“ If Leopold’s reign as emperor, and king of Hungary and Bohemia, had been prolonged during years of peace, it is probable that he would have repeated his successes as a reforming ruler in Tuscany on a far larger scale. But he lived for barely two years, and during that period he was hard pressed by peril from west and east alike. The growing revolutionary disorders in France endangered the life of his sister Marie Antoinette, the queen of Louis XVI., and also threatened his own dominions with the spread of a subversive agitation. ”

“ Leopold, during his government in Tuscany, had shown a speculative tendency to grant his subjects a constitution. When he succeeded to the Austrian lands he began by making large concessions to the interests offended by his brother’s innovations. He recognized the Estates of his different dominions as “the pillars of the monarchy,” pacified the Hungarians and divided the Belgian insurgents by concessions. ”

“ The emigrants who followed him pertinaciously were refused audience, or when they forced themselves on him were peremptorily denied all help. Leopold was too purely a politician not to be secretly pleased at the destruction of the power of France and of her influence in Europe by her internal disorders. Within six weeks of his accession he displayed his contempt for her weakness by practically tearing up the treaty of alliance made by Maria Theresa in 1756 and opening negotiations with England to impose a check on Russia and Prussia. ”