A general storm of contempt and indignation pursued the discarded minister.  His rage was now inflamed as much as his vanity had been.  Fearful of arrest and imprisonment, and burning with that spirit of revenge which is ever strongest in weakest minds, he took refuge in the house of the British ambassador, Mr. Stanhope.  Hostilities had not yet commenced.  Indeed there had been no declaration of war, and diplomatic relations still continued undisturbed.  Each party was acting secretly, and watching the movements of the other with a jealous eye.

Ripperda sought protection beneath the flag of England, and with the characteristic ignominy of deserters and traitors, endeavored to ingratiate himself with his new friends by disclosing all the secrets of his negotiations at Vienna.  Under these circumstances full confidence can not be placed in his declarations, for he had already proved himself to be quite unscrupulous in regard to truth.  The indignant queen sent an armed force, arrested the duke in the house of the British ambassador, and sent him, in close imprisonment, to the castle of Segovia.  He, however, soon escaped from there and fled to England, where he reiterated his declarations respecting the secret articles of the treaty of Vienna.  The most important of these declarations was, that Spain and the emperor had agreed to drive George I. from England and to place the Pretender, who had still many adherents, upon the British throne.  It was also asserted that marriage contracts were entered into which, by uniting the daughters of the emperor with the sons of the Spanish monarch, would eventually place the crowns of Austria and Spain upon the same brow.  The thought of such a vast accumulation of power in the hands of any one monarch, alarmed all the rest of Europe.  Both Spain and the emperor denied many of the statements made by Ripperda.  But as truth has not been esteemed a diplomatic virtue, and as both Ripperda and the sovereigns he had served were equally tempted to falsehood, and were equally destitute of any character for truth, it is not easy to decide which party to believe.

England and France took occasion, through these disclosures, to rouse the alarm of Europe.  So much apprehension was excited in Prussia, Bavaria, and with other princes of the empire, who were appalled at the thought of having another Spanish prince upon the imperial throne, that the emperor sent ambassadors to these courts to appease their anxiety, and issued a public declaration denying that any such marriages were in contemplation; while at the same time he was promising the Queen of Spain these marriages, to secure her support.  England and France accuse the emperor of deliberate, persistent, unblushing falsehood.