Joseph II. and His Court Part 131

"Peace!" interrupted Joseph. "The empress has already sent a courier to order your arrest. Do you know what is the punishment in Austria for a man who flies with a married woman from the house of her husband?"

"The punishment of death," murmured the count inaudibly.

"Yes, for it is a crime that equals murder," returned the emperor; "indeed, it transcends murder, for it loses the soul of the unhappy woman, and brands her husband with infamy."

"Mercy, mercy!" prayed the wretch.

"No," said Joseph sternly, "you deserve no mercy. Follow me." The emperor returned to is own room, and opening the door that led to the anteroom he called Gunther.

When the valet appeared, Joseph pointed to the count, who was advancing slowly, and now stopped without daring to raise his head.

"Gunther," said the emperor, "I give this man in charge to you. I might require him on his honor not to leave this room until I return; but no man can pledge that which he does not possess; I must, therefore, leave him to you. See that he does not make his escape."

The emperor then recrossed his own room, and closing the door behind him, entered the apartment of the countess. She had revived; and was looking around with an absent, dreamy expression.

"I have been sleeping," murmured she. "I saw the emperor, I felt his arm around me, I dreamed that he was bending over me--"

"It was no dream, Countess Esterhazy," said Joseph softly.

She started, and rose from the sofa, her whole frame tremulous with emotion. Her large; glowing eyes seemed to be searching for the object of her terror, and then her glance rested with inexpressible fear upon the door which led into the emperor's room.

"You were there, sire, and heard all--all?" stammered she, pointing with her hand.

"Yes--G.o.d be praised, I was there, and I am now acquainted with the motives which prompted your flight from Count Esterhazy. I undertake your defence, countess; my voice shall silence your accusers in Vienna, and if it becomes necessary to your justification, I will relate what I have overheard. I cannot blame you, for I know the unspeakable misery of a marriage without love, and I comprehend that, to break its fetters, you were ready to brave disgrace, and to wear upon your spotless brow the badge of dishonor The empress must know what you have undergone, and she shall reinstate you in the world's estimation; for she it is who has caused your unhappiness. My mother is too magnanimous to refuse reparation where she has erred."

"Sire," whispered the countess, while a deep blush overspread her face, "do you mean to confide all--all to the empress?"

"All that concerns your relations with your husband and with Count Schulenberg. Pardon me that I overheard the sweet confession which was wrung from you by despair! Never will I betray it to living mortal; it shall be treasured in the depths of my heart, and sometimes at midnight hour I may be permitted to remember it. I--Come back to Vienna, countess, and let us seek to console each other for the agony of the past!"

"No, sire," said she mournfully, "I shall never return to Vienna; I should be ashamed to meet your majesty's eye."

"Have you grown so faint-hearted?" said the emperor, gently. "Are you suddenly ashamed of a feeling which you so n.o.bly avowed but a few moments since? Or am I the only man on earth who is unworthy to know it?"

"Sire, the judgment of the world is nothing to me; it is from your contempt that I would fly and be forgotten. Let other men judge me as they will--I care not. But oh! I know that you despise me, and that knowledge is breaking my heart. Farewell, then, forever!"

The emperor contemplated her with mournful sympathy, and took both her hands in his. She pressed them to her lips, and when she raised her head, her timidity had given place to strong resolution.

"I shall never see your majesty again," said she, "but your image will be with me wherever I go. I hope for great deeds from you, and I know that you will not deceive me, sire. When all Europe resounds with your fame, then shall I be happy, for my being is merged in yours. At this moment, when we part to meet no more, I say again with joyful courage, I love you: May the blessing of that love rest upon your n.o.ble head! Give me your hand once more, and then leave me."

"Farewell, Margaret," faltered the emperor, intoxicated by her tender avowal, and opening his arms, be added in pa.s.sionate tones,

"Come to my heart, and let me, for one blissful moment, feel the beatings of yours! Come, oh, come!"

Margaret leaned her head upon his shoulder and wept, while the emperor besought her to relent and return to Vienna with him.

"No, sire," replied she, firmly. "Farewell!"

He echoed "farewell," and hastily left the room.

When the door had closed upon him, the countess covered her face with her hands and sobbed aloud. But this was for a moment only.

Her pale face resumed its haughty expression as she rose from her seat and hastily pulled the bell-rope. A few minutes later, she unbolted the door, and Madame Dupont entered the room.

"My good friend," said the countess, "we leave Paris to-night."

"Alone?" asked the maid, looking around.

"Yes; rejoice with me, we are rid of him forever. But we must leave this place at once. Go and order post-horses."

"But dear lady, whither do we journey?"

"Whither?" echoed Margaret, thoughtfully. "Let the will of G.o.d decide.

