"I well know that you are an infidel and an unbeliever, Kaunitz," cried the empress, vexed at the quiet sneers of her minister. "I know you believe that only which you can understand and explain."

"No, your majesty, I believe all that is reasonable. What I cannot comprehend is unreasonable."

The empress glanced angrily at his stony countenance. "God sometimes speaks to us through the mouths of His chosen ones," cried she; "and, as I believe in the inspiration of Sister Margaret and Father Gassner, my daughter shall not go to France."

"Is that your majesty's unalterable resolution?"

"It is."

"Then," returned Kaunitz, bowing, "allow me to make a request for myself."

"Speak on."

"Allow me at once to retire from your majesty's service."

"Kaunitz!" exclaimed Maria Theresa, "is it possible that you would forsake me?"

"No, your majesty; it is you who forsake me. You are willing, for the sake of two crazy seers, to destroy the fabric which it has been the work of my life to construct. Your majesty desires that I should remain your minister, and with my own hand should undo the web that I have woven with such trouble to myself? All Europe knows that the French alliance is my work. To this end I have labored by day and lain awake by night; to this end I have flattered and bribed; to this end I have seen my friend De Choiseul disgraced, while I bowed low before his miserable successor, that I might win him and that wretched Du Barry to my purpose!"

"You are irretrievably bent upon this alliance?" asked the empress, thoughtfully. "It was then not to gratify me that you sought to place a crown upon my dear child's head?"

"Your majesty's wishes have always been sacred to me, but I should never have sought to gratify them, had they not been in accordance with my sense of duty to Austria. I have not sought to make a queen of the Archduchess Maria Antoinette. I have sought to unite Austria with France, and to strengthen the southwestern powers of Europe against the infidelity and barbarism of Prussia and Russia. In spite of all that is taking place at Neisse, Austria and Prussia are, and ever will be, enemies. The king and the emperor may flatter and smile, but neither believes what the other says. Frederick will never lose an opportunity of robbing. He ogles Russia, and would gladly see her our 'neighbor,' if by so doing he were to gain an insignificant province for Prussia. It is to ward off these dangerous accomplices that we seek alliance with France, and through France, with Spain, Portugal, and Italy. And now, when the goal is won, and the prize is ours, your majesty retracts her imperial word! You are the sovereign, and your will must be, done. But I cannot lend my hand to that which my reason condemns as unwise, and my conscience as dishonorable. I beg of your majesty, to-day and forever, to dismiss me from your service!"

The empress did not make any reply. She had risen, and was walking hastily up and down, murmuring low, inarticulate words and heaving deep, convulsive sighs. Kaunitz followed her with the eye of a cool physician, who watches the crisis of a brain-fever. He looked down, however, as the empress, stopping, raised her dark, glowing eyes to his. When he met her glance his expression had changed; it had become as usual.

"You have heard the pleadings of the mother," said she, breathing hard, "and you have silenced them with your cold arguments. The empress has heard, and she it is who must decide against herself. She has no right to sacrifice her empire to her maternity. May God forgive me," continued she, solemnly clasping her hands, "if I err in quelling the voice of my love which cries so loudly against this union. Let it be accomplished!

Marie Antoinette shall be the bride of Louis XVI."

"Spoken like the noble Empress of Austria!" cried Kaunitz, triumphantly.

"Do not praise me," returned Maria Theresa sadly; "but hear what I have to say. You have spoken words so bold, that it would seem you fancy yourself to be Emperor of Austria. It was not you who sought alliance with France, but myself. You did nothing but follow out my intentions and obey my commands. The sin of my refusal, therefore, was nothing to you or your conscience--it rested on my head alone."

"May God preserve your majesty to your country and your subjects! May you long be Austria's head, and I--your right hand!" exclaimed Kaunitz.

"You do not then wish to retire?" asked she, with a languid smile.

"I beg of your majesty to forgive and retain me."

"So be it, then," returned the empress, with a light inclination of the head. "But I cannot hear any more to-day. You have no sympathy with my trials as a mother. I have sacrificed my child to Austria, but my heart is pierced with sorrow and apprehension. Leave me to my tears. I cannot feel for any one except my child--my poor, innocent child!"

She turned hastily away, that he might not see the tears that were already streaming down her face. Kaunitz bowed, and left the cabinet with his usual cold, proud step.

The minister once gone, Maria Theresa gave herself up to the wildest grief. No one saw her anguish but God; no one ever knew how the powerful empress writhed and wrung her hands in her powerless agony; no one but God and the dead emperor, whose mild eyes beamed compassion from the gilt frame in which his picture hung, upon the wall. To this picture Maria Theresa at last raised her eyes, and it seemed, to her excited imagination, that her husband smiled and whispered words of consolation.

