Derek Beales: Joseph II (Volumes I and II)

[selenak]

Joseph II, Volume I: In the Shadow of Maria Theresa (1741 - 1780)

I've now read the first volume of Beales' opus magnum. As biographies go, I find it less dense while as informative as Stollberg-Rillingers MT biography, but otoh not as fluently narrated as, say, "Der Kaiser reist incognito" or Stefan Zweig's Marie Antoinette biographie romancee. He's mostly good with footnotes and sourcing his quotes. (A very rare exception: the apocryphal "She cried, and she took!" re: MT & Poland supposedly by Fritz but really not! Near the end of the book in an overall assessment of the co-regency years, no less.) Also, as opposed to Nancy Goldstone on one end of the scale (Fritz bad, MT and daughters plus Leopold but not Joseph good) and the whole school of Prussian historians pre and some post WWII (Fritz glorious, destiny justifies everything! Party of Progress! Also MT should just have given him Silesia which was Prussia's by old right anyway, and he'd have been her champion!) on the other, he's refreshingly matter of factly and unpartisan. In terms of Habsburg vs Habsburg, he of course makes his case for Joseph but without putting down MT, and I find his rendition of the Mother/Son relationship, both in its personal and political aspects - and at the way these were hopelessly intertwined, which - very plausible. He doesn't prettify the increasing dysfunctionality of the later years, but nor does he simplify and makes a good case for the ongoing affection along with all the mutual criticism and frustration. And he makes an absolutely fascinating contemporary comparison which never occurred to me before, but the more I think about it, the more the shoe fits:



Domineering, meddlesome, hypercritical and restrictive as his mother could be; hectoring, sarcastic, resentful and self-righteous as he often showed himself; he could not utterly reject her graciousness, charm, admiration and affection. (...) Both the angry, even hysterical exchanges between mother and son, and and the expressions of affection, have to be accepted as genuine. Despite all alarms they did contrive to work together - unlike successive princes of Wales with George I., George II and George III. Perhaps the nearest parallel is the relationship between the brothers prince Henry of Prussia and Frederick the Great, in which extreme personal bitterness proved compatible with close collaboration. But the mutual affection was decidedly stronger in the case of Joseph and Maria Theresa.

He could have added Catherine and her son Paul to the pairings who could not not work together, which brings me to the following gem quoted in this book, showing Joseph in yet another way resembling his mother's arch nemesis:

Joseph (though not to a British Russian envoy): I'm so glad we're not like Catherine and Paul.

Though not having read the second volume yet, I don't know whether Joseph ever got to the point before his own death where he wished to forget the years since Mt's death. Anyway, Fritz and Heinrich as the closest contemporary equivalent to MT and Joseph (and vice versa): discuss!


(cahn:

WHAT
OMG
IT'S SO TRUE
LOL FOREVER
HEINRICH AND FRITZ ARE ROLLING IN THEIR GRAVES

MT actually being Joseph's mom, not just sibling-in-parental-role -- and like it or not, there's still a gendered edge to mom rather than dad

selenak: Oh absolutely. I mean, it works in several ways in this particular relationship. On the one hand, despite all those Russian female monarchs and regents, 18th century gender expectations were still thus that much as MT doing her own ruling instead of letting FS do it had been unexpected and unusual, MT not resigning once Joseph was off age and letting him rule on his lonesome was by no means the self evident and universally expected choice. (Whereas with a male ruler with an adult son, no one would have expected him to resign.) Otoh, rebelling against your mother just is different for sons from rebelling against your father, and the emotional-psychological impediments to showing anger were and are much higher. I mean, just look at the truly catastrophic relationships Fritz of Wales had to both is parents. And he was undoubtedly keenly aware that his mother disliked, then eventually hated him as much as his father did. Yet the rudest thing he did re: Caroline was not addressing her as "your majesty" or at all in a letter to both his parents. (Well, that and making his wife give birth elsewhere, but that was a gesture against both parents, again.)

Also, while Joseph vented plenty, and so did MT, in letters to other family members about just how frustrated they were with each other, and could list each other's real and imagined faults at heart, I don't think they doubted that the other loved them. Did Heinrich think Fritz loved him? Most of their lives, I guess he was convinced Fritz did not. Did Fritz think Heinrich loved him? Well, we have an early letter addressing that very subject. I think he wanted to believe all his siblings loved him, and the more time passed and the more important Heinrich became to him, he did want Heinrich to love him in particular, but he also could not stop the alter ego role play, and at least at some level must have been aware of the emotional consequence.

But: in both cases - i.e. Heinrich & Fritz, Joseph & MT - the combination of emotional storms with support where it counted in the most high pressure of situations - an absolute monarchy at stake - and the frustration of the younger party that they are convinced they could do so much more, if only the older party would let them, but never, as several of the various princes of Wales did, make that key step of actually conspiring against the ruling monarch - is definitely more alike than not. Also, despite the differences in gender and in several character traits, there were some resemblances between mother and son that they didn't share so much with the rest of the family, and I don't mean the hardcore work ethic. MT and Joseph were both emotionally wired to romantically love this one person possessively and exclusively, and never get over their death. MT was lucky in that FS loved her back in a way Isabella did not love Joseph. (Who, however, as far as I know at this point never discovered this.) And of course it's up to debate how things would have developed if Eleonore Liechtenstein would have been able to love Joseph romantically, though honestly, after reading "Five Princesses" I think it would have been a disaster, because she was thin skinned and touchy; she and Joseph had easily the most inflammable temper of the group, and as lovers would have explosively clashed and have finished their affair soon. In any event, Joseph never stopped mourning for Isabella as MT never stopped mourning for FS.)


Of course, in terms of governing, they were actually a triumvirate, with Kaunitz as the third party, and in the last five years or so of Mt's life, one of them was always threatening to resign in order to make the other two give in. Joseph's last such attempt leads to a line from MT that sums the relationship up:

Joseph, having offered to resign from the co-regency: I've always been able to carry out the job of a good son without having to work at it. It comes naturally. The position of co-regent, to be tolerable, needs only to become imaginary. After welve years of study I haven't yet attained proficiency, and never shall, except by the method that I'M sure you'll permit me to adopt, and my withdrawal will be the beginning of my happiness.

