Riperdá, Juan Guillermo, Duke of, 1680-1737 -- Fiction; Wharton, Philip Wharton, Duke of, 1698-1731 -- Fiction
The Empress expressed herself to this effect; but there were still
some secret measures between herself and Ignatius, which she did not
think expedient to notice to their young confidant; and when she had
explained all that she deemed necessary for the present, she told him
he must go to the apartments of Count Sinzendorff, where that minister
was now expecting him. She drew from her finger a ring that the Count
knew, and which, on being presented by Louis, would be sufficient
assurance that he was visited by the right person.
"But recollect," said she, "the chancellor is ignorant that you are of
more consequence than the mere secretary of the Sieur Ignatius. I told
him your name is Phaffenberg; and take care you do not give him, or
any one else, reason to suspect you have any other."
Louis bowed; and her air of cautionary command, dilating into a smile,
she added, "to-morrow, and every day, attend me here at the same hour,
until perfect recovery restore your guardian to the full performance of
his own duty."
The Empress's description of the situation of the chancellor's
apartments in the palace, was too accurate for her ambassador to
mistake his way; and, without impediment he found himself ushered into
the presence of Count Sinzendorff. He recognized the ring, which the
young secretary respectfully put into his hand, and without preface or
circumlocution, entered at once upon the assassination of Ignatius,
and the consequences to be drawn from the attempt. To detect the
perpetrators was impossible, as the necessity for concealment in all
that related to the negociation of the Sieur, extended to his person;
and to make a stir in search of the ruffians, would only direct the
eyes of their employers, where to dare a second attack.
The chancellor then opened the communications he wished to be
conveyed to Ignatius. They principally consisted of certain demands,
besides that for the pragmatic sanction, which His Imperial Majesty
persisted in making on the King of Spain, before he would propound to
his ministers, what he styled, the very high requisitions from the
Spanish side. The chancellor followed this up, with remarks on his own
difficulty in preparing the minds of some of the most stubborn of these
ministers, whom he could hardly bring to apprehend even the possibility
of such measures being ever proposed to them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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