Chapter XLI

At this juncture the doors of the temple swung open with a metallic sound, and the Invisibles entered, two and two. The magic notes of the harmonica,[15] an instrument newly invented, the vibration of which was an unknown wonder to Consuelo, was heard in the air, and seemed to descend from the dome, which was open to the moon and the night wind. A shower of flowers fell slowly over the happy couple amid this solemn strain. Wanda stood by a tripod of gold, whence her right hand threw brilliant flames and clouds of perfume, while in the left she held the two ends of a chain of flowers and symbolic leaves she had cast around the two lovers. The invisible chiefs, their faces being covered with their long red drapery, with chaplets of the oak and accacia around their brows, stood up to receive the brothers as they passed by them, with a bow of veneration. The chiefs had the majesty of the old Druids, but their hands, unstained by blood, were opened to bless alone, and religious respect replaced the terror of old creeds. As the initiated appeared before the venerable tribune, they took off their masks, to salute the unknown with a bare brow. The latter were known to them only by acts of clemency and justice, paternal love and wisdom. Faithful to the religion of an oath, they did not seek to penetrate the mysterious veils. Certainly, though themselves unaware, the adepts knew these magi of a new religion, for they mingled with them in society, and, in the very bosom of their assemblies, were the best friends and confidants of the major portion of them—perhaps of each individual. In the practice of their religion the priest was always veiled, like the oracle of ancient days.

Happy childhood of innocent creeds, quasi fabulous dawn of sacred conspiracies, enwrapped in the night of ages, and decked with poetical uncertainty! though the space of scarcely one century separates us from these Invisibles, their existence to the historian is enigmatical. Thirty years after the illuminati assumed those powers of which the vulgar were ignorant, and finding their resources in the inventive genius of the chiefs, and in the tradition of the secret societies of mystic Germany, terrified the world by the most formidable and vast political conspiracy that ever existed. For a moment it shook the throne of every dynasty, and finally succumbed, bequeathing to the French revolution an electric current of sublime enthusiasm, ardent faith, and terrible fanaticism. Half a century before those days marked out by fate, and while the gallant monarchy of Louis XV., the philosophical despotism of Frederick II., the skeptic and mocking loyalty of Voltaire, the ambition and diplomacy of Maria Theresa, and the heretical toleration of Gangarelli, seemed to promise to the world a season of decrepitude, antagonism, chaos, and dissolution, the French revolution fermented and germinated in the dark. It existed in minds which were believing almost to fanaticism, under the form of one dream of universal revolution. While debauchery, hypocrisy, and incredulity ruled the world, a sublime faith, a magnificent revelation of the future, profound systems of organization, perhaps wiser than our Fourierism and Saint-Simonism, already realised in some rare groups the ideal conception of a future society diametrically opposed to what covers and hides their actions in history.

Such a contrast is one of the most prominent features of the eighteenth century, which was too full of ideas, and of intellectual labor of all kinds, for its synthesis to be made even yet, with clearness and profit, by the historians and philosophers of our own days. The reason is, there is a mass of contradictory documents, uninterpreted facts, not perceived at first, sources of information disturbed by the tumult of the century, and which must be purified before a solid bottom can be found. Many energetic laborers have remained obscure, bearing to the tomb the secret of their mission—so many dazzling glories absorbed the attention of their contemporaries, so many brilliant feats even now absorbed the retrospective attention of critics. Gradually, however, light will emanate from chaos; and if our century sum up its own deeds, it will also chronicle those of its predecessor—that vast logogriph, those brilliant nebulæ, where there is so much cowardice combined with grandeur, ignorance with knowledge, light with error, incredulity with faith, pedantry with mocking frivolity, superstition with lofty reason. This period of a hundred years saw the reigns of Madame de Maintenon and Madame de Pompadour, Peter the Great, Catharine II., Maria Theresa and Dubarry, Voltaire and Swedenborg, Kant and Mesmer, Rousseau and Dubois, Schroeffer and Diderot, Fenelon and Law, Zinzendorf and Liebnitz, Frederick II. and Robespierre, Louis XIV. and Philip Egalité, Marie Antoinette and Charlotte Corday, Weishaupt, Babœf and Napoleon—a terrible laboratory, where so many heterogeneous forms have been cast into the crucible, that they vomited forth, in their monstrous ebullition, a torrent of smoke, amid which we yet walk, enveloped in darkness and confused images.

Consuelo and Albert, as well as the Invisible chiefs and the adepts, were yet farther than we are from understanding it; they had no very lucid idea of the result of the changes and the turmoil into which they were anxious to precipitate themselves, with the enthusiastic hope of completely regenerating society. They fancied themselves on the eve of an evangelical republic, as the disciples of Jesus fancied he was about to establish an earthly power. The Taborites of Bohemia fancied themselves on the eve of a paradisiac condition; and the French Convention thought their armies about to commence a march of propagandism over the globe. Without this mad confidence, where would be great devotion? and without great folly, where would be great results? But for the Utopia of the divine revealer Jesus, where would be the idea of human fraternity? But for the contagious ecstacies of Joan of Arc, would we now be Frenchmen? But for the noble chimeras of the eighteenth century, would we have the first notions of equality? This mysterious revolution which the sects of the past had dreamed of, and which the mystic conspirators of the last century had vaguely foretold, fifty years before, as an era of renovation, Voltaire, the calm philosophical head of his day, and Frederick II., the great realiser of logical and cold power, did not anticipate. The most ardent and the wisest were far from reading the future. Jean Jacques Rousseau would have repudiated his own book, had he seen the mountain in a dream, with the guillotine glaring above it. Albert of Rudolstadt would have become again the lethargic madman of the Giants' Castle if the bloody glories, followed by Napoleon's despotism, and the restoration of the ancient régime, followed by the sway of the vilest material interests, had been revealed to him; or he fancied that he toiled to overthrow, at once and for ever, scaffolds and prisons, castles and convents, banks and citadels.

These noble children dreamed, and maintained their dream with all the power of their souls. They no more belonged to their century than did the shrewd politicians and wise philosophers. Their ideas of the future were not more lucid than those of the latter. They had no idea of that great unknown thing which each of us decks with the attributes of our own power, which deceives us all while it confirms us. Our children see it clad in a thousand dyes, and each keeps a shred for his own imperial toga. Fortunately, every century sees it more majestic, because each produces more persons to toil for its triumph. As for the men who would tear off the purple and cover it with eternal mourning, they are powerless, because they do not comprehend it. Slaves to the actual and present, they are ignorant that the immortal has no age, and that he who does not fancy it as it may be to-morrow, does not see it as it should be to-day.

At that moment Albert—enjoying completely restored health, and joyous in the possession of Consuelo's undivided affection—felt so supremely elated that there was some danger of his reason reeling from excess of happiness.

Consuelo stood at last before him, like the Galatea of that artist, beloved by the gods, waking at once to life and love. Mute and collected, her face beaming with a celestial glory, she seemed, for the first time in her life, completely and unmistakably beautiful, because for the first time she really loved. A sublime serenity shone on her brow, and her large eyes became moist with that voluptuousness of the soul, of which that of the body is but a reflection. She was thus beautiful merely because she did not know what was passing in her heart and over her face. Albert existed for her alone, or rather she did not exist except in him; and he alone seemed worthy of entire respect and boundless admiration. He was transformed, and, as it were, wrapped in supernatural admiration when he saw her. She discovered in the depth of his glance all the solemn grandeur of the bitter troubles he had undergone, though they had left no trace of physical suffering. There was on his brow the placidity of a resuscitated martyr, who sees the earth made red by his blood, and a heaven of infinite rewards open to him. Never did an inspired artist create a nobler ideal of a hero or a saint, in the grandest days of ancient or Christian art.

All the Invisibles, filled with admiration, paused, after having formed a circle around them, and for some moments abandoned themselves to the contemplation of this pair, so pure in the eyes of God, and so chaste before man. More than twenty vigorous male voices sang, to a measure of ancient lore and style—"O Hymen! O Hymene!" The music was Porpora's, the words having been sent to him with orders for an epithalamium on the occasion of an illustrious marriage. He had been well paid, without being aware to whom he was under obligations. As Mozart, just before he died, was to receive the sublimest inspiration for a requiem mysteriously required, old Porpora regained all his youthful genius to write an epithalamium the poetic mystery of which had aroused his imagination. In the very first passage, Consuelo remembered her old master's style, and looking around, she sought for her adopted father among the choristers. Among those who were its interpreters, Consuelo recognised many friends—Frederick Von Trenck, Porporino, Young Benda, Count Golowkin, Schubert, the Chevalier D'Eon, (whom she had met at Berlin, but of whose sex she, like all Europe, was ignorant,) the Count St. Germain, the Chancellor Coccei, (husband of Barberini,) the bookseller Nicolai, Gottlieb, (whose voice predominated above all the others,) and Marcus, whom a gesture of Wanda pointed out to her, and whom, from some instinctive sympathy, she had recognised in her guide, and who discharged the functions of putative father or sponsor. All the Invisibles had opened and thrown back on their shoulders their long melancholy robes, and a neat white costume, which was elegant and simple, relieved by a chain of gold, to which hung the insignia of the order, gave to the whole scene the appearance of a festival. Their masks hung around their wrists, ready to be replaced at the slightest signal of the watcher, who was on the dome of the edifice.

