Henry Wickham Steed, The Hapsburg Monarchy (London: Constable and Company, Ltd., 1919)

The influence of the Monarch is therefore paramount* in Austrian constitutional questions and tends to prevail over that of all other constitutional factors, not always excluding that of the judiciary. justice is administered in his name,

though, in the case of ordinary citizens, he is not constitutionally entitled to administer it in person. judges are appointed by him, and are by the constitution declared to be "independent." The Emperor as Emperor is, however, above the law, and "irresponsible" in the sense that he is not accountable to any organ of the State for his Imperial acts and omissions. Sedes regia a nemine judicatur. As a private person he, like other members of the Imperial and Royal Family, is subject to the Office of the Grand Marshal of the Court. He can be prosecuted before this tribunal under the common law, though courtesy requires that a suit against him be directed against his private purse. In other respects also his action as a private person is subject to restrictions. He requires, for instance, municipal permission to erect a building on his private property, and that of the Forestry Authorities to cut his private timber. His private properties and undertakings are subject to State, provincial, and municipal taxation. On the other hand, he possesses many of the rights of a private citizen. He is entitled to vote in political and provincial elections, but is not eligible to any representative body because not subject to the disciplinary regulations of such bodies. His name stands indeed on the electoral register of most Austrian provinces in the class of large landed proprietors ; and though not personally eligible to a municipal council or assembly, his place can be taken by a plenipotentiary representative. His residences, castles and gardens are not his private property, but are registered as belonging to the Court Exchequer unless historical proof can be adduced to show that they are the personal property of the Monarch or of some member of the Imperial and Royal Family. The Austro-Hungarian Court is a State institution, not merely a personal appendage of the Monarch, and some of its departments, notably the Chancery of the Imperial Cabinet and the Grand Court Marshal's Office, are recognized by law. The Chancery of the Imperial Cabinet is specially provided for in the Budget apart from the Civil List. These

Court departments maintain contact between the Crown and the various Departments of State, and deal with the reports, petitions and other documents addressed to the Monarch. Though nominally belonging to the Court, the Heads of these departments therefore perform duties of great political importance. The responsible ministers in the two States are supposed to prevent the personal influence of such officials with the Monarch from transgressing its rightful limits, but some of them have unquestionably played a much larger part in the affairs of State than that to which they were theoretically entitled. Hence, doubtless, the persistence of the belief, especially in Hungary, that a Vienna Court Camarilla exists in defiance of Constitutional Law. If it exists or has existed, its influence, during the later decades of the reign, has frequently been favourable to Hungary rather than the reverse, for some of the most influential Court officials have been patriotic Hungarians. The question whether there exists a separate Austrian and a separate Hungarian Court cannot be answered in the affirmative, though eminent Hungarian authorities claim that the Hungarian Court has never ceased to exist and that under the Constitutional Statute XII. of 1 867 the cost of maintaining the Court is not a joint or common affair. Nevertheless, these authorities admit (cf. Marczali, Ungwrisches Verfassungsrecht, p. 69) that there is now no permanent Hungarian Court. In truth, the Court, like the Monarch, is joint, or common to both States, though the civil list is voted separately by the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments, and though there has been since 189 5 a special Court Marshal for Hungary, since 1903 a Hungarian Court Marshal's Office, and since 19o5 a special Hungarian bodyguard. A rescript of November 1893 ordained moreover that Hungarian bannerets take the place of the Austrian Court officials at the Coronation of the Hungarian King, the opening and closing of Parliament, and the reception of the Hungarian Delegation. With the exception of those Court officials whose positions

and functions are constitutionally recognized, the Monarch has absolute control of the Court. He settles all questions of ceremonial and the forms of admission to his presence. Parliament is not entitled to send deputations to him save with his permission. The residence of the Monarch and his Court, as distinguished from his private property, is not subject to any provincial or communal jurisdiction. The Monarch is, moreover, entitled to dispose of the local police as he may wish, and even the State Authorities can only operate within the Court domain with the permission of the Court officials.

THE HAPSBURG FAMILY LAW

Much more complicated than the relationship of the Monarch to the Court is his position in regard to the Imperial and Royal House or Family.' There exists a Hapsburg Family Law drawn up on February 3, 1839, Of which the provisions are unpublished and secret. Analogies doubtless exist between it and the family laws of other German princely houses, but, in the case of the Hapsburg Family Law, argument from analogy is insufficient. The Pragmatic Sanction,' which, with its provision for the

1. The House of Hapsburg consists of the Emperor as Head, his wife, the surviving widows of his predecessors, the Archdukes and Archduchesses descended in male lineage from eligible (ebenburtig) marriages contracted with the consent of the Head of the Family at the time being.

