At the news of Metternich’s funeral, we returned to Vienna first.
“I am sorry I could not keep my promise.”
“Isn’t it… a little much to say you didn’t keep it?”
The news had arrived just as preparations for the coronation were in full swing.
“The schedule in Prague has merely been postponed, not canceled. And if it is Prince Metternich’s funeral, it is not as though you could be absent.”
The streets of Vienna beyond the carriage window had sunk into gloom, as if mourning the death of a giant.
I, too, had met him in person only once.
Three years ago had been the last time.
Back then, I had been hard-pressed just to guard my own room.
‘I thank you sincerely for becoming a good friend to my daughter-in-law.’
What had he seen in me?
Had he truly seen only pure friendship, or had he seen a dangerous idea that might shatter the balance of the Vienna system he had created?
Had his words truly been concern for his daughter-in-law, or had he placed hopes in me, suffocating beneath the shadow of Archduchess Sophie?
The carriage turned onto the road leading to the cathedral.
The black flags hung from every building drooped limply.
Metternich had left me with nothing but questions and fallen silent forever.
“Joscha, what sort of person was Prince Metternich to you?”
Joseph was lost in thought for a moment before he answered.
“My teacher, and at times, a wall I wished to surpass. But now that the wall has actually collapsed… I feel as though I am standing alone in an empty field.”
At last, the carriage came to a stop. Joseph got down first and held out his hand to me, and I carefully stepped down from the carriage with his help.
“But since you are beside me, that field does not feel quite so cold.”
This man really does flirt at every opportunity.
I raised my head and looked at the cathedral.
St. Stephen’s Cathedral.
The place where Joseph and I had held our wedding.
… Back then, I had never imagined Joseph would become someone on my side.
In the past, he would have furtively let go of my hand or hovered awkwardly, watching his mother’s expression from afar. Now, instead, he tightened his grip on the hand he was holding.
It was true, perhaps, that people changed only when they had something to lose—or after they had lost it.
“Don’t be nervous.”
“… I am not nervous.”
“Then why is your hand so drenched with sweat?”
“Sisi.”
Joseph called my name as if at a loss, but there was no edge in his voice.
If anything, it was closer to a whining complaint.
It was a space where life and death intersected, but I could not help feeling strange.
Beneath the splendid stained glass, the nobles and high-ranking clergy who had once held the empire in their hands stood lined up like a black tide.
And in the very front row.
I saw Archduchess Sophie standing as upright as ever, like a statue carved from black marble.
The true wall between Joseph and me.
If Metternich had been his political teacher, the archduchess was the one who ruled Joseph’s mind.
And yet even that mother-in-law, today, somehow looked a little smaller in the shoulders.
An empty field.
Joseph’s words lingered in my ears.
Now that the great breakwater called Metternich had vanished, the storms that would beat down upon the empire would strike directly against the emperor’s throne. And also against me, seated beside that throne.
I stole a sidelong glance at my husband’s profile.
His eyes, fixed straight ahead as he bit down hard on his lip, were wavering.
Was it fear, or sorrow?
It did not matter which.
What mattered was that, in this moment, the person this man could rely on was not his mother standing ahead, but me standing beside him.
I tightened our interlaced fingers a little more firmly.
“Let’s go. The empire is waiting for you.”
At my whisper, Joseph drew in a short breath, then nodded.
We headed toward the seats for the imperial family, and I naturally sat down beside Archduchess Sophie.
“You did something amusing to Franz, child.”
Since when had she ever called me so affectionately?
“I wonder. Joseph does not want to be Emperor of Germany.”
That was the part I had misunderstood.
Joseph did not want a united Germany.
“The German emperor is the foundation of our Habsburgs.”
Archduchess Sophie murmured in a low voice, pretending to sing the hymn.
Joseph was a conservative emperor.
That was why he disliked change.
“He wants to maintain the status quo. He wants the current loose German Confederation, making use of the peoples of the empire.”
He also hated the idea of forcibly unifying Germany and abandoning Austria’s non-German territories.
Because he was the Habsburg emperor.
“Nationalism is like an unavoidable natural disaster.”
“Mother, you must look at cause and effect properly. Because you favored only German nationalism and oppressed the other peoples, they rose up like a natural disaster.”
“Are you saying, then, that we Habsburgs must abandon our identity as Germans?”
“Of course. The foundation of the Habsburgs is not the German king, but the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.”
The emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, which had ruled Italy, Bohemia, and Hungary since ancient times.
“I do not understand why His Majesty the Emperor should become a narrow-minded monarch for Germans alone.”
“Nothing but absurd idealism. The Holy Roman Empire, you say. At a dead man’s funeral, you drag out the specter of a dead empire.”
“I am speaking not of a specter, but of essence.”
“The German emperor is the essence of the House of Habsburg. Even this Holy Roman Empire you speak of was the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, was it not?”
“That is what is wrong.”
