The
Officer Agreed With Him In That; Except The Person Who Ruled Had Really
More Perfections Than All Those He Ruled Over And If So, Said He, And
His Commands Are Always Calculated For The Happiness Of The Subject,
They Cannot Be More Happy Than In An Implicite Obedience.
True, replied
Horatio, I am confident that such a prince as ours knows how to chuse
for his people
Much better than they do for themselves; but how can they
be certain that his descendants will have the same virtues; and when
once an absolute power is granted to a good prince, it will be in vain
that the people will endeavour to wrest it from the hands of a bad
one. - Never can any point be redeemed from the crown without a vast
effusion of blood, and the endangering such calamities on the country,
that the relief would be as bad as the disease. Upon the whole,
therefore, I cannot think Patkul in the wrong for attempting to maintain
the liberty of his country, tho' I do for entering into the service of
the avowed enemy of his master.
It is that, I believe, resumed the other, that the king chiefly resents:
his majesty is too just to condemn a man for maintaining the principles
he was bred in, however they may disagree with his own; but to become
his enemy, to enlist himself in the service of those who aim at the
destruction of his lawful prince, is certainly a treason of the
blackest dye.
As they were in this discourse, colonel Poniatosky came in, and hearing
they were speaking of Patkul, - I have just now, said he, received a
letter from one of my friends in Saxony concerning that general, which
deeply affects me, not for his own, but for the sake of a lady, to whom,
after a long series of disappointments, he was just going to be married,
when Augustus, against the law of nations, made him a prisoner. I will
relate the whole adventure to you, continued he; on which the others
assuring him they should think themselves obliged to him, he went on.
When he first entered into the service of Augustus, he became
passionately in love with madam d' Ensilden, a young lady, whose beauty,
birth, and fortune rendered her worthy the affections of a man of more
honour than he had testified in his public capacity: her friends at
least thought so; and chancellor Flemming making his addresses to her at
the same time, had the advantage in every thing but in her heart: there
Patkul triumphed in spight of all objections: and tho' king Augustus
vouchsafed himself to sollicite in behalf of his favourite, her
constancy remained unshaken as a rock; which so incensed a monarch
haughty and imperious in his nature, before humbled by our glorious
Charles, that he made use of his authority, and forbid her to think of
marrying any other: to which she resolutely answered, that she knew no
right princes had to interfere with the marriages of private persons;
but since his majesty commanded it, she would endeavour to obey and live
single.
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