MT to this: It is cruel that we should love each other and mutually torment each other without doing any good.

As an example of Beales' narrative fairness: he points out on the one hand Joseph had good reason to be upset with her when she reached out to Fritz mid War of the Bavarian Succession, bypassing him when he was not only her fellow monarch but also the commander-in-chief of the ongoing war, not to mention it made him look like a schoolboy, BUT that at the same time, Mt's intervention won back some sympathy for Team Austria in the German states who had until then been all pro Fritz (because this time, Austria had done the invading and thus could be condemned as the aggressor), see also Protestant Matthias Claudius praising MT in poetry with "She made peace", and that this was one reason why Austria actually ended up with some territorial gain (the Innnviertel) in the peace treaty when military wise, they hadn't managed anything. He also says that as much as MT made Joseph work for every little reform concession he pushed through during their co-regency, those reforms actually survived him instead of having to be taken back.



Now, the "Five Princesses and Joseph II" study was written after Beales had already published, so by necessity there is less here in general than there was in that single volume about Joseph and his lady friends, but Beales does indeed point out the importance those relationships had for him first. Incidentally, he reports the Marie Christina ("Mimi") affair with Eleonore Liechtenstein's husband as a fact, not a question, so wherever Goldstone had her idea that it was an invented rumor by Eleonore to carry favor from Joseph for her husband from, it's not from this biography. On the contrary, the timing of Eleonore writing this was a thing to her sister Leopoldine makes it even less likely, because it actually happens when the circle is just starting to form, at the same time when Eleonore is still wooed by Joseph. The way Beales narrates it, the chronology is thusly:

Joseph: *crushes increasingly on Eleonore, to the point where at a ball he makes an unmistakable move*
Eleonore: *does not want to become Joseph's mistress, decides to leave Vienna and visit her husband at Pressburg (Hungary), where he's stationed*
Mimi and Albert: *are currently governors in Hungary, residing in Pressburg*
Eleonore: *finds husband in affair with Mimi*
Eleonore: *writers angry and exasparated letter to sister Leopoldine*
Joseph in Vienna: *writes to brother Leopold how totally he does not mind having been rejected as a lover, pfff, he's so over it, who cares?*
Joseph: *convinces no one*
Joseph: Dear Eleonore, please please come back to Vienna, friends only it shall be!
Eleonore: *comes back*
Circle of Five: *established*

Yes, clearly exactly the kind of situation where a woman needs to do the guy a favor by making up a story about his sister and her husband.

(felis: What's an "unmistakable move" in 18th century terms?

selenak: Unmistakeable move, as described by Eleonore to her sister:

Yesterday he said to me that he looked upon me as his wife, that he had that kind of feeling for me. 'One is not loving towards one's wife', he said, 'but I am interested in everything that concerns you. I feel confident in fact that you belong to me.'

After this direct quote, Beales continues the narration: The princess replied that she was flattered, but could not follow his 'metaphysics of emotions' and was very far of belonging to him in any sense. '

And she's off to Pressburg. Where she finds her husband romancing Joseph's sister. I'm going to venture a guess here that Eleonore wasn't so loyal a subject as not to think "Bloody Habsburgs!" at this point.

Something else neither the first nor the second volume have is Goldstone's claim of Mimi showing Joseph Isabella's letters to herself. So unless Goldstone has another source for this, she's made it up.

And here's an anecdote featuring the Prince de Ligne, he who wrote the Eugene's memoirs RPF and also gave us some great descriptions of the Joseph and Fritz summit (including an Antinous reference!). Writes Beales, in a story that also is very descriptive of 18th century monarchies, Austrian edition:

A trivial example will highlight the difference of attitude between mother and son. The Belgian prince de Ligne, serving in the Monarchy's army, recalled in his memoirs that, furious at not being at once appointed on the death of his fatherh to command the family regiment and to a Knighthood of the Golden Fleece, he had written to the appropriate official, using the phrase: "Born in a land where there are no slaves, I shall be in a position to take my small merit and fortune elsewhere." When this insubordination became known to Maria Theresa and Joseph, they called a 'council of war'. The emperor wanted to take the initiative and dismiss the prince forthwith. Another member wanted him imprisoned. But a third, marshal Lacy, made the courtier's suggestion which the empress adopted: .for three months she would refuse to speak to Ligne, or to look at him when he kissed hands. The prince claimed that on one occasion during the period of this cruel sentence, he had caught her laughing.


Beales compares Fritz and Joseph apropos the Frederician political testaments vs the memoranda Joseph wrote to his mother and Kaunitz shortly after the death of his father and his becoming Emperor, detailing how he thought the state should work:

It is not possible to treat them as they were on exactly the same footing. Frederick devotes much space to foreign policiy, Joseph none. Frederick is writing, on the strength of great experience and success, for his heir; Joseph, innocent and untried, is addressing his still dominant mother. The political testaments wholly lack the adolescent dogmatism and passion of the memorandum. But the documents are comparable in that they both contain considered statements on the role of the monarch and on domestic policy.
Here there are many points of similarity, as well as revealing differences. Frederick and Joseph are agreed in their dedication to the state. Each believes that as the sovereign he is uniquely qualified to govern it and to decide what is best for it. Both are prejudiced against committees, concerned to augment the population, anxious to improve education, ready to let justice take its course, opposed to the granating of lasvish pensions, and intrested in maintaining a large army well integrated with society. But Frederick of course is the friend of the aristocracy, and Joseph their foe. The Prussian takes a more resonable line on the prohibition of imports. He does not make a point of receiving the petition of every subject personally. Though anti-religous, he is untroubled about the position of the churches in his domnions; indeed he acknowledges that the Lutherans are ideal subjects. Incidentally, he decribes Maria Theresa's council as the best in Europe. But the essential difference is that Frederick is describing a system with which in large measure he is now content. Joseph, by contrast, wishes to transform the Monarchy.


Joseph had been easily as relieved that Leopold would continue the Habsburg/Lorraine line as Fritz was about AW doing the job for the Hohenzollern, though since Leopold's son-siring started when MT was still alive, he wasn't nearly as bothering about it as Fritz had been towards AW. I was v. amused to read Joseph's congratulution-to-your-son letter to Leopold starting by addressing him as "oh great populator!"