The orator who communicated between the adepts and chief of the order, unmasked, and came to wish the couple happiness. This was the Duke of ****, who had consecrated his enthusiasm and immense fortune to the undertaking of the Invisibles. He was owner of their place of meeting, and at his house Wanda and Albert had frequent interviews, unseen by any profane eyes. This house was also the head-quarters of the operations of the chief of the order, though there were other places at which there were smaller gatherings. Initiated into all the secrets of the order, the duke acted with and for them. He did not betray their incognito, but assumed all the dangers of the enterprise, being himself their visible means of contact with the members of the association.

When Albert and Consuelo had exchanged the gentle evidence of joy and affection with their brethren, all took their places, and the duke having resumed his functions of brother orator, thus spoke, as with crowns of flowers they knelt before the altar:—

"Very dear and beloved children—In the name of the true God—all power, love, and intelligence; and after him, in the name of the three virtues which reflect divinity in the human soul, Activity, Charity, and Justice, translated in effect by our formula, Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality; finally, in the name of the tribunal of the Invisibles, devoted to the triple duty of zeal, faith, and study—that is, to the triple search of the three divine moral and political virtues—Albert Podiebrad, Consuelo Porporina, I pronounce the ratification and confirmation of the marriage already contracted before God and your kindred, and before a priest of the Christian religion, at the Giants' Castle, 175—. Three things however were wanting: first, the absolute wish of the wife to live with the husband, seemingly in extremis; second, the sanction of a moral and religious society received and acknowledged by the husband; third, the consent of a person here present, the name of whom I am not permitted to mention, but who is closely bound to one of the party by the ties of blood. If now these three conditions be fulfilled, and neither of you have aught to object, join your hands, and, rising, call on heaven to testify to the liberty of your act and the holiness of your love."

Wanda, who continued unknown among the brothers of the order, took the hands of the two children. An impulse of tenderness and enthusiasm made all three rise, as if they had been but one.

The formulæ of marriage were pronounced, and the simple and touching rite of the new church performed quietly but fervently. This engagement of mutual love was not an isolated part amid indifferent strangers who were careless of what passed. Those present were called to sanction the religious consecration of two beings bound together by one faith. They extended their arms over the couple and blessed them; then, taking hold of each other's hands, they made a living circle, a chain of paternal love, swearing to protect and defend their honor and life, to preserve them as much as possible from seduction and persecution, on all occasions and under all circumstances: in fine, to love them purely, cordially, and seriously, as if they were united to them by name and blood. The handsome Trenck pronounced this formula for all the others, in elegant and simple terms. He then added, as he spoke to the husband—

"Albert, the profane and guilty law of old society, from which we separate ourselves, some day to lead it back to us, wills that the husband impose fidelity on his wife by humiliation and despotic authority. If she fail, he must kill his rival; he has even the right to kill his wife; and this is called washing out the stain of his honor in blood. In the blind and corrupt world, every man is the enemy of happiness thus savagely and sternly guarded. The friend, the brother even, arrogates to himself a right to wrest honor and happiness from his friend or brother; or, at least, a base pleasure is experienced in exciting his jealousy and sowing distrust and trouble between him and the object of his love. Here, you know that we have a better understanding of honor and family pride. We are brothers in the sight of God; and any one who would look impurely on the wife of his brother has in his heart already committed the crime of incest."

All the brothers, moved and excited, then drew their swords, and were about to swear to use their weapons on themselves, rather than violate the oath they had just sworn at Trenck's dictation.

The sibyl—agitated by one of those enthusiastic impulses which gave her so much influence over their imaginations, and which often modified the opinions and decisions of the chiefs themselves—broke the circle, and rushed into the midst. Her language, always energetic and burning; her tall form, her floating drapery, her thin frame trembling yet majestic, the convulsive tremor of her ever veiled head, and withal, a grace which at once betokened the former existence of beauty which moves the mind when it ceases to appeal to the senses;—in fine, even her broken voice, which at once assumed a strange expression, had conspired to make her a mysterious being, and invested her with persuasive power and irresistible prestige.

All were silent to hear the voice of her inspiration. Consuelo was perhaps more moved than others, because she was aware of her singular story. She asked herself, shuddering with strange emotion, if this spectre, escaped from the tomb, really belonged to the world, and if, after having spoken, she would not disappear in the air, like the flame on the tripod, which made her appear so blue and transparent.

"Hide from the light these affirmations," said Wanda, with a shudder. "They are impious oaths when what is invoked is an instrument of hatred and murder. I know the old world attached the sword to the side of all reputed free, as a mark of independence and virtue. I well know that, in obedience to the ideas you have here preserved in spite of yourselves, the sword is the symbol of honor—that you deem you make holy engagements when, like citizens of old Rome, you swear on the sword. But here you would profane a solemn vow. Swear, rather, by this flame and tripod—the symbol of life, light, and divine love. Do you yet need emblems and visible signs? Are you yet idolators? Do the figures around this temple represent aught but ideas? O! swear rather by your own sentiments, by your better instincts, by your own heart; and if you dare not swear by the living God, the true, eternal, and holy religion, swear by pure humanity, by the glorious promptings of your courage, by the chastity of this young woman and her husband's love—swear by the genius and beauty of Consuelo, that your desire, that even your thoughts will never profane this holy arc of matrimony, this invisible and mystic altar on which the hand of an angel engraves the vow of love.

"Do you know what love is?" said the sibyl, after having paused for an instant, in a voice which every moment became more clear and penetrating. "If you did, oh! you venerable chiefs of our order and priests of our worship, you would never suffer that formula, which God alone can ratify, to be pronounced before you; and which, consecrated by men, is a kind of profanation of the divinest of mysteries. What power can you give to an engagement which in its very nature is miraculous? Yes, the confounding of two wills in one is in itself a miracle, for every heart is in itself free by virtue of a divine right. Yet when two souls yield and become bound to each other, their mutual possession becomes sacred, and as much a divine right as individual liberty. You see this is a miracle—that God reserves its mystery to himself, as he does that of life and death. You are about to ask this man and woman if during their lives they will belong respectively to each other. Their fervor is such that they will reply, 'Not only for life, but forever.' God then inspires them, by the miracle of love, with more faith, power, virtue, than you can or dare to ask. Away, then, with sacrilegious oaths and gross laws. Leave them their ideal, and do not bind them to reality by chains of gold. Leave the care of the continuation of the miracle to God. Prepare their souls for its accomplishment; form the ideal of love in them; exhort, instruct; extol and demonstrate the glory of fidelity, without which there is no moral honor, no sublime love. Do not come between, however, like Catholic priests, like magistrates, to interfere by the imposition of an oath. I tell you again, men cannot make themselves responsible, or be guardians of the perpetuity of a miracle. What know you of the secrets of the Eternal? Have we already penetrated the temple of the future, in that celestial world where, beneath sacred groves, man will converse with God as one friend does with another? Has a law for indissoluble marriage emanated from the mouth of God? Have his designs been proclaimed on earth? Have you, children of men, promulgated this law unanimously? Have the Roman pontiffs never dissolved marriage? They call themselves infallible! Under the pretext of the nullity of certain engagements, have they not pronounced real divorces, the scandal of which history has preserved in its records? The Christian societies, the reformed sects, the Greek church, following the example of the Mosaic dispensation, and all ancient religions, frankly introduced divorce into modern law. What then becomes of the holiness and efficacy of a vow to God, when it is maintained that man can release us from it? Touch not love by the profanation of marriage. You cannot stifle it in pure hearts. Consecrate the conjugal tie by exhortations, by prayers, by a publicity which will make it respectable, by touching ceremonies. You should do so, if you be our priests—that is to say, our aids, our guides, our advisers, our consolers, our lights. Prepare souls for the sanctity of a sacrament; and, as a father of a family seeks to establish his children in positions of prosperity, dignity, and security, occupy yourselves—our spiritual fathers—assiduously in fixing your sons and daughters in circumstances favorable to the development of true love, virtue, and sublime fidelity. When you shall have analysed them by religious ordeals, and ascertained that in their mutual attraction there is neither cupidity, vanity, nor frivolous intoxication, nor that sensual blindness that is without ideality—when you have convinced yourselves that they appreciate the grandeur of their sentiments, the holiness of their duty, and the liberty of their choice, then permit them to endow each other with their own inalienable liberty. Let their families, their friends, and the vast family of the faithful, unite to ratify this sacrament. Attend to my words! Let the sacrament be a religious permission, a paternal and social permission, an encouragement, an exhortation to perpetuate the engagement. Let it not be a command, an obligation, a law, with menaces and punishments—a forced slavery, with scandal, prisons and chains if it be violated; for in this way you would reverse the whole miracle in all its entirety accomplished on earth. Eternally fruitful providence—God, the indefatigable dispenser of grace, always will conduct before you young, fervent, and innocent couples, ready to bind themselves for time and eternity. Your anti-religious law and your inhuman sacrament will always abrogate the effect of grace in them. The inequality of conjugal rights between the sexes—impiety made venerable by social laws—the difference of duty in public opinion—all the absurd prejudices following in the wake of bad institutions, will ever extinguish the faith and enthusiasm of husband and wife. Those who are most sincere, who are most inclined to fidelity, will be the first to grow sad, and become terrified at the duration of the engagement, and thus disenchant each other. The abjuration of individual liberty is in effect contrary to the will of nature and the dictates of conscience when men participate in it, for they oppress it with the yoke of ignorance and brutality. It is in conformity with the will of generous hearts, and necessary to the religious instincts of strong minds, when God gives us the means to contend against the various snares man has placed around marriage, so as to make it the tomb of love, happiness, and virtue, and a "sworn prostitution," as our fathers the Lollards, whom you know and often invoke, called it. Give to God what is God's, and take from Cæsar what is not his."

