tial enough to see the reasons which prompt me to
refuse your request. It may be disagreeable to you, but I consider it
necessary. Farewell, madam.--Your sincere well-wisher, JOSEPH
LACHSENBURG, 4th August, 1787.

The application of another anxious and somewhat covetous mother was
answered with still more decision and irony:

To a Lady.

MADAM.--You know my disposition; you are not ignorant that the society of
the ladies is to me a mere recreation, and that I have never sacrificed my
principles to the fair sex. I pay but little attention to
recommendations, and I only take them into consideration when the person
in whose behalf I may be solicited possesses real merit.

Two of your sons are already loaded with favours. The eldest, who is not
yet twenty, is chief of a squadron in my army, and the younger has
obtained a canonry at Cologne, from the Elector, my brother. What would
you have more? Would you have the first a general and the second a
bishop?

In France you may see colonels in leading-strings, and in Spain the royal
princes command armies even at eighteen; hence Prince Stahremberg forced
them to retreat so often that they were never able all the rest of their
lives to comprehend any other manoeuvre.

It is necessary to be sincere at Court, and severe in the field, stoical
without obduracy, magnanimous without weakness, and to gain the esteem of
our enemies by the justice of our actions; and this, madam, is what I aim
at. JOSEPH VIENNA, September, 1787.

(From the inedited Letters of Joseph IL, published at Paris, by Persan,
1822.)

CHAPTER X.

During the alarm for the life of the Queen, regret at not possessing an
heir to the throne was not even thought of. The King himself was wholly
occupied with the care of preserving an adored wife. The young Princess
was presented to her mother. "Poor little one," said the Queen, "you were
not wished for, but you are not on that account less dear to me. A son
would have been rather the property of the State. You shall be mine; you
shall have my undivided care, shall share all my happiness, and console me
in all my troubles."

The King despatched a courier to Paris, and wrote letters himself to
Vienna, by the Queen's bedside; and part of the rejoicings ordered took
place in the capital.

A great number of attendants watched near the Queen during the first
nights of her confinement. This custom distressed her; she knew how to
feel for others