Joseph II. and His Court Part 142

"No, no," cried the emperor, "that is false. We are not such a pair of loving brothers that you should seek me for affection's sake."

And approaching Leopold as he spoke, he stopped just before him, and continued:

"I implore of you be generous and tell me what you want. You have letters from the empress, have you not?"

"I have. I have not only letters from our imperial mother to deliver to your majesty, I am also the bearer of verbal messages, but-"

"But what?" cried Joseph, as Leopold paused.

"But I must request of your majesty to grant me a private interview."

"With his majesty's permission, I shall withdraw," said Lacy. Joseph inclined his head, and, as Lacy disappeared, he turned his eyes once more upon the pale, embarra.s.sed countenance of his unwelcome relative.

"Now we are alone," said he, breathing fast. "Now--but no. Give me one moment to collect my strength. My G.o.d! what evil has the empress in store for me now, that she should select you as the messenger of her cruelty? Peace--I do not wish to hear your voice until I am ready to listen to its discordant sounds."

"I await your commands," replied Leopold, with a respectful inclination.

The emperor crossed the room several times forth and back. His cheeks were blanched, his mouth quivered, while quick and gasping came the breath from his heaving chest.

"Air, air!" said he in a stifled voice. "I shall suffocate!" He approached the window, and leaning far out, inhaled the cold winter blast, whose icy breath was welcome to his hot and fevered head. After a while, he closed the window and turned to his brother, who, with folded arms, still stood near the door.

"Now," said Joseph, gloomily, "I am ready to hear. Speak out, your infernal errand!"

"I must first beg pardon of your majesty if the intelligence which I am compelled to communicate is unwelcome," began Leopold, in a deprecating voice.

Joseph cast a rapid, searching look athwart the perplexed face of his brother. "You are forgiven," replied he, contemptuously. "Your message seems to be punishment enough of itself, if I judge by your countenance.

Let us be quick, then, and be done with one another. Give me the letter, and say at once what you have to say."

The grand duke took from his coat-pocket a sealed dispatch which he delivered to the emperor.

"Here are the letters of the empress, but she ordered me to accompany them with a few words explanatory of her motives. She commissioned me to tell what she found it difficult to write."

"She was afraid," muttered Joseph.

"Yes, she was afraid to commit an injustice," returned Leopold. "She was afraid to offend her Maker by continuing a war whose object was to break one of His holy commandments--"

"Oh, my brother!" interrupted Joseph, sarcastically, "you are yourself again--I recognize the dutiful son of the priests who denounce me because I would disturb them in their comfortable Bavarian nest. I see plainly that if I should be so unfortunate as to fall to-morrow on the battle-field, you will throw yourself into the arms of Frederick and of that frantic amazon, the d.u.c.h.ess Clemens, beg pardon for my sins, and hand over the fairest portion of Germany to pope and Jesuits. Oh, what a favorite you would become with the black-coats! Doubtless they would give you absolution for all the sins you are accustomed to commit against your wife, but, my virtuous brother, I shall outlive the morrow, that I promise you, and shall gain such a victory over Frederick as will astound you and the whole popedom."

"You were about to give battle to Frederick?"

"I am about to do so," replied Joseph, defiantly.

"Then it was time for me to come!" exclaimed Leopold, solemnly.

"The mercy of G.o.d has sent me to stop the carnage! My brother, the empress earnestly entreats you, by the tears she has shed for your sake, to desist from fighting! As your empress she commands you to sheathe your sword until you hear the result of the negotiations now pending between herself and the King of Prussia."

The emperor uttered a cry of rage, and the angry blood darted to his very brow. "The empress has opened negotiations without my consent!"

cried he, in a voice of mingled indignation and incredulity.

"The empress requires the consent of no one to regulate her state policy. In the supremacy of her own power, she has reopened negotiations with the King of Prussia, and hopes to terminate the war honorably without bloodshed."

