Joseph II. and His Court Part 194

"His majesty, the emperor, was so obliging as to send it by an imperial courier. Is that what you were about to say?"

Therese continued as though she had not heard the interruption "My application went through Monsignore Garampi, the papal nuncio, who promised to use his influence in my behalf."

"What an edifying couple!" exclaimed Kinsky, with another scornful laugh. "How congenial! The same wishes, and, unconsciously, the very same deeds! What a pity we must part so soon, for, I leave you to-day; nor shall I have the pleasure of seeing you again until I bring you a decree of divorce."

"You will be most welcome," returned Therese, calmly. "Now be so good as to escort me to my carriage."

"Pray give me your arm. I have but one more observation to make. I hope that you will now be able to prove substantially to the emperor that it was quite useless for him to shelter himself behind the words, 'I shall claim thee in heaven!' But if I may presume so far, I request that you will defer these demonstrations until I return from Rome with my letters of divorce."

Therese had no strength to retort. She hung down her head, and large scalding tears fell from her eyes. Count Kinsky placed her in the carriage, closed the door, and then returned to his own travelling-chariot, which was a few paces behind. The two equipages thundered down the streets together, but at the gates they parted, the one taking the road for Hungary, the other for Rome. [Footnote: This whole story is Historical. The "heavenly Therese," as she is called by Hormayer, was really married and thus abandoned by her husband, who persisted in believing that the connection between herself and the emperor was not guiltless. But the count met with no success in the matter of the divorce. The pope refused.]

CHAPTER CLXXIII.

THE LAST DREAM OF GLORY.

Destiny was testing the fort.i.tude of the emperor with unrelenting harshness. It would seem that inflexible fate stood by, while one by one this man's hopes of fame, honor, and love were wrested away, that the world might see and know how much of bitterness and disappointment it is in the power of one human heart to endure.

In the Netherlands and in Hungary he was threatened with rebellion. The Magyars especially resented the violation of their const.i.tutional rights; in Tyrol, too, the people were disaffected; and Rome had not yet pardoned him the many indignities she had endured at his hands. This very war, which he had welcomed as a cure for his domestic sorrows, was yielding him naught but annoyance and misery.

Yes, destiny had decreed that nothing which he undertook should prosper.

His army, which was encamped in the damp marshes that lie between the Danube and Save, was attacked by a malarious fever more destructive by far than the bloodiest struggle that ever reddened the field of battle.

The hospitals were crowded with the sick and dying, and the enfeebled soldiers, who dragged themselves about their ramps, wore sullen and discontented faces; a spirit of insubordination was beginning to manifest itself among the troops, and the very men who would have rushed to the cannon's mouth, grew cowardly at the approach of the invisible foe that stole away their lives, by the gradual and insidious poison of disease. The songs and jests of the bivouac were hushed, the white tents were mournful as sepulchres, and the men lost all confidence in their leaders. They now accused the emperor and Lacy of incapacity, and declared that they must either be disbanded or led against the enemy.

This was precisely what Joseph had been longing to do, but he was compelled to await the advance of the Russians, with whom it had been arranged that the Austrians were to take a junction before they marched into Turkey. The Russians, however, had never joined the emperor; for some misunderstanding with Sweden had compelled the czarina to defend her northern frontier, and so she had as yet been unable to a.s.semble an army of sufficient strength to march against Turkey. Joseph then was condemned to the very same inaction which had so chafed his spirit in Bavaria; for his own army of itself was not numerous enough to attack the enemy. He could not snake a move without Russia. Russia tarried, and the fever in the camp grew every day more fatal.

Instead of advancing, the heart-sick emperor was forced to retreat. His artillery was withdrawn to Peterwardein, and the siege of Belgrade entirely relinquished. Disease and death followed the Austrians to their new encampment, and louder grew the mutterings of the men, and more bitter their denunciations of the emperor.

They little knew that while they were a.s.sailed by physical infirmities, their hapless chieftain was sick both in body and mind. He shared all their hardships, and watched them with most unremitting solicitude. He erected camp hospitals, and furnished the sick with wine and delicacies which he ordered from Vienna for their use. All military etiquette was suspended; even the approach of the emperor for the time being was to be ignored. Those who were lying down were to remain lying, those who were sitting were to keep their seats.