Who can say whence we come, or whither we go?"

The faithful servant hastened to her mistress, and taking the hand of the countess in hers, pressed it to her lips. "Oh, my lady," said she, "shake off this lethargy--be your own brave self again."

"You are right, Dupont," returned Margaret, shaking back her long black hair, which had become unfastened and fell almost to her feet, "I must control my grief that I may act for myself. From this day I am without protector, kindred, or borne. Let us journey to the Holy Land, Dupont.

Perhaps I may find consolation by the grave of the Saviour."

One hour later, the emperor, sitting at his window, heard a carriage leave the Hotel Turenne. He followed the sound until it was lost in the distance; for well he knew that the occupant of that coach was the beautiful and unfortunate Countess Esterhazy.

Early on the following morning another carriage with blinds drawn up, left the hotel. It stopped before the Austrian emba.s.sy, and the valet of the emperor sprang out. He signified to the porter that he was to keep a strict watch over the gentleman within, and then sought the presence of the Count von Mercy.

A quarter of an hour went by, during which the porter had been peering curiously at the pale face which was staring at the windows of the hotel. Presently a secretary and a servant of the amba.s.sador came out equipped for a journey. The secretary entered the carriage; the servant mounted the box, and Count Schulenberg was transported a prisoner to Vienna. [Footnote: Count Schulenberg was sentenced to death; and Maria Theresa, who was inexorable where a breach of morals was concerned, approved the sentence. But Count Esterhazy hastened to intercede for his rival, acknowledging at last that Schulenberg had freed him from a tie which was a curse to him.]

CHAPTER CXVI.

JOSEPH AND LOUIS.

The emperor was right when he said that his sister would derive little pleasure from his visit to Paris. Her happiness in his society had been of short duration; for she could not be but sensible of the growing dislike of the king for his imperial brother-in-law. Joseph's easy and graceful manners were in humiliating contrast to the stiff and awkward bearing of Louis; and finally, Marie Antoinette felt many a pang as she watched the glances of aversion which her husband cast upon her brother, at such times as the latter made light of the thousand and one ceremonies which were held so sacred by the royal family of France.

The king, who in his heart had been sorely galled by the fetters of French etiquette, now that the emperor ridiculed it, became its warmest partisan; and went so far as to reprove his wife for following her brother's example, and sacrificing her royal dignity to an absurd longing for popularity.

The truth was, that Louis was envious of the enthusiasm which Joseph excited among the Parisians; and his brothers, the other members of the royal family, and his ministers, took every opportunity of feeding his envy, by representing that the emperor was doing his utmost to alienate the affections of the French from their rightful sovereign; that he was meditating the seizure of Alsace and Lorraine; that he was seeking to reinstate De Choiseul, and convert France into a mere dependency upon Austria.

Louis, who had begun to regard his wife with pa.s.sionate admiration, became cold and sarcastic in his demeanor toward her. The hours which, until the emperor's arrival in Paris, he had spent with Marie Antoinette, were now dedicated to his ministers, to Madame Adelaide, and even to the Count de Provence--that brother whose enmity to the queen was not even concealed under a veil of courtly dissimulation.

Not satisfied with filling the king's ears with calumnies of his poor young wife, the Count de Provence was the instigator of all those scandalous songs, in which the emperor and the queen were daily ridiculed on the Pont-Neuf; and of the multifarious caricatures which, hour by hour, were rendering Marie Antoinette odious in the eyes of her subjects. The Count de Provence, who afterward wore his murdered brother's crown, was the first to teach the French nation that odiouus epithet of "d'Autrichienne," with which they hooted the Queen of France to an ignominious death upon the scaffold.

The momentary joy which the visit of the emperor had caused to his sister had vanished, and given place to embarra.s.sment and anxiety of heart. Even she felt vexed, not only that her subjects preferred a foreign prince to their own rightful sovereign, but that Joseph was so unrestrained in his sarcasms upon royal customs in France. Finally she was obliged to confess in the silence of her own heart, that her brother's departure would be a relief to her, and that these dinners en famille, to which he came daily as a guest, were inexpressibly tedious and heavy.

One day the emperor came earlier than usual to dinner--so early, in fact, that the king was still occupied holding his daily levee.

Joseph seated himself quietly in the anteroom to await his turn. At first no one had remarked his entrance; but presently he was recognized by one of the marshals of the household, who hastened to his side, and, apologizing, offered to inform the king at once of Count Falkenstein's presence there.

"By no means," returned the emperor, "I am quite accustomed to this sort of thing. I do it every morning in my mother's ante-room at Vienna."

[Footnote: Memoires de Weber, vol. i., p. 98.]