Volume III Part 72 (1/2)
PRINCE HENRY D'HERKAUSEN-OLDENZAAL TO COUNT MAXIMILIAN KAMINETN.
”OLDENZAAL, August 23d, 1841.
I have just returned from Gerolstein, where I pa.s.sed three months with the grand duke and his family. I expected to have found a letter announcing your arrival at Oldenzaal, my dear Maximilian. Imagine my grief and surprise, when I understood that you would be detained in Hungary several weeks longer. I have not been able to write to you for four months, not knowing how to direct my letters to you, thanks to your original and adventurous manner of traveling; and yet you had, nevertheless, seriously promised me at Vienna, at the moment of our separation, that you would be at Oldenzaal the first of August. I must, then, renounce the pleasure of seeing you; and never had I more desire to pour out my heart into yours, my good Maximilian, my oldest friend; for though we are both still young, our friends.h.i.+p is old--it dates from our infancy. What shall I say to you?
Within three months a great revolution has taken place in me. I have reached one of those moments which decide a man's fate. Judge if I do not want your presence, your advice. But you will not fail me much longer; whatever concerns detain you in Hungary, you will come, Maximilian; you must come, I conjure, for I shall, indeed, need the most earnest consolation, and I cannot go to you. My father, whose health becomes more and more feeble, has recalled me from Gerolstein. He grows weaker every day. It is impossible for me to leave him. I have so much to tell you, that I shall be prolix, for I have to recount to you the most painful, the most romantic incident of my life. Strange and sad chance! during this period we are fatally distant from each other; we inseparables, we brothers, both of us the most fervent apostles of thrice holy friends.h.i.+p, we, who were so proud of proving that the Cazlas and Posa of our Schiller are not idealities, and that, like those divine creations of the great poet, we know how to taste the sweet delights of a tender and mutual attachment! Oh, my friend, why were you not there, why were you not there! For three months my heart has been overflowing with emotions at the same time inexpressibly sweet and sad. And I was alone; I am alone now. Pity me; you, who know my sensibility, at times so fancifully expansive; you, who have often seen my eyes moistened with tears at the simple recital of a generous action, at the simple view of a beautiful sunset, or in a quiet and starry summer night. You remember the past year, during our excursion to the Ruins of Oppenfeld--the borders of the great lake--our silent reveries during that magnificent evening, so calm, so poetical, so serene. Strange contrast! it was three days before that b.l.o.o.d.y duel, in which I would not take you for my second, for I should have suffered too much for you if I had been wounded under your eyes--that duel, for a quarrel at play, in which my second unfortunately killed that young Frenchman, the Viscount St. Remy.
Apropos, do you know what has become of that dangerous siren St. Remy brought to Oppenfeld, and whose name was, I think, Cecily David? You will smile with pity, my friend, to see me wander thus among these vague remembrances of the past, instead of proceeding to the grave confessions which I have announced to you; it is because, in spite of myself, I recoil from these confessions. I know your severity; I am afraid of being scolded, yes, scolded, because, instead of having acted with reflection, with wisdom (alas for the wisdom of one-and-twenty!), I have acted foolishly, or, rather, I have not acted at all; I have suffered myself to be borne along blindly on the current which carried me forward. It is only since my return from Gerolstein that I have, so to speak, awakened from the enchanting vision in which I have been cradled for the last three months, and this waking is sad. Come then, my friend, good Maximilian, I a.s.sume my best courage. Hear me with indulgence. I begin by casting down my eyes; I dare not look at you, for as you read these lines your features will become so grave, so severe. Stoical man! Having obtained leave of absence for six months, I left Vienna, and remained here some time with my father; his health was then good, and he advised me to go and visit my excellent aunt, Princess Juliana, the superior of the Abbey of Gerolstein. I have told you, I believe, my friend, that my grandmother was cousin-german of the grandfather of the present grand duke; and that the latter, Gustavus Rudolph, on account of this relations.h.i.+p, has always treated my father and myself very kindly, very affectionately, as cousins. You know also, I believe, that during a very long journey which the prince recently made into France he gave to my father the charge of the government of the grand duchy.
You will believe that it is not from any pride, my friend, that I mention these circ.u.mstances to you; it is only by way of explanation of the causes of the extreme intimacy in which I live with the grand duke and his family during my stay at Gerolstein. You recollect that last year, during our journey on the banks of the Rhine, we were informed that the prince had found in France, and had married _in extremis_, the Countess M'Gregor, in order to legitimatize the birth of a daughter, whom he had by her in consequence of an early secret marriage, which was afterward broken, from some illegality in the ceremony, and because it had been contracted against the will of the reigning grand duke. This young daughter, so solemnly acknowledged, is that charming Princess Amelia, [Footnote: As the name of Marie recalled to Rudolph and his daughter such sad recollections, he had given her the name of Amelia, after his mother.] of whom Lord Dudley, who saw her at Gerolstein about a year since, spoke to us so often at Vienna last winter. You recollect we accused him of exaggeration. Strange chance!
If any one had then told me--But though you have undoubtedly now almost divined my secret, let me follow the march of events without interruption.
