Joseph II. and His Court Part 43

While the empress spoke, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes glowed with a proud consciousness of might not yet renounced forever. The sorrowing widow was being once more transformed into the stately sovereign, and the eyes, which had been so dimmed by tears, were lit up by the fire of new resolves.

"Oh, mother, my own imperial mother," said Christina, "do not only free me from the man whom I detest, but bless me with the hand of the man I love. You well know how long I have loved Albert of Saxony, you know how dear I am to him. I have sworn never to be the wife of another, and I will keep my oath, or die! Oh, mother, do not make me the sport of policy and ambition! Let me be happy with him whom I love. What are crowns and sceptres and splendor, when the heart is without love and hope? I am willing to lead a simple life with Albert--let me be happy in my own way. Oh, mother! I love him so far above all earthly creatures, that I would rather be buried with him in the grave than be an empress without him."

And she fell upon her knees and wept anew. The empress had listened musingly to her daughter's appeal. While Christina was speaking, the glamour of her own past love was upon her heart.

She was a girl again; and once more her life seemed bound up in the love she bore to young Francis of Lorraine. Thus had she spoken, so had she entreated her father, the proud emperor, until he had relented, and she had become the wife of Christina's own father! Not only maternal love, but womanly sympathy pleaded for her unhappy child.

She bent over her, and with her white hand fondly stroked the rich ma.s.ses of Christina's golden-brown hair.

"Do not weep, my daughter," said she tenderly. "True, you have spoken words most unseemly for one of your birth; for it is the duty of a princess to buy her splendor and her rank with many a stifled longing and many a disappointment of the affections. Kind fate bestowed upon me not only grandeur, but the husband of my love, and daily do I thank the good G.o.d who gave me to my best beloved Franz. I do not know why you, too, may not be made a happy exception to the lot of princesses. I have still four beautiful daughters for whom state policy may seek alliances.

I will permit one of my children to be happy as I have been. G.o.d grant that the rest may find happiness go hand in hand with duty."

The princess, enraptured, would have thrown her arms around her mother's neck; but suddenly, her face, which had grown rosy with joy, became pale again, and her countenance wore an expression of deep disappointment.

"Oh, mother," cried she, "we build castles, while we forget that you are no longer the sovereign of Austria. And while you weep and pray in your dark cell, the emperor, with undutiful hand, overturns the edifice of Austria's greatness--that edifice which you, dearest mother, had reared with your own hands. He is like Erostratus; his only fame will be to have destroyed a temple which he had not the cunning to build."

"We will wrest the f.a.gots from his sacrilegious hands," cried the empress.

The archd.u.c.h.ess seemed not to have heard her mother's words She threw her arms around the empress, and, clinging convulsively to her, exclaimed, "Oh, do, not forsake me, my mother and my empress. That horrible woman, who was dragged from her obscurity to curse my brother's life; that tiresome, hideous Josepha--do not suffer her to wear your t.i.tle and your crown. O G.o.d! O G.o.d! Must I live to see Maria Theresa humbled, while Josepha of Bavaria is the reigning empress of Austria?"

The empress started. This was the third time she had heard these words, and each time it seemed as if a dagger had pierced her proud heart.

"Josepha of Bavaria the reigning empress of Austria!" said she scornfully. "We shall see how long she is to bear my t.i.tle and wear my crown! But I am weary, my daughter. I must go to my solitude, but fear nothing. Whether I be empress or abbess, no man on earth shall oppress my children. The doors of the cloister have not yet closed upon me; I am still, if I choose to be, the reigning empress of Austria."

She pressed a kiss upon Christina's forehead, and left the room.

On her return she encountered no one, and she was just about to open the door of her own anteroom, when she caught the sound of voices from within.

"But I tell you, gentlemen," cried an angry voice, "that her majesty, the ex-empress, receives no one, and has no longer any revenues. She has nothing more to do with the administration of affairs in Austria."

"But I must see the empress," replied a second and a deprecating voice.

"It is my right, for she is our sovereign, and she cannot so forsake us.

Let me see the empress. My life depends upon her goodness."

"And I," cried a third voice, "I too must see her. Not for myself do I seek this audience, but for her subjects. Oh, for the love of Austria, let me speak with my gracious sovereign!"

"But I tell you that I dare not," cried the ruffled page. "It would ruin me not only with her majesty, but with the reigning emperor. The widowed empress has no more voice in state affairs, and the emperor never will suffer her to have any, for he has all the power to himself, and he never means to yield an inch of it."

"Woe then to Austria!" cried the third speaker.

"Why do you cry, 'Woe to Austria?'" asked a voice outside; and the tall, majestic form of the empress appeared at the door.

"Our empress!" cried the two pet.i.tioners, while both fell at her feet and looked into her voice with unmistakeable joy.

The empress greeted them kindly, but she added: "Rise, gentlemen. I hear that my son, the emperor, has forbidden his subjects to kneel to him; they shall not, therefore, kneel to me, for he is right. To G.o.d alone belongs such homage. Rise, therefore, Father Aloysius; the brothers of the holy order of Jesus must never kneel, to fellow-mortal. And you, Counsellor Bundener, rise also, and stand erect. Your limbs have grown stiff in my service; in your old age you have the right to spare them.

