14

MAGNA MATER AUSTRIAE

Empress Maria Theresa once described the principles of monarchy as she saw them. She explained that she “undertook each enterprise with great determination and strong resolution … And dearly as I love my family and children, so that I spare no effort, trouble, care, or labor for their sakes, yet I would always have put the general welfare of my dominions above them had I been convinced in my conscience that I should do this or if their welfare demanded it, seeing that I am the general and chief mother of my country.”¹

The magna mater austriae, the Great or Holy Mother of Austria, has been an important religious symbol for Austria for hundreds of years. Empress Maria Theresa’s view of herself as Landesmutter, the mother of her subjects, paralleled this. Like the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the main altar of the basilica at Mariazell, which she so loved, Maria Theresa had become the symbol of Austria and of the Habsburgs. One of her biographers corroborated: “Although she was neither a lenient enemy nor a sentimental monarch, she was guided by matriarchal instincts. She was the mother of Austria and she usually acted towards her people as if they were a great family.”²

The empress had taken to the role of actual motherhood with great gusto too. Nearly on a yearly basis, Maria Theresa continued to be blessed with children. After Joseph in 1741 came Maria Christina (Mimi) in 1742, destined to be her mother’s favorite child. Another daughter was born in 1743, named again Maria Elisabeth, followed by a son, Charles Joseph, in 1745, Maria Amalia in 1746, and Leopold in 1747. A daughter, Maria Carolina, was born and died in 1748. Then came Maria Johanna in 1750, Maria Josepha in 1751, another Maria Carolina in 1752, Ferdinand in 1754, and Maximilian in 1756.

As her children grew, Maria Theresa looked into educating them. Mindful of the poor preparation she had received as heir, the empress sought to avoid her father’s mistake by seeing to it that her eldest son and heir, Archduke Joseph, was educated as a future monarch. Maria Theresa assigned experts to prepare analytical documents for Joseph to study while she herself drew up what became her Political Testament. This was intended for use as a guide to ruling, but it also gives good insight into the empress’s political thinking. Central to Joseph’s education was a heavy dose of religion. His mother insisted that he as well as his siblings attend daily Mass, read devotional works, and go regularly to confession. She declared that “each day must begin with prayer and the first and most necessary thing for my son is to be certain with a submissive heart of God’s omnipotence, to love and to fear Him, and to develop from true Christian practice and duty all other virtues.”³

Archduke Joseph was not the only one receiving Maria Theresa’s maternal anxieties about virtue. The morals of the realm became a real concern for the empress. She may not have been able to convince Francis to desist from his occasional infidelities, but Maria Theresa was determined to keep her subjects from straying from the right path. Intolerant of vice and leading a relatively bourgeois family life, Maria Theresa took on the role of policing her subjects’ moral lives. She accordingly set up in 1747 a “special security commission” or chastity commission, whose function was to impose moral values on everyone. The empress, so circumspect in her own life when it came to sexual activity, could not fathom people falling into vice. One visitor to Vienna described the empress as “very virtuous in her conduct, true to her marriage vows, and never has an impure thought, has but little patience with the indiscretions of others. She looks upon every grade of social vice with complete disapproval.”⁴ Her puritanical streak sought to save her subjects from themselves. Liaisons among the fashionable set in Vienna had been common for years, and Maria Theresa set out to correct this impropriety. Soon enough the chastity police were on the prowl in theaters and at balls. They carried out house searches and arrests. Not surprisingly, prostitutes became a special target. Unescorted females walking the streets were assumed to be up to no good and rounded up.

