It was now mid-winter. But the iron-nerved Frederic, undismayed by these terrible reverses, collected the scattered fragments of his army, and, finding himself at the head of thirty thousand men, advanced to Breslau in the desperate attempt to regain his capital. His force was so inconsiderable as to excite the ridicule of the Austrians. Upon the approach of Frederic, Prince Charles, disdaining to hide behind the ramparts of the city on the defensive, against a foe thus insulting him with inferior numbers, marched to meet the Prussians. The interview between Prince Charles and Frederic was short but very decisive, lasting only from the hour of dinner to the going down of a December's sun. The twilight of the wintry day had not yet come when seven thousand Austrians were lying mangled in death on the blood-stained snow. Twenty thousand were made prisoners. All the baggage of the Austrian army, the military chest, one hundred and thirty-four pieces of cannon, and fifty-nine standards fell into the hands of the victors. For this victory Frederic paid the price of five thousand lives; but life to the poor Prussian soldier must have been a joyless scene, and death must have been a relief.
Frederic now, with triumphant banners, approached the city. It immediately capitulated, surrendering nearly eighteen thousand soldiers, six hundred and eighty-six officers and thirteen generals as prisoners of war. In this one storm of battle, protracted through but a few days, Maria Theresa lost fifty thousand men. Frederic then turned upon the Russians, and drove them out of Silesia. The same doom awaited the Swedes, and they fled precipitately to winter quarters behind the cannon of Stralsund. Thus terminated the memorable campaign of 1757, the most memorable of the Seven Years' War. The Austrian army was almost annihilated; but the spirit of the strife was not subdued in any breast.
The returning sun of spring was but the harbinger of new woes for war-stricken Europe. England, being essentially a maritime power, could render Frederic but little assistance in troops; but the cabinet of St. James was lavish in voting money. Encouraged by the vigor Frederic had shown, the British cabinet, with enthusiasm, voted him an annual subsidy of three million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Austria was so exhausted in means and in men, that notwithstanding the most herculean efforts of the queen, it was not until April of the year 1758 that she was able to concentrate fifty thousand men in the field, with the expensive equipments which war demands. Frederic, aided by the gold of England, was early on the move, and had already opened the campaign by the invasion of Moravia, and by besieging Olmutz.
The summer was passed in a series of incessant battles, sweeping all over Germany, with the usual vicissitudes of war. In the great battle of Hockkirchen Frederic encountered a woful defeat. The battle took place on the 14th of October, and lasted five hours. Eight thousand Austrians and nine thousand Prussians were stretched lifeless upon the plain. Frederic was at last compelled to retreat, abandoning his tents, his baggage, one hundred and one cannon, and thirty standards. Nearly every Prussian general was wounded. The king himself was grazed by a ball; his horse was shot from under him, and two pages were killed at his side.
Again Vienna blazed with illuminations and rang with rejoicing, and the queen liberally dispensed her gifts and her congratulations. Still nothing effectual was accomplished by all this enormous expenditure of treasure, this carnage and woe; and again the exhausted combatants retired to seek shelter from the storms of winter. Thus terminated the third year of this cruel and wasting war.
The spring of 1759 opened brightly for Maria Theresa. Her army, flushed by the victory of the last autumn, was in high health and spirits. All the allies of Austria redoubled their exertions; and the Catholic States of Germany with religious zeal rallied against the two heretical kingdoms of Prussia and England. The armies of France, Austria, Sweden and Russia were now marching upon Prussia, and it seemed impossible that the king could withstand such adversaries. More fiercely than ever the storm of war raged. Frederic, at the head of forty thousand men, early in June met eighty thousand Russians and Austrians upon the banks of the Oder, near Frankfort. For seven hours the action lasted, and the allies were routed with enormous slaughter; but the king, pursuing his victory too far with his exhausted troops, was turned upon by the foe, and was routed himself in turn, with the slaughter of one half of his whole army. Twenty-four thousand of the allies and twenty thousand Prussians perished on that bloody day.
Frederic exposed his person with the utmost recklessness. Two horses were shot beneath him; several musket balls pierced his clothes; he was slightly wounded, and was rescued from the foe only by the almost superhuman exertions of his hussars. In the darkness of the night the Prussians secured their retreat.
We have mentioned that at first Frederic seemed to have gained the victory. So sanguine was he then of success that he dispatched a courier from the field, with the following billet to the queen at Berlin:—
"We have driven the enemy from their intrenchments; in two hours expect to hear of a glorious victory."
Hardly two hours had elapsed ere another courier was sent to the queen with the following appalling message:—
"Remove from Berlin with the royal family. Let the archives be carried to Potsdam, and the capital make conditions with the enemy."
In this terrible battle the enemy lost so fearfully that no effort was made to pursue Frederic. Disaster never disheartened the Prussian king. It seemed but to rouse anew his energies. With amazing vigor he rallied his scattered forces, and called in reënforcements. The gold of England was at his disposal; he dismantled distant fortresses and brought their cannon into the field, and in a few days was at the head of twenty-eight thousand men, beneath the walls of his capital, ready again to face the foe.
The thunderings of battle continued week after week, in unintermitted roar throughout nearly all of Germany. Winter again came. Frederic had suffered awfully during the campaign, but was still unsubdued. The warfare was protracted even into the middle of the winter. The soldiers, in the fields, wading through snow a foot deep, suffered more from famine, frost and sickness than from the bullet of the foe. In the Austrian army four thousand died, in sixteen days of December, from the inclemency of the weather. Thus terminated the campaign of 1759.