Beales doesn't hold back on Joseph's flaws - for example, his Fritzian treatment of his second wife - but also has praise for his ability to be there when people he loved were suffering. Reading this biography, it hit me that Joseph was present at the deaths of his father, mother, first wife and daughter. The only death which was quick of these was the one of his father. The death of his daughter is the saddest of these, (MT to Lacy, one of Joseph's two male bffs in the circle: After this cruel blow, take care of my son. Try to see him every day, even twice a day, so that he may share his grief with you whom he knows to be his friend. )



Another aspect of interest to yours truly is Joseph the patron of German theatre (and opera), which was the one area where his mother really let him do what he wanted and didn't interfere. This I had known, but I hadn't been aware that Lessing's Emilia Galotti was produced in Vienna in 1772, the year of its completion. This is pretty sensational for several reasons:

1.) Lessing = Protestant Prussian Enlightenment writer.
2.) Emilia Galotti features a decadent ancien regime prince ordering the heroine, product of the up and coming middle class and not interested in extramarital sex with the nobility, into his bed. Unlike Figaro's Wedding, this isn't a comedy. It ends bloodily. Sure, the action takes place in Italy, but the critique on the status quo of the pre revolutionary all powerful rulers and nobles is pretty unmistakable.

Joseph actually dissolved the French theatre ensembles and as I told you before renamed the Burgtheater into "Deutsches Nationaltheater", the Court guaranteed the German players' wages for a trial period of one year, and Joseph offered prizes to German playwrights and sent a talent-scout into the Empire to seek out distinguished actors. [personal profile] cahn, it's in this context that Die Entführung aus dem Serail with its German libretto is produced. In short: (Joseph)s reforms had unquestionably made Vienna the capital of the German stage - at a time when Frederick the Great would patronize only French players.

(Otoh, Joseph's idea of founding an Academy of the Sciences died when his mother took a look at the proposal and said they'd be the laughing stock of Europe if they founded such an Academy with three ex Jesuits and a Professor of the Physics. The good scientists were all in Berlin, Paris and St. Petersburg.)



Joseph: wasn't a hardcore Catholic the way MT was, but still was no Deist the way Fritz and Voltaire were, and certainly saw himself as a Catholic to his dying day. (Despite much of the Austrian Catholic church being convinced he was the antichrist at that point.) "Reform-minded Catholic" is perhaps the best way to describe him. Re: "A good death" and the religious dimension thereof, here's Beales' description of Mt's death. (Footnoted to the memoirs of several people present, such as her daughter Marianne, and Albert, Mimi's husband, as well as the letter from Joseph to Leopold later. Her last lines vary from description to description as happens - see also the exact phrasing of the Katte and Fritz exchange in different accounts - though the emotional content remains the same. What doesn't vary is the description of Joseph's behavior.

During the second half of November, Maria Theresa became seriously ill. She developed a frightful cough, she often had to gasp for breath, she felt so hot that all the windows had to be wide open, she could not bear to sleep lying down. She and her doctor were soon convinced she was dying. But Joseph at first refused to accept that they said, and delayed summoning relatives and making arrangements for the last sacraments. On the 26th, however, she insisted on receiving communion in public, Leopold was informed of her condition, and the emperor began to spend the night in the room next to hers. She continued to put her affairs in order, write letters and sign papers; but her nights were terrible, and Joseph hardly slept. In the small hours of the 28th, in the company of Joseph and Max Franz (her youngest son), Albert and Marie Christine, Marianne and Elizabeth, she received extreme unction, and after the ceremony spoke to them all for twenty minutes, thanking them for their love and commending them to God and to the emperor. When Joesph tried to respond, he was overcome by tears and could only kiss her hand. Albert said he had never seen a man so moved as the emperor was at that moment. (And Albert wasn't a fan of Joseph, and had a lot of critical things to say about him otherwise in his memoirs.) During that day she talked much to her son, who told Kaunitz that 'her courage, resignation, steadfastness and patience' were 'astonishing'. The chancellor's notorious fear of illness and death was held to justify his absenting himself on this occasion. She survived the night, urging Joseph to snatch some sleep by allowing Max Franz to watch with her instead. The next morning she called for breakfast, which she took with her children. Throughout the day she again talked to the emperor for long spells. 'No doubt she was already losing her memory, and she spoke to him, contrary to her usual practice, in French.' He 'exhorted her several times like the most zealous of priests; he carried out all temporal and spiritual duties in such a perfect manner as to be a model to all sons.' At about nine in the vening, she got up suddenly, collapsed and had to be lifted on to her chaise-longue. Joseph said to her: "Your Majesty is uncomfortable.' 'Yes', she replied, 'but in a good enough position for dying.' A few minutes later, in the presence of Joseph, Max Franz and Albert, her life came to an end.

The one detail I hadn't come across before was that she switched to talking to Joseph in French (from German, presumably) and that this was seen as a sign of her memory going, which is so very very 18th century. (MT and her children had always corresponded in French, but their every day conversations were indeed usually reported to be in German.) Also, given that one of Mt's constant worries was that Joseph would carry his free thinking to a Fritzian level, i.e. abandon the faith entirely, which, remember, for a traditional Catholic like herself would mean having to fear for his soul ending up in hell, the fact that he offered her religious support on a priest-like level in addition to the emotional support of a son must have comforted her immensely not just on her own account.

In conclusion: a good and profound book on a tricky subject.