You," added she, turning to the page, "return to your post, and attend more faithfully to your duty than you have done to-day. When I left this room, no one guarded the entrance to it."

"Your majesty," stammered the confused page, "it was the dinner-hour, and I had never dreamed of your leaving your apartments. His majesty the emperor has reduced the pages and sentries to half their number, and there are no longer enough of us to relieve one another as we were accustomed to do under the reign of your majesty."

"It is well," said the empress haughtily. "I will restore order to my household before another day has pa.s.sed. And now, gentlemen, what brings you hither? Speak, Father Aloysius."

"My conscience, your majesty," replied Father Aloysius, fervently. "I cannot stand by and see the hailstorm of corruption that devastates our unhappy country. I cannot see Austria flooded with the works of French philosophers and German infidels. What is to become of religion and decency if Voltaire and Rousseau are to be the teachers of Austrian youth!"

"It rests with yourself, my friend," replied the empress, "to protect the youth of Austria from such contaminating influences. Why do those whom I appointed censors of the press permit the introduction of these G.o.dless works in my realms?"

"Your majesty's realms!" replied the father sadly. "Alas, they are no longer yours. Your son is emperor and master of Austria, and he has commanded the printing and distribution of every infidel work of modern times. The censors of the press have been silenced, and ordered to discontinue their revision of books."

"Has my son presumed so far?" cried the empress, angrily. "Has he dared to overthrow the barriers which for the good of my subjects I had raised to protect them from the corrupt influences of French infidelity? Has be ordered the dissemination of obscene and unG.o.dly books? O my G.o.d! How culpable have I been to the trust which thou hast placed in my hands! I feel my guilt; I have sinned in the excess of my grief. But I will conquer my weak heart. Go in peace, father. I will ponder your words, and to-morrow you shall hear from me."

The father bowed and retired, while the empress turned toward Counsellor Bundener and inquired the cause of his distress.

"Oh, your majesty," cried the old man in accents of despair, "unless you help me I am ruined. If you come not again to my a.s.sistance my children will starve, for I am old and--"

"What!" interrupted the empress, "your children starve with the pension I gave you from my own private purse?"

"You did, indeed, give me a generous pension," replied Bundener, "and may G.o.d bless your majesty, for a more bountiful sovereign never bore the weight of a crown. But desolation and despair sit in the places where once your majesty's name was mingled each day with the prayers of those whom you had succored. The emperor has withdrawn every pension bestowed by you. He has received a statement of every annuity paid by your majesty's orders, and has declared his intention of cleaning out the Augean stables of this wasteful beneficence." [Footnote: Hubner, "Life of Joseph II.," vol. i., p. 28.]

The empress could not suppress a cry of indignation. Her face grew scarlet, and her lips parted. But she conquered the angry impulse that would have led her to disparage her son in the presence of his subject, and her mouth closed firmly. With agitated mien she paced her apartment, her eyes flashing, her breast heaving, her whole frame convulsed with a sense of insulted maternity. Then she came toward the counsellor, and lifting her proud head as though Olympus had owned her sway, she spoke:

"Go home, my friend," said she imperiously, "and believe my royal word when I a.s.sure you that neither you nor any other of my pensioners shall be robbed of your annuities. Princely faith shall be sacred above all consideration of thrift, and we shall see who dares impeach mine!"

So saying, Maria Theresa pa.s.sed into her dressing-room, where her ladies of honor were a.s.sembled. They all bent the knee as she entered, and awaited her commands in reverential silence. At that moment the flourish of trumpets and the call of the guards to arms were heard. The empress looked astounded, and directed an inquiring glance toward the window.

She knew full well the meaning of that trumpet signal and that call to arms; they were heard on the departure or the return of one person only in Austria, and that person was herself, the empress.

For the third time the trumpet sounded. "What means this?" asked she, frowning.

"Please your majesty," answered a lady of the bedchamber, "it signifies that her imperial majesty, the reigning empress, has returned from her walk in the palace gardens."

Maria Theresa answered not a word. She walked quickly past her attendants and laid her hand upon the lock of the door which led into her private study. Her head was thrown back, her eyes were full of flashing resolve, and the tone of her voice was clear, full, and majestic. It betokened that Maria Theresa was "herself again."

"Let Prince Kaunitz be summoned," said she. "Send hither the Countess Fuchs and Father Porhammer. Tell the two latter to come to my study when the prince leaves it."

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE CO-REGENT DEPOSED.

Scarcely a quarter of an hour had elapsed since the empress's orders had been issued, when a page announced Prince Kaunitz.

Maria Theresa went forward to receive him. Her whole being seemed filled with a feverish excitement which contrasted singularly with the unaltered demeanor of her prime minister, who, cold and tranquil as ever, advanced to meet his sovereign, and bowed with his usual phlegm.

"Well," said Maria Theresa, after a pause, "every thing has not changed in the four weeks of my retirement from court. You at least are the same in appearance. Let me hope that you are the same in spirit and in mind."

"Please your majesty," replied Kaunitz, "four weeks have not yet gone by since I had the honor of an interview with you."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the empress, impatiently. "Do you wish to remind me that I had resolved to wait four weeks before I decided upon a permanent course of action?"