ise him to be beforehand with his enemies. Instead of telling
the truth, the Prince of Peace alarmed the King and Queen with the most
absurd fabrications; and assured Their Majesties that their son and their
daughter-in-law had determined not only to dethrone them, but to keep
them prisoners for life, after they had been forced to witness his
execution.

Indolence and weakness are often more fearful than guilt. Everything he
said was at once believed; the Prince and Princess were ordered under
arrest in their own apartments, without permission to see or correspond
with anybody; and so certain was the Prince of Peace of a complete and
satisfactory revenge for the attempt against his tyranny, that a frigate
at Cadiz was ready waiting to carry the Princess of Asturias back to
Naples. All Spaniards who had the honour of their Sovereigns and of
their country at heart lamented these rash proceedings; but no one dared
to take any measures to counteract them. At last, however, the Duke of
Montemar, grand officer to the Prince of Asturias, demanded an audience
of Their Majesties, in the presence of the favourite. He began by
begging his Sovereign to recollect that for the place he occupied he was
indebted to the Prince of Peace; and he called upon him to declare
whether he had ever had reason to suspect him either of ingratitude or
disloyalty. Being answered in the negative, he said that, though his
present situation and office near the heir to the throne was the pride
and desire of his life, he would have thrown it up the instant that he
had the least ground to suppose that this Prince ceased to be a dutiful
son and subject; but so far from this being the case, he had observed him
in his most unguarded moments--in moments of conviviality had heard him
speak of his royal parents with as much submission and respect as if he
had been in their presence. "If," continued he, "the Prince of Peace has
said otherwise, he has misled his King and his Queen, being, no doubt,
deceived himself. To overthrow a throne and to seize it cannot be done
without accomplices, without arms, without money. Who are the
conspirators hailing the Prince as their chief? I have heard no name but
that of the lovely Princess, his consort, the partaker of his sentiments
as well as of his heart. And his arms? They are in the hands of those
guards his royal parent has given to augment the necessary splendour of
his rank. And as to his money? He has n