2. "The Pragmatic Sanction," or Statute endowed with peculiar solemnity, consists mainly of the provisions of the Pactum mutuae successionis secretly concluded on September 12, 1703, between the Emperor Leopold and his two sons Joseph and Charles. The Pactum was an arrangement for the inheritance of the Lands of the Spanish Throne (which had been assigned to Charles) and of those of the Austrian Throne (reserved for Leopold and his eldest son Joseph) by whomsoever should survive the other parties to the Pactum, and by the survivor's heirs in accordance with the right of primogeniture in the male line, or, eventually, in the female line in default of heirs male. When Charles succecded to the Austrian throne as Emperor Charles VI., and found himself, in consequence of the deaths of Leopold and Joseph, the last male of his line, the Croatian-Slavonian Estates hastened to declare (1712) that, in case of the extinction of the male line, they would recognize as Ruler that Princess of the Arch-House who should possess Austria, Styria, Carinthia, and Carnolia, and should reside in Vienna. Charles VI.

indivisible unity of the Hapsburg Lands and their obligation of mutual defence, forms the juridical basis of the Monarchy, establishes the right of succession of that member of the House of Austria whom in the order of primogeniture, with precedence to males, the Family Law shall designate. The question therefore arises whether the Emperor is bound by the Family Law or whether he is superior to it ; further, whether, in case he can alter the Family Law, the alteration can be made single-handed or requires the assent of a Family Council ; and again, whether the validity of the Family Law is subject or superior to that of the Constitutional Law of the State in case of conflict between them. Professor Tezner declares [1] that " the House-Power of the Emperor as ruler of the House of Austria comprises all the elements of the rule of a chieftain or patriarch. . . . As possessor of the HousePower, the Emperor is Lord and therefore not subject to it, though bound by it within the limits of its legal (ie. constitutionally promulgated) provisions. Family and public law are here so merged in each other that it is hard to say where one begins and the other ends. The House-Power expresses itself in all the forms of the power of the State, ie. in legislation, administration and jurisdiction. In the domain of private law it renders requisite the Emperor's assent to the contraction of marriages by members of the Imperial and was of opinion that the solemn proclamation of the secret Pactum mutuae succes- onis Of 1703 would suffice to settle the question of the succession to all his hereditary dominions in favour of his daughter Maria Theresa ; and the Pactum was consequently proclaimed at Vienna as a Sanctio Pvagmatica on April 19, 1713. The Hungarians, irritated by the independent action of the Croatian- Slavonian Estates, whom they regarded as subject to the Hungarian Crown, not only declined to recognize the Sanctio thus proclaimed, but obliged Charles V1. by the Hungarian Statute 111. of the year 1715 expressly to admit the validity of the Leopoldine order of succession. Having thus "saved their faces" by upsetting, as far as Hungary was concerned, the validity of the Vienna proclamation of April 1713, the Hungarians eventually agreed that the Emperor should submit the Pragmatic Sanction to all the Estates of the Lands under his sceptic, with a request that they recognize it as binding upon them for ever. Only when the Sanction had been accepted by the Estates of all these Lands, (lid the Hungarians consent to enact it as a part of their Constitution by the Statutes 1. and 11. of the session of 1722-1723.

Royal House, and makes the validity of their wills and marriage contracts depend upon his sanction. . . . It is further reserved to the Emperor to appoint a tribunal in every special case for the criminal punishment of members of the Imperial House, or to inflict the punishment in person. In disciplinary matters his decision is also final, and in cases of the banishment or imprisonment of members of the Family, his personal taste settles whether such measures are disciplinary or administrative, as, for instance, expulsion by the police or confinement."

