s
suicide, over that of the physicians who were directing him according to
reason. Nevertheless, no one ever denied his claim to great courage; but
he had no idea whatever of the art of government, for he had not the
slightest knowledge of the human heart, and he could neither dissemble
nor keep a secret; he had so little control over his own countenance that
he could not even conceal the pleasure he felt in punishing, and when he
saw anyone whose features did not please him, he could not help making a
wry face which disfigured him greatly.

Joseph II. sank under a truly cruel disease, which left him until the
last moment the faculty of arguing upon everything, at the same time that
he knew his death to be certain. This prince must have felt the misery of
repenting everything he had done and of seeing the impossibility of
undoing it, partly because it was irreparable, partly because if he had
undone through reason what he had done through senselessness, he would
have thought himself dishonoured, for he must have clung to the last to
the belief of the infallibility attached to his high birth, in spite of
the state of languor of his soul which ought to have proved to him the
weakness and the fallibility of his nature. He had the greatest esteem
for his brother, who has now succeeded him, but he had not the courage to
follow the advice which that brother gave him. An impulse worthy of a
great soul made him bestow a large reward upon the physician, a man of
intelligence, who pronounced his sentence of death, but a completely
opposite weakness had prompted him, a few months before, to load with
benefits the doctors and the quack who made him believe that they had
cured him. He must likewise have felt the misery of knowing that he would
not be regretted after his death--a grievous thought, especially for a
sovereign. His niece, whom he loved dearly, died before him, and, if he
had had the affection of those who surrounded him, they would have spared
him that fearful information, for it was evident that his end was near at
hand, and no one could dread his anger for having kept that event from
him.

Although very much pleased with Vienna and with the pleasures I enjoyed
with the beautiful frauleins, whose acquaintance I had made at the house
of the baroness, I was thinking of leaving that agreeable city, when
Baron Vais, meeting me at Count Durazzo's wedding, invited me to join a
picnic at Schoenbrunn. I went, and I failed to