Without awaiting the answer of his mother, he bowed, and hastily left the room.
"Dismissed like a school-boy," muttered he, while tears of rage flowed down his cheeks. "Two chains on my feet—the chains of this accursed marriage, and the chains of my filial duty, impede my every step. When I would advance, they hold me back and eat into my flesh. But it is of no use to complain, I must learn to bear my fate like a man. I cannot rebel openly, therefore must I be silent. But my time will come!"
He raised his head proudly, and with a firm step took the way to his private apartments. He went at once into his study, where, on his writing-desk, lay the letter of the King of Prussia.
The emperor seated himself at the desk, and, with a heavy sigh, took up his pen. "Tell the king, your master," wrote he, "that I am not yet my own master; I am the slave of another will. But I will find means some day to atone for the rudeness which I have been forced to offer him in return for his kindness." [Footnote: Hubner, "Life of Joseph II.," vol. i., p. 87.—Gross-Hofflinger, vol. 1., p. 116.]
CHAPTER XLI.
DEATH THE LIBERATOR.
The cruel enemy which had laid low so many branches of the noble house of Hapsburg, had once more found entrance into the imperial palace at Vienna. This terrific invisible foe, which, from generation to generation, had hunted the imperial family with such keen ferocity, was the small-pox. Emperors and Empresses of Austria had been its victims, and almost every one of Maria Theresa's children bore, sooner or later, its brand upon their faces. This fiend had robbed them of the fair Isabella; and now its envenomed hand was laid upon the affianced bride of the King of Naples. The beautiful young Johanna was borne to the vaults of the Capuchins, while in the palace its inmates were panic-stricken to hear that Josepha of Bavaria, too, had taken the infection.
With such lightning swiftness had the venom darted through the veins of the unhappy empress, that her attendants had fled in disgust from the pestiferous atmosphere of her chamber.
And there, with one hired nurse, whom the humane Van Swieten had procured from a hospital, lay the wife of the Emperor of Austria.
No loving hand smoothed the pillow beneath her burning head or held the cooling cup to her blood-stained lips; no friendly voice whispered words of sympathy; no familiar face bent over her with looks of pity.