LEGEND OF
THE ENGULPHED CONVENT.
BY GEOFFREY CRAYON, GENT.
At the dark and melancholy period when Don Roderick the Goth and his
chivalry were overthrown on the banks of the Guadalete, and all Spain
was overrun by the Moors, great was the devastation of churches and
convents throughout that pious kingdom. The miraculous fate of one of
those holy piles is thus recorded in one of the authentic legends of
those days.
On the summit of a hill, not very distant from the capital city of
Toledo, stood an ancient convent and chapel, dedicated to the invocation
of Saint Benedict, and inhabited by a sisterhood of Benedictine nuns.
This holy asylum was confined to females of noble lineage. The younger
sisters of the highest families were here given in religious marriage to
their Saviour, in order that the portions of their elder sisters might
be increased, and they enabled to make suitable matches on earth, or
that the family wealth might go undivided to elder brothers, and the
dignity of their ancient houses be protected from decay. The convent was
renowned, therefore, for enshrining within its walls a sisterhood of the
purest blood, the most immaculate virtue, and most resplendent beauty,
of all Gothic Spain.
When the Moors overran the kingdom, there was nothing that more
excited their hostility than these virgin asylums. The very sight of a
convent-spire was sufficient to set their Moslem blood in a foment, and
they sacked it with as fierce a zeal as though the sacking of a nunnery
were a sure passport to Elysium.
Tidings of such outrages committed in various parts of the kingdom
reached this noble sanctuary and filled it with dismay. The danger
came nearer and nearer; the infidel hosts were spreading all over the
country; Toledo itself was captured; there was no flying from the
convent, and no security within its walls.
In the midst of this agitation, the alarm was given one day that a great
band of Saracens were spurring across the plain. In an instant the whole
convent was a scene of confusion. Some of the nuns wrung their fair
hands at the windows; others waved their veils and uttered shrieks from
the tops of the towers, vainly hoping to draw relief from a country
over-run by the foe. The sight of these innocent doves thus fluttering
about their dove-cote, but increased the zealot fury of the whiskered
Moors. They thundered at the portal, and at every blow the ponderous
gates trembled on their hinges.
The nuns now crowded round the abbess. They had been accustomed to look
up to her as all-powerful, and they now implored her protection. The
mother abbess looked with a rueful eye upon the treasures of beauty
and vestal virtue exposed to such imminent peril. Alas! how was she to
protect them from the spoiler! She had, it is true, experienced many
signal inter-positions of providence in her individual favor. Her early
days had been passed amid the temptations of a court, where her virtue
had been purified by repeated trials, from none of which had she escaped
but by a miracle. But were miracles never to cease? Could she hope that
the marvelous protection shown to herself would be extended to a
whole sisterhood? There was no other resource. The Moors were at the
threshold; a few moments more and the convent would be at their mercy.
Summoning her nuns to follow her, she hurried into the chapel; and
throwing herself on her knees before the image of the blessed Mary, "Oh,
holy Lady!" exclaimed she, "oh, most pure and immaculate of virgins!
thou seest our extremity. The ravager is at the gate, and there is none
on earth to help us! Look down with pity, and grant that the earth may
gape and swallow us rather than that our cloister vows should suffer
violation!"
The Moors redoubled their assault upon the portal; the gates gave way,
with a tremendous crash; a savage yell of exultation arose; when of a
sudden the earth yawned; down sank the convent, with its cloisters, its
dormitories, and all its nuns. The chapel tower was the last that sank,
the bell ringing forth a peal of triumph in the very teeth of the
infidels.
* * * * *
Forty years had passed and gone, since the period of this miracle. The
subjugation of Spain was complete. The Moors lorded it over city and
country; and such of the Christian population as remained, and were
permitted to exercise their religion, did it in humble resignation to
the Moslem sway.
At this time, a Christian cavalier, of Cordova, hearing that a patriotic
band of his countrymen had raised the standard of the cross in the
mountains of the Asturias, resolved to join them, and unite in breaking
the yoke of bondage. Secretly arming himself, and caparisoning his
steed, he set forth from Cordova, and pursued his course by unfrequented
mule-paths, and along the dry channels made by winter torrents. His
spirit burned with indignation, whenever, on commanding a view over a
long sweeping plain, he beheld the mosque swelling in the distance, and
the Arab horsemen careering about, as if the rightful lords of the soil.
