th, and looking
out upon the summits which tower around Inspruck exclaimed,

"Oh! if I could but once quit these mountains of the Tyrol."

On the morning of the 18th of August, his symptoms assumed so
threatening a form, that his friends urged him to be bled. The emperor
declined, saying,

"I am engaged this evening to sup with Joseph, and I will not disappoint
him; but I will be blooded to-morrow."

The evening came, and as he was preparing to go and sup with his son, he
dropped instantly dead upon the floor. Fifty-eight years was his
allotted pilgrimage--a pilgrimage of care and toil and sorrow. Even when
elevated to the imperial throne, his position was humiliating, being
ever overshadowed by the grandeur of his wife. At times he felt this
most keenly, and could not refrain from giving imprudent utterance to
his mortification. Being at one time present at a levee, which the
empress was giving to her subjects, he retired, in chagrin, from the
imperial circle into a corner of the saloon, and took his seat near two
ladies of the court. They immediately, in accordance with regal
etiquette, rose.

"Do not regard me," said the emperor bitterly, and yet with an attempt
at playfulness, "for I shall remain here until the _court_ has retired,
and shall then amuse myself in contemplating the crowd."

One of the ladies replied, "As long as your imperial majesty is present
the court will be here."

"You are mistaken," rejoined the emperor, with a forced smile; "the
empress and my children are the court. I am here only as a private
individual."

Francis I., though an impotent emperor, would have made a very good
exchange broker. He seemed to be fond of mercantile life, establishing
manufactories, and letting out money on bond and mortgage. When the
queen was greatly pressed for funds he would sometimes accept her paper,
always taking care to obtain the most unexceptionable security. He
engaged in a partnership with two very efficient men for farming the
revenues of Saxony. He even entered into a contract to supply the
_Prussian_ army with forage, when that army was expending all its
energies, during the Seven Years' War, against the troops of Maria
Theresa. He judged that his wife was capable of taking care of herself.
And she was. Notwithstanding these traits of character, he was an
exceedingly amiable and charitable man, distributing annually five
hundred thousand dollars for the relief of distress. Many anecdotes are