is dark hour, when the clouds of adversity
seemed to be settling in blackest masses over her whole realm, when hope
had abandoned every bosom but her own, the spirit of Maria remained as
firm and inflexible as if victory were perched upon her standards, and
her enemies were flying in dismay before her. She would not listen to
one word of compromise. She would not admit the thought of surrendering
one acre of the dominions she had inherited from her fathers. Calm,
unagitated, and determined, she summoned around her, from their feudal
castles, the wild and warlike barons of Hungary. With neighing steeds,
and flaunting banners, and steel-clad retainers, and all the
paraphernalia of barbaric pomp, these chieftains, delighting in the
excitements of war, gathered around the heroic queen. The spirit of
ancient chivalry still glowed in these fierce hearts, and they gazed
with a species of religious homage upon the young queen, who, in
distress, had fled to their wilds to invoke the aid of their strong
arms.

Maria met them in council. They assembled around her by thousands in all
the imposing splendor of the garniture of war. Maria appeared before
these stern chieftains dressed in the garb of the deepest mourning, with
the crown of her ancestors upon her brow, her right hand resting upon
the hilt of the sword of the Austrian kings, and leading by her left
hand her little daughter Maria Antoinette. The pale and pensive
features of the queen attested the resolute soul which no disasters
could subdue. Her imperial spirit entranced and overawed the bold
knights, who had ever lived in the realms of romance. Maria addressed
the Hungarian barons in an impressive speech in Latin, the language then
in use in the diets of Hungary, faithfully describing the desperate
state of her affairs. She committed herself and her children to their
protection, and urged them to drive the invaders from the land or to
perish in the attempt. It was just the appeal to rouse such hearts to a
phrensy of enthusiasm. The youth, the beauty, the calamities of the
queen roused to the utmost intensity the chivalric devotion of these
warlike magnates, and grasping their swords and waving them above their
heads, they shouted simultaneously, "Moriamur pro rege nostro, Maria
Theresa"--"_Let us die for our king, Maria Theresa._"

Until now, the queen had preserved a demeanor perfectly tranquil and
majestic. But this affectionate enthusiasm of her subjects entirely
o