"And you, my children," said she, turning towards Albert and Consuelo, "you, who have sworn to reverence the conjugal tie, did not, perhaps, know the true meaning of what you did. You obeyed a generous impulse, and replied with enthusiasm to the appeal of honor. That is worthy of you, disciples of a victorious faith! You have performed more than an act of individual virtue—you have consecrated a principle without which there can be neither chastity nor conjugal fidelity.

"O love! sublime flame—so powerful and so fragile, so sudden and so fugitive! light from heaven, seemingly passing through our existence, to die before we do, for fear of consuming and annihilating us, we feel you are a vivifying fire, emanating from God himself, and that whoever would fix it in his bosom and retain it to his last hour, always ardent, always in its pristine vigor, would be the happiest and noblest of men. Thus the disciples of the ideal will always seek to prepare sanctuaries for you in their bosoms, that you may not hasten to return to heaven. But alas! you whom we have made it a virtue to honor, have declined to be renewed at the dictate of our institutions, and have remained free as the bird of the air, capricious as the flame on the altar. You seem to laugh at our oaths, our contracts and our will. You fly from us in spite of all we have invented to fix you in your manners. You no longer inhabit the harem, guarded by the vigilant sentinels which Christian society places between the sentence of the magistrate and the yoke of public opinions. Whence, then, comes your inconstancy and your ingratitude? Oh! mysterious influence! oh, love! cruelly symbolised under the form of an infant and blind god! what tenderness and what contempt inspire human hearts you enkindle with your blaze; and whom you desert, leaving them to wither amid the anguish of repentance, and, more frightful yet, of disgust! Why is it that man kneels to you in every portion of the globe—that you are exalted and deified—that divine poets call you the soul of the world—that barbarous nations sacrifice human victims to you, precipitating wives on the fire at the husband's funeral—that young hearts call you in their gentlest dreams, and that old men curse life when you abandon them to the horror of solitude? Whence comes that adoration—sometimes sublime, sometimes fanatical—which has been decreed you from the golden infancy of humanity to our age of iron, if you be but a chimera, the dream of a moment of intoxication, an error of the imagination, excited by the delirium of the sense. Ah! it is not a vulgar instinct, a mere animal want. You are not the blind child of Paganism, but the true son of God, and very essence of the divinity. You have not yet revealed yourself to us, except through the mist of errors; and you would not make your abode among us, because you were unwilling to be profaned. You will return to us, as in the days of the fabulous Astrea, as in the visions of poets, to fix your abode in our terrestrial paradise, when we shall, by our sublime virtues, have merited the presence of such a guest. How blessed then will this abode be to man! and then it will be well to have been born."

"We will then be brothers and sisters, and unions, freely contracted, will be maintained by your own power. When, in place of this terrible contest, whose continuance is impossible—conjugal fidelity being forced to resist infamous attempts at debauch, hypocritical seduction or mad violence, hypocritical friendship and wise corruption—every husband will find around him chaste sisters, himself the jealous and delicate guardian of the happiness of a sister confided to him as a companion; while every wife will find in other men so many brothers of her husband, proud of her happiness and protectors of her peace; then the faithful wife will no longer be the fragile flower that hides herself to maintain the treasures of her chastity, often a deserted victim, wasting in solitude and tears, unable to revive in her husband's mind the flame she has preserved in purity in her own. The brother then will not be forced to avenge his sister, and slay him she loves and regrets, in obedience to the dictates of false honor. The mother will not tremble for her daughter, nor the child blush for its parent. The husband then will be neither suspicious nor despotic; and, on her part, the wife will escape the bitterness of the victim and the rancor of the slave; atrocious suffering and abominable injustice will cease to sully the peace of the domestic hearth. It may be some day, that the priest and the magistrate, relying with reason on the permanent miracle of love, will consecrate in God's name indissoluble unions, with as much wisdom and justice as they now ignorantly display impiety and folly.

"But these glorious days are not yet come. Here, in this mysterious temple, where we are now united in obedience to the evangelists, three or four in the name of the Lord, we can only dream of divinest joys. It is an oracle which then escapes from their bosoms. Eternity is the ideal of love, as it is of faith. The human soul never comes nearer to the apex of its power and lucidity than in the enthusiasm of a great love. The always of lovers is an eternal revelation, a divine manifestation, casting its sovereign light and blessed warmth over every instant of their union. Woe to whoever profanes this sacred formula! He falls from grace to sin—extinguishes the faith, power and light in his heart."

"Albert," said Consuelo, "I receive your promise, and adjure you to accept mine. I feel myself under the power of a miracle, and the always of our brief lives does not resemble the eternity for which I give myself to you."

"Sublime and rash Consuelo," said Wanda, with a smile of enthusiasm, which seemed to pass through her veil, "ask God for eternity with him you love, as a recompense of your fidelity to him in this brief life."

"Ah! yes," said Albert, lifting his wife's hand, clasped in his own, to heaven, "that is our end, hope, and reward—to love truly in this phase of existence, to meet and unite in others. Ah! I feel that this is not the first day of our union—that we have already loved, and loved in other lives. Such bliss is not the work of chance. The hand of God reunites us, like two parts of one being inseparable in eternity."

After the celebration of the marriage, though the night was far advanced, they proceeded to the final initiation of Consuelo in the order of the Invisibles, and, then, the members of the tribunal having dispersed amid the shadows of the holy wood, soon reassembled at the castle of fraternal communion. The prince (Brother Orator) presided, and took care to explain to Consuelo the deep and touching symbols. The repast was served by faithful domestics, affiliated with a certain grade of the order. Karl introduced Matteus to Consuelo, and she then saw bare his gentle and expressive face; she observed with admiration that these respectable servants were not treated as inferiors by their brothers of the other grades. No personal distinction separated them from the higher grades of the order, of whatever rank. The brother servitors, as they were called, discharged willingly the duty of waiters and butlers. It was for them to make all arrangements for the festivity, as being best prepared to do so; and this duty they considered a kind of religious observance—a sort of eucharistic festival. They were then no more degraded than the Levites of a temple who preside over the details of sacrifice. When they arranged the table, they sat at it themselves, not at peculiar isolated places, but in chairs retained among the others for them. All seemed anxious to be civil to them, and to fill their cups and plates. As at masonic banquets, the cup was never raised to the lip without invoking some noble idea, some generous sentiment, some august patronage. The cadenced noises, the puerile conduct of the freemasons, the mallet, the jargon of the toasts, and the vocabulary of tools, were excluded from this grave yet costly entertainment. The servitors were respectful without constraint, and modest without baseness. Karl sat during one of the services between Albert and Consuelo. The latter saw with emotion that besides his sobriety and good behavior, he had made progress in healthy religious notions, by means of the admirable education of sentiment.

"Ah, my friend," said she to her husband, when the deserter had changed his place, and her husband drew near to her, "this is the slave beaten by the Prussian corporals, the savage woodman of Boehmer-wald, and the would-be murderer of Frederick the Great. Enlightenment and charity have in a few days converted into a sensible, pious, and just man, a bandit, whom the precocious justice of nations pushed to murder, and would have corrected with the lash and gallows."

"Noble sister," said the Prince, who had placed himself on Consuelo's right, "you gave at Roswald, to this mind crazed by despair, great lessons on religion and prudence. He was gifted with instinct. His education has since been rapid and easy; and when we've essayed to teach him, his reply was, 'So the signora said.' Be sure the rudest men may be enlightened more easily than is thought. To improve their condition—to inoculate them with self-respect by esteeming and encouraging them, requires but sincere charity and human dignity. You see that as yet they have been initiated merely in the inferior degrees. The reason is, we consult the extent of their minds and progress in virtue when we admit them into our mysteries. Old Matteus has taken two degrees more than Karl; and if he does not pass those he now occupies, it is because his mind and heart can go no farther. No baseness of extraction, no humility of condition, will ever stop them. You see here Gottlieb the cobbler, son of the jailer at Spandau, admitted to a grade equal to your own, though in my house, from habit and inclination, he discharges his subordinate functions. His imagination, fondness for study and enthusiasm for virtue—in a word, the incomparable beauty of soul inhabiting that distorted body, renders him almost fit to be treated, in the interior of the temple, as a brother and as an equal. We had scarcely any ideas and virtues to impart to him. On the contrary, mind and heart were too teeming, and it became necessary to repress them and soothe his excitement, treating at the same time the moral and physical causes which would have led him to folly. The immorality of those among whom he lived, and the perversity of the official world, would have irritated without corrupting him. We alone, armed with the mind of James Boehm and the true explanation of his sacred symbols, were able to undeceive and convince him, and to direct his poetic fancy without chilling his zeal and faith. Remark how the cure of his mind has reacted on his body, and that he has regained health as if by magic. His strange face is already transformed."