Many a deep-drawn sigh, and heavy groan, also, did the good cavalier
utter, on passing the ruins of churches and convents desolated by the
conquerors.
It was on a sultry midsummer evening, that this wandering cavalier, in
skirting a hill thickly covered with forest, heard the faint tones of a
vesper bell sounding melodiously in the air, and seeming to come from
the summit of the hill. The cavalier crossed himself with wonder, at
this unwonted and Christian sound. He supposed it to proceed from one
of those humble chapels and hermitages permitted to exist through the
indulgence of the Moslem conquerors. Turning his steed up a narrow
path of the forest, he sought this sanctuary, in hopes of finding a
hospitable shelter for the night. As he advanced, the trees threw a deep
gloom around him, and the bat flitted across his path. The bell ceased
to toll, and all was silence.
Presently a choir of female voices came stealing sweetly through the
forest, chanting the evening service, to the solemn accompaniment of
an organ. The heart of the good cavalier melted at the sound, for it
recalled the happier days of his country. Urging forward his weary
steed, he at length arrived at a broad grassy area, on the summit of the
hill, surrounded by the forest. Here the melodious voices rose in full
chorus, like the swelling of the breeze; but whence they came, he could
not tell. Sometimes they were before, sometimes behind him; sometimes in
the air, sometimes as if from within the bosom of the earth. At length
they died away, and a holy stillness settled on the place.
The cavalier gazed around with bewildered eye. There was neither chapel
nor convent, nor humble hermitage, to be seen; nothing but a moss-grown
stone pinnacle, rising out of the centre of the area, surmounted by a
cross. The greensward around appeared to have been sacred from the tread
of man or beast, and the surrounding trees bent toward the cross, as if
in adoration.
The cavalier felt a sensation of holy awe. He alighted and tethered
his steed on the skirts of the forest, where he might crop the tender
herbage; then approaching the cross, he knelt and poured forth his
evening prayers before this relique of the Christian days of Spain.
His orisons being concluded, he laid himself down at the foot of the
pinnacle, and reclining his head against one of its stones, fell into a
deep sleep.
About midnight, he was awakened by the tolling of a bell, and found
himself lying before the gate of an ancient convent. A train of nuns
passed by, each bearing a taper. The cavalier rose and followed them
into the chapel; in the centre of which was a bier, on which lay the
corpse of an aged nun. The organ performed a solemn requiem: the nuns
joining in chorus. When the funeral service was finished, a melodious
voice chanted, "Requiescat in pace!"—"May she rest in peace!" The
lights immediately vanished; the whole passed away as a dream; and the
cavalier found himself at the foot of the cross, and beheld, by the
faint rays of the rising moon, his steed quietly grazing near him.
When the day dawned, the cavalier descended the hill, and following the
course of a small brook, came to a cave, at the entrance of which was
seated an ancient man, clad in hermit's garb, with rosary and cross,
and a beard that descended to his girdle. He was one of those holy
anchorites permitted by the Moors to live unmolested in dens and caves,
and humble hermitages, and even to practise the rites of their religion.
The cavalier checked his horse, and dismounting, knelt and craved a
benediction. He then related all that had befallen him in the night, and
besought the hermit to explain the mystery.
"What thou hast heard and seen, my son," replied the other, "is but type
and shadow of the woes of Spain."
He then related the foregoing story of the miraculous deliverance of the
convent.
"Forty years," added the holy man, "have elapsed since this event, yet
the bells of that sacred edifice are still heard, from time to time,
sounding from under ground, together with the pealing of the organ, and
the chanting of the choir. The Moors avoid this neighborhood, as haunted
ground, and the whole place, as thou mayest perceive, has become covered
with a thick and lonely forest."
