Joseph II. and His Court Part 191

"And why not?" cried he. "Why should one so young, so beautiful, so gifted as you, cast away the ties of social life and pa.s.s within the joyless portals of a convent?"

Therese said nothing. She sat ashamed, bewildered, entranced; and, in her confusion, her beauty grew tenfold greater. The emperor's resolutions were fast melting away.

Again he besought her in tender tones. "Tell me, my Therese; confide in me, for I swear that your happiness is dearer to me than my life." He bent closer, and seized her hands. His touch was electric, for a tremor took possession of them both, and they dared not look at each other.

Joseph recovered himself, and began in low, pleading tones: "Look at me, beloved, and let me read my answer in your truthful eyes. Look at me, for those eyes are my light, my life, my heaven!"

Therese could not obey. Her head sank lower and lower, and deep, convulsive sighs rent her heart. The emperor, scarcely knowing what he did, knelt before her. She met his glance of intoxicated love, and, unable to resist it, murmured:

"Because I love--thee."

Had he heard aright? Was it not the trees whispering to the summer air, or the birds cooing beneath the eaves? Or had an angel borne the message from that heaven which to-day was so radiant and so silver-bright?

He still knelt, and pressed her trembling hands to his lips, while his face was lit up with a joy, which Therese had never seen there before.

"Have I found you at last, star of my dark and solitary life?" said he.

"Are you mine at last, shy gazelle, that so long have escaped me, bounding higher and higher up the icy steeps of this cheerless world?

Oh, Therese, why did I not find you in the early years of life? And yet I thank Heaven that you are mine for these few fleeting moments, for they have taken me back to the days of my youth and its beautiful illusions! Ah, Therese, from the first hour when I beheld you advancing on your father's arm to greet me, proud as an empress, calm as a vestal, beautiful as Aphrodite, my heart acknowledged you as its mistress! Since then I have been your slave, kissing your shadow as it went before me, and yet riot conscious of my insane pa.s.sion until your father saw me with that rose--and then I knew that I loved you forever! Yes, Therese, you are the last love of an unfortunate man, whom the world calls an emperor, but who lies at your feet, as the beggar before his ideal of the glorious Madonna! Bend to me, Madonna, and let me drink my last draught of love! I shall soon have quaffed it, and then--your father will be here to remind me that you are a high-born countess, the priceless treasure of whose love I may not possess! Kiss me, my Therese, and consecrate my lips to holy resignation!"

And Therese, too bewildered to resist, bent forward. Their lips met, and his arms were around her, and time, place, station, honor--every thing vanished before the might of their love.

Suddenly they heard an exclamation--and there, at the porture, stood the father and the suitor of Therese, their pale and angry faces turned toward the lovers.

The emperor, burning with shame and fury, sprang to his feet. Therese, with a faint cry, hid her face in her hands, and, trembling with fear, awaited her sentence.

There was a deep silence. Each one seemed afraid to speak, for the first word uttered in that room might be treason. With dark and sullen faces, the two n.o.blemen looked at the imperial culprit, who, leaning against the window, with head upturned to heaven, seemed scarcely able to sustain the weight of his own anguish. The stillness was insupportable, and it was his duty to break it. He glanced at the two men who, immovable and frowning, awaited this explanation.

Joseph turned to Therese, who had not yet withdrawn her hands. She felt as if she could never face the world again.

"Rise, Therese, and give me your hand," said he, authoritatively.

She obeyed at once, and the emperor, pressing that trembling hand within his own, led her to her father.

"Count Dietrichstein," said he, "you reminded me to-day of the long-tried loyalty of your house, and asked me, as your reward, to advise your daughter's acceptance of the husband you have chosen for her. I have fulfilled my promise, and Therese has consented to obey your commands. She promises to renounce her dream of entering a convent, and to become the wife of Count Kinsky. Is it not so, Therese? Have I not your approval in promising these things to your father?"

"It is so," murmured Therese, turning pale as death.

