Riperdá, Juan Guillermo, Duke of, 1680-1737 -- Fiction; Wharton, Philip Wharton, Duke of, 1698-1731 -- Fiction
In Louis's nocturnal visits to the College, he gladly saw that little
inconvenience remained to the Sieur from his dangerous attack,
excepting incidental head-aches, and the scar on his forehead, which
being recently cicatrised, he still covered with a black fillet.
The cadaverous hue of his complexion was hardly deepened by his
confinement; but Louis occasionally saw a more than common fire flash
from his over-shadowed eye, as he accidentally looked up from the
papers he scrutinized. During the investigation, he never spoke more
than to ask a question, or to give a direction respecting the business
on which he was engaged; and generally answered his pupil's respectful
adieu for the night, with a silent, though gracious nod.
Louis's long hours of solitude, (for the whole of the Imperial family
had accompanied the Emperor to his spring palace;) were passed at the
Chateau. And after he had performed his, now brief vocation for the
day, he generally read German authors from the Jesuits' library; or
walked in the weedy wilderness, which had once been a garden. He now,
neither regarded the swift-flowing Danube, nor the gay groups, which
on foot or in carriages, appeared in the distance on its margin. His
meditations were all self centered; on the past, the present, and the
future. Often, during his deep reverie, he wondered at himself, that
his mind should wander, and at such a crisis, from the great affair in
which he was a sharer. A year ago, had he speculated on what would
have occupied his thoughts in so important a political era of his life,
he should have said,--"Exultation in the grand results of my father's
patriotic genius; and satisfaction that my noviciate talents had been
employed in the glorious atchievement!"
But on the reverse, while he sat at the feet of statesmen, and was
the agent between negociating sovereigns, he found himself dwelling,
hour after hour, on the private feelings of his heart. He was ready
to quarrel with himself for this wretched perversity. In the quiet
vales of Northumberland, he had lived in the full enjoyment of these
feelings; but then his vagrant thoughts refused to dwell on tranquil
happiness. He panted for distant realms, fields of toil, of perils, and
renown. He was now in the midst of some of these invoked stations for
action; and yet his inconsistent spirit would not abide in the scenes
it had chosen! His meditations would extricate themselves from their
patriotic objects, and with obstinate tenacity fasten themselves on the
most selfish considerations:--on the friend he had loved, and had fled
from! on the woman, he believed he loved, and yet was glad to fly!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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