Leopold

“ 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. ”

“ My name is not Leopold. I am Everard Dominey."
"Oh, I know that you are very obstinate," she said softly, "very obstinate and very devoted to your marvellous country, but you have a soul, Leopold; you know that there are human duties as great as any your country ever imposed upon you. ”

“ I replied that Leopold wasn’t the man to pull down a hornet’s nest of gossip around the ears of a young woman who had saved his life. No matter what his inclinations might be, I insisted that he would pay her no repeated visits. This thrust the fair Mechtilde parried—as if repeating a mere rumor—by saying that she believed the girl was to stay at the country house of some old friend of the Emperor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Kircher made no further opposition, and commenced the prelude. The emperor leaned back his head, and closed his eyes, as he was accustomed to do, when listening attentively. Reclining among the purple-velvet cushions of his luxurious arm-chair, Leopold presented a handsome picture of imperial comeliness. His fine figure was set off to advantage by his close-fitting Spanish doublet of black velvet; his short Spanish cloak, looped up with large diamond solitaires, fell in graceful folds from his shoulders, gently stirring with its golden fringe the feathers of his hat that lay beside him. ”

“ Leopold of Tuscany was a well-meaning, not unkindly man, and fonder of his subjects than were the other Italian despots, but he was weak, and too closely bound by family ties and Habsburg traditions ever to become a real Liberal. Had he not joined the conclave of autocrats at Gaeta, and, above all, had he not summoned Austrian assistance while denying that he had done so, in 1849, he might yet have preserved his throne, and even changed the whole course of Italian history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Leopold sent information of his capture to the Emperor, Henry VI., who bore a grudge to Richard for his alliance with Tancred, who had usurped Sicily from the Empress Constance; he therefore offered a price for the illustrious prisoner, and placed him in the strong Castle of Triefels. Months passed away, and no tidings reached him from without. He deemed himself forgotten in his captivity, and composed an indignant sirvente in his favorite Provençal tongue. ”

“ Stockmar will have told you that Leopold is to be the name of our fourth young gentleman. It is a mark of love and affection which I hope you will not disapprove. It is a name which is the dearest to me after Albert, and one which recalls the almost only happy days of my sad childhood; to hear "Prince Leopold" again, will make me think of all those days! His other names will be George Duncan Albert, and the Sponsors, the King of Hanover, Ernest Hohenlohe, the Princess of Prussia and Mary Cambridge. ”

“ In 1791, Leopold II was crowned with great splendor as King of Bohemia. On this occasion the crown was brought from Vienna to Prague, where it afterwards remained. The following year Leopold died, having reigned but two years.
The great evil that Leopold II did, for which he merits the curses of all mankind, was the re-establishment of servitude that his predecessor had with so much difficulty abolished. No words are adequate to express the dismay and despair of the poor peasants when compelled to return to the cruel tasks from which they believed they were forever freed. ”

“ There is none now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was for Rudolph.
The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence : silence that is the infinite of space : and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over regions of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where grey twilight ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. She follows her mother with ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Poor Prince Leopold had his own difficulties this day; rough ground, very difficult to pass; and coming on the Height of Podhorzan where his Majesty was yesterday, Leopold sees crowds of Hussars, needing a cannon-shot or two; sees evident symptoms, to southward, that the whole Force of the Enemy is advancing upon him! "Speed, then, for Sbislau Bridge yonder; across the Dobrowa, with our Artillery-wagons, or we are lost!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I'm horribly sulky this morning, for I expected to have a room with a view, if the room was ever so little, and I've got a great big one looking into the Castle yard, and I feel exactly as if I was in a big modern county jail with beautiful turrets of modern Gothic.
I came to see Prince Leopold, who has been a prisoner to his sofa lately, but I trust he is better; he is very bright and gentle, under severe and almost continual pain. My dear little Susie, about that rheumatism of yours? ”

“ 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.... ”

“ Leopold and the Czar were his special bêtes noires. "I'd like to see these two fellows face their people naked except for their whiskers. Let them face public opinion in their birthday suits and see what will happen to them." ”

“ I will never forget the spectacle when Leopold came down the stairs after leaving the chaplain's room. I and my brothers and sisters were huddled together behind our ladies in the blue ante-chamber. A dozen or more lackeys stood in the corridor, whispering.
Leopold's face was deathly pale as he descended the stairs, and blood was dripping from his whip, reddening the [Pg 31] white linen runners protecting the carpet. He wore his army uniform, that should have saved him from violence at any rate. ”

“ Then Leopold told of himself. His garrison: a filthy mud-hole in Poland. One-story houses and everybody peeping into everybody else's windows. The few notables of the town and neighborhood tickled to death because they have an Imperial Highness with them, and the fool of an [Pg 126] Imperial Highness goes and "besots himself with a mere country lass." He showed me her photograph. I like her looks. A pretty face, blonde hair and soft eyes. He was her first lover. On his account she left her family. She dotes on him as a dog dotes on his master. ”

“ The sons of Leopold’s eldest son were excluded from the succession on account of the marriage of their father being morganatic, and the principality passed in 1747 to his second son, Leopold II. The unrest of 1848 spread to Dessau, and led to the interference of the Prussians and to the establishment of the new constitution in 1859. Leopold IV., who reigned from 1817 to 1871, had the satisfaction in 1863 of reuniting the whole of Anhalt under his rule. He took the title of duke of Anhalt, summoned one Landtag for the whole of the duchy, and in 1866 fought for Prussia against Austria. ”

“ No father, no brother, was there to break in upon the gentle monotony of the daily round with impetuosity, with rudeness, with careless laughter and wafts of freedom from the outside world. The Princess was never called by a voice that was loud and growling; never felt, as a matter of course, a hard rough cheek on her own soft one; never climbed a wall with a boy. The visits to Claremont—delicious little escapes into male society—came to an end when she was eleven years old and Prince Leopold left England to be King of the Belgians. ”

“ The succeeding margrave, Leopold II., quarrelled with Henry IV., who was unable to oust him from the mark or to prevent the succession of his son Leopold III. in 1096. Leopold supported Henry, son of Henry IV., in his rising against his father, but was soon drawn over to the emperor's side, and in 1106 married his daughter Agnes, widow of Frederick I., duke of Swabia. He declined the imperial crown in 1125. His zeal in founding monasteries earned for him his surname “the Pious,” and canonization by Pope Innocent VIII. in 1485. He is regarded as the patron saint of Austria. ”