INOCULATION.
Maria Theresa was standing in the embrasure of a window, and she
scarcely turned her head as she heard the rustling behind her. She took
no notice of the breach of etiquette of which Antoinette was guilty, in
rushing unannounced upon her solitude. Her eyes were fixed upon the
chapel of the Capuchins in whose vaults lay so many whom she had loved.
Her heart and thoughts were within those gray walls, now with her
husband and her dead children, now with Josepha, for whom she felt pang
after pang of anxiety. In an absent tone she turned and said:
"What brings you hither, little Antoinette?"
"Josepha, dear mother. Have pity on Josepha!"
The empress, with a thrill of joy at her heart, replied, "She did not
go, then?"
"Yes, yes, she went because you forced her to go, but she went with a
broken heart. Oh, mamma, Josepha says that the dead are waiting to take
her with them! May I not order my carriage and fly to bring her back?"
Maria Theresa said nothing. Her eyes turned first upon the beautiful
little suppliant at her feet, then they wandered out through the evening
haze, and rested on the dark towers of the Capuchin chapel.
"Oh, dear mamma," continued Antoinette, "if I may not bring her back, at
least let me share her danger. Be good to your poor little Antoinette.
You promised, if I behaved well, to do something for me, mamma, and now
I deserve a reward, for Count Brandeis says that I have been a good girl
of late. Do not shake your head, it would make me better if I went to
pray with Josepha. You do not know how vain and worldly I am. When I saw
Josepha's beautiful jewels I was quite envious of her; and indeed,
mamma, no one needs solitude and prayer more than I. Let me go and pray
for grace by the grave of my father."
The empress laid her hand upon her daughter's head, and looked at her
beautiful countenance with an expression of deepest tenderness.
"You are a noble-hearted child, my Antoinette," said she. "With such
sensibility as yours, you are likely to suffer from the faults and
misconceptions of the world; for magnanimity is so rare that it is often
misunderstood. You would share your sister's danger, while believing in
its reality. No, no, darling, I cannot accept your generous sacrifice.
It would be useless, for Josepha's terror will shorten her prayers.
Before you could reach the chapel, she will have left it--"
Maria Theresa paused, and again looked out from the window. The rolling
of carriage-wheels was distinctly heard coming toward the palace. Now it
ceased, and the sentry's voice was heard at the gates.
"Ah!" cried the empress, joyfully, "I was right. It is Josepha. Her
devotions have not been long; but I will confess to you, Antoinette,
that a weight is lifted from my heart. I have not breathed freely since
she left my presence. Oh, I will forgive her for her short prayers, for
they have shortened my miserable suspense!"
"Let me go and bring her to you, mamma." cried Antoinette, clapping her
hands and darting toward the door. But the empress held her back.
"No, dear, remain with me. Josepha's heart will reveal to her that her
mother longs to welcome her back."
At that moment a page announced the Countess Lerchenfeld.
"It is not my child!" cried the empress, turning pale.
The countess, too, was very pale, and she trembled as she approached the
imperial mother.
"She is dead!" murmured Marie Antoinette, sinking almost fainting to the
floor.
But the empress called out, "Where is my child! In mercy, tell me why
you are here without her?"
"Please your majesty," replied the countess, "I come to beg that you
will excuse her highness. She has been suddenly taken sick. She was
lifted insensible to the carriage, and has not yet recovered her
consciousness."
Maria Theresa reeled, and a deathly paleness overspread her countenance.
"Sick!" murmured she, with quivering lip. "What--what happened?"
"I do not know, your majesty. Accordng to your imperial command I
accompanied her highness to the chapel. I went as far as the stairway
that leads to the crypts. Her highness was strangely agitated. I tried
to soothe her, but as she looked below, and saw the open door, she
shuddered, and clinging to me, whispered: 'Countess, I scent the
loathesome corpse that even now stirs in its coffin at my approach.'
Again I strove to comfort her, but all in vain. Scarcely able to support
herself, she bade me farewell, and commended herself to your majesty.
Then, clinging to the damp walls, she tottered below, and disappeared."
"And did you not hold her back!" cried Marie Antoinette. "You had the
cruelty to leave her--"
"Peace, Antoinette," said the empress, raising her hand, imploringly.
"What else?" asked she, hoarsely.
"I stood at the head of the stairway, your majesty, awaiting her
highness's return. For a while all was silent; then I heard a piercing
shriek and I hastened to the vault--"
"Was it my child?" asked the empress, now as rigid as a marble statue.
