“Your most affectionate
“Luisa.”
The Queen became quite desperate as the days went by, bringing no definite help from the Grand Duke of Berg, and in one of her letters to her daughter she writes:
“If the Grand Duke does not see that the Emperor gives orders for the stoppage of the intrigues against his friend the Prince de la Paz, against me and my daughter, none of us will be safe. All the malevolent people get round my son, and he believes them like oracles, and on his own part he is not very inclined to magnanimity and clemency. He must expect sad results from all this. I and my husband think that, if my son sees the Emperor before he has given his orders, he and those with him will tell him so many lies that he will doubt the truth. For this reason we would beg the Grand Duke to let the Emperor know that we are absolutely in his hands, hoping he will give tranquillity to the King, my husband, me, and the Prince de la Paz, whom we desire to have with us, and end our days peacefully in a place suited to our health without giving the least trouble to anybody. We urgently beg the Grand Duke to let us have daily news of our mutual friend, the Prince de la Paz, because we know absolutely nothing.”
The King added the following words in his own handwriting:
“I asked the Queen to write this, as my pains prevent my writing much.”
The next letter from the Queen of Spain to her daughter for the Grand Duke of Berg is without a date:
“The King, my husband, and I do not wish to be importunate nor troublesome to the Grand Duke, who has so much to do; but we have no other friend but him and the Emperor, and in him rest the hopes of the King, those of the Prince de la Paz, the friend of the Grand Duke and our own intimate one, and those of my daughter and myself. My daughter wrote me yesterday afternoon what the Grand Duke had said, and our hearts are filled with gratitude and comfort, hoping for all that is good from the sacred and incomparable personages of the Emperor and Grand Duke. But we do not want him to be ignorant of what we know in spite of nobody telling us anything or answering our questions, important as it was for us to have a reply. However, we regard it all with indifference, and the only thing which interests us is the welfare of our only and innocent friend, the Prince de la Paz, who is also the Grand Duke’s, as he exclaimed in his prison in the midst of the horrible treatment to which he was exposed; for he always called the Grand Duke his friend, as he did before the conspiracy, and he says constantly: ‘If I could only have the good fortune for the Grand Duke to come here, I should have nothing to fear.’
“He wanted you to come to the Court, and he was flattered by the pleasure the Grand Duke showed in accepting his house as a dwelling. He had some presents ready to give you, and he thought of nothing but the moment when he could present himself to the Emperor and the Grand Duke with all imaginable ardour. But now we are in continual fear that he will take his life, or that he will be more closely imprisoned if his enemies know that there is a question of his being saved. Would it not be possible to take some precautionary measures before the definitive resolution? The Grand Duke could send some troops without saying why. Could they not come to the prison and disperse the guard over him, without giving it time to fire a shot or do anything against the Prince? For there is reason to fear that it would do so, as they all know his wish to die, and they would glory in killing him. So the guard could be absolutely under the command of the Grand Duke; and if not, the Grand Duke can be sure that the Prince de la Paz will die if he continue in the power of the worthless traitors and in the hands of my son. Hence we repeat the plea that he should be removed from the power of the bloodthirsty gardes de corps, my son, and his evil companions; for we are in continual fear of his life, although the Emperor and the Grand Duke wish to save him. We repeat, therefore, the entreaty that the Grand Duke should take every measure for this object, because if time be lost his life is not safe, as it would certainly be easier to protect the Prince in the midst of carnivorous lions and tigers.
“After dinner yesterday, my son was with Infantado, Escoiquiz, who is a malignant cleric, and San Carlos, who is worse than all; and this makes us tremble, as the secret conference lasted from half-past one till half-past three. The gentil hombre who is with my son Charles is a cousin of San Carlos; he has talent and some learning, but he is a malignant American and a great enemy of ours, like his cousin San Carlos, in spite of all they have received from the King, my husband, at the request of the Prince de la Paz, to whom they say they are related. All those who are with my son Charles are mixed up in the same intrigue, and inclined to do all possible harm, and what is reported as true is the greatest untruth.