Maria Theresa was not satisfied short of knowing and comprehending all things pertaining to her government. She often devoted ten or twelve hours together to state business; and notwithstanding this close attention to governmental affairs, she still found time for society, and the amusements of her court, as well as to be the mother of sixteen children.
Maria Theresa was possessed of great beauty and a fine presence. The dignity of her exalted rank was worn with regal grace. “Her figure was tall, and formed with perfect elegance; her deportment, imposing and majestic; her features were regular; her eyes were gray, and full of lustre and expression; she had the full Austrian lips, but her mouth and smile were beautiful; her complexion was transparent; she had a profusion of fine hair; and, to complete her charms, the tone of her voice was peculiarly soft and sweet. Her strict religious principles, or her early and excessive love for her husband, or the pride of her royal station, or perhaps all these combined, had preserved her character from coquetry. She was not unconscious of her powers of captivation, but she used them not as a woman, but as a queen; not to win lovers, but to gain over refractory subjects.”
It is recorded to her praise, “that she desired to be informed of every act of the administration; that she afforded the poor and humble, as well as the noble and rich, free access to her presence; that she listened benignantly to all, either granting their petitions, or, if she denied them, giving reasons for her refusal, without delusive promises or vague evasions. During a forty years’ reign she invariably showed a love of justice and truth; and she stated, as a principle of her conduct, that it is only the pleasure of alleviating distress and doing good to the people that can render the weight of a crown supportable to the wearer.”
In the year 1765, the Emperor Francis I. died. His loss was sincerely mourned by Maria Theresa, who was devotedly attached to her husband. She ever after wore mourning for him, and frequently visited the imperial mausoleum where he was entombed. In anticipation of her own death she caused her coffin to be made, and secretly sewed upon her own shroud. She was afterwards buried in the grave-clothes thus made by her own hands.
Upon the death of the Emperor Francis, her eldest son received the imperial crown as Joseph II. But Maria Theresa continued to hold the first place in the government until her death.
Maria Theresa gloried in her power of being able to be a public benefactor; it pleased her to bestow benefits. She richly deserved her title of “Mother of her people”; and she declared just before her death that, “if anything reprehensible had been done in her name, it was certainly without her knowledge, as she had always desired the welfare of her subjects.” Her annual private charities and donations amounted to more than eighty thousand a year; and so great was her benevolence that when her son Joseph was accused of not being generous, he replied: “If I gave like my mother, we should soon have nothing left to give away.”
Her benefactions included all classes of her subjects. She founded large hospitals for the infirm and wounded soldiers, and opened asylums of comfort for the widows of officers and young ladies of impoverished families. With such a belligerent neighbor as Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa could not feel assured of any continued period of peace, and she therefore maintained a large army of disciplined troops, and founded military academies at Vienna, Neustadt, and Antwerp.
The simplicity of her court life was a great contrast to the extravagant ostentation of Elizabeth and the dissolute splendor of Catherine II. “In the morning an old man, who could hardly be entitled a chamberlain, but merely what is called on the continent a frotteur, entered her sleeping-room about five or six o’clock, opened the shutters, lighted the stove, and arranged the apartment. She breakfasted on a cup of milk-coffee, then dressed and heard mass. The floor of her room was so contrived that it opened by a sliding parquet, and mass was celebrated in the chapel beneath. On Tuesdays she received the ministers of the various apartments; other days were set apart for giving audience to foreigners and strangers, who, according to the etiquette of the imperial court, were always presented singly, and received in the private apartments. There were stated days on which the poorest and meanest of her subjects were admitted indiscriminately, and they could speak to her in private if they so desired. At other times, she attended to her letters, memorials, despatches, signed papers, etc. During the summer, which was spent mostly at her palaces of Schönbrunn, or at Laxenburg, she would often walk in a shaded avenue communicating with her apartments. A box was buckled round her waist, filled with papers and memorials, which she carefully read as she promenaded, noting with her pencil necessary answers or observations to each.”
She usually dined alone to economize time. After dinner she attended to public business until six in the evening, as she dined at noon; and until her hour of retiring her daughters joined her, when she held a drawing-room or engaged in games with her children. Her daughters were all expected to present themselves at evening prayers, which the empress held before retiring, and nothing but sickness was allowed to interfere with this family regulation.
About two years after the death of her husband she was attacked by small-pox, which was very fatal in her family, she having lost several children by this dread disease. Upon her recovery her marvellous beauty was greatly marred, and being thrown from her carriage soon after and severely wounding her face, her scarred complexion and altered features entirely destroyed her former beauty of countenance, though her queenly bearing and imperial grace continued to charm, and her voice lost none of its melting sweetness.