Maria Theresa’s thinking on vice and virtue can be seen in a letter she wrote in 1774 to her youngest son, Archduke Maximilian, when he was seventeen. She proclaims that “the mood that prevails presently in Vienna is just as bad in matters of religion and propriety as it is for the well-being of a family and especially for the upbringing of young people, who here give themselves up to great debauchery. From all this I intend to remove you, for you are at an age when, first stepping out of the bounds of childhood, one is scarcely able to control himself and the passions are the most dangerous. Your spiritual welfare and your future happiness depend on it.”⁵ She adds: “Allow yourself no indulgence; you are responsible for your salvation and to your calling. Do not be led astray by derision or bad examples which you have seen or heard. Reject all talk that is disrespectful of your elders or injurious to a young heart like yours. Never be ashamed to appear at every opportunity a good Christian in word and deed. This point demands the greatest exactness and attention, now more than ever, because morals have become all too corrupt and frivolous. People want to enclose religion in their hearts without practicing their faith openly because they fear they will be laughed at or called hypocritical and narrow-minded. This is the mood that now prevails everywhere, and which is all the more dangerous because everyone who considers himself part of the ‘beautiful world’ accepts it.”⁶ With regard to the opposite sex, Maria Theresa warns her son: “Shun everything that involves passion, especially concerning women. Regrettably, I must say that they are more dangerous than the most dissolute men … . Scrupulously avoid the first step and be especially wary of any deception or wickedness which drags so much misfortune behind it; only the most debauched give themselves up to it.”⁷ Finally, the mother exhorts her son not to “stray from the path of virtue … and to provide an example to others by your religious conviction, your flawless morals, and your devotion to your family.”⁸

Maria Theresa, who gave birth to sixteen children in nineteen years, always expected the best from her children. This was no less the expectation for her eleventh and youngest daughter. On All Souls’ Day—November 2, 1755, the day of the dead for Roman Catholics—the empress again went into labor at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. Blessed with a healthy constitution and accustomed to labor and birthing, Maria Theresa continued working. The impending birth of an archduke or archduchess of Austria was not to hinder the empress from ruling her realms. In between spasms of pain, the mother of fourteen worked diligently at reading, studying, and signing official papers. Only when the time came to give birth did Maria Theresa stop and beckon her midwife for aid. At eight o’clock that evening, a girl was born to the empress, a small but healthy baby who was given the name Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna. Among the imperial family she was to be known as Antoinette, the French diminutive of Antonia. Thirty-eight years old at Antoinette’s birth, Maria Theresa was “wreathed in triumph, admired throughout Europe as ‘the glory of her sex and model of kings.’”⁹ In fact, of Maria Theresa’s numerous children, “Marie Antoinette was the one who was born at the zenith of her mother’s glory.”¹⁰

The birth of Maria Theresa’s youngest daughter took place amid a shift in alliances for the house of Habsburg. After the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, the empress thought long and hard about reorienting her foreign policy. Unable to fight France and Prussia simultaneously, Austria looked to improving relations with France. Kaunitz impressed Maria Theresa with a long essay on the need to come to an agreement with France. The empress was of the same mind. Both regarded Prussia as more dangerous to Austria, and both agreed that the recovery of Silesia was a prime objective. Therefore, in a decisive break with tradition, Maria Theresa and Kaunitz concluded that Austria and France must become allies. No longer would Austria side with Britain against France, as in Prince Eugene’s days. Now it was to be Austria with France against the archenemy, Prussia. This change in thinking ushered in the diplomatic revolution of 1756. Britain’s failure to give significant aid to Maria Theresa during the War of the Austrian Succession cemented the shift.

In the early 1750s, the empress sent Kaunitz to France with the mandate to bring about the rapprochement. At first he was received coldly. He eventually gained what seemed like the confidence of France’s King Louis XV and his mistress, Madame de Pompadour, but when Kaunitz returned to Vienna in 1753, the much-anticipated agreement did not materialize. Maria Theresa was not daunted. She appointed Kaunitz her chancellor and foreign minister, raising his prestige and profile.

In reversing her diplomatic position toward France, Empress Maria Theresa was going against her natural inclination. She had admitted as much to the British minister to Vienna: “I am far from being French in my disposition, and do not deny that the court of Versailles has been my bitterest enemy; but I cannot conceal, that the cessions which Great Britain extorted from me at the peace of Dresden, and of Aix-la-Chapelle, have totally disabled me. I have little to fear from France, than to form such arrangements as will secure what remains.” When the British minister replied, “Will you, the empress and archduchess, so far humble yourself as to throw yourself into the arms of France? ‘Not into the arms,’ she hastily rejoined, ‘but on the side of France.’”¹¹

International affairs were turning into a complex muddle of alliances and discord, which was again set to explode into major conflict. France and Britain were struggling for mastery over America. Russia, under Empress Elizabeth, was emerging as a force to be reckoned with, while Maria Theresa’s nemesis, Frederick the Great, disturbed the international equilibrium yet again when, in August 1756, he invaded Saxony and began the Seven Years’ War.

