Among the number of thofe who watched all his fteps with jealous and invidious eyes, and were already forming themfelves into the inftruments of his ruin, was a count of Piedmont, Jofeph Martinengo, belonging to the fuite of the Prince, whom Aloyfius himself had put into this poft, as a harm lets creature devoted to him, that he might fill the place in the Prince's amufements which he began to feel too dull for himself, and which he rather chofe to exchange for a more important employment. As he confidered this man as the work of his hards, whom, by a fingle nod, he could replunge into the primitive nothing out of which he had drawn him by the breath of his mouth; fo he held himself fure of him, as well from motives of fear as from gratitude; and thus fell into the fame miftake as Richelieu did, in delivering the young Le Grand as a plaything to Louis XIII. But, befides being unable to correct this miftake with Richelieu's address, he had to do with a more artful enemy than the French minifter had had to contend with. Inftead of being vain of his fuccefs, and making his benefactor feel that he could now do without him, Martinengo was fedulous to keep up the fhow of dependence, and with a feigned fubmiffion to attach himfelf clofer to the creator of his fortune. At the fame time, however, he did not neglect to use the opportunities his poft afforded him of being frequently about the Prince, in their full extent, and to render himself by imperceptible degrees neceffary and indifpenfable to him. In a fhort time he had gained a thorough knowledge of the temper and difpofitions of his mafter, had defcried every latent avenue to his confidence, and had infenfibly ftolen into his graces. All thofe arts which a generous pride and a -natural elevation of foul had taught the minifter to look down upon with contempt, were put in play by the Italian, who did not difdain to employ the moft bafe and fervile means for arriving at his aim. Knowing full well that a man is nowhere in more want of a guide and affiftant than in the ways of vice, and that nothing conduces to bolder confidence than a co-partnership in fecret indulgences; he inflamed thofe paffions which had hitherto lain dor mant in the heart of the Prince, and then preffed himself upon him as his confident and encourager. He feduced him into thofe exceffes which leaft of all admit of being witneffed or known; and thus imperceptibly accuftomed him to make him the depofitory of fecrets from which a third was ever excluded. In fhort, he at length built his infamous plan of fuccefs on the corruption of the Prince, and executed it the more eafily, as fecrecy was a means effential to its completion; fo that he was in poffeffion of the heart of the Prince ere Aloyfius could have the fmalieft furmife that he fhared it with another. It may be thought fomewhat fur prifing, that fo confiderable a change fhould efcape the attention of the faga cious minifter; but Aloyfius was too fe cure in his own importance for admitting the thought that fuch a man as Martinengo was likely to become his rival; and the latter was too prefent to himself, too much on his guard, to awaken his opponent from this pre fumptuous fecurity, by any inconfide rate act of his. What had made thou fands before him to trip on the flippery ground of princely favour, cauled Aloyfius alfo to fall-too much confi dence in himfelf. The private famili arities that paffed between Martinengo and his mafter, gave him no difturbance at all. He readily granted the upitart of his own erection a happiness whicis he in his heart defpifed, and which he had never made the object of his pur fuit. The friendship of the Prince had never any charms for him but as it alone could fmooth his way to fovereign power; and he carelessly kicked down the ladder behind him as foon as it had helped him to the elevation he fought. Martinengo was not the man to con tent himfelf with playing fo fubordinate a part. At every advance in the favout of his mafter, he gave his wifhes a bol der fcope, and his ambition began to thirst after more folid gratifications. The artificial difplay of fubmislios he had hitherto made to his benefac tor, became daily more irksome to him as the growth of his profperity awak cord ened his arrogance. The refinement fo that Aloyfius never once perceived of the minifter's behaviour towards him, not proceeding in equal pace with the rapid advances he made in the favour of the Prince, but, on the contrary, of ten feeming vifibly enough defigned to humble his afpiring pride by a falutary glance at his origin; fo, this conftrained and contradictory behaviour grew at length To troublesome, that he feriously fet about a plan to end it at once by the downfall of his rival. Under the moft impenetrable veil of difguife, he foftered his plan to maturity. Yet durft he not venture to measure fwords with his rival in open combat; for, though the prime of Aloyfius's favouritifm was over, yet it had been too early implanted, and was too deeply rooted in the mind of the youthful Prince, to be fo fuddenly torn up. The flighteft circumftance might reftore it to its priftine vigour; and therefore Martinengo well imagined that the blow he intended to give him must be a mortal blow. What Aloyfius