Every Thing Being Now Ready For His Departure, He Took Leave Of The
Chevalier St. George, Who Seemed To Be Under A Concern For Losing Him,
Which Only The Knowledge How Great An Advantage This Young Gentleman
Would Receive By It, Could Console:
The queen also gave him a letter
from herself to her intended son-in-law; and the charming princess
Louisa, with blushes, bid him tell the king of Sweden, he had her prayers
and wishes for success in all his glorious enterprizes.
Thus laden with credentials which might assure him of a reception equal
to the most ambitious aim of his aspiring soul, he set out from Paris,
not without some tender regret at quitting a place where he had been
treated with such uncommon and distinguished marks of kindness and
respect. But these emotions soon gave way to others more
transporting: - he was on his journey towards Rheines, the place which
contained his beloved Charlotta; and the thoughts that every moment
brought him still nearer to her filled him with extacies, which none but
those who truly love can have any just conception of.
CHAP. XI.
Horatio arrives at Rheines, finds means to see mademoiselle Charlotta
and afterwards pursues his journey to Poland.
The impatience Horatio had to be at Rheines made him travel very hard
till he reached that city; nor did he allow himself much time for repose
after his fatigue, till having made a strict enquiry at all the
monasteries, he at length discovered where mademoiselle Charlotta
was placed.
Hitherto he had been successful beyond his hopes; but the greatest
difficulty was not yet surmounted: he doubted not but as such secrecy
had been used in the carrying her from Paris, and of the place to which
she had been conveyed, that the same circumspection would be preserved
in concealing her from the sight of any stranger that should come to the
monastry: - he invented many pretences, but none seemed satisfactory to
himself, therefore could not expect they would pass upon
others. - Sometimes he thought of disguising himself in the habit of a
woman, his youth, and the delicacy of his complexion making him imagine
he might impose on the abbess and the nuns for such; but then he feared
being betrayed, by not being able to answer the questions which would in
all probability be asked him. - He endeavoured to find out some person
that was acquainted there; but tho' he asked all the gentlemen, which
were a great many, that dined at the same Hotel with him, he was at as
great a loss as ever. He went to the chapel every hour that mass was
said, but could flatter himself with no other satisfaction from that than
the empty one of knowing he was under the same roof with her; for the
gallery in which the ladies sit, pensioners, as well as those who have
taken the veil, are so closely grated, that it is impossible for those
below to distinguish any object.
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