"Your majesty well knows that I would sooner die than betray a secret of my imperial mistress," exclaimed good, fat, old Dietrichstein, fervently.

The empress looked kindly at his real, good-humored face. "And you would rather die than tell me an untruth also, is it not so?" said she, smiling.

"That," replied Count Dietrichstein, with another smile, "that is an embarrassing question; for there are cases, when even your majesty's self--"

"Yes, yes; but in this instance I earnestly desire to hear the unvarnished truth."

"If so, your majesty's desire is for me a command, and I will answer truthfully whatever you ask."

"Well, then, listen to me. You have just returned from a tour in Bavaria and Saxony. Of course you have seen the two princesses. Mary Kunigunde and Josepha."

"I know them both," said Dietrichstein, puffing.

"Well, tell me what sort of person is the Princess Mary Kunigunde?"

"She is slender," replied Dietrichstein, shrugging his shoulders; "slender as a bean-pole. If your majesty will pardon me the expression in favor of its truth, her bones rattle as she walks, and if you should chance to touch her by accident, I pity you."

"What for?"

"Because you will retreat from the collision bruised."

"You are a wicked slanderer, count," replied the empress. "You mean to say that the Princess of Saxony is frail and feminine in her appearance."

"If your majesty pleases, so be it; but if you looked into her serene Highness's face, you might mistake her for a man, nevertheless."

"Holy Virgin! what does the man mean?" cried the empress, astounded.

"I mean," said the count, with a sort of comic seriousness, "that the frail and feminine princess has a black beard which a cornet might envy."

"Nonsense, count! you saw her at twilight, and mistook a shadow on her face for a beard."

"Pardon me, your majesty, you commanded me to tell the truth. I saw the princess by sunlight as well as by candlelight. Under all circumstances, this black shadow overhung her not very small mouth; and I have strong reason for persisting in my opinion that it was a flourishing beard."

"But Josepha of Bavaria--is she handsomer?"

"Handsomer, your majesty," cried the old count. "It is said that she is a good and estimable person; if this be true, her soul is very, very different from her body. Indeed, her beauty may be said to rival that of the Princess Mary."

"You are a keen critic," sighed the empress. "But suppose you were obliged to marry either one of the princesses, which one would you choose?"

"Your majesty!" exclaimed the old count, horror stricken. "I never would have the assurance to raise my eyes to thoughts of marriage with a serene highness."

"Well, then," said the empress, "suppose you were a prince and her equal in birth, which one then would you prefer?"

The count looked at the floor, and was silent.

"The truth, the truth!" cried the empress. "Speak out and do not fear.

Whatever you say shall be sacred with me. Now tell me, which of the two would you take to wife?"

"Well, then," said Count Dietrichstein, with a grimace of excessive disgust, "since your majesty obliges me to suppose the case, I will tell the truth. If by any artifice I could escape, nothing on earth would induce me to marry either one of them. But if the knife were at my throat, and I had no other way of saving my life, I would take the Princess Josepha, for she--"

"Speak out," said the empress, amused, though sorely disappointed. "You would marry Josepha of Bavaria because--"

"Because," sighed the fat old count, "if she is horribly ugly, she has, at least, something like a woman's bosom."

Maria Theresa broke out into a hearty laugh. "You are right," said she, "the reason is a very good one, and has its weight. I thank you for your candor, and will turn over in my mind what you have told me."

"But your majesty has promised not to betray me," protested the count with imploring look.

"And I will keep my promise faithfully," replied the empress, reaching him her hand. "Nevertheless, I cling to the hope that you have exaggerated the defects of the princesses, and that they are not altogether as ugly as you have pictured them to me." [Footnote: This conversation is historical, and the criticism of Count Dietrichstein upon the two princesses, as here related, is almost verbatim. See Wraxall's "Memoirs," vol. ii., page 406.]

CHAPTER XXV.

JOSEPHA OF BAVARIA.

Festivity reigned at the court and throughout the city of Vienna. The weather was cold, but the streets were thronged with people and hung with garlands. Nothing was thought of but balls, illuminations, and dress. Every one was curious to see the splendid spectacle of the day--the entrance of the bride of the King of Rome into Vienna.

The plans of the lord chancellor were beginning to unfold themselves.

The Archduke Joseph had been crowned King of Rome at Frankfort, and the empress on his return, had prepared him for his second bridal. He had stoutly refused at first, but finally had yielded to the reasonings of his mother and the persuasions of his father. He had been told to choose between Mary Kunigunde and Josepha.

