Leopold II, was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and Bohemia from 1790 to
1792, Archduke of Austria and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a
son of Emperor Francis I and his wife, Empress Maria Theresa, thus the brother
of Marie Antoinette. Leopold was a moderate proponent of enlightened
absolutism. Youth
Leopold was born in Vienna, the third son, and was at first educated for the
priesthood, but the theological studies to which he was forced to apply himself
are believed to have influenced him against the Church.
In 1753, he was engaged to Maria Beatrice d'Este, heiress to the Duchy of
Modena. The marriage never materialised; Maria Beatrice instead married Leopold's
brother, Archduke Ferdinand. On the death of his elder brother,
Charles, in 1761, it was decided that he should succeed to his father's grand
duchy of Tuscany, which was erected into a "secundogeniture" or apanage for a
second son. This settlement was the condition of his marriage on 5 August
1764 with Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, daughter of Charles III of Spain and
Maria Amalia of Saxony. On the death of his father, Francis I, he succeeded to
the grand duchy. Leopold was famous in Florence for his numerous extra-marital
affairs. Among his lovers was Countess Cowper, wife of the 3rd Earl Cowper, who
in compensation for being cuckolded was given honours by Leopold's brother,
Joseph II. Grand Duke of Tuscany
For five years, he exercised little more than nominal authority, under the
supervision of counselors appointed by his mother. In 1770, he made a journey
to Vienna to secure the removal of this vexatious guardianship and returned to
Florence with a free hand. During the twenty years which elapsed between his
return to Florence and the death of his eldest brother Joseph II in 1790, he was
employed in reforming the administration of his small state. The reformation was
carried out by the removal of the ruinous restrictions on industry and
personal freedom imposed by his predecessors of the house of Medici and
left untouched during his father's life, by the introduction of a rational system
of taxation, and by the execution of profitable public works, such as the
drainage of the Val di Chiana. As he had no army to maintain, and as he
suppressed the small naval force kept up by the Medici, the whole of his revenue
was left free for the improvement of his state. Leopold was never popular with
his Italian subjects. His disposition was cold and retiring. His habits were
simple to the verge of sordidness, though he could display splendour on
occasion, and he could not help offending those of his subjects who had
profited by the abuses of the Medicean régime.
But his steady, consistent, and intelligent administration, which
advanced step by step, brought the grand duchy to a high level of material
prosperity. His ecclesiastical policy, which disturbed the deeply rooted
convictions of his people and brought him into collision with the pope, was
not successful. He was unable to secularize the property of the religious
houses or to put the clergy entirely under the control of the lay power.
However, his abolition of capital punishment was the first permanent
abolition in modern times. On 30 November 1786, after having de facto
blocked capital executions, Leopold promulgated the reform of the penal code
that abolished the death penalty and ordered the destruction of all the
instruments for capital execution in his land. Torture was also banned.
Leopold also approved and collaborated on the development of a political
constitution, said to have anticipated by many years the promulgation of the
French constitution and which presented some similarities with the Virginia Bill
of Rights of 1778. Leopold's concept of this was based on respect for the
political rights of citizens and on a harmony of power between the executive
and the legislative. However, it could not be put into effect because Leopold
moved to Vienna to become emperor in 1790, and because it was so radically
new that it garnered opposition even from those who might have benefited from
it. However, Leopold developed and supported
many social and economic reforms. Smallpox inoculation was made
systematically available, and an early institution for the rehabilitation of
juvenile delinquents was founded. Leopold also introduced radical reforms
to the system of neglect and inhumane treatment of those deemed mentally ill.
