In passing to her own chamber she met the Emperor, and, in the agitation of her maternal fears, told him all that had passed. Her heated prepossession changed the tacit acquiescence of her daughter, in the portrait having been that of Louis, into a positive confession that it was so. Charles was rather surprised at so direct a falsehood from his daughter; but as it was to maintain his secret, he rather wondered at her presence of mind, than blamed its obliquity.
The Empress talked herself into every suspicion of Louis's arts towards the Princess, and insulting coldness to his own affianced bride. While the Emperor stimulated her wrath, he tried to spread it from the son to the father, by new insinuations against the sincerity of both. He dwelt upon certain documents he possessed, that the quarrel at the Cardinal's, was concerted between Ripperda and Wharton, to blind the French minister, who had suspected their private friendship. He also mentioned the stolen glances which the Electress of Bavaria was often observed to give to de Montemar; and that he generally replied to them in the same clandestine way. It had been noticed in the Prato; and particularly at the assemblies of the Countess Lichtenstein, where, one night, the Electress evidently dropped her fan before him, that he might take it up; and, as he presented it, she closed her hand over his as she received it,—"and gave it a quick pressure, and a glance," continued the Emperor, "that pretty plainly declared they were no strangers." The Empress listened to all with greedy, because prejudiced attention. But nothing of the information affected her with regard to Ripperda; a partial spirit presided in her mind, when he was accused; and she would believe nothing of such aimless treachery. Of Louis she now entertained the very worst opinion; and she determined to send for him immediately, and tax him at once with all that she had heard, against both his father and himself.
Charles remarked, that he knew from one or two of his young chamberlains, that Louis's profligacy was equal to his talents; that he was a constant frequenter of the most dissipated circles in Vienna; and therefore, he intimated the impropriety of committing the reputation of the Arch-duchess, by even implying to so vain and unprincipled a young man, the least hint of her preference for him; or allowing the possibility of his daring to turn an eye of passion upon her. Elizabeth saw the delicacy of this caution; and while she consented to restrict her reproaches to political subjects alone, she determined to revenge herself on his presumption and duplicity, by precipitating the marriage she knew he abhorred.
CHAP. VII.
While this was passing at the palace, dispatches arrived from Madrid. On breaking the seals of the packet of the latest date, Louis perceived that the Queen supposed the Arch-duchess was now the betrothed of her son, for it contained congratulatory letters on the event. But, there was also another which might not be quite so pleasing to Elizabeth, although Louis felt it came too late for him. He received copies, of what were inclosed for the Imperial pair; and this one was from Isabella to the Empress, retracting any consent she might have implied, to the Marquis de Montemar's marriage with Countess Altheim. It was written with apologies, and regrets for the necessity, but it was positive. Ripperda accompanied this unexpected refusal, with a laboured epistle to his imperial friend. He excused the Queen's changed sentiments, by pleading a great point which she hoped to gain, by uniting his son in a different direction. With sincerity, he expressed his own distress, at being obliged to yield his wishes in favour of the Empress's beautiful protegée, to the duty he owed his sovereign; but, he concluded, with repeating, that in all essential circumstances, Elizabeth should find she had put no vain trust in Ripperda.
After all the polite cunning of Isabella's letter, and the hard-wrung finesse of her minister's, it was easy to discern that truth was conveyed in neither.
The fact was simply this:—De Patinos's correspondence with his friends at Madrid, and the whisperings of Orendayn, when he arrived there, had gradually made their way to the Queen, with insinuations and representations of the Empress's personal power over the Duke and his son. So much was said, that her jealousy was at last excited, to check it from proceeding further; and to try how far it could cope with her own influence in the same quarter, she told Ripperda her intentions that Louis should break with the Countess Altheim, and marry one she should hereafter name. Not suspecting her motive, he represented the hazard of putting so great an affront on the favourite of the Empress. Isabella was a passionate woman; and, when self-will urged her, she often acted as pertinaciously against her judgment, as against her counsellors. On this subject, she would hear no reasoning; no representation of the vexatious resentments that might be anticipated from Elizabeth. The more he dwelt on the Empress's mortification, the more she was resolved to excite it. She felt something of female vanity, as well as sovereign pride, in this opportunity of shewing her rival Elizabeth, that she could make Ripperda sacrifice his early friend's wishes to his new mistress's commands.
Isabella was peremptory, and the dispatch was sent off; and with additional triumph too, for letters had arrived from Vienna to some of the attendants at court, mentioning the departure of a messenger to Madrid with accounts of the royal betrothment. In vain Ripperda protested against acting on such vague information; or indeed, on any information that did not come in the regular official train. Isabella laughed at his fears, and derided the idea that a rupture between his son and the favourite of the Empress, could have any effect on the marriage of her son, with the heiress of the Empire.