After the repast they resumed their cloaks, and walked along the gentle slope of the hill, which was shaded by the sacred wood. The ruins of the old castle, reserved for ordeals, was above it; and gradually Consuelo remembered the path she had passed so rapidly over, on a night of storm, not long before. The plenteous stream—which ran from a cavern rudely cut in the rock, and once reserved for superstitious devotion—murmured amid the undergrowth towards the valley, where it formed the brook the prisoner in the pavilion knew so well. Alleys covered by nature with fine sand, crossed under the luxuriant shade where the various groups met and talked together. High barriers, but which did not intercept the river, shut in the enclosure, the kiosque of which might be considered the study. This was a favorite retreat of the duke, and was forbidden to the idle and indiscreet. The servitors also walked in groups around the barriers, watching to prevent the approach of any profane being. Of this there was no great danger. The duke seemed merely occupied with masonic mysteries; as was the case, in a manner. Free masonry was then tolerated by the law and protected by the princes who were, or thought themselves, initiated in it. No one suspected the importance of the superior grades; which, after many degrees, ended in the tribunal of the Invisibles.

Besides, at this moment the ostensible festival which lighted up the façade of the palace too completely absorbed the attention of the numerous guests of the prince, for any to think of leaving his brilliant halls and the new gardens, for the rocks and ruins of the old park. The young Margravine of Bareith, an intimate friend of the duke, presided over the honors of the entertainment. To avoid appearing, he had feigned sick, and after the banquet of the Invisibles supped with his numerous guests in the palace. As she saw the glare of the lights in the distance, Consuelo, who leaned on Albert's arm, remembered Anzoleto and accused herself innocently in presence of her husband, who charged her with having become too ironical and stern to the companion of her childhood. "Yes, it was a guilty idea, but then I was most unhappy. I had resolved to sacrifice myself to Count Albert, and the malicious and cruel Invisibles again cast me into the arms of the dangerous Leverani. Wrath was in my heart; gladly I met him from whom I was to separate in despair, and Marcus wished to soothe my sorrow by a glance at the handsome Anzoleto. Ah! I never expected to be so indifferent to him. I fancied I was about to be doomed to sing with him, and could have hated him for thus depriving me of my last dream of happiness. Now, my friend, I could see him without bitterness and treat him kindly; happiness makes us so merciful. May I be useful to him some day, and inspire him with, a serious love of art, if not virtue."

"Why despair? Let us wait for him in the scene of want and misery. Now, amid his triumphs, he would be deaf to the voice of reason. Let him lose his voice and his beauty, and we will take possession of his soul."

"Do you take charge of this conversion, Albert?"

"Not without you, my Consuelo."

"Then you do not fear the past?"

"No; I am presumptuous enough to fear nothing. I am under the power of a miracle."

"I, too, Albert, cannot doubt myself."

Day began to break, and the pure morning air to exhale a thousand exquisite perfumes. It was the most delicious period of the summer; the birds singing amid the trees and flying from hill to valley. Groups formed every moment around the couple and far from being importunate, added to the pleasure of their fraternal friendship, to their pure happiness. All the Invisibles present were introduced to Consuelo as members of her family. They were the most eminent in virtue, talent, and intelligence in the order. Some were illustrious, and others obscure in the world, but were known in the temple by their labors. The noble and the peasant mingled together in close intimacy. Consuelo had to learn their true names, and the more poetical titles of their fraternal association. They were Vesper, Ellops, Peon, Hyas, Euryalus, Bellerophon, etc. Never had she around her so many pure and noble souls, so many interesting characters. The stories told of their conversion, the dangers they had run, and what they had done, charmed her as poems, the tenor of which she could not have reconciled with actual life, they appeared so touching and moving. There was, however, no portion of the common-place gallantry, and not the slightest approach to dangerous familiarity. Lofty language, inspired by equality and fraternity, was realised in its purest phase. The beautiful golden dawn rising over their souls as over the world, was, as it were, a dream in the existence of Consuelo and Albert. Enlaced in each other's arms, they did not think of leaving their beloved brethren. A moral intoxication, gentle and bland as the morning air, filled their souls. Love had expanded their hearts too amply to make them tremble. Trenck told them the dangers of his captivity and escape in Glatz. Like Consuelo and Haydn in the Boehmer-wald, he had crossed Poland, but in the midst of cold, covered with rags, with a wounded companion—the amiable SHELLES, whom his memoirs make known to us as an affectionate friend. To earn his bread, he had played on the violin, and, like Consuelo on the Danube, had been a minstrel. He then spoke in a low tone of the Princess Amelia, his love and hope. Poor Trenck! the terrible storm which overhung him, neither he nor his happy friends foresaw. He was doomed to pass from the midsummer's night's dream to a life of combat, deception, and suffering.

Porporino sang beneath the cypress-trees an admirable hymn composed by Albert, to the memory of the martyrs of their cause. Young Benda accompanied him on the violin; Albert took the instrument and delighted his hearers with a few notes; Consuelo could not sing, but wept with joy and enthusiasm; Count Saint Germain told of conversations with John Huss and Jerome of Prague, with such warmth, eloquence, and probability, that it was impossible not to have faith in him. In such seasons of emotion and delight, reason does not prohibit poetry. The Chevalier d'Eon described with refined taste the miseries and absurdities of the great tyrants of Europe, the vices of courts, and the weakness of the scaffolding of the social system that enthusiasm fancied so easy to break. Count Golowkin described the great soul and strange contradictions of his friend, Jean Jacques Rousseau.

This philosophical noble (they will to-day call him eccentric) had a very beautiful daughter, whom he educated according to his ideas, and who was at once Emile and Sophie, now as handsome a boy, then as charming a girl as possible. He wished to have her initiated, and for Consuelo to instruct her. The illustrious Zinzendorf explained the evangelical constitution of his colony of Moravian Hernhuters.—He consulted Albert with deference about many particulars, and wisdom seemed to speak by Albert's mouth. He was inspired by the presence and smile of his mistress. To Consuelo he seemed divine. All advantages to her seemed to deck him. He was a philosopher, an artist, a martyr, who had survived the ordeal; grave as a sage of the Portico, beautiful as an angel, joyous and innocent as a child or happy lover—perfect, in fine, as the one we love always is.

Consuelo, when she knocked at the door of the temple, had expected to die of fatigue and emotion. Now she felt herself aroused and animated as when, on the shore of the Adriatic, she used to sport in the sands in full health beneath a bright sun moderated by the evening breeze. It seemed that life in all its power, happiness in all its intensity, had taken possession of her, and that she breathed them at every pore. Why cannot the sun be stopped in the sky over certain valleys, where we feel all the plentitude of being, and where the dreams of imagination seem realised, or about to be?

The sky at last became purple and gold, and a silver bell warned the Invisibles that night withdrew its protecting cloak. They sang a hymn to the rising sun, emblematical to them of the day they dreamed of, and prepared for the world. All then made them adieux, promising to meet, some at Paris, others at London, Madrid, Vienna, Petersburg, Dresden, and Berlin. All promised on a year from that day to meet again at the door of the blessed temple, either with neophytes or with brethren now absent. They then folded their cloaks to conceal their elegant costumes, and silently dispersed by the shadowy walks of the park.

Albert and Consuelo, guided by Marcus, went down the ravine to the stream. Karl received them in his closed gondola, and took them to the door of the pavilion. There they paused for a moment to contemplate the majesty of the orb of day which rose in the sky. Until now, Consuelo, when she replied to Albert had called him by his true name; when, however, she was awakened from the musing in which she seemed delighted to lose herself, as she pressed her burning cheek on his shoulder, she could only say:

"Oh Leverani!"

EPILOGUE

Had we been able to procure faithful documents in relation to Albert and Consuelo after their marriage, like those which have guided us up to this point, we might, doubtless, have written a long history, telling of all their adventures and journeys. But, most persevering readers, we cannot satisfy you; and of you, weary reader, we only ask a few moments of patience. Let neither of you reproach nor praise us. The truth is, that the materials by means of which we have so far been able to connect the items of this story, entirely disappear from the dates of the romantic night which blessed and consecrated the union of the two great characters of our story amid the Invisibles. Whether the engagements contracted by them in the temple prevented them from yielding to friendship in their letters; or that their friends, being affiliated in the same mysteries, in the days of persecution thought it proper to destroy their correspondence, we cannot say; but henceforth we see them through the maze of a cloud, under the veil of the temple or the mask of adepts. Without examining the traces of their existence which we find in manuscripts, it would often have been difficult to follow them; contradictory evidence shows both to have been at the same time at two different geographical points, or following different objects. However, we can easily understand the possibility of their voluntarily creating such errors, from the fact that they were secretly devoted to the plans of the Invisibles, and often were forced, amid a thousand perils, to avoid the inquisitorial policy of governments. In relation to the existence of this one soul, with two persons, called Consuelo and Albert, we cannot say whether love fulfilled all its promises, or if fate contradicted those which it had seemed to make during the intoxication of what they called "The Midsummer Night's Dream." They were not, however, ungrateful to Providence, which had conferred this rapid happiness, in all its plentitude, and which, amid reverses, continued the miracle of love Wanda had announced. Amid misery, suffering and persecution, they always remembered that happy life, which seemed to them a celestial union, and, as it were, a bargain made with the divinity, for the enjoyment of a better existence after many toils, ordeals, and sacrifices.