"And now, Count Dietrichstein," continued Joseph, "I will allow you to postpone your mission to Brussels, so that before you leave Vienna you may witness the nuptials of your daughter. In one week the marriage will be solemnized in the imperial chapel. Count Kinsky, I deliver your bride into your hands. Farewell! I shall meet you in the chapel."

He bowed, and hurried away. He heard the cry which broke from the lips of Therese, although he did not turn his head when her father's voice called loudly for help. But seeing that the countess's maid was walking in the park, he overtook her, saying, hastily, "Go quickly to the pavilion; the Countess Therese has fainted."

Then he hastened away, not keeping the walks, but trampling heedlessly over the flowers, and das.h.i.+ng past the lilacs and laburniuns, thinking of that fearful hour when Adam was driven from Paradise, and wondering whether the agony of the first man who sinned had been greater than his to-day, when the sun was setting upon the last dream of love which he would ever have in this world!

CHAPTER CLXXI.

THE TURKISH WAR.

The bolt had fallen. Russia had declared war against Turkey. On the return of the emperor from his unfortunate pilgrimage to Count Dietrichstein's villa, three couriers awaited him from Petersburg, Constantinople, and Berlin. Besides various dispatches from Count Cobenzl, the courier from Petersburg brought an autographic letter from the empress. Catharine reminded the emperor of the promise which he had made in St. Petersburg, and renewed at Cherson, announced that the hour had arrived for its fulfilment. The enmity so long smothered under the ashes of simulated peace had kindled and broken out into the flames of open war.

The Porte himself had broken the peace. On account of some arbitrary act of the Russian amba.s.sador, he had seized and confined him in the Seven Towers. Russia had demanded his release, and satisfaction for the insult. The sultan had replied by demanding the restoration of the Crimea, and the withdrawal of the Russian fleet from the Black Sea.

The disputants had called in the Austrian internuncio, but all diplomacy was vain. Indeed, neither Russia, Turkey, nor Austria had placed any reliance upon the negotiations for peace; for while they were pending, the three powers were all a.s.siduously preparing for war. In the spring of 1788, the Austrian internuncio declined any further attempt at mediation, and hostilities between Russia and Turkey were renewed.

Joseph received the tidings with an outburst of joy. They lifted a load of grief from his heart; for war, to him, was balsam for every sorrow.

"Now I shall be cured of this last wound!" exclaimed he, as he paced his cabinet, the dispatches in his hand. "G.o.d is merciful--He has sent the remedy, and once more I shall feel like a sovereign and a man! How I long to hear the bullets hiss and the battle rage! There are no myrtles for me on earth; perchance I may yet be permitted to gather its laurels.

Welcome, O war! Welcome the march, the camp, and the battle-field!"

He rang, and commanded the presence of Field-Marshal Lacy. Then he read his dispatches again, glancing impatiently, from time to tine, at the door. Finally it opened, and a page announced the field-marshal. Joseph came hurriedly forward, and grasped the hands of his long-tried friend.

"Lacy," cried he, "from this day you shall be better pleased than you have been with me of late--I have seen your reproving looks--nay, do not deny it, for they have been as significant as words; and if I made no answer, it was perhaps because I was guilty, and had nothing to say.

You have sighed over my dejection for months past, dear friend, but it has vanished with the tidings I have just received I am ready to rush out into the storm, bold and defiant as Ajax!"

"Oh, how it rejoices my heart to hear such words!" replied Lacy, pressing Joseph's hand. "I recognize my hero, my emperor again, and victory is throned upon his n.o.ble brow! With those flas.h.i.+ng eyes, and that triumphant bearing, you will inspire your Austrians with such enthusiasm, that every man of them will follow whithersoever his commander leads!"

"Ah," cried Joseph, joyfully, "you have guessed, then, why I requested your presence here! Yes, Lacy, war is not only welcome to you and to me, but I know that it will also rejoice the hearts of the Austrian army.

