sister than the step-mother of the young Archduchess, who was then
in her seventeenth year. Nevertheless, the Empress took hold of the
princess's education with a high hand, and displayed as much solicitude
as if she had been her real mother.




II.

1809.


The Emperor Francis was not without distractions during his honeymoon
with his third wife, the young Empress, Marie Louise Beatrice. It was
evident to every one that the Peace of Presbourg, like that of
Luneville, could be nothing more than a truce. Austria could never be
reconciled to its loss, between 1792 and 1806, of the Low Countries,
Suabia, Milan, the Venetian States, Tyrol, Dalmatia, and finally of the
Imperial crown of Germany; for the heir of the Germanic Caesars now
styled himself simply the Emperor of Austria, and a great part of
Germany had become the humble vassal of Napoleon. Of all the Austrians,
it was perhaps the Emperor who felt the least hatred of France. His
whole family and his whole people--nobles, priests, the middle classes,
and the peasantry--nourished an angry resentment against the nation that
was overturning Europe. The new Empress, whose family had been deprived
of the Duchy of Modena, was conspicuous for the bitterness of her
indignation and of her political feelings. In the eyes of all the
Austrians, great or small, poor or rich, the French were the hereditary
enemies, the invaders, the destroyers of the throne and the Church,