Experiencing the dread effects of small-pox, she established a small-pox hospital, and introduced inoculation in her kingdom. She paid great attention to the purity of her coinage, and so strong was the faith of her subjects in the money coined under her supervision, that as late as 1830, the workmen at the mint at Milan were coining dollars with the head of the empress-queen and the date 1780. “These dollars were intended for the Levant trade; the people of the Greek Islands, being accustomed to trust in the purity of the coinage bearing the effigy of Maria Theresa, took it in exchange more readily than that of any other potentate.”
The alliance of Maria Theresa with France was productive of dire evils to her family in after-years, as the fate of the beautiful Marie Antoinette, the youngest daughter of Maria Theresa, fully exemplifies. Regarding her other children, several of them were distinguished in after-life. Besides her eldest son, the Emperor Joseph II., Leopold, another son, was Grand-Duke of Tuscany for twenty-five years, when he succeeded to the Empire in 1790. Ferdinand, her third son, married the heiress of the House of Modena, and became Duke of Modena. Maximilian became Elector of Cologne. All of her daughters were beautiful and accomplished. The archduchesses Marianna and Elizabeth remained unmarried. The Archduchess Christina, her mother’s favorite, married Prince Albert of Saxony, which union, like that of her mother’s, was for love rather than political expediency. Christina exercised great influence over her younger sisters, Marie Antoinette, queen of France, and Caroline, queen of Naples. The Archduchess Amelia, another beautiful princess, married the Duke of Parma. Two other sisters, Joanna, and the lamented Josepha, died with small-pox in their early womanhood. The death of the Archduchess Josepha was particularly harrowing, as she contracted the dread disease by obeying her mother’s wishes that she should enter the family burial vault, previous to her departure for Naples, as she was then betrothed to the king of Naples, and go through with certain religious ceremonies which Maria Theresa considered to be binding upon a member of this illustrious family. The lovely Josepha expressed great alarm regarding this exposure to contagion, as her sister had lately died from small-pox; but for once, Maria Theresa allowed her religious bigotry to supplant her better reason, and the sad and tragic result of this filial obedience wrung the mother’s heart with anguish, all the more bitter, as her own commands had doubtless occasioned the death of her idolized child. A third daughter, Caroline, was then betrothed to the King of Naples, in place of her two sisters, whose successive deaths had prevented the contemplated union with the royal family of Naples, both of them having been affianced one after the other, to King Ferdinand.
The great blot upon the otherwise illustrious name of Maria Theresa was her participation in the iniquitous partition of Poland. “She has been rescued from the charge of having originated the unjust plan; since the document of the secret convention, signed at St. Petersburg, on the 17th of February, 1772, exists to prove the contrary; wherein it is stated that if the court of Austria refuse consent to the plan of partition, Prussia and Russia will combine against her. Amid the general outcry that arose in Europe against the crowned spoliators, Frederick the Great slyly observed: ‘As to me, I fully expected all this uproar of blame; but what will they say of her saintship, my cousin?’”
Maria Theresa was now at the height of her grandeur and power as a sovereign. She had largely extended her territories. She had so increased her revenues that, notwithstanding her immense expenses, she laid by each year in her treasury two hundred thousand crowns. She maintained an army of two hundred thousand men, and lived in harmony with her ambitious and accomplished son, in whose name the imperial power was vested. When war with Prussia was again threatening her dominions, her skilful negotiations with Frederick the Great, which resulted in the peace of Teschen, covered her name with glory and her life with honor.
“Maria Theresa often declared that no event of her long reign had ever caused her such unmingled satisfaction as the peace of Teschen.” It was a peace bought without bloodshed. It was entirely her own work, originated in her own benevolent heart. It was the means of continuing to her kingdom the blessing of peaceful prosperity, and it surrounded her dying head with a halo of glory.
Death had long been insidiously approaching this illustrious sovereign, but she felt no alarm, and prepared to meet the end with calm resignation. Dropsy had at length rendered her existence a continued torture, and she welcomed the relief of death. Upon the last night of her life she was engaged in signing papers and in giving necessary directions to her successor. When her son urged her to rest, she replied: “In a few hours I shall appear before the judgment-seat of God, and would you have me sleep?” Upon expressing her anxiety regarding those who had long been aided by her private charities, she said: “If I could wish for immortality on earth, it would only be for the power of relieving the distressed.”
A short time before she breathed her last her attendants thought that she slumbered, as she had closed her eyes; and one whispered, “The empress sleeps.” She immediately opened her eyes, saying with impressive calmness: “No! I do not sleep; I wish to meet my death awake!” Surely such a death-bed scene harmonized with the exalted and illustrious life of Maria Theresa! She expired on the 29th of November, 1780, in her sixty-fourth year.
Her biographers justly style her the “most blameless and beneficent sovereign who ever wore a crown.”
The earthly dower of Maria Theresa was certainly the richest ever granted to any female sovereign of the world. “A strong mind and feeling heart, royalty and beauty, long life and prosperity, a happy marriage, a numerous family, illustrious children, her people’s love, and the admiration of the universe.”