Santa Cruz was not long in receiving ample credentials from the court at Seville for all he might wish to do in re-establishing the Spanish interest in Barbary. At Seville, as in Ceuta, it was believed that the Duke de Ripperda had expiated his crimes with his life; and, in answer to the evidence which Santa Cruz transmitted, of the inextinguishable loyalty of the Marquis de Montemar, the King issued a new edict, granting him the restitution of all his late father's hereditary honours and possessions. But there was a clause in this munificent investiture. The future Duke de Ripperda must avow himself of the Roman Catholic communion.
The re-opened wounds of Louis were just cicatrized; and he was leaning over the table on which he was writing to his friends in England, when the Marquis entered with the official letter from the King. He read it aloud. At the end of the catalogue of the Ripperda territories and titles, before he opened on the clause, Santa Cruz paused.
"De Montemar," said he, with solemnity, "hard trial has separated the gold from the dross in your heart; and you will not esteem the last title with which your King would invest you, the least honourable,—a true Christian!"
He then read the condition: "That all these restitutions should be ratified by the royal seal, on the day that the Cardinal-resident at Madrid should witness the baptism of Louis, Duke of Ripperda, into the bosom of the Church of Rome."
"I am sensible to the gracious intent of my Sovereign," replied Louis; "but that name I once idolized, I would now hear no more. It shall never be borne by me! And for the rest,—I am a Protestant, and I will die one."
Santa Cruz urged him by religious arguments and persuasions, drawn from the reasonableness of maintaining the rights of his ancestors. He spoke of the justice he owed to himself in restoring the illustrious name of his family to its pristine lustre; and, at any rate, it was his duty, when so offered, to transmit it, and the inheritance that was its appendage, unimpaired to his posterity.
"I shall have no posterity," replied Louis. "My father died an Infidel, and his name and his race are no more."
"What do you mean, De Montemar?" demanded the Marquis, regarding with alarm the countenance of his young friend.
"Nothing rash; nothing that this venerable man would not approve," said he, laying his hand on the letter he was writing to Mr. Athelstone. "But Marquis!" cried he, "Is there not matter enough to break a son's heart?"
Santa Cruz replied, by turning the subject to Louis's own great endowments of mind and figure; and tried to awaken his ambition, by dwelling on the impression his high principled conduct at Vienna had made upon his Sovereigns. It could only be equalled, he said, by their admiration of his late intrepid defence of Ceuta. On these grounds, the Marquis added, he had only to chuse, and the first stations in the state, or in the army, must in process of time be at his command.