While the Prince was speaking, he drew from his breast a large roll of written paper, and after such of his family, as were present, had seated themselves eagerly around him, he read in a voice somewhat agitated by late emotion, the following narrative.
DON SEBASTIAN,
OR
THE HOUSE OF BRAGANZA.
CHAP. I.
On the 12th of January, 1554, Juan, prince of Portugal, breathed his last, in the palace of Ribera, at Lisbon.
At that sad moment grief and dismay seized the hearts of his royal parents; as they alternately clasped his senseless clay in their arms, and thought of all he had been, they almost forgot their hope of soon possessing a memorial of his fair-promising youth.
Ignorant of her husband’s danger, his young consort had been removed to the palace of Xabregas, in the suburbs; there, while he was struggling between life and death, she was impatiently awaiting the hour which was to bless her with the first pledge of their happiness and their love. Under such circumstances the concealment of prince Juan’s death became an act of necessity; at least as it regarded the princess, whose life, and that of her unborn infant, would have been risked by a disclosure.
She was now tenderly deceived by all around her; the King and Queen painfully dissembling their affliction visited her as usual, daily bringing with them little billets from their son, whose anxious love had early foreseen and provided against this trying occasion. He had left behind him several letters without dates, expressive of the fondest attachment, and pathetically lamenting the slow progress of his recovery, which alone kept him from her society: he had ordered these to be given her from time to time, until she should have safely brought into the world another heir to the crown of Portugal: after that period deception was to cease.
Soothed by this sweet error the young princess yielded to the desire of her royal parents, that she should not attempt returning to Ribera before the birth of her child: she yielded with tears, but they were not tears of apprehension; she wept only because her situation denied her the tender office of watching her husband’s returning health. Again and again she read his letters, again and again she dwelt on their blissful meeting, when she should have an infant to present him with: happily unconscious that the husband and the father, the young and beauteous prince, was laid at rest for ever, in the grave!
Lisbon became now a scene of hope and sorrow. Lamentations for one beloved prince was mixed with anxiety for the birth of another: solemn fasts were ordained, vows offered, pilgrimages undertaken, processions made. On the eighth day after Juan’s decease, at the dead of the night preceding the feast of St. Sebastian, all the religious orders in Portugal were seen headed by the archbishop, and cardinal Henry, walking in awful silence, barefooted and dejected, bearing in their hands mourning torches to light them on their way to the grand church of Bethlehem: there mass for the soul of their departed prince was celebrated, with all the pomp of that church which affects and overwhelms the heart by its powerful appeal to the senses. Images, relics, incense, music, all contributed to heighten pity and grief into madness: groans and prayers were for awhile the only sounds heard mingling with the wailing tones of the organ: at length even these ceased, and the priests and the people remained in silence prostrate before the host.