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Page 68
"What thou hast heard and seen, my son," replied the other, "is but type
and shadow of the woes of Spain."
He then related the foregoing story of the miraculous deliverance of the
convent.
"Forty years," added the holy man, "have elapsed since this event, yet
the bells of that sacred edifice are still heard, from time to time,
sounding from under ground, together with the pealing of the organ, and
the chanting of the choir. The Moors avoid this neighborhood, as haunted
ground, and the whole place, as thou mayest perceive, has become covered
with a thick and lonely forest."
The cavalier listened with wonder to the story of this engulphed
convent, as related by the holy man. For three days and nights did they
keep vigils beside the cross; but nothing more was to be seen of nun or
convent. It is supposed that, forty years having elapsed, the natural
lives of all the nuns were finished, and that the cavalier had beheld
the obsequies of the last of the sisterhood. Certain it is, that from
that time, bell, and organ, and choral chant have never more been heard.
The mouldering pinnacle, surmounted by the cross, still remains an
object of pious pilgrimage. Some say that it anciently stood in front
of the convent, but others assert that it was the spire of the sacred
edifice, and that, when the main body of the building sank, this
remained above ground, like the top-mast of some tall ship that
has foundered. These pious believers maintain, that the convent is
miraculously preserved entire in the centre of the mountain, where, if
proper excavations were made, it would be found, with all its treasures,
and monuments, and shrines, and reliques, and the tombs of its virgin
nuns.
Should any one doubt the truth of this marvelous interposition of the
Virgin, to protect the vestal purity of her votaries, let him read the
excellent work entitled "Espa�a Triumphante," written by Padre Fray
Antonio de Sancta Maria, a bare-foot friar of the Carmelite order, and
he will doubt no longer.
* * * * *
THE COUNT VAN HORN.
During the minority of Louis XV., while the Duke of Orleans was Regent
of France, a young Flemish nobleman, the Count Antoine Joseph Van Horn,
made his sudden appearance in Paris, and by his character, conduct, and
the subsequent disasters in which he became involved, created a great
sensation in the high circles of the proud aristocracy. He was about
twenty-two years of age, tall, finely formed, with a pale, romantic
countenance, and eyes of remarkable brilliancy and wildness.
He was of one of the most ancient and highly-esteemed families of
European nobility, being of the line of the Princes of Horn and
Overique, sovereign Counts of Hautekerke, and hereditary Grand Veneurs
of the empire.
The family took its name from the little town and seigneurie of Horn, in
Brabant; and was known as early as the eleventh century among the little
dynasties of the Netherlands, and since that time by a long line of
illustrious generations. At the peace of Utrecht, when the Netherlands
passed under subjection to Austria, the house of Van Horn came under the
domination of the emperor. At the time we treat of, two of the branches
of this ancient house were extinct; the third and only surviving branch
was represented by the reigning prince, Maximilian Emanuel Van Horn,
twenty-four years of age, who resided in honorable and courtly style
on his hereditary domains at Baussigny, in the Netherlands, and his
brother, the Count Antoine Joseph, who is the subject of this memoir.
The ancient house of Van Horn, by the intermarriage of its various
branches with the noble families of the continent, had become widely
connected and interwoven with the high aristocracy of Europe. The Count
Antoine, therefore, could claim relationship to many of the proudest
names in Paris. In fact, he was grandson, by the mother's side, of the
Prince de Ligne, and even might boast of affinity to the Regent (the
Duke of Orleans) himself. There were circumstances, however, connected
with his sudden appearance in Paris, and his previous story, that placed
him in what is termed "a false position;" a word of baleful significance
in the fashionable vocabulary of France.
The young count had been a captain in the service of Austria, but had
been cashiered for irregular conduct, and for disrespect to Prince Louis
of Baden, commander-in-chief. To check him in his wild career, and
bring him to sober reflection, his brother the prince caused him to be
arrested and sent to the old castle of Van Wert, in the domains of Horn.
This was the same castle in which, in former times, John Van Horn,
Stadtholder of Gueldres, had imprisoned his father; a circumstance which
has furnished Rembrandt with the subject of an admirable painting. The
governor of the castle was one Van Wert, grandson of the famous John Van
Wert, the hero of many a popular song and legend. It was the intention
of the prince that his brother should be held in honorable durance, for
his object was to sober and improve, not to punish and afflict him. Van
Wert, however, was a stern, harsh man of violent passions. He treated
the youth in a manner that prisoners and offenders were treated in the
strong-holds of the robber counts of Germany in old times; confined him
in a dungeon and inflicted on him such hardships and indignities that
the irritable temperament of the young count was roused to continual
fury, which ended in insanity. For six months was the unfortunate youth
kept in this horrible state, without his brother the prince being
informed of his melancholy condition or of the cruel treatment to which
he was subjected. At length, one day, in a paroxysm of frenzy, the count
knocked down two of his gaolers with a beetle, escaped from the castle
of Van Wert, and eluded all pursuit; and after roving about in a state
of distraction, made his way to Baussigny and appeared like a sceptre
before his brother.
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