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Updated: May 21, 2025
All the archduchesses except the eldest seemed to me very handsome; but amongst the sons I had the opportunity of seeing only the eldest, and I thought the expression of his face bad and unpleasant, in spite of the contrary opinion of Abbe Grosse-Tete, who prided himself upon being a good physiognomist. "What do you see," he asked me one day, "on the countenance of that prince?"
Only a few of his faithful adherents had followed him thither; only his servants and officers surrounded him at his mournful court there. The Empress Ludovica and the archduchesses had already repaired to Totis, a country-seat of Prince Lichtenstein, in Hungary, whither the emperor intended to follow her in the course of a few days.
All the state apartments were closed, the gentlemen and ladies in waiting went about silent as ghosts, the archduchesses were pale and sad, and the empress, disconsolate, spent all her days in the solitude of her own apartments. Not only at court, but in the city were all sounds of joy hushed into speechless anxiety.
My cousin bought these stuffs for me, and writes me, moreover, that they are the newest fabrics from the looms of Lyons, and that he has just sent three such dresses to the Empress and the two archduchesses at Vienna.
The stove, no doubt, had stood in palaces and been made for princes, had warmed the crimson stockings of cardinals and the gold-broidered shoes of archduchesses, had glowed in presence- chambers and lent its carbon to help kindle sharp brains in anxious councils of state; no one knew what it had seen or done or been fashioned for; but it was a right royal thing.
They said that their nieces, by the exercise of religious principles, obtained the advantage of solid flesh, while the Austrian Archduchesses, by wasting themselves in idleness and profane pursuits, grew thin and meagre, and were equally exhausted in their minds and bodies!
The celebrated Wansvietten, her physician, went daily, to visit the young imperial family, and afterwards to Maria Theresa, and gave the most minute details respecting the health of the Archdukes and Archduchesses, whom she herself sometimes did not see for eight or ten days at a time.
His majesty entered, accompanied by the queen, his brother, two or three archduchesses, and a long suite of officers. I could not help remarking upon the singular good taste with which the assembly all anxious and eager to catch a glimpse of his majesty behaved on this occasion.
Maria Theresa, who inspired awe by her great qualities, taught the Archduchesses to fear and respect rather than to love her; at least I observed this in the Queen's feelings towards her august mother. She therefore never desired to place between her own children and herself that distance which had existed in the imperial family.
The use of that elegant Christian name, with its faint suggestion of Russian archduchesses, had a strange effect on her, particularly from the lips of Woodruff. She was proud of it, and of her surname too one of the oldest surnames in the Five Towns. The syllables of 'Vera' invariably soothed her, like a charm.
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