308 EUHOPE AND HER DESPOTS. 



marks upon his weather-beaten countenance. By his side, in a splendid 

 hussar uniform, and mounted on a beautiful Arabian charger, which he 

 sat with gallant grace, rode the young Duke de Reichstadt, 



" The young Astyanax of modern Troy." 



An inexpressible tint of melancholy and thought was imprinted on his 

 pale and interesting countenance ; but as the troops defiled past him, his 

 look grew animated, and his bright blue eye sparkled with martial 

 ardour. Perhaps a vein of his sire's ambition, or the recollection of his 

 military glory, which the objects around him were so fitted to recal, 

 brightened the poor boy's saddened brow, and suffused with conscious 

 pride his pale cheek ; for on the selfsame ground on which he rode, 

 Napoleon, reeking with the spoils of Eckmuhl and Wagram, had twenty 

 years before renewed his victorious guard, and seen the Austrian empire 

 prostrate at his feet. By virtue of an imperial decree, this Prince 

 enjoyed the estates of the Grand Duke of Toscano, in Bohemia, pro- 

 ducing an annual revenue of about 20,000/. sterling. Were these vast 

 domains bestowed on him in mockery ? We think so : the same cruel 

 and diabolical policy which murdered, <e a coup cTepingles," the father, 

 on the rock of his exile, was acted upon with equal rigour towards his 

 unfortunate son, on the more genial banks of the Danube. When the 

 first symptoms of his pulmonary complaint manifested themselves, his 

 medical attendants ordered change of air and scene ; but this did not 

 accord with the policy of Chancellor Metternich, who had all along 

 denied the poor boy the exercise and the innocent amusements so conge- 

 nial to his age, till his state of isolation and solitude preyed upon his 

 spirits, and laid the foundation of the fatal disease that has consigned 

 him, in the full bloom of youth, to the silent tomb. The game Metter- 

 nich has been playing is a deep one ; it was not the possibility of this 

 youth's ever reigning over the land of his birth that troubled the repose 

 of this wily minister ; he was too well aware that he had no political 

 party in France, where, in spite of the admiration of Napoleon's genius, 

 and the recollection of his fame, the aspirations of the rising generation 

 are directed rather into the channel of constitutional liberty than military 

 glory ; but while his chance in France was an absolute nullity, by a 

 singular inconsistency, fate was preparing for him a bright destiny in 

 Austria. Metternich discovered that there existed among the Hungarian 

 noblesse a plot to violate the Pragmatic Sanction, and to declare, at the 

 death of the present Emperor, the young Napoleon his successor, to the 

 exclusion of his uncle, the King of Hungary, whose mental imbecility 

 renders him incapable of reigning. This is the secret of Metternich's 

 policy with regard to young Napoleon. He was but too sensible that 

 such a plan would be the death-blow of his influence. 



After all, things are nothing in themselves, but in the ideas we asso- 

 ciate with them. The Viennese family illustrate this philosophical 

 axiom. Of a representative government they as yet know nothing 

 "pour aimer la liberte il faut la connaitre." If this holds good, we 

 cannot blame the stout burghers of Vienna for their indifference to 

 institutions with which they are totally unacquainted. But they are 

 fond of bonne chere ; there is more wine and animal food, say the statis- 

 ticians, consumed in Vienna, than in any other city on the continent. 



Odious as must appear, to every liberal mind, the present policy of 

 the Austrian government, we must not forget that it was to her inter- 



