ed, you giving me that
promise." Then looking to the other children she added, "Regard the
emperor as your sovereign. Obey him, respect him, confide in him, and
follow his advice in all things, and you will secure his friendship and
protection."

Her mind continued active and intensely occupied with the affairs of her
family and of her kingdom, until the very last moment. During the night
succeeding her final interview with her children, though suffering from
repeated fits of suffocation, she held a long interview with the emperor
upon affairs of state. Her son, distressed by her evident exhaustion,
entreated her to take some repose; but she replied,

"In a few hours I shall appear before the judgment-seat of God; and
would you have me lose my time in sleep?"

Expressing solicitude in behalf of the numerous persons dependent upon
her, who, after her death, might be left friendless, she remarked,

"I could wish for immortality on earth, for no other reason than for the
power of relieving the distressed."

She died on the 29th of November, 1780, in the sixty-fourth year of her
age and the forty-first of her reign.

This illustrious woman had given birth to six sons and ten daughters.
Nine of these children survived her. Joseph, already emperor, succeeded
her upon the throne of Austria, and dying childless, surrendered the
crown to his next brother Leopold. Ferdinand, the third son, became
governor of Austrian Lombardy. Upon Maximilian was conferred the
electorate of Cologne. Mary Anne became abbess of a nunnery. Christina
married the Duke of Saxony. Elizabeth entered a convent and became
abbess. Caroline married the King of Naples, and was an infamous woman.
Her sister Joanna, was first betrothed to the king, but she died of
small-pox; Josepha was then destined to supply her place; but she also
fell a victim to that terrible disease. Thus the situation was vacant
for Caroline. Maria Antoinette married Louis the dauphin, and the story
of her woes has filled the world.

The Emperor Joseph II., who now inherited the crown of Austria, was
forty years of age, a man of strong mind, educated by observation and
travel, rather than by books. He was anxious to elevate and educate his
subjects, declaring that it was his great ambition to rule over freemen.
He had many noble traits of character, and innumerable anecdotes are
related illustrative of his energy and humanity. In war he was ambitious
of taking his full share of h