"Have pity on her!" echoed Antoinette, kneeling at the empress's feet.
"Enough!" exclaimed Maria Theresa, in a commanding voice. "I have spoken, it is for you to obey; for my word has been given, and I cannot retract. If, as your mother, I feel my heart grow weak with sympathy for your weakness, as your empress, I spurn its cowardly promptings; for my imperial word shall be held sacred, if it cost me my life. Rise, both of you. It ill becomes the Queens of France and Naples to bow their knees like beggars. Obedience is more praiseworthy than humiliation. Go to your apartments; pray for courage to bear your crosses, and God's blessing will shield you from all evil."
"I will pray God to give me grace to die in His favor," faltered
Caroline.
"I will pray Him to take my life at once, rather than I should live to share the destiny of Louis XVI.!" whispered Antoinette, while the two imperial martyrs bowed low before their mother, and retired each to her room.
Maria Theresa looked after their sweet, childish figures, and when the door had closed upon them, she buried her face in the cushions of the sofa where they had been sitting together, and wept.
"My children! my children! Each a queen, and both in tears! Oh, Heavenly Father, grant that I may not have erred, in forcing this weight of royalty upon their tender heads. Mother of God, thou hast loved a child! By that holy love, pray for those who would faint if their crowns should be of thorns!"
EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA.
CHAPTER L.
THE DINNER AT THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR'S.
Prince Kaunitz sat lazily reclining in his arm-chair, playing with his jewelled snuff-box and listening with an appearance of unconcern to a man who, in an attitude of profoundest respect, was relating to him a remarkable story of a young emperor and a beautiful peasant-girl, in which there was much talk of woods, diamonds, milk, and an Arabian steed.