On 23 January 1774, the "legge sui pazzi" was established, the first of its
kind to be introduced in all Europe, allowing steps to be taken to
hospitalize individuals deemed insane. A few years later Leopold undertook the
project of building a new hospital, the Bonifacio Hospital. He used his skill at
choosing collaborators to put a young physician, Vincenzo Chiarugi, at its
head. Chiarugi and his collaborators introduced new humanitarian regulations
in the running of the hospital and caring for the mentally ill patients,
including banning the use of chains and physical punishment, and in so doing
have been recognized as early pioneers of what later came to be known as the
moral treatment movement. During the last few years of his rule in
Tuscany, Leopold had begun to be frightened by the increasing disorders
in the German and Hungarian dominions of his family, which were the direct result
of his brother's headlong methods. He and Joseph II were tenderly attached to
one another and met frequently both before and after the death of their
mother. The portrait by Pompeo Batoni in which they appear together shows that
they bore a strong personal resemblance to one another. But it may be said of
Leopold, as of Fontenelle, that his heart was made of brains. He knew that
he must succeed his childless eldest brother in Austria, and he was unwilling
to inherit his unpopularity. When, therefore, in 1789 Joseph, who knew
himself to be dying, asked him to come to Vienna and become co-regent, Leopold
coldly evaded the request. He was still in Florence when Joseph II
died at Vienna on 20 February 1790, and he did not leave his Italian capital
until 3 March 1790, at midday. Holy Roman Emperor
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 Bohemians,
and divided the insurgents in the Austrian Netherlands by means of
concessions. When these failed to restore order, he marched troops into
the country and re-established his own authority, and at the same time the
historic franchises of the Flemings. Yet he did not surrender any part that could
be retained of what Maria Theresa and Joseph had done to strengthen the hands
of the state. He continued, for instance, to insist that no papal bull
could be published in his dominions without his consent. One of the harshest
actions Leopold took to placate the noble communities of the various
Habsburg domains was to issue a decree on 9 May 1790, that forced thousands of
Bohemian serfs freed by his brother Joseph back into servitude.
Leopold lived for barely two years after his accession as Holy Roman Emperor, 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 of Austria, the queen of Louis XVI, and also threatened his
own dominions with the spread of subversive agitation. His sister sent
him passionate appeals for help, and he was pestered by the royalist émigrés,
who were intriguing to bring about armed intervention in France.
From the east he was threatened by the aggressive ambition of Catherine II of
Russia and by the unscrupulous policy of Prussia. Catherine would have been
delighted to see Austria and Prussia embark on a crusade in the cause of
kings against the French Revolution. While they were busy beyond the Rhine,
she would have annexed what remained of Poland and made conquests against the
Ottoman Empire. Leopold II had no difficulty in seeing through the rather
transparent cunning of the Russian empress, and he refused to be misled.
To his sister, he gave good advice and promises of help if she and her husband
could escape from Paris. The émigrés 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 France's weakness by practically tearing up the treaty of alliance made
by Maria Theresa in 1756 and opening negotiations with Great Britain to
impose a check on Russia and Prussia. Leopold put pressure on Great Britain by
threatening to cede his part of the Low Countries to France. Then, when sure of
British support, he was in a position to baffle the intrigues of Prussia. A
personal appeal to Frederick William II led to a conference between them at
Reichenbach in July 1790, and to an arrangement which was in fact a defeat
for Prussia: Leopold's coronation as king of Hungary on 11 November 1790,
preceded by a settlement with the Diet in which he recognized the dominant
position of the Magyars. He had already made an eight months' truce with the
Turks in September, which prepared the way for the termination of the war begun
by Joseph II. The pacification of his eastern dominions left Leopold free to
re-establish order in Belgium and to confirm friendly relations with Britain
and the Netherlands. During 1791, the emperor remained
increasingly preoccupied with the affairs of France. In January, he had to
dismiss the Count of Artois in a very peremptory way. His good sense was
revolted by the folly of the French émigrés, and he did his utmost to avoid
being entangled in the affairs of that country. The insults inflicted on Louis
XVI and Marie Antoinette, however, at the time of their attempted flight to
Varennes in June, stirred his indignation, and he made a general
appeal in the Padua Circular to the sovereigns of Europe to take common
measures in view of events which "immediately compromised the honour of
all sovereigns, and the security of all governments." Yet he was most directly
interested in negotiations with Turkey, which in June led to a final peace, the
Treaty of Sistova being signed in August 1791.