In other respects, all becomes so mysterious to us that we have been quite unable to discover in what part of Germany this enchanted residence was, in which, protected by the tumult of the chase and festivals, a prince unknown in documents became a rallying point and a principal mover of the social and philosophical conspiracy of the Invisibles. This prince had received a symbolical name, which, after a thousand efforts to discover the cypher used by the adepts, we presume to be Christopher, or Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth. The temple where Consuelo was married and initiated was particularly called Saint Graal, and the chiefs of the tribunal Templists. These were Romanesque emblems, renewed from the old legends of the age of gold and chivalry. All the world knows that in these charming fictions, Saint Graal was hidden in a mysterious sanctuary, amid a grotto unknown to men. There the Templists, illustrious saints of primitive Christianity, devoted even in this world to immortality, kept the precious cup which Jesus had used in the consecration of the Eucharist, when he kept the passover with his disciples. This cup doubtless contained the celestial grace, represented sometimes by blood and then by the tears of Christ; a divine ichor or eucharistic substance, the mystic influence of which was inexplicable, but which it was sufficient merely to see, to be transformed, both morally and physically, so as to be forever sheltered from death and sin. The pious paladins, who, after terrible macerations and exploits sufficient to make the earth tremble, devoted themselves to the career of knight-errantry, had the idea of reaching Saint Graal at the end of their peregrinations. They looked for it amid the ices of the north, on the shores of Armorica, and in the depths of the forests of Germany. To realise this sublime conquest, it was necessary to confront danger, equal to those of the Hesperides—to overcome monsters, elements, barbarous people, hunger, thirst, and even death. Some of these Christian Argonauts discovered, it is said, the sanctuary, and were regenerated by the divine cup; they never, however, betrayed the terrible secret. Their triumph was known by the power of their invincible arm, by the transfiguration of all their existence: few, however, survived this glorious initiation. They disappeared from among men as Jesus did after his resurrection, and passed from earth to heaven without undergoing the bitter transition of death.

This magical symbol was, in fact, well adapted to the object of the Invisibles. For many years, the new Templists hoped to make Saint Graal accessible to all mankind. Albert toiled constantly to diffuse the true ideas of his doctrine. He reached the highest grades of the order, for we find the list of his titles showing that he had time enough to reach them. Now all know that eighty-one months are needed to pass through the twenty-three degrees of masonry, and we think it certain that a much longer time was required for the higher grades of Saint Graal. The number of masonic degrees are now a mystery to no one; yet it will not be out of place here to recount a few, as they paint the enthusiastic genius and smiling fancy which presided over their first creation:

"Apprentice and Master Mason, Secret and Perfect Master, Provost and Judge, English and Irish Master, Master in Israel, Master Elect of the Nine and Fifteen, Elect of the Unknown, Grand Master Architect, Royal Arch, Grand Scotch Master of the Sublime or Master Masons, Knight of the Sword, Prince of Jerusalem, Knight of Orient and Occident, Rose-Cross of France, Heredom and Kilwinning, Grand Pontiff or Sublime Scot, Architect of the Sacred Roof, Pontiff of Jerusalem, Sovereign Prince of Masonry and Master ad vitam, Naochite, Prince of Libon, Chief of the Tabernacle and Knight of the Iron Serpent, Trinitarian Scot or Prince of Mercy, Grand Commander of the Temple, Knight of the Gun, Patriarch of the Crusades, Grand Master of Light, Knight Kadosch, Knight of the White Eagle and of the Black Eagle, Knight of the Phœnix and Knight of the Argonauts, Knight of the Golden Fleece, Grand-Inspector-Inquisitor-Commander-Sublime, Prince of the Royal Secret and Sublime Master of the Luminous King,"&c.[16]

These titles, or at least the majority of them, we find connected with the name of Albert Podiebrad, in the most illegible rolls of the freemasons. There are also many less known; such as Knight of St John, Sublime Johannite, Master of the New Apocalypse, Doctor of the Gospel, and Elect of the Holy Ghost, Templist, Areopagite, Magus, and Man of the People, Man-Pontiff, Man-King, and New-man,&c.[17] We have been surprised here to find some titles which seemed anticipated from the illuminatism of Weishaupt: this peculiarity, however, was explained at a later day, and will not, when this story is concluded, need any explanation to our readers.

Amid this labyrinth of obscure facts—which, however, are profound, and connected with the labor, success, and apparent extinction of the Invisibles—we can with difficulty follow the adventurous story of the young couple. Yet by supplying what we need by a prudent imagination, the following is nearly the abridged commentary of the chief events of their lives. The fancy of the reader will supply the deficiency of the text, and following our experience, we doubt not that the best dénoûements are those for which the reader and not the narrator will be responsible.[18]

Probably, after leaving Saint Graal, Consuelo went to the little court of Bareith, where the Margravine, sister of Frederick, had palaces, gardens, kiosques, and cascades, in the same style as those of Count Hoditz at Roswald, though less sumptuous and less expensive. This intellectual princess had been married without a dower to a very poor prince; and not long before she had worn robes with trains of reasonable length, and had pages whose doublets were not threadbare, her gardens, or rather her garden, to speak without metaphor, was situated amid a beautiful country, and she indulged in the Italian Opera in an antique temple à la Pompadour. The margravine was fond of philosophy—that is to say, she was a disciple of Voltaire. The young hereditary margrave, her husband, was the zealous head of a masonic lodge. I am not sure whether Albert was connected with him, or whether his incognito was observed by the secresy of the brothers, or whether he remained away from this court and joined his wife afterwards. Certainly Consuelo had some secret mission there. Perhaps, also, for the purpose of preventing attention from being attracted to her husband, she did not live publicly with him for some time. Their loves, then, had all the attraction of mystery; and if the publicity of their union, consecrated by the fraternal sanction of the Templists, seemed gentle and edifying to them, the secrecy they maintained in a hypocritical and licentious world, at first, was a necessary ægis and kind of mute protestation in which they found their enthusiasm and power.

Many male and female Italian singers at that time delighted the little court of Bareith. Corilla and Anzoleto appeared there, and the vain prima donna again became enamored of the traitor she had previously devoted to all the furies of hell. Anzoleto, however, while he cajoled the tigress, sought with a secret and mysterious reserve to find favor with Consuelo, whose talent, enhanced by such profound revelations, now eclipsed all rivalry. Ambition had become the dominant passion of the young tenor; love had been stifled by mortification, and voluptuousness by satiety. He then loved neither the chaste Consuelo nor the passionate Corilla, but kept terms with both, ready to attach himself to either of the two, who would serve his purpose, and make him advantageously known. Consuelo treated him kindly, and neither spared good advice nor such instructions as would enable him to exhibit his talent. She never, though, felt uneasy when she was with him, and the completeness of her pardon exhibited how completely she had mastered her passion. Anzoleto was not re-installed, and having listened with emotion to the advice of his friend, lost all patience when he lost all hope, and his deep mortification and sorrow, in spite of himself, became evident in his words.

Under these circumstances, it appears that Amelia of Rudolstadt came to Bareith with the Princess of Culmbach, daughter of the Countess Von Hoditz. If we may believe some exaggerating and indiscreet witnesses, some strange scenes took place between Consuelo, Amelia, Corilla, and Anzoleto. When she saw the handsome tenor appear unexpectedly on the boards of the opera of Bareith, the young baroness fainted. No one observed the coincidence, but the lynx-eyed Corilla discovered on the brow of Anzoleto a peculiar expression of gratified vanity. He missed his point; the court, disturbed by the accident, did not applaud the singer, and instead of growling between his teeth, as was his fashion on such occasions, there was an unequivocal smile of triumph on his face.

"See," said Corilla, in an angry voice to Consuelo, as she went behind the scenes, "he loves neither you nor me, but that little fool who has been playing her part in the boxes. Do you know her? who is she?"

"I do not know," said Consuelo, who had observed nothing: "I can assure you, however, neither you, nor she, nor I, occupy him."

"Who then does?"

"Himself al solito," said Consuelo with a smile.

The story goes on to say that on the next day Consuelo was sent for to come to a retired wood to talk with Amelia. "I know all," said the latter, angrily, before she permitted Consuelo to open her mouth; "he loves you, unfortunate scourge of my life—you, who have robbed me of Albert's love and his."

"His, madame? I do not know——"

"Do not pretend. Anzoleto loves you. You were his mistress at Venice, and yet are——"

"It is either a base slander, or a suspicion unworthy of you."

"It is the truth. I assure you; he confessed it to me last night."

"Last night! What do you say, madame?" said Consuelo, blushing with shame and chagrin.

Amelia shed tears; and when the kind Consuelo had succeeded in calming her jealousy, she obtained in spite of her diffidence, the confession of this unfortunate passion. Amelia had heard Anzoleto sing at Prague, and became intoxicated with his beauty and success. Being ignorant of music, she took him for one of the first musicians in the world. At Prague he was decidedly popular. She sent for him as her singing-master, and while her father the old Baron Frederick, paralysed by inactivity, slept in his chair dreaming of wild boars, she yielded to a seducer. Ennui and vanity ruined her. Anzoleto, flattered by this illustrious conquest, and wishing to make the scandal public in order to secure popularity, persuaded her that she might become the greatest singer of the age, that an artist's life was a paradise on earth, and that she could not do better than fly with him, and make her début at the Haymarket Theatre in Handel's operas.

Amelia at first viewed with horror the idea of deserting her old father, but when Anzoleto was about to leave Prague, feigning a despair he did not feel, she yielded to his solicitations, and fled with him.

