eatre Francais,_ all employed to do honor to a comedy
scintillating with wit, irresistibly lively and audacious, which, if
it shocks and scares a few of the boxes, enchants, rouses, and fires an
electrified pit." A hundred representations succeeding the first
uninterruptedly, and the public still eager to applaud, such was the
twofold result of the audacities of the piece and the timid hesitations
of its censors. The _Mariage de Figgaro_ bore a sub-title, _la Folle
Journee_. "There is something madder than my piece," said Beaumarchais,
"and that is its success." Figaro ridiculed everything with a dangerously
pungent vigor; the days were coming when the pleasantry was to change
into insults. Already public opinion was becoming hostile to the queen:
she was accused of having remained devoted to the interests of her German
family; the people were beginning to call her the Austrian. During the
American war, M. de Vergennes had managed to prevail upon the king to
remain neutral in the difficulties that arose in 1778 between Austria and
Prussia on the subject of the succession to the elector palatine; the
young queen had not wanted or had not been able to influence the behavior
of France, as her mother had conjured her to do. "My dear lady--
daughter," wrote Maria Theresa, "Mercy is charged to inform you of my
cruel position, as sovereign and as mother. Wishing to save my dominions
from the most cruel devastation, I must, cost what it may, seek to wrest
myself from this war, and, as a mother, I have three sons who are not
only running the greatest danger, but are sure to succumb to the terrible
fatigues, not being accustomed to that sort of life. By making peace at
this juncture, I not only incur the blame of great pusillanimity, but I
render the king of Prussia still greater, and the remedy must be prompt.
I declare to you, my head whirls and my heart has for a long time been
entirely numb." France had refused to engage in the war, but she had
contributed to the peace of Teschen, signed on the 13th of May, 1779. On
the 29th of November, 1780, Maria Theresa died at the age of sixty-three,
weary of life and of that glory to which she "was fain to march by all
roads," said the Great Frederick, who added: "It was thus that a woman
executed designs worthy of a great man."

In 1784, Joseph II. reigned alone. Less prudent and less sensible than
his illustrious mother, restless, daring, nourishing useful or fanciful
projec