Louis found an amusing diversity of character in the Austrian group. Most of them held commissions in the Imperial service, and were full of the campaign against Turkey, which the valour of Prince Eugene had just brought to a close. Others, were merely jocund spirits, "hot with the fires of youth, and high in blood." And a few, had a philosophic turn; some in the strait, but most in the crooked path: and these latter, were the least agreeable of the set; as they united an ostentatious assumption of purity of intellect, with a systematic corruption of morals. Louis soon comprehended them, and treated them with marked avoidance. The military young men were decidedly his favourites, their profession was that of his own secret preference, and their manners were most congenial to his taste. There was a brave ardour in their deportment, and a careless enunciation of their sentiments, which, whether wrong or right, had no aim but the utterance of the moment; and, commonly, could as easily be turned from the wrong to the right, as from the right to wrong. The faction was in their blood, not in their understanding; and when the one was cooled, the other might soon be recalled to order.
While Louis was attending to Count Koninseg's account of the tremendous battle of Belgrade, a messenger arrived from the Duke de Ripperda. He brought a letter for the Marquis de Montemar. With a blanched cheek, he broke the seal; but the contents were a reprieve. The Duke told him, he had not yet seen the Empress. She was gone to the Baths at Baden, with Maria Theresa, who had sustained a relapse; and Countess Altheim was their companion. The Emperor, had retired with his Council, for a few days to the Luxemburg, to avoid the persecution of the foreign ministers; and thither, by his command, Ripperda had accompanied him.
Louis closed the letter with a renovated countenance. He was left to do the honours of the Embassador's table, not only to its usual guests, but to a party of noble Austrians, whom Ripperda had invited. The Duke being absent, the Spaniards were haughty and reserved at dinner, as they affected to be, when they encountered Louis apart; and, as soon as the desert was placed, de Patinos, and another of the name of Orendayn, rose from their seats; and, with cold bows to the young secretary of legation and his guests, quitted the room, to join societies more agreeable to their humour.
Till the opera hour, the time passed merrily with the Austrian group; and forgetful of his bosom's care, by their animated host. The ring-leader of the Spaniards' discontent being gone, in the person of de Patinos, the rest of the young grandees fell in with the cheerfulness of the company. Subjects of taste, war, and beauty, ruled the glowing hours; but on the latter subject, Louis discoursed uneasily, and he was glad to see Koninseg look at his watch, and point to it as a signal for adjourning to the theatre.
"My aunt, will be impatient," cried he, "she is determined, that he who danced with Amelia at her first ball, shall conduct her to her first opera."
It was also the first opera to Louis. He had never seen any in England; and until now, he had no opportunity of visiting that at Vienna. The Palais de Espagne soon poured forth its gay inmates; and Louis and Count Koninseg turned towards the mansion of the Princess de Waradin. It was lit up in the fullest splendor, although no other visitors were expected but de Montemar, and her nephew. The artless Amelia smiled and blushed, and smiled again, when her mother, putting her arm into Koninseg's, requested Louis to take charge of her daughter. He politely obeyed, and led her to the carriage, while she prattled all the way with the volubility of a giddy child, delighted at being treated like a woman.
The opera-house presented but a gloomy appearance, from the extreme scarcity of light, till the curtain drew up, and discovered a brilliant chandelier, which hung directly over the actors. The illumination of the stage cast the audience into deeper obscurity; therefore, of the company in the boxes Louis had very little cognizance, while the dresses and decorations of the opera, and the exquisite singing, might have filled him with admiration, had not the style of the music, reminded him of the first time he had heard the like, when the fair Italian sung in his uncle's castle. He recollected his consequent feelings that night; and humiliated in the remembrance, compared those hours of infatuation, with his admiration of Otteline, and exclaimed to himself—"What a slave have I been, to my eye and ear! Music, I shall never like again; and beauty I shall abhor!"
As there was little of the latter, excepting youth and a blooming complexion, in the smiling Amelia, to warn him of his abjuration; her incessant questions and remarks on what was going forward on the stage, amused him; and his attention to what she said, gratified the views of her mother.
Apostola Zero, the father of the regular Italian Opera, had been invited to Vienna by the Emperor; and to reward his acquiescence, Charles invested him with two dissimilar, but productive employments—Imperial historiographer, and poet of the court opera. The grateful Italian dedicated his comprehensive genius solely to his munificent patron; and the present performance was the first night of a new composition he had formed on the story of Proserpine. The last act was a representation of the infernal kingdom; laying bare the foundations of Ætna, and exhibiting all the terrors of the subterranean world. The curtain had hardly dropped, which it did in some confusion, when an extraordinary bustle was heard behind the scenes. Soon after, the theatre filled with smoke, and cries of fire were distinctly heard from behind. Persons from the boxes jumped on the stage, while the curtain was rent down by those before and behind it; and the scene of horror that was discovered to those, who were not so entirely absorbed in their fears but they could look around them, is not to be described. The fire was seen bursting in several directions; men were mounted aloft on the burning rafters, breaking down with their hatchets the combustible apparatus in the way. Water was dashing and streaming everywhere. The terrible light which filled the stage, too well pourtrayed the inside of a raging volcano; sheets of flame, like forked tongues, threw themselves forward from a thousand gaping mouths, licking the ceiling, and entering the boxes. Shrieks, and groans, and dismal cries, mingled with the iron clang of hammers, the fall of timber, and the rush of fire and of people, assailed the ear in one horrid moment of time.
At the first alarm, the ladies in the box with Louis, had been hurried out by him, and some other gentlemen who had joined them in the course of the evening. The poor little Amelia, true to nature, no sooner thought herself in danger, than breaking from the protecting arms of Louis, (who had caught her in them to hurry her through the pressing crowd), she threw herself upon the bosom of her mother, and fainted away. The Princess had more fortitude; and, assisted by hey nephew, bore out the insensible girl, while Louis and the other gentleman made a passage for them to the great door.