The intoxication of her love for Anzoleto was but of brief duration. His insolence and coarse manners, when he no longer played the part of seducer, recalled her to her senses; and it was not without a feeling of pleasure mingled with remorse at her conduct, that, three months after her escape, she was arrested at Hamburg, and brought back to Prussia, where, at the instance of her Saxon kin, she was incarcerated in the fortress of Spandau. Her punishment was both long and severe, and in a measure rendered her mind callous to the agony she would otherwise have felt at hearing of her father's death. At last her freedom was granted, and it was not till then that she heard of all the misfortunes which had afflicted her family. She did not dare to return to the canoness, and feeling utterly incapable of leading a life of retirement and repose, she implored the protection of the Margravine of Bareith; and the Princess of Culmbach, who was then at Dresden, assumed the responsibility of taking her to her kinswoman. In this frivolous yet philosophical court she found that amiable toleration of vice which then was the only virtue. Here she again met with Anzoleto, and again submitted to the ascendancy which he seemed to have acquired over the fair sex, and which the chaste Consuelo found so difficult to resist. At first she avoided him, but gradually became again fascinated, and made an appointment to meet him one evening in the garden, and once more yielded to his solicitations.

She confessed to Consuelo that she yet loved him, and related all her faults to her old singing mistress with a mixture of feminine modesty and philosophical coolness.

It seems certain that Consuelo by her earnest appeals found the way to her heart, and that she made up her mind to return to the Giants' Castle, and to shake off her dangerous passion in solitude, by soothing her old aunt in her decline.

After this adventure Consuelo could remain at Bareith no longer. The haughty jealousy of Corilla, who was always imprudent, yet at the same time kind-hearted, induced the prima donna sometimes to find fault, and then to humble herself. Anzoleto, who had fancied that he could avenge for her disdain by casting himself at Amelia's feet, never pardoned her for having removed the young baroness from danger. He did her a thousand unkind offices, contriving to make her miss the cue on the stage, preventing her from taking up the key in a duo, and by a self-sufficient air attempting to make the unwary audience think she was in error. If he had a stage effect to perform with her, he went to her right instead of her left hand, and tried to make her stumble amid the properties. All these ill-natured tricks failed, in consequence of Consuelo's calmness. She was, however, less stoical when he began to calumniate her, and when she knew that there were persons, who could not believe in the chastity of an actress, to listen to him. Hence libertines of every age were rude towards her, refusing to believe in her innocence; and she had to bear with Anzoleto's defamation, influenced as he was by mortification and revenge.

This base and narrow-minded persecution was the commencement of a long martyrdom which the unfortunate prima donna submitted to during all her theatrical career. As often as she met Anzoleto, he annoyed her in a thousand ways. Corilla, too, from envy and ill-feeling, gave her trouble. Of her two rivals, the female was the least in the way, and most capable of a kind emotion. Whatever may be said of the misconduct and jealous vanity of actresses, Consuelo discovered that when her male companions were influenced by the same vices, they became even more degraded, and less worthy of their relative position. Arrogant and dissipated nobles, managers and people of the press, depraved by such connection, fine ladies, curious and whimsical patronesses, ready to deceive, yet offended at finding in an actress more virtue than they could themselves boast of—in fact, and most unjust of all, the public rose en masse against the wife of Leverani, and subjected her to perpetual mortification. Persevering and faithful in her profession as she was in love, she never yielded, but pursued the tenor of her way, always increasing in musical knowledge, and her virtuous conduct remaining unaltered. Sometimes she failed in the thorny path of success, yet often won a just triumph. She became the priestess of a purer art than even Porpora himself was acquainted with; and found immense resources in her religious faith, and vast consolation in her ardent and devoted love to her husband.

The career of her husband, though a parallel to her own, for he accompanied her in her wanderings, is enwrapped in much mystery. It may be presumed that he was not sentenced to be the slave of her fortune and the book-keeper of her receipts and disbursements. Consuelo's profession was not very lucrative. At that time the public did not reward artists with as much munificence as it does now. Then they were remunerated by the presents they received from princes and nobles, and women who knew how to take advantage of their position had already begun to amass large fortunes. Chastity and disinterestedness are, however, the greatest enemies an actress can have. Consuelo was successful, respected, and excited enthusiasm in some, when those who were about her did not interfere with her position before the true public. She owed no triumph to gallantry, however, and infamy never crowned her with diamonds or gems. Her laurels were spotless, and were not thrown on the stage by interested hands. After ten years of toil and labor, she was no richer than when she began her career. She had made no speculations, for she neither could nor would do so. She had not even saved the fruit of her labors, to get which she often had much trouble, but had expended it in charity, or for the purposes of secret but active propagandism, for which her own means had not always sufficed. The central power of the Invisibles had often provided for her.

What may have been the real success of the ardent and tireless pilgrimage of Albert and Consuelo, in France, Spain, England and Italy, there is nothing to tell the world; and I think we must look twenty years later, and then use induction, to form an idea of the result of the secret labors of the societies of the Invisibles. Had they a greater effect in France than in the bosom of that Germany where they were produced? The French Revolution loudly says Yes. Yet the European conspiracy of Illuminism, and the gigantic conceptions of Weishaupt, prove that the divine dream of Saint Graal did not cease to agitate the German mind for thirty years, in spite of the dispersion and defection of the chief adepts.

Old newspapers tell us that Porporina sang with great success in Pergolese's operas at Paris, in the oratorios and operas of Handel at London, with Farinelli at Madrid, with La Faustina at Dresden, and with Mergotti at Venice. At Rome and Naples she sang the church music of Porpora and other great masters, with triumphant applause.

Every item of Albert's career is lost. A few notes to Trenck or Wanda prove this mysterious personage to have been full of faith, confidence, and activity, and enjoying in the highest degree lucidity of mind. At a certain epoch all documentary information fails. We have heard the following story told, in a coterie of persons almost all of whom are now dead, relative to Consuelo's last appearance on the stage.

"It was about 1760, at Vienna. The actress was then about thirty years old, and it was said was handsomer than she had been in her youth. A pure life, moral and calm habits, and physical prudence, had preserved all the grace of her beauty and talent. Handsome children accompanied her, but no one knew their father, though common report said that she had a husband, and was irrevocably faithful to him. Porpora having gone several times to Italy, was with her, and was producing a new opera at the Imperial Theatre. The last twenty years of the maestro's works are so completely unknown, that we have in vain sought to discover the name of his last productions. We only know Porporina had the principal part, that she was most successful, and wrung tears from the whole court. The empress was satisfied. On the night after this triumph, Porporina received from an invisible messenger news that filled her with terror and consternation. At seven in the morning—that is to say, just at the hour when the empress was awakened by the faithful valet known as the sweeper[19] of her majesty, (for his duty consisted in opening the blinds, making the fire, and cleaning the room, while the empress was awaking,) Porporina, by eloquence or gold, passed through every avenue of the palace, and reached the door of the royal bed-chamber."

"'My friend,' said she to the servant, 'I must throw myself at the empress's feet. The life of an honest man is in danger. A great crime will be committed in a few days, if I do not see her majesty at once. I know that you cannot be bribed, but also know you to be generous and magnanimous. Everybody says so. You have obtained favors which the greatest courtiers dared not ask.'

"'Kind heaven! my dear mistress! I will do anything for you,' said the servant, clasping his hands and letting his duster fall.

"'Karl!' said Consuelo. 'Thank God I am saved! Albert has a protecting angel in the palace!'

"'Albert! Albert!' said Karl. 'Is he in danger? Go In, madame, if I should lose my place. God knows I shall be sorry; for I am enabled to do some good and serve our holy cause better than I could do anywhere else. Listen! The empress is a good soul, when she is not a queen. Go in: you will be thought to have preceded me. Let those scoundrels bear the burden of it, for they do not deserve to serve a queen. They speak lies."

"Consuelo went in; and when the empress opened her eyes, she saw her kneeling at the foot of the bed.

"'Who is that?' said Maria Theresa, as, gathering the counterpane over her shoulders, she rose up as proud and as haughty in her night-dress, and on her bed, as if she sat on her throne, decked with the Imperial crown on her brow, and the sword by her side.

"'Madame,' said Consuelo, 'I am your humble subject, an unfortunate mother, a despairing wife, who begs on her knees her husband's life and liberty.'

"Just then Karl came in, pretending to be very angry.

"'Wretch,' said he, 'who bade you come hither?'

"'I thank you, Karl, for your vigilance and fidelity. Never before was I awakened with such insolence.'

"'Let not your majesty say a word, and I will kill this woman at once.'

"Karl knew the empress. He was aware that she liked to be merciful before others, and that she always played the great queen and the great woman before even her valets.

"'You are too zealous,' said she, with a majestic smile. 'Go, and let this poor weeping woman speak. I am not in danger in the company of my subjects. What is the matter, madame? But, are you not the beautiful Porporina? You will spoil your voice, if you weep thus.'

"'Madame,' said Consuelo, 'ten years ago I was married in the Catholic Church. I have never once disgraced myself. I have legitimate children, whom I have educated virtuously. I dare to say——'

"'Virtuously I know you have, but not religiously. You are chaste, they tell me, but you never go to church. Tell me, however, what has befallen you?'

"'My husband, from whom I have never been separated, is now in Prague, and I know not by what infamous means he has been arrested in that city on the charge of usurping a name and title not his own, of attempting to appropriate an estate to which he had no claim—in fine, of being a swindler, a spy, and an impostor. Perhaps even now he has been sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, or to death.'