My mother-in-law’s eyes widened as though she had heard something unspeakable.
As a grand duchess of Bavaria and the mother of the emperor, who could ever have said such a thing to her?
The Empress Dowager might have been able to, but my aunt had little interest in politics.
“By Mother’s method, are the imperial subjects of Bohemia, Hungary, and the rest merely colonial slaves ruled by a German emperor?”
“They need only be loyal to His Majesty the Emperor.”
“Loyalty is not free. Even if you turn the clock backward, that time will eventually come again.”
When winter passes, spring is bound to come.
And in an empire where the seeds of freedom have been planted, someday the spring of 1848 may come again.
The only eternal way to avoid that time was to become like Metternich in his coffin, an existence for whom even time had stopped.
“You cannot dam a river forever, Mother.”
Before the dam collapsed, the course of the water had to be diverted so that new shoots could sprout.
It was then, as Joseph sat silently watching between Archduchess Sophie and me.
“Both of you, enough. This is the deceased’s final journey. I understand your concern for the empire’s future, but now is the time to pray for the dead, not to quarrel.”
“… I apologize, Your Majesty.”
“My apologies, Your Majesty the Empress Dowager.”
Both my mother-in-law and I had no choice but to bow our heads before the great elder of the imperial family.
“Tsk, tsk. Why are women with Bavarian blood all so strong-willed?”
The Empress Dowager clicked her tongue and returned to her prayers.
… Aunt, you are Bavarian too.
*
“Princess Metternich.”
“Your Majesty the Empress.”
“Please accept my deepest condolences for the deceased.”
“With the comfort of both Your Majesties, my grandfather-in-law must have closed his eyes in peace.”
After the funeral, she invited me to her drawing room.
“Pauline, what is that man Napoleon like when you actually see him?”
“… According to my husband, he is exactly as Your Majesty said before I left for Paris. If he would only cast off that superficial affectation called nationalism, he would make a good ally.”
But he cannot cast it off, so he does foolish things.
He is an idiot who will topple with his own hands even the division of Germany, the absolute principle of French diplomacy.
The glory of France will fall because of the House of Bonaparte.
Napoleon I sowed the seeds of nationalism in Germany and Italy, and Napoleon III will bear the fruit called Germany and Italy.
And the result will be… being invaded and ending in six weeks.
Was the Franco-Prussian War six weeks too?
“Shall I make an effort to strengthen our relations with France further?”
At Pauline’s words, I shook my head.
“No, that much is enough. There is nothing to gain by becoming close to an emperor who cannot even properly manage his own country’s diplomacy. But remain close with Eugénie.”
Pauline, too, must have seen many things in Paris as the wife of a diplomat.
What mattered more than that was our relationship with Britain.
Britain’s goal was to maintain the balance of power on the continent.
They merely believed Prussia was a card that could keep both France and Russia in check, and so they were supporting it.
We need a parliament too….
Those British bastards prefer countries that at least pretend to have parliamentary democracy over absolute monarchies.
Only then, in the great war to come, would Britain choose not Prussia but our Austria as the counterweight of Europe.
Is that right? I do not know.
Seeing as they later make an agreement with Russia, I wonder if a parliament is even necessary.
They are a country that sometimes ignores political systems if it suits their needs.
“I am curious how I have become a subject of conversation in Paris.”
“Your Majesty the Empress’s beauty and fashion are naturally the talk of the town. Emperor Napoleon calls Your Majesty the most beautiful liberal in Vienna.”
The most beautiful liberal in Vienna.
There was a high chance London would be much the same.
“He sees Your Majesty as the only person capable of bringing about progressive change within the conservative court. In particular.”
She leaned in closer to me.
“In particular, the reaction to the news of your visit to London was exceptional.”
It had already spread that far?
News about Europe was impossible to understand at times.
When it was slow, it was endlessly slow.
“That is the complete opposite of the news in Vienna.”
“Archduchess Sophie still has a firm grip on the official gazette, after all.”
“Will you be going back immediately?”
Pauline smiled as she answered my question.
“My husband seemed to hope I would attend the Bohemian coronation as well.”
In that case, Pauline would be returning to Vienna society for a while.
Pauline showed me the gifts she had brought from Paris.
“For His Majesty the Emperor, they sent a set of the finest porcelain, and for Your Majesty the Empress, perfume and lace personally chosen by Empress Eugénie.”
I smelled the perfume.
“It’s Guerlain’s Eau de Cologne Impériale.”
Eugénie certainly had remarkable taste.
The fresh scent seemed to soothe my throbbing head, if only for a moment.
“Chief Lady-in-Waiting. Send Empress Eugénie confections from Café Demel.”
“I shall send candied violets.”
They would not be as high in calories as cake, and since they were sugar, they would not spoil easily either.
As for the porcelain Napoleon sent, I would have it shoved into some storeroom.
Porcelain, treaties, promises… everything that man gives is fragile.