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 nobly 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 title. 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 God, 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 sex. 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 XXXIII.
THE CO-REGENT.
Maria Theresa had kept her word. She had appointed her son co-regent, investing the young emperor with full power to reign, to make laws, to punish, to reward, and to govern her people, while she retired to the palace of Innspruck. There she dwelt in strictest privacy, scarcely seeing her children, and restricting her intercourse to the first lady of honor, her confessor, and a few chosen friends, whom she sometimes admitted to her mournful rooms.
Joseph, the young emperor of four-and-twenty years, was now monarch of all Austria, Hungary, Lombardy, and the Netherlands. He had reached the goal of his longings for power, and now he could begin to think about the happiness of his people.
Since the intoxicating moment when Maria Theresa, in the presence of the whole court, had named him co-regent, and delivered over to his hands her vast empire, Joseph felt as if he had suddenly been transported to a world of enchantment. He had, together with her ministers, dissuaded the empress from her resolution of retiring to Innspruck; but even as he joined his voice to theirs, his heart was trembling with fear lest she should yield. He felt that if she revoked the power she had conferred, he would almost die with disappointment. But the empress remained firm, and her son was triumphant.
She had gone from the throne to the solitude of her own apartments, and left him lord and emperor of Austria! He would no longer be obliged to conceal his thoughts; they should come out into the broad day as deeds, for he was sovereign there!