Desolations of War.—Disasters of Prussia.—Despondency of Frederic.—Death of the Empress Elizabeth.—Accession of Paul III.—Assassination of Paul III.—Accession of Catharine.—Discomfiture of the Austrians.—Treaty of Peace.—Election of Joseph to the Throne of the Empire.—Death of Francis.—Character of Francis.—Anecdotes.—Energy of Maria Theresa.—Poniatowski.—Partition of Poland.—Maria Theresa as a Mother.—War With Bavaria.—Peace.—Death of Maria Theresa.—Family of the Empress.—Accession of Joseph II.—His Character.
The spring of 1760 found all parties eager for the renewal of the strife, but none more so than Maria Theresa. The King of Prussia was, however, in a deplorable condition. The veteran army, in which he had taken so much pride, was now annihilated. With despotic power he had assembled a new army; but it was composed of peasants, raw recruits, but poorly prepared to encounter the horrors of war. The allies were marching against him with two hundred and fifty thousand men. Frederic, with his utmost efforts, could muster but seventy-five thousand, who, to use his own language, "were half peasants, half deserters from the enemy, soldiers no longer fit for service, but only for show."
Month after month passed away, during which the whole of Prussia presented the aspect of one wide field of battle. Frederic fought with the energies of desperation. Villages were everywhere blazing, squadrons charging, and the thunders of an incessant cannonade deafened the ear by night and by day. On the whole the campaign terminated in favor of Frederic; the allies being thwarted in all their endeavors to crush him. In one battle Maria Theresa lost twenty thousand men.
During the ensuing winter all the continental powers were again preparing for the resumption of hostilities in the spring, when the British people, weary of the enormous expenditures of the war, began to be clamorous for peace. The French treasury was also utterly exhausted. France made overtures to England for a cessation of hostilities; and these two powers, with peaceful overtures, addressed Maria Theresa. The queen, though fully resolved to prosecute the war until she should attain her object, thought it not prudent to reject outright such proposals, but consented to the assembling of a congress at Augsburg. Hostilities were not suspended during the meeting of the congress, and the Austrian queen was sanguine in the hope of being speedily able to crush her Prussian rival. Every general in the field had experienced such terrible disasters, and the fortune of war seemed so fickle, now lighting upon one banner and now upon another, that all parties were wary, practicing the extreme of caution, and disposed rather to act upon the defensive. Though not a single pitched battle was fought, the allies, outnumbering the Prussians, three to one, continually gained fortresses, intrenchments and positions, until the spirit even of Frederic was broken by calamities, and he yielded to despair. He no longer hoped to be able to preserve his empire, but proudly resolved to bury himself beneath its ruins. His despondency could not be concealed from his army, and his bravest troops declared that they could fight no longer.
Maria Theresa was elated beyond measure. England was withdrawing from Prussia. Frederic was utterly exhausted both as to money and men; one campaign more would finish the work, and Prussia would lie helpless at the feet of Maria Theresa, and her most sanguine anticipations would be realized. But the deepest laid plans of man are often thwarted by apparently the most trivial events. One single individual chanced to be taken sick and die. That individual was Elizabeth, the Empress of Russia. On the 5th of January, 1762, she was lying upon her bed an emaciate suffering woman, gasping in death. The departure of her last breath changed the fate of Europe.
Paul III., her nephew, who succeeded the empress, detested Maria Theresa, and often inveighed bitterly against her haughtiness and her ambition. On the contrary, he admired the King of Prussia. He had visited the court of Berlin, where he had been received with marked attention; and Frederic was his model of a hero. He had watched with enthusiastic admiration the fortitude and military prowess of the Prussian king, and had even sent to him many messages of sympathy, and had communicated to him secrets of the cabinet and their plans of operation. Now, enthroned as Emperor of Russia, without reserve he avowed his attachment to Frederic, and ordered his troops to abstain from hostilities, and to quit the Austrian army. At the same time he sent a minister to Berlin to conclude an alliance with the hero he so greatly admired. He even asked for himself a position in the Prussian army as lieutenant under Frederic.
The Swedish court was so intimately allied with that of St. Petersburg, that the cabinet of Stockholm also withdrew from the Austrian alliance, and thus Maria Theresa, at a blow, lost two of her most efficient allies. The King of Prussia rose immediately from his despondency, and the whole kingdom shared in his exultation and his joy. The Prussian troops, in conjunction with the Russians, were now superior to the Austrians, and were prepared to assume the offensive. But again Providence interposed. A conspiracy was formed against the Russian emperor, headed by his wife whom he had treated with great brutality, and Paul III. lost both his crown and his life, in July 1762, after a reign of less than six months.