But, adds Tezner, inasmuch as the Imperial Patent of August 11 [1], 1804, which created the Austrian Imperial title, describes the Emperor without limitation as the " Ruler of the House," and since this important Patent was issued also in regard to the Family Law without any reference to a Family Council, the House-Power of the Emperor, so far as it can be proved to reach, must be regarded as absolute. Tezner, however, lays down the principle that, as regards the relationship between the Power of the State and the HousePower of the Monarch, the latter is subject and not accessory to the former. Even in the absolutist State, the Family Law was recognized as subject to the Law of the State by the declaration that the Pragmatic Sanction could not be changed by Family legislation. Family Law can, on the other hand, be raised by Constitutional legislation to the level of State Law, as is shown by the Pragmatic Sanction which, originally a Family Statute, became a law of the State through its recognition by the Estates of the Realms ; and it is conceivable that Constitutional legislation could modify or even abrogate the Family Law.' Tezner further advances the somewhat fine-drawn argument that the superiority of Constitutional Law over Family Law is also shown by Clause 16 of the Austrian Constitutional Statute (No. 141) of December 1867, which declares that members of the Reichsrath-to the Upper Chamber of which Princes of the Imperial House belong by birth-can never be called to account for votes

given in discharge of their functions, and only by the Chamber to which they belong for utterances made in their legislative capacity. However this may be, it is clear that, in so far as the right of succession to the monarchical position and functions is concerned, the Emperor cannot, with or without a Family Council, so modify the Family Law as to make it override the Law of the State. A Family Council appears only to have exercised an important influence upon the order of succession at the moment of the abdication of the Emperor Ferdinand and the accession of Francis Joseph in 1848 ; but even the right of abdication is not absolute in regard to the whole Monarchy, for the Hungarian Constitution makes the validity of an abdication contingent upon its ratification by the Hungarian Parliament.

Yet, as in most things Austrian, it is necessary carefully to distinguish between principle and practice, theory and execution. However clear the superiority of the laws of the State over the Hapsburg Family Law may seem to be, the facts are that, within the framework of the Pragmatic Sanction, the power of the Emperor is practically absolute, and that, were he at any moment to suspend the Fundamental Laws of the Austrian State or radically to revise them, he would meet with little or no resistance, especially if the suspension or revision were made to appear conducive to popular welfare. Hence the unutterable tiresomeness of most Austrian constitutional questions. At bottom they are felt to be questions of dynastic expediency. Francis Joseph was long an absolute ruler. Defeat abroad and disaster at home were required to convince him in 1859 that absolutism is apt to be both expensive and inefficient ; and financial stress subsequently effected what the revolution of 1848 had failed permanently to assure, There is, it is true, little likelihood of a return in Austria to naked absolutism, though a suspension or revision of the 1867 Constitution is a possibility if not a probability of the future. And as regards the authority of the Emperor over the members of the Imperial and Royal House, it seems likely to remain in future as

the debate on the Declaration, the Hungarian Opposition urged with cogency that as Hungarian Law recognizes no morganatic marriages, it is inconceivable that the lawful wife of the King of Hungary should not be Queen of Hungary. Whether the adoption of the Declaration in the form of a Statute by the Hungarian Parliament invalidates this thesis as regards the Duchess of Hohenberg, is a question which may presently be fertile in opportunities for political bargaining of the kind so frequent in the history of the relations between the Magyar nation and the House of Austria; but its reference to the Pragmatic Sanction certainly excludes her children from the order of succession to the Hungarian Throne, inasmuch as, under the Pragmatic Sanction, the Kings of Hungary must be legitimate descendants of Austrian Archdukes and A rchduchesses. The Duchess which bind Us, We have sought and obtained the consent of His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty the Emperor and King Francis Joseph I gloriously reigning, Our exalted Uncle, as the Most Serene supreme Head of the ArchHouse aforesaid, and His Majesty has deigned graciously to grant Us the same as a new proof of His Most High favour and goodwill. But before we proceed to conclude the marriage bond, We feet Ourself moved to establish-invoking the House Laws aforesaid, the provisions of which We recognize in their entirety and declare binding for Us quite particularly with regard to the present marriage which We are about to contract-that Our marriage with the Countess Chotek is riot an eligible (ebenburtige) but a morganatic marriage and is to be considered as such for now and all time, in consequence whereof neither Our wife nor the issue to be hoped for with God's blessing from this Our marriage nor their descendants will possess or be entitled to claim those rights, titles, armorial bearings, privileges, etc., that belong to the eligible wives and to the issue of Archdukes from eligible marriages. And in particular We again expressly recognize and declare that inasmuch as the issue from Our aforesaid marriage and their descendants are not members of the Most High Arch-House, they possess no right to succeed to the Throne in the Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Reichsrath (Austria), nor consequently, in virtue of the Statutes 1. and 11. (Pragmatic Sanction) Of 1723, in the Lands of the Hungarian Crown, and that the same are excluded from the Order of Succession.