"Yes, your majesty. I found her highness kneeling, with her head resting
upon the tomb of the emperor."
"Insensible?"
"No, your majesty. I approached and found her icy cold, her eyes
dilated, and her face covered with drops of cold sweat. She was scarcely
able to speak, but in broken accents she related to me that, as she was
making her way toward the altar at the head of the emperor's tomb, she
suddenly became sensible that something was holding her back.
Horror-stricken, she strove to fly, but could not. When, as she turned
her head, she beheld the coffin of the Empress Josepha, and saw that
from thence came the power that held her back. With a shriek she bounded
forward, and fell at the foot of the emperor's tomb. I supported her
until we reached the chapel--door, when she fainted, and I had to call
for help to bear her to her carriage."
"And now?" asked the empress, who was weeping bitterly.
"She is still unconscious, your majesty. Herr van Swieten and the
emperor are at her bedside."
"And I," cried the unhappy empress, "I, too, must be with my poor,
martyred child."
Marie Antoinette would have followed, but her mother bade her remain,
and hastening from the room, Maria Theresa ran breathless through the
corridors until she reached her daughter's apartments.
There, like a crushed lily, lay the fair bride of Naples, while near her
stood her brother in speechless grief. At the foot of the bed Van
Swieten and one of the maids of honor were rubbing her white feet with
stimulants.
The empress laid her hand upon Josepha's cold brow, and turning to Van
Swieten, as though in his hands lay the fate of her child, as she asked:
"Will she die?"
"Life and death," replied the physician, "are in the hands of the Lord.
As long as there is life, there is hope."
Maria Theresa, shook her head. "I have no hope," said she, with the
calmness of despair. "'Tis the enemy of our house. Is it not, Van
Swieten? Has she not the small-pox?"
"I fear so, your majesty."
"She must die, then--and it is I who have murdered her!" shrieked the
empress, wildly; and she fell fainting to the floor.
On the fifteenth of October, the day on which Josepha was to have given
her hand to the King of Naples, the bells of Vienna tolled her funeral
knell.
Not in her gilded carriage rode the fair young bride, but cold and
lifeless she lay under the black and silver pall on which were placed a
myrtle-wreath and a royal crown of gold.
Another Spouse had claimed her hand, and the marriage-rites were
solemnized in the still vaults of the chapel of the Capuchins.
The empress had not left her daughter's room since the fatal day of her
return from the chapel. With all the tenderness of her affectionate
nature she had been the nurse of her suffering child. Not a tear was in
her eye, nor a murmur on her lips. Silent, vigilant, and sleepless, she
had struggled with the foe that was wresting yet another loved one from
her house.
Day by day Josepha grew worse until she lay dying. Still the empress
shed no tear. Bending over her daughter's bed, she received her last
sigh. And now she watched the corpse, and would not be moved, though the
emperor and Van Swieten implored her to seek rest.
When the body was removed, the poor, tearless mourner followed it from
the room through the halls and gates of the palace until it was laid in
the grave.
Then she returned home, and, without a word, retired to her own
apartments. There, on a table, lay heaps of papers and letters with
unbroken seals. But the empress heeded nothing of all this. Maternity
reigned supreme in her heart--there was room in it for grief and remorse
alone. She strode to the window, and there, as she had done not many
days before, she looked out upon the gray towers of the chapel, and
thought how she had driven her own precious child into the dismal depths
of its loathsome vaults.
The door was softly opened, and the emperor and Van Swieten were seen
with anxious looks directed toward the window where the empress was
standing.
"What is to be done?" said Joseph. "How is she to be awakened from that
fearful torpor?"
"We must bring about some crisis," replied Van Swieten, thoughtfully.
"We must awake both the empress and the mother. The one must have
work--the other, tears. This frozen sea of grief must thaw, or her
majesty will die."
"Doctor," cried Joseph, "save her, I implore you. Do something to
humanize this marble grief."
"I will try, your majesty. With your permission I will assemble the
imperial family here, and we will ask to be admitted to the presence of
the empress. The Archduchess Marie Antoinette and the Archduke
Maximilian I shall not summon."
Not long after, the door was once more softly opened, and the Emperor
Joseph, followed by his sisters and the doctor, entered the empress's
sitting-room.
Maria Theresa was still erect before the window, staring at the dark
towers of the chapel.
"Your majesty," said Joseph, approaching, "your children are here to
mourn with you."
"It is well," replied Maria Theresa, without stirring from her position.
"I thank you all. But leave me, my children. I would mourn alone."