The cavalier listened with wonder to the story of this engulphed
convent, as related by the holy man. For three days and nights did they
keep vigils beside the cross; but nothing more was to be seen of nun or
convent. It is supposed that, forty years having elapsed, the natural
lives of all the nuns were finished, and that the cavalier had beheld
the obsequies of the last of the sisterhood. Certain it is, that from
that time, bell, and organ, and choral chant have never more been heard.
The mouldering pinnacle, surmounted by the cross, still remains an
object of pious pilgrimage. Some say that it anciently stood in front
of the convent, but others assert that it was the spire of the sacred
edifice, and that, when the main body of the building sank, this
remained above ground, like the top-mast of some tall ship that
has foundered. These pious believers maintain, that the convent is
miraculously preserved entire in the centre of the mountain, where, if
proper excavations were made, it would be found, with all its treasures,
and monuments, and shrines, and reliques, and the tombs of its virgin
nuns.
Should any one doubt the truth of this marvelous interposition of the
Virgin, to protect the vestal purity of her votaries, let him read the
excellent work entitled "España Triumphante," written by Padre Fray
Antonio de Sancta Maria, a bare-foot friar of the Carmelite order, and
he will doubt no longer.
* * * * *
THE COUNT VAN HORN.
During the minority of Louis XV., while the Duke of Orleans was Regent
of France, a young Flemish nobleman, the Count Antoine Joseph Van Horn,
made his sudden appearance in Paris, and by his character, conduct, and
the subsequent disasters in which he became involved, created a great
sensation in the high circles of the proud aristocracy. He was about
twenty-two years of age, tall, finely formed, with a pale, romantic
countenance, and eyes of remarkable brilliancy and wildness.
He was of one of the most ancient and highly-esteemed families of
European nobility, being of the line of the Princes of Horn and
Overique, sovereign Counts of Hautekerke, and hereditary Grand Veneurs
of the empire.
The family took its name from the little town and seigneurie of Horn, in
Brabant; and was known as early as the eleventh century among the little
dynasties of the Netherlands, and since that time by a long line of
illustrious generations. At the peace of Utrecht, when the Netherlands
passed under subjection to Austria, the house of Van Horn came under the
domination of the emperor. At the time we treat of, two of the branches
of this ancient house were extinct; the third and only surviving branch
was represented by the reigning prince, Maximilian Emanuel Van Horn,
twenty-four years of age, who resided in honorable and courtly style
on his hereditary domains at Baussigny, in the Netherlands, and his
brother, the Count Antoine Joseph, who is the subject of this memoir.
The ancient house of Van Horn, by the intermarriage of its various
branches with the noble families of the continent, had become widely
connected and interwoven with the high aristocracy of Europe. The Count
Antoine, therefore, could claim relationship to many of the proudest
names in Paris. In fact, he was grandson, by the mother's side, of the
Prince de Ligne, and even might boast of affinity to the Regent (the
Duke of Orleans) himself. There were circumstances, however, connected
with his sudden appearance in Paris, and his previous story, that placed
him in what is termed "a false position;" a word of baleful significance
in the fashionable vocabulary of France.
The young count had been a captain in the service of Austria, but had
been cashiered for irregular conduct, and for disrespect to Prince Louis
of Baden, commander-in-chief. To check him in his wild career, and
bring him to sober reflection, his brother the prince caused him to be
arrested and sent to the old castle of Van Wert, in the domains of Horn.
This was the same castle in which, in former times, John Van Horn,
Stadtholder of Gueldres, had imprisoned his father; a circumstance which
has furnished Rembrandt with the subject of an admirable painting. The
governor of the castle was one Van Wert, grandson of the famous John Van
Wert, the hero of many a popular song and legend. It was the intention
of the prince that his brother should be held in honorable durance, for
his object was to sober and improve, not to punish and afflict him. Van
Wert, however, was a stern, harsh man of violent passions. He treated
the youth in a manner that prisoners and offenders were treated in the
strong-holds of the robber counts of Germany in old times; confined him
in a dungeon and inflicted on him such hardships and indignities that
the irritable temperament of the young count was roused to continual
fury, which ended in insanity. For six months was the unfortunate youth
kept in this horrible state, without his brother the prince being
informed of his melancholy condition or of the cruel treatment to which
he was subjected. At length, one day, in a paroxysm of frenzy, the count
knocked down two of his gaolers with a beetle, escaped from the castle
of Van Wert, and eluded all pursuit; and after roving about in a state
of distraction, made his way to Baussigny and appeared like a sceptre
before his brother.
