banquet which the young husband gave a week after the wedding.
The Empress was confident that she had well provided for the happiness of her favorite noble and her ward. But alas! she was mistaken. Maria Theresa was certainly justified in thinking that the young Countess, who had been taught obedience from earliest childhood, would yield to the Count her warm admiration and respectful love. Felsenburk was at that time one of the handsomest and most renowned of men, secret and known lover of all the court belles, any one of whom would have considered herself fortunate to become his wife. The Empress hoped that the young wife, with her modesty and loveliness, would prove attractive to her husband and turn him from the irregularities to which he had become accustomed during his loose soldier life, and that she would soon bring him to repentance. The worldliness of the Count greatly worried the religious Empress. She wanted to have him faultless. Very few men were such decided lovers of feminine beauty,
