o, a Piedmontese count belonging to the prince's suite, whom
G------ himself had formerly promoted, as an inoffensive creature,
devoted to his interests, for the purpose of supplying his own place in
attending upon the pleasures of the prince--an office which he began to
find irksome, and which he willingly exchanged for more useful
employment. Viewing this man merely as the work of his own hands, whom
he might at any period consign to his former insignificance, he felt
assured of the fidelity of his creature from motives of fear no less
than of gratitude. He fell thus into the error committed by Richelieu,
when he made over to Louis XII., as a sort of plaything, the young Le
Grand. Without Richelieu's sagacity, however, to repair his error, he
had to deal with a far more wily enemy than fell to the lot of the
French minister. Instead of boasting of his good fortune, or allowing
his benefactor to feel that he could now dispense with his patronage,
Martinengo was, on the contrary, the more cautious to maintain a show of
dependence, and with studied humility affected to attach himself more
and more closely to the author of his prosperity. Meanwhile, he did not
omit to avail himself, to its fullest extent, of the opportunities
afforded him by his office, of being continually about the prince's
person, to make himself daily more useful, and eventually indispensable
to him. In a short time he had fathomed the prince's sentiments
thoroughly, had discovered all the avenues to his confidence, and
imperceptibly stolen himself into his favor. All those arts which a
noble pride, and a natural elevation of character, had taught the
minister to disdain, were brought into play by the Italian, who scrupled
not to avail himself of the most despicable means for attaining his
object. Well aware that man never stands so much in need of a guide and
assistant as in the paths of vice, and that nothing gives a stronger
title to bold familiarity than a participation in secret indiscretions,
he took measures for exciting passions in the prince which had hitherto
lain dormant, and then obtruded himself upon him as a confidant and an
accomplice. He plunged him especially into those excesses which least
of all endure witnesses, and imperceptibly accustomed the prince to make
him the depository of secrets to which no third person was admitted.
Upon the degradation of the prince's character he now began to found his
infamous schemes of aggrandizement,