"What an edifying couple!" exclaimed Kinsky, with another scornful laugh. "How congenial! The same wishes, and, unconsciously, the very same deeds! What a pity we must part so soon, for, I leave you to-day; nor shall I have the pleasure of seeing you again until I bring you a decree of divorce."
"You will be most welcome," returned Therese, calmly. "Now be so good as to escort me to my carriage."
"Pray give me your arm. I have but one more observation to make. I hope that you will now be able to prove substantially to the emperor that it was quite useless for him to shelter himself behind the words, 'I shall claim thee in heaven!' But if I may presume so far, I request that you will defer these demonstrations until I return from Rome with my letters of divorce."
Therese had no strength to retort. She hung down her head, and large scalding tears fell from her eyes. Count Kinsky placed her in the carriage, closed the door, and then returned to his own travelling-chariot, which was a few paces behind. The two equipages thundered down the streets together, but at the gates they parted, the one taking the road for Hungary, the other for Rome. [Footnote: This whole story is Historical. The "heavenly Therese," as she is called by Hormayer, was really married and thus abandoned by her husband, who persisted in believing that the connection between herself and the emperor was not guiltless. But the count met with no success in the matter of the divorce. The pope refused.]
CHAPTER CLXXIII.
THE LAST DREAM OF GLORY.
Destiny was testing the fortitude of the emperor with unrelenting harshness. It would seem that inflexible fate stood by, while one by one this man's hopes of fame, honor, and love were wrested away, that the world might see and know how much of bitterness and disappointment it is in the power of one human heart to endure.
In the Netherlands and in Hungary he was threatened with rebellion. The Magyars especially resented the violation of their constitutional rights; in Tyrol, too, the people were disaffected; and Rome had not yet pardoned him the many indignities she had endured at his hands. This very war, which he had welcomed as a cure for his domestic sorrows, was yielding him naught but annoyance and misery.
Yes, destiny had decreed that nothing which he undertook should prosper. His army, which was encamped in the damp marshes that lie between the Danube and Save, was attacked by a malarious fever more destructive by far than the bloodiest struggle that ever reddened the field of battle. The hospitals were crowded with the sick and dying, and the enfeebled soldiers, who dragged themselves about their ramps, wore sullen and discontented faces; a spirit of insubordination was beginning to manifest itself among the troops, and the very men who would have rushed to the cannon's mouth, grew cowardly at the approach of the invisible foe that stole away their lives, by the gradual and insidious poison of disease. The songs and jests of the bivouac were hushed, the white tents were mournful as sepulchres, and the men lost all confidence in their leaders. They now accused the emperor and Lacy of incapacity, and declared that they must either be disbanded or led against the enemy.
This was precisely what Joseph had been longing to do, but he was compelled to await the advance of the Russians, with whom it had been arranged that the Austrians were to take a junction before they marched into Turkey. The Russians, however, had never joined the emperor; for some misunderstanding with Sweden had compelled the czarina to defend her northern frontier, and so she had as yet been unable to assemble an army of sufficient strength to march against Turkey. Joseph then was condemned to the very same inaction which had so chafed his spirit in Bavaria; for his own army of itself was not numerous enough to attack the enemy. He could not snake a move without Russia. Russia tarried, and the fever in the camp grew every day more fatal.