Catharine II., wife of Paul III., with a bloody hand took the crown from the brow of her murdered husband and placed it upon her own head. She immediately dissolved the Prussian alliance, declared Frederic an enemy to the Prussian name, and ordered her troops, in coöperation with those of Austria, to resume hostilities against Frederic. It was an instantaneous change, confounding all the projects of man. The energetic Prussian king, before the Russian troops had time so to change their positions as to coöperate with the Austrians, assailed the troops of Maria Theresa with such impetuosity as to drive them out of Silesia. Pursuing his advantage Frederic overran Saxony, and then turning into Bohemia, drove the Austrians before him to the walls of Prague. Influenced by these disasters and other considerations, Catharine decided to retire from the contest. At the same time the Turks, excited by Frederic, commenced anew their invasion of Hungary. Maria Theresa was in dismay. Her money was gone. Her allies were dropping from her. The Turks were advancing triumphantly up the Danube, and Frederic was enriching himself with the spoils of Saxony and Bohemia. Influenced by these considerations she made overtures for peace, consenting to renounce Silesia, for the recovery of which province she had in vain caused Europe to be desolated with blood for so many years. A treaty of peace was soon signed, Frederic agreeing to evacuate Saxony; and thus terminated the bloody Seven Years' War.
Maria Theresa's eldest son Joseph was now twenty-three years of age. Her influence and that of the Emperor Francis was such, that they secured his election to succeed to the throne of the empire upon the death of his father. The emperor elect received the title of King of the Romans. The important election took place at Frankfort, on the 27th of May, 1764. The health of the Emperor Francis I., had for some time been precarious, he being threatened with apoplexy. Three months after the election of his son to succeed him upon the imperial throne, Francis was at Inspruck in the Tyrol, to attend the nuptials of his second son Leopold, with Maria Louisa, infanta of Spain. He was feeble and dejected, and longed to return to his home in Vienna. He imagined that the bracing air of the Tyrol did not agree with his health, and looking out upon the summits which tower around Inspruck exclaimed,
"Oh! if I could but once quit these mountains of the Tyrol."
On the morning of the 18th of August, his symptoms assumed so threatening a form, that his friends urged him to be bled. The emperor declined, saying,
"I am engaged this evening to sup with Joseph, and I will not disappoint him; but I will be blooded to-morrow."
The evening came, and as he was preparing to go and sup with his son, he dropped instantly dead upon the floor. Fifty-eight years was his allotted pilgrimage—a pilgrimage of care and toil and sorrow. Even when elevated to the imperial throne, his position was humiliating, being ever overshadowed by the grandeur of his wife. At times he felt this most keenly, and could not refrain from giving imprudent utterance to his mortification. Being at one time present at a levee, which the empress was giving to her subjects, he retired, in chagrin, from the imperial circle into a corner of the saloon, and took his seat near two ladies of the court. They immediately, in accordance with regal etiquette, rose.
"Do not regard me," said the emperor bitterly, and yet with an attempt at playfulness, "for I shall remain here until the court has retired, and shall then amuse myself in contemplating the crowd."
One of the ladies replied, "As long as your imperial majesty is present the court will be here."
"You are mistaken," rejoined the emperor, with a forced smile; "the empress and my children are the court. I am here only as a private individual."
Francis I., though an impotent emperor, would have made a very good exchange broker. He seemed to be fond of mercantile life, establishing manufactories, and letting out money on bond and mortgage. When the queen was greatly pressed for funds he would sometimes accept her paper, always taking care to obtain the most unexceptionable security. He engaged in a partnership with two very efficient men for farming the revenues of Saxony. He even entered into a contract to supply the Prussian army with forage, when that army was expending all its energies, during the Seven Years' War, against the troops of Maria Theresa. He judged that his wife was capable of taking care of herself. And she was. Notwithstanding these traits of character, he was an exceedingly amiable and charitable man, distributing annually five hundred thousand dollars for the relief of distress. Many anecdotes are related illustrative of the emperor's utter fearlessness of danger, and of the kindness of his heart. There was a terrible conflagration in Vienna. A saltpeter magazine was in flames, and the operatives exposed to great danger. An explosion was momentarily expected, and the firemen, in dismay, ventured but little aid. The emperor, regardless of peril, approached near the fire to give directions. His attendants urged him not thus to expose his person.
"Do not be alarmed for me," said the emperor, "think only of those poor creatures who are in such danger of perishing."
At another time a fearful inundation swept the valley of the Danube. Many houses were submerged in isolated positions, all but their roofs. In several cases the families had taken refuge on the tops of the houses, and had remained three days and three nights without food. Immense blocks of ice, swept down by the flood, seemed to render it impossible to convey relief to the sufferers. The most intrepid boatmen of the Danube dared not venture into the boiling surge. The emperor threw himself into a boat, seized the oars, and saying, "My example may at least influence others," pushed out into the flood and successfully rowed to one of the houses. The boatmen were shamed into heroism, and the imperiled people were saved.
Maria Theresa does not appear to have been very deeply afflicted by the death of her husband; or we should, perhaps, rather say that her grief assumed the character which one would anticipate from a person of her peculiar frame of mind. The emperor had not been faithful to his kingly spouse, and she was well acquainted with his numerous infidelities. Still she seems affectionately to have cherished the memory of his gentle virtues. With her own hands she prepared his shroud, and she never after laid aside her weeds of mourning. She often descended into the vault where his remains were deposited, and passed hours in prayer by the side of his coffin.