"But before we go, will not your majesty vouchsafe one look of
kindness?" entreated the emperor. "May we not kiss your hand? Oh, my
beloved mother, your living children, too, have a right to your love! Do
not turn away so coldly from us. Let your children comfort their sad
hearts with the sight of your dear and honored countenance."
There was so much genuine feeling in Joseph's voice, as he uttered these
words, that his mother could not resist him. She turned and gave him her
hand.
"God bless you, my son," said she, "for your loving words. They fall
like balsam upon my sore and wounded heart. God bless you all, my
children, who have come hither to comfort your poor, sorrowing mother."
The archduchesses flocked, weeping to her side, and smiled through their
tears, as they met her glance of love. But suddenly she started, and
looked searchingly around the room.
"Where are my little ones?" said she anxiously.
No one spoke, but the group all turned their eyes upon Van Swieten,
whose presence, until now, had been unobserved by the empress.
Like an angry lioness, she sprang forward to the threshold, and laid her
hand upon Van Swieten's shoulder.
"What means your presence here, Van Swieten?" cried she loudly. "What
fearful message do you bear me now? My children my children! where are
they?"
"In their rooms, your majesty," replied Van Swieten, seriously. "I came
hither expressly to apologize for their absence. It was I who prevented
them from coming."
"Why so?" exclaimed the empress.
"Because, your majesty, they have never had the small-pox; and contact
with you would be dangerous for them. For some weeks they must absent
themselves from your majesty's presence."
"You are not telling me the truth, Van Swieten!" cried Maria Theresa,
hastily. "My children are sick, and I must go to them."
"Your majesty may banish me forever from the palace," said he, "but as
long as I remain, you cannot approach your children. It is my duty to
shield them from the infection which still clings to your majesty's
person. Would you be the probable cause of their death?"
The earnest tone with which Van Swieten put this question so overcame
the empress, that she raised both her arms, and cried out in a voice of
piercing anguish: "Ah! it is I who caused Josepha's death!--I who
murdered my unhappy child!"
These words once uttered, the icy bonds that had frozen her heart gave
way, and Maria Theresa wept.
"She is saved!" whispered Van Swieten to the emperor. "Will your majesty
now request the archduchesses to retire? The empress does not like to be
seen in tears; and this paroxysm once over, the presence of her
daughters will embarrass her."
The emperor communicated Van Swieten's wish, and the princesses silently
and noiselessly withdrew. The empress was on her knees, while showers of
healing tears were refreshing her seethed heart.
"Let us try to induce her to rise," whispered Van Swieten. "This hour,
if it please God, may prove a signal blessing to all Austria."
The emperor approached, and tenderly strove to lift his mother, while he
lavished words of love and comfort upon her. She allowed him to lead
tier to a divan, where gradually the tempest of her grief gave place to
deep-drawn sighs, and, finally, to peace. The crisis, however, was long
and terrible, for the affections of Maria Theresa were as strong as her
will; and fierce had been the conflict between the two.
For some time a deep silence reigned throughout the room. Finally, the
empress raised her eyes and said, "You will speak the truth, both of
you, will you not?"
"We will, your majesty," replied the emperor and Van Swieten.
"Then, Joseph, say--are my children well and safe?"
"They are, my dearest mother, and but for the doctor's prohibition, both
would have accompanied us thither."
Maria Theresa then turned to the physician. "Van Swieten," said she,
"you, too, must swear to speak the truth. I have something to ask of you
also."
"I swear, your majesty," replied Van Swieten.
"Then say if I am the cause of my daughter's death. Do not answer me at
once. Take time for reflection, and, as Almighty God hears us, answer me
conscientiously."
There was a pause. Nothing was heard save the heavy breathing of the
empress, and the ticking of the golden clock that stood upon the mantel.
Maria Theresa sat with her head bowed down upon her hands; before her
stood Joseph, his pale and noble face turned toward the physician, and
his eyes fixed upon him with an expression of deepest entreaty. Van
Swieten saw the look and answered it by a scarcely perceptible motion of
his head.
"Now, speak, Van Swieten," said the empress, raising her head, and
looking him full in the face." Was Josepha's visit to the chapel-vault
the cause of her death?"
"No, your majesty," said the physician gravely. "In THIS SENSE you
were not guilty of her highness's death; for the body, in smallpox, is
infected long before it shows itself on the surface. Had her highness
received the infection in the crypts of the chapel, she would be still
living. Her terror and presentiment of death were merely symptoms of the
disease."
