Maria Theresa does not appear to have been very deeply afflicted by the death of her husband; or we should, perhaps, rather say that her grief assumed the character which one would anticipate from a person of her peculiar frame of mind. The emperor had not been faithful to his kingly spouse, and she was well acquainted with his numerous infidelities. Still she seems affectionately to have cherished the memory of his gentle virtues. With her own hands she prepared his shroud, and she never after laid aside her weeds of mourning. She often descended into the vault where his remains were deposited, and passed hours in prayer by the side of his coffin.
Joseph, of course, having been preëlected, immediately assumed the imperial crown. Maria Theresa had but little time to devote to grief. She had lost Silesia, and that was a calamity apparently far heavier than the death of her husband. Millions of treasure, and countless thousands of lives had been expended, and all in vain, for the recovery of that province. She now began to look around for territory she could grasp in compensation for her loss. Poland was surrounded by Austria, Russia and Prussia. The population consisted of two classes—the nobles who possessed all the power, and the people who were in a state of the most abject feudal vassalage. By the laws of Poland every person was a noble who was not engaged in any industrial occupation and who owned any land, or who had descended from those who ever had held any land. The government was what may perhaps be called an aristocratic republic. The masses were mere slaves. The nobles were in a state of political equality. They chose a chieftain whom they called king, but whose power was a mere shadow. At this time Poland was in a state of anarchy. Civil war desolated the kingdom, the nobles being divided into numerous factions, and fighting fiercely against each other. Catharine, the Empress of Russia, espoused the cause of her favorite, Count Poniatowski, who was one of the candidates for the crown of Poland, and by the influence of her money and her armies placed him upon the throne and maintained him there. Poland thus, under the influence of the Russian queen, became, as it were, a mere province of the Russian empire.
Poniatowski, a proud man, soon felt galled by the chains which Catharine threw around him. Frederic of Prussia united with Catharine in the endeavor to make Poniatowski subservient to their wishes. Maria Theresa eagerly put in her claim for influence in Poland. Thus the whole realm became a confused scene of bloodshed and devastation. Frederic of Prussia, the great regal highwayman, now proposed to Austria and Russia that they should settle all the difficulty by just dividing Poland between them. To their united armies Poland could present no resistance. Maria Theresa sent her dutiful son Joseph, the emperor, to Silesia, to confer with Frederic upon this subject. The interview took place at Neiss, on the 25th of August, 1769. The two sovereigns vied with each other in the interchange of courtesies, and parted most excellent friends. Soon after, they held another interview at Neustadt, in Moravia, when the long rivalry between the houses of Hapsburg and Brandenburg seemed to melt down into most cordial union. The map of Poland was placed before the two sovereigns, and they marked out the portion of booty to be assigned to each of the three imperial highwaymen. The troops of Russia, Austria and Prussia were already in Poland. The matter being thus settled between Prussia and Austria, the Prussian king immediately conferred with Catharine at St. Petersburg. This ambitious and unprincipled woman snatched at the bait presented, and the infamous partition was agreed to. Maria Theresa was very greedy, and demanded nearly half of Poland as her share. This exorbitant claim, which she with much pertinacity adhered to, so offended the two other sovereigns that they came near fighting about the division of the spoil. The queen was at length compelled to lower her pretensions. The final treaty was signed between the three powers on the 5th of August, 1772.
The three armies were immediately put in motion, and each took possession of that portion of the Polish territory which was assigned to its sovereign. In a few days the deed was done. By this act Austria received an accession of twenty-seven thousand square miles of the richest of the Polish territory, containing a population of two million five hundred thousand souls. Russia received a more inhospitable region, embracing forty-two thousand square miles, and a population of one million five hundred thousand. The share of Frederic amounted to thirteen thousand three hundred and seventy-five square miles, and eight hundred and sixty thousand souls.
Notwithstanding this cruel dismemberment, there was still a feeble Poland left, upon which the three powers were continually gnawing, each watching the others, and snarling at them lest they should get more than their share. After twenty years of jealous watchings the three powers decided to finish their infamous work, and Poland was blotted from the map of Europe. In the two divisions Austria received forty-five thousand square miles and five million of inhabitants. Maria Theresa was now upon the highest pinnacle of her glory and her power. She had a highly disciplined army of two hundred thousand men; her treasury was replenished, and her wide-spread realms were in the enjoyment of peace. Life had been to her, thus far, but a stormy sea, and weary of toil and care, she now hoped to close her days in tranquillity.
The queen was a stern and stately mother. While pressed by all these cares of state, sufficient to have crushed any ordinary mind, she had given birth to sixteen children. But as each child was born it was placed in the hands of careful nurses, and received but little of parental caressings. It was seldom that she saw her children more than once a week. Absorbed by high political interests, she contented herself with receiving a daily report from the nursery. Every morning her physician, Van Swieter, visited the young imperial family, and then presented a formal statement of their condition to the strong-minded mother. Yet the empress was very desirous of having it understood that she was the most faithful of parents. Whenever any foreign ambassador arrived at Vienna, the empress would contrive to have an interview, as it were by accident, when she had collected around her her interesting family. As the illustrious stranger retired the children also retired to their nursery.
One of the daughters, Josepha, was betrothed to the King of Naples. A few days before she was to leave Vienna the queen required her, in obedience to long established etiquette, to descend into the tomb of her ancestors and offer up a prayer. The sister-in-law, the Emperor Joseph's wife, had just died of the small-pox, and her remains, disfigured by that awful disease, had but recently been deposited in the tomb. The timid maiden was horror-stricken at the requirement, and regarded it as her death doom. But an order from Maria Theresa no one was to disobey. With tears filling her eyes, she took her younger sister, Maria Antoinette, upon her knee, and said,
"I am about to leave you, Maria, not for Naples, but to die. I must visit the tomb of our ancestors, and I am sure that I shall take the small-pox, and shall soon be buried there." Her fears were verified. The disease, in its most virulent form, seized her, and in a few days her remains were also consigned to the tomb.
In May, 1770, Maria Antoinette, then but fifteen years of age, and marvelously beautiful, was married to the young dauphin of France, subsequently the unhappy Louis XVI. As she left Vienna, for that throne from which she was to descend to the guillotine, her mother sent by her hand the following letter to her husband: