originator—prepared the way for the revival of the Bohemian language in the following century.
The so-called reforms of Joseph II ended in a complete failure. The population of the Austrian Netherlands rose in arms against the Government, and that of Hungary was on the point of doing so when, on the death of Joseph at the beginning of the year 1790, his successor, Leopold II, withdrew almost all the reforms of his brother. In Bohemia also there had been great discontent, but the disunited people was incapable of action. The nobles had become mere courtiers, the citizens were powerless and servile, and the peasants, of all Joseph's reforms, were interested only in the agricultural measures, that had undoubtedly improved their condition.
During his short reign Leopold II endeavoured to conciliate the different nationalities whom the hasty and headlong policy of his brother and predecessor had deeply offended. Only a few weeks after the death of Joseph, Leopold assembled the estates of Bohemia who during the later years of the reign of Joseph had never been allowed to meet. He also ordered the Bohemian crown, which by order of Joseph had been transported to Vienna, to be restored to Prague, and he was crowned with it at St. Vitus's Cathedral on September 6, 1791. Leopold II died after a reign of only two years.
The earlier part of the reign of his son and successor Francis I, which concludes the period from 1792–1815, was almost entirely absorbed by the prolonged and obstinate contest of the house of Habsburg with revolutionary France. In consequence of this struggle Francis became, and continued during his long life, a bitter enemy of all liberal and progressive ideas, and indeed of all changes. He was at the beginning of his reign crowned at Prague as King of Bohemia, and received a deputation of the Estates, who begged that a small part of the former autonomy should be restored to their country. The Emperor, who was during his whole life influenced by his dread of the French revolution, replied by a decree which merely stated that all administrative changes in Bohemia must be postponed till the termination of the foreign wars. The almost uninterrupted series of wars with France was with few exceptions[1] waged outside
- ↑ In 1813 a French army under Marshal Vandamme crossed the