The empress reached out both her hands to Van Swieten, and said: "Thank
you, my friend. You surely would not deceive me with false comfort; I
can, therefore, even in the face of this great sorrow, find courage to
live and do my duty. I may weep for my lost child, but while weeping I
may feel that Heaven's will, and not my guilt, compassed her death.
Thank you, my dear son, for your sympathy and tenderness. You will never
know what comfort your love has been to me this day."
So saying, she drew the emperor close to her, and putting both her arms
around his neck, kissed him tenderly.
"Van Swieten," said she, then, "what do you mean by saying that 'in this
sense' I was not guilty of Josepha's death."
"I think, your majesty," replied the emperor, "that I can explain those
words. He means to say that had you yielded to his frequent petitions to
make use of inoculation as a safeguard against the violence of the
small-pox, our dear Josepha might have survived her attack. Is it not
so, Van Swieten?"
"It is, your Majesty. If the empress would consent to allow the
introduction in Austria of inoculation for the small-pox, she would not
only shield her own family from danger, but would confer a great
blessing on her subjects."
"Indeed, Van Swieten," replied the empress, after a pause, "what you
propose seems sinful to me. Besides, I have heard that many who were
inoculated for small-pox have died of its effects. But for this, they
might have lived for many years. How can I reconcile it to my conscience
to assume such an awful responsibility?" "But," urged Van Swieten,
"thousands have been rescued, where two or three have perished. I do not
say that the remedy is infallible; but I can safely say that out of one
hundred cases, ninety, by its use, are rendered innoxious. Oh, your
majesty! when you remember that within ten years five members of your
family have been victims to this terrific scourge--when you remember how
for weeks Austria was in extremest sorrow while your majesty lay so ill,
how can you refuse such a boon for yourself and your people?"
"It is hard for me to refuse any thing to the one whose skilful hand
restored me to life," replied the empress, while she reached her hand to
Van Swieten.
"My dear, dear mother!" exclaimed Joseph, "do not refuse him! He asks
you to save the lives of thousands. Think how different life would have
been for me had my Isabella lived! Think of my sister;--think of
Antoinette and Maximilian, who long to be with you and cannot."
"Doctor," said the empress, "if my children were inoculated, how long
would it be before I could see them?"
"In two hours, your majesty; for in that time the poison would have
permeated their systems."
By this time the empress had resumed her habit of walking to and fro
when she was debating any thing in her mind. She went on for some time,
while Van Swieten and the emperor followed her movements with anxious
looks.
Finally sire spoke. "Well, my son," said she, coming close to Joseph,
and smiling fondly upon him, "I yield to you as co-regent of Austria.
You, too, have some right to speak in this matter, and your wishes shall
decide mine. To you, also, Van Swieten, I yield in gratitude for all
that you have done for me and mine. Let Austria profit by this new
discovery, and may it prove a blessing to us all! Are you satisfied,
Joseph?"
"More than satisfied," exclaimed he, kissing his mother's hand.
"Now, Van Swieten," continued Maria Theresa, "hasten to inoculate my
children. I long to fold them to my poor aching heart. Remember, you
have promised that I shall see them in two hours!"
"In two hours they shall be here, your majesty," said Van Swieten, as he
hurried away.
"Stop a moment," cried Maria Theresa. "As you have been the instigator
of this thing, upon your shoulders shall fall the work that must arise
from it. I exact of you, therefore, to superintend the inoculation of my
subjects, and your pay as chief medical inspector shall be five thousand
florins. I also give my palace at Hetzendorf as a model hospital for the
reception of the children of fifty families, who shall there be
inoculated and cared for at my expense. This is the monument I shall
erect to my beloved Josepha; and when the little ones who are rescued
from death thank God for their recovery, they will pray for my poor
child's departed soul. Does this please you, my son?"
The emperor did not answer--his heart was too full for speech. The
empress saw his agitation, and opening her arms to clasp him in her
embrace, she faltered out, "Come, dear child, and together let us mourn
for our beloved dead." [Footnote: The institution founded on that day by
the empress went very soon into operation. Every spring the children of
fifty families among the nobles and gentry were received at the hospital
of Hetzendorf. The empress was accustomed to visit the institution
frequently; and at the end of each season, she gave its little inmates a
splendid ball, which was always attended by herself and her daughters.
The festivities closed with concerts, lotteries, and a present to each
child. Caroline Pichler, "Memoirs," Vol. i., p. 68. Coxe, "History of
the House of Austria," vol. v. p. 188.]