very morning that terminated the reign of Maria Theresa, while the Empress was wrestling with death, he had himself dressed with his usual care. To protect himself against changes of temperature, he constantly had within reach nine silk cloaks, which he put on or off according to the guidance of a thermometer hung in each of his rooms. He had a horror of the open air, and it must be very warm indeed for him to be seen sitting for a few moments in the garden of his palace. Still this privation of fresh air only injured his complexion, which was pallid, but not his constitution, for he lived to be eighty-four.
Kaunitz only feared one thing, and that was death, and this fear necessarily increased with years. The word “small-pox” caused him a shudder, for he had been attacked by it himself in youth, and had seen Maria Theresa on the point of death from the disease. When his reader came to that word, or to “inoculation,” or “vaccine,” but, before all, “death,” he had special orders to pass it over. So far was this carried, that strangers of distinction who arrived in Vienna were warned to yield to the Chancellor’s wishes on this point, and no allusion must even be made to his birthday. No one had the courage to tell him of the death of Frederick the Great, until one of his readers said in his presence, as if inadvertently, that the courier had arrived from Berlin with letters from King Frederick William. When Joseph II. expired, the Prince’s chamberlain laid before him a document which should have had the imperial sign-manual, saying in explanation, “His Majesty no longer signs.” The Prince was in the habit of sending dishes from his table to a favourite aunt, and this went on long after her decease, as no one cared to tell him she had been dead for four years. When his eldest and best-beloved son died the Prince only learned the fact by the deep mourning laid out for himself to wear.
With advancing years Kaunitz began to grow very troublesome and fractious. But not even the Emperor dared to deprive him of the power he had held for forty years. As he became very deaf, moreover, it was found impossible to impart any secrets to him, and the garrulity of old age was a tremendous annoyance to all connected with him. Thus he would repeat to foreign diplomatists in the evening the secrets he had read in their letters during the morning, and all the news about their intrigues and habits he had obtained from the police. At last he was quietly ignored, and from 1779 Baron Cobenzl, the vice-chancellor, transacted public business in his name. It was without his knowledge, for instance, that the treaty of Pilnitz was signed, which led to the invasion of France by the Duke of Brunswick.
A crowning insult still awaited the old Chancellor: his signature was forged and applied to state papers entirely opposed to his views and politics. When he heard of this contumely, Kaunitz determined on death, in spite of all the terrors it had for him. He deliberately refused all food, abstained from all remedies prescribed to him, and starved himself to death. He expired on June 26, 1794, the day after the battle of Fleurus, which overthrew the policy of his life—the alliance between Austria and France—and was buried at his estate of Austerlitz. A few years later and the two nations fought a desperate struggle for supremacy over his grave.
MY LONG VACATION.
Says the doctor, “She must go to Devonshire or the Isle of Wight, and you must go, too!”
Says I, “If you send me so far from London I shall probably spend my winter in the Queen’s Bench, and you will never be paid. Why not try some of the hill country near London?”
Now it does not matter who she was, nor what the doctor said in answer to me; but he gave in, and I started on my travels in search of an English Madeira within thirty miles of London. My guide was the faithful Thompson, who has walked every inch of suburban hill country.
“I will tell you of a Paradise,” exclaims Thompson. “There is wood, water, hill, dale, a cricket-club, and good fishing close to a cottage which I know of; the man who owns the cottage is a Frenchman, who was cook to a nobleman, and you will live daily as well as if you were at the Star and Garter or Lovegrove’s; there are no fleas or creeping things. When the worthy proprietor is not cooking he will esteem it a favour to wheel any number of children in a perambulator, or to roll about on the grass with them—he is an old man with a light heart. Besides this, you can get donkey carriages and pony carriages for next to nothing; there is an excellent tap of beer at the village inn, and—”
I stopped Thompson’s description, for I had heard enough. “What ho! cabman, a shilling extra to catch the mail train.”
Quietly ensconced at “mine inn,” in a pretty country town not far from my Paradise, with a cheerful heart I sat down opposite to the whitest table cloth, on which were placed the best cold chicken and the finest ham which hungry traveller ever enjoyed, flanked by a jug of the home brewed. The élite of the town, who used the common room, allowed me to make one of them, and I had the pleasure of hearing the local politics, and a very fine philippic, delivered by the fattest-headed man I ever saw, about the iniquity of removing the town pump. I am bound to admit that in my sleep that night I committed the most awful murder I ever heard of—I cut the throat of a beautiful young lady with my carpet-bag, and when we arrived at the station she fell out stiff and cold on the platform. So much for a hearty supper!
On the following morning Thompson arrived, and we started for the Frenchman’s cottage. The landlord was charmed to see Thompson. How were the delightful lady’s charming children? How was the baby? The little man bowed to me with the air of a French Marquis. We must go in—he would make us a little luncheon. Oh! horror of horrors. In the passage stood a perambulator, and through an opened door we saw a dinner-table laid for a large party, many of whom evidently were children.
Yes; Monsieur was fortunate—a large family had come the evening before for two months. And so my vision faded. The stranger had