"Not long after these events," continues Count O-----, in his narrative,
"I began to observe an extraordinary alteration in the disposition of
the prince, which was partly the immediate consequence of the last event
and partly produced by the concurrence of many adventitious
circumstances. Hitherto he had avoided every severe trial of his faith,
and contented himself with purifying the rude and abstract notions of
religion, in which he had been educated, by those more rational ideas
upon this subject which forced themselves upon his attention, or
comparing the many discordant opinions with each other, without
inquiring into the foundations of his faith. Religious subjects, he has
many times confessed to me, always appeared to him like an enchanted
castle, into which one does not set one's foot without horror, and that
they act therefore much the wiser part who pass it in respectful
silence, without exposing themselves to the danger of being bewildered
in its labyrinths. A servile and bigoted education was the source of
this dread; this had impressed frightful images upon his tender brain,
which, during the remainder of his life, he was never able wholly to
obliterate. Religious melancholy was an hereditary disorder in his
family. The education which he and his brothers had received was
calculated to produce it; and the men to whose care they were entrusted,
selected with this object, were also either enthusiasts or hypocrites.

"To stifle all the sprightliness of the boy, by a gloomy restraint of
his mental faculties, was the only method of securing to themselves the
highest approbation of his royal parents. The whole of our prince's
childhood wore a dark and gloomy aspect; mirth was banished even from
his amusements. All his ideas of religion were accompanied by some
frightful image; and the representations of terror and severity were
those which first took hold of his lively imagination, and which the