Joseph II. and His Court Part 37

"No, your majesty, no," cried Charlotte, bursting into tears. "I never can cut off that magnificent hair."

"Good child," said the empress, "many a weary hour has that magnificent hair cost you, and do you ask to have it spared? It shall give you no more trouble. Take the scissors and cut it off!"

"Has your majesty then forgotten," pleaded Charlotte, "how dearly the emperor loved this hair?"

"No, Charlotte, and therefore he must have it. 'Tis the last love-token I have to give him. I cannot die with him like an Indian wife; but religion does not forbid me to lay this offering at least in his coffin.

He used so often to pa.s.s his hands through it--he was so proud of its beauty, that now he is gone, no one else shall see it. Say no more, Charlotte, but cut it off."

The empress bent her head, while Charlotte, with a heart-felt sigh and trembling hands, cut off the long and beautiful blond hair which Maria Theresa laid as a love-token in the coffin of her husband. [Footnote: Caroline Pichler. "Memoirs," vol. i., p.23.]

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE IMPERIAL ABBESS.

The funeral rites were over. In the crypt of the church of the Capuchins, under the monument which, twenty years before, the empress had built for herself and her husband, lay the body of Emperor Francis.

In this vault slept all the imperial dead of the house of Hapsburg. One after another, with closed eyes and folded hands their marble effigies were stretched across their tombs, stiff and cold as the bones that were buried beneath. The eternal night of death reigned over those couchant images of stone and bronze.

But Maria Theresa and her emperor had conquered death. Both rising from the tomb, their eyes were fixed upon each other with an expression of deepest tenderness; while Azrael, who stood behind with a wreath of cypress in his hands, seemed to have transformed himself into an angel of love that sanctified their union even beyond the tomb.

All had left the vault save the widowed empress; she had remained behind to weep and pray. Her prayers ended, she drew her long black cloak around her and strode through the church, unmindful of the monks, who, on either side of the aisle, awaited her appearance in respectful silence. She heeded neither their inclined heads nor their looks of sympathy; stunned by grief, she was unmindful of externals, and scarcely knew that she had left the vault, when her coach stopped before the imperial palace.

Once there Maria Theresa pa.s.sed by the splendid apartments which she had inhabited during her husband's life, and ascending the staircase to the second story of the palace, she entered upon the dwelling which had been prepared for her widowhood. It was simple to coldness. Hung with black, nothing relieved the gloom of these rooms; neither mirror, picture, gilding, nor flowers were there. The bedroom looked sad in the extreme.

The walls were hung in gray silk; gray velvet curtains were drawn in front of the small widow's bed; the floor was covered with a gray carpet studded with white lilies, and the furniture was like the curtains, of dim, dull gray velvet. [Footnote: Caroline Pichler, "Memoirs," vol. i., p. 20.]

As the empress entered this dismal room she saluted her ladies of honor who had followed her, and now stood awaiting her commands at the door.

"Bring all my dresses, shawls, laces, and jewels to me in the reception-room, and send a messenger to Prince Kaunitz to say that I await his presence."

The ladies of honor left the room silently, and the empress, closing the door, began again to weep and pray. Meanwhile her attendants were occupied bringing up the costly wardrobe of their imperial mistress. In a little while the dark rooms were brightened with velvet and silk of every color, with gold and silver, with jewels and flowers.

The ladies looked with eager and admiring eyes at the magnificence which had transformed this funereal apartment into a bazaar of elegance and luxury, scarcely daring to speak the hopes and wishes that were filling all their hearts. Suddenly their curious eyes sought the ground, for the empress appeared and entered the room. What a contrast between this pale figure, clad in simplest mourning, and the rich costumes which in the days of her happiness had heightened her beauty; those days which seemed to lie so far, far away from the bitter present

The empress laid her hand upon her heart, as if to stifle a cry of anguish; then approaching the black marble table, she took up some of the dresses that lay upon it.

With a voice softer and more pathetic than ever they had heard before, she begged the companions of her happier days to accept and wear these costly things as a legacy from the emperor. She then divied them as se thought best; a.s.signing to each lady what best became her and was most appropriate.

Her ladies stood weeping around, while Maria Theresa besought each one to pardon the trouble she had given in her joyous days, for the sake of the misery she now endured. And as she entreated them to forget that she had been imperious and exacting, they knelt weeping at her feet, and earnestly implored her not to leave them.

The empress sadly shook her head. "I am no longer an empress," said she, "I am a poor, humbled woman, who needs no more attendance, whose only aim on earth is to serve G.o.d and die in His favor! Pray for the emperor, char friends, and pray for me also."

Slowly turning away, she left the room and entered her cabinet, which opened into the gray bedroom.

"And now to my last worldly task," said she, as ringing a silver hand-bell she bade a page conduct Prince Kaunitz to her presence.

The page opened the door, and the prince came in.

The empress greeted him with a silent bend of her head, and exhausted, sank into an arm-chair that stood before her writing-desk. Kaunitz, without awaiting permission, took a seat opposite.

There was a long pause. At length Kaunitz said: "Your majesty has honored me by commanding my presence hither."

"Yes, I sent for you because I have something of great importance to say," replied the empress.

