Life in a Palace; or, Glimpses of Royalty [pp. 449-460]

Life in a Palace; or, Glimpses of Royalty.
the calm quiet of the cloister, the leisure
for study and reflection that, by him,
were a thousand times more prized than
would have been the crown and sceptre
of earth's mightiest domain. His private
income was large and wholly independent of the crown, and his revenues as
High Priest of the Empire immense, so
that in this respect there was nothing
left for him to desire. The chief drawback to his complete felicity, was the necessary renunciation of. his beautiful
young wife and infant son, with the former of whom, as a priest, he could hold
no communication whatever; and even
the latter he could see only in public, at
stated intervals.
The younger Prince, Chau-Fka-Noi,
was, at the time of his father's death,
scarcely ten years old, and, as such a
mere child, was considered too insignificant a personage to make it necessary
to put him out of the way. lie was consequently allowed to go at large, to continue in the palace provided for him by
his father; and'as he grew to manhood,
to maintain in all respects an establishment suited to his rank as a Prince of
the blood and a younger brother of the
reigning king. As a matter of state
policy he was always received at court as
a special favourite by the monarch, and
in order to disarm the just indignation
he would naturally feel toward the
usurper, he was loaded with royal titles,
"and everywhere recognized as "the man
whom the king delighted to honour."
As the character of the young Prince
developed, the bright promise of his
early years was more than fulfilled in
the intellectual superiority and manly
virtues of his ma tu ri ty; and the brill iant car eer upon which h e seemed at
once to enter justified, for once, the
pr ognostications of the astrologers a nd
soothsayers.
Years passed on, and the excitement
attending the rebellion had died out, the
glitter and dazzle by which the brilliant
usurper had blinded the eyes of his people, began to subside, and they could
not help recognizing the vast superiority
of their noble and manly young Prince,
(now since his brother's consecration to
the priesthood, the legal heir,) to the
selfish, jealous intriguer to whom in an
h our of excited folly, they had sworn allegiasnce. The eyes of th e usur per were
now opened to the fatal error he had
committe d in sparing the life of this
popular favourite; but it was too late to
retract without exciting the people to
open rebellion, and the only alternative
seemed to b o igrae to is ingratiat e himself in the
affections of his young brother, speak of
him as th e next heir, an d thus supersede
the desire of a ny i mmediate attempt to
regain the ththr one of hi s ancestors.
He was, however, kept under the con-e
stant surveillance of the king's officers,
his conduct closely watched, and his
most trivia l actions daily rep orted t o the
jealous usurper, who like most unjust
claimants for the rights of others, sat
uneasily on his throne, and despite the
apparent tranquillity of the gilde d hetavens, ever imagined some d ark cloud
about to burst in fury upon his head,
or Jove's imperial thunderbolts marshalled ready to hurl him from his throne.
But the young Prince, though defacto a
state prisoner, was constantly assured by
the wily monarch, that it was only fear
for his safety as heir apparent, that induced his affectionate (?) brother to keep
him thus surrounded by the minions of
the crown. The same fi-aternal regard
for his health kept one of the king's
own physicians always at the Prince's
elbow, and compelled him to swallow
many a nauseous dose, certes none the
more palatable that he was kept in profound ignorance of its ingredients, and
never by any means sure that it was not
a slow poison which was ultimately to
secure his removal, and make clear the
way for the succession of the king's own
sons. But this was a bold stroke for
which the cowardly usurper was by no
means prepared, lest the slumbering lion
once aroused should prove too dangerous
and deadly a foe. And so, the two,
whilst fully cognizant of each other's
secret thoughts and purposes, yet continued to play off the ridiculous farce pof
a pretended affection. The king at
heart, hating his young brother with a
deadly hatred, would gladly have plung
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[JLINF,
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