Joseph II. and His Court Part 49

"Impossible! impossible! She dare not do it--"

Kaunitz shrugged his shoulders. "DARE, your majesty? Some things we dare not attempt because they are difficult; others are difficult because we dare not attempt them. [Footnote: Kaunitz's own words. Hormayer, "Plutarch," vol. xii., p. 271.] The Empress of Russia dares do any thing; for she knows how to take things easily, and believes in her own foresight. Despots are grasping, and Catharine is a great despot. We must make haste to secure her good-will, that when the time comes we may all understand one another."

"I!" exclaimed the empress, "I should stoop so low as to seek the good-will of this wicked empress, who mounted her throne upon the dead body of her husband, while her lovers stood by, their hands reeking with the blood of the murdered emperor! Oh, Kaunitz! you would never ask me to do this thing?"

"Your majesty is great enough to sacrifice your personal antipathies to the good of your country. Your majesty once condescended to write to Farinelli and THAT act won us the friendship of the King of Spain and of his sons; THAT letter will be the means of placing an Archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria on the throne of Naples."

"Would have been," said Maria Theresa, heaving a sigh. "The bride of the King of Naples is no more! My poor Johanna! My beautiful child!"

"But the Archd.u.c.h.ess Josepha lives, and I had intended to propose to your majesty to accept the hand of the King of Naples for her highness."

"Is the house of Naples then so desirous of our alliance that it has already offered its heir to another one of my daughters? I am sorry that we should be obliged to accept, for I have heard of late that the king is an illiterate and trifling fellow, scarcely better than the lazzaroni who are his chosen a.s.sociates. Josepha will not be happy with such a man."

"Your majesty, her highness does not marry the young ignoramus who, to be sure, knows neither how to read nor write--she marries the King of Naples; and surely if any thing can gracefully conceal a man's faults, it is the purple mantle of royalty."

"I will give my child to this representative of royalty," said Maria Theresa sadly, "but I look upon her as a victim of expediency. If she is true to her G.o.d and to her spouse, I must be content, even though, as a woman, Josepha's life will be a blank."

"And this alliance," said Kaunitz, still pursuing the object for which he was contending, "this marriage is the result of one letter to Farinelli. Your majesty once condescended to write to La Pompadour. THAT letter won the friendship of France, and its fruits will be the marriage of the Archd.u.c.h.ess Marie Antoinette, and her elevation to the throne of France. Your majesty sees then what important results have sprung from two friendly letters which my honored sovereign has not disdained to write. Surely when wise statesmanship prompts your majesty to indite a third letter to the Empress of Russia, you will not refuse its counsels and suggestions. The two first letters were worth to us two thrones; the third may chance to be worth a new province."

"A new province!" exclaimed the empress, coming closer to Kaunitz, and in her eagerness laying her hand upon his shoulder. "Tell me--what wise and wicked stratagem do you hatch within your brain to-day?"

"My plans, so please your majesty," said the prince, raising his eyes so as to meet those of the empress, "my plans are not of to-day. They--"

But suddenly he grew dumb, and gazed horror-stricken at the face of Maria Theresa. Kaunitz was short-sighted, and up to this moment be had remained in ignorance of the fearful change that had forever transformed the empress's beauty into ugliness. The discovery had left him speechless.

"Well?" cried the empress, not suspecting the cause of his sudden silence. "You have not the courage to confide your plans to me? They must be dishonorable. If not, in the name of Heaven, speak!"

The prince answered not a word. The shock had been too great; and as he gazed upon that scarred and blotched face, once so smooth, fair, and beautiful, his presence of mind forsook him, and his diplomacy came to naught.

"Forgive me your majesty" said he, as pale and staggering he retreated toward the door. "A sudden faintness has come over me, and every thing swims before my vision. Let me entreat your permission to retire."

Without awaiting the empress's reply, he made a hasty bow, and fled from the room.

The empress looked after him in utter astonishment. "What has come over the man?" said she to herself. "He looks as if he had seen a ghost!

Well--I suppose it is nothing more than a fit of eccentricity."

And she flung back her head with a half-disdainful smile. But as she did so, her eyes lit accidentally upon the mirror, and she saw her own image reflected in its bright depths.

She started; for she had already forgotten the "ugly old woman" whom she had apostrophized on the day previous. Suddenly she burst into a peal of laughter, and cried out. "No wonder poor Kaunitz looked as if he had seen something horrible! HE SAW ME--and I am the Medusa that turned him into stone. Poor, short-sighted man! He had been in blissful ignorance of my altered looks until I laid my hand upon his shoulder. I must do something to heal the wound I have inflicted. I owe him more than I can well repay. I will give him a brilliant decoration, and that will be a cure-all; for Kaunitz is very vain and very fond of show."

While the empress was writing the note which was to accompany her gift, Kaunitz, with his handkerchief over his mouth, was dashing through the palace corridors to his carriage. With an impatient gesture he motioned to his coachman to drive home with all speed.

Not with his usual stateliness, but panting, almost running, did Kaunitz traverse the gilded halls of his own palace, which were open to-day in honor of the empress's recovery, and were already festive with the sound of the guests a.s.sembling to a magnificent dinner which was to celebrate the event. Without a word to the Countess Clary, who came forward elegantly attired for the occasion, Kaunitz flew to his study, and sinking into an arm-chair, he covered his face with his hands. He felt as if he had been face to face with death. That was not his beautiful, majestic, superb Maria Theresa; it was a frightful vision--a messenger from the grave, that forced upon his unwilling mind the dreadful futurity that awaits all who are born of woman.

