Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1915. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER. Vn Reichenbach I Never, perhaps, in the course of its stormy history has the Austrian Monarchy been placed in a more desperate situation than at the moment when Joseph II sank into the grave.1 With the costly and bloody Turkish war still dragging on, the opulent Netherlands lost, the other provinces apparently ready to revolt, and slight hope of effective aid from an exhausted and unreliable ally, the tottering edifice of the Hapsburg power must have collapsed before a single vigorous blow from without. That the threatening catastrophe was averted is the great merit of Joseph's brother and successor, Leopold II. The new monarch brought to his colossal task no very brilliant talents; but he possessed a deep understanding of men and affairs, gained during twenty-five years' experience of rule in Tuscany; a clear, dispassionate, and independent judgment; a keen instinct for the practical, coupled with a complete indifference to the ambitious plans and love of glory that had haunted his brother; finally, firmness, prudence, and tact. Having lived in Italy, and not being accustomed to confide his inmost thoughts to all comers, he could scarcely hope to escape the reproach so often cast upon him of being a 'new Machiavelli' -- it comes with such special grace from Lucchesini's lips--but in fact his policy, whenever it was the expression of his own will and not that of Kaunitz, appears straightforward, honest, and surprisingly simple. It seems possible to reduce Leopold's whole political system to a very few principles. He wished to secure and maintain peace at home and abroad; to cultivate the Russian alliance, in so far as it conduced to that end, and no farther; and to effect an understanding with Prussia, as the indispensable condition of per 1 The Emperor...
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