The empress wrote as follows: "I send you the grand cross of St. Stephen; but as a mark of distinction you must wear it in brilliants. You have done so much to dignify it, that I seize with eagerness the opportunity which presents itself to offer you a tribute of that gratitude which I feel for your services, and shall continue to feel until the day of my death. MARIA THERESA." [Footnote: Wraxall, vol. ii., p. 479.]
CHAPTER XLIV.
THE ARCHDUCHESS JOSEPHA.
The plan of the empress and her prime minister approached their fulfilment; Austria was about to contract ties of kindred with her powerful neighbors.
Maria Theresa had again consented to receive the King of Naples as her son-in-law, and he was the affianced husband of the archduchess Josepha. The palace of Lichtenstein, the residence of the Neapolitan ambassador was, in consequence of the betrothal, the scene of splendid festivities, and in the imperial palace preparations were making for the approaching nuptials. They were to be solemnized on the fifteenth of October, and immediately after the ceremony the young bride was to leave Vienna for Naples.
Every thing was gayety and bustle; all were deep in consultation over dress and jewels; and the great topic of court conversation was the parure of brilliants sent by the King of Spain, whose surpassing magnificence had called forth an expresson of astonishment from the lips of the empress herself.
The trousseau of the archduchess was exposed in the apartments which had once been occupied by the empress and her husband; and now Maria Theresa, followed by a bevy of wondering young archduchesses, was examining her daughter's princely wardrobe, that with her own eyes she might be sure that nothing was wanting to render it worthy of a queen-elect. The young girls burst into exclamations of rapture when they approached the table where, in its snowy purity, lay the bridal dress of white velvet, embroidered with pearls and diamonds.
"Oh!" cried little Marie Antoinette, while she stroked it with her pretty, rosy hand, "oh, my beautiful Josepha, you will look like an angel, when you wear this lovely white dress."
"Say rather, like a queen," returned Josepha, smiling. "When a woman is a queen, she is sure to look like an angel in the eyes of the world."
"It does not follow, however, that because she is a queen, she shall be as happy as an angel," remarked the Archduchess Maria Amelia, who was betrothed to the Duke of Parma.