We pledge Our word that we recognize as binding for all time the present declaration, of whose significance and scope We are fully conscious, both for Us and Our wife and for out children by this marriage, and that We will never attempt to revoke this Our present declaration nor undertake anything calculated to enfeeble or to abrogate the binding force thereof."

Though enacted as a Statute in Hungary this declaration was merely communicated to the Reichsrath in Austria and by it taken note of" in a simple resolution.

of Hohenberg is not an Austrian Archduchess, nor is it certain that her eventual acquisition of the rank of Queen in Hungary could establish retrospectively any claim on her part to be considered an Archduchess. Her husband's Declaration recognizes indeed the Hapsburg Family Law as binding and, in pursuance thereof, the morganatic character of his marriage ; but the Hungarian Parliament enacted the Declaration as a Statute in virtue of its agreement with Statutes 1. and 11. of 1722-23, and, in the preamble, omitted express reference to the Family Law. In adopting the Declaration, the Hungarian Parliament laid down, moreover, the important principle that all questions relating to the succession must be judged in the light of Statutes 1. and 11. of 1722-23 ; that is to say, in the light of the Pragmatic Sanction and of the Statute introductory to it. Those Statutes state merely (Statute I. Of 1722-23, Clause 3) that the order of succession shall be "regulated, preserved, and assured (in Hungary) in accordance with the order settled, established, promulgated and accepted by his Majesty in the remaining hereditary Kingdoms and Lands of his sacred Majesty inside and outside Germany, without distinction, and giving precedence to the male sex in equal degree of relationship in the same line." The Hungarian Parliament has, by enacting the Declaration as a Statute and thus embodying it in the Constitution, assured its own right of future decision concerning the compatibility of the provisions of the Family Law in regard to Ebenburtigkeit with the premisses of the order of succession to the Hungarian Crown established by the Pragmatic Sanction. Therefore the provisions of the Family Law, including those concerning Ebenburtigkeit, or equality of birth-rank, are, as regards Hungary, subject to the control of the Hungarian Parliament and to the extraordinary skill of Magyar political lawyers in the interpretation of constitutional precepts. If it be imagined for a moment that, upon the accession of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand to the Hapsburg Throne,

his wife were to be recognized as rightful Queen of Hungary and that in Austria the conception of Ebenburtigkeit should be maintained with its consequence in the recognition of the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, nephew of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and great-nephew of the Emperor Francis Joseph, as Heir-Apparent to the Hapsburg throne, it will be seen that a delicate situation might arise. True, the Arch duke Francis Ferdinand's Declaration binds him absolutely ; but though be has sworn not to seek release from his oath, it is open to the Hungarian Parliament and indeed to the Austrian Parliament, to petition the Pope for a dispensa tion. Moreover, the questions have been raised whether the Archduke was entitled to swear away the possible rights of persons unborn ; and whether, if the conception of Ebenburtigkeit can be proved to have no established validity in Austrian or Hungarian Law and, consequently, that the Duchess of Hohenberg ought to have ranked as an Archduchess from the moment of her marriage, their children would always acquiesce in the forfeiture of their conceivable rights by the paternal declaration. In these circumstances, it is not sur prising that voices in Austria should already have called upon the Emperor Francis Joseph to repair, before his death, the error he committed in assenting to the contraction of a morganatic marriage by the Heir-Presumptive. Either, it has been argued, such assent ought never to have been given since it involves the dynasty in a series of perilous un certainties, or, when once it was given, the Countess Chotek should have been raised to the rank of Archduchess and the non-Austrian conception of Ebenburtigkeit should not have been invoked as a reason for excluding the children of the marriage from the order of succession. The Emperor Francis Joseph, it has been claimed, is alone in a position to remedy this error and to remove the obstacles to the recogni tion of the children of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and of the Duchess of Hohenberg as Archdukes of Austria. But the marriage of the second Heir-Presumptive, the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, to Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma,

in 1911, and the birth of their son, the infant Archduke Francis Joseph, have presumably settled in the negative all question of raising the Duchess of Hohenberg and her children to archducal rank ; and though she may be recognized as Queen of Hungary and even, by courtesy, as Empress of Austria should her husband survive the Emperor Francis Joseph and succeed to the throne, it now appears improbable that the graver issues concerning her children will be added to the preoccupations of Austro-Hungarian statesmen.

