great honor; but I suppose my friend, the Princess Kinsky, may have mentioned me to the Empress. Thus inaugurated, the stay of Lady Mary in Vienna was a sort of debauch in royal and noble acquaintances. Princess Kinsky and her sister, Princess Clary, were two daughters of the house of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, the elder and Catholic branch of the great family of Hohenzollern, now extinct, and merged in the house of HohenzollernSigmaringen. These great ladies with Princess Colloredo, and the Countesses Thun and Pergen, formed the most distinguished members of society in the Austrian capital. The salon of Countess Thun (née Kaunitz) was especially delightful, but for some reason proved less congenial to Lady Mary than the Kinsky coterie, thanks to which fact, and to M. Dutens's gossiping, she managed to implicate herself in some of those quarrels of which the empressqueen was wont to complain, saying that in her court there were too many enfanuses et jalousies pour des riens. Vienna, Sunday, November 11, 1770. As you know my exactness, you may guess I got up early not to make the Princess Kinsky wait whatever time she called. It wanted about twenty minutes of ten o'clock when she came for me. We went first into the apartment of the Grande Maîtresse, and from thence to that of the Empress. Here we stayed some time with only the Ladys belonging to the Empress. The Emperor passed through the rooms, as did the Archdukes Ferdinand and Maximilian. The door of the outward room opened, and the Empress came in. Lady Strafford saw her in great beauty, but that the small-pox, and a great increase of fat has deprived her of. I don't mention her age, for everybody here affirms that till she had the small-pox she was extremely handsome. She is about my height, and though very fat not at all incumbered with it; a genteel slope, holds herself extremely well, and her air the most noble I ever saw -'tis still visible her features have been extremely fine and regular, though the swelling from the small-pox never quite gone down, and a little degree of redness remaining more spirit and sense in her eyes then I think I ever saw, and the most pleasing voice in speaking. This is the most exact picture that can be drawn. She was very gracious, and presented the Em peror and the Archdukes herself. The Emperor is much handsomer near than at a distance. . . . I forgot to mention the dress of the Empress. She is still in deep mourning, and intends to wear it all her life. Her own private apartment is hung with black cloth, and in the room where she sits she has the pictures of the Emperor (died 1765), and of all the children she has lost. I passed this evening with Madame Harrach. The Empress had been in the morning at a Concert at some distance from Vienna. One of her Chambellans came in and said she had been very merry and had laughed very much. Madame Harrach was quite happy to hear it, for since the Death of the Emperor, and the loss of so many of her children, the Empress had lost much of her gaiety. 'Tis incredible how much she is beloved. . . . According to my promise, I give you an account of the Court. The Princess Kinsky came for me about half an hour after six. She first coming into the room where the Empress sees the Company is a fine sight. At the upper end of the room is a canopy of gold and silver stuff, under which is placed the table where the Empress plays. The Chair is of velvet. A little before seven the Imperial Family came in. I think the Empress came last. I was on the other side of the Canopy from the door she came in at a circle was formed, but she only spoke to those who went forwards, and went no further than half way. She was then opposite the card table, which she went up to, took the cards, and gave one to the Princess Esterhazy, another to the Princess Lobkowitz, and a third to the Countess Sternberg, and with them Her Majesty sat down to the french picket. Having lost a game she got up. As she saw people she called them up to the table. She did me that honor. I went to the Grande Maîtresse, where I met my two friends the Princess Kinsky and Princess Clary; from thence at nine to Prince Kaunitz, and played at Lu, and lost 200 fish. The Princess d'Auersperg the other night lost 4,000, which is above 50 pounds English. I am referred to here for all the rules, as Lord Hertford is in England. . . . The eighteenth of every month the Empress passes in absolute retreat, as the Emperor dyed on the 18th of August, but on Friday the Emperor dines in public with all the knights of the order of the Toison d'or in their robes. They say 'tis a very fine sight, but as everybody is admitted I don't think I shall go. . . . I dined to-day with Ma dame Seilern. One of the dames de la Clé dined there: they take place of everybody. I have your letter of the 4th, and one of Lady Greenwich of the 8th. By the next post I imagine we shall have some news of the meeting of the Parliament, and probably of the war with Spain, for everybody here thinks it almost certain. . . . Everything one hears and sees raises one's admiration for the Emperor and Empress. The Emperor Joseph, though so young a man, has gone through many severe tryals, and in all of them has acted like an angel. The late Emperor died in his arms, he never left his first wife in her illness, but was constantly by her Bedside. Last year when he lost his little Daughter, he attended her in the same manner. When the