"Perfect, Signori; I will make my demand more explicit. I demand obedience, to act by my orders, and never without them; to think as I do, and to be the body of an association of which I am the soul."
The Carbonari were silent.
"Decide!" said the Count, taking out his watch. "I had but two hours to devote to you, to settle all, and only a few minutes remain."
The Carbonari consulted together. Their conversation was animated as possible. The Count looked again at his watch, and all turned towards him.
"Your excellency," said the one who seemed to be the most important, "may rely on our faith, conscience, and trust in you. We would, though, think we exceeded our powers, and implicate the brothers who have confided in us too deeply, if we were to consent to be passive, as you wish us and the Italian Vente to become.
"Then there is nothing more to be said, Signori," and Monte-Leone arose. "Perhaps I have confided too implicitly in my audacity, resolution, and the power over myself, which never has deserted me. I deceived myself, perhaps, when too proudly I fancied I could inspire you with confidence equal to my own. I thought by risking life, fortune, and all, I won the right to hold the dice myself. But you do not think thus, and I submit. Faithful to my oaths, and to our principles, I am always ready to keep and to defend them. Acting, henceforth, alone, I shall do as I please, and be accountable to myself alone. Now, Signori, adieu! I shall leave Italy, and perhaps Europe, in search of a country, the institutions of which recognize the true principles of national happiness. Wherever, though, I may be, I will be mute as to your secrets, and devoted to your principles. You had just now a chief in Count Monte-Leone. He is so no more, but is still your brother."
Bowing to them with that noble dignity which he never laid aside, he bade the man who had accompanied him to take a torch and lead the way. Monte-Leone descended the mountain at Frepinond, and regained the carriage that waited for him, in which he proceeded to the Eternal City. Wounded at what, when he remembered how much he had done, seemed ingratitude, he said to himself, "Henceforth Monte-Leone commands—he cannot obey."
About evening, on the night after the Venta at San Paola, the Count got out of his carriage, and, as his sadness increased as he left Naples, sought to revive himself by walking. He walked through Ferentino, a little town of the Roman States, and as he passed by the church he heard the sound of the organ. Monte-Leone had a heart piously inclined, and the sentiment of religion was always aroused by the sight of the church. He went into the church, which was brilliantly lighted. A few of the faithful here and there prayed; the half tints of the light on the walls giving them the appearance of statues on tombs. Before the principal altar two persons knelt. A priest was about to unite their fate. Monte-Leone approached the altar, but the seclusion of the position of the couple as they bent to the ground before the priest, who was blessing them, made it impossible for him to distinguish their features. A strange curiosity took possession of him, for this was evidently no ordinary village marriage. The rich dress of the young woman, the noble air of the young man to whom she was about to be married, all announced one of those secret unions not contracted beneath the vaulted arches of a cathedral, but in the oratory of some palace, or the chapel of some secluded hamlet. The ceremony was over, and the newly married couple left the altar and walked down the nave to the door of the church of Ferentino, where a magnificent carriage was waiting. Just as they were about leaving the church, the bride lifted up her veil and saw a man standing near the vase of holy water. The light of the lamp fell directly on his face. The young woman, astonished, trembling and confused, felt her strength give way, and could scarcely suppress an exclamation of agony. She saw Count Monte-Leone. He also had recognized in the bridegroom the Duke of Palma, minister of police of Naples. In the new duchess he had also recognized the primadonna of San Carlo da Felina. Thus the two angels, which in his ecstatic vision at his father's tomb the Count had seen, and who appeared to contend for him—Aminta and La Felina—the two women, one of whom he adored, while he was himself adored by the other, were no longer free. Aminta had married from duty, La Felina from reason.
II.—THE FATHER.
Eight days after the meeting of the Prince de Maulear and Count Monte-Leone at Ceprano, a post-chaise, accompanied by a kind of travelling forge, entered Naples by the Roman road, and after having crossed the city at a rapid rate, the postillions cracking their whips the while, stopped at the French embassy. The powdered head of the old man appeared at the window of the chaise, and the Swiss of the embassy replied, in execrable French, to a question put to him thus: