History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Volume 21 by Thomas Carlyle

At Vienna, on November 29th, 1780, the noble Kaiserinn Maria Theresa, after a short illness, died. Her end was beautiful and exemplary, as her course had been. The disease, which seemed at first only a bad cold, proved to have been induration of the lungs; the chief symptom throughout, a more and more suffocating difficulty to breathe. On the edge of death, the Kaiserinn, sitting in a chair (bed impossible in such struggle for breath), leant her head back as if inclined to sleep. One of her women arranged the cushions, asked in a whisper, "Will your Majesty sleep, then? " "No," answered the dying Kaiserinn; "I could sleep, but I must not; Death is too near. He must not steal upon me. These fifteen years I have been making ready for him; I will meet him awake. " Fifteen years ago her beloved Franz was snatched from her, in such sudden manner: and ever since, she has gone in Widow's dress; and has looked upon herself as one who had done with the world. The 18th of every month has been for her a day of solitary prayer; 18th of every August (Franz's death-day) she has gone down punctually to the vaults in the Stephans-Kirche, and sat by his coffin there; -- last August, something broke in the apparatus as she descended; and it has ever since been an omen to her. [Hormayr, _OEsterreichischer Plutarch,_ iv. (2tes) 94; Keith, ii. 114.] Omen now fulfilled.

On her death, Joseph and Kaunitz, now become supreme, launched abroad in their ambitious adventures with loose rein. Schemes of all kinds; including Bavaria still, in spite of the late check; for which latter, and for vast prospects in Turkey as well, the young Kaiser is now upon a cunning method, full of promise to him, -- that of ingratiating himself with the Czarina, and cutting out Friedrich in that quarter. Summer, 1780, while the Kaiserinn still lived, Joseph made his famous First Visit to the Czarina (May-August, 1780), [Hermann, vi. 132-135.] -- not yet for some years his thrice-famous Second Visit (thrice-famous Cleopatra-voyage with her down the Dnieper; dramaturgic cities and populations keeping pace with them on the banks, such the scenic faculty of Russian Officials, with Potemkin as stage-manager): -- in the course of which First Visit, still more in the Second, it is well known the Czarina and Joseph came to an understanding. Little articulated of it as yet; but the meaning already clear to both. "A frank partnership, high Madam: to you, full scope in your glorious notion of a Greek Capital and Empire, Turk quite trampled away, Constantinople a Christian metropolis once more [and your next Grandson a CONSTANTINE, -- to be in readiness]: why not, if I may share too, in the Donau Countries, that lie handy? To you, I say, an Eastern Empire; to me, a Western: Revival of the poor old Romish Reich, so far as may be; and no hindrance upon Bavaria, next time. Have not we had enough of that old Friedrich, who stands perpetually upon STATUS QUO, and to both of us is a mere stoppage of the way?"