On 25 August 1791, he met the king of Prussia at Pillnitz Castle, near
Dresden, and they drew up the Declaration of Pillnitz, stating their
readiness to intervene in France if and when their assistance was called for by
the other powers. The declaration was a mere formality, for, as Leopold knew,
neither Russia nor Britain was prepared to act, and he endeavored to guard
against the use which he foresaw the émigrés would try to make of it. In face
of the reaction in France to the Declaration of Pillnitz, the intrigues
of the émigrés, and attacks made by the French revolutionists on the rights of
the German princes in Alsace, Leopold continued to hope that intervention
might not be required. When Louis XVI swore to observe the constitution of
September 1791, the emperor professed to think that a settlement had been reached
in France. The attacks on the rights of the German princes on the left bank of
the Rhine, and the increasing violence of the parties in Paris which were
agitating to bring about war, soon showed, however, that this hope was
vain. Leopold meant to meet the challenge of the revolutionists in
France with dignity and temper, however the effect of the Declaration of
Pillnitz was to contribute to the radicalization of their political
movement. He died suddenly in Vienna, in March
1792, although some claimed he was poisoned or secretly murdered.
Like his parents before him, Leopold had sixteen children, the eldest of his
eight sons being his successor, Emperor Francis II. Some of his other sons were
prominent personages in their day. Among them were: Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of
Tuscany; Archduke Charles of Austria, a celebrated soldier; Archduke Johann of
Austria, also a soldier; Archduke Joseph, Palatine of Hungary; and
Archduke Rainer, Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia.
Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito was commissioned by the Estates of Bohemia
for the festivities that accompanied Leopold's coronation as king of Bohemia
in Prague on 6 September 1791. Joseph František Maximilian, 7th Prince
Lobkowicz, commissioned a reconstruction of the Lobkowicz Palace's exterior in
honor of the coronation, giving the palace the appearance that it retains to
this day. Full title
Leopold II, By the Grace of God, Holy Roman Emperor; King of Germany, Hungary,
Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria, Rama, Serbia,
Cumania and Bulgaria; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Burgundy, Lorraine,
Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Grand Duke of Etruria; Grand Prince of
Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia, Prince of Brabant, Limburg, Luxembourg,
Geldern, Württemberg, Upper and Lower Silesia, Milan, Mantua, Parma, Piacenza,
Guastalla, Auschwitz and Zatoria, Calabria, Bar, Ferrete and Teschen; Lord
of Svevia and Charleville; Count of Habsburg, Flanders, Hannonia, Kyburg,
Gorizia, Gradisca; Margrave of Burgau, Upper and Lower Lusatia, Pont-a-Mousson
and Nomenum, Count of Provinces of Namur, Valdemons, Albimons, Count of
Zütphen, Sarverda, Salma and Falkenstein, Lord of the Wend Margravate
and Mechelen, etc. Ancestors
Issue Children with his wife Infanta Maria
Luisa of Spain: Titles, styles, honours and arms
= Titles and styles= 5 May 1747 – 18 August 1765 His Royal
Highness Peter Leopold, Prince Imperial and Archduke of Austria, Prince Royal of
Hungary and Bohemia, Prince of Tuscany 18 August 1765 – 30 September 1790 His
Royal Highness The Grand Duke of Tuscany, Prince Imperial and Archduke of
Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia
30 September 1790 – 1 March 1792 His Imperial Majesty The Holy Roman Emperor,
King of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia, Dalmatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomeria,
etc. See also
Kings of Germany family tree. He was related to every other king of Germany.
References Vovk, Justin C.. In Destiny's Hands:
Five Tragic Rulers, Children of Maria Theresa. iUniverse: Bloomington, Ind.
ISBN 978-1-4502-0081-3 6. "Gentlemen's Magazine," London, March
1792, pp 281-282, detailed account of the death at Vienna of his Imperial
Majesty Leopold II. Notes
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:
Chisholm, Hugh, ed.. Encyclopædia Britannica. Cambridge University Press.
External links Media related to Leopold II, Holy Roman
Emperor at Wikimedia Commons