“Before you ask who is behind this, you should first admit that the empress made a mistake.”
Once again, empress in title only.
What mistake had I supposedly made?
“Me?”
“Yes. Did this not happen the moment Bach’s power was curtailed?”
“Should I offer you an apology?”
“It does not matter. He would have had to step down when the time came anyway. If not for the empress, I would have handed matters over to Franz five years ago.”
“I did not come here to quarrel with the archduchess.”
“Nor did I bring this up to quarrel with you.”
My mother-in-law remained silent for a long while, then slowly opened her mouth.
“You said you wished to know who was behind this?”
For the first time, the archduchess met my eyes.
“So you do know.”
“There are no secrets in the empire that I do not know.”
“… You must protect Josef. Before he is my husband, he is the emperor, and your son.”
“I intended to. Until I learned where their funds were coming from.”
In place of the archduchess’s firmly sealed lips, I quietly spoke the name.
“… Archduke Maximilian.”
The sole weakness of the Iron Lady, who was called the only man of the Habsburgs.
Maternal love.
In reality, after Maximilian was executed by firing squad in Mexico and she collapsed from shock…
“Archduke Maximilian is their patron, then.”
“Max must have believed he was merely sponsoring artists and supporting impoverished nobles as an act of charity.”
My mother-in-law was not someone who would sit by and watch a rebellion. But.
“Would you have done the same if it had been Josef?”
“Do not misunderstand. I merely showed my affection in a different way; there was never a time when I did not cherish Franz.”
Her words were not an excuse, but the truth. It was only that her way of doing so had been far too harsh and political for Josef.
“Give me the list.”
She glanced at me, then rang the bell.
“Hand the list over to the empress.”
The file the archduchess’s lady-in-waiting handed me bore a red stamp on the cover: Ministry of the Interior—Confidential.
The Achilles’ heels of political enemies that Alexander Bach had investigated.
I immediately opened the file and quickly skimmed through it.
「1. Count Franz Folliot de Crenneville.
Corruption in the supply of military goods and abuse of authority.
During the recent Italian War, he granted an exclusive contract for the army’s supply deliveries to a company run by his relatives.
When Baron Burg attempted to audit the military procurement corruption, responsibility for the army’s defeat was shifted onto him.
2. Count Bernhard von Rechberg.
Severe alcohol dependence.
Highest-ranking member of the Black Rose, a social club in Vienna.
Advocates a blind alliance with Prussia and deliberately obstructs relations with Russia.
3. Count Agenor Gołuchowski.
Embezzlement of public funds and sale of offices.
Misappropriated relief funds bestowed by the imperial household for famine relief in Galicia. Used them to expand his own mansion.
Sold key government posts to Polish nobles in exchange for bribes, regardless of ability.」
“… Why are you giving this to me?”
I had asked for it, to be sure, but I had not expected her to hand it over so easily.
“Is this not what Your Majesty desired?”
“Do not be sarcastic. Why did you not deal with them yourself? You could have disposed of them without anyone ever knowing.”
“If I strike them down, they will sell out Maximilian in order to survive.”
So she meant that they might even use Josef to try to take Maximilian down with them.
“But, Empress. The only things that matter to you are my eldest son, Franz, and your children, are they not?”
“So you want me to act.”
“Yes. In exchange, do not touch Max. End it by cutting off the tail. That is my condition for handing over the documents.”
I gathered up the file.
“Archduke Maximilian was never written here from the beginning, after all.”
Before leaving, I turned and spoke to the archduchess.
“… Go visit your homeland with my younger aunt and elder aunt.”
“I am a Habsburg.”
Just as I was about to leave, she called me to a halt one last time.
“Empress. When I said it was for your sake, there was not a single moment when those words were false.”
The archduchess stared piercingly at me for some time, then indifferently lowered her head, dropping her gaze to her desk.
What was that supposed to mean all of a sudden?
Was she that worried about Maximilian?
“I told you I won’t touch Maximilian.”
Leaving only those words behind, I turned and left the room.
***
After returning from her office, Sophie wrote down the day’s events in her diary as usual.
「— I shared power with the girl.」
‘I am still not sure.’
She still did not approve of her going about outside, but judged that if she herself stepped back and the empress took power, she would remain in Vienna as empress.
Given Josef’s personality, he would rebel if she were the one to say it, but if Sisi handled the matter, there was a good chance he would tolerate Maximilian being spared, even if he found it somewhat displeasing.
Knock, knock.
“Who is it?”
“It is the minister of the empress’s household.”
Her old friend, yet one who had somehow come to stand on the empress’s side: Countess Esterházy.
“Enter.”
Esterházy approached her with proper courtesy.
“What brings you here?”
“Do you intend now to entrust affairs entirely to Her Majesty the Empress?”
“I must. Though it is a little late.”
Had it been Helene, who was modest, courteous, and well educated, she could have stepped back sooner and more gently. But the one Josef had chosen was the immature Sisi.
“… For someone you doted on, you are rather late.”
At Esterházy’s pointed joke, Sophie let out a small laugh.
‘Yes, I did.’
Even now, though she did not show it, still.
If only one excluded the way she bristled at her elders.
“Have you come today as a friend?”
“If you wish, I shall remain your court minister.”
Instead of calling a maid, Sophie personally picked up the wine bottle and filled two glasses.
One glass for her friend, one glass for herself.
She flipped her diary forward and placed her finger on the page she had written long ago on the day of the empress’s wedding.
「The empress was as beautiful as an angel, humble, and moved all who beheld her.」
The ink had faded, but the emotions of that time remained vivid.
“To think my eye for people had grown so poor.”
“In what respect?”
“She was as beautiful as an angel and moved all who beheld her… but she was not humble.”
Setting down her empty glass, she looked out the window toward the palace where the empress resided.
