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

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

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

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

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

"I cannot, Sir," cried Louis, "I cannot compromise myself one moment on so abhorrent a subject! How could I look up, if I were to be pointed at wherever I moved, as the future husband of this justly contemned widow of Count Altheim? My Lord, command me in every thing but this! Send me from Vienna,—banish me where you will, but do not entangle me farther with that insidious woman! Do not subject me to the consciousness, that I am any way deserving the punishment of being ensnared beyond the power of extrication."

"Louis," replied the Duke, "there is nothing that I can command, or counsel you to do, to unite the preservation of your private freedom, with your public duty, but a temporary system of deceiving the Empress and her favourite. When you entered a political career, you engaged on oath, to sacrifice every thing; your bosom's passions, and even your reputation with men, to the service of your country, should it be demanded. You are now called upon to perform the first part of this vow."

"Yes, Sir, but I did not engage to sacrifice my conscience. That belongs to God alone; and, I will perish, or keep it so."

"Then you must marry the Countess Altheim," calmly, rejoined his father.

"In the hour that I do," replied Louis, "I shall have given my heart's dearest blood to the country I have never seen! to the country I will never see! I will abjure the world, and retire to die a despised wretch, where I may not hear the derision I have plucked upon the name of de Montemar."

"And will that be obedience to your conscience?" asked the Duke, "if so, mark its inconsistency, and sometimes doubt its text. Before I quitted the Empress, I brought her to apologise to me, for the offensive innuendos she had dropped at the beginning. I brought her to tears, when I reminded her how I had served her and her daughter, in the establishment of the Pragmatic Sanction. But before I accomplished this conquest over a self-willed and powerful sovereign, I removed every impression from her mind that I had any other objection to the proposed union, than your youth, and the lady being so much your senior. In the moment of reconciliation, I smoothed your path. I alleged that my duty towards my new country, obliged me to write thither, to ask permission of the King and Queen of Spain to form a foreign alliance, before I could formally give my consent. In this, the Empress acquiesced. Here then, is one delay secured. Meanwhile, should you appear to concur heartily in the arrangement, I have little doubt of winning upon Elizabeth to grant the investiture before the messenger can return; the engine will then be restored to our own hand; and we may protract and excuse, and finally break away without danger."

"No, Sir," replied Louis, "I abhor this marriage, because of the want of all honourable principle in the woman who had infatuated me; and I never will move one step to avoid it, by becoming the thing I abhor. If my liberty is only to be regained by acting a falsehood,—a treacherous falsehood! I submit to my cruel