Johann Leopold

“ Nobody who ever met the late King Leopold could have had any doubt that he was a great man, if greatness can be separated from goodness and measured solely by energy of intellect and character. I see him now as I saw him in the garden of a house on the Riviera, the huge, unwieldy creature, with the eyes of an eagle, the voice of a bull and the flat tread of an elephant, and I recall the thought with which I came away:
"Thank God that man is only the King of a little country! If he had been the sovereign of a great State he would have become the scourge of the world." ”

“ In February, 1790, a new influence was introduced into European politics by the death of the Emperor Joseph and the accession of his brother, Leopold II. Leopold was a man of remarkable ability, no enthusiast and no dreamer, thoroughly versed in the selfish traditions of Austrian policy and in some of the subtleties of Italian statecraft, discerning, temperate, resolute and clear-headed, quietly determined to have his own way, and generally skilful enough to secure it. Leopold found his new dominions in a state of the utmost confusion, with war and rebellion threatening him on every side. ”

“ The complaints which came incessantly from Versailles and the Tuilleries filled his ear, touched his affections, and roused his indignation. Twenty-five millions of people had ventured to assert their rights against the intolerable arrogance of the French court. Leopold now gathered his armies to trample those people down, and to replace the scepter of unlimited despotism in the hands of the Bourbons. With sleepless zeal Leopold coöperated with nearly all the monarchs in Europe, in combining a resistless force to crush out from the continent of Europe the spirit of popular liberty. ”

“ He was still in Florence when Joseph II. died at Vienna on the 20th of February 1790, and he did not leave his Italian capital till the 460 3rd of March. 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. ”

“ King Leopold wrote truly of him: 'If I am not very much mistaken, he possesses all the qualities required to fit him for the position which he will occupy in England. His understanding is sound, his apprehension is clear and rapid, and his heart in the right place. He has great powers of observation, and possesses singular prudence, without anything about him that can be called cold or morose.' The two met first in 1836, and fell in love, as we have seen, like ordinary mortals, though the marriage had long been projected by King Leopold and Baron Stockmar. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And Leopold was not a great king; indeed, he was many inches short of the ideal; but he was philosophical, and by the process of reason he escaped the pitfalls which lurk in the path of peevishness.
To know the smallness of the human atom, the limit of desire, the existence of other lives as precious as their own, is not the philosophy which makes great kings. Philosophy engenders pity; and one who possesses that can not ride roughshod over men, and that is the business of kings.
As for Leopold, he would rather have wandered the byways of Kant than studied royal etiquette. ”

“ Leopold, the philosopher prince, awaited there, busied in learning the art of governing men and putting in practice new theories of political economy, the moment to mount the imperial throne of Austria, where his destiny was not to leave him long. He was the Germanicus of Germany, and philosophy could alone display him to the world, after having lent him for a few years to Italy. ”

“ The spirit of revolutionary France had not yet touched the heart of the Habsburg empire, and national rivalries were expressed, not so much in expansive ambitions, as in a somnolent clinging to traditional privileges. Leopold, therefore, who made his début on the European stage as the executor of the ban of the Empire against the insurgent Liégeois, was free to pose as the champion of order against the Revolution, without needing to fear the resentment of his subjects. ”

“ Fortunately for Germany and for Europe, the electors of Treves, Brandenburg, and Saxony, were too patriotic to sanction this infatuated proposal; they threatened to elect a native prince of their own authority,--a menace which caused the rest to co-operate with them; so that, after some fruitless negotiations, Leopold, son of the late emperor, king of Bohemia and of Hungary, was raised to the vacant dignity. His reign was one of great humiliation to his house and to the empire. ”

“ Receive James, Leopold had no choice but to receive him. His letters and despatches make this perfectly clear. There is a good deal of talk about the Pretender's "estimable qualities," how the Duke and Duchess admire him, how happy they are that he has not gone to Aix-la-Chapelle. And no doubt the two managed to be for a time excellent friends. But every now and then, through all this polite buncombe, out comes the frank admission that all is done "to please the king." And we know how promptly and unhesitatingly Leopold's hospitality was withdrawn, once French pressure ceased, in 1716. ”

“ Awakening, the Lion-heart grasped his sword, declaring he would yield it to none but the Duke. The Mayor told him it was well for him that he had fallen into their hands, rather than into those of the Montferrat family; and Leopold, arriving, reproached him for the insult to the Austrian banner, which indeed was far more dishonored by its lord’s foul treatment of a crusading pilgrim, than by its fall into the moat of Acre. He was conducted to Vienna, and thence to the lonely Castle of Tierenstein, where he was watched day and night by guards with drawn swords. ”

“ Fireworks, illuminations, balls, an Italian opera buffa, in rapid succession, and I enjoyed it indeed. Leopold is gone to Prague to be crowned King of Bohemia; the King will stay one day longer. I have not been able to converse above twice with him; he was continually beset by the French emigrants, and the brother of the King of France. The campaign is resolved on, and we are allied with Austria. If the French do not chuse to let us have our way, our plan is to march strait to Paris, and to assist the Emperor to conquer Alsace and Lorrain. ”

