The empress laid her hand upon Josepha's cold brow, and turning to Van
Swieten, as though in his hands lay the fate of her child, as she asked:
"Will she die?"
"Life and death," replied the physician, "are in the hands of the Lord.
As long as there is life, there is hope."
Maria Theresa, shook her head. "I have no hope," said she, with the calmness of despair. "'Tis the enemy of our house. Is it not, Van Swieten? Has she not the small-pox?"
"I fear so, your majesty."
"She must die, then—and it is I who have murdered her!" shrieked the empress, wildly; and she fell fainting to the floor.
On the fifteenth of October, the day on which Josepha was to have given her hand to the King of Naples, the bells of Vienna tolled her funeral knell.
Not in her gilded carriage rode the fair young bride, but cold and lifeless she lay under the black and silver pall on which were placed a myrtle-wreath and a royal crown of gold.
Another Spouse had claimed her hand, and the marriage-rites were solemnized in the still vaults of the chapel of the Capuchins.
The empress had not left her daughter's room since the fatal day of her return from the chapel. With all the tenderness of her affectionate nature she had been the nurse of her suffering child. Not a tear was in her eye, nor a murmur on her lips. Silent, vigilant, and sleepless, she had struggled with the foe that was wresting yet another loved one from her house.