Joseph II, Volume II: Against the World (1780 - 1790)

Volume 2, about Joseph's decade as a lone ruler, continues to be concise, informative, neither dense and headache inducing nor as vividly told as the biographies romancees. Beales remains non-partisan in that he shows very clearly how Joseph manages to alienate most people, including most of his siblings, and piss off the nobility of various countries under his rule (whom he'd have direly needed on his side) in completely unnecessary ways, while also making mince meat of some legends (there's a chapter basically all about Joseph as a patron of music, with special emphasis on Mozart, where Beales really cuts loose against Joseph vilification in some older Mozart biographies and makes a convincing case of Joseph having been a good patron to Mozart (and in general responsible for Vienna really being the capital of European music under his reign), and showing the sheer magnitude and radicalism of what Joseph was aiming for. There's a good discussion near the end of putting Joseph in context not just with the two other enlightened despots of his time - Fritz and Catherine - but also with the two monarchs before him who could be called not enlightened, but revolutionaries from the top who did succeed in radically changing their countries and societies - Peter the Great and FW. He points out that the usual explanation as to why they were successful in ways Joseph was not, that Joseph's temper, the high handedness, the sarcasm, the know it all ness, the arrogance etc. ruined his efforts, really does not work, because both Peter and FW were easily as difficult as Joseph, if not way more so, and Joseph would never have done to his nephew (or alienated siblings) what they did to their sons. But, says Beales, Peter and FW worked with their nobles. And that, in his opinion, did make the difference.

MT is dead in volume II, of course, but her long term effect and the intense and complicated feelings Joseph had for his mother continue to play a role. Right at the start, Beales has great description: "(S)he had been a bulwark on which he needed to lean even while he was pummelling it with his fists."

Self evidently he was glad to finally get all the reforms he wanted going without anyone on an equal or superior level argueing back, let alone prevent it (he was yet to discover this did not mean the reforms would actually be accepted and work), but he also wrote to Leopold: Every minute I think I ought to be sending her some packets or going to see her myself. A pleasant habit of forty years' standing, affection such as Nature, duty, inclination and admiration combined to inspire, can enither be forgotten or effaced. It is as if I am stunned.(...)



Joseph does come across as the child MT and Fritz never had in his flaws, but also virtues. All MT feared in her September 14th, 1766 letter to Joseph (as translated by me here, the "don't be like Fritz, you don't want to pay the human price" letter comes to pass. However, Beales also argues that a better tempered, less stubborn monarch would not have achieved what Joseph did. What did he achieve that wasn't taken back? For example: Abolishment of serfdom (something neither Catherine or Fritz managed in their territories), obligatory school attendance in all Monarchy territories, complete restructuring of the Austrian Catholic Church, since neither Leopold nor Franz after him refounded those monasteries Joseph had dissolved en masse, and kept the obligation for priests to study at state universities in addition to theological colleges. Speaking of the dissolution of many a monastery and Joseph stating that no order which didn't do social work, i.e. no purely contemplative order, should remain, the big difference between his actions and that of, say, Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell, was that a) the money from the dissolution didn't go to the throne and some nobles, it went to a fund for social charity purposes, which exists to this day in Austria, and b) the monks from the dissolved monasteries had the option of either joining their order in other countries or work as parish priests, which mosts of them did. (The nuns could either join their order in other countries or work as nurses in hospitals.)

Of course Joseph and the Vatican had already started off on the wrong foot even before he began with his reforming laws. It was common that there was a special memorial service at the Vatican if a Catholic monarch died, so Joseph expected that to happen after Mt's death, given she had certainly been the most important Catholic monarch of her generation.

Papal Legate: Yeah, no. She was a WOMAN. Female monarchs don't count. We didn't have such a service for Mary Tudor, or Isabella the Catholic and her daughter Juana back in the day, either.

Joseph: I don't believe what I'm hearing here. My mother was the most deserving Catholic monarch ever. Fuck you. Just wait a few months when I'll be dissolving monasteries and making it law any papal annoucements have to be cleared with me first before I allow them being read out loud in my realms...



Meanwhile in Rome: What even? Does he want a schism?
Pope: *decides to visit*

This was really unusual at the time. In the 20th century, popes from JP2 onwards were travelling popes, but in the 18th century, they hardly ever left the immediate Roman surroundings, let alone Italy. That the Pope came to Vienna and visit Joseph was both an honor (also a balm because they didn't have a memorial service for MT, to which Joseph wrote angrily on the letter saying this: ""It is of little consequence whether the Bishop of Rome behaves courteously or discourteously") and a huge sign of concern. In the end, while the papal visit was a big affair, and Joseph, who almost immediately after Mt's death had started transforming his court into a small scale bachelor court, proved he could be a perfectly splendour providing attentive host if he tried, it did not have practical results in that Joseph continued with his reforms and Rome looked on aghast. When Joseph himself died, he did get a memorial service as a male monarch, but everything laudatory was stricken out of the young priest's sermon until it only contained blandishments. (How do we know? The young priest would later become Pope himself, Leo XII. Here's the entire passage from Beales' book:

It was customary for a funeral sermon to be preached at the Vatican when an emperor died. The task was entrusted to a young priest called Genga, who later became Pope Leo XII. A thick file in the archive of the Vienna nunciature shows how the text developed, or rather dwindled, in the face of criciticism by the pope and others. It must be questionable whether any such sermon ever gave so much trouble. Genga had begun by trying to make the best case for Joseph as a devout Catholic reformer, adducing in his favour his repeal of some objectionable measures during his lastmonths. But almost all the favourable comments were vetoed. The result, of course, was bland and anodyne, much concerned with Joseph's fortitude on campaign and on his deathbed.

A more informative and rather striking sermon was preached in the athedral of Lucca by Christoforo Boccella in April 1790. The tiny independent republic of Lucca regarded itself as protected by the Emperor and gloried in his patronage. The preacherspoke of Joseph's tireless efforts for the benefit of his subjects, of his taking command of rescue operations when there were fires or floods in Vienna, of his extensive and clearly expressed legislation, and, most remarkably, of his having 'abolished the ill-conceived feudal system, a malign Gothic survival. Now the provinces do not groan under the burden and disgrace of servitude, which he destroyed, restoring an oppressed humanity its basic but too violated rights." This was a rare and penetrating acknowledgment of what was perhaps his greatest achievement.



