I was hurried
through several apartments, whose splendour made my eyes ache, amid an
army of bowing domestics, to a cabinet where sat an old nobleman, whom,
from the tranquil majesty of his posture, and the silent magnificence
that surrounded him, I felt disposed to fall down and worship as we do
those saints, whom, after traversing the aisles of an immense church, we
find niched in some remote and solitary shrine. My father and mother
were there, and both seemed awed by the presence of that aged vision,
pale and august; their awe increased mine, and as they led me to his
feet, I felt as if about to be sacrificed. He embraced me, however, with
some reluctance and more austerity; and when this ceremony was
performed, during which I trembled, I was removed by a domestic, and
conducted to an apartment where I was treated like the son of a grandee;
in the evening I was visited by my father and mother; they shed tears
over me as they embraced me, but I thought I could perceive they mingled
the tears of grief with those of fondness. Every thing around appeared
so strange, that perhaps I felt something appropriate in this change. I
was so much altered myself, that I expected an alteration in others, and
the reverse would have struck me as a phenomenon. “Change followed change with such rapidity, that it produced on me an
effect like that of intoxication. I was now twelve years old, and the
contracted habits of my early life had had their usual effect, of
exalting my imagination, while they impaired every other faculty. I
expected an adventure whenever the door opened, and that was but seldom,
to announce the hours of devotion, food, and exercise. On the third day
after I was received into the palace of Monçada, the door was opened at
an unusual hour, (a circumstance that made me tremble with
anticipation), and my father and mother, attended by a number of
domestics, entered, accompanied by a youth whose superior height and
already distinguished figure, made him appear my senior, though he was
in fact a year younger. “Alonzo,” said my father to me, “embrace your brother.” I advanced with
all the eagerness of youthful affection, that feels delight from new
claims on its store, and half wishes those new claims were endless; but
the slow step of my brother, the measured air with which he extended his
arms, and declined his head on my left shoulder for a moment, and then
raising it, viewed me with eyes in whose piercing and haughty lustre
there was not one beam of fraternity, repelled and disconcerted me. We
had obeyed our father, however, and embraced. “Let me see you hand in
hand together,” said my father, as if he would have enjoyed the sight. I
held out my hand to my brother, and we stood thus linked for a few
moments, my father and mother remaining at some distance to gaze on us;
during these _few_ moments, I had leisure to glance from my parents to
my brother, and judge of the comparative effect our appearance thus
contrasted might produce on them. The contrast was by no means
favourable to me. I was tall, but my brother was much taller; he had an
air of confidence, of conquest I might say; the brilliancy of his
complexion could be equalled only by that of his dark eyes, which turned
from me to our parents, and seemed to say, “Chuse between us, and reject
me if you dare.”

“My father and mother advanced and embraced us both. I clung round their
necks; my brother submitted to their caresses with a kind of proud
impatience, that seemed to demand a more marked recognition. “I saw no more of them,--that evening the whole household, which perhaps
contain two hundred domestics, were in despair. The Duke de Monçada,
that awful vision of anticipated mortality whom I had seen but once, was
dead. The tapestry was torn from the walls; every room was filled with
ecclesiastics; I was neglected by my attendants, and wandered through
the spacious rooms, till I by chance lifted up a curtain of black
velvet, and saw a sight which, young as I was, paralyzed me. My father
and mother, dressed in black, sat beside a figure which I believed to be
my grandfather asleep, but his sleep was very profound; my brother was
there too, in a mourning dress, but its strange and grotesque
disfigurement could not conceal the impatience with which he wore it,
and the flashing eagerness of his expression, and the haughty brilliancy
of his eye, shewed a kind of impatience of the part he was compelled to
act.--I rushed forward;--I was withheld by the domestics;--I asked, “Why
am I not permitted to be here, where my younger brother is?” An
ecclesiastic drew me from the apartment. I struggled with him, and
demanded, with an arrogance which suited my pretensions better than my
prospects, “Who I was?” “The grandson of the late Duke of Monçada,” was
the answer. “And why am I thus treated?” To this no answer. I was
conveyed to my apartment, and closely watched during the interment of
the Duke of Monçada. I was not permitted to attend his funeral. I saw
the splendid and melancholy cavalcade depart from the palace. I ran from
window to window to witness the funeral pomp, but was not allowed to
accompany it. Two days after I was told a carriage waited for me at the
gate. I entered it, and was conveyed to a convent of Ex-Jesuits, (as
they were well known to be, though no one in Madrid dared to say so),
where an agreement had been made for my board and education, and where I
became an inmate that very day. I applied myself to my studies, my
teachers were pleased, my parents visited me frequently, and gave the
usual marks of affection, and all was well; till one day as they were
retiring, I heard an old domestic in their suite remark, how singular it
was, that the eldest son of the (now) Duke de Monçada should be educated
in a convent, and brought up to a monastic life, while the younger,
living in a superb palace, was surrounded by teachers suited to his
rank. The word “monastic life” thrilled in my ears; it furnished me with
an interpretation not only of the indulgence I had experienced in the
convent, (an indulgence quite inconsistent with the usual severity of
their discipline), but of the peculiar language in which I had been
always addressed by the Superior, the brethren, and the boarders. The
former, whom I saw once a week, bestowed the most flattering praises on
the progress I had made in my studies, (praises that covered me with
blushes, for I well knew it was very moderate compared with that of the
other boarders), and then gave me his benediction, but never without
adding, “My God! thou wilt not suffer this lamb to wander from thy
fold.”

“The brethren always assumed before me an air of tranquillity, that
eulogized their situation more powerfully than the most exaggerated
eloquence.