BEFORE THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
same language. France, indeed, harbored in Brittany a picturesque race that cherished its ancient speech and traditions, but the Bretons were among the most loyal supporters of the throne. Austria, on the other hand, consisted of a group of provinces with little in common except dependence upon the ruling Hapsburg monarch. The dominant German element cherished ideals very different from those of the Magyars, the Slavonians, the Rumanians, the Italians, who were continually struggling to advance their own interests. Various languages, various political institutions, various customs, various religions, made real unity impossible and engendered constant jealousies and sometimes open strife. So slight was the bond uniting the Austrian provinces that, as is still the case, the personal qualities of the ruler were of great importance in holding together the disparate elements.
It is to be noted, too, that far more than in France and the Rhine region of Germany had the spirit of medievalism survived in Austria. The aristocracy still enjoyed many odious class privileges and raised their heads high above the miserable common people. The peasants were bound to the soil and forced to labor for the aristocratic landowners as a compensation for the privilege of being allowed to exist. They were not even free to marry without the approval of their masters. In Hungary, in Bohemia, in Silesia, in Moravia there was, throughout the eighteenth century, a growing discontent and a more insistent longing for a diminution of the heavy feudal burdens.
Maria Theresa, and far more in his turn the restless Joseph II, had to some extent succeeded in carrying through the most pressing social reforms, such, for example, as the abolition of serfdom, and the imposition of taxes upon the nobles. The zeal of Joseph II would have forced a host of sweeping changes upon his people, but he could not overcome the inertia of centuries, and at length, prematurely worn out and bitterly disappointed by his many failures, he died in 1790.
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