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 XXV. Italy may be considered as the very focus and parent of superstitious credulity. The materials which Hector had furnished, after all the interrogations of the donzella, were slight compared with the superstructure which was presently erected on them. My grotto was said to be the appropriated haunt where a thousand devils held their infernal sabbath. The terrified imagination of the rustics, listening with a temper horribly distracted between curiosity and alarm, created to itself fictitious howlings and shrieks, and saw pale and sulfureous flames dancing upon the surface of the stream. Poor Hector was early the victim of their cruel and untamed ignorance; they believed that the peculiarity of his complexion rendered him a singu... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER XVI. Anxious to divert my thoughts from what I hoped was only a temporary evil, I determined, accompanied by Charles, to make a tour of some of the cities of Germany. Dresden was the capital to which I was most desirous of conducting him. Maurice, duke of Saxony, who held his court there, and who was now only twenty-three years of age, was incomparably the most accomplished prince of the empire. Desirous as I was that my only son should fill a distinguished career, I thought I could not better prepare him for the theater of his native country, than by thus initiating him beforehand in scenes of distinction and greatness. He was delighted with his tour. We had not proceeded many leagues from Constance, before, indulging in the bent o... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER XXXIX. While Bethlem Gabor became every day more confirmed in his antipathy against me, I reposed in him an unsuspecting confidence—a confidence more extensive than I had, since the singular and fatal acquisition I had made, reposed in any other man. Frequently for a considerable time together he resided under my roof; frequently we went forth together in those excursions which either my projects or his views rendered it necessary for us to make. In his character of a nobleman of great consideration in his native country, he was now rising like a phœnix from its ashes. His castles were repairing; his property was restored; the list of his retainers daily became more numerous; he revived and carefully recruited the martia... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER XIV. From the moment of my last interview with the stranger I was another creature. My thoughts incessantly rolled upon his communications. They filled me with astonishment and joy, almost to bursting. I was unable to contain myself; I was unable to remain in any posture or any place. I could scarcely command myself sufficiently to perform the last duties to his body in the manner he had directed. I paced with eager step the sands of the lake; I climbed the neighboring hills, and then descended with inconceivable rapidity to the vales below; I traced with fierce impatience the endless mazes of the wood in which I so hardly recovered my bewildered guest. The uninterruptedness and celerity of bodily motion seemed to communicate some e... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

CHAPTER XIII. Another source of uneasiness was added to the distraction my mind already endured. The stranger did not appear. It was in the morning that the officers of justice arrived; they departed about noon; and in two hours afterwards I entered the wood in search of my guest. The wood was of some leagues in extent; it was intersected by paths in various directions; it was interspersed with caverns; its growth was of all kinds,—in some places lofty trees that seemed to form a support for the clouds, in others an underwood impenetrable alike to the feet and to the eye. As I entered the wood, I however conceived that the discovery of the stranger, to me who was acquainted with its lurking-places, would be an affair of little toil; h... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)