THE EMPRESS AND HER SON.
The young count was not mistaken. It was indeed a message from the
empress. It was the marshal of the household, followed by four pages who
came to command the presence of the archduke, to whom her majesty wished
to impart something of importance.
A deadly paleness overspread the face of the young prince, and his whole
frame shivered. The emperor felt the shudder, and drew his son's arm
closer to his heart. "Courage, my son, courage!" whispered he: then
turning toward the imperial embassy, he said aloud, "Announce to her
majesty that I will accompany the arch-duke in a few moments." And as
the marshal stood irresolute and confused, the emperor, smiling, said:
"Oh, I see that you have been ordered to accompany the prince
yourselves. Come, then, my son, we will e'en go along with the
messengers."
Maria Theresa was pacing the floor of her apartment in great excitement.
Her large, flashing eyes now and then turned toward the door; and
whenever she fancied that footsteps approached, she stopped, and seemed
almost to gasp with anxiety.
Suddenly she turned toward Father Porhaminer, who, with the Countess
Fuchs, stood by the side of the sofa from which she had risen. "Father,"
said she, in a tremulous voice, "I cannot tell why it is that, as I
await my son's presence here, my heart is overwhelmed with anguish. I
feel as if I were about to do him an injustice, and for all the kingdoms
of the world I would not do him wrong."
"Nay," replied the father, "your majesty is about to rescue that beloved
son from destruction; but as your majesty is a loving mother, it
afflicts you to disappoint your child. Still, our Lord has commanded if
the right eye offend, to pluck it out; and so is it your majesty's duty
to pluck from your son's heart the evil growing there, even were his
heart's blood to follow. The wounds you may inflict upon your dear
child, for God's sake, will soon be healed by His Almighty hand."
"He was so happy to become a soldier!" murmured the empress, who had
resumed her agitated walk; "his eyes were so bright, and his bearing was
so full of joy and pride! My boy is so handsome, so like his dear
father, that my heart throbs when I see him, as it did in the days when
we were young lovers! A laurel-wreath would well become his fair brow,
and I--how proudly I should have welcomed my young hero to my heart once
more! Dear, dear boy, must I then wake you so rudely from your first
dream of ambition?--I must. He would come to evil in the lawless life of
the camp; God forgive him, but he is as mad for the fight as Don John of
Austria! I should never see him again; he would seek death in his first
battle.. Oh, I could not survive it; my heart would break if I should
have to give up my first-born! Four of my children lie in the vaults of
St. Stephen's--I cannot part with my Joseph! Countess," she said,
turning suddenly to her lady of Honor, "is it not true that Joseph told
you he thought that the altar of the battle-field and the sacrifice, of
his enemies was--"
"His majesty the emperor and his imperial highness, the Archduke
Joseph!" said the marshal of the household; and the door was flung open
for their entrance.
Maria Theresa advanced, and bowed slightly to the emperor. "Your
majesty's visit at this unusual hour surprises me," said she with
emphasis.
"I am aware," replied the emperor graciously, "that I was not expected;
but as this is the last day of our son's residence under the parental
roof, I am sure that my wife will see nothing strange in my visit. I was
with the archduke when your majesty's message reached him, and knowing
that you could have no secrets with the son which the father might not
hear, I followed the impulse of my affection, and came with him."
"And what signifies this singular and unseemly dress in which my son
presents himself before his sovereign?" asked Maria Theresa, angrily
surveying the uniform which, nevertheless, she acknowledged in her heart
was beyond expression becoming to him.
"Pardon me, your majesty," replied the son, "I had tried on one uniform,
and if I was to obey your summons at once, there was no time for a
change in my dress."
"And, indeed," said the emperor, "I think the dress becoming. Our boy
will make a fine-looking soldier."
The empress being precisely of that opinion herself, was so much the
more vexed at her husband for giving it expression. She bit her lip, and
her brow contracted, as was usual with her when she was growing angry.
"You held it then as a fact, my son, that you were a soldier?" said she,
catching her breath with anxiety.
Joseph raised his fine eyes, with an imploring expression, to the face
of his mother. "Your majesty had promised me that I should be a
soldier," replied he firmly, "and I have never yet known my mother to
break her imperial word to the least of her subjects."
"Hear him!" cried the empress, with a laugh of derision, "he almost
threatens me! This young sir will try to make it a point of honor with
me to keep my word."
"Pardon me, your majesty," replied Joseph calmly, "I have never allowed
myself to doubt your imperial word for one moment of my life."
