“Policy, in sovereigns, is paramount to every other consideration.  They regard beauty as a source of profit, like managers of theatres, who, when a female candidate is offered, ask whether she is young and handsome,—­not whether she has talent.  Maria Theresa believed that her daughter’s beauty would prove more powerful over France than her own armies.  Like Catharine ii., her envied contemporary, she consulted no ties of nature in the disposal of her children,—­a system more in character where the knout is the logician than among nations boasting higher civilization:  indeed her rivalry with Catharine even made her grossly neglect their education.  Jealous of the rising power of the North, she saw that it was the purpose of Russia to counteract her views in Poland and Turkey through France, and so totally forgot her domestic duties in the desire to thwart the ascendency of Catharine that she often suffered eight or ten days to go by without even seeing her children, allowing even the essential sources of instruction to remain unprovided.  Her very caresses were scarcely given but for display, when the children were admitted to be shown to some great personage; and if they were overwhelmed with kindness, it was merely to excite a belief that they were the constant care and companions of her leisure hours.  When they grew up they became the mere instruments of her ambition.  The fate of one of them will show how their mother’s worldliness was rewarded.

“A leading object of Maria Theresa’s policy was the attainment of influence over Italy.  For this purpose she first married one of the Archduchesses to the imbecile Duke of Parma.  Her second manoeuvre was to contrive that Charles iii. should seek the Archduchess Josepha for his younger son, the King of Naples.  When everything had been settled, and the ceremony by proxy had taken place, it was thought proper to sound the Princess as to how far she felt inclined to aid her mother’s designs in the Court of Naples.  ‘Scripture says,’ was her reply, ’that when a woman is married she belongs to the country of her husband.’

“‘But the policy of State?’ exclaimed Maria Theresa.

“‘Is that above religion?’ cried the Princess.

“This unexpected answer of the Archduchess was so totally opposite to the views of the Empress that she was for a considerable time undecided whether she would allow her daughter to depart, till, worn out by perplexities, she at last consented, but bade the Archduchess, previous to setting off for this much desired country of her new husband, to go down to the tombs, and in the vaults of her ancestors offer up to Heaven a fervent prayer for the departed souls of those she was about to leave.

“Only a few days before that a Princess had been buried in the vaults—­I think Joseph the Second’s second wife, who had died of the small-pox.

“The Archduchess Josepha obeyed her Imperial mother’s cruel commands, took leave of all her friends and relatives, as if conscious of the result, caught the same disease, and in a few days died!