1780. DEATH OF MARIA THERESA.
Maria Theresa had long been ill of an incurable dropsy, and on the 29th of November, 1780, she died, in the sixty-fourth year of her age. A few days before her death she had herself lowered by ropes and pulleys into the vault where the coffin of Francis I. reposed. On being drawn up again, one of the ropes parted, whereupon she exclaimed: "He wishes to keep me with him, and I shall soon come!" She wrote in her prayer-book that in regard to matters of justice, the Church, the education of her children, and her obligations towards the different orders of her people, she found little cause for self-reproach; but that she had been a sinner in making war from motives of pride, envy and anger, and in her speech had shown too little charity for others. She left Austria in a condition of order and material prosperity such as the country had not known for centuries.
When Frederick the Great heard of her death, he said to one of his ministers: "Maria Theresa is dead; now there will be a new order of things!" He evidently believed that Joseph II. would set about indulging his restless ambition for conquest. But the latter kept the peace, and devoted himself to the interests of Austria, establishing, indeed, a new and most astonishing order of things, but of a totally different nature from what Frederick had expected. Joseph II. was filled with the new ideas of human rights which already agitated Europe. The short but illustrious history of the Corsican Republic, the foundation of the new nation of the United States of America, the works of French authors advocating democracy in society and politics, were beginning to exercise a powerful influence in Germany, not so much among the people as among the highly educated classes. Thus at the very moment when Frederick and Maria Theresa were exercising the most absolute form of despotism, and the smaller rulers were doing their best to imitate them, the most radical theories of republicanism were beginning to be openly discussed, and the great Revolution which they occasioned was only a few years off.
1781.
Joseph II. was scarcely less despotic in his habits of government than Frederick the Great, and he used his power to force new liberties upon a people who were not intelligent enough to understand them. He stands almost alone among monarchs, as an example of a Revolutionist upon the throne, not only granting far more than was ever demanded of his predecessors, but compelling his people to accept rights which they hardly knew how to use. He determined to transform Austria, by a few bold measures, into a State which should embody all the progressive ideas of the day, and be a model for the world. The plan was high and noble, but he failed because he did not perceive that the condition of a people cannot be so totally changed, without a wise and gradual preparation for it.
He began by reforming the entire civil service of Austria; but, as he took the reform into his own hands and had little practical knowledge of the position and duties of the officials, many of the changes operated injuriously. In regard to taxation, industry and commerce, he followed the theories of French writers, which, in many respects, did not apply to the state of things in Austria. He abolished the penalty of death, put an end to serfdom among the peasantry, cut down the privileges of the nobles, and tried, for a short time, the experiment of a free press. His boldest measure was in regard to the Church, which he endeavored to make wholly independent of Rome. He openly declared that the priests were "the most dangerous and most useless class in every country"; he suppressed seven hundred monasteries and turned them into schools or asylums, granted the Protestants freedom of worship and all rights enjoyed by Catholics, and continued his work in so sweeping a manner that the Pope, Pius VI., hastened to Vienna in 1782, in the greatest alarm, hoping to restore the influence of the Church. Joseph II. received him with external politeness, but had him carefully watched and allowed no one to visit him without his own express permission. After a stay of four weeks during which he did not obtain a single concession of any importance, the Pope returned to Rome.
Not content with what he had accomplished, Joseph now went further. He gave equal rights to Jews and members of the Greek Church, ordered German hymns to be sung in the Catholic Churches and the German Bible to be read, and prohibited pilgrimages and religious processions. These measures gave the priesthood the means of alarming the ignorant people, who were easily persuaded that the Emperor intended to abolish the Christian religion. They became suspicious and hostile towards the one man who was defying the Church and the nobles in his efforts to help them. Only the few who came into direct contact with him were able to appreciate his sincerity and goodness. He was fond of going about alone, dressed so simply that few recognized him, and almost as many stories of his intercourse with the lower classes are told of him in Austria as of Frederick the Great in Prussia. On one occasion he attended a poor sick woman whose daughter took him for a physician: on another he took the plough from the hands of a peasant, and ploughed a few furrows around the field. If his reign had been longer, the Austrian people would have learned to trust him, and many of his reforms might have become permanent; but he was better understood and loved after his death than during his life.
1785. JOSEPH II.'S REFORMS.
One circumstance must be mentioned, in explanation of the sudden and sweeping character of Joseph II.'s measures towards the Church. The Jesuits, by their intrigues and the demoralizing influence which they exercised, had made themselves hated in all Catholic countries, and were only tolerated in Bavaria and Austria. France, Spain, Naples and Portugal, one after the other, banished the Order, and Pope Clement XIV. was finally induced, in 1773, to dissolve its connection with the Church of Rome. The Jesuits were then compelled to leave Austria, and for a time they found refuge only in Russia and Prussia, where, through a most mistaken policy, they were employed by the governments as teachers. Their expulsion was the sign of a new life for the schools and universities, which were released from their paralyzing sway, and Joseph II. evidently supposed that the Church of Rome itself had made a step in advance. The Archbishop of Mayence and the Bishop of Treves were noted liberals; the latter even favored a reformation of the Catholic Church, and the Emperor had reason to believe that he would receive at least a moral support throughout Germany. He neither perceived the thorough demoralization which two centuries of Jesuit rule had produced in Austria, nor the settled determination of the Papal power to restore the Order as soon as circumstances would permit.
Joseph II.'s last years were disastrous to all his plans. In Flanders, which was still a dependency of Austria, the priests incited the people to revolt; in Hungary the nobles were bitterly hostile to him, on account of the abolition of serfdom, and an alliance with Catharine II. of Russia against Turkey, into which he entered in 1788,—chiefly, it seems, in the hope of achieving military renown—was in every way unfortunate. At the head of an army of 200,000 men, he marched against Belgrade, but was repelled by the Turks, and finally returned to Vienna with the seeds of a fatal fever in his frame. Russia made peace with Turkey before the fortunes of war could be retrieved; Flanders declared itself independent of Austria, and a revolution in Hungary was only prevented by his taking back most of the decrees which had been issued for the emancipation of the people. Disappointed and hopeless, Joseph II. succumbed to the fever which hung upon him: he died on the 20th of February, 1790, only forty-nine years of age. He ordered these words to be engraved upon his tomb-stone: "Here lies a prince, whose intentions were pure, but who had the misfortune to see all his plans shattered!" History has done justice to his character, and the people whom he tried to help learned to appreciate his efforts when it was too late.