“A child who knew nothing of etiquette, nothing of politics, not even how to dress herself.”
That was why she had intended to teach her everything from the ground up and make her the mother of the nation.
Her expressions were still as varied as ever, and as for dignity as an empress—yes. Sophie felt that her managing to maintain it at least in public was a tremendous improvement.
Just as she had loved Josef, she had loved Sisi as well.
“Is it not fortunate that she was not humble?”
In another sense, she was humble. Even now, she insisted on using formal speech with people she had just met.
“Yes. She could have become the emperor’s wife… but she would never have become the mistress of the empire.”
It felt as though she had finished a long assignment.
At least until the next morning.
“She went where?”
“She has left for the Procuratie Nuove to recuperate.”
She had given her power so that she would remain in Vienna, and what came back was a trip to Venice.
“… Perhaps because I have grown old, my eye for people is not what it once was.”
The lessons were not over yet.
***
The sea and gardens of Venice are always lovely, no matter when I see them…
“Your Majesty… will this truly be all right?”
What could be the problem?
For one thing, I absolutely refused to stay at Schönbrunn.
I did not particularly like it even in summer, and they wanted me to stay there in winter too?
There were no toilets there, and no bathrooms either.
“They know I usually travel in summer anyway.”
Josef would understand.
Besides, this was the warm south.
Thanks to the Mediterranean, it was not very cold, and the Venetians…
“Your Majesty, if you do that, you may fall…”
See? They were delighted even if I merely waved my hand through the window.
Unlike Milan, Venice could be considered practically won over.
“Baron Anton von Schmerling has arrived.”
“Tell him to enter.”
The man I had chosen among those who might replace Bach.
If there was a problem… it was that he was a liberal who disliked Hungary.
No. Rather, he was closer to the sort of man who disliked anything that got in the way of centralization.
“Baron Schmerling.”
“I greet Your Majesty the Empress.”
A bureaucrat who believed that parliament, too, should exist for the emperor.
That was why there was no blade quite like him.
“Your Majesty, why have you summoned a mere bureaucrat like me all the way to far-off Venice? I cannot dance, and I have no talent for reciting poetry.”
I tilted my chin slightly upward, letting its proud tip point toward Schmerling, and lowered my eyes just a little, as if looking down on him.
Just as I had been taught on the first day.
“If I had needed a dance partner, I would have called Johann Strauss. What I need is a butcher to carve away the empire’s rotten flesh.”
A man who harbored more than enough ill will toward the conservative nobles.
“I have considered why Your Majesty sought me out, but I could not find the answer.”
“Tell me what you thought.”
“… Your Majesty led His Majesty the Emperor’s coronation in Bohemia, and you have shown great interest in other members of the empire, including Venice.”
“What is the problem with that? I see nothing wrong with the empress of the empire taking an interest in the empire’s constituents.”
“But does Your Majesty’s course not align with the federalism advocated by Count Gołuchowski?”
Did the word multiculturalism not exist yet?
Schmerling adjusted his glasses like a fastidious scholar and continued.
“I desire a strong German-centered central government based in Vienna. Not an empire that divides power among the nobles of each region, but an efficient empire that moves as one under the name of His Majesty the Emperor.”
So do I.
“A parliament is useful. Of course. If we were to create the parliament the baron desires.”
How many years would it take?
“Five years. I would say at least five.”
“When Your Majesty says five years…”
“I mean the time it would take for the parliament to take root and for us to enact our first measure.”
Well, by then, the German Confederation might well have been dissolved because of Prussia, no?
It would be better to integrate before that and have Josef leave the parliament in place as a compromise with the liberals.
“Baron. His Majesty listens to his ministers’ opinions more than you might think. If he had ignored their opinions and tried to resolve everything on his own, could the conservative nobles have shaken the empire as they have now?”
No.
“The strong centralization through parliament that you desire—fine. But who will be the members who make up that parliament?”
“Well, educated German burghers with property, and…”
“Wrong. If an election were held right now, the great nobles who are local powers in the provinces would take the seats. In the parliament you create, they will legally carve up the emperor’s authority and carry it off to the provinces.”
He did not back down at my answer and asked again.
“I understand, Your Majesty. But allow me to ask one more thing.”
“Speak.”
“Why does Your Majesty help the empire’s constituents? Is it simply out of sympathy? Or is it to win their favor?”
There had been no mention that he was a Greater Germanist.
“Why is Your Majesty so kind to the members of the empire? In Bohemia, a benevolent queen; in Italy, a beautiful mother. Do you not know that such appeasement plants in them the vain hope of autonomy?”
That it was poison to centralization, then.
“Acknowledging their culture is not the same as acknowledging their autonomy.”
“In the end, it will plant in them the idea that they, too, must have a parliament.”
“Baron. How many Germans are there within our empire?”
“They are estimated at roughly eight million.”
“And the non-Germans?”
“… If one includes Hungarians, Slavs, and Italians, roughly twenty-five million.”
I gave a slight nod.
“That is precisely the reason. Do you think we can suppress them forever with the swords and guns of a mere eight million?”
“Is that not why only His Majesty the Emperor possesses the army?”
“Occupation is possible. But that is not governance. An occupying army is bound to be driven out someday.”
I gestured toward the peaceful scenery of Venice beyond the window.
“The reason I smile at them, learn their languages, and respect their cultures is not for their sake. It is because I am the empress of the empire.”
Bohemia in 1526, Hungary in 1526, Croatia in 1527, Lombardy in 1714, Venice in 1797.
It had been enough time to become a single empire like France, if only they had focused on the empire rather than Germany.
“The Habsburgs are not a family that rules a nation. We are a family that rules an empire.”
The Habsburg family motto.
Viribus Unitis—With united forces.