At home, Maria Theresa encountered opposition to the new agreement with France. Some of her courtiers could not overcome their prejudices toward the Bourbons or the French, and within her own family, Joseph and Francis were highly opposed to the rapprochement. The empress was disappointed to find that her teenage heir was already exhibiting an insolence that she hoped would be tempered with time. When Francis heard of his wife’s plans for a rapprochement with France, he was filled with indignation. After all, he harbored much animosity toward the French, who had usurped his homeland, Lorraine. Arguing against the alliance, he pounded the table, exclaiming to his wife: “Such an unnatural alliance is impracticable, and shall never take place.”¹² With that, he stormed out of the room. As she had done in so many other matters where her husband objected, Maria Theresa ignored his opposition. Francis had long ago accepted this subordinate role. He once told someone that “the Empress and my children are the Court; I am only a simple individual.”¹³

In 1756, Maria Theresa’s wish for a diplomatic revolution between her empire and France came to fruition. When Frederick II of Prussia signed the Treaty of Westminster with Britain, France was infuriated. Frederick had been telling the French he would not reach an agreement with the British, and when he went through with it, the French felt duped. King Louis XV made his decision to ally his country with Maria Theresa’s Austria. During the negotiations, Kaunitz was worried about the empress’s reaction to his discussions with the sinful Madame de Pompadour. But the pragmatic empress wrote back saying: “I by no means disapprove of your having chosen … la Pompadour, who enjoys the king’s maximum confidence. If one had passed her over, she might well have done the maximum harm.”¹⁴ Whatever the means, the diplomatic revolution had occurred. What had been France and Prussia versus Great Britain and Austria became France and Austria versus Great Britain and Prussia.

In the First Treaty of Versailles, France agreed to respect Maria Theresa’s domains, while Austria promised to be neutral in the French-British conflict. For the most part, the French approved the treaty, in hope that “the union of the two greatest powers would command the respect of all Europe.”¹⁵ The only thing needed to cement this alliance was a marriage aligning the Bourbons with the Habsburgs. Little Antoinette would become the political pawn, and as such, she was to be “the most storied victim of the New System.”¹⁶

This time, Maria Theresa had the support of France, Russia, Saxony, Spain, and Sweden against Prussia and Great Britain. The war became truly global, with fighting taking place in Europe and overseas, as far away as Canada and India. In the European theater, in June 1757, Austrian forces scored a great victory over Prussia at the Battle of Kolin in Bohemia, where Prussia suffered nearly 14,000 dead, wounded, or captured to Austria’s 8,100. The empress was grateful to Field Marshal Count Leopold Daun for the victory and invested him with the Order of Maria Theresa, which she founded in celebration of this triumph.

More trouble for the Prussians came two months later at the Battle of Gross-Jägersdorf, when Russian troops attacked East Prussia. Then in November, at the Battle of Rossbach, Frederick the Great scored a significant victory by surprising the Austrians and French. Despite being outnumbered two to one, Frederick incurred minimal casualties of five hundred soldiers to his enemies’ seven thousand. More battles took place over the next several years, involving tens of thousands of troops. Frederick the Great suffered setbacks, including his bitter defeat at the Battle of Kunersdorf. Things looked grim for Maria Theresa’s enemy, who saw his capital, Berlin, fall into Russian hands.

