The Fürstin Marie Luise von Eggenberg, sat quietly alone, in a private drawing room adjoining the palace's main hall, lounging on a reclining sofa with small glass of hot fruit punch in her hands. She had felt the need to take a few moments to compose herself after several hours of playing the role of the party's primary hostess before rejoining the fray. While the role of soldier and administrator came to her by a combination of inner nature, ability and inclination, the role of dedicated socialite did not. Marie Luise, all too often found the intensive and often superficial social interactions that aristocratic society demanded of her exhausting, frustrating and not infrequently boring in the extreme.
She tried to ease her stiff shoulders and neck, no easy task within the confines of her generalfeldmarschall's uniform and long red skirt hemmed with stiff gold wavy pattern lace decorated with trefoils of oak leaves. The same pattern of lace decorated both the high collar and deep cuffs and turn backs of her coat, all of which were the same snarling red as her skirt. She set aside her glass cup of punch and tried again, raising her arms above and behind her head and slowly rolling her shoulders to work the kinks out, once again with indifferent success.
The heavy, lacy cuffed and high collared shirt with it's close fitting black stock and heavy red velvet waistcoat with it's heavy gold braid, she wore beneath her white general officer's coat hardly helped. Nor for that matter did, the considerable collection of foreign and Austrian orders of chivalry, military decorations and medals and sashes that adorned her chest. She had received a virtual deluge of those following the Coalition's victories in the final campaign in France and the outbreak of genuine peace in 1814, following the Treaty of Fontainebleau.
She had also received with said tokens of commendation by various monarchs a great many annuities, pensions and assorted and valuable spoils of war, which she accepted with some personal misgivings: as a consequence of her arduous twenty years of military service in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars and her own vigorous often desperate part in the recent battles of 1813 and 1814. Marie Luise was of mixed opinions about this sudden and to her mind excessive largesse from her own sovereign though less so from the other heads of states of the Sixth Coalition. Although the combined monies were welcome in rebuilding her badly depleted personal privy purse and the exchequer of her feudal estates, Marie Luise, felt very wary all the same. Particularly because it was so unexpected: Kaiser Franz I of Austria was normally one of the most parsimonious monarch's who ever sat on any throne and never went out of his way to praise or reward anyone unless he thought he would gain something personally, dynastically or politically by it.
Marie Luise, felt sure the Kaiser's actions in this regard, were meant as a bribe to retain her loyalty, a crudely material one admittedly, he was usually more subtle then this in his dealings with her. Kaiser Franz was probably concerned that he would loose considerable face with his military officers, the Hofkriegsrat and just as importantly from his perspective, his fellow monarchs if he acted with less publicly visible generosity then they were showing her. Marie Luise, reclaimed her cup of punch and sipped it thoughtfully. Marie Luise, was at this moment just as glad that she had chosen to retire - in triumph this time rather then disgrace - to her estates, their and their inhabitants prosperity and the rearing and education of her four year old son, Ferdinand Ulrich, was the sum total of her current and future hopes and aspirations.
Marie Luise pulled absently at her long, almost silvery white hair, faint streaks of her formerly blond hair were just visible. This was most outwardly visible "memento mori" of her "death" at the battle of Leipzig, aside from the phosphorescent green tinge that still coloured her eyes, nearly a year previously. Violent headaches, muscle spasms and nerve storms, which caused her to suffer alternating bouts of either wild, alarmingly maniacal energy or deep melancholic lethargy plagued her. There were of course the other chronic aches and pains that nearly twenty years of active military service had inflicted upon her in the form of assorted illness, various wounds not all of them minor and the physical, mental and emotional exhaustion that was part and parcel of active combat duties. Sometimes, Marie Luise, wondered if the desperate intervention effected by Graf Sonder and Eisen, that had lead to her rebirth, reanimation, whatever one wanted to call it, had been worth it.
