Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844

"As I live, a choice romance!—almost worthy the pages of our matchless Boccaccio!" cried the Italian. "A thousand pities but that the whole batch of Orangeists had been carried down the Dyle!—However, the enemy's lines lie between them. They will meet no more. The Calvinist colonel has doubtless his daughter under lock and key; and his highness has too much work cut out for him by his rebels, to have time for peeping through the keyhole.—So now, good-night.—For love-tales are apt to beget drowsiness; and i'faith we must be a-foot by break of day."

And having betaken himself to the chamber provided for him, Ottavio Gonzaga lost not an hour or a syllable, in transcribing all he had learned from the Spanish aide-de-camp; that the state of mind and feeling of the young viceroy might be speedily laid open to the full and uncongenial investigation of his royal brother of the Escurial.

Part II

A fortnight afterwards, was fought that famous battle of Gembloux, which added a new branch to the laurels of Don John of Austria; and constitutes a link of the radiant chain of military glories which binds the admiration of Europe to the soil of one of the obscurest of its countries!—Gembloux, Ramillies, Nivelle, Waterloo, lie within the circuit of a morning's journey, as well as within the circle of eternal renown.

By this brilliant triumph of the royalists, six thousand men-at-arms, their standards, banners, and artillery, were lost to the States. The cavalry of Spain, under the command of Ottavio Gonzaga, performed prodigies of valour; and the vanguard, under that of Gaspardo Nignio, equally distinguished itself. But the heat of the action fell upon the main body of the army, which had marched from Namur under the command of Don John; being composed of the Italian reinforcements dispatched to him from Parma by desire of the Pope, under the command of his nephew, Prince Alexander Farnese.

It was noticed, however, with surprise, that when the generals of the States—the Archduke Matthias, and Prince of Orange—retreated in dismay to Antwerp, Don John, instead of pursuing his advantage with the energy of his usual habits, seemed to derive little satisfaction or encouragement from his victory. It might be, that the difficulty of controlling the predatory habits of the German and Burgundian troops wearied his patience; for scarce a day passed but there issued some new proclamation, reproving the atrocious rapacity and lawless desperation of the army. But neither Gonzaga nor Nignio had much opportunity of judging of the real cause of his cheerlessness; for, independent of the engrossing duties of their several commands, the leisure of Don John was entirely bestowed upon his nephew, Alexander Farnese, who, only a few years his junior in age, was almost a brother in affection.

To him alone were confided the growing cares of his charge—the increasing perplexities of his mind. To both princes, the name of Ulrica had become, by frequent repetition, a sacred word; and though Don John had the comfort of knowing that her father, the Count de Cergny, was unengaged in the action of Gembloux, his highness had reason to fear that the regiment of Hainaulters under his command, constituted the garrison of one or other of the frontier fortresses of Brabant, to which it was now his duty to direct the conquering arms of his captains.

The army of the States having taken refuge within the walls of Antwerp, the royalists, instead of marching straight to Brussels, according to general expectation, effected in the first instance the reduction of Tirlemont, Louvain, D'Arschot, Sichem, and Diest,—Nivelle, the capital of Walloon Brabant, next succumbed to their arms—Maubeuge, Chimay, Barlaimont;—and, after a severe struggle, the new and beautiful town of Philippeville.

But these heroic feats were not accomplished without a tremendous carnage, and deeds of violence at which the soul sickened. At Sichem, the indignation of the Burgundians against a body of French troops which, after the battle of Gembloux, had pledged itself never again to bear arms against Spain, caused them to have a hundred soldiers strangled by night, and their bodies flung into the moat at the foot of the citadel; after which the town was given up by Prince Alexander to pillage and spoliation! Terrified by such an example, Diest and Leeuw hastened to capitulate. And still, at every fresh conquest, and while receiving day after day, and week after week, the submission of fortresses, and capitulation of vanquished chiefs, the anxious expectation entertained by Don John of an appeal to his clemency accompanying the Venetian ring, was again and again disappointed!—

At times, his anxieties on Ulrica's account saddened him into utter despondency. He felt convinced that mischance had overtaken her. All his endeavours to ascertain the position of the Count de Cergny having availed him nothing, he trusted that the family must be shut up in Antwerp, with the Prince of Orange and Archduke; but when every night, ere he retired to a soldier's rugged pillow, and pressed his lips to that long fair tress which seemed to ensure the blessings of an angel of purity and peace, the hopes entertained by Don John of tidings of the gentle Ulrica became slighter and still more slight.

He did not the more refrain from issuing such orders and exacting such interference on the part of Alexander Farnese, as promised to secure protection and respect to the families of all such officers of the insurgent army as might, in any time or place, fall into the hands of the royalists.