"'Prague? and an impostor?' said the empress. 'There is a story of that kind in the reports of the secret police. What is your husband's name? for you actresses do not bear them.'

"'Leverani.'

"'That is it! My child, I am sorry that you are married to such a wretch. This Leverani is in fact a swindler and a madman, who, taking advantage of a perfect resemblance, attempts to personate the Count of Rudolstadt, who died ten years ago. The fact is proved. He introduced himself into the home of the old Canoness of Rudolstadt, and dared to say he was her nephew, he would have succeeded in getting possession of her inheritance, if just then the old lady had not been relieved of him by friends of the family. He was arrested and very properly. I can conceive your mortification, but do not know how I can help it. If it be shown that this man is mad, and I hope he is, he will be placed in an hospital, where you will be able to see and attend him. If, however, he be a scamp, as I fear, he must be severely treated, to keep him from annoying the true heiress of Rudolstadt, the young Baroness Amelia, who I think, after all her past errors, is about to be married to one of my officers. I hope, mademoiselle, that you are ignorant of your husband's conduct, and are mistaken in relation to his character, otherwise I would be offended at your request. I pity you too much to humiliate you, however. You may retire.'

"Consuelo saw she had nothing to expect, and that in seeking to establish the identity of Albert and Leverani she would injure his position. She arose and walked towards the door, pale as if she was about to faint. Maria Theresa, however, who followed her with an anxious eye, took pity on her, and called her back.

"'You are much to be pitied,' said she, in a less dry tone. 'All this is not your fault, I am sure. Be at ease and be calm. The affair will be conscientiously investigated; and if your husband does not ruin himself, I will have him treated as a kind of madman. If you can communicate with him, have this understood. That is my advice.'

"'I will follow it, and thank your majesty, without whose protection I am quite powerless. My husband is imprisoned at Prague, and I am engaged at the Imperial Theatre at Vienna. If your majesty will but give me leave of absence and an order to see my husband, who is in strict confinement——'

"'You ask a great deal. I do not know whether Kaunitz will give you leave of absence, or if your place at the theatre can be supplied. We will see all about it in a few days.'

"'A few days!' said Consuelo, boldly. 'Then, perhaps, he will be no more. I must go now!—now!'

"'That is enough,' said the empress. 'Your urgency would injure you in the minds of judges less calm than I. Go, mademoiselle.'

"Consuelo went to the old Canon ***, and entrusted her children to his charge, at the same time saying she was about to leave for she knew not how long a time.

"'If you go for a long time,' said he, 'so much the worse for me. As for the children, they will give me no trouble, for they are perfectly well brought up, and will be company to Angela, who begins to be subject to ennui.'

"The good canon did not attempt to ascertain her secret. As, however, his quiet easy mind could not conceive a sorrow without a remedy, he attempted to console her. Finding that he did not succeed in inspiring her with hope, he sought at least to make her easy about her children.

"'Dear Bertoni,' said he, kindly, and striving in spite of his tears to smile, 'remember, if you do not come back, your children are mine. I take charge of their education. I will marry the girl, and that will diminish Angela's portion a little, and make her more industrious. The boys, I warn you, I will make musicians.'

"'Joseph Haydn will share that burden with you,' said Consuelo, 'and old Porpora will yet be able to give them some lessons. My children are docile and seem intellectual; so that their physical existence does not trouble me. They will be able to support themselves honestly. You must replace my love and advice.'

"'I promise to do so,' said the canon. 'I hope to live long enough to see them established. I am not very fat, and I can yet walk steadily. I am not more than sixty, although Bridget insists that I should make my will. Then have courage, my daughter, and take care of your health. Come back soon, for God takes care of the pure-hearted.'

"Consuelo, without any trouble about her leave of absence, had horses put to her carriage. Just as she was about to set out, Porpora came to know whither she was going. She had been unwilling to see him, knowing as she did that he would seek to prevent her departure. He was afraid, notwithstanding her promises, that she would not be back in time for the opera next day."

"'Who the devil dreams of going to the country in the winter time,' said he, with a nervous tremor caused as much by fear as old age. 'If you take cold you will endanger my success. I do not understand you. We succeeded yesterday, and you travel to-day.'

"This conversation made Consuelo lose a quarter of an hour, and enabled the directors to inform the authorities of her intention. She was in consequence forced to submit to a picket of Hulans, who immediately surrounded the house and stood sentinels at her door. She was soon seized with fever caused by this sudden check on her liberty, and frantically paced the room while she replied to the questions of Porpora and the directors. She did not sleep that night, but passed it in prayer. In the morning she was calm, and went to the rehearsal as she was desired. Her voice was never more melodious, but she was so mentally abstracted that Porpora became alarmed.

"'Cursed marriage! Cursed lovers' folly!' murmured he to the orchestra, striking the keys of his instrument as if he would break it. Porpora was unchanged, and would have willingly said, 'Perish all lovers and husbands in the world, so that my opera succeeds.'

"At night Consuelo made her toilet as usual, and went on the stage. She placed herself in proper attitude, and she moved her lips, but the voice was gone—she could not speak!

"The audience was amazed. The court had heard something vague about her attempt at flight, and pronounced it an unpardonable whim. There were cries, hisses, and applause at every effort she made. Still she was inaudible. She stood erect not thinking of the loss of her voice, nor feeling humiliated by the indignation of her tyrants, but resigned and proud as a martyr condemned to an unjust punishment; while she thanked God for having so afflicted her, that she could leave the stage and join her husband.

"It was proposed to the empress that the rebellious artist should be imprisoned, there to recover her voice and good temper. Her majesty was angry for a moment, and the courtiers thought to ingratiate themselves with her by advising cruelty; but the empress did not like unnecessary severity, though she could connive at remunerative crime.

"'Kaunitz,' said she, 'permit the poor woman to leave, and say nothing more about it. If her loss of voice is feigned, her duty seems to require it. Few actresses would sacrifice professional success at the altar of conjugal affection and duty.'

"Consuelo thus authorised set out. She was unwell, without being apparently aware of it."

Here again we lose the thread of events. The cause of Albert may have been public or secret. It is probable that it was analogous to the suit which Trenck made and lost, after so many years' dispute. Who in France would not know the details of this affair, had not Trenck himself published and spread his complaints abroad for thirty years? Albert left no documents. We must then turn to Trenck's story, he too being one of our heroes. It is probable his troubles may throw some light on those of Albert and Consuelo.

About a month after the meeting at St. Graal, of which in his memoirs Trenck says nothing, he was recaptured and imprisoned at Magdenbourg, where he passed ten years of his life, loaded with eighty pounds of irons. The stone to which he was bound bears the inscription "Here lies Trenck." All know his terrible fate, and the sufferings he underwent, as also his wonderful attempts at escape, and his incredible energy, which never left him, but which his chivalric imprudence counteracted. His sister was subjected to the cruelty of paying for the erection of a dungeon for him, because she afforded him a refuge in his flight. Trenck's works of art in prison, the wonderful engravings he made with the point of a nail on the tin cups, which are allegories or verses of great beauty, are also well known.[20] In fine, from his secret relations with the princess Amelia—the despair in which she wasted away, and her care to disfigure her face by means of a corrosive fluid, which almost destroyed her sight—the deplorable state of health to which she reduced herself to avoid marriage—the remarkable change effected on her character—the ten years of agony, which made him a martyr, and her an old woman, ugly and malicious, instead of the angelic creature she was, and would have been had she been happy[21]—the misfortunes of the lovers are historical; but they are generally forgotten when the character of Frederick the Great is written. These crimes, committed with such refined cruelty, are indelible spots on the character of that monarch.

At length Trenck was released, as is known, by the intervention of Maria Theresa, who claimed him as her subject. This was accomplished by the influence of Karl, her majesty's valet. In relation to the curious intrigues of this magnanimous man with his sovereign, some of the strangest, most touching and pathetic pages of the memoirs of the age have been written.

During the first part of the captivity of Trenck, his cousin, the famous Pandour, a victim of truer though not less hateful accusations, died it is said at Spielberg of poison. As soon as Trenck was free, the Prussian came to ask for his cousin's vast estate; but Maria Theresa had no idea of yielding it. She had taken advantage of the exploits of Pandour, and profited by his death. Like Frederick and other crowned tyrants, while the power of position dazzled the masses, she paid no attention to the secret offences for which God will call her to account at the day of judgment, and which will at least weigh as heavy as her official virtues.