"Could it be? Was this indeed the empress, whose beauty had intoxicated her subjects, as drawing from its sheath the sword of St. Stephen, she held it flashing in the sun, and called upon them to defend her rights?

Oh, could it be that this woman, once beautiful as Olympian Juno, had been transformed into such a caricature?"

A thrill of pain darted through the whole frame of the prince, and he did what since his mother's death he had never done--he wept.

But gradually he overcame his grief, the scanty fountain of his tears dried up, and he resumed his cold and habitual demeanor. For a long time he sat motionless in his chair, staring at the wall that was opposite.

Finally he moved toward his escritoire and took up a pen.

He began to write instructions for the use of his secretaries. They were never to p.r.o.nounce in his presence the two words DEATH and SMALL-POX. If those words ever occurred in any correspondence or official paper that was to come before his notice, they were to be erased. Those who presented themselves before the prince were to be warned that these fearful words must never pa.s.s their lips in his presence. A secretary was to go at once to the Countess Clary, that she might prepare the guests of the prince, and caution them against the use of the offensive words. [Footnote: Hormayer, "Austrian Plutarch," vol. xii., p. 374.]

When Kaunitz had completed these singular instructions, he rang, and gave the paper to a page. As he did so, a servant entered with a letter and a package from her majesty the empress.

The package contained the grand cross of the order of St Stephen but instead of the usual symbol the cross was composed of costly brilliants.

The letter was in the empress's own hand--a worthy answer to the "instructions" which Kaunitz was in the act of sending to his secretaries.

The empress wrote as follows: "I send you the grand cross of St.

Stephen; but as a mark of distinction you must wear it in brilliants.

You have done so much to dignify it, that I seize with eagerness the opportunity which presents itself to offer you a tribute of that grat.i.tude which I feel for your services, and shall continue to feel until the day of my death. MARIA THERESA." [Footnote: Wraxall, vol.

ii., p. 479.]

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE ARCHd.u.c.h.eSS JOSEPHA.

The plan of the empress and her prime minister approached their fulfilment; Austria was about to contract ties of kindred with her powerful neighbors.

Maria Theresa had again consented to receive the King of Naples as her son-in-law, and he was the affianced husband of the archd.u.c.h.ess Josepha.

The palace of Lichtenstein, the residence of the Neapolitan amba.s.sador was, in consequence of the betrothal, the scene of splendid festivities, and in the imperial palace preparations were making for the approaching nuptials. They were to be solemnized on the fifteenth of October, and immediately after the ceremony the young bride was to leave Vienna for Naples.

Every thing was gayety and bustle; all were deep in consultation over dress and jewels; and the great topic of court conversation was the parure of brilliants sent by the King of Spain, whose surpa.s.sing magnificence had called forth an expresson of astonishment from the lips of the empress herself.

The trousseau of the archd.u.c.h.ess was exposed in the apartments which had once been occupied by the empress and her husband; and now Maria Theresa, followed by a bevy of wondering young archd.u.c.h.esses, was examining her daughter's princely wardrobe, that with her own eyes she might be sure that nothing was wanting to render it worthy of a queen-elect. The young girls burst into exclamations of rapture when they approached the table where, in its snowy purity, lay the bridal dress of white velvet, embroidered with pearls and diamonds.

"Oh!" cried little Marie Antoinette, while she stroked it with her pretty, rosy hand, "oh, my beautiful Josepha, you will look like an angel, when you wear this lovely white dress."

"Say rather, like a queen," returned Josepha, smiling. "When a woman is a queen, she is sure to look like an angel in the eyes of the world."

"It does not follow, however, that because she is a queen, she shall be as happy as an angel," remarked the Archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Amelia, who was betrothed to the Duke of Parma.

"Nevertheless, I would rather be the unhappy queen of an important kingdom than the happy wife of a poor little prince," replied Josepha, as, raising her superb diadem of brilliants, she advanced to a mirror and placed it upon her brow. "Do you think," asked she proudly, "that I can be very miserable while I wear these starry gems upon my forehead?

Oh no! If it were set with thorns that drew my blood, I would rather wear this royal diadem than the light coronet of an insignificant d.u.c.h.ess."

"And I," exclaimed Amelia, "would rather wear the ring of a beggar than be the wife of a king who neither reads nor writes, and throughout all Europe is known by the name of a lazzarone."

"Before whom millions of subjects must, nevertheless, bend the knee, and who, despite of all, is a powerful and wealthy monarch," returned Josepha, angrily.

"That is, if his master, the Marquis Tannucci allows it," cried the Archd.u.c.h.ess Caroline, laughing. "For you know very well, Josepha, that Tannucci is the king of your lazzaroni-king, and when he behaves amiss, puts him on his knees for punishment. Now when you are his wife, you can go and comfort him in disgrace, and kneel down in the corner by his side. How interesting it will be!"

Upon this the Archd.u.c.h.ess Amelia began to laugh, while her sisters joined in--all except Marie Antoinette, who with an expression of sympathy, turned to Josepha.

"Do not mind them, my Josepha," said she; "if your king can not read, you can teach him, and he will love you all the better; and in spite of every thing, you will be a happy queen in the end."

"I do not mind them, Antoinette," returned Josepha, her eyes flashing with anger, "for I well know that they are envious of my prosperity, and would willingly supplant me. But my day of retaliation will come. It will be that on which my sisters shall be forced to acknowledge the rank of the Queen of Naples, and to yield her precedence!"