The prince was shocked at his wretched, emaciated appearance and his
lamentable state of mental alienation. He received him with the most
compassionate tenderness; lodged him in his own room, appointed three
servants to attend and watch over him day and night, and endeavored by
the most soothing and affectionate assiduity to atone for the past act
of rigor with which he reproached himself. When he learned, however, the
manner in which his unfortunate brother had been treated in confinement,
and the course of brutalities that had led to his mental malady, he was
roused to indignation. His first step was to cashier Van Wert from his
command. That violent man set the prince at defiance, and attempted to
maintain himself in his government and his castle by instigating the
peasants, for several leagues round, to revolt. His insurrection might
have been formidable against the power of a petty prince; but he was put
under the ban of the empire and seized as a state prisoner. The memory
of his grandfather, the oft-sung John Van Wert, alone saved him from a
gibbet; but he was imprisoned in the strong tower of Horn-op-Zee. There
he remained until he was eighty-two years of age, savage, violent, and
unconquered to the last; for we are told that he never ceased fighting
and thumping as long as he could close a fist or wield a cudgel.
In the mean time a course of kind and gentle treatment and wholesome
regimen, and, above all, the tender and affectionate assiduity of his
brother, the prince, produced the most salutary effects upon Count
Antoine. He gradually recovered his reason; but a degree of violence
seemed always lurking at the bottom of his character, and he required
to be treated with the greatest caution and mildness, for the least
contradiction exasperated him.
In this state of mental convalescence, he began to find the supervision
and restraints of brotherly affection insupportable; so he left the
Netherlands furtively, and repaired to Paris, whither, in fact, it
is said he was called by motives of interest, to make arrangements
concerning a valuable estate which he inherited from his relative, the
Princess d'Epinay.
On his arrival in Paris, he called upon the Marquis of Créqui, and other
of the high nobility with whom he was connected. He was received with
great courtesy; but, as he brought no letters from his elder brother,
the prince, and as various circumstances of his previous history had
transpired, they did not receive him into their families, nor introduce
him to their ladies. Still they fêted him in bachelor style, gave him
gay and elegant suppers at their separate apartments, and took him to
their boxes at the theatres. He was often noticed, too, at the doors of
the most fashionable churches, taking his stand among the young men
of fashion; and at such times, his tall, elegant figure, his pale but
handsome countenance, and his flashing eyes, distinguished him from
among the crowd; and the ladies declared that it was almost impossible
to support his ardent gaze.
The Count did not afflict himself much at his limited circulation in the
fastidious circles of the high aristocracy. He relished society of a
wilder and less ceremonious cast; and meeting with loose companions to
his taste, soon ran into all the excesses of the capital, in that most
licentious period. It is said that, in the course of his wild career, he
had an intrigue with a lady of quality, a favorite of the Regent; that
he was surprised by that prince in one of his interviews; that sharp
words passed between them; and that the jealousy and vengeance thus
awakened, ended only with his life.
About this time, the famous Mississippi scheme of Law was at its height,
or rather it began to threaten that disastrous catastrophe which
convulsed the whole financial world. Every effort was making to keep the
bubble inflated. The vagrant population of France was swept off from the
streets at night, and conveyed to Havre de Grace, to be shipped to the
projected colonies; even laboring people and mechanics were thus crimped
and spirited away. As Count Antoine was in the habit of sallying forth
at night, in disguise, in pursuit of his pleasures, he came near being
carried off by a gang of crimps; it seemed, in fact, as if they had been
lying in wait for him, as he had experienced very rough treatment at
their hands. Complaint was made of his case by his relation, the Marquis
de Créqui, who took much interest in the youth; but the Marquis received
mysterious intimations not to interfere in the matter, but to advise the
Count to quit Paris immediately; "If he lingers, he is lost!" This has
been cited as a proof that vengeance was dogging at the heels of the
unfortunate youth, and only watching for an opportunity to destroy him.
