The chancellor then opened the communications he wished to be conveyed to Ignatius. They principally consisted of certain demands, besides that for the pragmatic sanction, which His Imperial Majesty persisted in making on the King of Spain, before he would propound to his ministers, what he styled, the very high requisitions from the Spanish side. The chancellor followed this up, with remarks on his own difficulty in preparing the minds of some of the most stubborn of these ministers, whom he could hardly bring to apprehend even the possibility of such measures being ever proposed to them.
From the plain and well-digested discourse of Count Sinzendorff, Louis derived a clear idea of the scheme in negociation; which, if brought fully into effect, did indeed promise universal benefit. In the constrained confidence of the Sieur, there was always so much mystery; and in the hurried communications of the Empress, so much confusion; that, until now, he could only see as afar off, a mass of anticipated events whose misty obscurity rendered some mostrous and most indistinct. But now he comprehended, not only the magnificence of the mutual greatness of Austria and of Spain; but the foundations of prosperity and peace for Europe, so long threatened with the interminable miseries of hereditary wars. His soul, devoted to noble contemplations, was roused to all its wonted ardour by these views; and, vibrating to the tone of his father's declared motive, which the chancellor had incidentally quoted; he made some remarks on the proposed measures, that did not less astonish than please that consummate statesman.
Count Sinzendorff saw that it was no hireling secretary Ignatius had dispatched to him. The air and language of Louis were too elevated to belong to a man born in dependance; and the chancellor read in the intelligence of his eye, and the peculiar attention of his countenance, as he respectfully listened to what was said, that he was still unapprenticed to the mechanism of politics. He felt the soul of patriotism, but he was not yet aware of the machinery, which, in this world of artifice must be its body! A few general sentiments of political virtue, uttered by the Count, elicited its purest principles from the lips of Louis. His own glowing words had given the tone he thought he had taken from the chancellor, who, in fact, only admired the enthusiasm he reflected, and pitied what he admired. "It is first love, amiable youth!" thought he, "which must give place to a more worldly bride!"
That this singularly noble young man, both in appearance and manner, should have been introduced to him by the Empress and the Jesuit Ignatius, as a common secretary, and by the name of Phaffenberg; (a family, whose folly and extravagance had long ago sent it into obscurity!) did not so surprise Sinzendorff, as it confirmed his suspicion, that he saw the son of some great man in this interesting novice; and his shrewd guesses did not lead him far from the mark. He smiled inwardly, at the useless deception which the Empress thought to put upon his penetration; and determined to allow her to believe he was as blind as she wished. Before he and the object of his doubts separated, it was fixed, that every night, at an hour before midnight, the latter should attend in the Chancellor's apartments, to be the medium of communication between him, Ignatius, and the Empress.
When Louis returned from his long and double embassy, all he had to impart was listened to without interruption. For when he began his recital, the Sieur apprised him, that in transactions of this nature, it was so necessary to recapitulate every word that passed; and as nearly as possible, describe the manner of saying it, that he would not confuse his recollection by a single interrupting remark. When Louis finished speaking, all his guardian said, was—"It is well." and then bade him return to the Chateau for the remainder of the night.
He had a task to perform there before he slept; and similar ones would henceforth lengthen his visits to a late hour every evening, as long as his double duty lasted. He was to register all that was said in his presence, by the Empress and the Chancellor. And he was to make duplicates of this diary, into the cypher he had been so long accustomed to copy; and to understand which, the Sieur now gave him a key. Every night he was to return to the Chateau, and every morning make his appearance at the College.
The two following days passed in the same round of duties; but there was a difference in the third, which made it remarkable to Louis, and gave a new character to those which succeeded it. He again beheld the beautiful friend of Elizabeth.
Not having seen her since her first transit across his then cheerless sky, the starry brightness of that glance only occurred to him afterwards, like the fading image of a delightful dream. Absorbed in the great interests which now occupied him, he was thinking of nothing less than her, when, on entering the boudoir to await the Empress, he was surprised to see her accustomed chair filled by another lady; and a lovely girl sitting by her, busily employed on the table. He started, and the lady, hastily throwing back a lace veil, which shaded her face as she bent over her companion, discovered to him the beautiful creature he hardly expected to see again. She apologized for having permitted her own, and the Arch-Duchess's occupations, to make her forget the hour in which these rooms ought to be left to his use; and, taking the Princess's arm, had even passed into the next chamber, before he could recollect himself so much as to feel that he stood like an idiot, without having uttered a word of the commonest civility, in answer to her graceful address. He then flew after her; and spoke, he knew not what, in explanation of his remissness; all the while walking by her side in a strange disorder of feelings, till reaching a small door in almost the farthest apartment, she turned round, and with a dignified bend of her neck and a dimpled smile, granted him her pardon, and disappeared with her fair charge.
Louis paused a moment, looking at the closed door through which she had passed; and then returned to the boudoir, with his senses all in a maze. His heart, which had never beat before at the sight of womankind, throbbed in his breast almost audibly. Such an eye, as its soft lustre fell upon him, he had never met before; he felt its rays in his heart. And then, so finely composed a figure! Such matchless grace in her shape and snowy arms, as she led the young princess along. And the golden tresses which mingled with the white veil upon her neck, made him think of the peerless Helen, whose divine beauties compelled the admiration of the very empire she destroyed.
Full of these imaginations, the more he thought, the farther did his mind wander from the business which brought him there:—and, when the Empress did make her appearance, it was with difficulty that he recalled his senses to the subject of the interview. In one of her pauses, she noticed his abstraction. She remarked it to him. A bright crimson flashed over his face. She repeated her enquiries. Louis was astonished at his own emotion; but without seeking other excuse, though with deepening colour, he said, he feared he had behaved rudely to a lady who had just left that apartment: but he was surprised, at meeting any but Her Majesty; and he had not yet recovered from his confusion.