[Footnote 2: At Absom, in the valley of the Inn, a peasant girl had,
at that time, discovered a figure of the Virgin in one of the panes of
glass in her chamber window. This appearance being deemed miraculous
by the simple peasantry, the authorities of the place investigated the
matter, had the glass cleaned and scraped, etc., and at length
pronounced the indelible figure to be simply the outline of an old
colored painting. The peasantry, however, excited by the appearance of
the infidel French, persisted in giving credence to the miracle and
set up the piece of glass in a church, which was afterward annually
visited by thousands of pilgrims. In 1407, the celebrated pilgrimage
to Waldrast, in the Tyrol, had been founded in a similar manner by the
discovery of a portrait of the Virgin which had been grown up in a
tree, by two shepherd lads.]

[Footnote 3: Cobenzl was a favorite of Kaunitz and a thorough
courtier. At an earlier period, when ambassador at Petersburg, he
wrote French comedies, which were performed at the Hermitage in the
presence of the empress Catherine. The arrival of an unpleasant
despatch being ever followed by the production of some amusing piece
as an antidote to care, the empress jestingly observed, "that he was
no doubt keeping his best piece until the news arrived of the French
being in Vienna." He expired in the February of 1809, a year pregnant
with fate for Austria.]

[Footnote 4: He indignantly refused the stipend offered to him on this
occasion and protested against the injustice of his condemnation.]

[Footnote 5: Bavaria regarded these forced concessions as a bad reward
for her fidelity to Austria. Napoleon appears to have calculated upon
relighting by this means the flames of discord, whence he well knew