"It is false, I will not believe it!" again cried Joseph. "My mother would not offer me such indignity, when she herself placed in my hand the sword with which I seek to defend my rights. It is a priest's lie, and you have been commissioned to be its interpreter. But this time your pious frauds will come to naught. Take back your packet. It is not the empress's handwriting."

"It is that of her private secretary."

"I am not bound to respect his writing, and I have no time to listen to your stupid remonstrances. Wait till day after to-morrow. When a man is flushed with victory, he is generous and ready to pardon. When I have beaten Frederick, I shall have leisure to inquire into the authenticity of your papers. Remain with me, not as the emissary of priests and Jesuits, but as the brother of the emperor, who to-morrow is to win his first victory and his first budding laurels. Give me your hand. On the eve of a battle, I am willing to remember that we are brothers."

"But this is not the eve of a battle, your majesty. The empress commands you to await the result of her efforts to end the war."

"I have already told you that I see through your intrigues."

"But I have the proofs of my veracity in these papers. You will not read them?"

"No, I will not!"

"Then I shall read them myself," returned Leopold, breaking the seal.

"The empress commands you, and it is your duty as her subject to obey."

"I shall obey when I am convinced that the empress commands. But in this case I am convinced that it is not my mother, the high-spirited Maria Theresa, who intrusts you with such an abject commission."

"You surely will not deny her handwriting?" returned Leopold, extending an open letter to his brother.

Joseph looked imploringly at his brother's calm face.

"You are resolved to show me no mercy," said he. "You will not understand my refusal to believe. Listen to me, Leopold. Show that you love me for once in your life. Think of my joyless youth, my sorrowing manhood, my life of perpetual humiliation, and give me one day of independent action."

"What does your majesty mean'?" asked the grand duke.

The emperor came up to him, and putting both his hands upon Leopold's shoulder, he said in a voice of deep emotion; "Majesty asks nothing of you, but your brother entreats you to serve him this day. See, Leopold, it is too late, I cannot retract upon the very eve of battle. The army knows that we are about to engage the enemy, and my men are wild with enthusiasm. The presence of Frederick upon Austrian soil is an indignity which I am pledged as a man to avenge. If I allow him to retreat from his present disadvantageous position, my name is gone forever, and all Europe will cry out upon my incapacity to command. Remember, Leopold, that it concerns not my honor alone, but the honor of Austria, that this battle should be fought. Rescue us both by a magnanimous falsehood. Go back to the empress. Tell her that you lost her letters and that I would not take your word. Meanwhile, I shall have humiliated the enemy, and Maria Theresa will have been forced to submit to an event which she cannot recall. Let us burn these papers, Leopold," continued Joseph, pa.s.sionately clasping his hands, "and G.o.d will forgive you the innocent deception by which your brother shall have won fame and glory."

"G.o.d will never pardon me for sinning so deeply against my conscience,"

replied Leopold, unmoved. "You require of me to burn those papers and consign thousands of your own subjects to death and worse than death--the lingering agonies of the battle-field. Never! Oh, my dear brother, have pity on yourself, and bethink you that you peril your own salvation by such thirst of blood--"

"Peace!--and answer my question," cried Joseph, stamping his foot. "Will you do what I ask of you?"

"No, Joseph, I will not do it. The empress desires to spare the blood of her people, and we must obey her just demands."

"I will not obey!" cried Joseph with such violence that his face was empurpled with pa.s.sion. "I am co-regent, and as a man and a commander, it is my right to defend the honor of the crown. I will not read those letters, and I choose to a.s.sert the superiority of my manhood by doing that which they forbid. In your eyes and those of the empress, I may be a rebel, but the world will acquit me, and I shall be honored for my just resistance. You will not destroy the papers as I implored you to do?--then give them to me, and so satisfy your tender conscience."

"No," replied Leopold, who had replaced the dispatches in his pocket, "for I see that you intend to destroy them."

"That need not concern you. Give me the letters."

"No, Joseph, I will not give them."

The emperor uttered a hoa.r.s.e cry, and darted toward his brother with uplifted arm.

"Give me the papers!" said he, with his teeth set.