"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.