The emperor bowed, and turning to his attendants, said, "Come, my friends, our messengers have probably arrived before this, and our guests await us."
He advanced to the door, but suddenly stopped and addressed the company. "My lords," said he, "for once your wisdom has been at fault. It is well that the sentimental little emperor did not remain, as you advised, in Vienna; for the stamp of his imperial foot has struck abundance out of the earth, and it will save the lives of his starving boors."
CHAPTER LXXV.
DIPLOMATIC ESOTERICS.
Prince Kaunitz was in his cabinet. Baron Binder was reading aloud the secret dispatches which had just come in from the Austrian ambassador at Berlin, the young Baron van Swieten. Meanwhile, Kaunitz was busy with a brush of peacock's feathers, dusting the expensive trifles that covered his escritoire, or polishing its ebony surface with a fine silk handkerchief which he kept for the purpose. This furbishing of trinkets and furniture was a private pastime with the all-powerful minister; and many a personage of rank was made to wait in the anteroom, while he finished his dusting or rearranged his bijouterie, until it was grouped to his satisfaction.
The dispatches which were being read were of the highest importance; for they related to a confidential conversation with the King of Prussia on the subject of the political apple, at which all were striving for the largest bite. The King of Prussia, wrote the ambassador, had spoken jestingly of the partition of Poland. He had bespoken for himself the district of Netz and Polish Prussia, premising that Dantzic, Thorn, and Cracow were to be left to Poland.
"Very well arranged," said Kaunitz, with his accustomed sang froid, while he brightened the jewels of a Sevres inkstand which had been presented to him by Madame de Pompadour. "Vraiment the naivete of this Frederick is prodigious. He appropriates the richest and most cultivated districts of Poland to himself; and then inserts, as an unimportant clause, the stipulation that Cracow, with its adjacent territory, the rich salt mines of Wieliczka, shall not belong to Austria."
"Van Swieten would not agree to the arrangement," said Binder, "and he furthermore declared to the king that such a distribution would be prejudicial to Austria. He proposed, however, that Austria might be indemnified by the possession of Bosnia and Servia, which the Porte should be made to yield."
"What a preposterous fool!" exclaimed Kaunitz. "Who gave him the right to make such a proposition—"
"Why, your highness, I suppose he thought—"