Empress had the small-pox he remained in her room night and day, but I must stop short: if I was to tell you all I think of the Empress I should never finish. It is certain that no contemporary memoirs (and there is no lack of them) give so finished a miniature portrait of Maria Theresa as this. We say miniature, because Lady Mary was not strong enough to brosser, as the French say, a really great portrait. She was too egotistical, and she lacked both the sense of humor and the imagination which are requisite to enable us to understand our neighbor's character. But she is truthful. Mr. Swinburne's account of the empress, written nine years later, after the partition of Poland, and when the empress had grown graver and more unwieldy, is absolutely on the same lines as Lady Mary's, and as such testifies to her veracity. MacCailane Mohr's daughter, though enthusiastic in her likes and dislikes, naturally looked at things more as an outsider than did Mr. Swinburne, who had a nephew in the Austrian service, and whose wife, being a Catholic, could become a recipient of the much-valued ribbon of the croix étoilée. Perhaps because her judgment was and remained immature, Lady Mary has penned nothing so good as Swinburne's sketch of Count Kaunitz, with his wig and his curls, his constant want of money, his little, greedy habits, and his big, imperious temper; but in her journal, as, indeed, in the Swinburne papers, there to be found. In those days there was are not many directly political allusions no press to popularize news, and such allusions as passed from mouth to mouth at the court were cautiously vague. Thus, Lady Mary : January 9. There is something important going on at this Court, but what I can't tell you: for nothing transpires here. From the dates, this was probably the Polish question, since the partition was effected in the following year, and the agreement between the courts of Vienna and Berlin had been practically settled at an interview between the Emperor Joseph and Frederic the Great, at Neustadt, in September, 1770. Perhaps Maria Theresa could not quite forget how in 1683, John Sobieski, by his defeat of the Turks, delivered not only the city of Vienna from its besiegers, but freed Hungary from the Ottomans. It is said that to the very close of her life her conscience was uneasy as to the partition, and it is certain that her kind heart was not quite indifferent to the feelings of the noble Poles who surrounded her. When the whole court was assembled to go into the royal chapel, and assist at the Te Deum to be sung for the partition, the empress went up to Madame de Salmour (née Lubienski) and told her that she was excused from being present at the service. It may well be, then, that in the months that preceded this event Maria Theresa, whom Lady Mary describes as "always making a chain of red silk, which she told me is used for some kind of embroidery," found as she knotted ample food for grave meditation, whether her thoughts wandered from her skein of red silk to the position of the dauphiness in French society, or to that act which secured disquiet to the spoilers of Poland, and for the dismembered country prepared a century of plots and persecutions, of secret and of open rebellions against the most cruel of national wrongs. 4292 We must return to the winter of 1771: They say she is clever, and speaks her set out, and the Dauphiness. They tell me February 1.It has rained all night, frost and snow, and all hopes of the Course de Traineaux has vanished. I shall go to Madame de Harrach's this evening, and hear from her an account of the Ball. Great people always get rid of their disor-small-pox a few days before she was to have ders sooner than small ones: the Empress came into the Ballroom at the usual hour, looking extremely well and in very good humor, but returned to her apartment to give an audience to the French Minister. What his business was I cannot tell, but he looked rather in a bustle. The Empress came back in an hour, and the Emperor came in from the play, in appearance not in such good humor as the Empress. He went first to talk to the Princess Clary, who is one of his greatest favorites, and then went up to the Empress, with discontent in his countenance. If you are a politician, you may gather something from all this. This is a little like the important conversation reported by "Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs," and truly Lady Mary seems more at home in a long account of the course de traineaux: the ladies all in velvet and fur, the gentlemen with diamonds in their hats, while from the windows of Prince Colloredo's palace she saw twentyeight sledges, with running footmen to match. It was followed by the usual card party in the evening. Swinburne says of Princess Clary that "she lived by playing at cards," and Lady Mary, though she seems to have had no great losses herself, found her evenings pretty well occupied. I dine to-day with the Princess Esterhazy. I had no less than four invitations for today. The Princess told me she had been tasting for several days together different | sorts of Tokay for Lady Spencer, who had given her a commission to send some to England; but 'tis difficult to get it good, and all extremely dear. She told me they had asked 80 ducats for a small cask (more than 128. a bottle) — for a small cask that contains only sixty bottles. . . . I dined to-day with Madame Harrach. Her brother, who was one of the