The avarice of the empress was exceeded by her agents, the ignoble persons she had made curators of Pandour's estate, and the prevaricating magistrates who decided on the rights of the heir. Each had a share of the spoil, but the empress secured the largest. It was in vain that, years after, she sent to prison and the galleys all her accomplices in this fraud, as she never made complete restoration to Trenck. Nothing describes the character of the empress better than that portion of Trenck's book, in which he speaks of his interviews with her. Without divesting himself of the loyalty which was then a kind of patrician religion, he makes us feel how very avaricious and hypocritical this deceitful woman was. He exhibits an union of contrasts, a character at once base and sublime, innocent and false, like all those naturally pure hearts which become captivated by the corruption of absolute power—that great river of evil, on the breakers of which the noblest impulses of the human heart have been dashed to pieces. Resolved to thwart him, she yet afterwards deigned to console and encourage him, and promise him protection against his infamous judges;—and, finally, pretending not to have been able to discover the truth she sought, she bestowed on him the rank of major, and offered the hand of an ugly old woman who was both devout and gallant. On the refusal of Trenck, the royal matrimomaniac told him he was a presumptuous madman, that she had no means of gratifying his ambition, and coldly turned her back upon him. The reasons assigned for the confiscation of his estate varied under circumstances. One court said that Pandour, undergoing an infamous sentence, could make no will. Another, that if there were a will, the claimant, as a Prussian, could not benefit by it; and that the debts of the deceased absorbed everything. Incident after incident was got up; but after much disputing Trenck never received justice.[22]

There was no need of artifice to defraud Albert, and his spoliation was effected without much procrastination. It was only necessary to treat him as if he were dead, and prohibit him from being resuscitated at an inappropriate time. We know that when he was arrested, the Canoness Wenceslawa had died at Prague, whither she had come to be treated for acute ophthalmia. Albert, having heard that she was in extremis, could not resist the promptings of his heart to go and close the eyes of his relation. He left Consuelo on the Austrian frontier, and went to Prague. This was the first time he had been in Germany since his marriage. He flattered himself that the lapse of ten years and certain changes of attire would prevent him from being recognised; yet he approached his aunt with much mystery. He wished to have her blessing, and atone by his last kindness for the grief to which his desertion had subjected her. The canoness was almost blind, but was struck by the sound of his voice. She did not analyse her feelings, but at once abandoned herself to the instinctive tenderness which had survived her memory and mental activity. She clasped him in her withered arms, and called him her beloved Albert—her darling child. Old Hans was dead; but the Baroness Amelia and a woman from the Boehmer-wald, who had been a servant of the canoness, and who had nursed Albert when he was sick, were astonished and terrified at the resemblance of the pretended doctor and the count. It does not appear that Amelia positively recognised him, and we will not consider her an accomplice in the violent prosecution commenced against him. We do not know who set the detachment of half-magistrates half-spies to work, by whose aid the court of Vienna governed its conquered subjects. But one thing is certain, that the countess had scarcely breathed her last in her nephew's arms, ere Albert was arrested and examined as to what had brought him to the death-bed of the old lady. They wished to see his diploma; but he had none, and his name of Leverani was considered criminal, several people having known him as Trismegistus. He was consequently accused of being a quack and conjuror, although no one could prove that he had ever received money for his cures. He was confronted with Amelia: hence his ruin. Irritated and mortified by the investigations to which he was subjected, he confessed frankly to his cousin that he was Albert of Rudolstadt. Amelia certainly recognised him, and fainted from terror. The conversation had been overheard. The matter then took another turn. They wished to treat him as an impostor; but in order to produce one of those endless suits which ruin both parties, functionaries of the kind that had ruined Trenck, sought to compromise him by making him say he was Albert of Rudolstadt. There was a long investigation; and Supperville being sent for, said there was no doubt Albert had died at the Giants' Castle. The exhumation of the body was ordered; and a skeleton, which might have been placed there only the day before, was found, his cousin was induced to contend with him as with an adventurer who wished to rob her. She was not suffered to see him. The complaints of the captive and the ardent demands of his wife were stifled by a prison-bar and torture. Perhaps they were sick, and dying in different dungeons. Albert could no longer regain honor and liberty except by proclaiming the truth. It was in vain that he promised to renounce the estate, and at once to bestow it on his cousin. Interested parties sought to prolong the controversy, and they succeeded, either because the empress was deceived, or because she desired the confiscation of the estate. Amelia herself was attacked, the scandal of her previous misfortune being revived. It was insinuated that she was not a devotee, and they threatened to send her to a convent, in case she did not abandon her claim. Eventually she was forced to restrict it to her father's fortune, which was much reduced by the enormous expenses of litigation. The castle and estates of Riesenberg were confiscated to the state, after the lawyers, judges, and managers of the affair had appropriated two-thirds of its value. On the termination of the suit, which lasted five or six years, Albert was exiled from the Austrian states as a dangerous alien. Thenceforth, it is almost certain, the couple led an obscure life. They took their youngest children with them. Haydn and the canon kindly refused to give up the elder ones, who were being educated under the eyes and at the expense of these faithful friends. Consuelo had lost her voice for ever. It is but too certain that captivity, idleness, and sorrow at his wife's sufferings, had again shaken Albert's reason. It does not appear, however, that their love was less pure, or their conduct towards each other less tender. The Invisibles disappeared under persecution; their plans having failed, principally on account of the charlatans who had speculated on the new ideas and the love of the marvellous. Persecuted again as a freemason, in intolerant and despotic countries, Albert took refuge either in France or England. Perhaps he continued his propagandism, but this must have been among the people; and if his toil had any fruit, it had no eclat.

Here there is a void which our imagination cannot fill. One authentic document, which is very minute, shows us that in 1774 the couple were wandering in the Bohemian forests.

This letter we will copy as it came to us. It will be all we can say farther of Albert and Consuelo, whose subsequent career is utterly unknown.

LETTER OF PHILO[23]

TO IGNATIUS JOSEPH MARLIENOWIEZ, PROFESSOR OF PHYSIC AT LEMBERG.

"Borne away, as by a whirlpool, like the satellites of a star king we followed Spartacus[24] through rugged pathways, and under the dark shadows of the Boehmer-wald. Why were you not there, my friend? You would have neglected to pick up pebbles in the torrents, and to examine the bones and veins of our mysterious mother Earth. The ardent words of our master gave us wings. We crossed ravines and mountain tops, without counting our steps, without looking down on the abyss above which we stood, and without watching in the distance for the place where we should rest at night. Spartacus had never seemed greater, or more completely impregnated with sublime truth. The beauties of nature exerted on his mind all the influence of a great poem; but in the glow of his imagination, his spirit of wise analysis and ingenious combination never left him. He explained the sky and stars, the earth and seas, with the same clearness that presides over his dissertations on the lesser subjects of this world. As though his soul became greater, when alone and at liberty with the elect of his disciples, beneath the azure of the starry skies, or looking on the dawn that announced the rising sun, he broke through the limits of time and space to embrace in one glance all humanity, both in its general view and in its details, to penetrate the fragile destiny of empires and the imposing future of nations. You in the flesh understand this, young man; you have heard on the mountain this youth, with a wisdom surpassing his years, and who seems to have lived amongst men since the beginning of the world.

"When we came to the frontier, we made a salutation to the land which had witnessed the exploits of the great Ziska, and bowed yet lower to the caves which had been sepulchres to the martyrs of our old national liberty. There we resolved to separate, for the purpose of examining every point at once. Cato[25] went to the north-west, Celsus[26] to the south-east, Ajax[27] went from the west to the east, and our rendezvous was Pilsen.

"Spartacus kept me with him, and resolved to rely on chance and a certain divine inspiration which was to direct us. I was a little amazed at his absence of calculation and thought, which seemed altogether contradictory to his methodical habit. 'Philo,' said he, when we were alone, 'I think men like us are ministers of Providence. Do not imagine, however, that I deem Providence inert and disdainful, for by it we live and think. I have observed that you are more favored than I am. Your designs almost always succeed. Forward, then, and I will follow you. I have faith in your second sight, in that mysterious clearness invoked naïvely by our ancestors, the Illuminati, the pious fanatics of the past.' It really seems that the master has prophesied truly. Before the second day we found what we looked for, and thus I became the instrument of fate.

"We had reached the end of the wood, and there were two forks of the road before us. One went into the lowlands, and the other went along the sides of the mountain.

"'Whither shall we go?' said Spartacus, seating himself on a rock. 'I can see from here cultivated fields, meadows, and humble huts. They told us he was poor, and he must therefore live with people of the same class. Let us inquire after him, among the humble shepherds of the valley.'

"'Not so, master,' said I, pointing to the road on my right. 'I see there the towers and crumbling walls of an old mansion. They told us he was a poet, and he must therefore love ruins and solitude.'

"'Well, then,' said Spartacus, with a smile, 'I see Hesper rising, white as a pearl, in the yet roseate sky, above the ruins of the old domain. We are shepherds looking for a prophet, and the wonderful star hurries before us.'

"We soon reached the ruins. It was an imposing structure, built at different epochs. The ruins of the days of the emperor, Karl, however, lay side by side with those of feudality. Not time, but the hands of man had worked this destruction. It was broad day when we ascended a dried-up ditch, and reached a rusted and motionless portcullis. The first object we saw amid the ruins, as we came into the court-yard, was an old man covered with rags, and more like a being of the past than of the present day. His beard, like ivory grown yellow from age, fell on his breast, and his golden hair glittered like a lake lighted up by the sun. Spartacus trembled, and, approaching him hastily, asked the name of the castle. The old man did not seem to fear us. He looked at us with his glassy eyes, but seemed unable to see us. We asked his name. He made no reply, his face merely expressing a dreamy indifference. His Socratic features, however, did not express the degradation of idiotcy. There was in his stern features an indescribable kind of beauty, originating in a pure and serene mind. Spartacus put a piece of silver into his hand; but having held it near his eyes, he let it fall as if he did not know the use of it.

"'Is it possible,' said I to my master, 'that an old man so totally deprived of his senses can be thus abandoned by his fellow-men, and left to ramble amid mountains, far away from the abodes of men without a guide, without even a dog to lead him?'