Joseph II. and His Court Part 137

"I never tell an untruth, Joseph; but I confess that I am astounded to see with what police-like dexterity you have ferreted out every little occurrence of my private life;."

"A queen has no private life. She is doomed to live in public, and woe to her if she cannot account to the world for every hour of her existence! If she undertake to have secrets, her very lackeys misrepresent her innocence and make it crime."

"Good Heaven, Joseph!" cried the queen, "you talk as if I were a criminal before my accusers."

"You are a criminal, my poor young sister. Public opinion has accused you; and accusation there is synonymous with guilt. But I, who give you so much pain, come as your friend and brother, speaking hard truths to you, dearest, by virtue of the tie which binds us to our mother. In the name of that incomparable mother, I implore you to be discreet, and to give no cause to your enemies for misconstruction of your youthful follies. Take up the load of your royalty with fort.i.tude; and, when it weighs heavily upon your poor young heart, remember that you were not made a queen to pursue your own happiness, but to strive for that of your subjects, whose hearts are still with you in spite of all that your enemies have done or said. Give up all egotism, Antoinette--set aside your personal hopes; live for the good of the French nation; and one of these days you will believe with me, that we may be happy without individual happiness."

The queen shook her head, and tears rolled down her cheeks. "No, no, dear Joseph, a woman cannot be happy when she is unloved. My heart is sick with solitude, brother. I love my husband and he does not return my love. If I am frivolous, it is because I am unhappy. Believe me when I tell you that all would be well if the king would but love me."

"Then, Antoinette, all shall be well," said a voice behind them; and, starting with a cry of surprise and shame, the queen beheld the king.

"I have heard all," said Louis, closing the door and advancing toward Joseph. With a bright, affectionate smile, he held out his hand, saying as he did, "Pardon me, my brother, if I am here without your consent, and let me have a share in this sacred and happy hour."

"Brother!" repeated Joseph, sternly. "You say that you have overheard us. If so, you know that my sister is solitary and unhappy. Since you have no love for her, you are no brother to me; for she, poor child, is the tie that unites us! Look at her, sire; look at her sweet, innocent, tear-stricken face! What has she done that you should thrust her from your heart, and doom her to confront, alone, the sneers and hatred of your cruel relatives? She is pure, and her heart is without a stain. I tell you so--I, who in unspeakable anxiety have watched her through hired spies. Had I found her guilty I would have been the first to condemn her; but Antoinette is good, pure, virtuous, and she has but one defect--want of thought. It was your duty to guide her, for you received her from her mother's hands a child--a young, harmless, unsuspecting child. What has she ever done that you should refuse her your love?"

"Ask, rather, what have I done, that my relatives should have kept us so far asunder?" replied Louis, with emotion. "Ask those who have poisoned my ears with calumnies of my wife, why they should have sought to deny me the only compensation which life can offer to my royal station--the inestimable blessing of loving and being loved. But away with gloomy retrospection! I shall say but one word more of the past. Your majesty has been watched, and your visit here discovered. I was told that you were seeking to identify the queen with her mother's empire--using your influence to make her forget France, and plot dishonor to her husband's crown. I resolved to prove the truth or falsehood of these accusations myself. I thank Heaven that I did so; for from this hour I shall honor and regard you as a brother."

"I shall reciprocate, sire, if you will promise to be kind to my sister?"

The king looked at Marie Antoinette, who, seated on the sofa whence her brother had risen, was weeping bitterly. Louis went toward her, and, taking both her hands in his, pressed them pa.s.sionately to his lips.

"Antoinette," said he, tenderly, "you say that I do not love you. You have not then read my heart, which, filled to bursting with love for my beautiful wife, dared not ask for response, because I had been told that you--you--but no--I will not pain you with repet.i.tion of the calumny.

Enough that I am blessed with your love, and may at last be permitted to pour out the torrent of mine! Antoinette, will you be my wife?"

He held open his arms, and looked--as lovers alone can look. The queen well knew the meaning of that glance, and, with a cry of joy, she rose and was pressed to his heart. He held her for some moments there, and then, for the first time in their lives, the lips of husband and wife met in one long, burning kiss of love.

"My beloved, my own," whispered Louis. "Mine forever--nothing on earth shall part us now."

Marie Antoinette was speechless with happiness. She leaned her head upon her husband's breast and wept for joy, while he fondly stroked and kissed tier s.h.i.+ning hair, and left the trace of a tear with every kiss.

Presently he turned an imploring look upon the emperor, who stood by, contemplating the lovers with an ecstasy to which he had long been a stranger.

"My brother," said Louis, "for I may call you so now--seven years ago, our hands were joined together by the priest; but, the policy that would have wounded Austria through me, has kept us asunder. This is our wedding-day, this is the union of love with love. Be you the priest to bless the rites that make us one till death."

The emperor came forward, and, solemnly laying his hands upon the heads of the king and queen, spoke in broken accents "G.o.d bless you, beloved brother and sister--G.o.d give you grace to be true to each other through good and evil report. Be gentle and indulgent one toward the other, that, from this day forward, your two hearts may become as one!

Farewell! I shall take with me to Austria the joyful news of your happiness. Oh, how Maria Theresa will rejoice to know it, and how often will the thought of this day brighten my own desolate hearth at Vienna!

Farewell!"

CHAPTER CXXI.

DEATH OF THE ELECTOR OF BAVARIA.

A large and brilliant a.s.semblage thronged the state apartments of the imperial palace at Vienna. The aristocracy not only of the capital, but of all Austria, had gathered there to congratulate the emperor upon his safe return.

