, and not only saves him a
multitude of troubles in public buildings and public institutions, but
keeps the public money in his private coffers; which is one of the
greatest and most classical discoveries a Sovereign can possibly
accomplish, and I give Leopold much credit for his ingenuity.

"'My dear brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Milan, considering he is only
Governor of Lombardy, is not without industry; and I am told, when out of
the glimpse of his dragon the holy Beatrice, his Archduchess, sells his
corn in the time of war to my enemies, as he does to my friends in the
time of peace. So he loses nothing by his speculations!'

"The Queen checked the Emperor repeatedly, though she could not help
smiling at his caricatures.

"'As to you, my dear Marie Antoinette,' continued the Emperor, not
heeding her, 'I see you have made great progress in the art of painting.
You have lavished more colour on one cheek than Rubens would have
required for all the figures in his cartoons.' Observing one of the
Ladies of Honour still more highly rouged than the Queen, he said, 'I
suppose I look like a death's head upon a tombstone, among all these
high-coloured furies.'

"The Queen again tried to interrupt the Emperor, but he was not to be put
out of countenance.

"He said he had no doubt, when he arrived at Brussels, that he should
hear of the progress of his sister, the Archduchess Maria Christina, in
her money negotiations with the banker Valkeers, who made a good stock
for her husband's jobs.

"'If Maria Christina's gardens and palace at Lakin could speak,' observed
he, 'what a spectacle of events would they not produce! What a number of
fine sights my own family would afford!

"'When I get to Cologne,' pursued the Emperor, there I shall see my great
fat brother Maximilian, in his little electorate, spending his yearly
revenue upon an ecclesiastical procession; for priests, like opposition,
never bark but to get into the manger; never walk empty-handed; rosaries
and good cheer always wind up their holy work; and my good Maximilian, as
head of his Church, has scarcely feet to waddle into it. Feasting and
fasting produce the same effect. In wind and food he is quite an
adept--puffing, from one cause or the other, like a smith's bellows!'

"Indeed, the Elector of Cologne was really grown so very fat, that, like
his Imperial mother, he could scarcely walk. He would so over-eat
himself at these ecclesiastical dinners, to m