"Your father was a soldier?" asked the emperor, much affected.
"He was an officer, who served with distinction in the Seven Years' War. But he never was promoted. He died for Maria Theresa, and his widow and child will soon follow him to the grave."
"Why have you never applied to the empress for relief? Her purse is always open to the wants of the needy."
"To obtain any thing from royalty, sir, you know that one must have influence," replied the girl, bitterly. "We have no influence, nor would we know how to intrigue for favor."
"Why, then, do you not go to the emperor? He at least has no fancy for intriguers and flatterers. You should have gone to him."
"To be haughtily repulsed?" said she. "Oh, sir, the new emperor is a man whose only love is a love of power, and whose only pleasure is to make that power felt by others. Has he not already refused to listen to any petition whatever? Did he not forbid his people to come to him for favors?"
"He did that," replied Joseph, "because he wished to do justice to all; and for that reason he has done away with all presentation of petitions through courtiers or other officers of his household. But he has appointed an hour to receive all those who present their petitions in person."
"So he has said," returned the girl, "but no one believes him. His guards will turn away all who are not richly dressed, and so the emperor will have promised to see the people, though the people will never be allowed to come into his presence."
"Have the Austrians so little faith in the sincerity of the emperor?" asked Joseph. "Do they think that his heart—"
"His heart!" exclaimed the girl. "The emperor is without a heart. Even toward his mother he is said to be undutiful and obstinate. He hates his wife, and she is as mild as an angel. He whose pleasure it is to see an empress at his feet, do you suppose that he can sympathize with the misfortunes of his subjects? No, no; he has already stopped all pensions which the generous empress had given from her private purse."