"Well, then, your highness has my imperial permission to doubt it now,"
cried the empress, severely humiliated by the implied rebuke; "I allow
you to doubt whether I will ever hold promises that have been rashly and
injudiciously made."
"Why, your majesty," cried the emperor, "surely you will not retract
your word in the face of the whole world, that knows of Joseph's
appointment!"
"What to me is the opinion of the world?" returned the haughty empress.
"To God and my conscience alone I am responsible for my acts, and to
them I will answer it that I take back my promise, and declare that
Joseph shall not go into the army!"
Joseph uttered a cry of anguish. "Mother! mother!" sobbed the unhappy
boy, "it cannot be!"
"Why can it not be?" said the empress, haughtily.
"Because it would be a cruel and heartless deed," cried the archduke,
losing all control over himself, "so to make sport of my holiest and
purest hopes in life; and because I never, never can believe that my own
mother would seek to break my heart."
The empress was about to return a scathing reply, when the emperor laid
his gentle hand upon her shoulder, and the words died upon her lips.
"I beseech of you, my wife," said he, "to remember that we are not
alone. Joseph is no child; and it ill becomes any but his parents to
witness his humiliation. Have the goodness, then, to dismiss your
attendants, and let us deal with our son alone."
"Why shall I dismiss them?" cried the empress, "they are my trusty
confidants; and they have a right to hear all that the future Emperor of
Austria presumes to say to his mother!"
"Pardon me," replied the emperor, "I differ with you, and desire that
they should not hear our family discussions. In these things I too have
my right; and if your majesty does not command them to leave the room, I
do."
Maria Theresa looked at the countenance of her husband, which was firm
and resolved in its expression. In her confusion she could find no
retort. The emperor waited awhile, and seeing that she did not speak, he
turned toward the two followers, who stood, without moving, at their
posts.
"I request the Countess Fuchs and Father Porhammer to leave the room,"
said he, with dignity. "Family concerns are discussed in private."
The pair did not go. Father Porhammer interrogated the face of the
empress; and the countess, indignant that her curiosity was to be
frustrated, looked defiant.
This bold disregard of her husband's command was irritating to the
feelings of the empress. She thought that his orders should have
outweighed her mere remonstrance, and she now felt it her duty to
signify as much.
"Countess Fuchs," said she, "doubtless the emperor has not spoken loud
enough for you to hear the command he has just given you. You have not
understood his words, and I will take the trouble to repeat them. The
emperor said, 'I request the Countess Fuchs and Father Porhammer to
leave the room. Our family concerns we will discuss in private.'"
The lady of honor colored, and, with deep inclinations, Father Porhammer
and herself left the room.
Maria Theresa looked after them until the door was shut, then she
smilingly reached her hand to the emperor, who thanked her with a
pressure and a look of deepest affection. The archduke had retired to
the embrasure of a window, perhaps to seek composure, perhaps to hide
his tears.
"Now," said Maria Theresa, sternly, while her fiery eyes sought the
figure of her son, "now we are alone, and Joseph is at liberty to speak.
I beg him to remember, that in the person of his mother, he also sees
his sovereign, and that the empress will resent every word of disloyalty
spoken to the parent. And I hold it to be highly disloyal for my son to
accuse me of making sport of his hopes. I have not come to my latest
determination from cruelty or caprice; I have made it in the strength of
my maternal love to shield my child from sin, and in the rectitude of my
imperial responsibility to my people, who have a right to claim from me
that I bestow upon them a monarch who is worthy to reign over Austria.
Therefore, my son, as empress and mother, I say that you shall remain.
That is now my unalterable will. If this decision grieves you, be humble
and submissive; and remember that it is your duty, as son and subject,
to obey without demurring. Then shall we be good friends, and greet one
another heartily, as though you had at this moment returned from the
victorious battle-field. There is my hand. Be welcome, my dear and
much-beloved child."
The heart of the empress had gradually softened, and as she smiled and
extended her hand, her beautiful eyes were filled to overflowing with
tears. But Joseph, deathly pale, crossed his arms, and returned her
glances of love with a haughty, defiant look, that almost approached to
dislike.
"My son," said the emperor, "do you not see your dear mother's hand
extended to meet yours?"