In Vienna, Maria Theresa was conducting her diplomatic analyses and penning instructions amid a busy home life. Her family offered a charming picture of domesticity. The empress, who always preferred the bourgeois life in private, allowed more informality when possible. She gave a hint of her domestic life when she wrote to a former lady-in-waiting. The empress apologized for neglecting to write more properly, giving the excuse that the letter was “done in four installments, with six children in the room, and the emperor, too.”¹⁷ The imperial family captured Europe’s attention too, for “no other eighteenth-century court had anything quite like them. A sparkle derived from the youthfulness and vivacity of Maria Theresa’s family made the Viennese court stand out from Potsdam, St. Petersburg and Versailles. In Potsdam the hated Frederick kept a strictly male menage, communicating with his wife only by letter. In St. Petersburg the childless spinster Czarina Elizabeth hired lovers to keep her company. At Versailles there was [by that time, the king’s new mistress Madame] Du Barry to amuse the aging Louis XV, and a batch of unattractive and unmarried daughters.”¹⁸ But in Vienna, life was different. Overseeing the imperial family was Empress Maria Theresa, a formidable mother, mentally and physically strong. “That strength of hers was evident … even as she sat upon a chair at evening she seemed to be governing from a throne.”¹⁹

Maria Theresa’s two eldest children, Marianne and Joseph, gave her the most concern. Marianne was an invalid who had curvature of the spine. Joseph had already shown signs of being difficult. When he was but four years old, Maria Theresa bluntly stated: “My Joseph cannot obey!”²⁰ As a teenager, he became mercurial. The empress was not blind to her oldest son’s problematic personality. He was intelligent yet listless like his father and obstinate like his mother. His relationship with his siblings was no less easy, for Joseph had a tendency to be sarcastic toward them, even in front of strangers. Maria Theresa urged his tutors to mold him into an ideal prince, firing off instructions on how to deal with the heir, who enjoyed “being honored and obeyed” and found “criticism … well-nigh unbearable. Tending to indulge his whims,” Joseph was found to be “deficient in courtesy and even rude.”²¹ No matter how hard Maria Theresa tried to curb her oldest son’s obduracy and indifference, he was always to do things his way and cause his mother anxiety.

Archduchess Maria Christina, or Mimi, remained Maria Theresa’s favorite child. Alert and quick-witted, Mimi was also pretty, with a fair complexion that she inherited from her maternal grandmother, Empress Elisabeth-Christina. The rest of Maria Theresa’s daughters, including Antoinette, were lazy and less inclined to follow their lessons. A French tutor once remarked about Antoinette’s “inability to concentrate,” adding that her mind was “much keener than people here have assumed, but … nothing whatever has been done to develop it.”²² Unlike Isabella of Castile, who saw to it that her daughters, including the youngest, Catherine, were among the best educated in Europe, Maria Theresa neglected to impose rigor on her daughters, especially the youngest girl. Antoinette was, however, an eager student of dancing and music. Of all Maria Theresa’s daughters, Antoinette was the one whose star shone the brightest when it came to dancing in the palace theatricals and ballets that were usually performed on birthdays or name days. Her bearing profited from dancing lessons, and she was later to be admired for the grace of her carriage.

Despite her numerous progeny, Maria Theresa was not instinctively maternal. Years later, Madame Campan, one of Marie Antoinette’s ladies-in-waiting, made the observation that Marie Antoinette had been taught by her mother to “to fear and respect rather than to love her.”²³ Not surprisingly, the empress insisted upon strict discipline. She also ensured that the children were immersed in religion and faithfully attended religious observances. Their meals were simple fare, consisting of two dishes including a soup. The empress ordered the governesses to watch her children’s eating habits, telling them that “my children are to eat everything set before them without making any objection. They are not to make any remarks about preferring this or that, or to discuss their food. They are to eat fish every Friday and Saturday and on every fast day. Though Joanna has a revulsion against fish, no one is to give in to her … . All my children seem to have an aversion against fish, but they must overcome this.”²⁴ The missives did not end there. Maria Theresa gave instructions that her daughters were “born to obey, and have to learn to do so … . Under no circumstances must they be permitted to feel fear, be it of thunderstorms, fire, spooks, witches, or similar nonsense, and the servants must neither discuss such matters among themselves, nor tell any ghost stories. As [the archduchesses] must not be afraid of illnesses, you will talk to them about any of these quite naturally, even of smallpox. And of death also, for it is well to familiarize them with the thought of it.”²⁵ Indeed, Archduke Charles Joseph died in 1761, and Maria Johanna died in 1762.