Another celebrity visit providing a big party break to Joseph's Spartan routine was when Grandduke Paul, Catherine's son, and his wife arrived. This was after Joseph had managed one of his few foreign policy coups, which was getting Catherine as his ally, which in effect, though not in letter yet, ended her alliance with Fritz. As a symbol of this, Joseph's oldest nephew, Leopold's son the Archduke Franz, was to be married to Paul's sister-in-law. (Since Catherine had no (legal) daughters, this was the closet thing to it. Paul's sister-in-law was a princess of Würtemberg, closely related to the Hohenzollern (remember, Carl Eugen duke of Würtemberg had been married to Wilhelmine's daughter?), and she was supposed to have married future FW3. So Catherine agreeing to this alternate match was a big signal of her change in ally priorities. (It wasn't because Joseph had charmed her that much; Catherine needed an alliance of use against the Turks. Which Prussia was not. Austria, otoh, had shared borders and old history with the Turks, and while MT had always refused to go to war with them, not least because she saw them as her allies, who had NOT done what Fritz wanted them to do in the 7 Years War and attacked Austria, for which she always wasa grateful, MT was no longer there to object.) cahn, future Mrs. Franz is the Princess Elisabeth of Würtemberg whose teacher Mozart tries to become in order to get a court job in "Amadeus". She would be one of the few family members with whom Joseph was to remain on excellent terms for his remaining life. Ultra tragicallly, she would die in childbirth three days before Joseph died himself. He ordered she was to be buried as his first wife Isabella had been, and her new baby to be baptized as his dead daughter had been and in her baptism robe. That the biggest tragedies of his life should thus repeat themselves while he was painfully dying is just extra awful.

The baby lived only for 16 months, see here the English wiki entry on Elisabeth and also the German entry, which as a few more details on her pregnancy and death, to wit:

1789 wurde Elisabeth schwanger, ihr Zustand war jedoch sehr instabil, nicht zuletzt verursacht durch die Unruhe wegen des sich ständig verschlechternden Gesundheitszustands von Kaiser Joseph. Nachdem Joseph am 15. Februar 1790 die letzte Ölung empfangen hatte, wollte Elisabeth ihn besuchen; bis dahin war ihr dies nämlich aufgrund ihres Zustands nicht gestattet worden. Um sie nicht durch seine Todesblässe zu erschrecken, ließ der Kaiser sein Krankenzimmer bei ihrem Empfang nur matt erleuchten. Dennoch war Elisabeth beim Anblick des todkranken Kaisers tief erschüttert und file in Ohnmacht. In der Nacht auf den 17. Februar gebar sie vorzeitig ein geistesschwaches Kind, Erzherzogin Ludovika Elisabeth, die bereits am 24. Juni 1791 starb. Elisabeth überlebte die über 24 Stunden dauernde Niederkunft nicht, bei der eine Notoperation eingeleitet wurde, um das Leben der Mutter zu retten. Sie starb am 18. Februar 1790 im Alter von nur 22 Jahren in Wien.

Joseph (who died on the 20th) not wanting to frighten her by his looks and having the room badly illuminated is yet another heartbreaking detail.

(The marriage - and the Paul invitation to Vienna - had been an attempt to ensure the Austro-Russian alliance would not die with Catherine, since Joseph very much did notice that Paul was a Prussia fan in (P)Russian Pete's mold. In effect, of course, Catherine outlived Joseph despite being twelve years older.)



One of Joseph's most sympathetic reforms were the emancipation of the Jews (and toleration of Protestant) edicts, which were also the direct result of all his travelling (which included Galicia, which had one of the largest Jewish populations in a territory ruled by the Habsburgs). It was also one of the few reforms where he changed the edict according to the territory in phasing. One of Joseph's big problems was that he aimed for a centralized, unified administration for all the Monarchy's territories. ("The Monarchy" = Habsburg controlled lands, not the HRE. The later is the Empire.) This was directly against MT s advice to always allow for the different laws for Hungary and the Austrian Netherlands (i.e. Belgium). Now, there were understandable reasons; the Hungarian nobles had always insisted on keeping their serfs, for example, and unless you were willing to subordinate the Hungarian contitution to the new Austrian law, this would not change. But it was still a wholesale disaster that in the end resulted in rebellions in both Hungary and Belgium.

Beales points out that both were not rebellions in the sense of the French Revolution, they were quintessentially conservative rebelllions by the nobility which didn not want to give up a single privilege; in the case of Belgium, their demand was even to go back to the law as it had been when Philip II of Spain ruled, which tells you something. But Joseph did make it unecessarily worse than it needed to have been from the get go. One of the first things he did was change the capital of Hungary from Pressburg back to Buda. (As I mentioned before, Pressburg had become the capital after the Turkish conquest of most of Hungary in Charles V's time.) This was actually a popular move, and the city authorities of Buda sent him a letter of thanks and asked whether they might erect him a statue. Whereupon Joseph wrote, making his biographer head desk:

When prejudices are eradicated, and true love of country and concern for the general good of the Monarchy take hold; when everyone cheerfully does his fair share to serve the needs of the state, to work for its security and success; when enlightenment through improved studies and simplification in clerical training is achieved; when, by the reconciliation of true concepts of religion with civil laws, a more effective system of justice is established (...) as I confidentally hope it will come to pass - it is then that I shall deserve a statue. But not now, when the town of Buda has merely, through my happening to move the administration there in the interest of more thorough supervisions, been enabled to secure better prices for its wine and higher rents for its houses.



Yeah, that's one way to win Hungarian hearts. Leopold, btw, was a fan of the Hungarian constitution, not for the serf factor but for a general liking of constitutionalism. He saw Joseph as a despot much as Fritz' brothers saw him as one, and he wasn't wrong about that, though Joseph's brand of despotism lacked the elements commonly associated with the term as it's used now - he didn't use the money from the realm for his own luxury, or randomly ordered people beheaded, or showed privileges at a few minions while exploiting the rest. But he did want complete obedience, and was very disappointed when establishing freedom of the press inevitably meant it would be used against him, too. That Joseph curtailed the regular court life (safe for a few occasions) and bypassed the traditional chain of petitioning via nobles meant he was simultanously one of the least and most approachable of Emperors. Least for the nobility, most for the commons - he famously made a point of talking to commoners and taking petitions from everyone during his walks. Musical anecdote for cahn: Court Composer Salieri had overextended his leave. (This was the kind of thing which when young Mozart did it to his original patron, the prince bishop of Salzburg, it ended really really badly and was a major reason why he was eventually fired.) Since he was afraid that the Emperor would be angry, a returning Salieri went to the Kreuzgang where the Emperor usually was taking petitions from the commons. Joseph spotted him, greeted him warmly in welcome, swept him off for lunch and spent the next two hours talking with him about music.) Leopold thought this whole thing was just cheap populism for Joseph's ego and yet another mistake in terms of the nobility, but Joseph was really consistent about it and kept it up until he was physically unable to walk near the end of his life.