Marie Luise's immediately imagined Sonder's and Eisen's reaction to that sour but understandable thought. Sonder would have promptly told her to not be such a confirmed pessimist even if she was an Austrian! She chuckled despite herself at that mental imagine. Eisen would have given her one of his silent, searing gazes and probably cuffed her head over ears to try knock some sense into her. Certainly Ferdinand Ulrich, her beloved son and her family's retainers, feudal subjects and many friends and relations that had supported her through thick and thin, had been relieved by her unexpected and unlooked for survival in the circumstances. the muffled sound of music and the heavy murmur of numerous simultaneous conversations penetrated the closed door to the drawing room, bringing her mind back to her present surroundings.
The Great Hall, at this moment was crowded with what seemed like the better part of an infantry battalion's worth of military officers, officials and dignitaries from the more then a dozen member states of the Sixth Coalition. In truth, the party she was hosting for the evening, in her new suburban palace in the city of Graz was not really that large by the standards of such things, being only several hundred people all told, certainly not a very large affair by the grand and ostentatious standards of Vienna and the gigantic and imposing Imperial palaces of Schönbrunn and the Hofburg. it just seemed that way, given the considerable noise and genuine gaeity of her many guests, Marie Luise reflected wryly.
Nor was this particularly surprising, given the soothing prospects of an evening where the primary features were nothing higher then good music, good company and good food and drink. Which in and of itself was a welcome change from the overheated, often highly tense political parties, meetings and soirees that many of her guests were accustomed to for the past weeks. Quite frankly, Marie Luise was quite happy not to be involved other then very peripherally in the matters of high international politics and national agendas that had dominated Vienna and the other great capitals of Europe, since Napoleon had been defeated by the Sixth Coalition and subsequently agreed to go into permanent exile on the Island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Archdukes Karl and Johann, as had many of her extended family, friends and relations, had kept her abreast of political and military developments within the Congress. The military campaigns of 1812, 1813 and 1814 plus her hard earned feldmarschall's baton had successfully rehabilitated her in eyes and good esteem of the Austrian Empire's people if not Kaiser Franz's, so she had a fair idea of how things stood between the various nations of Europe.
Kaiser Franz's feud with her continued unabated though rather less publicly then previously and her enemies in the Imperial Court now treated her with greater circumspection then they had previously. Both had nearly driven her to suicidal despair in 1810 and 1813. Kaiser Franz, especially when he had curtly informed her in a private meeting before the battle of Leipzig, that he would never allow her to marry her beloved Karl. That unexpected although not surprisingly vindictive blow had nearly killed her there and then. Both, she and Karl had quietly entertained hopes of a morganatic marriage up to that moment as her military and political reputation was once again on the rise.
That Marie Luise had unexpectedly "survived" being mortally wound at Leipzig trying to stop Napoleon and the Grande Armee's escape from Leipzig had threatened to derail Kaiser Franz's plans in that regard. Franz I being Franz I though, was patient and cunning and arranged Karl's marriage to a princess of the Grand Ducal House of Nassau. This had devastated both of them, particularly as there was little they could do about it without storing up still more still trouble for themselves both politically and socially.
A wicked smile touched Marie Luise's lips, the Kaiser had spectacularly overplayed his hand in the matter however. He had not reckoned on the personality and character of Princess Henrietta von Nassau-Weilberg. Henrietta had not only fallen thorough in love with her new betrothed but had a spirited mind of her own, refusing to Kaiser Franz's face to convert from her protestant faith to Roman Catholicism as he had blithely assumed. Both Marie Luise and Karl had both been raised to be good Roman Catholics without thinking too much about it but both were largely devoid of any deep rooted religious bigotry and dogmatism which marked them both out as something atypical amoung Christians, given the frequent and often bitter sectarian conflicts that had marked previous centuries.
Henrietta being barely seventeen, her actual marriage to Karl had been deferred until sometime in 1815, had looked to the more experienced and worldly Marie Luise as a friend, confidante and guide. Which had astonished Marie Luise, especially since Henrietta was well aware that she and Karl shared a long romantic and physical relationship. Marie Luise had discovered that this was due to the intervention of two people. Johann, who was determined to throw as many spanners into his elder brother's intrigues against her as he could and her childhood friend Natalie, who had been unexpectedly appointed as Henrietta's chief lady-in-waiting.