The Convent of Saint Hermangilda, of which my aunt is the abbess, is hardly a quarter of a league distant from Gerolstein, for the abbey gardens border on the suburbs of the city. A charming house, completely isolated from the cloister, had been placed at my disposition by my aunt, who loves me, as you know, with a maternal tenderness. The day of my arrival she informed me that there was the next day to be a solemn reception and court ceremony; the grand duke on that day was to make the official announcement of his approaching marriage with the Marchioness d'Harville, who had recently arrived at Gerolstein, accompanied by her father, Count Orbigny. [Footnote: The reader is reminded, in order to maintain the probability of this narrative, that the last Princess of Courtland, a lady as remarkable for the singular superiority of her mind as for the charm of her character, and the admirable goodness of her heart, was Mademoiselle de Medeur.] Some blame the prince for not having sought a sovereign alliance in his marriage (the grand d.u.c.h.ess, the former wife of the prince, belonged to the house of Bavaria): others, on the contrary, and my aunt is of the number of these, congratulate him for having preferred an amiable young lady, whom he adores, and who belongs to the highest n.o.bility of France, to considerations of ambition. You know, moreover, my friend, that my aunt having always entertained for the Grand Duke Rudolph the most profound attachment, she can appreciate, better than any one else, the eminent qualities of the prince.
”My dear child,” said she to me, on occasion of this solemn reception, which I was to attend the day after my arrival, ”my dear child, the most remarkable part of this _fete_ the _Pearl of Gerolstein_.”
”What do you mean, my dear aunt?”
”The Princess Amelia.”
”The daughter of the grand-duke? Lord Dudley told us about her at Vienna.
He spoke of her with an enthusiasm which we called poetical exaggeration.”
”At my age, with my character, and in my position,” replied my aunt, ”one is not easily excited; and you will believe my judgment to be impartial, my dear child. Indeed, I a.s.sure you, that in my whole life I never knew anything so enchanting as the Princess Amelia. I might speak to you of her angelic beauty, if she were not endowed with an inexpressible charm which is superior even to her beauty. Figure to yourself candor with dignity, and grace in modesty. From the first day in which the grand-duke presented me to her, I felt for this young princess an involuntary sympathy. Nor am I alone in this opinion. The Archd.u.c.h.ess Sophia has been at Gerolstein some days; she is the proudest and most haughty princess whom I know.”
”Very true, my aunt, her irony is terrible; few persons escape her biting pleasantries. At Vienna she was dreaded like the fire. Can the Princess Amelia have found favor with her?”
”The other day she came here, after having visited the House of Refuge, which is placed under the superintendence of the young princess. 'Do you know one thing,' said this dreaded archd.u.c.h.ess to me, with her abrupt frankness, 'I have a mind singularly disposed to satire, have I not? Well, if I were to live long with the daughter of the grand duke, I should become, I am sure, inoffensive; her goodness is so penetrating, so contagious.”
”But is my cousin, then, an enchantress?” said I to my aunt, smiling.
”Her most powerful attraction, in my eyes at least,” replied my aunt, ”is that mingling of gentleness, modesty, and dignity, of which I have spoken to you, and which gives the most touching expression to her angelic face.”
”Modesty is certainly a rare quality in a princess so young, so beautiful, so happy.”
”Remember, too, my dear child, how much better it is for the Princess Amelia to enjoy without vain ostentation the high position which is incontestably acquired for her; her elevation is recent.” [ Footnote: On arriving in Germany, Rudolph had given out that Fleur-de-Marie, whom he had long supposed dead, had never quitted her mother, the Countess M'Gregor.]
”In her conversations with you, dear aunt, has the princess ever made any allusions to her past fortunes?”
”No; but when, notwithstanding my advanced age, I have spoken to her with the respect which is due to her, since her royal highness is the daughter of our sovereign, her ingenuous distress, mingled with grat.i.tude and veneration for me, have deeply moved me; for her reserve, at the same time n.o.ble and affable, proved to me that the present did not intoxicate her so much as to make her forget the past, and that she rendered to my age what I granted to her rank.”
”You must have an exquisite tact, my dear aunt, to observe such delicate shades.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: A PAGE OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY]
”Thus, my dear child, the more I have seen of the Princess Amelia, the more I have felt my first impression confirmed. Since she has been here, the good works she has accomplished are incredible, and she has done it all with a reflection, a maturity of judgment, which amazes me in a person of her age. Judge of them: at her request, the grand duke has founded at Gerolstein an establishment for little orphan girls of five or six years old, and for young girls, also orphans or abandoned by their parents, who have reached the age of sixteen, an age so fatal for the unfortunate who have no one to defend them from the seductions of vice or the pressure of want. The n.o.ble nuns of my abbey teach and direct the daughters of this house. In going to visit it, I have often occasion to observe the adoration which these poor disinherited creatures entertain toward the Princess Amelia. Every day she goes to pa.s.s several hours in this establishment, which is placed under her especial protection; and I repeat to you, my child, it is not only respect, grat.i.tude, that these poor girls and the nuns feel for her highness, it is almost fanaticism.”
”The Princess Amelia must be an angel,” replied I to my aunt.
”An angel--yes, an angel,” replied she, ”for you cannot imagine with what melting goodness she treats her favorites, and with what pious solicitude she watches over them--I have never seen the susceptibility of misfortune more delicately treated; it seems as if an irresistible sympathy especially attracts the princess toward this cla.s.s of the abandoned poor. Finally, would you believe it, she, the daughter of a sovereign, never calls these young girls anything but _sisters_.”
At these last words of my aunt, I confess to you, Maximilian, the tears came into my eyes. Do you not find something beautiful and holy in this conduct of the princess? You know my sincerity, I protest to you that I report to you, as I will always report to you, the conversation of my aunt, almost word for word.