1807
FEUDAL TYRANTS,
&c. &c. &c.
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PART THE SECOND.
Elizabeth, Countess of Torrenburg, to Count Oswald of March.
With this letter, my dear brother, you will receive a part of the manuscripts, which I engaged to send you: these leaves contain the memoirs of the unfortunate Urania Venosta, which have interested me greatly from a variety of reasons. I had erroneously supposed that the MS. was complete, but it proves to be nothing more than a fragment. Perhaps I imprudently included the second part of her adventures in the number of those papers, which I was compelled to restore to the Abbess’s custody; but I am rather more inclined to believe, that Time has destroyed the remainder of these memoirs, whose conclusion I am so desirous of perusing.
It’s true, I have found a few more detached leaves, and the last page or two; but these only serve to augment a curiosity, which would have remained totally unsatisfied, if I had suffered the labour of examining the moth-eaten parchments to overcome my perseverance. I have now no reason to regret the trouble which I gave myself, since I owe to it the possession of several other manuscripts, relating to persons and circumstances already mentioned by Urania. The memoirs of Minna of Homburg and of Lucretia Malaspina are both lost; but I have found much respecting the two Ladies of Sargans, to whom Urania’s narrative is addrest; much too respecting the noble and ill-fated Adelaide; as also several letters written by the latter, one of which seems to supply tolerably well the chasm in Urania’s memoirs. As soon as I succeed in decyphering them (which, thanks to the dust and the moths, is no easy task) I will not fail to impart to you their contents.
You will ask me, what impression the perusal of this history has made on my heart. Ah! my dear brother, it is but too certain, that the unfortunate are apt to find their own resemblance every where! At first, how little similar do the fortunes of Urania and myself appear! and yet how easily might it have happened, that we should have both been sisters united in the same misfortune! Might not Henry of Montfort, (whose loss has cost me so many tears,) in spite of his fair exterior, have proved at heart as great a monster, as Ethelbert of Carlsheim proved in spite of his? May not the prayers, with which I solicited Heaven to grant me Henry’s hand, have pleaded for that, whose possession would have proved to me the bitterest curse of Heaven?