Joseph, of course, having been preëlected, immediately assumed the imperial crown. Maria Theresa had but little time to devote to grief. She had lost Silesia, and that was a calamity apparently far heavier than the death of her husband. Millions of treasure, and countless thousands of lives had been expended, and all in vain, for the recovery of that province. She now began to look around for territory she could grasp in compensation for her loss. Poland was surrounded by Austria, Russia and Prussia. The population consisted of two classes—the nobles who possessed all the power, and the people who were in a state of the most abject feudal vassalage. By the laws of Poland every person was a noble who was not engaged in any industrial occupation and who owned any land, or who had descended from those who ever had held any land. The government was what may perhaps be called an aristocratic republic. The masses were mere slaves. The nobles were in a state of political equality. They chose a chieftain whom they called king, but whose power was a mere shadow. At this time Poland was in a state of anarchy. Civil war desolated the kingdom, the nobles being divided into numerous factions, and fighting fiercely against each other. Catharine, the Empress of Russia, espoused the cause of her favorite, Count Poniatowski, who was one of the candidates for the crown of Poland, and by the influence of her money and her armies placed him upon the throne and maintained him there. Poland thus, under the influence of the Russian queen, became, as it were, a mere province of the Russian empire.
Poniatowski, a proud man, soon felt galled by the chains which Catharine threw around him. Frederic of Prussia united with Catharine in the endeavor to make Poniatowski subservient to their wishes. Maria Theresa eagerly put in her claim for influence in Poland. Thus the whole realm became a confused scene of bloodshed and devastation. Frederic of Prussia, the great regal highwayman, now proposed to Austria and Russia that they should settle all the difficulty by just dividing Poland between them. To their united armies Poland could present no resistance. Maria Theresa sent her dutiful son Joseph, the emperor, to Silesia, to confer with Frederic upon this subject. The interview took place at Neiss, on the 25th of August, 1769. The two sovereigns vied with each other in the interchange of courtesies, and parted most excellent friends. Soon after, they held another interview at Neustadt, in Moravia, when the long rivalry between the houses of Hapsburg and Brandenburg seemed to melt down into most cordial union. The map of Poland was placed before the two sovereigns, and they marked out the portion of booty to be assigned to each of the three imperial highwaymen. The troops of Russia, Austria and Prussia were already in Poland. The matter being thus settled between Prussia and Austria, the Prussian king immediately conferred with Catharine at St. Petersburg. This ambitious and unprincipled woman snatched at the bait presented, and the infamous partition was agreed to. Maria Theresa was very greedy, and demanded nearly half of Poland as her share. This exorbitant claim, which she with much pertinacity adhered to, so offended the two other sovereigns that they came near fighting about the division of the spoil. The queen was at length compelled to lower her pretensions. The final treaty was signed between the three powers on the 5th of August, 1772.
The three armies were immediately put in motion, and each took possession of that portion of the Polish territory which was assigned to its sovereign. In a few days the deed was done. By this act Austria received an accession of twenty-seven thousand square miles of the richest of the Polish territory, containing a population of two million five hundred thousand souls. Russia received a more inhospitable region, embracing forty-two thousand square miles, and a population of one million five hundred thousand. The share of Frederic amounted to thirteen thousand three hundred and seventy-five square miles, and eight hundred and sixty thousand souls.
Notwithstanding this cruel dismemberment, there was still a feeble Poland left, upon which the three powers were continually gnawing, each watching the others, and snarling at them lest they should get more than their share. After twenty years of jealous watchings the three powers decided to finish their infamous work, and Poland was blotted from the map of Europe. In the two divisions Austria received forty-five thousand square miles and five million of inhabitants. Maria Theresa was now upon the highest pinnacle of her glory and her power. She had a highly disciplined army of two hundred thousand men; her treasury was replenished, and her wide-spread realms were in the enjoyment of peace. Life had been to her, thus far, but a stormy sea, and weary of toil and care, she now hoped to close her days in tranquillity.
The queen was a stern and stately mother. While pressed by all these cares of state, sufficient to have crushed any ordinary mind, she had given birth to sixteen children. But as each child was born it was placed in the hands of careful nurses, and received but little of parental caressings. It was seldom that she saw her children more than once a week. Absorbed by high political interests, she contented herself with receiving a daily report from the nursery. Every morning her physician, Van Swieter, visited the young imperial family, and then presented a formal statement of their condition to the strong-minded mother. Yet the empress was very desirous of having it understood that she was the most faithful of parents. Whenever any foreign ambassador arrived at Vienna, the empress would contrive to have an interview, as it were by accident, when she had collected around her her interesting family. As the illustrious stranger retired the children also retired to their nursery.
One of the daughters, Josepha, was betrothed to the King of Naples. A few days before she was to leave Vienna the queen required her, in obedience to long established etiquette, to descend into the tomb of her ancestors and offer up a prayer. The sister-in-law, the Emperor Joseph's wife, had just died of the small-pox, and her remains, disfigured by that awful disease, had but recently been deposited in the tomb. The timid maiden was horror-stricken at the requirement, and regarded it as her death doom. But an order from Maria Theresa no one was to disobey. With tears filling her eyes, she took her younger sister, Maria Antoinette, upon her knee, and said,
"I am about to leave you, Maria, not for Naples, but to die. I must visit the tomb of our ancestors, and I am sure that I shall take the small-pox, and shall soon be buried there." Her fears were verified. The disease, in its most virulent form, seized her, and in a few days her remains were also consigned to the tomb.
