Her benefactions included all classes of her subjects. She founded large hospitals for the infirm and wounded soldiers, and opened asylums of comfort for the widows of officers and young ladies of impoverished families. With such a belligerent neighbor as Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa could not feel assured of any continued period of peace, and she therefore maintained a large army of disciplined troops, and founded military academies at Vienna, Neustadt, and Antwerp. The simplicity of her court life was a great contrast to the extravagant ostentation of Elizabeth and the dissolute splendor of Catherine II. “In the morning an old man, who could hardly be entitled a _chamberlain_, but merely what is called on the continent a _frotteur_, entered her sleeping-room about five or six o’clock, opened the shutters, lighted the stove, and arranged the apartment. She breakfasted on a cup of milk-coffee, then dressed and heard mass. The floor of her room was so contrived that it opened by a sliding _parquet_, and mass was celebrated in the chapel beneath. On Tuesdays she received the ministers of the various apartments; other days were set apart for giving audience to foreigners and strangers, who, according to the etiquette of the imperial court, were always presented singly, and received in the private apartments. There were stated days on which the poorest and meanest of her subjects were admitted indiscriminately, and they could speak to her in private if they so desired. At other times, she attended to her letters, memorials, despatches, signed papers, etc. During the summer, which was spent mostly at her palaces of Schönbrunn, or at Laxenburg, she would often walk in a shaded avenue communicating with her apartments. A box was buckled round her waist, filled with papers and memorials, which she carefully read as she promenaded, noting with her pencil necessary answers or observations to each.” She usually dined alone to economize time. After dinner she attended to public business until six in the evening, as she dined at noon; and until her hour of retiring her daughters joined her, when she held a drawing-room or engaged in games with her children. Her daughters were all expected to present themselves at evening prayers, which the empress held before retiring, and nothing but sickness was allowed to interfere with this family regulation. About two years after the death of her husband she was attacked by small-pox, which was very fatal in her family, she having lost several children by this dread disease. Upon her recovery her marvellous beauty was greatly marred, and being thrown from her carriage soon after and severely wounding her face, her scarred complexion and altered features entirely destroyed her former beauty of countenance, though her queenly bearing and imperial grace continued to charm, and her voice lost none of its melting sweetness.