Not far from Toplitz, as if by accident, he met the Princess Mary out on a hunting party. The princess was on horseback; but she rode awkwardly, and her demeanor was shy and ungraceful. She well knew the object of this casual meeting, and when the King of Rome approached to greet her, she turned pale and trembled as she felt the gaze of his large blue eyes. Her paleness did not increase her beauty, nor did her shyness contribute to make her interesting. Joseph was annoyed at her taciturnity and disgusted with her ugliness. After a few brief words he bowed, and galloped off to join his retinue. The princess looked sadly after him, and returned home with a troubled heart. She knew that she had been disdained, and that the King of Rome would never choose her for his bride.

She was right. Joseph preferred the Princess Josepha, whom he had also "met by chance." He, like Count Dietrichstein, having the knife at his throat, selected her for his bride who was minus the flourishing black beard.

It was the 22d of January of the year 1765, and the wedding-day of the King of Rome. From early morning the archduchesses at the palace had been practising a lyric drama from the pen of Metastasio called "Il Parnasso Confuso." The music was by Gluck, and his deep bass was heard accompanying the sweet rich voices of the bridegroom's sisters. They had studied their parts diligently, and felt quite confident of success, as they gathered around the maestro. But Gluck was never satisfied, and he kept Apollo and the Muses at their music-lesson until their ladies of honor were obliged to inform them that they must positively retire to their toilets, a courier having arrived to say that the princess had entered the gates of the city.

While all these preparations were going on around him, the King of Rome tarried in his private apartments. He was in the room wherein he had locked himself after the death of Isabella, the room where day and night he had deplored his lost happiness, until Christina had so rudely awakened him from his dream of love and sorrow.

This miserable consolation had had its effect. Joseph wiped away his tears, and having read Isabella's letters and convinced himself that she never had loved him, he had forborne to murmur at her loss.

On this, his bridal-day, he was thinking of the time when alone and heart-broken he had paced this room for three days and nights; and now, surrounded by festivity and splendor, he paced the floor again, awaiting the moment when he should have to mount his horse and meet the princess.

He was not with the living bride, but with the dead one; and as he thought of her grace, her smiles, her surpassing beauty, his lip curled with a sneer, and his brow grew dark and stormy.

"And she, too, deceived me," said he; "those smiles, those glances, that love, all were false. While she lay in my arms and listened to my words of love, her heart was in the grave with her murdered lover! Oh, my God!

now that I know that she deceived me, in whom can I place my trust? Even now, what am I but a dependent boy, the slave of the empress and of her all-powerful minister, who force upon me a woman whom I hate, and bid me make her the mother of my children? Oh, when will my shackles fall, when shall I be free!"

In the distance was heard the dull sound of a cannon. "Already!" cried the unhappy bridegroom. "It is time for me to meet my bride, and to begin the loathsome farce of a second bridal. Verily, if I did not hate this Josepha, I could pity her. She will not find me a loving husband.

The Queen of Rome will never be an enviable woman!"

So saying, he threw around his shoulders his velvet cloak edged with ermine, and left the room to join his retinue. They were to meet the princess and accompany her to the castle of Schonbrunn. It was there that the imperial family awaited the bridal party, and there in the chapel the marriage was to be solemnized.

The streets were thronged with people that shouted for joy: the balconies and windows were filled with elegant women, who smiled and waved their hands in greeting to the royal pair. For all the world this was a day of rejoicing, except for the two persons for whose sake the rest rejoiced. These had no part in the universal gayety; and the mirth which was inspired by their presence found no echo in their souls--Joseph's heart was full of dislike and ill-will toward his betrothed, and she was unhappy, fearing the reception that awaited her.

She had trembled as she thought of the meeting with Joseph, and then of the proud, powerful, and beautiful woman who was his mother. The fame of her intellect, fascinations, and beauty had reached the court of Munich, and poor Josepha knew very well that SHE was neither handsome, cultivated, nor charming. Her education had been neglected, and if she had attained to the honor of being Queen of Rome and Empress-elect of Austria, it was not that she had any right to a station so exalted, it was that her brother was childless and had promised his inheritance to Austria.

Josepha was sad as she thought of these things, but she could not suppress an emotion of joy when she saw the brilliant cortege hat was coming from Vienna to meet her. This proud and handsome horseman, whose blue eyes shone like stars, this was her husband, the lord of her destiny! She had seen him once before, and had loved him from that moment. True, he had not chosen her from inclination, but she could not shut her heart to the bliss of being his wife, he who, to-day a king, would in future years place an imperial crown upon her brow.