rters and traitors, endeavored to
ingratiate himself with his new friends by disclosing all the secrets of
his negotiations at Vienna. Under these circumstances full confidence
can not be placed in his declarations, for he had already proved himself
to be quite unscrupulous in regard to truth. The indignant queen sent an
armed force, arrested the duke in the house of the British ambassador,
and sent him, in close imprisonment, to the castle of Segovia. He,
however, soon escaped from there and fled to England, where he
reiterated his declarations respecting the secret articles of the treaty
of Vienna. The most important of these declarations was, that Spain and
the emperor had agreed to drive George I. from England and to place the
Pretender, who had still many adherents, upon the British throne. It was
also asserted that marriage contracts were entered into which, by
uniting the daughters of the emperor with the sons of the Spanish
monarch, would eventually place the crowns of Austria and Spain upon the
same brow. The thought of such a vast accumulation of power in the hands
of any one monarch, alarmed all the rest of Europe. Both Spain and the
emperor denied many of the statements made by Ripperda. But as _truth_
has not been esteemed a diplomatic virtue, and as both Ripperda and the
sovereigns he had served were equally tempted to falsehood, and were
equally destitute of any character for truth, it is not easy to decide
which party to believe.

England and France took occasion, through these disclosures, to rouse
the alarm of Europe. So much apprehension was excited in Prussia,
Bavaria, and with other princes of the empire, who were appalled at the
thought of having another Spanish prince upon the imperial throne, that
the emperor sent ambassadors to these courts to appease their anxiety,
and issued a public declaration denying that any such marriages were in
contemplation; while at the same time he was promising the Queen of
Spain these marriages, to secure her support. England and France accuse
the emperor of deliberate, persistent, unblushing falsehood.

The emperor seems now to have become involved in an inextricable maze of
prevarication and duplicity, striving in one court to accomplish
purposes which in other courts he was denying that he wished to
accomplish. His embarrassment at length became so great, the greater
part of Europe being roused and jealous, that he was compelled to
abandon Spain, and reluctantl