“ When the dying leaves began to shiver in the breath of the coming winter, the very brightness of the sun to look gleamy, and nature to put on the unfriendly aspect of a world not made for living in but for shutting out—when all things took the turn of reminding man that his life lay not in them, Leopold began to shrink and withdraw. ”

“ In 1846 he was created duke of Brabant and appointed a sub-lieutenant in the army, in which he served until his accession, by which time he had reached the rank of lieutenant-general. On attaining his majority he was made a member of the senate, in whose proceedings he took a lively interest, especially in matters concerning the development of Belgium and its trade. On the 22nd of August 1853 Leopold married Marie Henriette (1836-1902) , daughter of the archduke Joseph of Austria, palatine of Hungary, by his wife Marie Dorothea, duchess of Württemberg. ”

“ But two strokes of the sabre were enough, and the two Palatines finished their career as expeditiously at least as if they had died upon the scaffold. In this portefeuille are the Turk’s despatches, the Cardinal’s prayers, Colvellino’s plot, and the Magnate’s oaths.”
Leopold rose and took him by the hand. “Count, you shall be my aide-de-camp, and a general. You deserve every praise that can be given to skill and courage. But the watch, the pendule, the trap for [Pg 64] that prince of parroquets, Buntzlau?” said Leopold, bursting out into a laugh fatal to all etiquette. ”

“ On the 27th of April there was great excitement in Florence, Italian colours appeared everywhere, but order was maintained, and the grand-duke and his family departed for Bologna undisturbed. Thus the revolution was accomplished without a drop of blood being shed, and after a period of provisional government Tuscany was incorporated in the kingdom of Italy. On the 21st of July Leopold abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand IV., who never reigned, but issued a protest from Dresden (26th March 1860) . He spent his last years in Austria, and died in Rome on the 29th of January 1870. ”

“ Though he was in no sense the noble, selfless human being Queen Victoria took him to be, King Leopold was nevertheless a very shrewd judge of human nature, and had evidently seen enough of the Princess Royal to note certain peculiarities in her character which had escaped the loving, partial eyes of her parents. ”

“ Was there a glimmer of real pity and sadness in those wondrous eyes? She laughed—was it a laugh of despair or of exultation?—and hid her face on his bosom. And what was it that awoke in Leopold? Had the drug resumed its power over him? Was it rage at her mockery, or infinite compassion for her despair? Would he slay a demon, or ransom a spirit from hateful bonds? Would he save a woman from disgrace and misery to come? or punish her for the vilest falsehood? Who can tell? for Leopold himself never could. ”

“ The successor of Leopold, Francis II., was a sickly prince, in whose homely and unimaginative mind the great enterprises of Joseph, amidst which he had been brought up, excited only aversion. Amongst the men who surrounded him, routine and the dread of change made an end of the higher forms of public life. The Government openly declared that all change should cease so long as the war lasted; even the pressing question of the peasant's relation to his lord was allowed to remain unsettled by the Hungarian Diet, lest the spirit of national independence should find expression in its debates. ”

“ You know, darling, we shall be in a rather curious position when everything comes out, as we have made all our friends here under the name of Mowbray. Of course, the excuse for what we did is, that our real position is a hundred times higher than the one we assumed, and all those to whom we’ve been introduced would be delighted to know us in our own characters, at the end. But Leopold is a man, not a romantic girl, as you are. He has always had a reputation for pride and austerity, for being just before he would let himself be generous ”

“ His wife was a princess of Thurn and Taxis, and it is possible that Suess, who had been for some time about that court at Ratisbon, had used her influence, and his acquaintance with her family affairs, to push his interests with the Prince, her husband.
On October 31, 1733, died the old Duke Eberhardt Louis, and Charles Alexander at once hastened from Belgrade to Vienna, where, in an interview with the Emperor, without any consultation with the Estates, or consideration for the treasury of Würtemberg, he promised Leopold a contingent of 12,000 men to aid in the war against France. ”

“ Leopold answers in the violent tone he could adopt on occasions, and tries to distract his son's attention by appealing to his ambition. He asks him to decide whether he wishes to become "a commonplace artist whom the world will forget, or a celebrated capellmeister of whom posterity will read years after in books,—whether, infatuated with a pretty face you one day breathe your last on a straw sack, your wife and children in a state of starvation, or, after a well-spent Christian life, you die in honour and independence and your family well provided for.... ”

“ So long as Leopold lived, Austria would not have wanted an intelligence capable of surveying the entire field of public business, nor a will capable of imposing unity of action upon the servants of State. To the misfortune of Europe no less than of his own dominions, Leopold was carried off by sickness at the moment when the Revolutionary War broke out. An uneasy reaction against Joseph's reforms and a well-grounded dread of the national movements in Hungary and the Netherlands were already the principal forces in the official world at Vienna ”

“ The correct mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus of royalty. Mere power would have held no attractions for him; he must be an actual king—the crowned head of a people. It was not enough to do ”

“ And, when the minister protested:
"Leave him alone," whispered Leopold. "A future constitutional sovereign must learn to stoop!"
An autocrat in his actions, he affected to be a democrat in his principles.
It matters little whether his methods were reprehensible or not: history will say that Leopold II was to Belgium the artisan of an unequalled prosperity, although it is true that he was nearly always absent from his country. The fact is that he loved France at least as well as Belgium. He loved the Riviera and, above all, he loved the capital. ”