Meanwhile Joseph walked daily through the hospitals, bestowing care and kindness upon all, and no man there remarked that the deadly malaria had affected him in an equal degree with his troops. Heat, hardships, and disappointment had done their work as effectually upon the commander-in-chief as upon the common soldier; but no one suspected that fever was consuming his life; for by day, Joseph was the Providence of his army, and by night, while his men were sleeping, he was attending to the affairs of his vast empire. He worked as a.s.siduously in camp as he had ever done at home in his palace. Every important measure of the regency was submitted to him for approval; the heads of the several departments of state were required to send him their reports; and many a night, surrounded by heaps of dispatches, he sat at his little table, in the swampy woods, whose noxious atmosphere was fitter for the snakes that infested them than for human beings of whatever condition in life.

[In the archives of Vienna is preserved a dispatch of Joseph, written in the open woods on the night before the taking of Sabacz.--Gross-Hoffinger, iii., p. 464.]

One little ray of light relieved the darkness of this gloomy period.

This was the taking of the fortress of Sabacz where Joseph led the a.s.sault in person. Three cannoneers were shot by his side, and their blood bespattered his face and breast. But in the midst of danger he remained perfectly composed, and for many a day his countenance had not beamed with an expression of such animated delight. This success, however, was no more than a lightning-flash relieving the darkness of a tempestuous night. The fortress won, the Austrians went back to their miserable encampment in the sickly mora.s.ses of Siebenburgen.

Suddenly the stagnant quiet was broken by the announcement that the Turks had crossed the Danube. This aroused the army from their sullen stupor, and Joseph, as if freed from an incubus, joyfully prepared himself for action.

The trumpet's shrill call was heard in the camp, and the army commenced their march. They had advanced but a few miles when they were met by several panic-stricken regiments, who announced that the Austrian lines had been broken in two places, that General Papilla had been forced to retreat, and that the victorious Turks were pouring their vast hordes into Hungary.

Like wildfire the tidings spread through the army, and they, too, began their retreat, farther and yet farther back; for, ever as they moved, they were lighted on their way by the burning villages and towns that were the tokens of a barbarous enemy's approach. The homeless fugitives, too, rent the air with their cries, and clamored for protection against the cruel infidel.

No protection could they find, for the Austrians were too few in number to confront the devastating hosts of the invading army. They were still compelled to retreat as far as the town of Lugos, where at last they might rest from the dreadful fatigues of this humiliating flight. With inexpressible relief, the soldiers sought repose. They were ordered, however, to sleep on their arms, so that the artilleryman was by his cannon, the mounted soldier near his horse, and the infantry, clasping their muskets, lay in long rows together, all forgetting every thing save the inestimable blessing of stretching their limbs and wooing sleep.

The mild summer moon looked down upon their rest, and the emperor, as he made a last tour of inspection to satisfy himself that all lights were extinguished, rejoiced to think that the Turks were far away, and his tired Austrians could sleep secure.

Joseph returned to his tent, that is, his caleche. He, too, was exhausted, and closed his eves with a sense of delicious languor. The night air, blowing about his temples, refreshed his fevered brow, and he gave himself up to dreams such as are inspired by the silvered atmosphere, when the moon, in her pearly splendor, looks down upon the troubled earth, and hushes it to repose.

The emperor, however, did not sleep. For a while, he lay with closed eyes, and then, raising himself, looked up toward the heavens. Gradually the sky darkened; cloud met cloud and obscured the moon's disk, until at last the firmament was clothed in impenetrable blackness. The emperor, with a sad smile, thought how like the scene had been to the panorama of his life, wherein every star had set, and whence every ray of light had fled forever!

He dreamed on, while his tired men slept. Not all, however, for, far toward the left wing of the army, a band of hussars were encamped around a wagon laden with brandy, and, having much more confidence in the restorative powers of liquor than of sleep, they had been invigorating themselves with deep potations. Another company of soldiers in their neighborhood, awakened by the noisy mirth of the hussars, came forward to claim their share of the brandy. It was refused, and a brawl ensued, in which the a.s.sailants were repulsed.

The hussars, having driven them from the field, proceeded to celebrate their victory by renewed libations, until finally, in a state of complete inebriation, they fell to the ground, and there slept the sleep of the intoxicated.

The men who had been prevented from partic.i.p.ating in these drunken revels resolved to revenge themselves by a trick. They crept stealthily up to the spot where the hussars were lying, and, firing off their muskets, cried out, "The Turks! the Turks!"