Such opportunity occurred but too soon. Among the loose companions with
whom the Count had become intimate, were two who lodged in the same
hotel with him. One was a youth only twenty years of age, who passed
himself off as the Chevalier d'Etampes, but whose real name was Lestang,
the prodigal son of a Flemish banker. The other, named Laurent de Mille,
a Piedmontese, was a cashiered captain, and at the time an esquire
in the service of the dissolute Princess de Carignan, who kept
gambling-tables in her palace. It is probable that gambling propensities
had driven these young men together, and that their losses had brought
them to desperate measures: certain it is, that all Paris was suddenly
astounded by a murder which they were said to have committed. What made
the crime more startling, was, that it seemed connected with the great
Mississippi scheme, at that time the fruitful source of all kinds of
panics and agitations. A Jew, a stock-broker, who dealt largely in
shares of the bank of Law, founded on the Mississippi scheme, was the
victim. The story of his death is variously related. The darkest account
states, that the Jew was decoyed by these young men into an obscure
tavern, under pretext of negotiating with him for bank shares to the
amount of one hundred thousand crowns, which he had with him in his
pocket-book. Lestang kept watch upon the stairs. The Count and De Mille
entered with the Jew into a chamber. In a little while there were heard
cries and struggles from within. A waiter passing by the room, looked
in, and seeing the Jew weltering in his blood, shut the door again,
double-locked it, and alarmed the house. Lestang rushed downstairs, made
his way to the hotel, secured his most portable effects, and fled the
country. The Count and De Mille endeavored to escape by the window, but
were both taken, and conducted to prison.
A circumstance which occurs in this part of the Count's story, seems to
point him out as a fated man. His mother, and his brother, the Prince
Van Horn, had received intelligence some time before at Baussigny, of
the dissolute life the Count was leading at Paris, and of his losses at
play. They despatched a gentleman of the prince's household to Paris, to
pay the debts of the Count, and persuade him to return to Flanders; or,
if he should refuse, to obtain an order from the Regent for him to quit
the capital. Unfortunately the gentleman did not arrive at Paris until
the day after the murder.
The news of the Count's arrest and imprisonment on a charge of murder,
caused a violent sensation among the high aristocracy. All those
connected with him, who had treated him hitherto with indifference,
found their dignity deeply involved in the question of his guilt or
innocence. A general convocation was held at the hotel of the Marquis de
Créqui, of all the relatives and allies of the house of Horn. It was
an assemblage of the most proud and aristocratic personages of Paris.
Inquiries were made into the circumstances of the affair. It was
ascertained, beyond a doubt, that the Jew was dead, and that he had been
killed by several stabs of a poniard. In escaping by the window, it was
said that the Count had fallen, and been immediately taken; but that De
Mille had fled through the streets, pursued by the populace, and had
been arrested at some distance from the scene of the murder; that the
Count had declared himself innocent of the death of the Jew, and that
he had risked his own life in endeavoring to protect him; but that De
Mille, on being brought back to the tavern, confessed to a plot to
murder the broker, and rob him of his pocket-book, and inculpated the
Count in the crime.
Another version of the story was, that the Count Van Horn had deposited
with the broker, bank shares to the amount of eighty-eight thousand
livres; that he had sought him in this tavern, which was one of his
resorts, and had demanded the shares; that the Jew had denied the
deposit; that a quarrel had ensued, in the course of which the Jew
struck the Count in the face; that the latter, transported with rage,
had snatched up a knife from a table, and wounded the Jew in the
shoulder; and that thereupon De Mille, who was present, and who had
likewise been defrauded by the broker, fell on him, and despatched him
with blows of a poniard, and seized upon his pocket-book; that he had
offered to divide the contents of the latter with the Count, pro rata,
of what the usurer had defrauded them; that the latter had refused the
proposition with disdain, and that, at a noise of persons approaching,
both had attempted to escape from the premises, but had been taken.