To Alexander, indeed, to whom his noble kinsman was scarcely less endeared by his chivalrous qualities than the ties of blood, and who was fully aware of the motive of these instructions, the charge was almost superfluous. So earnest were, from the first, his orders to his Italian captains to pursue in all directions their enquiries after the Count de Cergny and his family, that it had become a matter of course to preface their accounts of the day's movements with—"No intelligence, may it please your highness, of the Count de Cergny!"

The siege of Limbourg, however, now wholly absorbed his attention; for it was a stronghold on which the utmost faith was pinned by the military science of the States. But a breach having been made in the walls by the Spanish artillery under the command of Nicolo di Cesi, the cavalry, commanded in person by the Prince Alexander, and the Walloons under Nignio di Zuniga, speedily forced an entrance; when, in spite of the stanch resistance of the governor, the garrison laid down their arms, and the greater portion of the inhabitants took the oath of fealty to the king.

Of all his conquests, this was the least expected and most desirable; in devout conviction of which, the Prince of Parma commanded a Te Deum to be sung in the churches, and hastened to render thanks to the God of Battles for an event by which further carnage was spared to either host.

Escorted by his état major, he had proceeded to the cathedral to join in the august solemnization; when, lo! just as he quitted the church, a way-worn and heated cavalier approached, bearing despatches; in whom the prince recognised a faithful attendant of his household, named Paolo Rinaldo, whom he had recently sent with instructions to Camille Du Mont, the general charged with the reduction of the frontier fortresses of Brabant.

"Be their blood upon their head!" was the spontaneous ejaculation of the prince, after perusing the despatch. Then, turning to the officers by whom he was escorted, he explained, in a few words, that the fortress of Dalem, which had replied to the propositions to surrender of Du Mont only by the scornful voice of its cannon, had been taken by storm by the Burgundians, and its garrison put to the sword.

"Time that some such example taught a lesson to these braggarts of Brabant!"—responded Nignio, who stood at the right hand of Prince Alexander. "The nasal twang of their chaplains seems of late to have overmastered, in their ears, the eloquence of the ordnance of Spain! Yet, i'faith, they might be expected to find somewhat more unction in the preachments of our musketeers than the homilies of either Luther or Calvin!"

He spoke unheeded of the prince; for Alexander was now engaged apart in a colloquy with his faithful Rinaldo, who had respectfully placed in his hands a ring of great cost and beauty.

"Seeing the jewel enchased with the arms of the Venetian republic, may it please your highness," said the soldier, "I judged it better to remit it to your royal keeping."

"And from whose was it plundered?" cried the prince, with a sudden flush of emotion.

"From hands that resisted not!" replied Rinaldo gravely. "I took it from the finger of the dead!"

"And when, and where?"—exclaimed the prince, drawing him still further apart, and motioning to his train to resume their march to the States' house of Limbourg.

"The tale is long and grievous, may it please your highness!" said Rinaldo. "To comprise it in the fewest words, know that, after seeing the governor of Dalem cut down in a brave and obstinate defence of the banner of the States floating from the walls of his citadel, I did my utmost to induce the Baron de Cevray, whose Burgundians carried the place, to proclaim quarter. For these fellows of Hainaulters, (who, to do them justice, had fought like dragons,) having lost their head, were powerless; and of what use hacking to pieces an exhausted carcass?—But our troops were too much exasperated by the insolent resistance and defiance they had experienced, to hear of mercy; and soon the conduits ran blood, and shrieks and groans rent the air more cruelly than the previous roar of the artillery. In accordance, however, with the instructions I have ever received from your highness, I pushed my way into all quarters, opposing what authority I might to the brutality of the troopers."

"Quick, quick!"—cried Prince Alexander in anxious haste—"Let me not suppose that the wearer of this ring fell the victim of such an hour?"—

It was in passing the open doors of the church that my ears were assailed with cries of female distresses:—nor could I doubt that even that sanctuary (held sacred by our troops of Spain!) had been invaded by the impiety of the German or Burgundian legions!—As usual, the chief ladies of the town had placed themselves under the protection of the high altar. But there, even there, had they been seized by sacrilegious hands!—The fame of the rare beauty of the daughter of the governor of Dalem, had attracted, among the rest, two daring ruffians of the regiment of Cevray."

"You sacrificed them, I trust in GOD, on the spot?"—demanded the prince, trembling with emotion. "You dealt upon them the vengeance due?"

"Alas! sir, the vengeance they were mutually dealing, had already cruelly injured the helpless object of the contest! Snatched from the arms of the Burgundian soldiers by the fierce arm of a German musketeer, a deadly blow, aimed at the ruffian against whom she was wildly but vainly defending herself; had lighted on one of the fairest of human forms! Cloven to the bone, the blood of this innocent being, scarce past the age of childhood, was streaming on her assailants; and when, rushing in, I proclaimed, in the name of God and of your highness, quarter and peace, it was an insensible body I rescued from the grasp of pollution!"