perhaps had loft in the Prince's love he might have gained in his esteem; the more the latter withdrew from ftateaffairs, the lefs could he difpenfe with the man, who, even at the expence of the country, took care of his interefts with the moft confcientious fidelity and devotion-and, dear as he had formerly been as a friend, fo important was he now to him as minifter. The particular method by which the Italian reached his aim, remained a fecret between him who received the ftroke, and him who ftruck it. It is fuppofed, that he laid before the Prince the originals of a fecret and fufpicious correfpondence, which Aloyfius fhould have carried on with a neighbouring court; whether genuine or forged, is a matter on which opinions are divided. Be that as it may, he obtained his end to a dreadful degree. Aloyfius appeared in the eyes of the Prince as the moft ungrateful and blackeft of traitors, whofe treafon was placed fo far out of doubt, that it was thought proper to proceed immediately againft him with out any formal trial. The whole was managed with the profoundeft fecrecy between Martinengo and his mafter, Hib. Mag. June, 1796. the ftorm that was gathering over his head: obftinate in his baneful fecurity, till the awful moment, when he was funk from an object of general adoration and envy to an object of the deepeft compaffion. On the arrival of the decifive day, Aloyfius, according to cuftom, went to take a turn on the parade. From enfign he had become, in the space of a few years, colonel of the guards; and even this poft was no more than a modefter name for the office of prime minifter, which in fact he filled, and which diftinguifhed him above the foremost in the country. The guard parade was the place where his pride was wont to receive the general homage, where in one fhort hour he enjoyed a grandeur and glory which amply repaid him for the toils of the preceding day. Here perfons of the higheft ranks approached him only with refpectful timidity, and thofe who did not feel themselves fure of his fmiles, with trembling. The Prince, himfelf, if occafionally he prefented himself here, faw himself ne glected in comparison of his grand vi fier, as it was far more dangerous to difpleafe the latter than it was of use to have the former for a friend. And this very place, where he was accustomed to be revered as a god, was now pitched upon to be the dreadful theatre of his degradation. He entered carelessly the well-known circle, who stood around him to day with the fame reverence as ever, expecting his commands, as ignorant of what was to happen as he was himself. It was not long before Martinengo appeared, attended by fome adjutants, no longer the fupple, cringing, fmiling courtier-arrogant, and ftrutting with pride, like a lacquey raised to a lord, he went up to him with bold and refolute fteps, and standing before bim with his hat on his head, demanded his fword in the name of the Prince. It was delivered to him with a look of filent fur. prize; when, fetting the point against the ground, and putting his heel upon the middle of the blade, he snapped it in two, and let fall the pieces at the feet of Aloyfius. This fignal being Sff given, given, two adjutants feized him by the collar, a third fell to cutting out the ftar on the breaft of his coat, and another proceeded to take the ribbon from his fhoulder, the epaulets from the uniform, and the feather from his hat. During the whole of this amazing operation, which went on with incredible rapidity, among more than five hundred men who flood clofe round, not a fingle found was to be heard, not a breath in the whole affembly. The terrified multitude ftood fixed, with pallid countenances, with palpitating hearts, and with a deathlike ftare, round him, who in this wretched conditiona fingular spectacle of ridicule and horTor!-paffed a moment that is only to be felt under the hands of the execution er. Thoufands in his place would have fallen fenfelefs to the earth at the firft impulfe of terror; but his robuft nervous fyftem, and his vigorous fpirit, outftood this dreadful trial, and gave time for the horrors of it to pafs and evaporate. No fooner was this operation over, than he was conducted along the rows of innumerable spectators to the farther extremity of the place de parade, where a covered carriage flood waiting for him. He was ordered by dumb figns to get into it; an escort of huffars accompanied him. The report of this tranfaction was foon spread over the refidence; every window was opened, and all the streets were filled by perfons whom curiofity and furprize had brought from their habitations. A mob ran after the cavalcade, who affailed the ears of the difgraced minion with the intermingled fhouts of fcorn and triumph, and the ftill more cutting repetitions of his name with terms of pity. At length he was got out of their noife, but a new scene of terror awaited him here. The carriage turned off from the high road, down an unfrequented long by-way-the way towards the place of execution; whither, by exprefs order of the Prince, he was dragged flowly along. Here, after making him feel all the torments of the agonies of death, they turned again down another crofs road, much frequented by paffengers. In the fcorching