In May, 1770, Maria Antoinette, then but fifteen years of age, and marvelously beautiful, was married to the young dauphin of France, subsequently the unhappy Louis XVI. As she left Vienna, for that throne from which she was to descend to the guillotine, her mother sent by her hand the following letter to her husband:
"Your bride, dear dauphin, is separated from me. As she has ever been my delight so will she be your happiness. For this purpose have I educated her; for I have long been aware that she was to be the companion of your life. I have enjoined upon her, as among her highest duties, the most tender attachment to your person, the greatest attention to every thing that can please or make you happy. Above all, I have recommended to her humility towards God, because I am convinced that it is impossible for us to contribute to the happiness of the subjects confided to us, without love to Him who breaks the scepters and crushes the thrones of kings according to His own will."
In December, 1777, the Duke of Bavaria died without male issue. Many claimants instantly rose, ambitious of so princely an inheritance. Maria Theresa could not resist the temptation to put in her claim. With her accustomed promptness, she immediately ordered her troops in motion, and, descending from Bohemia, entered the electorate. Maria Theresa had no one to fear but Frederic of Prussia, who vehemently remonstrated against such an accession of power to the empire of Austria. After an earnest correspondence the queen proposed that Bavaria should be divided between them as they had partitioned Poland. Still they could not agree, and the question was submitted to the cruel arbitrament of battle. The young Emperor Joseph was much pleased with this issue, for he was thirsting for military fame, and was proud to contend with so renowned an antagonist. The death of hundreds of thousands of men in the game of war, was of little more moment to him than the loss of a few pieces in a game of chess.
The Emperor Joseph was soon at the head of one hundred thousand men. The King of Prussia, with nearly an equal force, marched to meet him. Both commanders were exceedingly wary, and the whole campaign was passed in maneuvers and marchings, with a few unimportant battles. The queen was weary of war, and often spoke, with tears in her eyes, of the commencement of hostilities. Without the knowledge of her son, who rejoiced in the opening strife, she entered into a private correspondence with Frederic, in which she wrote, by her secret messenger, M. Thugut:
"I regret exceedingly that the King of Prussia and myself, in our advanced years, are about to tear the gray hairs from each other's heads. My age, and my earnest desire to maintain peace are well known. My maternal heart is alarmed for the safety of my sons who are in the army. I take this step without the knowledge of my son the emperor, and I entreat that you will not divulge it. I conjure you to unite your efforts with mine to reëstablish harmony."
The reply of Frederic was courteous and beautiful. "Baron Thugut," he wrote, "has delivered me your majesty's letter, and no one is, or shall be acquainted with his arrival. It was worthy of your majesty to give such proofs of moderation, after having so heroically maintained the inheritance of your ancestors. The tender attachment you display for your son the emperor, and the princes of your blood, deserves the applause of every heart, and augments, if possible, the high consideration I entertain for your majesty. I have added some articles to the propositions of M. Thugut, most of which have been allowed, and others which, I hope, will meet with little difficulty. He will immediately depart for Vienna, and will be able to return in five or six days, during which time I will act with such caution that your imperial majesty may have no cause of apprehension for the safety of any part of your family, and particularly of the emperor, whom I love and esteem, although our opinions differ in regard to the affairs of Germany."
But the Emperor Joseph was bitterly opposed to peace, and thwarted his mother's benevolent intentions in every possible way. Still the empress succeeded, and the articles were signed at Teschen, the 13th day of May, 1779. The queen was overjoyed at the result, and was often heard to say that no act of her administration had given her such heartfelt joy. When she received the news she exclaimed,
"My happiness is full. I am not partial to Frederic, but I must do him the justice to confess that he has acted nobly and honorably. He promised me to make peace on reasonable terms, and he has kept his word. I am inexpressibly happy to spare the effusion of so much blood."
The hour was now approaching when Maria Theresa was to die. She had for some time been failing from a disease of the lungs, and she was now rapidly declining. Her sufferings, as she took her chamber and her bed, became very severe; but the stoicism of her character remained unshaken. In one of her seasons of acute agony she exclaimed,
"God grant that these sufferings may soon terminate, for, otherwise, I know not if I can much longer endure them."
Her son Maximilian stood by her bed-side. She raised her eyes to him and said,
"I have been enabled thus far to bear these pangs with firmness and constancy. Pray to God, my son, that I may preserve my tranquillity to the last."
The dying hour, long sighed for, came. She partook of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and then, assembling her family around her, addressed to them her last words.
"I have received the sacraments," said she, "and feel that I am now to die." Then addressing the emperor, she continued, "My son, all my possessions after my death revert to you. To your care I commend my children. Be to them a father. I shall die contented, you giving me that promise." Then looking to the other children she added, "Regard the emperor as your sovereign. Obey him, respect him, confide in him, and follow his advice in all things, and you will secure his friendship and protection."
Her mind continued active and intensely occupied with the affairs of her family and of her kingdom, until the very last moment. During the night succeeding her final interview with her children, though suffering from repeated fits of suffocation, she held a long interview with the emperor upon affairs of state. Her son, distressed by her evident exhaustion, entreated her to take some repose; but she replied,
"In a few hours I shall appear before the judgment-seat of God; and would you have me lose my time in sleep?"
Expressing solicitude in behalf of the numerous persons dependent upon her, who, after her death, might be left friendless, she remarked,
"I could wish for immortality on earth, for no other reason than for the power of relieving the distressed."
She died on the 29th of November, 1780, in the sixty-fourth year of her age and the forty-first of her reign.