"Unhappy Ulrica!" faltered the prince, "and oh! my more unhappy kinsman!"

"Not altogether hopeless," resumed Rinaldo; "and apprized, by the sorrowful ejaculations of her female companions when relieved from their personal fears, of the high condition of the victim, I bore the insensible lady to the hospital of Dalem; and the utmost skill of our surgeons was employed upon her wounds. Better had it been spared!—The dying girl was roused only to the endurance of more exquisite torture; and while murmuring a petition for 'mercy—mercy to her father!' that proved her still unconscious of her family misfortunes, she attempted in vain to take from her finger the ring I have had the honour to deliver to your highness:—faltering with her last breath, 'for his sake, Don John will perhaps show mercy to my poor old father!'"—

Prince Alexander averted his head as he listened to these mournful details.

"She is at rest, then?"—said he, after a pause.

"Before nightfall, sir, she was released."—

"Return in all haste to Dalem, Rinaldo," rejoined the prince, "and complete your work of mercy, by seeing all honours of interment that the times admit, bestowed on the daughter of the Comte de Cergny!"

Weary and exhausted as he was, not a murmur escaped the lips of the faithful Rinaldo as he mounted his horse, and hastened to the discharge of his new duty. For though habituated by the details of that cruel and desolating warfare to spectacles of horror—the youth—the beauty—the innocence—the agonies of Ulrica, had touched him to the heart; nor was the tress of her fair hair worn next the heart of Don John of Austria, more fondly treasured, than the one this rude soldier had shorn from the brow of death, in the ward of a public hospital, albeit its silken gloss was tinged with blood!— Scarcely a month had elapsed after the storming of Dalem, when a terrible rumour went forth in the camp of Bouge, (where Don John had intrenched his division of the royalist army,) that the governor of the Netherlands was attacked by fatal indisposition!—For some weeks past, indeed, his strength and spirit had been declining. When at the village of Rymenam on the Dyle, near Mechlin, (not far from the ferry of the wood,) he suffered himself to be surprised by the English troops under Horn, and the Scotch under Robert Stuart, the unusual circumstance of the defeat of so able a general was universally attributed to prostration of bodily strength.

When it was soon afterwards intimated to the army that he had ceded the command to his nephew, Prince Alexander Farnese, regret for the origin of his secession superseded every other consideration.

For the word had gone forth that he was to die!—In the full vigour of his manhood and energy of his soul, a fatal blow had reached Don John of Austria!—

A vague but horrible accusation of poison was generally prevalent!—For his leniency towards the Protestants had engendered a suspicion of heresy, and the orthodoxy of Philip II. was known to be remorseless; and the agency of Ottavio Gonzaga at hand!—

But the kinsman who loved and attended him knew better. From the moment Prince Alexander beheld the ring of Ulrica glittering on his wasted hand, he entertained no hope of his recovery; and every time he issued from the tent of Don John, and noted the groups of veterans praying on their knees for the restoration of the son of their emperor, and heard the younger soldiers calling aloud in loyal affection upon the name of the hero of Lepanto, tears came into his eyes as he passed on to the discharge of his duties. For he knew that their intercessions were in vain—that the hours of the sufferer were numbered. In a moment of respite from his sufferings, the sacraments of the church were administered to the dying prince; having received which with becoming humility, he summoned around him the captains of the camp, and exhorted them to zeal in the service of Spain, and fidelity to his noble successor in command.

It was the 1st of October, the anniversary of the action of Lepanto, and on a glorious autumnal day of golden sunshine, that, towards evening, he ordered the curtains of his tent to be drawn aside, that he might contemplate for the last time the creation of God!—

Raising his head proudly from a soldier's pillow, he uttered in hoarse but distinct accents his last request, that his body might be borne to Spain, and buried at the feet of his father. For his eyes were fixed upon the glories of the orb of day, and his mind upon the glories of the memory of one of the greatest of kings.

But that pious wish reflected the last flash of human reason in his troubled mind. His eyes became suddenly inflamed with fever, his words incoherent, his looks haggard. Having caused them to sound the trumpets at the entrance of his tent, as for an onset, he ranged his battalions for an imaginary field of battle, and disposed his manoeuvres, and gave the word to charge against the enemy.

Then, sinking back upon his pillow, he breathed in subdued accents, "Let me at least avenge her innocent blood. Why, why could I not save thee, my Ulrica!"—

18: The foregoing details are strictly historical.

