returned to Ofen, and, as soon as I shall have recovered from my illness, I promise to take the coronation-oath. [Footnote: This is the revocation edict, which, promulgated a few weeks before the death of Joseph, caused such astonishment throughout Europe--Gross-Hoffinger, iii., p. 290.] Write this out and bring it to me for signature. Then deliver it into the hands A Count Palfy. He will publish it to the Hungarians.

"So much for Hungary!--Now for Tyrol. Draw up a second manifesto. I repeal the conscription-act, as well as all my reforms with respect to the church. When this is ready, bring it to me for signature; and dispatch a courier with it to the imperial stadtholder. Having satisfied the exactions of Hungary and Tyrol, it remains to restore order in the Netherlands. But there, matters are more complicated, and I fear that no concession on my part will avail at this late hour. I must trample my personal pride in the dust, then, and humble myself before the pope! Yes--before the pope! I will write, requesting him to act as mediator, and beg his holiness to admonish the clergy to make peace with me. [Footnote: Gross-Hoffinger, iii., p.379] Why do you look so sad, my friend? I am making my peace with the world; I am drawing a pen across the events of my life and blotting out my reforms with ink. Make out these documents at once, and send me a courier for Rome. Meanwhile I will write to the pope. Appearing before him as a petitioner, it is incumbent upon me to send an autographic letter. Return to me in an hour."

When, one hour later, the privy-councillor re-entered the cabinet, the letter to the pope lay folded and addressed on the table. But this last humiliation had been too much for the proud spirit of the emperor to brook.

He lay insensible in his chair, a stream of blood oozing slowly from his ghastly lips.

CHAPTER CLXXVI.

THE DEATH OF THE MARTYR.

He had made his peace with the world and with God! He had taken leave of his family, his friends, and his attendants. He had made his last confession, and had received the sacraments of the church.

His struggles were at an end. All sorrow overcome, he lay happy and tranquil on his death-bed, no more word of complaint passing the lips which had been consecrated to the Lord. He comforted his weeping relatives, and had a word of affectionate greeting for every one who approached him. With his own feeble hand he wrote farewell letters to his absent sisters, to Prince Kaunitz, and to several ladies for whom he had an especial regard; and on the seventeenth of February signed his name eighty times.

He felt that his end was very near; and when Lacy and Rosenberg, who were to pass the night with him, entered his bedchamber, he signed them to approach.

"It will soon be over," whispered he. "The lamp will shortly be extinguished. Hush! do not weep--you grieve me. Let us part from each other with fortitude."

"Alas, how can we part with fortitude, when our parting is for life!" said Lacy.

The emperor raised his eyes, and looked thoughtfully un to heaven. "We shall meet again," said he, after a pause. "I believe in another and a better world, where I shall find compensation for all that I have endured here below."

"And where punishment awaits those who have been the cause of your sorrows," returned Rosenberg.

"I have forgiven them all," said the dying monarch. "There is no room in my heart for resentment, dear friends. I have honestly striven to make my subjects happy, and feel no animosity toward them for refusing the boon I proffered. I should like to have inscribed upon my tomb, 'Here lies a prince whose intentions were pure, but who was so unfortunate as to fail in every honest undertaking of his life.' Oh, how mistaken was the poet, who wrote,

`Et du trone au cerenell le passage est terrible!'

"I do not deplore the loss of my throne, but I feel some, lingering regret that I should have made so few of my fellow-beings happy--so many of them ungrateful. This, however, is the usual lot of princes!" [Footnote: The emperor's own words.--"Characteristics of Joseph II.," p. 23.]

"It is the lot of all those who are too enlightened for their times! It is the lot of all great men who would elevate and ennoble the masses!" cried Lacy. "It is the fate of greatness to be the martyr of stupidity, bigotry, and malice!"

"Yes, that is the word," said Joseph, smiling. "I am a martyr, but nobody will honor my relics."

"Yes, beloved sovereign," cried Rosenberg, weeping, "your majesty's love we shall bear about our hearts, as the devotee wears the relic of a marytred saint."

"Do not weep so," said Joseph. "We have spent so many happy days together, that we must pass the few fleeting hours remaining to us in rational intercourse. Show me a cheerful countenance, Rosenberg--you from whose hands I received my last cup of earthly comfort. What blessed tidings you brought me! My sweet Elizabeth is a mother, and I shall carry the consciousness of her happiness to the grave. I shall die with ONE joy at my heart--a beautiful hope shall blossom as I fall!--Elizabeth is your future empress; love her for my sake; you know how unspeakably dear she is to me. And, now that I think of it, I have not heard from her since this morning. How is she?"

The two friends were silent, and cast down their eves.

"Lacy!" cried the emperor, and over his inspired features there passed a shade of human sorrow. "Lacy, speak--you are silent--O God, what has happened? Rosenberg, tell me, oh tell me, how is my Elizabeth, my darling daughter?"

So great were his anxiety and distress, that he half rose in his bed. They would not meet his glance, but Rosenberg in a low voice replied:

"The archduchess is very sick. The labor was long and painful."

"Ah, she is dead!" exclaimed Joseph, "she is dead, is she not?"

Neither of his weeping friends spoke a word, but the emperor comprehended their silence.

Falling back upon his pillow, he raised his wasted arms to heaven. --"O God, Thy will be done! but my sufferings are beyond expression! I thought that I had outlived sorrow: but the stroke which has come to imbitter my last moments exceeds all that I have endured throughout a life of uncheckered misery!" [Footnote: The emperor's own words.]

For a long time he lay cold and rigid. Then raising himself upon his arm, he signed to Rosenberg to approach. His eyes beamed as of erst, and his whole demeanor was that of a sovereign who had learned, above all things, to control himself.

"She must be buried with all the tenderness and honor of which she was deserving," said he. "Rosenberg, will you attend to this for me? Let her body be exposed in the court-chapel to-morrow. After that, lay her to rest in the imperial vaults, and let the chapel be in readiness to receive my own remains." [Footnote: Joseph's own words.--See Hubner, ii., p. 491.]

This was the last command given by the emperor. From that hour he was nothing more than a poor, dying mortal, whose last thoughts are devoted to his Maker. He sent for his confessor, and asked him to read something appropriate and consolatory. With folded hands, his large violet eyes reverently raised to heaven, he listened to the holy scriptural words. Suddenly his countenance brightened, and his lips moved.

"Now here remain faith, hope, and love," read the priest.

The emperor repeated the three last words, "faith--hope" and when he pronounced the word "love," his face was illumined with a joy which had its source far, far away from earth!

Then all was silent. The prayer was over, and the dying emperor lay motionless, with his hands folded upon his breast.

Presently his feeble voice was heard in prayer. "Father, Thou knowest my heart--Thou art my witness, that I meant--to do--well Thy will be done!" [Footnote: Ramshorn, p. 410]

Then all was still. Weeping around the bed stood Lacy, Rosenberg, and the Archduke Francis. The emperor looked at them with staring eyes, but he recognized them no longer. Those beautiful eves were dimmed forever!

Suddenly the silence was broken by a long, long sigh.

It was the death-sigh of JOSEPH THE SECOND!

Joseph died on the 20th of February, 1790. But his spirit outlived him and survives to the present day. His subjects, who had so misjudged him, deplored his loss, and felt how dear he had been to them. Now that he was dead--now that they had broken his heart, they grieved and wept for him. Poets sang his praises in eulogies, and wrote epitaphs laudatory of him who may be considered the great martyr of political and social enlightenment