"I see it, I see it," cried Joseph, passionately, "but I cannot take
it--I cannot play my part in this mockery of a return. No, mother, no, I
cannot kiss the hand that has so cruelly dashed my hopes to earth. And
you wish to carry your tyranny so far as to exact that I receive it with
a smile? Oh, mother, my heart is breaking! Have pity on me, and take
back those cruel words; let me go, let me go. Do not make me a byword
for the world, that hereafter will refuse me its respect. Let me go, if
but for a few weeks, and on the day that you command my return, I will
come home. Oh, my heart was too small to hold the love I bore you for
your consent to my departure. It seemed to me that I had lust begun to
live; the world was full of beauty, and I forgot all the trials of my
childhood. For one week I have been young, dear mother; hurl me not back
again into that dark dungeon of solitude where so much of my short life
has been spent. Do not condemn me to live as I have hitherto lived; give
me freedom, give me my manhood's rights!"
"No, no! a thousand times no!" cried the exasperated empress; "I see now
that I am right to keep such an unfeeling and ungrateful son at home. He
talks of his sufferings forsooth! What has he ever suffered at my
hands?"
"What have I suffered?" exclaimed Joseph, whose teeth chattered as if he
were having a chill, and who was no longer in a state to suppress the
terrible eruption of his heart's agony. "What have I suffered, ask you?
I will tell you, empress-mother, what I have suffered since first I
could love, or think, or endure. As a child I have felt that my mother
loved another son more than she loved me. When my longing eyes sought
hers, they were riveted upon another face. When my brother and I have
sinned together, he has been forgiven, when I have been punished. Sorrow
and jealousy were in my heart, and no one cared enough for me to ask why
I wept. I was left to suffer without one word of kindness--and you
wondered that I was taciturn, and mocked at my slighted longings for
love, and called them by hard names. And then you pointed to my caressed
and indulged brother, and bade me be gay like him!"
"My son, my son!" cried the emperor, "control yourself; you know not
what you say."
"Let him go on, Francis," said the pale mother, "it is well that I
should know his heart at last."
"Yes," continued the maddened archduke, "let me go on, for in my heart
there is nothing but misery and slighted affection. Oh, mother, mother!"
exclaimed he, suddenly changing from defiance to the most pathetic
entreaty, "on my knees I implore you to let me go; have mercy, have
mercy upon your wretched son!"
And the young prince, with outstretched hands, threw himself upon his
knees before his mother. The long-suppressed tears gushed forth, and the
wild tempest of his ungovernable fury was spent, and now he sobbed as if
indeed his young heart was breaking.
The emperor could scarcely restrain the impulse he felt to weep with his
son; but he came and laid his hand upon the poor boy's head, and looked
with passionate entreaty at the empress.
"Dear Theresa," said he, "be compassionate and forgiving. Pardon him,
beloved, the hard and unjust words which, in the bitterness of a first
sorrow, he has spoken to the best of mothers. Raise him up from the
depths of his despair, and grant the boon, for which, I am sure, he will
love you beyond bounds."
"I wish that I dared to grant it to yourself, Francis," replied the
empress, sadly and tearfully; "but you see that he has made it
impossible. I dare not do it. The mother has no right to plead with the
empress for her rebellious son. What he has said I freely forgive--God
grant that I may forget it! Well do I know how stormy is youth, and I
remember that Joseph is my son. It is the wild Spanish blood of my
ancestry that boils in his veins, and, therefore, I forgive him with all
my heart. But revoke my last sentence--that I cannot do. To do so would
be to confirm him in wrong. Rise, my son Joseph--I forgive all your
cruel words; but what I have said, I have said. You remain at home."
Joseph rose slowly from his knees. The tears in his eyes were dried; his
lips were compressed, and once more he wore the old look of cold and
sullen indifference. He made a profound inclination before his mother.
"I have heard the empress's commands," said he, in a hoarse and
unnatural voice; "it is my duty to obey. Allow me to go to my prison,
that I may doff this manly garb, which is no longer suitable to my
blasted career."
Without awaiting the answer, he turned away, and with hasty strides left
the room.
The empress watched him in speechless anxiety. As the door closed upon
him, her features assumed an expression of tenderness and she said: "Go
quickly, Franz--go after him. Try to comfort and sustain him. I do not
know why, but I feel uneasy--"
At that moment a cry was heard in the anteroom, and the fall of a heavy
body to the floor.
"God help me--it is Joseph!" shrieked the empress; and, forgetting all
ceremony, she darted from the room, and rushed by her dismayed
attendants through the anteroom, out into the corridor. Stretched on the
floor, insensible and lifeless, lay her son.
