of his visit to the house in the Rue du Temple were highly important, both as regarded the solution of the deep mystery he so ardently desired to unravel, and also as affording a wide field for the exercise of his earnest endeavours to do good and to prevent evil. After mature calculation, he considered himself to have achieved the following results:
First, he had ascertained that Mlle. Rigolette was in possession of the address of Germain, the Schoolmaster's son. Secondly, a young female, who, from appearances, might unhappily be the Marquise d'Harville, had made an appointment with the commandant for the morrow—perhaps to her own utter ruin and disgrace; and Rodolph had (as we have before mentioned) numerous reasons for wishing to preserve the honour and peace of one for whom he felt so lively an interest as he took in all concerning M. d'Harville. An honest and industrious artisan, crushed by the deepest misery, was, with his whole family, about to be turned into the streets through the means of Bras Rouge. Further, Rodolph had undesignedly caught a glimpse of an adventure in which the charlatan César Bradamanti (possibly Polidori) and a female, evidently of rank and fashion, were the principal actors. And, finally, La Chouette, having lately quitted the hospital, where she had been since the affair in the Allée des Veuves, had reappeared on the stage, and was evidently engaged in some underhand proceedings with the fortune-teller and female money-lender who occupied the second floor of the house.
Having carefully noted down all these particulars, Rodolph returned to his house, Rue Plumet, deferring till the following day his visit to the notary, Jacques Ferrand.
It will be no doubt fresh in the memory of our readers, that on this same evening Rodolph was engaged to be present at a grand ball given by the ambassador of——. Before following our hero in this new excursion, let us cast a retrospective glance on Tom and Sarah—personages of the greatest importance in the development of this history.
CHAPTER XXV.
TOM AND SARAH.
Sarah Seyton, widow of Count Macgregor, and at this time thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age, was of an excellent Scotch family, daughter of a baronet, and a country gentleman. Beautiful and accomplished, an orphan at seventeen years old, she had left Scotland with her brother, Thomas Seyton of Halsbury. The absurd predictions of an old Highland nurse had excited almost to madness the two leading vices in Sarah's character—pride and ambition; the destiny predicted for her, and in which she fully believed, was of the highest order—in fact, sovereign rank. The prophecy had been so often repeated, that the young Scotch girl eventually fully credited its fulfilment; and she constantly repeated to herself, to bear out her ambitious dream, that a fortune-teller had thus promised a crown to the handsome and excellent creature who afterwards sat on the throne of France, and who was queen as much by her graces and her kind heart as others have been by their grandeur and majesty.
Strange to say, Thomas Seyton, as superstitious as his sister, encouraged her foolish hopes, and resolved on devoting his life to the realisation of Sarah's dream—a dream as dazzling as it was deceptive. However, the brother and sister were not so blind as to believe implicitly in this Highland prophecy, and to look absolutely for a throne of the first rank in a splendid disdain of secondary royalties or reigning principalities; on the contrary, so that the handsome Scotch lassie should one day encircle her imperial forehead with a sovereign crown, the haughty pair agreed to condescend to shut their eyes to the importance of the throne they coveted. By the assistance of the Almanach de Gotha for the year of grace 1819, Seyton arranged, before he left Scotland, a sort of synopsis of the ages of all the kings and ruling powers in Europe then unmarried.
Although very ridiculous, yet the brother and sister's ambition was freed from all shameful modes; Seyton was prepared to aid his sister Sarah in snatching at the thread of the conjugal band by which she hoped eventually to fasten a crown upon her brows. He would be her participator in any and all stratagems which could tend to consummate this end; but he would rather have killed his sister than see her the mistress of a prince, even though the liaison should terminate in a marriage of reparation.
The matrimonial inventory that resulted from Seyton and Sarah's researches in the Almanach de Gotha was satisfactory. The Germanic Confederation furnished forth a numerous contingent of young presumptive sovereigns. Seyton was not ignorant of the sort of German wedlock which is called a "left-handed marriage," to which, as being legitimate to a certain extent, he would, as a last resource, have resigned his sister. To Germany, then, it was resolved to bend their steps, in order to commence this search for the royal spouse.
If the project appears improbable, such hopes ridiculous, let us first reply by saying that unbridled ambition, excited by superstitious belief, rarely claims for itself the light of reason in its enterprises, and will dare the wildest impossibilities; yet, when we recall certain events, even in our own times, from high and most reputable morganatic marriages between sovereigns and female subjects, down to the loving elopement of Miss Penelope Smith and the Prince of Capua, we cannot refuse some chance of fortunate result to the imagination of Seyton and Sarah. Let us add that the lady united to a very lovely person, singular abilities and very varied talents; whilst there were added a power of seduction the more dangerous as it was united to a mind unbending and calculating, a disposition cunning and selfish, a deep hypocrisy, a stubborn and despotic will—all covered by the outward show of a generous, warm, and impassioned nature.
In her appearance, there was as much deceit as in her mind. Her full and dark eyes, now sparkling, now languishing, beneath her coal black brow, could well dissimulate all the warmth of love and desire. Yet the burning impulses of love never throbbed beneath her icy bosom; no surprise of the heart or of the senses ever intervened to disturb the cold and pitiless calculations of this woman—crafty, selfish, and ambitious. When she reached the Continent, she resolved, in accordance with her brother's advice, not to commence her conjugal and regal campaign until she had resided some time in Paris, where she determined to complete her education, and rub off the rust of her native country, by associating with a society which was embellished by all that was elegant, tasteful, and refined. Sarah was introduced into the best society and the highest circles, thanks to the letters of recommendation and considerate patronage of the English "ambassador's" lady and the old Marquis d'Harville, who had known Tom and Sarah's father in England.
Persons of deceitful, calculating, and cold dispositions acquire with great facility language and manners quite in opposition to their natural character, as with them all is outside, surface, appearance, varnish, bark; or they soon find that, if their real characters are detected, they are undone; so, thanks to the sort of instinct of self-preservation with which they are gifted, they feel all the necessity of the moral mask, and so paint and costume themselves with all the alacrity and skill of a practised comedian. Thus, after six months' residence in Paris, Sarah was in a condition to contest with the most Parisian of Parisian women, as to the piquant finish of her wit, the charm of her liveliness, the ingenuousness of her flirtation, and the exciting simplicity of her looks, at once chaste and passionate.
Finding his sister in full panoply for his campaign, Seyton left with her for Germany, furnished with the best letters of introduction. The first state of the German Confederation which headed Sarah's "road-book" was the Grand Duchy of Gerolstein, thus styled in the diplomatic and infallible Almanach de Gotha for the year of grace 1819:
"Genealogy of the Sovereigns of Europe and their Families.
"GEROLSTEIN.
"Grand Duke: Maximilian Rodolph, 10th December, 1764. Succeeded his father, Charles Frederic Rodolph, 21st April, 1785. Widower January, 1808, by decease of his wife, Louisa Amelia, daughter of John Augustus, Prince of Burglen.
"Son: Gustavus Rodolph, born 17th April, 1803.
"Mother: Dowager Grand Duchess Judith, widow of the Grand Duke, Charles Frederic Rodolph, 21st April, 1785."
Seyton, with much practical good sense, had first noted down on his list the youngest princes whom he coveted as brothers-in-law, thinking that extreme youth is more easily seduced than ripened age.