She kissed her little jewelled hand, and while her Carl disappeared through a secret door on one side of the room, she glided forward with grace and elegance inimitable, to receive the high-born ladies who were just then passing the portals of her princely abode.
CHAPTER CXLIV.
THE EXPULSION OF THE CLARISSERINES.
The stroke so long apprehended by the church had fallen. Joseph had thrown down the gauntlet, and had dealt his first blow at the chair of St. Peter. This blow was directed toward the chief pastors of the Austrian church—the bishops. Their allegiance, spiritual as well as temporal, was due to the emperor alone, and no order emanating from Rome could take effect without first being submitted for his approval. The bishops were to be reinstated in their ancient rights, and they alone were to grant marriage dispensations and impose penances.
But this was only one step in the new "reformation" of the Emperor Joseph. He dissociated all spiritual communities whatever from connection with foreign superiors, and freed them from all dependence upon them. They were to receive their orders from native bishops alone, and these in their turn were to promulgate no spiritual edict without the approbation and permission of the reigning sovereign of Austria.
These ordinances did away with the influence of the head of the church in Austria, but they did not sufficiently destroy that of the clergy over their flocks. This, too, must be annihilated; and now every thing was ready for the great final blow which was to crush to the earth every vestige of church influence within the dominions of Joseph the Second. This last stroke was the dispersion of the religious communities. Monks and nuns should be forced to work with the people. They were no longer to he permitted to devote their lives to solitary prayer, and every contemplative order was suppressed.
The cry of horror which issued from the convents was echoed throughout the land, from palace to hovel. The people were more indignant—they were terror-stricken; for the emperor was not only an unbeliever himself, he was forcing his people to unbelief. The very existence of religion, said they, was threatened by his tyranny and impiety.
Joseph heard all this and laughed it to scorn. "When the priests cease their howls," said he, "the people, too, will stop, and they will thank me for what I am doing. When they see that the heavens have not fallen because a set of silly nuns are startled from their nests, they will come to their senses, and perceive that I have freed them from a load of religious prejudices."
But the people were not of that opinion. They hated the imperial freethinker who with his brutal hands was thrusting out helpless women from their homes, and was robbing the very altars of their sacred vessels, to convert them into money for his own profane uses.
All this, however, did not prevent the execution of the order for the expulsion of the nuns. In spite of priests and people, the decree was carried out on the 12th of January, of the year 1782. A multitude had assembled before the convent of the Clarisserines whence the sisters were about to be expelled, and where the sacred vessels and vestments appertaining to the altars were to be exposed for sale at auction!