What he muttered at the same time was unheard by any one but his uncle. The effect upon him, however, was such as to turn him deadly pale; and after having tasted of the Count's wine, that he might not be suspected of disaffection, he hurried his nephew away to the house of a friendly citizen of Brussels, miserable, to all appearance, till he had got the boy beyond the walls of the palace.
CHAPTER VI.
We have now concluded one period of our tale, and must beg the reader to leap boldly over nearly twenty years. In regard to the events which intervened, of some we shall here give a slight sketch before proceeding; some we shall leave to unravel themselves in the course of the after history.
Take any body of men, as many in number as the characters which we have introduced already, and it will be seldom found that, at the end of so great a lapse of time, the whole are still upon the busy stage of life; nevertheless, such was the case in the present instance. Time, the great enemy of man, and of all man's works, had not leagued himself with death against any of those whom I have particularly noticed. In other respects, however, he had not failed to do his accustomed work. The youth had grown up into the man; the man of middle age was bowed beneath the load of years; and the infant in the cradle had reached the blossoming days of womanhood.
Of her, then, whose birth and baptism we have just commemorated, we shall speak in the first place, before proceeding to notice the change which had occurred in the other characters which we have brought upon the scene. Her infancy passed in the midst of prosperity and happiness, while the territories which she was destined to inherit flourished under the dominion of her grandfather--that wise and virtuous prince, who redeemed the errors of his early years by the generous patriotism of his latter days, and both merited and obtained, from neighbouring princes and his native subjects, the noble appellation of Philip the Good; and while under the eye of her own gentle mother, her education proceeded in calm tranquillity, and her home reposed in peace.
Scarcely had she attained the age of ten years, however, ere, left alone under the guidance of a severe and imperious father, she found that, according to the common fate of those in the highest stations, her lot was to be anything but happy. Gentle, kind, obedient, she endeavoured, by making her inclinations the slaves of her father's will, to obtain, at least, peace, by yielding to duty. Her hopes and expectations were, nevertheless, in vain. The continual perils to which Charles the Bold exposed himself, of course, kept his family in constant alarm and agitation; and the frequent and capricious changes of his policy, without obtaining for himself or his country any real advantage, only served to wring his daughter's heart.
After the death of his second wife, Isabel de Bourbon, the desire of a male heir induced him speedily to marry again; and the hatred which he had, by that time, conceived for Louis XI. made him choose for his bride, Margaret of York, the sister of the King of England. His hopes of a son were disappointed; but upon his daughter, Mary of Burgundy, his marriage conferred an inestimable benefit. Margaret of York fully replaced in kindness and affection the mother she had lost; and habituated early herself to cares, to sorrows, and to dangers, she instilled into the mind of her step-daughter that patient fortitude which she had acquired in so bitter a school; and taught her, in all circumstances, both to bear up against despair, and to endure without complaint.
As years rolled on, the hand of the undoubted heiress of all Burgundy and Flanders became, of course, an object of ambition to many of the princes of Europe; and from the time that Mary reached the age of fifteen, to obtain possession of her person, was a matter of open negotiation and subtle intrigue to all the neighbouring sovereigns. The brother of the King of France, the Duke of Calabria, the Prince of Tarentum, and the Duke of Savoy, became successively the suitors for her hand; and her father, to each and all, held out hopes and expectations, which he either never intended to fulfil, or found cause to disappoint. The most selfish of sovereigns, and, perhaps, of men, the feelings of his child were never consulted throughout the whole transactions which followed. He looked upon her simply as an object of policy, a human seal, which, at his will, was to be affixed to the charter of conveyance, destined to give to some neighbouring prince the succession to his vast dominions.
Luckily, however, it so happened, that Mary had made up her mind to her fate, and so guarded her own heart and feelings, that in her eyes all men seemed indifferent till the sanction of her father warranted the gift of her affections. Thus she beheld treaties commenced and broken, her hand promised and refused, without either pain or pleasure, till, at length, a suitor appeared, who, with all those advantages which could satisfy the political ambition of her father, possessed all those qualities of mind and person calculated to gain her heart. Brave, chivalrous, and accomplished, graceful and well-formed in person, and handsome in features, Maximilian, son of the Emperor Frederick, displayed, at the same time, all that native kindness of heart, which, giving a gentle courtesy to the whole demeanour, is far more winning than the most splendid acquirements; and such qualities might have been quite sufficient to gain the heart of the heiress of Burgundy. Other things, indeed, were required by her father; but besides these personal qualities, he was the son of the richest monarch in Europe, the heir of the duchy of Austria, and would be, undoubtedly, successor to the imperial throne itself. Every object seemed attained by such an alliance; and when, after appearing two years successively at the court of Burgundy, Maximilian demanded the hand of the beautiful heiress of the land, Mary, for the first time, heard with joy that it was promised to the new aspirant.
Long negotiations succeeded; and it was agreed that the duchy of Burgundy, freed from its homage to the crown of France, should be erected into an independent kingdom.