This illustrious woman had given birth to six sons and ten daughters. Nine of these children survived her. Joseph, already emperor, succeeded her upon the throne of Austria, and dying childless, surrendered the crown to his next brother Leopold. Ferdinand, the third son, became governor of Austrian Lombardy. Upon Maximilian was conferred the electorate of Cologne. Mary Anne became abbess of a nunnery. Christina married the Duke of Saxony. Elizabeth entered a convent and became abbess. Caroline married the King of Naples, and was an infamous woman. Her sister Joanna, was first betrothed to the king, but she died of small-pox; Josepha was then destined to supply her place; but she also fell a victim to that terrible disease. Thus the situation was vacant for Caroline. Maria Antoinette married Louis the dauphin, and the story of her woes has filled the world.
The Emperor Joseph II., who now inherited the crown of Austria, was forty years of age, a man of strong mind, educated by observation and travel, rather than by books. He was anxious to elevate and educate his subjects, declaring that it was his great ambition to rule over freemen. He had many noble traits of character, and innumerable anecdotes are related illustrative of his energy and humanity. In war he was ambitious of taking his full share of hardship, sleeping on the bare ground and partaking of the soldiers' homely fare. He was exceedingly popular at the time of his accession to the throne, and great anticipations were cherished of a golden age about to dawn upon Austria. "His toilet," writes one of his eulogists, "is that of a common soldier, his wardrobe that of a sergeant, business his recreation, and his life perpetual motion."
The Austrian monarchy now embraced one hundred and eighty thousand square miles, containing twenty-four millions of inhabitants. It was indeed a heterogeneous realm, composed of a vast number of distinct nations and provinces, differing in language, religion, government, laws, customs and civilization. In most of these countries the feudal system existed in all its direful oppression. Many of the provinces of the Austrian empire, like the Netherlands, Lombardy and Suabia, were separated by many leagues from the great central empire. The Roman Catholic religion was dominant in nearly all the States, and the clergy possessed enormous wealth and power. The masses of the people were sunk in the lowest depths of poverty and ignorance. The aristocratic few rejoiced in luxury and splendor.
Accession of Joseph II.—His Plans of Reform.—Pius VI.—Emancipation of the Serfs.—Joseph's Visit to his Sister, Maria Antoinette.—Ambitions Designs.—The Imperial Sleigh Ride.—Barges on the Dneister.—Excursion to the Crimea.—War with Turkey.—Defeat of the Austrians.—Great Successes.—Death of Joseph.—His Character.—Accession of Leopold II.—His Efforts to confirm Despotism.—The French Revolution.—European Coalition.—Death of Leopold.—His Profligacy.—Accession of Francis II.—Present Extent and Power of Austria.—Its Army.—Policy of the Government.
When Joseph ascended the throne there were ten languages, besides several dialects, spoken in Austria—the German, Hungarian, Sclavonian, Latin, Wallachian, Turkish, modern Greek, Italian, Flemish and French. The new king formed the desperate resolve to fuse the discordant kingdom into one homogeneous mass, obliterating all distinctions of laws, religion, language and manners. It was a benevolent design, but one which far surpassed the power of man to execute. He first attempted to obliterate all the old national landmarks, and divided the kingdom into thirteen States, in each of which he instituted the same code of laws. He ordered the German language alone to be used in public documents and offices; declared the Roman Catholic religion to be dominant. There were two thousand convents in Austria. He reduced them to seven hundred, and cut down the number of thirty-two thousand idle monks to twenty-seven hundred; and nobly issued an edict of toleration, granting to all members of Protestant churches the free exercise of their religion. All Christians, of every denomination, were declared to be equally eligible to any offices in the State.
These enlightened innovations roused the terror and rage of bigoted Rome. Pope Pius VI. was so much alarmed that he took a journey to Vienna, that he might personally remonstrate with the emperor. But Joseph was inflexible, and the Pope returned to Rome chagrined and humiliated that he had acted the part of a suppliant in vain.
The serfs were all emancipated from feudal vassalage, and thus, in an hour, the slavery under which the peasants had groaned for ages was abolished. He established universities, academies and public schools; encouraged literature and science in every way, and took from the priests their office of censorship of the press, an office which they had long held. To encourage domestic manufactures he imposed a very heavy duty upon all articles of foreign manufacture. New roads were constructed at what was called enormous expense, and yet at expense which was as nothing compared with the cost of a single battle.
Joseph, soon after his coronation, made a visit to his sister Maria Antoinette in France, where he was received with the most profuse hospitality, and the bonds of friendship between the two courts were much strengthened. The ambition for territorial aggrandizement seems to have been an hereditary disease of the Austrian monarchs. Joseph was very anxious to attach Bavaria to his realms. Proceeding with great caution he first secured, by diplomatic skill, the non-intervention of France and Russia. England was too much engaged in the war of the American Revolution to interfere. He raised an army of eighty thousand men to crush any opposition, and then informed the Duke of Bavaria that he must exchange his dominions for the Austrian Netherlands. He requested the duke to give him an answer in eight days, but declared peremptorily that in case he manifested any reluctance, the emperor would be under the painful necessity of compelling him to make the exchange.
The duke appealed to Russia, France and Prussia for aid. The emperor had bought over Russia and France. Frederic of Prussia, though seventy-four years of age, encouraged the duke to reject the proposal, and promised his support. The King of Prussia issued a remonstrance against this despotic act of Austria, which remonstrance was sent to all the courts of Europe. Joseph, on encountering this unexpected obstacle, and finding Europe combining against him, renounced his plan and published a declaration that he had never intended to effect the exchange by force. This disavowal, however, deceived no one. A confederacy was soon formed, under the auspices of Frederic of Prussia, to check the encroachments of the house of Austria. This Germanic League was almost the last act of Frederic. He died August 17, 1786, after a reign of forty-seven years, in the seventy-fifth year of his age.