Now, remember when Mildred mentioned that when Tuscany became transferred to FS in exchange for Lorraine, one of the conditions was that secundogeniture should apply, i.e. Tuscany would be inherited by FS's second son, not his first born, to ensure Tuscany would not become part of the Empire. Which is why in 1765, when FS dies, Leopold immediately inherits Tuscany. Nominal consent from Joseph is needed which he gives. (There is an irony here in that while Joseph is at this point Emperor, he's an Emperor without a land of his own. MT still holds the Habsburg main lands, Leopold has Tuscany, and Teschen, one of the few FS territories brought into the marriage which Joseph inherits, are given by Joseph to Maria Christina and Albert as a generous gesture.) At this point, the assumption is still that Joseph will have children, meaning the next Emperor will be Joseph's son while the next Duke of Tuscany will be Leopld's son. However, once it's clear Joseph will not have any children, meaning Leopold will be the next Emperor (unless he, who is eight years younger, will die before Joseph, in which case his son is the next Emperor), it means Tucany's Duke and the Emperor will again be the same person, as FS was. Joseph thinks this means that clearly, this means they should put it in writing that no matter who dies first, he or Leopld, Tuscany and the Monarchy and thus Tuscany and the Empire should be united again.

Leopold, who has lived in Tuscany for decades now and is aware of local feeling: Head. Desk.



Another Joseph idea is to trade Belgium for Bavaria. This is in the tradition of territory trade that was practiced a lot in the first half of the century, as Mildred has told us about, including, famously, when his parents married and FS gave Lorraine for Tuscany. It makes geographic sense to him: Bavaria is right next to Austria. Belgium is far away, both the Dutch and the French are constantly interfering there, and they don't take well to reforms. Hey, it looks like the Wittelsbachs would be wiling, so, great idea, right?

Except it's not the 1720s anymore, a new spirit of national feeling abounds, the Bavarians and the Belgians are all DO NOT WANT about being traded for each other, the Wittelsbachs hastily back away from having almost said yes, and the other German princes look askance and join Fritz in the Fürstenbund, an explicitly anti-Habsburg league from the 1780s. (Mind you: two years later, they realize that any league with Fritz as a member is just a tool of Prussian policy and he's easily as high handed as Joseph, and secretly pledge themselves to vote for Leopold as next Emperor, thus defeating the Prussian idea of robbing the Habsburgs of their lock on the Imperial Throne after all.) Even George III. of GB, in his capacity as Prince Elector of Hannover, is a Fürstenbund founding member.

Oh, and then there's this gem:

1788/89: G3 has one of his earlier mental breakdowns, though one from which he'll recover. It's not yet permanent regency time. It's "Madness of G3" the play/movie time.

Joseph: As you have reminded me, you are also Elector of Hannover. Now I don't care who gets to rule Britain while you're down and out, but clearly, it's my job as Emperor of the HRE to appoint a regent for Hannover.

G3: *makes recovery*
Other HRE princes: WHAT IF HE DOES THIS TO US?!?



Joseph and music is an entire extra chapter and thus will be an extra write up (and an undepressing one, this is one area where Beales does not head desk) for cahn. Instead, I'll finish with another sensational gossipy bit. Now as I said, Joseph succeeded in alienating most of his siblings and had the bad luck that the ones with whom he got on best were either dead (sister Josepha), or far away married (Marie Antoinette and Maria Carolina. (And then there's the sad irony that Leopold as far as Joseph was concerned was his closest confidant among the siblings, the one he wrote his frankest letters to and the brother he was most affectionate with - and Leopold was bursting with resentment and even hate, towards the end. He wrote a secret memorandum after his 1784 visit to Vienna which is among the most vicious thing ever written about Joseph.) Now, Joseph during his trip to Italy had had first hand (literally) experience in what an oaf their brother-in-law the King of Naples was, but back then Maria Carolina at least did have the emotional upper hand, so to speak. In 1786, Leopold rings the alarm and temporarily sets aside fraternal resentment when teaming up with Joseph re: their sister:

Writes Leopold: There has taken placein Naples a scene very unpleasant for the queen. For nine years the King has been ill with various venereal diseases, which are not completely cured, and has passed them to the queen. She has been seriously ill with them several times, especially during her pregnancies and confinements. Her son Gennaro and two of her daughters have been seriously affected. She has finally had to undergo proper treatment, having had fainting fits and very painful bouts of urine retention and a gangrenous sore in the vagina.

(The Joseph and Leopold correspondence: speaking in anatomically frank terms about their sisters' and brothers-in-laws genitalia, thus ensuring these letters won't be printed until the later 20th century.)

Beales continues: But then, while she was both ill and pregnant, the king forced himself upon her. Relations between them had now, unsurprisingly, become very bad, increasing the political difficulties. Joseph declared the King "a monster", and he and Leopold tried to help and advise her, as she requested, but she paid little attention to what they said.

Ferdinand of Naples: still the worst husband in that Habsburg generation!



Leopold's secret 1784 memorandum, written in Italian, is commonly known as the Relazione. It's basically "why Joseph sucks, let me count the ways, with some flashbacks to why Mom sucked, too". Beales thinks some of the criticism is valid and earned while other parts are either exaggerated or demonstrably untrue, which he argues by presenting Zinzendorf's diary (Zinzendorf was an MT era veteran and politically very much against Joseph's ideas, so his diary offering counter testimony to some of Leopold's claims is pretty valid), various letters from contemporaries and, with a bit more sceptism, Joseph friendly memoirists like the Prince de Ligne (RPF writer extraordinaire, but he did write about his own life as well) or Lorenzo da Ponte (Joseph was my Emperor and patron! Fuck yeah!).