company, was a week at Holkham two months after I married. Tell Lord Strafford that the Archduchess, who was just born when he was here, I have had the honor of seeing twice. February 16, 1771. During Lent there are French sermons preached at the Chapel in the Palace. I believe I shall go there with Princess Kinsky. William III. having decided to leave to the court almoner the duty hitherto performed by English sovereigns of publicly feeding, clothing, and washing the feet of twelve poor men on Maunday Thursday, the ceremony, as Lady Mary Coke witnessed it at Vienna, was in every way new to her, though, by means of Sir David Wilkie's beautiful picture of the empress when on her kuces before the poor, it has become familiar to later generations of English people. I was dressed this morning at half an hour after nine o'clock to see the ceremony of the Emperor and Empress serving the poor and afterwards washing their feet. I went with the Princess Solkovsky, and she did not call till half an hour after ten. I feared we should have been too late, and the ceremony was begun, but very little of it was over. 'Twas performed in the great room where the Empress sees Company, where there are too (sic) tables, one for twelve old men, served by the Emperor and the Archdukes; the other for twelve old Women, served by the Empresses and the Archduchesses, all dressed in the great dress, with the addition of a black veil. I never saw the Empress look so graceful. She charmed me more to-day than ever. All the Ladys of the Court attended in black veils also. The Empress stood opposite to the three first old women, placed all the dishes upon the table, and took them off, but with a grace that is not to be de scribed; her manner of holding the napkin was so genteel, I could have looked at her forever, and if you had heard her talk to those three old women you would have been delighted. When I came up to the | till she has performed it all. When she table she said, "One of my oldest acquaint- has finished she gets up, and is presented ances is not here. She was taken ill this by one of the Ladys of the Court with a morning in church. She had come here ribbon to which hangs a purse, which she from the time of my Grandfather, the Em- puts over the head of each old woman, peror Leopold." She afterwards did me The Emperor does the same by the men ; the honor to tell me that she was not now they then all came to the Empress, who able to perform the rest of the function. rose up and retired. She had been, at She said her breath would not permit her, eight o'clock, in great form at one of the but added, My Daughter will do it." She Churches, to receive the Sacrament. then said, "but you should see the Emperor perform the ceremony." The Princess Solkovsky answered that we should not be able to get through the crowd. "Yes," said the Empress, "they will make room for you." Accordingly we went to the other side, where the Emperor was serving the twelve old men ; but I remarked he did not talk to them as the Empress did to the old women. The genial manner of Maria Theresa that day was not a pose put on for the occasion of the royal Maundy, for one spring she got a message from a pensioner, of one hundred and three years of age, regretting that, being now bedridden, she could not come as usual to the ceremony of feet-washing on Holy Thursday. The empress drove to the cottage next morning, and entered the cottage. "I am told," she said, "that you are uneasy at not being able to come to see me. I cannot give you strength; that is only in the power of God; but I do as much as I can, and am come to see you." The poor old woman tried to get out of bed to throw herself at her sovereign's feet; but the empress restrained her, sat with her for some time, and left a purse to se cure comforts for her old friend. Friday, April 5, 1771. I have this morning received the Empress's orders to attend her at six o'clock in the evening, in her own apartment. Madame Harrach goes with me. I never saw a finer day at this time of year. I leave Vienna with regret, and dread the thought of seeing the Empress this evening. If you knew the veneration I have for her, you would not be surprised that I am hurt with the idea of taking leave. You shall know what passes when I return. the Empress before the Audience, you may guess what I do now, after having been received with a degree of graciousness and goodness far beyond my expectation; and as everything she does is accompanied with a grace peculiar to herself, I own to you I was charmed in a manner that I don't know well how to express. If I admired I have not room in this journal to tell you half that she said. It must be reserved for another. At six o'clock Madame Harrach carried me to the Palace, and we were conducted to the Empress's apartment, where one of the Ladys, with the gold key mett us, and said her Majesty had somebody with her; but a page told the Lady the Empress had ordered as soon as I came that She should know: upon which Madame la Comtesse de Bertoli went to the door and scratched, upon which the door was immediately opened, the person dismissed, and I and The Emperor asked me whether the King Madame Harrach called in. The Lady did not perform the same ceremony in En- then retired. The Empress said: "I did gland, and seemed surprised when I told not expect you would have gone away so him he did not. I returned again to the soon: you have stayed all the bad weather, Empress, who was