Joseph II - Taschenbuch

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1897 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI Joseph's Reforms 1780-1790 The death of Maria Theresa placed on the throne of Austria, with undivided power, one of the most remarkable personalities of the time. An emperor at the age of twenty-five, it was impossible that Joseph should escape some of the faults of a spoilt child. He was frequently self-willed and arbitrary; his utterances were often hasty, petulant, and bitter. But it was not the self-will of vanity, nor the petulance of weakness; behind the one lay a well-grounded self-confidence, behind the other a strong will which he was capable of imposing upon all with whom he had to do, and to which even the great ability of Kaunitz had to bend. Again and again we find the minister withdrawing his opposition to his master's wishes, and directing his energies to carry them out. Perhaps the most marked characteristics of his mind were his detestation of all inferior work, and his extreme intolerance of evils which he thought might be avoided. Gifted with an unequalled capacity for work, with which no fatigue or danger was allowed to interfere, the perfunctory performance of duties, which is habitual with most men, and which was the besetting sin of the Austrian bureaucracy, excited his bitter scorn. His singular versatility and rapidity of invention outran the wits of his ministers, and left him in the solitude of genius to carry out the constant succession of reforms which issued from his fertile brain. Such gifts do not conduce to happiness; but when connected, as they were in Joseph, with an intellectual brilliancy and charm which rendered him when he pleased the most attractive person in any company in which he mixed, they seemed to point him out for a great and successful monarch. His domestic life still further...