Regard the story in any way they might, appearances were terribly
against the Count, and the noble assemblage was in great consternation.
What was to be done to ward off so foul a disgrace and to save their
illustrious escutcheons from this murderous stain of blood? Their
first attempt was to prevent the affair from going to trial, and their
relative from being dragged before a criminal tribunal, on so horrible
and degrading a charge. They applied, therefore, to the Regent, to
intervene his power; to treat the Count as having acted under an access
of his mental malady; and to shut him up in a madhouse. The Regent was
deaf to their solicitations. He replied, coldly, that if the Count was a
madman, one could not get rid too quickly of madmen who were furious in
their insanity. The crime was too public and atrocious to be hushed up
or slurred over; justice must take its course.
Seeing there was no avoiding the humiliating scene of a public trial,
the noble relatives of the Count endeavored to predispose the minds of
the magistrates before whom he was to be arraigned. They accordingly
made urgent and eloquent representations of the high descent, and noble
and powerful connexions of the Count; set forth the circumstances of his
early history; his mental malady; the nervous irritability to which he
was subject, and his extreme sensitiveness to insult or contradiction.
By these means they sought to prepare the judges to interpret every
thing in favor of the Count, and, even if it should prove that he had
inflicted the mortal blow on the usurer, to attribute it to access of
insanity, provoked by insult.
To give full effect to these representations, the noble conclave
determined to bring upon the judges the dazzling rays of the whole
assembled aristocracy. Accordingly, on the day that the trial took
place, the relations of the Count, to the number of fifty-seven persons,
of both sexes, and of the highest rank, repaired in a body to the Palace
of Justice, and took their stations in a long corridor which led to the
court-room. Here, as the judges entered, they had to pass in review this
array of lofty and noble personages, who saluted them mournfully and
significantly, as they passed. Any one conversant with the stately pride
and jealous dignity of the French noblesse of that day, may imagine the
extreme state of sensitiveness that produced this self-abasement. It was
confidently presumed, however, by the noble suppliants, that having once
brought themselves to this measure, their influence over the tribunal
would be irresistible. There was one lady present, however, Madame de
Beauffremont, who was affected with the Scottish gift of second sight,
and related such dismal and sinister apparitions as passing before
her eyes, that many of her female companions were filled with doleful
presentiments.
Unfortunately for the Count, there was another interest at work, more
powerful even than the high aristocracy. The all-potent Abbé Dubois, the
grand favorite and bosom counsellor of the Regent, was deeply interested
in the scheme of Law, and the prosperity of his bank, and of course in
the security of the stock-brokers. Indeed, the Regent himself is said to
have dipped deep in the Mississippi scheme. Dubois and Law, therefore,
exerted their influence to the utmost to have the tragic affair pushed
to the extremity of the law, and the murder of the broker punished in
the most signal and appalling manner. Certain it is, the trial was
neither long nor intricate. The Count and his fellow prisoner were
equally inculpated in the crime; and both were condemned to a death the
most horrible and ignominious—to be broken alive on the wheel!
As soon as the sentence of the court was made public, all the nobility,
in any degree related to the house of Van Horn, went into mourning.
Another grand aristocratical assemblage was held, and a petition to the
Regent, on behalf of the Count, was drawn out and left with the Marquis
de Créqui for signature. This petition set forth the previous insanity
of the Count, and showed that it was a hereditary malady of his family.
It stated various circumstances in mitigation of his offence, and
implored that his sentence might be commuted to perpetual imprisonment.