And now I invite you to accompany me on my campaign against the Turks, and I give you chief command of my armies; for your valor and patriotism ent.i.tle you to the distinction."

"Your majesty knows that my life is consecrated to your service,"

replied Laoy, with strong emotion. "You know with what pride I would fight at your side, secure that victory must always perch upon the banners of my gallant emperor."

"And you rejoice, do you not, Lacy, that our foe is to be the Moslem?"

Lacy was silent for a while. "I should rejoice from my soul." replied he, with some hesitation, "if Austria were fighting her own battles."

"Our ally is distasteful to you?" asked Joseph, laughing. "You have not yet learned to love Russia?"

"I have no right to pa.s.s judgment upon those whom your majesty has deemed worthy of your alliance, sire."

"No evasions, Lacy. You are pledged to truth when you enter these palace walls."

"Well, sire, if we are in the palace of truth, I must confess to a prejudice against Russia, and Russia's empress. Catharine calls for your majesty's a.s.sistance, not to further the cause of justice or of right, but to aid her in making new conquests."

"I shall not permit her to make any new conquests!" cried Joseph. "She may fight out her quarrel with Turkey, and, so far, I shall keep my promise and sustain her. But I shall lend my sanction to none of her ambitious schetney. I suffered the Porte to code Tauris to Catharine, because this cession was of inestimable advantage to me. It protected my boundaries from the Turk himself, and then it produced dissension between the courts of St. Petersburg and Berlin and so deprived the latter of leer powerful ally. [Footnote: The emperor's own words.--See.

Gross-Hofflnger, iii., pp. 428, 429.] But having permitted Russia to take possession of the Crimea, the aspect of affairs is changed. I never shall suffer the Russians to establish themselves in Constantinople. The turban I conceive to be a safer neighbor for Austria than the bat.

[Footnote: The emperor's own words.--See" Letters of Joseph ll.," p.

135.] At this present time Russia offers me the opportunity of retaking Belgrade, and avenging the humiliation sustained by my father at the hands of the Porte. For two hundred years these barbarians of the East have been guilty of bad faith toward my ancestors, and the time has arrived when, as the avenger of all mankind, I shall deliver Europe from the infidel, and the world from a race which for centuries has been the scourge of every Christian nation."

"And in this glorious struggle of Christianity and civilization against Islamism and barbarism, I shall be at my emperor's side, and witness his triumph! This is a privilege which the last drop of my blood would be inadequate to buy!"

The emperor again gave his hand. "I knew that you would be as glad to follow me as a war-horse to follow the trumpet's call. This time we shall have no child's play; it shall be war, grim, b.l.o.o.d.y war! And now to work. In one hour the courier must depart, who bears my manifesto to the Porte. No, Lacy," continued the emperor, as Lacy prepared to leave, "do not go. As commander-in-chief, you should be thoroughly acquainted with the premises of our affair with Turkey, and you must hear both the manifestoes which I an about to dictate. The first, of course, declares war against the Porte. The second is, perhaps, a mere letter to the successor of the great Frederick. His majesty of Prussia, foreseeing, in his extreme wisdom, that I am likely to declare war against Turkey, is so condescending as to offer himself as mediator between us! You shall hear my answer, and tell me what you think of it."

Lacy bowed, and the emperor opening the door leading to the chancery, beckoned to his private secretary. He entered, took his seat, and held his pen ready to indite what Joseph should dictate. Lacy retired to the embrasure of a window, and with his arms crossed stood partly hidden by the heavy crimson velvet curtains, his eyes fixed upon leis idolized sovereign.

Joseph went restlessly to and fro, and dictated his manifesto to the Porte. Referring to his alliance with Russia, and the failure of his attempts at intervention, he went on to say that as the sincere friend and ally of the empress, he was compelled to fulfil his obligations, and reluctantly to take part in the war which Catharine had declared against Turkey. [Footnote: Hubner. ii., p. 468.]

"Now," said the emperor, "take another sheet and write 'To his majesty, the King of Prussia.'"