The ambitious Empress of Russia, having already obtained the Crimea, was intent upon the subversion of the Ottoman empire, that she might acquire Constantinople as her maritime metropolis in the sunny south. Joseph was willing to allow her to proceed unobstructed in the dismemberment of Turkey, if she would not interfere with his plans of reform and aggrandizement in Germany.
In January, 1787, the Empress of Russia set out on a pleasure excursion of two thousand miles to the Crimea; perhaps the most magnificent pleasure excursion that was ever attempted. She was accompanied by all the court, by the French, English and Austrian ministers, and by a very gorgeous retinue. It was mid-winter, when the imperial party, wrapped in furs, and in large sledges richly decorated, and prepared expressly for the journey, commenced their sleigh ride of a thousand miles. Music greeted them all along the way; bonfires blazed on every hill; palaces, brilliant with illuminations and profusely supplied with every luxury, welcomed them at each stage where they stopped for refreshment or repose. The roads were put in perfect order; and relays of fresh horses every few miles being harnessed to the sledges, they swept like the wind over the hills and through the valleys.
The drive of a few weeks, with many loiterings for pleasure in the cities on the way, took them to Kief on the Dnieper. This ancient city, the residence of the grand dukes of Russia, contained a population of about twenty-six thousand. Here the imperial court established itself in the ducal palaces, and with music, songs and dances beguiled the days until, with the returning spring, the river opened. In the meantime an immense flotilla of imperial barges had been prepared to drift down the stream, a thousand miles, to its mouth at Kherson, where the river flows into the Black sea. These barges were of magnificent dimensions, floating palaces, containing gorgeous saloons and spacious sleeping apartments. As they were constructed merely to float upon the rapid current of the stream, impelled by sails when the breeze should favor, they could easily be provided with all the appliances of luxury. It is difficult to conceive of a jaunt which would present more of the attractions of pleasure, than thus to glide in saloons of elegance, with imperial resources and surrounded by youth, beauty, genius and rank, for a thousand miles down the current of one of the wildest and most romantic streams of Europe.
It was a beautiful sunny morning of May, when the regal party, accompanied by the music of military bands, and with floating banners, entered the barges. The river, broad and deep, rolls on with majestic flow, now through dense forests, black and gloomy, where the barking of the bear is heard and wolves hold their nightly carousals; now it winds through vast prairies hundreds of miles in extent; again it bursts through mountain barriers where cliffs and crags rise sublimely thousands of feet in the air; here with precipitous sides of granite, bleak and scathed by the storms of centuries, and there with gloomy firs and pines rising to the clouds, where eagles soar and scream and rear their young. Flocks and herds now graze upon the banks; here lies the scattered village, and its whole population, half civilized men, and matrons and maidens in antique, grotesque attire, crowd the shores. Now the pinnacles and the battlements of a great city rise to view. Armies were gathered at several points to entertain the imperial pleasure-party with all the pomp and pageantry of war. At Pultowa they witnessed the maneuverings of a battle, with its thunderings and uproar and apparent carnage—the exact representation of the celebrated battle of Pultowa, which Peter the Great gained on the spot over Charles XII. of Sweden.
The Emperor Joseph had been invited to join this party, and, with his court and retinue, was to meet them at Kherson, near the mouth of the Dneister, and accompany the empress to the Crimea. But, perhaps attracted by the splendor of the water excursion, he struck across the country in a north-east direction, by the way of Lemberg, some six hundred miles, to intercept the flotilla and join the party on the river. But the water of the river suddenly fell, and some hundred miles above Kherson, the flotilla ran upon a sand bar and could not be forced over. The empress, who was apprised of the approach of the emperor, too proud to be found in such a situation, hastily abandoned the flotilla, and taking the carriages which they had with them, drove to meet Joseph. The two imperial suites were soon united, and they swept on, a glittering cavalcade, to Kherson. Joseph and Catharine rode in a carriage together, where they had ample opportunity of talking over all their plans of mutual aggrandizement. As no one was permitted to listen to their conversations, their decisions can only be guessed at.
They entered the city of Kherson, then containing about sixty thousand inhabitants, surrounded by all the magnificence which Russian and Austrian opulence could exhibit. A triumphal arch spanned the gate, upon which was inscribed in letters of gold, "The road to Byzantium." Four days were passed here in revelry. The party then entered the Crimea, and continued their journey as far as Sevastopol, where the empress was delighted to find, within its capacious harbor, many Russian frigates at anchor. Immense sums were expended in furnishing entertainments by the way. At Batcheseria, where the two sovereigns occupied the ancient palace of the khans, they looked out upon a mountain in a blaze of illumination, and apparently pouring lava floods from its artificial volcanic crater.
Joseph returned to Vienna, and immediately there was war—Austria and Russia against Turkey. Joseph was anxious to secure the provinces of Bosnia, Servia, Moldavia and Wallachia, and to extend his empire to the Dneister. With great vigor he made his preparations, and an army of two hundred thousand men, with two thousand pieces of artillery, were speedily on the march down the Danube. Catharine was equally energetic in her preparations, and all the north of Europe seemed to be on the march for the overthrow of the Ottoman empire.
