At a particular hour, he was conducted by Martini to a dungeon-like cell, in a distant and obscure quarter of the College, where the Italian introduced him to a grey-headed brother of the order, who had been entrusted by Ignatius with this part of the business. His office was to receive, and to bring in succession, the messengers of the correspondence which Louis held in his hand. The venerable Jesuit told him, that several were then in waiting, but in separate cells; for no one was to know of the other, and each were conducted out by different passages. Louis remained three hours in his gloomy hall of audience, before he had seen every body he ought to see, and had delivered to them all the packets of which they were to be the bearers to some of the most distant nations in Europe. He gave no further account of the Sieur's absence, to these foreigners, than that he was suddenly indisposed. An idea of his danger might have had ruinous effects on the purposes of this various correspondence. As the time drew near for his attendance on the Empress, Louis returned to Ignatius, to receive his further commands. This interview was brief, but pregnant with matter; and included instructions for a conversation with another personage, to whom the Imperial Elizabeth would see the necessity of introducing their young negociator. Louis had now no reason to complain of want of trust, in those who commanded his services. The Empress was so impatient to hear his report, that he found her awaiting him; and his communications were so satisfactory, that she at once dismissed her worst fears for the Sieur, and entered into a circumstantial discussion of his message, comparing its expectations with what had passed between the Emperor and herself on the last overtures brought by Castanos. She was not the direct agent to her husband in these affairs; for His Majesty had not the most distant suspicion of her interference with any of the ostensible negociators; therefore, all that she appeared to do, was by apparently accidental remarks; but they were so managed, as very often to decide a fluctuating question. He had never admitted the Sieur Ignatius to a personal audience; who, he however, respected as a Jesuit of talents, employed by the Spanish sovereigns to compromise secretly with Sinzendorff; the Imperial chancellor. The Emperor usually talked with the Empress on all that passed between him and Sinzendorff: and she made ample use of her influence in suggestion, and persuasion towards the leading objects of the Spanish propositions. Besides the brilliancy of her ostensible motive, to see her husband be the second _Cæsar_ to close the _gates of Janus_ on mankind! she had two private views, in gratifying the demands of Spain: to obtain the guarantee of so leading a power to the _pragmatic sanction_, which would establish her own descendants, male or female, on the throne of Germany; and to complete