Devil. He, now, is one of those whom you call honest men. He is just, noble-minded, and attentive to the duties of his situation; but, like all of you, he has a foible to counterbalance his virtues; this is an unbounded tenderness for the other sex: and as he, out of principle, required the blessing of the priest to his pleasures, so did he, after the death of his first wife, make a fool of himself by marrying the woman whom you have seen. Through a few hours’ enjoyment he destroyed the fabric of his fortune. She took advantage of his doting fondness, and wasted in luxury, dress, and play, her, his, and his children’s property, and involved him in debts to an immense amount. It is true she found in Baron H., whom you know, and who is sole master in the house, a powerful coadjutor. When they were completely aground, and their desires had become more craving in proportion as the difficulty of gratifying them increased, the lady readily agreed to a plan which her minion proposed to her in private, and which was nothing else “than to sell the honour
of her stepdaughter, under an equivocal promise of marriage, at as high a price as the favourite would buy it.” The minister had not the slightest suspicion of all this; he only felt his lack of money, the weight of his debts, the full mass of his folly, and trembled in momentary expectation of the arrival of his son, whom the wife had driven from home in order that she might dissipate his property. The poor youth had in the interval departed for the Turkish wars, and had been rewarded for his interference with a wooden arm. I do not say that the favourite might not have had, at the commencement of this affair, serious views of marrying the daughter, for he was well aware of the father’s interest with the Prince; but during these last few days the scene has quite changed. The Prince has proposed to him an alliance with one of the richest heiresses in the land; and he has determined, by one secret stroke, so entirely to overwhelm the minister and his whole house, that no one shall dare to cry for revenge or to complain of him. They will all be silent, and the minister will be crushed beneath
his foot, like the worm, whose sufferings are unheard.
Faustus. But will not the Prince hear of this deed, and punish it?
Devil. Thine own eyes shall be witnesses of the issue of the affair.
Faustus. I command thee, under pain of my displeasure, to play none of thy tricks here.
Devil. Those who by their crimes put the Devil himself to blush, have very little need of his assistance. We begin now, O Faustus, to remove the covering from the hearts of men; and I own that I feel sincere joy in finding that the Germans are capable of something grand. You, indeed, are merely the imitators of other nations, and lose thereby the glory of originality; but in hell that is not esteemed essential, and good-will in the cause of wickedness is all that is required.
Faustus passed his time gaily among the women of the court, corrupting all those who were to be obtained by money or a fine face; whilst the drama of the favourite was rapidly hastening to a conclusion. He now revealed his finely-spun
design to Baron H. The latter was to be the instrument of it; and as the glitter of gold was no longer at hand to sharpen his palled passion for the minister’s wife, and as the tears of the unfortunate daughter, the misery of the father, and the expected arrival of the crippled son, began to bear heavily upon his tender conscience, he determined at once to free himself of all these burdens. His reward consisted in the Count’s undertaking to persuade the Prince to send the Baron on an important mission to the imperial court. In consideration of this, the Baron was to procure the wife of the minister to purloin secretly, from the cabinet of her husband, a certain parchment, considered to be one of the most important title-deeds of the princely house; and which the favourite was well aware would shortly be called for, on account of a certain law-suit with another illustrious family. The Count then hoped to make it appear that the minister, for a sum of money, would have delivered it into the hands of the adversaries, if the favourite’s watchfulness had not detected his treachery. The spouse of the minister,
who thought that an old man who could no longer supply her with gold for her follies deserved no mercy, readily delivered the paper into the hands of the Baron, for whom she had the most doting fondness.