St. Leon : A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

Notes
To this story, in the book from which I have quoted it, is subjoined the following reference:—“Mémoires Historiques, 1687, tom. i. p. 365.” Being desirous of giving my extract from the oldest authority, I caused the British Museum, and the libraries of Oxford and Cambridge, to be searched for this publication, but in vain. The story and the reference are, not improbably, both of them the fictions of the English writer. Johnson’s Occasional Prologue on Garrick’s assuming the management of Drury-lane Theater. Charles V. Henry VIII. Antonio de Leyva. The constable of Bourbon. Mistresses of Francis I. The battle of Cerisolles. This incident is told, nearly in the words of St. Leon, by Thuanus, Historiæ Sui Temporis, lib. 2. cap. 14. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 47
CHAPTER XLVII. The picture which my distracted fancy thus set before the eye of my mind, was not altogether verified in the event. After a thousand fruitless inquiries and perquisitions, I found, to my utter astonishment, that Charles, arresting his career at the town of Friborg, had returned upon his steps, and sought a second time the metropolis of Austrian Hungary. This was of the class of those events which we sometimes meet with in the world, that baffle all calculation, and strike us like magic, or like madness, in their authors. I had nothing to do, as I conceived, on this occasion, but to follow the example of my son, and like him to resume the route of Presburg. I yet hoped to witness, if not to co-operate in, the reconciliation of Charles and Pandora. My spirits in this respect were revived, and my prospects made brighter, by the thoughts that these virtuous and meritorious lovers were at last likely to be once again enclosed within the cincture of th... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 46
CHAPTER XLVI. Such was the situation of the affair of Pandora, and I daily looked for the arrival of my Venetian confederate, when suddenly I remarked an alteration in the carriage of my beautiful ally. She had hitherto, on all occasions, sought my conversation; she now appeared sedulously to avoid me. Her manner had been characterized by the gaiety, the sprightliness and general good humor, incident to her age, and congenial to her disposition. She was now melancholy. Her melancholy assumed a tone correspondent to the habits of her mind, and was peculiar and individual. It had an ingenuous and defenseless air, inexpressibly calculated to excite interest. It seemed to ask, what have I done to deserve to be melancholy? You felt for her, as for a spotless lily depressed by the unpitying storm. You saw, that those enchanting features were never made for a face of sorrow, and that that bewitching voice ought never to have been modulated into an expression of heaviness. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 45
CHAPTER XLV. Among the various confidences reposed in me by my son, one was his love. The object of his attachment was a young lady of quality, named Pandora, niece to Nadasti, great palatine of Hungary. In consequence of the earnest recommendation of Castaldo in 1553, Nadasti had taken my son under his particular protection, and Charles’s principal home at the periods when the army was dispersed in winter-quarters was at the palatine’s house in the city of Presburg. Here his manners had become more polished, and his taste more refined. Till then, bred in tents, and living amid the clangor of arms, he had been a mere soldier, rough, generous, manly, and brave. But Nadasti was an elegant scholar, smitten with that ardent love of classical and ancient lore which has so eminently distinguished the sixteenth century. He assembled round him men of letters from various parts of Europe; and, under his auspices, the days of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, seeme... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 44
CHAPTER XLIV. My son related to me his history, and made me the depository of his feelings and reflections. The name of St. Leon indeed never passed his lips; I felt that he had consigned that to inviolable oblivion. The appellation he bore in the army was the chevalier de Damville. Soon after he abandoned me at Dresden, he had entered as a volunteer in the imperial army. Charles the Fifth was at that time assembling forces to encounter the confederates of the league of Smalcalde. In this situation my son was eminently fortunate. He was distinguished for uncommon enterprise and courage in some of the first actions of the war, and early attracted the notice of Gian-Battista Castaldo, count of Piadena, who held an eminent command under the emperor. In this army my son was a party to the decisive battle of Muhlberg, in April, 1547. Four years afterwards, Castaldo was appointed commander in chief against the Turks in Hungary, and the French chevalier accompanied his patron... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER IX. My affairs being thus far adjusted, I took leave of my late habitation, and set off with my wife and children the same afternoon. In the evening we arrived at Basle, where we were permitted to remain that night; and the next morning were conducted in form out at the north gate of the city, where our attendants quitted us, with a fresh prohibition under the severest penalties, if we were found within the ensuing twelve months in any of the territories of the Helvetic republic. Marguerite and myself had already formed our plan. We began with dismissing both our servants. An attendant was no longer necessary to me, nor a nurse for the infant. The suggestion of this measure originated in myself. My temper at this time, as I have alr... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER XLII. I had now continued here for several months, and in all that time had received no external impressions but such as related to the cell I inhabited, and the misanthropical savage by whom it was visited. One evening that Bethlem Gabor entered my dungeon, I observed in him an air of unusual disturbance. Where apathy reigns, the intercourse between those over whom it presides will be marked with a death-like uniformity; but wherever the furious passions take their turn, they will occasionally subside into a semblance of familiarity and benevolence. There was something in the countenance of my tyrant that made me for a moment forget the complicated injuries I had received from him. “What is it that has disturbed you?” c... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER XX. The morning after my return to my family, as I sat surrounded with my girls, and endeavoring to make myself their playmate and companion, certain officers of justice belonging to the supreme tribunal of the city entered my apartment. They were sent, as they informed me, to conduct me to prison. My blood at this intelligence mounted into my face. “To prison?” cried I—“wherefore?—what have I done?—I am no citizen of your state. What is the charge against me? Lead me not to prison: lead me to your chief magistrate!” “You will be called up for examination, when his honor is at leisure to hear you: in the mean time you must go to prison.” “Do those who sent you know that I a... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER XXIX. Nineteen years had now elapsed from the day that had witnessed my union with Marguerite de Damville. In all that time I had never been alone. Alone in a certain sense indeed I had stood at Paris in the period that had led to my exile, and at Soleure in that which immediately succeeded it. In each case I was solitary, and my solitude was unhappy. But my unhappiness was then in a certain sense spontaneous; my solitude was a luxury in which I felt myself impelled to indulge. He that has experienced both, will readily acknowledge the extreme difference between the misery we embrace and the misery from which we shrink with abhorrence and loathing. I relinquished in the former instances my dearest connections, my proper post and sit... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER XXXV. From St. Leon I proceeded to the kingdom of Hungary. To complete this journey I must pass through near twenty degrees of longitude. But that was a trivial consideration: what I most desired was to gain a new situation, and enter upon an untried scene. I had determined in my next experiment upon the endowments of the stranger, to make no half-formed efforts, and to suffer no mischiefs that drew their source from my own irresolution. I determined, as I have said, to forestall all opposition by my firmness, and to silence all objectors by the display of a more than princely magnificence. I thought it therefore eligible to remove to a scene, where no encounter with any one I had ever known might abash me, and no relation of any ad... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)