Joseph II. and His Court Part 12

"I request the Countess Fuchs and Father Porhammer to leave the room,"

said he, with dignity. "Family concerns are discussed in private."

The pair did not go. Father Porhammer interrogated the face of the empress; and the countess, indignant that her curiosity was to be frustrated, looked defiant.

This bold disregard of her husband's command was irritating to the feelings of the empress. She thought that his orders should have outweighed her mere remonstrance, and she now felt it her duty to signify as much.

"Countess Fuchs," said she, "doubtless the emperor has not spoken loud enough for you to hear the command he has just given you. You have not understood his words, and I will take the trouble to repeat them. The emperor said, 'I request the Countess Fuchs and Father Porhammer to leave the room. Our family concerns we will discuss in private.'"

The lady of honor colored, and, with deep inclinations, Father Porhammer and herself left the room.

Maria Theresa looked after them until the door was shut, then she smilingly reached her hand to the emperor, who thanked her with a pressure and a look of deepest affection. The archduke had retired to the embrasure of a window, perhaps to seek composure, perhaps to hide his tears.

"Now," said Maria Theresa, sternly, while her fiery eyes sought the figure of her son, "now we are alone, and Joseph is at liberty to speak.

I beg him to remember, that in the person of his mother, he also sees his sovereign, and that the empress will resent every word of disloyalty spoken to the parent. And I hold it to be highly disloyal for my son to accuse me of making sport of his hopes. I have not come to my latest determination from cruelty or caprice; I have made it in the strength of my maternal love to shield my child from sin, and in the rect.i.tude of my imperial responsibility to my people, who have a right to claim from me that I bestow upon them a monarch who is worthy to reign over Austria.

Therefore, my son, as empress and mother, I say that you shall remain.

That is now my unalterable will. If this decision grieves you, be humble and submissive; and remember that it is your duty, as son and subject, to obey without demurring. Then shall we be good friends, and greet one another heartily, as though you had at this moment returned from the victorious battle-field. There is my hand. Be welcome, my dear and much-beloved child."

The heart of the empress had gradually softened, and as she smiled and extended her hand, her beautiful eyes were filled to overflowing with tears. But Joseph, deathly pale, crossed his arms, and returned her glances of love with a haughty, defiant look, that almost approached to dislike.

"My son," said the emperor, "do you not see your dear mother's hand extended to meet yours?"

"I see it, I see it," cried Joseph, pa.s.sionately, "but I cannot take it--I cannot play my part in this mockery of a return. No, mother, no, I cannot kiss the hand that has so cruelly dashed my hopes to earth. And you wish to carry your tyranny so far as to exact that I receive it with a smile? Oh, mother, my heart is breaking! Have pity on me, and take back those cruel words; let me go, let me go. Do not make me a byword for the world, that hereafter will refuse me its respect. Let me go, if but for a few weeks, and on the day that you command my return, I will come home. Oh, my heart was too small to hold the love I bore you for your consent to my departure. It seemed to me that I had l.u.s.t begun to live; the world was full of beauty, and I forgot all the trials of my childhood. For one week I have been young, dear mother; hurl me not back again into that dark dungeon of solitude where so much of my short life has been spent. Do not condemn me to live as I have hitherto lived; give me freedom, give me my manhood's rights!"

"No, no! a thousand times no!" cried the exasperated empress; "I see now that I am right to keep such an unfeeling and ungrateful son at home. He talks of his sufferings forsooth! What has he ever suffered at my hands?"

"What have I suffered?" exclaimed Joseph, whose teeth chattered as if he were having a chill, and who was no longer in a state to suppress the terrible eruption of his heart's agony. "What have I suffered, ask you?

I will tell you, empress-mother, what I have suffered since first I could love, or think, or endure. As a child I have felt that my mother loved another son more than she loved me. When my longing eyes sought hers, they were riveted upon another face. When my brother and I have sinned together, he has been forgiven, when I have been punished. Sorrow and jealousy were in my heart, and no one cared enough for me to ask why I wept. I was left to suffer without one word of kindness--and you wondered that I was taciturn, and mocked at my slighted longings for love, and called them by hard names. And then you pointed to my caressed and indulged brother, and bade me be gay like him!"

"My son, my son!" cried the emperor, "control yourself; you know not what you say."

"Let him go on, Francis," said the pale mother, "it is well that I should know his heart at last."

"Yes," continued the maddened archduke, "let me go on, for in my heart there is nothing but misery and slighted affection. Oh, mother, mother!"

exclaimed he, suddenly changing from defiance to the most pathetic entreaty, "on my knees I implore you to let me go; have mercy, have mercy upon your wretched son!"

And the young prince, with outstretched hands, threw himself upon his knees before his mother. The long-suppressed tears gushed forth, and the wild tempest of his ungovernable fury was spent, and now he sobbed as if indeed his young heart was breaking.

The emperor could scarcely restrain the impulse he felt to weep with his son; but he came and laid his hand upon the poor boy's head, and looked with pa.s.sionate entreaty at the empress.

"Dear Theresa," said he, "be compa.s.sionate and forgiving. Pardon him, beloved, the hard and unjust words which, in the bitterness of a first sorrow, he has spoken to the best of mothers. Raise him up from the depths of his despair, and grant the boon, for which, I am sure, he will love you beyond bounds."

"I wish that I dared to grant it to yourself, Francis," replied the empress, sadly and tearfully; "but you see that he has made it impossible. I dare not do it. The mother has no right to plead with the empress for her rebellious son. What he has said I freely forgive--G.o.d grant that I may forget it! Well do I know how stormy is youth, and I remember that Joseph is my son. It is the wild Spanish blood of my ancestry that boils in his veins, and, therefore, I forgive him with all my heart. But revoke my last sentence--that I cannot do. To do so would be to confirm him in wrong. Rise, my son Joseph--I forgive all your cruel words; but what I have said, I have said. You remain at home."

