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Page 49
"I have toiled and sighed and prayed for this! Day after day, night
after night, for years, this has been the aim of all my actions, ay,
even the limit of my aspirations. Once to be king--oh! ever since I
first clutched a lance I panted for it! In love, in sickness, in peace,
in war, I never forgot that one surpassing object--the crown! Hear me
on! It is now within my reach--I can touch it--and you ask me to resign
it?--"
The duke paused a minute, his eagle eye flashing fire; then, with a
vehemence almost appalling, he resumed: "You ask me to resign it--and I
_would_, without a pang--gladly, cheerfully--this very instant! Yes--I
swear to you--here in presence of my Creator, that I no longer covet the
crown I have well-nigh worshipped; that, but for Germany and the Church,
I would rather place it on Henry's perjured head than wear it on my
own!"
"Then you will resign it?" said the missionary, eagerly.
Rodolph slowly shook his head and fixed his eyes upon the floor.
"Let no fears for the Church and your country restrain you," pursued the
priest; "they both demand your refusal, not your acceptance."
Still Rodolph sternly shook his head.
"Then as you value honor, defer your decision until the appointed
time--our Holy Father may still be with us--it is treacherous to deprive
him of the opportunity of interfering, by thus anticipating by a month
the day on which we invited him to meet us."
"It is too late for interference now," replied the duke, "and of what
avail is it to pause on the brink when all the avenues from Carpineta
are closed by Henry's minions?"
"Have confidence, I conjure you," exclaimed the other, passionately, "in
the virtue and wisdom of His Holiness. Rest assured that he will find
some means to avert bloodshed and yet preserve his See and the empire."
"War is inevitable!"
"Obey the Pope and trust in God. Beware how you take upon yourself to
plunge the nation in war--to tear down the sacred barriers of peace--and
open the floodgates for a thousand evil passions to deluge Germany with
crime and blood! Can you foresee what may occur--what a month may
develop--what new political combination the master mind of Gregory may
devise for our preservation?"
"I must rather beware," returned the noble, "how I sacrifice the last
hope of my country and the main support of religion by procrastination
and criminal hesitation. If I refuse the crown, I disband my party. Men
will leave us, and say we tremble, and before long we are at the tender
mercies of the tyrant, for my resignation, while striking terror into
our ranks, will infuse new courage into his. Then would I see my
allies--the friends whom I seduced into rebellion and then
abandoned--destroyed in detail--pursued, hunted down, exiled, and
martyred before my eyes. No! come what may, I must accept."
"What is your situation now," rejoined the missionary, "that you have
anything else to expect than defeat and disgrace? You know the
emperor--you have seen his dauntless courage, his consummate skill, his
desperate resolution. You know that he is at the head of an army more
numerous and better disciplined than your own. And you must also clearly
foresee that if the Pope--as he certainly will--shall condemn the policy
of his legates, your efforts will want the principle of life which alone
can bless them with success."
"If the prospect now is bad," said Rodolph, solemnly, "delay can only
make it worse. And I believe that, could His Holiness see what is
evident to us, he would command me to accept the crown, and place it
with his own hands upon my head."
"You are mistaken--wofully mistaken, my lord. While a hope of averting
anarchy and civil war remains, Gregory will not adopt the surest means
of inflicting both. Trust in God for the future! Do not pursue what to
the mole-blind vision of humanity seems expedient, when certain
bloodshed is the result! Humble yourself before Him who alone can exalt
and lay low! Confide in the efficacy of prayer! Think not that God will
desert His Church or her champions!"
"I do trust in the future," answered the duke, "but not until I have
embraced what reason dictates for the present."
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