Upward of fifty names of the highest nobility, beginning with the Prince
de Ligne, and including cardinals, archbishops, dukes, marquises, etc.,
together with ladies of equal rank, were signed to this petition. By
one of the caprices of human pride and vanity, it became an object of
ambition to get enrolled among the illustrious suppliants; a kind of
testimonial of noble blood, to prove relationship to a murderer! The
Marquis de Créqui was absolutely besieged by applicants to sign, and had
to refer their claims to this singular honor, to the Prince de Ligne,
the grandfather of the Count. Many who were excluded, were highly
incensed, and numerous feuds took place. Nay, the affronts thus given to
the morbid pride of some aristocratical families, passed from generation
to generation; for, fifty years afterward, the Duchess of Mazarin
complained of a slight which her father had received from the Marquis
de Créqui; which proved to be something connected with the signature of
this petition. This important document being completed, the illustrious
body of petitioners, male and female, on Saturday evening, the eve of
Palm Sunday, repaired to the Palais Royal, the residence of the Regent,
and were ushered, with great ceremony but profound silence, into his
hall of council. They had appointed four of their number as deputies, to
present the petition, viz.: the Cardinal de Rohan, the Duke de Havré,
the Prince de Ligne, and the Marquis de Créqui. After a little while,
the deputies were summoned to the cabinet of the Regent. They entered,
leaving the assembled petitioners in a state of the greatest anxiety.
As time slowly wore away, and the evening advanced, the gloom of the
company increased. Several of the ladies prayed devoutly; the good
Princess of Armagnac told her beads.
The petition was received by the Regent with a most unpropitious aspect.
"In asking the pardon of the criminal," said he, "you display more zeal
for the house of Van Horn, than for the service of the king." The noble
deputies enforced the petition by every argument in their power. They
supplicated the Regent to consider that the infamous punishment in
question would reach not merely the person of the condemned, not
merely the house of Van Horn, but also the genealogies of princely
and illustrious families, in whose armorial bearings might be found
quarterings of this dishonored name.
"Gentlemen," replied the Regent, "it appears to me the disgrace consists
in the crime, rather than in the punishment."
The Prince de Ligne spoke with warmth: "I have in my genealogical
standard," said he, "four escutcheons of Van Horn, and of course have
four ancestors of that house. I must have them erased and effaced, and
there would be so many blank spaces, like holes, in my heraldic ensigns.
There is not a sovereign family which would not suffer, through the
rigor of your Royal Highness; nay, all the world knows, that in the
thirty-two quarterings of Madame, your mother, there is an escutcheon of
Van Horn."
"Very well," replied the Regent, "I will share the disgrace with you,
gentlemen."
Seeing that a pardon could not be obtained, the Cardinal de Rohan and
the Marquis de Créqui left the cabinet; but the Prince de Ligne and the
Duke de Havré remained behind. The honor of their houses, more than the
life of the unhappy Count, was the great object of their solicitude.
They now endeavored to obtain a minor grace. They represented that in
the Netherlands, and in Germany, there was an important difference in
the public mind as to the mode of inflicting the punishment of death
upon persons of quality. That decapitation had no influence on the
fortunes of the family of the executed, but that the punishment of the
wheel was such an infamy, that the uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters
of the criminal, and his whole family, for three succeeding generations,
were excluded from all noble chapters, princely abbeys, sovereign
bishoprics, and even Teutonic commanderies of the Order of Malta. They
showed how this would operate immediately upon the fortunes of a sister
of the Count, who was on the point of being received as a canoness into
one of the noble chapters.
While this scene was going on in the cabinet of the Regent, the
illustrious assemblage of petitioners remained in the hall of council,
in the most gloomy state of suspense. The re-entrance from the cabinet
of the Cardinal de Rohan and the Marquis de Créqui, with pale, downcast
countenances, had struck a chill into every heart. Still they lingered
until near midnight, to learn the result of the after application. At
length the cabinet conference was at an end. The Regent came forth, and
saluted the high personages of the assemblage in a courtly manner. One
old lady of quality, Madame de Guyon, whom he had known in his infancy,
he kissed on the cheek, calling her his "good aunt." He made a most
ceremonious salutation to the stately Marchioness de Créqui, telling
her he was charmed to see her at the Palais Royal; "a compliment very
ill-timed," said the Marchioness, "considering the circumstance which
brought me there." He then conducted the ladies to the door of the
second saloon, and there dismissed them, with the most ceremonious
politeness.
