CHAPTER XXXVIII.
THE REIGNING EMPRESS.
The empress went slowly down the staircase. This staircase led to the left wing of the palace, where the apartments of the imperial children were situated. From earliest childhood the daughters of Maria Theresa had had each one her separate suite. Each one had her governess, her ladies of honor, and her train of servants, and lived as if in a miniature court.
On great festivals, national or domestic, the younger members of the imperial family were invited to the table of the empress; otherwise they ate in private with their retinue, and each child had a separate table.
It was now the dinner-hour, and Maria Theresa had selected it, because she felt sure that all the attendants of her children were at table, and no one would know of her visit to Christina. But she was mistaken. As she passed by the anteroom leading to the apartments of her children, she heard the voices of the lords and ladies in waiting, and through the half-opened door, saw them chatting together in groups. They did not seem to observe their ex-sovereign; they went on conversing as if nothing had happened. But as the empress was passing the apartments of little Marie Antoinette, her governess appeared, and, with a cry of joy, threw herself at Maria Theresa's feet, and covered her hand with kisses. The empress smiled. A thrill of pleasure ran through her frame, as she received the homage to which from her birth she had been accustomed.
"Rise, countess," said she, kindly, "and do not let Marie Antoinette know that I am near. But, tell me, how comes it that at this hour I find the retinue of my children at leisure, while they are at table?"
"We are at leisure, your majesty," replied the countess, "because we are waiting for their highnesses to rise from the table."
"Is it then a festival, that my children should be dining at the imperial table?"
"Please your majesty, the reigning emperor has abolished the private tables of their highnesses your children. He finds it cheaper and more convenient for all the members of the imperial family to be served at once and at one table."
"Where, then, do my children dine?" asked the empress, with asperity.
"En famille, with her imperial majesty, the reigning empress."
"The reigning empress!" echoed Maria Theresa, with a frown. "But how comes it that my children leave their rooms without a retinue? Have you, then, already forgotten that I never permit a breach of court-ceremonial on any account?"
"Please your majesty, the emperor dislikes etiquette, and he has strictly forbidden all Spanish customs as laughable and ridiculous. He has forbidden all attendance upon the imperial family, except on new year's day. He has also forbidden us to kneel before his majesty, because it is an outlandish Spanish custom, and a homage due to God alone. All the French and Italian servants of the palace are dismissed, and their places are supplied by natives. The emperor wishes to have every thing at his court essentially German. For that reason he has ordered the mass to be translated and celebrated in the German language."
The empress heaved a sigh, and drew her mantilla over her face, as if to shut out the future which was unrolling itself to her view. She felt sick at heart; for she began to comprehend that her successor was not only creating a new order of things, but was speaking with contempt of his mother's reign. But she would not comtemplate the sad vision; she strove to turn back her thoughts to the present.
"But if you no longer have your private table," continued she, "why not accompany the princesses?"
"Because the emperor deems it fitting that the imperial family should dine alone. We, ladies in waiting, dine in a small room set apart for us, and then return to our apartments to await their highnesses."
"But the lords in waiting, do they not dine with you?"
"No, your majesty, they have received orders at one o'clock to go to their own houses, or to their former lodgings to dine. The court table is abolished, and the emperor finds that by so doing he has economized a very considerable sum."
A deep flush of anger passed over the face of Maria Theresa, and her lip curled contemptuously. Economy was one of the few virtues which the profuse and munificent empress had never learned to practise. She considered it beneath the dignity of a sovereign to count the cost of anything.
"Enough," said she, in a constrained voice, "I will go to Christina. Let no one know of my visit. I desire to see my sick daughter alone."
She bent her lofty head, and walked rapidly away. With a beating heart she opened the door that led to the sleeping-room of the princess. There on a couch lay a pale, weeping figure, the empress's darling, her beautiful Christina.
She stopped for a moment on the threshold, and looked lovingly at the dear child, whom, for four days, she had not seen; then a thrill of unutterable joy pervaded her whole being. At this moment Christina raised her languid eyes; her glance met that of her mother; and with a piercing cry, she sprang from the couch. But, overcome by weakness and emotion, she faltered, grew paler, and sank to the floor.
The empress darted forward and caught her fainting daughter in her arms. She carried her to the divan, laid her softly down, and, with quivering lip, surveyed the pale face and closed eyes of the princess.
She recovered slowly, and at length, heaving a deep sigh unclosed her eyes. Mother and child contemplated each other with loving glances, and as the archduchess raised her arms and clasped them around her mother's neck, she whispered feebly: "Oh, now, all is well! I am no longer desolate; my dear, dear mother has returned to me. She has not forsaken us; she will shield us from oppression and misfortune."
Like a frightened dove Christina clung to the empress, and burying her face in her mother's breast, she wept tears of relief and joy.
The empress drew her close to her heart. "Yes, darling," said she, with fervor, "I am here to shield you, and I will never forsake you again. No one on earth shall oppress you now. Tell me, dear child, what goes wrong with you?"
"Oh, mother, "whispered Christina, "there is one in Austria, more powerful than yourself, who will force me to his will. You cannot shield me from the emperor, for you have given him the power to rule over us; and, oh, how cruelly he uses his right!"
"What I have given, I can recall, "cried the empress. "Mine are the power and the crown, and I have not yet relinquished them. Now speak, Christina; what grieves you, and why are your eyes so red with weeping?"
"Because I am the most unhappy of mortals," cried Christina, passionately. "Because I am denied the right which every peasant-girl exercises; the right of refusing a man whom I do not love. Oh, mother, if you can, save me from the detested Duke of Chablais,—whom my cruel brother forces upon me as a husband."
"Is that your sorrow, my child?" exclaimed the empress. "Joseph is like his father; he loves wealth. The emperor had proposed this half-brother of the King of Sardinia for you, Christina, but I refused my consent; and, now without my knowledge, Joseph would force him upon you, because of his great riches. But patience, patience, my daughter. I will show you that I am not so powerless as you think; I will show you that no one in Austria shall give away my Christina without her mother's approbation."
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 masses 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 God 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. God 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 fagots from his sacrilegious hands," cried the empress.
The archduchess 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 title and your crown. O God! O God! 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 title 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 petitioners, 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 God 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 passed. 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 godless 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 ungodly books? O my God! 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 assistance 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 God 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 assure 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 passed into her dressing-room, where her ladies of honor were assembled. 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."