Stupefied by liquor, the sleepers sprang up, repeating the cry. It was caught and echoed from man to man, while the hussars, with unsheathed sabres, ran wildly about, until hundreds and hundreds were awakened, each one echoing the fearful words--

"The Turks! the Turks!"

"Halt! halt!" cried a voice to the terrified soldiers. "Halt, men, halt!"

The bewildered ears mistook the command for the battle-cry of the Turks, "Allah! Allah!" and the panic increased tenfold. "We are surrounded!"

shrieked the terror-stricken Austrians, and every sabre was drawn, and every musket c.o.c.ked. The struggle began; and the screams of the combatants, the groans of the wounded, the sighs of the dying filled the air, while comrade against comrade, brother against brother, stood in mortal strife and slew each other for the unbelieving Turk.

The calamity was irretrievable. The darkness of the night deceived every man in that army, not one of whom doubted that the enemy was there. Some of the terrified soldiers fled back to their camps, and, even there, mistaken for Turks, they were a.s.saulted with sabre and musket, and frightful was the carnage that ensued!

In vain the officers attempted to restore discipline. There was no more reason in those maddened human beings than in the raging waves of the ocean--The emperor, at the first alarm, had driven in his caleche to the place whence the sound seemed to come.

But what to a panic-stricken mult.i.tude was the voice of their emperor?

Ball after ball whistled past his ears, while he vainly strove to make them understand that they were each one slaying his brother! And the night was so hideous, so relentless in its darkness! Not one star glimmered upon the face of the frightful pall above--the stars would not look upon that fratricidal stuggle!

The fugitives and their infuriated pursuers pressed toward a little bridge which spanned a stream near the encampment. The emperor drove rapidly around, and reached the banks of the river before them, hoping thence to be heard by his men, and to convince them that no Turks were by.

But they heeded the sound of his voice no more than the sea heeded that of the royal Canute. Trey precipitated themselves toward the bridge, driving the carriage of the emperor before them to the very edge of the steep river-bank. It wavered; they pushed against it with the b.u.t.t-ends of their muskets. They saw nothing--they knew nothing save that the carriage impeded their flight!

It fell, rumbling down the precipice into the deep waters which bubbled and hissed and then closed over it forever. No man heeded its fall. Not one of all that crowd, which oft had grown hoa.r.s.e with shouts at his coming, paused to save the emperor from destruction. But he, calm and courageous, although at that moment he could have parted with life without a sigh, had made a desperate spring backward, and had alighted on the ground.

When he recovered from the violence of the fall, he found himself unhurt, but alone. Not one of his suite was to be seen; in the mad rush of the men for the crossing, they had been parted from him. The little rustic bridge bad fallen in, and those who remained behind had rushed with frantic yells in search of some other crossing. The emperor could hear their cries in the distance, and they filled his heart with anguish inexpressible.

With desponding eyes he gazed upward, and murmured, "Oh, that I could die before the sun rises upon the horrors of this night My soul is weary--my every hope dead. Why did I turn back when death was smiling from the crystal depths of that placid stream? Even now, I may still find rest. Who will ever know how the emperor met his fate?" He paused, and looked around to see if any thing was nigh. Nothing! He made one step forward, then shuddering, recoiled with an exclamation of horror at his miserable cowardice.

"No!" cried he, resolutely, "no, I will not die--I must not, dare not die. I cannot go to the grave misjudged and calumniated by my own subjects! I must live, that, sooner or later, they may learn how faithfully I have striven to make them happy! I must live to convince them that the promotion of their welfare has been the end and aim of my whole life!" [Footnote: The emperor's own words.--Hubner, ii., p. 488.]

At that moment there was a rent in the blackened firmament, and the moon emerged, gradually lighting up the dark waters and the lonely woods, until its beams shone full upon the pale, agitated features of that broken-hearted monarch.

"The emperor!" cried a loud voice, not far away. "The emperor!" and a rider, galloping forward, threw himself from his horse.

"Here, your majesty, here is my horse. Mount him. He is a sure and fleet animal."

"You know me, then?" asked Joseph.

"Yes, sire; I am one of your majesty's grooms. Will you do me the honor to accept my horse?"

The emperor replied by swinging himself into the saddle. "But you, my good fellow, what will you do?"