heat of the fun, without any refreshment, deftitute of human converfe, he paffed seven doleful hours in this conveyance, which flopped, at laft as the fun went down, at the place of his deftination, the fortrefs of Crumwald. Deprived of confcioufnefs, in a middle ftate between life and death, as a faft of twelve hours and a conftantly parching thirst had at laft got the better of his gigantic force, they lifted him out of the vehicle, and he came to himself in a horrid dungeon under the earth. The first fight that prefented itself to his opening eyes was the dreadful priton-wall, against which the moon darted down fome feeble rays, through a narrow crevice at the height of nineteen fathoms from the ground of his cell. At his fide he felt a fcanty loaf of bread and a pitcher of water, and near him a fcattering of fraw for his couch. In this condition he held out till the following noon; when, in the middle of the turret, a fliding fhutter feemed to open of itself, through which prefently two hands appeared, letting down a hanging basket with the fame allotment of provifion he had found befide him the day before. Now, for the firft time fince his fatal reverfe, pain and anxiety forced from him thefe queftions to the invifible perfon; how he came here? and what crime he had committed? But no anfwer was returned from above: the hands were withdrawn and the shutter clofed. Without feeing a human vifage, without even hearing a human voice, unable to guefs at what might be the end of this deplorable ftroke, in like dreadful uncertainty on the future and on the palt, cheered by no genial ray of light, refreshed by no wholesome breeze, cut off from all affifiance, and abandoned by common compaffion, four hundred and ninety doleful days did he count in this place of condemnation, by the bread of affliction which was daily let down to him at noon in filent and fad uniformity. But a difcovery he made foon after his confinement here, compleated the measure of his diftrefs. He knew this place. He himself it was who, impelled by a spirit of base revenge, had built it afresh but a few months before, for a brave and deferv deftitution of the benefits of chriftianity, from which even criminals attainted of the blackeft enormities cannot justly be excluded, and perhaps verging on the horrors of defpair. With all the intrepidity and dignity which the fentiment of difcharging our duty infpires, he demanded free accefs to the prisoner, who belonged to him as one of his flock, and for whofe foul he was anfwerable to Heaven. The good caufe he was pleading gave him an irrefiftible eloquence, and as the firft difpleasure of the Prince was fomewhat abated by time, he granted him his requeft to go and comfort the prifoner by a fpiritual vifit. ing officer, who, for having been fo un- ed his compaffion in behalf of a miserafortunate as to fall under his difpleafure, ble man, who was languishing in utter was here to pine away his life in forrow. With ingenious barbarity, he himself had furnished the means of making this dungeon a more cruel abode. Not a long time ago he had come hither in perfon to take a view of the building, and to haften the work. For deepening his mifery to the utmoft extreme, it muft fo fall out in the order of things, that the very officer for whom this gloomy cell was prepared fhould fucceed to the poft of the deceased commandant of the fortrefs; and, from a victim to his vengeance, fhould become the mafter of his fate. Thus vanifhed away his laft fad comfort of felf-commiferation, and of charging fortune with injuftice in loading him with fuch heavy calamities. To the fenfible fenfation of his mifery was affociated a raging felf-abhorrence, and the pain that is always moft biting to ftubborn hearts, to depend on the generofity of a foe, to whom he had never fhewn any himself. But this upright man was of a difpofition too noble to harbour a mean revenge. The feverity he was enjoined by his inftructions to use towards his prifoner, coft many a ftruggle to his friendly fpirit; but, as an old foldier, accustomed to follow the letter of his orders with implicit precifion, he could do no more than bewail his misfortunes. The forlorn wretch in the dungeon found an active helper in the perfon of the chaplain to the garrifon; who, moved at the diftrefs of the miferable captive, of which he had not till lately heard, and that now only by obfcure and unconnected reports, immediately took up the firm refolution of doing fomewhat for his relief. This worthy ecclefiaftic, whofe name I fupprefs with reluctance, thought he could nowife better comply with his paftoral office, than by turning it now to the benefit of a poor unhappy man, who was capable of affiftance by other means. As he could not obtain from the commandant of the fortrefs leave to vifit the prifoner, he fet put in perfon on the road to the capital, to prefent his requeft directly to the Prince. He made his genuflexion before him, and implor The firft human countenance that the wretched Aloyfius had feen for a period of fixteen months, was the face of this ghoftly comforter. For the only friend he had in the world, he was indebted to his mifery; his profperity had gained him none. The entrance of the preacher was to him