Smallpox cast its specter on Europe, taking a toll among commoners, clergy, nobility, and monarchs alike. Joseph’s first wife, the beautiful, dark-haired Isabella of Parma, was a victim. She had enchanted the archduke and indeed the whole family. Isabella was extremely attached to her sister-in-law Mimi. Mimi knew of Isabella’s preoccupation with death, an obsession so pronounced that it appeared as if she was almost seeking it. While pregnant with her second child, Isabella succumbed to smallpox, dying in 1763 at the age of twenty-one. Joseph never really recovered from Isabella’s untimely death. His marriage to his second wife, Marie-Josephe of Bavaria (daughter of none other than Charles Albert), planned by Maria Theresa, was extremely unhappy. The marriage ended when Marie-Josephe too died of smallpox.

In 1767 fifteen-year-old Archduchess Maria Josepha was betrothed to the King of Naples. Before her departure for Naples, her mother insisted that she accompany her to the imperial crypt of the Habsburgs to visit the tomb of Joseph’s recently deceased second wife. Maria Josepha did not want to go for fear that she might catch the disease that had killed her sister-in-law. Before they left, Marie Josepha tearfully embraced Antoinette with the message that she would never see her again and was headed not for Naples but for her own burial among their Habsburg ancestors. Maria Josepha did indeed catch the disease and died from it. Maria Theresa too had contracted smallpox while Marie-Josephe was dying of the disease. The empress was so ill that the Last Rites were administered. But Maria Theresa recovered.

Another of Maria Theresa’s children, Archduchess Maria Elisabeth, the great beauty of the family, also suffered from smallpox. Upon hearing that she was afflicted, the archduchess asked for a mirror to take one last look at her flawless complexion. She survived the disease, but her disfigured face made it impossible for Maria Elisabeth to find a husband.

Maria Theresa understandably sought to tackle the problem of smallpox. After obtaining information on inoculation from a physician recommended to her by England’s King George III, the empress decided to introduce the practice into her domains. To set an example, she had her two youngest sons, Ferdinand and Maximilian, inoculated.

Maria Theresa’s attention to her many children did not prevent her from keeping a watchful eye on the international stage. Empress Elizabeth of Russia died in 1762, and Prussia’s fortunes turned. Elizabeth’s successor, Czar Peter III, a great admirer of Frederick’s, suddenly made peace with Prussia and became his idol’s ally. When Peter was overthrown and murdered, he was succeeded by his wife, Catherine II (the Great), who declared Russia’s neutrality in the war. In the meantime, defeats overseas prompted France to conclude peace with Britain in 1763. The loss of France as a major ally forced Maria Theresa to stop fighting. In the 1763 Treaty of Hubertusburg, ending the Seven Years’ War, the status quo remained, meaning that Silesia did not revert to Maria Theresa, as she had so dearly wished. Prussia emerged as a definitive great power, while most of France’s overseas possessions fell into British hands, signaling the ascendancy of Great Britain on the world stage.

Still, the Seven Years’ War was not as significant as the earlier wars for Maria Theresa. Unlike the War of the Austrian Succession, which had established her right to rule, the Seven Years’ War was a global conflict that engulfed a coalition of states in which the empress was not the main protagonist. By the end of the war, Maria Theresa of Austria had grown stout and matronly, more resigned to what fate had in store for her. She had also hoped that, after a life filled with conflicts, her later years would be less combative. Yet in spite of the exhausting years and the bitter loss of Silesia, the empress still “possessed all the dignity, the narrow but strong idealism, and the faith which Frederick [the Great] lacked.”²⁶

