"Yes, your majesty, music has cut off her queue, and really in her new coiffure she is divinely beautiful. Moreover, your majesty has rewarded the seventy years of Metastasio with a rich pension, proof enough to him of the estimation in which his talents are held. Metastasio belongs to the old regime you have pensioned off; Calzabigi and Gluck are children of our new Austria. Your majesty's self has created this Austria, and you owe to her children your imperial countenance and favor."
"But I have been told there will be some strife to-night between the rival parties," said the empress.
"And since when has your majesty shunned the battle-field?" asked
Kaunitz.
"But the defeat, count, I fear the defeat. The opera is sure to fail."
"No one knows better than your majesty how to console the vanquished. Your majesty was never greater than when, after the defeat of Field-marshal Daun, you went forth to meet him with all the honors which you would have awarded to a victorious general. [Footnote: After the battle of Torgau, which Daun lost.] If Gluck fails to-day, he will not be the less a great artiste, and your majesty will sustain him under his reverses."
The empress laughed. "It is dangerous to contend with Kaunitz, for he slays me with my own weapons. And you, too, my husband, would have me abandon Hasse and Metastasio, who are so pious and so good, for this Gluck, whom I have never met inside of a church? Gluck is not even a Christian."
"But he is a genius," cried out Joseph, "and genius is pleasing in the sight of God. Metastasio and Hasse are old, and having nothing better to do, they go to church. If they were young, your majesty would not meet them so often, I fancy."
The face of the empress grew scarlet while the archduke poured forth these thoughtless words; and all present felt that Gluck and his cause were lost.
But Isabella came to the rescue. Approaching the empress and kissing her hand, she said: "Your majesty has been so good as to say that to-day you would refuse me nothing. I have two requests to make. May I speak?"
"Yes, dear child, you may," replied the empress, already appeased by the gentle voice of her beloved daughter-in-law. "I know so well that you will ask nothing unseemly that I do not fear to grant your requests. What are they?"