainy seasons. He also procured the habits of muleteers, for the Duke and himself; and a ladder of ropes, to descend from the window of the prison to the top of the rock; whence they were to scramble their way down its declivity to the edge of the ditch.

Every thing was prepared for the momentous attempt; but on the very morning of the day fixed on for the escape, Ripperda was visited by a Jesuit of rank; who came on a special commission from the Marquis de Paz, to apprize him that the King had signed his warrant for the Inquisition; and to mock him with the assurance, that nothing could now save him from the extremest vengeance of the offended church, but a full acknowledgement of all his heretical and political iniquities. The gracious message then was, that in such a case he should be represented to the Pope, and possibly might be pardoned.

The Jesuit expatiated on the curse of heaven, which now manifested itself on the head of the Duke in every relation of his life. Whether in its public or private circumstances, all bore the marks of universal excommunication. His son had deserted him; and the fortunes on which he leaned as on a rock, were now sinking in the ocean; or becoming the prey of corsairs, to swell the iniquity of infidels like himself. All this circumlocution only informed Ripperda of a misfortune, unworthy of his attention at the present moment: the loss of his Levant merchantmen; part, in the late heavy storms; and part, taken by the pirates of Barbary.

To impose upon this new emissary, he had received him, lying on his bed, where he affected to have sustained a relapse of his illness; and, during the whole discourse kept a stern silence. At last, being vehemently urged for some reply to the proposition respecting a penitential appeal to the Pope, Ripperda raised himself on his arm; and with eyes glaring on his visitor, like the roused lion from his lair, he fiercely replied:--

"Tell your employers, that before they again lay hands on the Duke de Ripperda, he will have made his appeal to a tribunal which shall make them tremble! And for your arguments! I too, studied in the Jesuits' college, and am not to be ensnared!"

The priest supposed the infuriated Duke anticipated his own death, and meant the tribunal of heaven; and shaking his head, while he pronounced the words "reprobate!" and "accursed!" he left the apartment.

Martini urged that nothing should delay their departure that night; for, after the information which the Jesuit brought, he saw the approach of _a Familiar_ in every shadow that flitted across the dungeon wall.

Ripperda sat a long time, absorbed in thought. He heard no word of Martini's; he saw nothing of his busy arrangements for their flight. The corsairs of Barbary, his own Moorish ancestors, and the banishment of part of their race, while his own line remained great lords in Spain; were all before his mind's eye, in fearful, prompting apparition. His warlike progenitor, Don Valor de Ripperda, two hundred years ago, had married the only daughter of the Moresco King of Granada.

His son, the renowned Don Ferdinand de Valor shook the Christian kingdoms of Spain to their centre, when the dark policy of Philip II. issued his edict to expel the Moorish descendants from their ancient seats in Spain. Aben-Humeya was the name of the Granada princes. De Valor resumed it, when he raised the rebel standard on the Alpuxara mountains.

"Another Philip shall hear that name again!" cried Ripperda to himself; and covering his face with his hands, to prevent any outward circumstance disturbing the current of his meditations, he sat without word or motion, till the dungeon became wrapped in total darkness, and the hour of his attempt drew near.