In terms of sibling originated Joseph critique, Beales gives the most weight not to Leopold or Maria Christina but to youngest brother Max Ernst. MT had gone to some effort to get him elected as Archbishop and thus Prince Elector of Cologne. In medieval and Renaissance times, this was the most prestigious and important position any German cleric could have, because not only was the Prince Bishop of Cologne part of the Princes Elector who voted the Emperor into power (or not), he was the one conducting the coronation, and his vote usually held the most influence among the clerical Princes. (When we had decades long feudings between noble families as to who would get to be Emperor in the 12th century, getting the Prince Bishop of Cologne on your side was key.) By the time of the 18th Century, and the decline of the HRE, it wasn't this important in terms of international and day to day politics, but it was still an office of incluence, and also, it offered Max Ernst the chance to interact with representatives of other German states on a daily basis and watch inner HRE politics for which neither of his older brothers had much patience. This led Max Ernst to write to Leopold:

Germany was useful to (FS), useless and even dangerous to Joseph. The explanation of the difference is dunbtedly to be found in the two emperors' manner of ruling. Our father, easy, polite, affable, upright, reigned over all hearts. The empress, gracious and generous, supported him marvellously. The princes of the Empire were attracted to Vienna, were amused, flattered, manipulated, and were full of it when they got back. The ecclesiastical princces were treated with the greatest consideration, and the canons found ample satisfaction for their interest and ambition in the chapters and bishoprics of the heritiary lands, in the abbeys of Hungary, in the invariably effective reccommendations made by the Imperial Court to the Pope. Not even the smallest election took place without the influence of the Imperial Court preponderating, and its creatures, finding themselves looked after, remained totally devoted to the House of Austria. The lesser princes and counts were honoured with places in the army (...) or in the civil service. The Theresianum an the Savoy College attracted many noblemen from the Empire, who then dispersed to all parts of Germany, regarding Vienna as their second home, imbued with its principles and keeping up their connections there. It was by all these means that (FS) caused the Empire to act (on his behalf) in the Seven Years War against its own interests.

Whereas Joseph, after his initial attempts at reform had been rejected

absolutely neglected to cultivate individuals and paid more attention to a simple (Hungarian) guard than to a prince of the Empire, and wouldn't give any favours to imperial nobles, considering them mere spongers and intriguers, which was bound to alienate them. Instead of the favours they were accustomed to receive, they came up against a gracious code of regulations. The Hungarian abbeys were suppressed, you could only get a canonry after ten years in a cure of souls. Papal support was cut off, (...) ministers were prohibited form interfering in elections (...) The Colleges were abolished or (effectively) restricted to the local inhabitants. Every military rank above cadet was prohibited to (imperial nobles). And the only hope for promotion was seniority. Moreover, no Court - and therefore no distinction - and French marquises and English milords were feted while I saw canons and knights of true merit relagated to the lower table and the company of imperial agents.(...) This is certainly not the way to win hearts and minds.

Comments Beales: Here speaks the authentic voice of the ancient régime. He could have added that Max Ernst is a bit rose-eyed re: how far FS was able to make the German princes support Team Austria in the 7 Years War. Yes, Fritz was put into the Reichsacht for invading Saxony, but his hero of the Protestant faith pose certainly mattered more to the Protestant princes in practice. But unlike Leopold, whose resentment always comes with the conviction he'd be able to do a better job in Joseph's place, and who knew he would get that job once Joseph died, Max Ernst didn't have a personal horse in that race.

(mildred_of_midgard: Also, as I recall, he was writing in invisible ink to his siblings, because he knew Joseph was reading his mail. But, says Beales, he obviously didn't switch to the lemon juice soon enough, because one of his non-invisible ink letters was read by Joseph and was critical enough of Joseph to cause bad feelings/problems/something I don't have time to look up.

selenak: This happened in 1789 (a year before Joseph died), but had a 1788 prehistory. Writes Beales:

At the beginning of October, (Joseph) contrived to give grave offence to Leopold on two counts. He first accused him of having revealed to diplomats secret information supplied by Joseph. Leopold denied the charge, but the emperor sent him the evidence for it, which was difficult to rebut. Although they agreed to drop the matter, Joseph evidently remained suspicious and bacme less confiding. Secondly, when Leopold's daughter, Maria Theresa, came to Vienna en route to marry a son of the elector of Saxony in Dresden, the emperor took the occasion to critisize his brother's upbringing of his children. No doubt, wrote Joseph, Leopold's intentions were good. But

all the more defective must be the method or the teachers. (...) The physical side seems to me as neglected as the moral. They don't know what to do with their arms and legs anymore than they know how to make use in society of the pedantic knowledge that has been stuffed into their heads. I can't find in them any sincerity. They think they're clever if they can boast of having conceiled what they really think.

Joseph thought that Leopold's other children needed to come to Vienna to be properly educated - except that Charles, who had epilepsy, "should either find a cure for it or vegetate unobserved in his sad situation, which he can do much better in Tuscany."

Leopold sent a pained reply saying that Francis had been the most difficult and reserved of all his sons and that Charles was actually the most intelligent. Joseph said that he was 'in despair' if what he had said about the children's education had displeased Leopold. But he went on to complain about the state of their teeth. Further, Theresa didn't know how to curtsey. Joseph had found the elder daughters proud, self-satisfied and deceitful. After this appalling display of cruel insensitivity, however, he agreed that Charles could also come to Vienna. The despised epileptic was to become perhaps Austria's greatest general after Prince Eugene.

Unsurprisingly, after this, Leopold stepped up his "Joseph: the worst!" letters to Mimi and Max Ernst. By 1789, when it was clear to Joseph he would likely die within the year or so, writes Beales:

He seemed to have accepted that he could not live much longer, and he knew from intercepts that Leopold's prudent letters to him veiled an aversion to his despotic policies. The emperor told Trautmannsdorff in June 1789 that he was' sure that intrigue goes on between Florence and Brussels' (i.e Leopold and Mimi) and he had a copy of one of Leopold's letters sent on to prove it. The grand duke had good reason to use lemon-jice as an invisible ink when writing to his sister, but he evidently should have taken the precaution earlier. It must therefore have been clear to Joseph that his brother, if he succeeded, would not m aintain all his legislation intact. Yet he set forth on a collision course, reviving and exarbating almost every possible grievance in every province. One can only wonder at the dedication and willpower of the dying emperor in his desperate campaign to bring his policies to fruition. It was magnificent, but it was not politics.