The application of the Prince de Ligne and the Duke de Havré, for a
change of the mode of punishment, had, after much difficulty, been
successful. The Regent had promised solemnly to send a letter of
commutation to the attorney-general on Holy Monday, the 25th of March,
at five o'clock in the morning. According to the same promise, a
scaffold would be arranged in the cloister of the Conciergerie,
or prison, where the Count would be beheaded on the same morning,
immediately after having received absolution. This mitigation of the
form of punishment gave but little consolation to the great body of
petitioners, who had been anxious for the pardon of the youth: it was
looked upon as all-important, however, by the Prince de Ligne, who, as
has been before observed,—was exquisitely alive to the dignity of his
family.
The Bishop of Bayeux and the Marquis de Créqui visited the unfortunate
youth in prison. He had just received the communion in the chapel of the
Conciergerie, and was kneeling before the altar, listening to a mass for
the dead, which was performed at his request. He protested his innocence
of any intention to murder the Jew, but did not deign to allude to the
accusation of robbery. He made the bishop and the Marquis promise to see
his brother the prince, and inform him of this his dying asseveration.
Two other of his relations, the Prince Rebecq-Montmorency and the
Marshal Van Isenghien, visited him secretly, and offered him poison, as
a means of evading the disgrace of a public execution. On his refusing
to take it, they left him with high indignation. "Miserable man!" said
they, "you are fit only to perish by the hand of the executioner!"
The Marquis de Créqui sought the executioner of Paris, to bespeak an
easy and decent death—for the unfortunate youth. "Do not make him
suffer," said he; "uncover no part of him but the neck; and have his
body placed in a coffin, before you deliver it to his family." The
executioner promised all that was requested, but declined a rouleau of a
hundred louis-d'ors which the Marquis would have put into his hand. "I
am paid by the king for fulfilling my office," said he; and added that
he had already refused a like sum, offered by another relation of the
Marquis.
The Marquis de Créqui returned home in a state of deep affliction. There
he found a letter from the Duke de St. Simon, the familiar friend of the
Regent, repeating the promise of that prince, that the punishment of the
wheel should be commuted to decapitation.
"Imagine," says the Marchioness de Créqui, who in her memoirs gives a
detailed account of this affair, "imagine what we experienced, and what
was our astonishment, our grief, and indignation, when, on Tuesday, the
26th of March, an hour after midday, word was brought us that the Count
Van Horn had been exposed on the wheel, in the Place de Gréve, since
half-past six in the morning, on the same scaffold with the Piedmontese
de Mille, and that he had been tortured previous to execution!"
One more scene of aristocratic pride closed this tragic story. The
Marquis de Créqui, on receiving this astounding news, immediately
arrayed himself in the uniform of a general officer, with his cordon
of nobility on the coat. He ordered six valets to attend him in grand
livery, and two of his carriages, each with six horses, to be brought
forth. In this sumptuous state, he set off for the Place de Gréve, where
he had been preceded by the Princes de Ligne, de Rohan, de Croüy, and
the Duke de Havré.
The Count Van Horn was already dead, and it was believed that the
executioner had had the charity to give him the coup de grace, or
"death-blow," at eight o'clock in the morning. At five o'clock in the
evening, when the Judge Commissary left his post at the Hotel de Ville,
these noblemen, with their own hands, aided to detach the mutilated
remains of their relation; the Marquis de Crequi placed them in one of
his carriages, and bore them off to his hotel, to receive the last sad
obsequies.
The conduct of the Regent in this affair excited general indignation.
His needless severity was attributed by some to vindictive jealousy; by
others to the persevering machinations of Law. The house of Van Horn,
and the high nobility of Flanders and Germany, considered themselves
flagrantly outraged: many schemes of vengeance were talked of, and a
hatred engendered against the Regent, that followed him through life,
and was wreaked with bitterness upon his memory after his death.
The following letter is said to have been written to the Regent by the
Prince Van Horn, to whom the former had adjudged the confiscated effects
of the Count:
"I do not complain, Sir, of the death of my brother, but I complain
that your Royal Highness has violated in his person the rights of the
kingdom, the nobility, and the nation. I thank you for the confiscation
of his effects; but I should think myself as much disgraced as he,
should I accept any favor at your hands. I hope that God and the
King may render to you as strict justice as you have rendered to my
unfortunate brother." |