, like ambition or vengeance, is
personal: there was neither ambition nor vengeance around
Leopold,--nought but a few female jealousies; and his attachments were
too numerous and too fugitive to kindle in the heart of a mistress that
love that arms the hand with poison or poignard. He loved at the same
time Donna Livia, whom he had brought with him from Tuscany, and who was
known in Europe as "La belle Florentine," Prokache, a young Polish girl,
the charming countess of Walkenstein, and others of an inferior rank.
The countess of Walkenstein had for some time past been his avowed
mistress; he had given her a million (francs) in drafts on the bank of
Vienna, and he had even presented her to the empress, who forgave him
his weaknesses, on condition that he gave no one his political
confidence, which up to that time he had confided to her alone. He was a
devoted admirer of the fair sex, and it would be necessary to refer to
the most shameful epochs of Roman history to find any emperor whose life
was as scandalous as his own; his cabinet was found after his death to
be filled with valuable stuffs, rings, fans, trinkets, and even a
quantity of rouge. These traces of debauch made the empress blush when
she visited them with the new emperor. "My son," said she, "you have
before you the sad proof of your father's disorderly life, and of my
long afflictions: remember nothing of them except my forgiveness and his
virtues. Imitate his great qualities, but beware lest you fall into the
same vices, in order that you may not, in your turn, put to the blush
those who scrutinise your life."

The prince in Leopold was superior to the man: he had made trial of a
philosophical government in Tuscany, and this happy country yet blesses
his memory; but his genius was not suited for a more enlarged field. The
struggle, forced on him by the French Revolution, compelled him to seize
on the helm in Germany; but he did so without energy. He opposed the
temporising policy of diplomacy to the contagion of new ideas; he was
the Fabius of kings. To afford the Revolution time was to ensure it the
victory. It could be only vanquished by surprise, and stifled in its own
stronghold; the genius of the people was its negotiator and accomplice,
and its increasing popularity was its army. Its ideas found new
adherents in princes, people, and cabinets. Leopold would have given it
a share, but the share of the Revolution is the conquest of every thing
that opp