In 1765, a personal tragedy of great magnitude struck unexpectedly. Before leaving for their son Leopold’s wedding festivities at Innsbruck, Francis drew his favorite child, Antoinette, to him. Years later, Marie Antoinette described the farewell: “My father took me on his knee and, with tears in his eyes, kissed me … . He seemed greatly pained at leaving me: which surprised all those who were present.”²⁷ Was it a good-bye with a premonition? During the wedding celebration, Emperor Francis collapsed in Joseph’s arms and died. He was fifty-six years old; the empress was forty-eight. Francis’s sudden death stunned Maria Theresa and sent her into deepest mourning. The absence of the man whom she had idolized since she was a child turned the widowed empress into a recluse for months. Even though Francis had lately become infatuated with the much younger and extravagant Countess Auersperg, the empress had continued to love her husband dearly. Maria Theresa was magnanimous in her grief, telling Countess Auersperg, “How much we both of us have lost!”²⁸ The empress also showed a generous spirit toward the countess. Instead of ruining her, Maria Theresa settled on her a large sum that Francis had promised Auersperg before he died.

The day after Francis died, the widowed empress had her luxurious hair cut short, then shut herself in her room sewing a shroud for her husband’s body. For the rest of her life, Maria Theresa wore mourning. Every eighteenth of the month was devoted to remembering the late emperor, while every August was consecrated to devotions, penance, and requiems in Francis’s memory. The rooms Maria Theresa lived in were draped in gray and black. She stopped wearing jewelry except for pearls and continued to hold Francis’s memory dear to her heart. The empress expressed her profound sorrow to her daughters, saying, “Our calamity is at its height; you have lost a most incomparable father, and I a consort—a friend—my heart’s joy, for forty-two years past! Having been brought up together, our hearts and our sentiments were united in the same views. All the misfortunes I have suffered during the last twenty-five years were softened by his support. I am suffering such deep affliction, that nothing but true piety and you, my dear children, can make me tolerate a life which, during its continuance, shall be spent in acts of devotion.”²⁹

To her son Leopold, Maria Theresa echoed the same message: “Nothing but complete acceptance of God’s will can help me to beat this blow. You have lost the best and tenderest father. I have lost everything, a tender husband, a perfect friend, my only support, to whom I owe everything. You, dear children, are the sole legacy of this great prince and tender father; try to deserve by your conduct all my affection which is now reserved for you alone.”³⁰ To one of her friends, the widow wrote: “All that I have left is my grave. I await it with impatience because only it will reunite me with the sole object that my heart has loved in this world and which has been the object and goal of all my deeds and sentiments. You realize the void in my life since he has left.”³¹ The empress’s obsession with her husband was such that she had recorded in her prayer book, in minute detail, how long Francis lived: “Emperor Francis, my husband, lived 56 years, 8 months, 10 days, and died on August 18, 1765, at 9:30 P.M. So he lived: Months 680, Weeks 2,9581/2, Days 20,778, Hours 496,992. My happy marriage lasted 29 years, 6 months, and 6 days.”³²

The widow thought she was through with the world. She confessed to her old confidant Count Tarouca: “I hardly know myself now, for I have become like an animal with no true life or reasoning power. I forget everything. I get up at five. I go to bed late, and the livelong day I seem to do nothing. I do not even think. It is a terrible state to be in, but I revive a little when I see one of my old friends.”³³ The thought of retiring to a convent in Innsbruck was tempting, but Maria Theresa resisted. She wrote to Kaunitz that “I am letting myself be dragged back to Vienna, wholly and solely to assume the guardianship of nine orphans. They are greatly to be pitied. Their good father idolised them and could never refuse them anything. It will be changed times now. I am exceedingly anxious about their future, which will be decided in the course of the next winter.”³⁴

The grieving mother set about planning marriages for her children. These surviving children, after all, “represented an incalculable political capital.”³⁵ When the ill-fated Archduchess Maria Josepha died after visiting the Habsburg crypt, Maria Theresa lost no time in replacing her with the next sister, Archduchess Maria Carolina, as the designated bride for the King of Naples. This sister, nearest in age to Antoinette, married King Ferdinand IV of Naples in 1768. The empress married off Maria Amalia to Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, despite Maria Amalia’s objection that she had wanted to marry someone else. The only one of Maria Theresa’s children allowed to marry for love turned out to be Mimi, who married Prince Albert of Saxony. Leopold married Maria Luisa of Spain, and Ferdinand married Maria Beatrice d’Este. Far from being mere quaint weddings between European royal families, five of these marriages were arranged by Maria Theresa to solidify Austria’s alliance with the French and the house of Bourbon. Of all these Habsburg-Bourbon alliances, the young Archduchess Antoinette’s would be the most famous. Of Maria Theresa’s sons, only the youngest, Maximilian, never married.