There was also Henrietta herself, she had a warm heart and real integrity allied to an iron will all her own. Further Henrietta was the product of a small provincial German principality court, that of the Grand Duchy of Nassau and it's integral semi-independent duchies and principalities, and despite her youth, she well understood the intense and vicious game of intrigue, gossip mongering and innuendo that reigned, within the administration and courtiers, of such places. The basic rules of the great game of intrigues and feuds that went on in the Imperial Court, were in and of themselves no surprise to her, only their scope and consequences and players were unfamiliar. With Karl, Johann and Natalie's help and guidance though she was rapidly learning how to deal with her unexpected transition from that a minor German States princess to that of Imperial and Royal Archduchess and she was even spreading her wings in her own right.
At her invitation, Karl, Henrietta, Johann and Natalie were amoung tonight's guests of honour as were others of her inner circle of friends, family and acquaintances and numerous military and political luminaries. Another sip of the punch followed and Marie Luise's thoughts turned down other channels unbidden. While it was usual for a man's mistress: former mistress in her case, to have an adversarial or at least severely strained relationship especially in the case with a husband who happened to have a young and inexperienced wife, Henrietta and Marie Luise were developing a shy, very cordial friendship which did not cease to surprise Marie Luise the more she thought of it. This development had been another surprise development and an unpleasant one at that, as far as Kaiser Franz and the Imperial Court in Vienna had been concerned.
Marie Luise took another slow sip of her punch, as her thoughts again turned down other avenues. Finding she had drained the small cup, she reached for the bottle of punch, resting in a charcoal heater beside her couch and refilled it.
Marie Luise admitted that she was troubled by current events in France now once again under the rule of the Royal House of Bourbon. King Louis XVIII seemed determined to rule France as his ancestors had done in the past, though to his credit he was prepared to accept some constitutional limitations - in the form of the Royal Charter of 1814 - upon the very real autocratic royal authority he wielded. Marie Luise was skeptical that the old style absolutism that the great dynasties of Europe had long been accustomed to wielding was now possible. Particularly in light of the drastic social, economic and political changes that had happened within much of France and that Europe itself had undergone via the trials of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Marie Luise sighed softly aloud to herself, there would be another insurrection or revolution in a few years time within France, if Louis and his Heir presumptive, the Comte d'Artois, the self-styled leader of the French ultra-royalists and ultra-conservatives were not careful. Unfortunately the Bourbons had a well established reputation of forgetting nothing and forgiving nothing. Having actually met Charles de Bourbon, who personified this expression, a number of times during his long exile in the foreign capitals of Europe and again during the first days of the Bourbon Restoration in Paris.
Given the negative opinion she had gradually formed of Charles's moral character: he didn't have one, being a shameless philanderer and coward, he had been the first member of the Royal Family or Aristocracy to flee from France for his own personal safety when the revolution had broken out, general ability: he was incompetent in both military affairs and his own personal financial affairs, being a complete spendthrift ridden with debts running to the millions of francs and judgement: his ability to evaluate past and current political and social affairs as well as the moral character or general abilities of the people around him was abysmal. Marie Luise was dismally certain that he would do something outstandingly stupid when and if he ever got himself onto the royal throne of the Kingdom of France. He was already doing enough damage to both his own and the King's popularity by obstinately and tactlessly trying to turn back the clock socially and administratively, to return France to the so-called glory days of the L'Ancien Régime.
That last thought made, Marie Luise consider the bundle of letters she had received that morning all with the postscript of Portoferraio, Elba. Marie Luise felt her mood darken at the thought of the letters possible contents. A gentle knock sounded at the doorway, shortly followed by one of the armour plated, ornate warden automatons, moved into the room.
"Yes?"
"His Imperial and Royal Highness, the Archduke Johann, and His Excellency Generalfeldmarschall Prince Aleksandr Vasilyevich Suvorov, wish with your permission to be admitted."
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