Marie Theresia was the daughter of the Emperor Charles the Sixth, who, being without a male heir, named her as his successor by “pragmatic sanction”—a Byzantine term for an ordinance issued arbitrarily by the head of an empire or kingdom. She succeeded to the various thrones of her father on his death in 1740, and associated with herself as Emperor her husband, Duke Francis of Lorraine, who had been her play-fellow and whom she had married in 1736. In spite of his numerous infidelities, she adored him. Albeit, so far as politics were concerned, he was no great help to her; so though he bore the title of Emperor, she remained unaided at the helm. Hers was no easy task. In spite of scraps of paper and guarantees, a coalition between Prussia, France, Bavaria, the Palatinate, Saxony, Sardinia, Naples and Spain—a pack of hungry war-dogs, all tearing at her on every side, each howling for his pound of flesh—threatened to devour her. She had only England and Hungary on her side; but, like Abdul Hamid in our own times, she could count upon the quarrels between her foes. Prussia was the arch-enemy. Prussia, which we are now told, was the original subject of the “Hymn of Hate,” written, _teste_ the _Morning Post_, by the revolutionary Herweg in 1841, for which Herr Lissauer, who substituted England for Prussia, has been decorated by a grateful Kaiser.[12] Prussia, of which Heine wrote: “I utterly loathe this Prussia, this stiff, hypocritical, sanctimonious Prussia, this Tartuffe among the nations.”[13] Like our own Queen, Marie Theresia was essentially a woman of business. She personally directed the affairs of her Empire, issuing her commands to her ministers, and the little orphan Charlotte, as we have seen, for many years acted as her secretary and reader. The duties were no sinecure, and although no doubt the position of a young lady of the Court was one of great luxury in some respects and greatly coveted, there were also some hardships with which those chosen maids had to put up. The Empress was large and corpulent; she could not bear warmth, and so her ladies had to perform their duties in a thorough draught, even when snow was being driven in at the windows, falling on to the State papers which Charlotte was reading aloud to her. In spite of her dread of heat, so long as her limbs would carry her, the Empress, devout and exact in all religious observances, would on Corpus Christi day, in the height of summer, piously accompany the sacred procession on foot. One broiling June day she came back from this ceremony violently heated and tired, having walked half across the town under the sun, had to be undressed, and have her hair taken down, and sat in a thorough draught, eating strawberries and drinking lemonade, while Charlotte brushed and combed out her hair, which was so wet that the poor girl had to keep wiping her hands. How Marie Theresia would have enjoyed one of Queen Victoria’s picnics on Lochnagar in a November blizzard!