"Yes, dear Franz, I hear you," said she. "You would remind me that this is our wedding-day. Alas, I know it! Once a day of joy, and from this moment the anniversary of a great sorrow! Franz, it is OUR child that is the victim! The sweet Antoinette, whose eyes are so like her father's!

Oh, dear husband, my heart is heavy with grief; Why may I not go to rest too? But thou wilt not love me if my courage fail. I will be brave, Franz; I will work, and try to do my duty."

She approached her writing-table, and began to overlook the heaps of papers that awaited her inspection and signature. Gradually her brow cleared and her face resumed its usual expression of deep thought and high resolve. The mother forgot her grief, and the empress was absorbed in the cares of state.

She felt so strongly the comfort and sustenance derived from labor, that on that day she dined alone, and returned immediately to her writing-desk. Twilight came on, and still the empress was at work.

Finally the rolling of carriages toward the imperial theatre was heard, and presently the shouts of the applauding audience. The empress heard nothing. She had never attended the theatre since her husband's death, and it was nothing to her that to-night Lessing's beautiful drama, "Emilia Galotti," was being represented for the first time in Vienna.

Twilight deepened into night, and the empress rang for lights. Then retiring to her dressing-room, she threw off her heavy court costume, and exchanged it for a simple peignoir, in which she returned to her cabinet and still wrote on.

Suddenly the stillness was broken by a knock, and a page entered with a golden salver, on which lay a letter.

"A courier from Florence, your majesty," said he.

Maria Theresa took the letter, and dismissed the page. "From my Leopold," said she, while she opened it. "It is an extra courier. It must announce the accouchement of his wife. Oh, my heart, how it beats!"

With trembling hands she held the missive and read it. But at once her face was lighted up with joy, and throwing herself upon her knees before the portrait of the emperor, she said, "Franz, Leopold has given us a grandson. Do you hear?"

No answer came in response to the joyful cry of the empress, and she could not bear the burden of her joy alone. Some one must rejoice with her. She craved sympathy, and she must go out to seek it.

She left her cabinet. Unmindful of her dress, she sped through the long corridors, farther and still farther, down the staircase and away to the extremest end of the palace, until she reached the imperial theatre.

That night it was crowded. The interest of the spectators had deepened as the play went on. They were absorbed in the scene between Emilia and her father, when a door was heard to open and to shut.

Suddenly, in the imperial box, which had so long been empty, a tall and noble figure bent forward, far over the railing, and a clear, musical voice cried out:

"Leopold has a son!"

The audience, as if electrified, rose with one accord from their seats.

All turned toward the imperial box. Each one had recognized the voice of the adored Maria Theresa, and every heart over-flowed with the joy of the moment.

The empress repeated her words:

"Leopold has a son, and it is born on my wedding-day. Wish me joy, dear friends, of my grandson!"

Then arose such a storm of congratulations as never before had been heard within those theatre walls. The women wept, and the men waved their hats and cheered; while all, with one voice, cried out. "Long live Maria Theresa! Long live the imperial grandmother!"

CHAPTER LVI.

THE GIFT.

All prophecies defying, Maria Theresa had given her daughter to France.

In the month of May, 1770, the Archduchess Marie Antoinette was married by proxy in Vienna; and amid the ringing of bells, the booming of cannon, and the shouts of the populace, the beautiful young dauphiness left Austria to meet her inevitable fate.

Meanwhile, in the imperial palace, too, one room was darkening under the shadow of approaching death. It was that in which Isabella's daughter was passing from earth to heaven.

The emperor knew that his child was dying; and many an hour he spent at her solitary bedside, where, tranquil and smiling, she murmured words which her father knew were whispered to the angels.

The emperor sorrowed deeply for the severance of the last tie that bound him to the bright and beautiful dream of his early married life. But he was so accustomed to sorrow, that on the occasion of his sister's marriage, he had gone through the forms required by etiquette, without any visible emotion.

But the festivities were at an end. The future Queen of France had bidden farewell to her native Vienna, and the marriage guests had departed; while darker and darker grew the chamber of the dying child, and sadder the face of the widowed father. The emperor kissed his daughter's burning forehead, and held her little transparent hand in his. "Farewell, my angel," whispered he; "since thy mother calls thee, go, my little Theresa. Tell her that she was my only love--my first and last. Go, beloved, and pray for thy unhappy father."