placing the second course and the climate seems to have agreed with upon the table. When she had taken it you, for you look better than when you off the table was removed, and she sat came." I answered Her Majesty that I down upon a stool. The Ladys of the left Vienna with the greatest regret, upon Court pulled off the shoes and stockings of which she said: "You have, then, nothing the old women, and one of the Chamber- to do but to return." Madame Harrach lains brought a great gilt dish (as in told her what I had said in the CoachWilkie's picture), and another held a ewer that my spirits were so low that I was with water. The eldest Archduchess then afraid of crying-to which the Empress kneeled down, washed, and kissed the feet said: "I am very glad you esteem me, of each old woman, going from one to the as you have seen the Apartment below, other upon her knees; for she is not to rise I will show you this ;" and she had the tell her- had sent her, and then said: "I will now carry you to a pair of stairs which will lead you to the apartment below," adding with great graciousness, "You'll stay to play" (there were cards that evening at Court). She then said: "If you go to Italy, or are accustomed to go to the Spa, the journey from there is inconsiderable." I told Her Majesty with great sincerity I would have taken a much longer journey to have the honor of seeing her upon which, to my great surprise, she took me in her arms and kissed me. We then parted. Thursday, April 11, 1771.-I was up and dressed before six o'clock, and waited till seven for the horses. The weather was fine, and the roads could not have been better. I lay at a place called Kemelbach: one post further than where the Dauphiness lay last year when the Empress and the whole Court went with her the first day's journey. condescension to go with me into all the rooms, to show me every thing in them, to tell me all the pictures, and when we came into the room that had been described to me She said: "These are the pictures of all my family that are dead”—mentioned | me a very fine commode the Dauphiness all their names, and, when she came to the Emperor's (Francis of Lorraine), She said, “Madame d'Harrach will tell you that nothing can be liker than this picture." In the same room where the Empress had made me remark the picture of the late Emperor there were pictures of her Mother and Father, and in one picture three Children of the Empress, none of them seeming to be older than two or three years; and over one of the doors the Empress showed me the picture of the Lady (the Comtesse de Fuchs) who had brought her up, and whose head she held for almost three days together when she was dying. From that room she carried me into another, where she said she did all her business; and here personne entre impunimen: these were her words, and I thought it better not to translate them. From thence Her Majesty brought me into a room which She told me was the work of her Mother. It was composed of drawings cut outsmall figures, etc. placed by her according to her fancy, with japan over it. This was part of her employment during the years that she was confined to her chair. The next room was the Empresses bedchamber, hung with grey damask, and a grey damask bed. The room is very large, and On Tuesday I arrived at Paris. Thurson one side a door opens to a small Chapel, day. — While I was dressing I was surprised which the Empress showed me. In a cor- by a visit from Madame de Geoffrin. . . ner of the room on the side of the bed is She is a lady that has been much talked of, an urn of porcelain, one of the finest things and I was glad to have an opportunity of af the kind I ever saw. On the pedestal of seeing her: I found her alone. Our conthe urn sits a figure weeping, and round the versation turned naturally upon Vienna: urn hangs a chain which is fastened to the Empress, the Princess Kinsky. I found the orders of the late Emperor, and the her perfectly au fait of all the characters, crown and arms, etc. The Empress desired yet, I believe, she stayed there but a short me to look at it, and this was the only time time. . . . From Madame de Geoffrin I she sat down, placing herself on one side went to my friend Madame de Rocheof the urn. When she thought I had suffi- chouart, who, I am sure, was glad to see ciently examined it, She rose up, and told me. She thinks I ought to go to the Daume she would show me the pictures of the phiness, and said if she had not been King and Queen of Naples. . . . The next obliged to go to the country, she would have room was gayer than any in the apartment: gone with me to Versailles. She is per it was ornamented with carving and gild- suaded, she said, that the Dauphiness would ing, glaces, tables, etc., and all the Impe- be very glad to see me, and there is nothing rial Family's pictures that are now living. easier than going to see her in private. She The Empress told me it was the room where admires her of all things. 'Tis certain the they dined. When she showed me the pic- Empress meant me to see her; but I shall ture of the Dauphiness She did me the honor wait a few days, as I expect the Imperial to say, "As you are going to Paris, you'll | Ambassador will come to me, and perhaps It is evident that Lady Mary's thoughts were already turning to the court of Marie Antoinette, to the beautiful young dauphiness, who was the pride of Paris and of Vienna. We are, therefore, prepared to read as follows: |