"I am all attention," replied the minister. "For it is worthy of your n.o.ble self so soon to stifle your grief and to attend to the duties of your crown. You have sent for me that we may work. And your majesty has done well, for much business has acc.u.mulated on our hands since we last held a cabinet council."

The empress shook her head. "Business no longer troubles me," replied she; "I have sent for you to say that we are no longer to work together."

"Does that mean that your majesty is about to dismiss me in disgrace?

Are you no longer satisfied with your minister?" asked Kaunitz.

"No, prince. It means that I myself must retire from the bustle and vanities of this world. My hands are no longer fit to wield a sceptre; they must be folded in prayer--in prayer for my emperor, who was called away without receiving the sacraments of the church. My strength is gone from me; my crown oppresses me; I can no longer be an empress."

"Were you made a sovereign by any power of yours?" asked Kaunitz. "Had you the choice of becoming an empress or remaining an archd.u.c.h.ess? What did your majesty say to me when the insolent Charles of Bavaria tried to wrest your imperial crown from your head?--'I received my crown from the hands of G.o.d, and I must defend my divine right!' Floods of n.o.ble blood were spilled that Maria Theresa might preserve her right; and does she now intend to dim the glory of her crown by sacrificing it to her sorrow as a wife?"

"I am tired of life and of the world, and I intend to take refuge from their troubles in a cloister. Say no more! I am resolved to go, and the palace at Innspruck shall be my convent. There, on the spot where he died, will I make my vows; and as an abbess will I spend my life praying that G.o.d may give him eternal rest. My vocation as a sovereign is at an end; I resign my sceptre to my son." [Footnote: c.o.xe, "History of the House of Austria," vol. v., page 188.]

"That means that your majesty will destroy with your own hands the structure you had commenced; that you have grown faint-hearted, and are unfaithful to your duty and to your subjects."

"I will follow the steps of my great ancestor, Charles V.," cried the empress with energy. "I lay down my earthly dignity to humble myself before G.o.d."

"And your majesty will be quite as unhappy as your ancestor. Do you suppose that the poor monk ever was able to forget that he had been a great prince?"

"And yet Charles V. remained for several years in a cloister." "But what a life, your majesty! A life of regret, repentance, and despair. Believe me, it is far better like Caesar to die pierced by twenty daggers on the steps of a throne, than voluntarily to descend from that throne to enter the miserable walls of a cloister."

"Better perhaps for those who have not renounced the world and its pomps," cried the empress, raising her beautiful eyes to heaven. "But it is neither satiety nor weariness of grandeur that has drive me to a cloister. It is my love for my emperor, my yearning to be alone with G.o.d and the past."

"But, your majesty," said Kaunitz with emphasis, "you will not be alone with the past; the maledictions of your people will follow you Will they hold you guiltless to have broken your faith with them?"

"I shall not have broken my faith; I shall have left to my people a successor to whom sooner or later they will owe the same allegiance as they now owe me."

"But a successor who will overturn all that his mother has done for Austria's welfare. Your majesty laid the foundations of Austria's greatness. To that end you called me to the lofty station which I now occupy. Remember that together we pledged our lives and love to Austria.

Be not untrue to the covenant. In the name of that people which I then represented, I claim from their emperor, Maria Theresa, the strict fulfilment of her bond. I call upon her to be true to her duty as the ruler of a great nation, until the hand of G.o.d releases her from her crown and her life."

While Kaunitz spoke, Maria Theresa walked up and down the room with troubled brow and folded arms. As lie ceased, she came and stood before him, looking earnestly into his face, which now had cast aside its mask of tranquillity, and showed visible signs of agitation.

"You are a bold advocate of my people's claims," said she; "a brave defender of my Austria. I rejoice to know it, and never will take umbrage at what you have so n.o.bly spoken. But you have not convinced me; my sorrow speaks louder than your arguments. You have termed me 'your emperor.' I know why you have once more called me by that flattering t.i.tle. You wish to remind me that in mounting the throne of my ancestors I lost the right to grieve as a woman, and pledged myself to gird on the armor of manhood. Hitherto I have made it my pride to plan, to reign, to fight like a man. I have always feared that men might say of me that my hand was too weak to grasp the reins of power. But G.o.d, who perhaps gave me the head of a man while leaving me the heart of a woman, has punished me for my ambition. He has left me to learn that, alas! I am but a woman--with all the weakness of my s.e.x. It is that womanly heart which, throbbing with an anguish that no words can paint, has vanquished my head; and loud above all thoughts of my duty as an empress is the wail of my sorrow as a widow! But I will show you, Kaunitz, that I am not stubborn. I shall communicate my intentions to no one. For four weeks I will retire to my cloister. Instead of naming Joseph my successor, I will appoint him co-regent. If, after four weeks of probation, I still feel that I can without guilt retire from the world, shall I then be absolved from my oath, and suffered to lay down my crown without reproach from my faithful minister?"

"If, after four weeks of unlimited power delegated to the Emperor Joseph, your majesty still thinks that you have a right to abdicate,"

replied Kaunitz, "I shall make no opposition to your majesty's choice of a private vocation, for I shall feel that after that time remonstrance with you would be useless."

"Well, then, my novitiate shall begin to-morrow. Apprise the court and the foreign representatives that I wish to meet them in the throne-room, where in their presence I will appoint my son emperor co-regent."

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

THE CO-REGENT.