Proverbially fickle are the fortunes of war. Joseph commenced the siege of Belgrade with high hopes. He was ignominiously defeated, and his troops were driven, utterly routed, into Hungary, pursued by the Turks, who spread ruin and devastation widely around them. Disaster followed disaster. Disease entered the Austrian ranks, and the proud army melted away. The emperor himself, with about forty thousand men, was nearly surrounded by the enemy. He attempted a retreat by night. A false alarm threw the troops into confusion and terror. The soldiers, in their bewilderment fired upon each other, and an awful scene of tumult ensued. The emperor, on horseback, endeavored to rally the fugitives, but he was swept away by the crowd, and in the midnight darkness was separated from his suite. Four thousand men perished in this defeat, and much of the baggage and several guns were lost. The emperor reproached his aides-de-camp with having deserted him. One of them sarcastically replied,
"We used our utmost endeavors to keep up with your imperial majesty, but our horses were not so fleet as yours."
Seventy thousand Austrians perished in this one campaign. The next year, 1789, was, however, as prosperous as this had been adverse. The Turks at Rimnik were routed with enormous slaughter, and their whole camp, with all its treasures, fell into the hands of the victors. Belgrade was fiercely assailed and was soon compelled to capitulate. But Joseph was now upon his dying bed. The tidings of these successes revived him for a few hours, and leaving his sick chamber he was conveyed to the church of St. Stephen, where thanksgivings were offered to God. A festival of three days in Vienna gave expression to the public rejoicing.
England was now alarmed in view of the rapid strides of Austria and Russia, and the cabinet of St. James formed a coalition with Holland and Prussia to assist the Turks. France, now in the midst of her revolutionary struggle, could take no part in these foreign questions. These successes were, however, but a momentary gleam of sunshine which penetrated the chamber of the dying monarch. Griefs innumerable clustered around him. The inhabitants of the Netherlands rose in successful rebellion and threw off the Austrian yoke. Prussia was making immense preparations for the invasion of Austria. The Hungarians were rising and demanding emancipation from the court of Vienna. These calamities crushed the emperor. He moaned, and wept and died. In his last hours he found much solace in religious observances, devoutly receiving the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and passing much of his time in prayer. He died on the 20th of February, 1790, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the tenth of his reign.
Joseph had been sincerely desirous of promoting the best interests of his realms; but had been bitterly disappointed in the result of most of his efforts at reform. Just before he died, he said, "I would have engraven on my tomb, 'Here lies the sovereign who, with the best intentions, never carried a single project into execution.'" He was married twice, but both of his wives, in the prime of youth, fell victims to the small-pox, that awful disease which seems to have been a special scourge in the Austrian royal family. As Joseph II. died without children, the crown passed to his next brother, Leopold, who was then Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Leopold II., at his accession to the throne, was forty-three years of age. He hastened to Vienna, and assumed the government. By prudent acts of conciliation he succeeded in appeasing discontents, and soon accomplished the great object of his desire in securing the election to the imperial throne. He was crowned at Frankfort, October 9, 1790. With frankness very unusual in the diplomacy of kings, he sought friendly relations with all the neighboring powers. To Frederic William, who was now King of Prussia, he wrote:
"In future, I solemnly protest, no views of aggrandizement will ever enter into my political system. I shall doubtless employ all the means in my possession to defend my country, should I unfortunately be driven to such measures; but I will endeavor to give no umbrage. To your majesty in particular, I will act as you act towards me, and will spare no efforts to preserve perfect harmony."
To these friendly overtures, Frederic William responded in a similar spirit; but still there were unsettled points of dispute between the two kingdoms which threatened war, and large armies were gathered on their respective frontiers in preparation for the commencement of hostilities. In 1790, after much correspondence, they came to terms, and articles of peace were signed. At the same time an armistice was concluded with the Turks.
The spirit of liberty which had emancipated the colonies of North America from the aristocratic sway of England, shivering the scepter of feudal tyranny in France, had penetrated Hungary. Leopold was endeavoring to rivet anew the shackles of despotism, when he received a manly remonstrance from an assembly of Hungarians which had been convened as Pest. In the following noble terms they addressed the king.
"The fame, august sovereign, which has preceded you, has declared you a just and gracious prince. It says that you forget not that you are a man; that you are sensible that the king was made for the people, not the people for the king. From the rights of nations and of man, and from that social compact whence states arose, it is incontestable that the sovereignty originates from the people. This axiom, our parent Nature has impressed on the hearts of all. It is one of those which a just prince (and such we trust your majesty ever will be) can not dispute. It is one of those inalienable imprescriptible rights which the people can not forfeit by neglect or disuse. Our constitution places the sovereignty jointly in the king and people, in such a manner that the remedies necessary to be applied according to the ends of social life, for the security of persons and property, are in the power of the people.
"We are sure, therefore, that at the meeting of the ensuing diet, your majesty will not confine yourself to the objects mentioned in your rescript, but will also restore our freedom to us, in like manner as to the Belgians, who have conquered theirs with the sword. It would be an example big with danger, to teach the world that a people can only protect or regain their liberties by the sword and not by obedience."
But Leopold, trembling at the progress which freedom was making in France, determined to crush this spirit with an iron heel. Their petition was rejected with scorn and menace.