It was thus he died. When Nignio de Zuniga (cursing in his heart with a fourfold curse the heretics whom he chose to consider the murderers of his master) stooped down to lay his callous hand on the heart of the hero, the pulses of life were still!—

There was but one cry throughout the camp—there was but one thought among his captains:—"Let the bravest knight of Christendom be laid nobly in the grave!" Attired in the suit of mail in which he had fought at Lepanto, the body was placed on a bier, and borne forth from his tent on the shoulders of the officers of his household. Then, having been saluted by the respect of the whole army, it was transmitted from post to post through the camp, on those of the colonels of the regiments of all nations constituting the forces of Spain.—And which of them was to surmise, that upon the heart of the dead lay the love-token of a heretic?—A double line of troops, infantry and cavalry in alternation, formed a road of honour from the camp of Bouge to the gates of the city of Namur. And when the people saw, borne upon his bier amid the deferential silence of those iron soldiers, bareheaded and with their looks towards the earth, the gallant soldier so untimely stricken, arrayed in his armour of glory and with a crown upon his head, after the manner of the princes of Burgundy, and on his finger the ruby ring of the Doge of Venice, they thought upon his knightly qualities—his courtesy, generosity, and valour—till all memory of his illustrious parentage became effaced. They forgot the prince in the man,—"and behold all Israel mourned for Jonathan!"

A regiment of infantry, trailing their halberts, led the march, till they reached Namur, where the precious deposit was remitted by the royalist generals, Mansfeldt, Villefranche, and La Cros, to the hands of the chief magistrates of Namur. By these it was bourne in state to the cathedral of St Alban; and during the celebration of a solemn mass, deposited at the foot of the high altar till the pleasure of Philip II. should be known concerning the fulfilment of the last request of Don John.

It was by Ottavio Gonzaga the tidings of his death were conveyed to Spain. It was by Ottavio Gonzaga the king intimated, in return, his permission that the conqueror of Lepanto should share the sepulture of Charles V., and all that now remains to Namur in memory of one of the last of Christian knights, the Maccabeus of the Turkish hosts, who expired in its service and at its gates, is an inscription placed on its high altar by the piety of Alexander Farnese, intimating that it afforded a temporary resting place to the remains of DON JOHN of AUSTRIA.[15 - Thus far the courtesies of fiction. But for those who prefer historical fact, it may be interesting to learn the authentic details of the interment of one whose posthumous destinies seemed to share the incompleteness of his baffled life. In order to avoid the contestations arising from the transit of a corpse through a foreign state, Nignio di Zuniga (who was charged by Philip with the duty of conveying it to Spain, under sanction of a passport from Henri III.) caused it to be dismembered, and the parts packed in three budgets, (bougettes,) and laid upon packhorses!—On arriving in Spain, the parts were readjusted with wires!—"On remplit le corps de bourre," says the old chronicler from which these details are derived, "et ainsi la structure en aiant été comme rétablie, on le revétit de ses armes, et le fit voir au roi, tout debout apuyé sur son bâton de général, de sorte qu'il semblait encore vivant. L'aspect d'un mort si illustre ayant excité quelques larmes, on le porta à l'Escurial dans l'Eglise de St Laurens auprez de son père."Such is the account given in a curious old history (supplementary to those of D'Avila and Strada) of the wars of the Prince of Parma, published at Amsterdam early in the succeeding century. But a still greater insult has been offered to the memory of one of the last of Christian knights, in Casimir Delavigne's fine play of "Don Juan d'Autriche," where he is represented as affianced to a Jewess!]

POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE

No. I

It may be as well to state at the outset, that we have not the most distant intention of laying before the public the whole mass of poetry that flowed from the prolific pen of Goethe, betwixt the days of his student life at Leipsic and those of his final courtly residence at Weimar. It is of no use preserving the whole wardrobe of the dead; we do enough if we possess ourselves of his valuables—articles of sterling bullion that will at any time command their price in the market—as to worn-out and threadbare personalities, the sooner they are got rid of the better. Far be it from us, however, to depreciate or detract from the merit of any of Goethe's productions. Few men have written so voluminously, and still fewer have written so well. But the curse of a most fluent pen, and of a numerous auditory, to whom his words were oracles, was upon him; and seventy volumes, more or less, which Cotta issued from his wareroom, are for the library of the Germans now, and for the selection of judicious editors hereafter. A long time must elapse after an author's death, before we can pronounce with perfect certainty what belongs to the trunk-maker, and what pertains to posterity. Happy the man—if not in his own generation, yet most assuredly in the time to come—whose natural hesitation or fastidiousness has prompted him to weigh his words maturely, before launching them forth into the great ocean of literature, in the midst of which is a Maelstrom of tenfold absorbing power!