The relevant chapter, starting on page 455 if you want to read it entirely, cahn, is titled: "Music and drama, with special reference to Mozart". Here, our Mr. Beales has an axe to grind.

Music was the one art in which Joseph participated regularly and enthusiastically. Despite the well-known portrayal of him in the play and film "Amadeus" as a musical ignoramus, he was in fact exceptionally knowledgeable about music. The composer Dittersdorf reported a long discussion he had with the emperor in which Joseph made an intelligent comparison between Haydn and the poet Gellert on the one hand, and Mozart and the poet Klopstock on the other. The essential point of it was that both Haydn's and Gellert's works has an immediate appeal, whereas both Mozart's and Klopstock's had to be heard or rad more than once for their beauties to be appreciated. Joseph's alleged comment to Mozart about the Entführung, "Too many notes", has been taken as evidence of his ignorance. But he probably said something like "Too beautiful for our ears, and monstreous many notes." It is always necessary to bear in mind, when appraising the emperor's remarks, his peculiar brand of humor or sarcasm. He was usually getting at someone. And he did not use the royal "we". The ears in question where those of the Viennese audience, whom he was mocking for their limited appreciation of Mozart's elaborate music.

While Orsini-Rosenberg was the nominal guy in charge of theatre affairs, Joseph was the de facto impressario of the Burgtheater/Nationaltheater. However far he was from Vienna, he sent specific orders to Rosenberg about the day-to-day running of the theatre. He made all the importanta and many lesser decisions, personally selecting librettists, composers, singers and operas. When in Vienna, he rarely missed a performance, and he often also attended rehearsals. On one occasion Zinzendorf found him singing an opera to himself from the score.

Precisely because Joseph had cut down nearly all other court activies, theatre and opera were the one chance where there was still a chance for the aristocrats to show off in the audience, so while there were music lovers attending, there were also people who wanted to flirt, do business and socially interact (which they would have usually done at court parties). But it was one aspect of Joseph's reforming theatrical management that, unlike at most courts, the audience paid for their boxes and seats..

I already mentioned his encouragement of German plays and operas. (With the Entführung as the most prominent example. This very much annoyed the upper classes in Vienna at first, since they were used to French and Italian opera and plays only. But it made Vienna cutting edge, musically speaking, since Berlin stuck with the old under Fritz, and Paris was about to have a revolution and thus change everything anyway. More about Beales' axe:

It has become Joseph's chief claim to fame that he was Mozart's emperor. Some writers believe him to have blighted the composer's career. Robbins Landon, author of a biography of Heydn, declares that "Joseph's negative attitude was of catastrophic effect, particularly in Mozart's case." This is a grotesque misjudgment. In fact, Mozart was fortunate in finding in the emperor, for all his quirks, a warm admirer and a steady supporter.

Salieri had become Joseph's court composer at age 24, in 1774. Short of firing him, which Salieri had done nothing to deserve, there was therefore no way Joseph could have made Mozart court composer (there was only one), but he did create an office for him, "Kammermusicus" (chamber musician), at a salary of 800 Florins a year. Far from yawning at the Figaropremière, Joseph liked the opera so much that he ordered it performed for his guests at Laxenburg in June the same year. Don Giovanni had been commissioned bya Prague impresario, not Joseph, but Joseph had hoped to have it performed for the wedding of his niece to a prince of Saxony in Pargue in October 1787. When it wasn't ready yet at his point, the Emperor ordered Figaro to be performed at the wedding instead. It was Joseph who commissioned and possibly suggested the plot of Cosi fan tutte, which was first performed a few days before he died.

(La Clemenza di Tito, which Mozart wrote for Leopold's coronation, was badly received - Leopold's wife called it "una porcheria tedesca" - and that was it in terms of Habsburg encouragement. But that was not Joseph's fault!)

Another fascinating detail in the music chapter is that there was an opera version of Beamarchais' Barber of Seville - by Paisiello, today forgotten because of the later Rossini opera - several years pre-Figaro, thus proving that a successful opera version of a French four act play could be done, and wetting the appetite for the sequel play to be made into an opera as well.

re: censorship - theatre censorship was much stricter than print censorship, but the original censorship of Beaumarchais' play Figaro's Wedding (which meant that Da Ponte and Mozart had to ask for permission before getting their opera version licencsed - doesn't have to have been political in nature. Beales points out that censor licensed Weidmann's piece Die schöne Wienerin in which a black servant says to his master, Count Fixstern: "Nature made me free when I was born, as free as you! I am flesh and blood like you. The same sun shines on us, the same earth bears and feeds us; we live and die in the same manner."

So possibly the original problem with Figaro befor da Ponte reworked it wasn't Figaro's cutting sarcastic speech about the aristocracy but the frivolous sexual shenigans. (In Beaumarchais, the Countess does have a fling with Cherubino, while da Ponte made her blameless.) The bit in Amadeus where the ballet is reinstated because Joseph shows up for rehearsal, watches the music-less pantomine and asks what the hell is going on is based on fact, except that unlike in Amadeus, Joseph showing up for rehearsal was not unusual and Mozart had in fact counted on it. (The reason why a ballet was forbidden before was because Joseph hated the ballet interludes in French operas which were usually not connected to the plot and were thus pretty pointless in his eyes. Since the ballet in Figaro's Wedding is connected to the plot, this reason did not apply, and so Joseph ordered it reinstated.

In conclusion, Beales quotes Austrian writer Caroline Pichler, writing as an old lady in 1840 about the Vienna of her youth:

In social circles, instead of the previous stiffness and archaism, a lively vigour prevailed. The theatre, to which Joseph gave his personal care, did a great deal to promote this social benefit. Under the direction of the monarch our stages soon became among the best for German plays, and perhaps the finest then existing for Italian operas, not even Italy ecepted; for the emperor had got to know the theatres of other countries on hist ravels and himself engaged the best singers of both sexes. So from our opera the second and third sopranos went back to Italy and appeared everywhere as first sopranos. (...) The public participated in the theatre in a manner very different from now. It sought intellectual pleasure, not just pastime.