At a particular hour, he was conducted by Martini to a dungeon-like cell, in a distant and obscure quarter of the College, where the Italian introduced him to a grey-headed brother of the order, who had been entrusted by Ignatius with this part of the business. His office was to receive, and to bring in succession, the messengers of the correspondence which Louis held in his hand. The venerable Jesuit told him, that several were then in waiting, but in separate cells; for no one was to know of the other, and each were conducted out by different passages.
Louis remained three hours in his gloomy hall of audience, before he had seen every body he ought to see, and had delivered to them all the packets of which they were to be the bearers to some of the most distant nations in Europe. He gave no further account of the Sieur's absence, to these foreigners, than that he was suddenly indisposed. An idea of his danger might have had ruinous effects on the purposes of this various correspondence.
As the time drew near for his attendance on the Empress, Louis returned to Ignatius, to receive his further commands. This interview was brief, but pregnant with matter; and included instructions for a conversation with another personage, to whom the Imperial Elizabeth would see the necessity of introducing their young negociator.
Louis had now no reason to complain of want of trust, in those who commanded his services. The Empress was so impatient to hear his report, that he found her awaiting him; and his communications were so satisfactory, that she at once dismissed her worst fears for the Sieur, and entered into a circumstantial discussion of his message, comparing its expectations with what had passed between the Emperor and herself on the last overtures brought by Castanos. She was not the direct agent to her husband in these affairs; for His Majesty had not the most distant suspicion of her interference with any of the ostensible negociators; therefore, all that she appeared to do, was by apparently accidental remarks; but they were so managed, as very often to decide a fluctuating question. He had never admitted the Sieur Ignatius to a personal audience; who, he however, respected as a Jesuit of talents, employed by the Spanish sovereigns to compromise secretly with Sinzendorff; the Imperial chancellor. The Emperor usually talked with the Empress on all that passed between him and Sinzendorff: and she made ample use of her influence in suggestion, and persuasion towards the leading objects of the Spanish propositions. Besides the brilliancy of her ostensible motive, to see her husband be the second Cæsar to close the gates of Janus on mankind! she had two private views, in gratifying the demands of Spain: to obtain the guarantee of so leading a power to the pragmatic sanction, which would establish her own descendants, male or female, on the throne of Germany; and to complete the cession of Philip from the cause of James Stuart, by which her near kinsman, George of Brunswick, would be more firmly seated on that of Great Britain.
An active enemy to the first of these projects was then residing at Vienna, in the person of the widowed Electress of Bavaria. Being the daughter of the late Emperor Joseph, (who died without a son,) she believed, if the female line were to inherit, that she and her posterity had every way more right to the succession than any daughter of the present Emperor, who was the younger brother of his predecessor, her father. To avert these claims, the present Emperor, Charles the Sixth, devised the act of settlement, (called the pragmatic sanction,) on his own female posterity, in default of male issue; and to this, he was moving every wile of policy, to obtain the guarantee of the great European states. Fonder of artifice, than of plain dealing, Charles made promises he never intended to perform; though he hoped by their means to purchase the acquiescence of his brother monarchs. Spain had been once attempted in this way; but Philip's resentments against his former rival were not to be appeased. He joined France in thwarting all the Emperor's plans. And as he not only withheld his assent to the proposed act for the Austrian succession, but was actively hostile to that of the new King of England, the Empress concluded that he had extended his animosity to her, and was altogether jealous of the further aggrandizement of the House of Brunswick. But when the Baron de Ripperda, (whose brilliant wit, and diplomatic magnificence at her father's court, had been the first object of her youthful admiration,) when he quitted Holland for Spain, and gained the confidential ear of its king; then the Spanish cabinet seemed to turn a colder aspect towards the setting star of the Stuarts; and the hopes of the Empress settled on the newly-rising minister of Spain.
The same policy which united the friends of the pragmatic sanction with those of the reigning king of England, brought the supporters of the Bavarian pretensions into joint interest with all the adversaries of the house of Brunswick, and consequently into strict friendship with the intended restorers of the line of James. To keep the negociation between the sovereigns of Spain and the Empress, from the cognizance of these two latter parties, now so determinately united, was indispensible to its ultimate success; for the Emperor was too jealous of a prince, who had once gained over him a great advantage; and too personally attached to ancient Austrian prejudices, not to be very accessible to the diplomatic subtilities of the adverse faction, should they have timely notice to make the attack.
The Empress expressed herself to this effect; but there were still some secret measures between herself and Ignatius, which she did not think expedient to notice to their young confidant; and when she had explained all that she deemed necessary for the present, she told him he must go to the apartments of Count Sinzendorff, where that minister was now expecting him. She drew from her finger a ring that the Count knew, and which, on being presented by Louis, would be sufficient assurance that he was visited by the right person.
"But recollect," said she, "the chancellor is ignorant that you are of more consequence than the mere secretary of the Sieur Ignatius. I told him your name is Phaffenberg; and take care you do not give him, or any one else, reason to suspect you have any other."
Louis bowed; and her air of cautionary command, dilating into a smile, she added, "to-morrow, and every day, attend me here at the same hour, until perfect recovery restore your guardian to the full performance of his own duty."
The Empress's description of the situation of the chancellor's apartments in the palace, was too accurate for her ambassador to mistake his way; and, without impediment he found himself ushered into the presence of Count Sinzendorff. He recognized the ring, which the young secretary respectfully put into his hand, and without preface or circumlocution, entered at once upon the assassination of Ignatius, and the consequences to be drawn from the attempt. To detect the perpetrators was impossible, as the necessity for concealment in all that related to the negociation of the Sieur, extended to his person; and to make a stir in search of the ruffians, would only direct the eyes of their employers, where to dare a second attack.