Joseph rose slowly from his knees. The tears in his eyes were dried; his lips were compressed, and once more he wore the old look of cold and sullen indifference. He made a profound inclination before his mother.

"I have heard the empress's commands," said he, in a hoa.r.s.e and unnatural voice; "it is my duty to obey. Allow me to go to my prison, that I may doff this manly garb, which is no longer suitable to my blasted career."

Without awaiting the answer, he turned away, and with hasty strides left the room.

The empress watched him in speechless anxiety. As the door closed upon him, her features a.s.sumed an expression of tenderness and she said: "Go quickly, Franz--go after him. Try to comfort and sustain him. I do not know why, but I feel uneasy--"

At that moment a cry was heard in the anteroom, and the fall of a heavy body to the floor.

"G.o.d help me--it is Joseph!" shrieked the empress; and, forgetting all ceremony, she darted from the room, and rushed by her dismayed attendants through the anteroom, out into the corridor. Stretched on the floor, insensible and lifeless, lay her son.

Without a word the empress waved off the crowd that was a.s.sembled around his body. The might of her love gave her supernatural strength, and folding her arms around her child, she covered his pale face with kisses, and from the very midst of the frightened attendants she bore him herself to her room, where she laid him softly upon her own bed.

No one except the emperor had ventured to follow. He stood near, and reached the salts, to which the empress had silently pointed. She rubbed her son's temples, held the salts to his nostrils, and at last, when he gave signs of life, she turned to the emperor and burst into tears.

"Oh, Franz," said she, "I almost wish that he were sick, that day and night I might watch by his bedside, and his poor heart might feel the full extent of a mother's love for her first-born child."

Perhaps G.o.d granted her prayer, that these two n.o.ble hearts might no longer be estranged, but that each might at last meet the other in the fullest confidence of mutual love.

A violent attack of fever followed the swoon of the archduke. The empress never left his side. He slept in her own room, and she watched over him with gentlest and most affectionate care.

Whenever Joseph awaked from his fever-dreams and unclosed his eyes there, close to his bedside he saw the empress, who greeted him with loving words and softest caresses. Whenever, in his fever-thirst, he called for drink, her hand held the cup to his parched lips; and whenever that soft, cool hand was laid upon his hot brow, he felt as if its touch chased away all pain and soothed all sorrow.

When he recovered enough to sit up, still his mother would not consent for him to leave her room for his own. As long as he was an invalid, he should be hers alone. In her room, and through her loving care, should he find returning health. His sisters and brothers a.s.sembled there to cheer him with their childish mirth, and his young friend, Dominick Kaunitz, came daily to entertain him with his lively gossip. Altogether, the archduke was happy. If he had lost fame, he had found love.

One day, when, cushioned in his great soft arm-chair, he was chatting with his favorite tutor, Count Bathiany, the empress entered the room, her face lit up with a happy smile, while in her hands she held an etui of red morocco.

"What think you I have in this etui, dear?" she said, coming forward, and bending over her son to bestow a kiss.

"I do not know; but I guess it is some new gift of love from my mother's dear hand."

"Yes--rightly guessed. It is a genuine gift of love and, with G.o.d's grace, it may prove the brightest gift in your future crown. Since I would not let you leave my house, my son, I feel it my duty, at least, to do my best to make your home a happy one. I also wish to show you that, in my sight, you are no longer a boy, but a man worthy to govern your own household. Look at the picture in this case, and if it pleases you, my darling son, I give you, not only the portrait but the ORIGINAL also."

She handed him the case, in which lay the miniature of a young girl of surpa.s.sing beauty, whose large, dark eyes seemed to gaze upon him with a look of melancholy entreaty.

The archduke contemplated the picture for some time, and gradually over his pale face there stole a flush of vague delight.

"Well!" asked the empress, "does the maiden please you?"

"Please me!" echoed the archduke, without withdrawing his eyes from the picture. "'Tis the image of an angel! There is something in her look so beseeching, something in her smile so sad, that I feel as if I would fall at her feet and weep; and yet, mother--"

"Hear him, Franz," cried Maria Theresa to the emperor, who, un.o.bserved by his son, had entered the room. "Hear our own child! love in his heart will be a sentiment as holy, as faithful, and as profound as it has been with us for many happy years! Will you have the angel for your wife, Joseph?"

The archduke raised his expressive eyes to the face of his mother. "If I will have her!" murmured he, sadly. "Dear mother, would she deign to look upon me? Will she not rather turn away from him to whom the whole world is indifferent?"

"My precious child, she will love and honor you, as the world will do, when it comes to know your n.o.ble heart." And once more the empress bent over her son and imprinted a kiss upon his pale brow. "It is settled then, my son, that you shall offer your hand to this beautiful girl. In one week you will have attained your nineteenth birthday, and you shall give a good example to your sisters. Do you like the prospect?"

"Yes, dear mother, I am perfectly satisfied."

"And you do not ask her name or rank?"

"You have chosen her for me; and I take her from your hand without name or rank."

"Well," cried the delighted empress, "Count Bathiany, you have ever been the favorite preceptor of the archduke. Upon you, then, shall this honorable mission devolve. To-morrow, as amba.s.sador extraordinary from our court, you shall go in state to ask of Don Philip of Parma the hand of his daughter Isabella for his imperial highness, the crown prince of Austria."