Without a word the empress waved off the crowd that was assembled around
his body. The might of her love gave her supernatural strength, and
folding her arms around her child, she covered his pale face with
kisses, and from the very midst of the frightened attendants she bore
him herself to her room, where she laid him softly upon her own bed.
No one except the emperor had ventured to follow. He stood near, and
reached the salts, to which the empress had silently pointed. She rubbed
her son's temples, held the salts to his nostrils, and at last, when he
gave signs of life, she turned to the emperor and burst into tears.
"Oh, Franz," said she, "I almost wish that he were sick, that day and
night I might watch by his bedside, and his poor heart might feel the
full extent of a mother's love for her first-born child."
Perhaps God granted her prayer, that these two noble hearts might no
longer be estranged, but that each might at last meet the other in the
fullest confidence of mutual love.
A violent attack of fever followed the swoon of the archduke. The
empress never left his side. He slept in her own room, and she watched
over him with gentlest and most affectionate care.
Whenever Joseph awaked from his fever-dreams and unclosed his eyes
there, close to his bedside he saw the empress, who greeted him with
loving words and softest caresses. Whenever, in his fever-thirst, he
called for drink, her hand held the cup to his parched lips; and
whenever that soft, cool hand was laid upon his hot brow, he felt as if
its touch chased away all pain and soothed all sorrow.
When he recovered enough to sit up, still his mother would not consent
for him to leave her room for his own. As long as he was an invalid, he
should be hers alone. In her room, and through her loving care, should
he find returning health. His sisters and brothers assembled there to
cheer him with their childish mirth, and his young friend, Dominick
Kaunitz, came daily to entertain him with his lively gossip. Altogether,
the archduke was happy. If he had lost fame, he had found love.
One day, when, cushioned in his great soft arm-chair, he was chatting
with his favorite tutor, Count Bathiany, the empress entered the room,
her face lit up with a happy smile, while in her hands she held an etui
of red morocco.
"What think you I have in this etui, dear?" she said, coming forward,
and bending over her son to bestow a kiss.
"I do not know; but I guess it is some new gift of love from my mother's
dear hand."
"Yes--rightly guessed. It is a genuine gift of love and, with God's
grace, it may prove the brightest gift in your future crown. Since I
would not let you leave my house, my son, I feel it my duty, at least,
to do my best to make your home a happy one. I also wish to show you
that, in my sight, you are no longer a boy, but a man worthy to govern
your own household. Look at the picture in this case, and if it pleases
you, my darling son, I give you, not only the portrait but the ORIGINAL
also."
She handed him the case, in which lay the miniature of a young girl of
surpassing beauty, whose large, dark eyes seemed to gaze upon him with a
look of melancholy entreaty.
The archduke contemplated the picture for some time, and gradually over
his pale face there stole a flush of vague delight.
"Well!" asked the empress, "does the maiden please you?"
"Please me!" echoed the archduke, without withdrawing his eyes from the
picture. "'Tis the image of an angel! There is something in her look so
beseeching, something in her smile so sad, that I feel as if I would
fall at her feet and weep; and yet, mother--"
"Hear him, Franz," cried Maria Theresa to the emperor, who, unobserved
by his son, had entered the room. "Hear our own child! love in his heart
will be a sentiment as holy, as faithful, and as profound as it has been
with us for many happy years! Will you have the angel for your wife,
Joseph?"
The archduke raised his expressive eyes to the face of his mother. "If I
will have her!" murmured he, sadly. "Dear mother, would she deign to
look upon me? Will she not rather turn away from him to whom the whole
world is indifferent?"
"My precious child, she will love and honor you, as the world will do,
when it comes to know your noble heart." And once more the empress bent
over her son and imprinted a kiss upon his pale brow. "It is settled
then, my son, that you shall offer your hand to this beautiful girl. In
one week you will have attained your nineteenth birthday, and you shall
give a good example to your sisters. Do you like the prospect?"
"Yes, dear mother, I am perfectly satisfied."
"And you do not ask her name or rank?"
"You have chosen her for me; and I take her from your hand without name
or rank."
"Well," cried the delighted empress, "Count Bathiany, you have ever been
the favorite preceptor of the archduke. Upon you, then, shall this
honorable mission devolve. To-morrow, as ambassador extraordinary from
our court, you shall go in state to ask of Don Philip of Parma the hand
of his daughter Isabella for his imperial highness, the crown prince of
Austria."