In her despondency over Francis’s death, Maria Theresa extended her maternal impulses and her religious devotion out toward her subjects. The result was the continued pursuit of a monarchy of enlightened absolutism. Maria Theresa never understood Frederick II of Prussia’s introduction of religious freedom in his country. Like Isabella of Castile, Maria Theresa held religious homogeneity in her domains to be equal with the salvation of her subjects. When in 1777 Joseph sounded off in favor of toleration, his mother retorted: “To my great grief I have to say that there would be nothing more to corrupt in respect of religion if you intend to insist on that general toleration of which you maintain that it is a principle from which you will never depart … . I will not cease from praying myself … that God may protect you from this misfortune, the greatest which would ever have descended on the Monarchy … you will ruin your State and be guilty of the destruction of so many souls.”³⁶

The empress’s faith tilted toward “strong Counter-Reformation convictions,” which were buttressed by her “pragmatic but conservative temperament.” ³⁷ Like others of her time, Maria Theresa was uncharitable toward the Jews. Nevertheless, she “had no taste for persecution. Quite simply, she believed that she was doing right: ‘I must show no spirit of persecution, but, even more important, no spirit of tolerance, nor recognize all religious opinions as of equal worth. I must conduct myself thus as long as I live, until the moment when I shall descend into the crypt.’”³⁸

Despite her strong attachment to Catholicism and her family’s past association with Jesuit priests, Maria Theresa was not averse to reining in the clergy when necessary, though the powerful Jesuit order had an extensive influence in Austria and Hungary. The empress was motivated to curtail the Jesuits’ obstruction to her reforms (they preferred to teach in Latin, though Maria Theresa wanted German to be the language of instruction). Moreover, Count Kaunitz had made her believe that the Jesuits were encroaching on the monarchy’s rights. After the Pope dissolved the Jesuits, a reluctant Maria Theresa suppressed the order in her domains in 1773. Though the empress allowed numerous Jesuits to continue teaching, she “ordered the destruction of all Jesuit papers and manuals, because she considered them obsolete and potentially dangerous if they fell into the wrong hands.”³⁹ Maria Theresa ordered churches and convents to desist from granting asylum to any criminal. She also forbade the presence of ecclesiastics when wills were made and curbed the Inquisition.

This suppression of the Jesuits was part of Maria Theresa’s second set of reforms, from 1761 to 1778. During these years, she concentrated on improving the welfare of her subjects in her Austrian and Bohemian lands. Concern about revolution as well as her realm’s economic and humanitarian well-being directed her attention. The most striking of the reforms concerned the serfs. Of the serfs in Bohemia, Maria Theresa had written to her son Ferdinand that “the peasants there are crushed under the excesses of the lords, who, in my thirty-six years of rule, have always known how to sabotage changes and how to hold their serfs in bondage.”⁴⁰ It was not an easy task to ease the serfs’ burdens. The empress met with opposition from the nobility and mistrust from the serfs. By the 1770s, the serfs gained some respite through her issuance of the Robot Patent, which softened the payments they were obliged to fulfill through service. By reducing the robot, the Theresian regime “turned back the clock on a century and a half of illegal encroachment by the landed nobility.”⁴¹ Maria Theresa also eliminated the use of torture in forcing confessions.

Failing to tackle the numerous problems besetting the Habsburg Empire would have invited disaster. These reforms along with her earlier ones not only strengthened the monarchy but also averted possible rebellion among her varied subjects. France, the other great power on the Continent, was beleaguered by its own set of troubles—troubles that were to have profound consequences for Maria Theresa’s daughter, Antoinette.