the apparition of an angel. I make no attempt to defcribe his feelings. But, from this day forth his tears flowed in lefs abundance, as he faw himself pitied by one human being. A ghaftly horror feized the ecclefiaftic on entering this cave of defpair. His eyes rolled about in fearch of a man--when a grifly fpectre crawled out of a corner to meet him, a place that looked more like the den of fome favage monfter than the fojourn of a human creature. A pale and death-like carcafe, all colour of life departed from his vifage, in which forrow and defpondency had worn large furrows, the haggard eye-balls fixed in one horrid ftare, the beard and nails grown by long neglect to a hideous length, the cloaths halfrotted away, and the air about him charged with peftilential vapour from the total want of ventilation; in this condition did he find this darling of fortune; and all this had his adamantine health withstood !-Shuddering with horror, and overpowered with compaflion at the fight, the preacher ran immediately from the fpot to the governor, to draw from him a fecond. Sff2 boon boon in favour of the poor emaciated wretch, without which the former would ftand for nothing. But he, heltering his refufal once more under the exprefs letter of his inAtructions, the paftor generously refolved on another journey to the refidence, to throw himself once more on the clemency of the Prince: he declared, that he could not think of protaning the dignity of the facrament fo far, as to enter upon fo facred an act with his prifoner, until he was reftored to the likenefs of a man. This requeft was likewife graciously complied with; and from that time the prifoner might again be faid to live. In this fortrefs Aloyfius ftill paffed feveral years, but in a far more eafy fituation, after the fhort fummer of the new favourite was gone by, and others had fucceeded to the poft, who were either of humaner fentiments, or had no revenge to fatiate upon him. At length, after a ten years confinement, the day of redemption appeared-but no judicial examination, no formal acquittal. He received his liberty from the hands of princely grace; at the fame time that it was enjoined him to quit the country for ever. Here the accounts of his hiftory forfake me, which I have been able to gather alone from oral tradition; and I perceive myfelf obliged to skip over a period of twenty years. During this fpace Aloyfius had begun his career afresh in the military fervices of foreign ftates, which led him alfo there to the brilliant eminence from whence he had been fo dreadfully hurled at home. Time at laft, the friend of the unfortunate, who exercifes a flow but an indelible judgment, took up the cause of this unhappy victim. The years of paffion were over with the Prince, and humani ty began to foften his heart, as his whitening hairs admonished him of his mortality. Treading flowly the decline of life, he felt a hankering defire after the favourite of his youth. That he might compenfate, as much as poffible, to the old man the difatters he had heaped upon him while young, he invited the exile, in friendly terms, to return to his country; to which Aloyfius was by no means averfe, as an ardent inclination to pass the remainder of his days in peace at home had long dwelt in his heart. The meeting was attended on both fides with real emotion, the embrace was as warm and affecting as if they had parted but yesterday. The Prince looked him in the face with a confidering regard, as if contemplating the countenance fo familiar and yet fo ftrange; or as if counting the wrinkles he had made on it himself. With eager refearch he ftrove to recollect the belov ed features of the youth in the fhrivelled visage of age; but what he fought for was no more to be found. They forced themselves into a kind of cold familiarity-fhame and fear had feparated their hearts for ever and ever. A fight that muft ever recal bis cruel precipi tancy to his mind could give no compla cency to the Prince; and Aloyfius could no longer be familiar with the author of his woes. Yet fedate and confoling was his view of the paft, as a man gladly looks back on the end of a frightful voyage. It was not long ere Aloyfius was feen again in full poffeffion of all his for mer dignities-and the Prince repreffed his inward averfion to give him a fplendid compenfation for what was paft. But could he give him back the fatisfaction he had before in thefe diftinctions? Could he revive the heart he had deadened for ever to the enjoy ment of life? Could he give him back the years of hope! or think of confer ring on him a happiness when old, that fhould but remotely make amends for the robbery he had committed on him when in the prime of life? For nineteen years, however, he enjoyed this bright evening of his days. Neither age nor adverfity had been able to abate the fire of his paflions, nor entirely fubdue the hilarity of his fpirit. Still, in his feventieth year, he was grafping at the fhadow of a comfort, that in his twentieth he actually poffeffed. At length he died, commander of the fortrefs where the ftate prifoners were kept. It may be expected that he exercifed towards them a humanity, the value of which he had fo feverely been taught to know. But he treated them |