It was the first of January, 1778, and as New Year's day was the only festival which Joseph's new ordinance allowed, the court took occasion to celebrate it with all the pomp of embroidery, orders, stars, and blazing jewels.

The empress had never thrown off her mourning, so that her dark gray dress with its long train was in striking contrast with the rich, elegant costumes, the flowers and diamonds of the other ladies present.

Still, there was something in this tall, n.o.ble form which distinguished it above the rest, and spoke to all beholders of the sovereign will that resided there. Maria Theresa was still the majestic empress--but she was now an old woman.

Time as well as disease had marred her beauty, and the cares, anxieties, and afflictions of sixty years had written their inexorable record upon the tablet of her once fair brow. Not only these, but accident also had destroyed the last lingering traces of Maria Theresa's youthful comeliness. Returning from Presburg, she had been thrown from her carriage, and dashed with such force against the stones on the road, that she had been taken up b.l.o.o.d.y, and, to all appearances, lifeless.

Her face had suffered severely, and to her death she bore the deep-red scars which had been left by her wounds. Her figure, too, had lost its grace, and was now so corpulent that she moved slowly and heavily through the rooms, where, in former years, she had stood by the side of her "Francis," the most beautiful woman of her own or of any European court.

Her magnificent eyes, however, had defied time, they were large, flas.h.i.+ng, expressive as ever--as quick to interpret anger, enthusiasm, or tenderness as in the days of her youth.

On the evening of which we speak, the empress was at the card-table. But those great, glowing eyes were roving from one side of the room to the other in restless anxiety. Sometimes, for a moment, they rested upon the emperor who was standing near the table in conversation with some provincial n.o.bleman. The cheerful and unconcerned demeanor of her son seemed to rea.s.sure the empress, who turned to her cards, and tried to become interested in the game. Not far off, the archd.u.c.h.esses, too, were at cards, and the hum of conversation subsided almost to a whisper, that the imperial party might not be disturbed. Gradually the empress became absorbed in her cards, so that she was un.o.bservant of the entrance of one of the emperor's lords in waiting who whispered something in Joseph's ear, whereupon the latter left the room in haste.

Not very long after the emperor returned pale and excited, and approached the card-tables. Maria Theresa, at that moment, had just requested Count Dietrichstein to deal for her, and she was leaning back in her chair, awaiting the end of the deal.

The emperor bent over and whispered something in her ear, when she started, and the cards, which she was just gathering, fell from her hands. With unusual agility she rose, and taking the emperor's arm, turned away without a word of apology, and left the room.

The archd.u.c.h.esses had not yet perceived their mother's absence, when Count Dietrichstein, on the part of the emperor, came forward, and whispered a few words to each one of them. Precisely as their mother had done the princesses rose, and without apology retired together.

The company started, and whispered and wondered what could have happened to discompose the imperial family; but no one present was competent to solve the mystery.

Meanwhile Maria Theresa had retired to her cabinet, where she met Prince Kaunitz, furred like a polar bear, by way of protection from the temperature of the palace, which was always many degrees below zero, as indicated by the thermometer of his thin, bloodless veins. The minister was shaking with cold, although he had buried his face in a m.u.f.f large enough to have been one of his own cubs. The empress returned his greeting with an agitated wave of her hand, and seated herself in an arm-chair at the large round table that always stood there.

Exhausted by the unusual haste with which she had walked as well as by the excitement, which, in her old age, she was physically inadequate to bear, she leaned back to recover her breath. Opposite stood the emperor, who, with a wave of his hand, motioned to Kaunitz to enter also.

Maria Theresa's large eyes were fixed upon him at once.

"Is it true." said she. "that the Elector of Bavaria is dead?"

"Yes, your majesty," said Kaunitz. "Maximilian reigns no longer in Bavaria. Here are the dispatches from our amba.s.sador at Munich."

He held them out, but the empress put them back, saying:

"I am not sufficiently composed to read them. Give them to my son, and have the goodness to communicate their contents to me verbally."

The face of Kaunitz grew pale, as he turned with the dispatches to the emperor. The latter at once comprehended the prince's agitation, and smiled.

"I beg of your majesty," said he, "to excuse the prince, and to allow me to read to you the particulars of Maximilian's demise. His highness must be fatigued, and, doubtless, your majesty will allow him to retire within the embrasure of yonder window, until I have concluded the perusal of the dispatches."

Kaunitz brightened at once as the empress gave her consent, and he gladly withdrew to the window which was far enough from the table to be out of reach of the emperor's voice.

Joseph could not restrain another smile as he watched the tall, stiff form of the old prince, and saw how carefully he drew the window curtains around him, lest a word of what was going on should reach his ears.

"Pardon me, your majesty," said Joseph, in a low voice, "but you know what a horror Kaunitz has of death and the small-pox. As both these words form the subject of our dispatches, I was glad to relieve the prince from the necessity of repeating their contents."

"That you should have remembered his weakness does honor to your heart, my son," replied Maria Theresa. "In my agitation I had forgotten it.

Maximilian, then, must have died of small-pox."

"He did, your majesty, like his sister, my unhappy wife."

"Strange!" said Maria Theresa, thoughtfully. "Josepha has often spoken to me of the presentiment which her brother had that he would die of the small-pox."

"It proves to us that man cannot fly from his destiny. The elector foresaw that he would die of small-pox, and took every precaution to avert his fate. Nevertheless, it overtook him."