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.