Of these issues the gravest was undoubtedly the lever which the Declaration of the Heir-Presumptive placed in the hands of the Hungarian Parliament. Ever since the growth of the Magyar Nationalist conception of the Dual System, the tendency of Magyar jurisconsults and politicians have been to whittle away every feature of the Settlement indicative of the " indissoluble unity " of the Hapsburg dominions as laid down in the Hungarian as well as in the Austrian Pragmatic Sanction. The Dual System reposes upon the conception of the Monarch as three juridical personalities in one physical person,-to wit, the Emperor of Austria ruling over the " Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Reichsrath " ; the King of Hungary ruling over the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen ; and the joint Monarch representing the joint interests of a polity, unitary in its relations with foreign countries though dual, save in regard to the main aspects of military matters, in its internal arrangements, The Magyars have consistently striven for at least a generation to deny the existence of the joint Monarch, and have put forward the contention, both in theory and practice, that in dealing with foreign countries he is merely a dual person simultaneously Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, but not a unitary Austro-Hungarian Monarch. They have tried to exclude "the Emperor" from any relationship to Hungarian affairs, and when obliged to refer to him in his joint capacity have constantly preferred the designation " His Majesty " to the correct constitutional style

"His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty." Similarly in regard to other features of constitutional terminology. The expression " Empire," [1] meaning the whole Monarchy, which De k and Andr ssy accepted without difficulty and included in the Hungarian Statute XII. of 1867, has disappeared from modern Hungarian political literature or has been confiscated for the sole use of the Kingdom of Hungary. Objection has even been taken to the term "Austro-Hungarian "and the use of "Austrian and Hungarian" demanded. The Emperor Francis Joseph as joint monarch has made concession after concession to this separatist tendency, partly out of a desire for a quiet life and partly out of a feeling, very widespread in Austria, that, despite titular niceties and legal chicane, the future relationship of Austria to Hungary and vice versa will be settled by the respective strengths of the two countries and by the power of the one to impose its will on the other. In Hungary, no less than in Austria, public opinion has come increasingly to regard the question as destined one day to be settled by a trial of strength, and for this reason also the Magyars have sought to extend their control over the Hungarian regiments of the joint army, The Crown, for its part, appears to have been less than prudent in not perceiving the use that can be made of titular concessions in working up a body of politico-juridical doctrine which, in case of need, could be made to command the passionate support of a masterful people.

In no recent development has the fundamental divergence of the Austrian and the Magyar tendencies-the one unitary, the other separatist-been so clearly revealed as in connection with the annexation of Bosnia- Herzegovina. The juridical title to the possession of those provinces is based upon the European mandate given to Austria-Hungary by the Congress of Berlin to "occupy and administer " them ; and upon the assent of the Great Powers, in the spring of 1909, to the extension of Austro-Hungarian sovereignty to

the provinces. In the rescript of annexation dated October 5, 1908, and addressed to Baron von Aehrenthal, joint Minister of the Imperial and Royal House and for Foreign Affairs, the Emperor Francis Joseph wrote, "I extend the rights of my sovereignty to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and at the same time put into force for these Lands also the order of succession of my House." The sovereignty thus extended was undifferentiated. Under the Austrian Law of February 1880 and the Hungarian Statute VI. of the same year it is requisite that any change in the relationship of these provinces to the Monarchy should receive the concordant assent of the legislatures of both parts of the Monarchy. Despite this provision, the Hungarian Bill which registers the annexation differs essentially from the Austrian Bill. Whereas the latter simply accepts the extension of sovereignty and of the order of succession, the former " takes note" that his Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty has extended his Sovereign rights to those lands "out of regard for the ancient ties that united those lands to his glorious predecessors on the Hungarian throne." Further, the Hungarian Bill does not " take note" of the extension of the Hapsburg order of succession to Bosnia- Herzegovina, but ordains independently that " the provisions of Statutes 1. and 11. (Hungarian Pragmatic Sanction) of the year 1723 come into force in respect of these Lands also." The object of this independent legislative provision on the part of Hungary is to deny, by implication, the right of the Monarch to extend the order of succession of his House to new territories by an act of undifferentiated sovereignty ; and at the same time to reiterate the principle enunciated in the preamble to the enactment of the marriage declaration of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand that " the settlement of the order of succession contained in Statutes I. and 11. of the year 1723 is, as regards its origin, conditions, and contents, an entirely independent settlement, and that all questions appertaining to the succession are to be judged in accordance with the provisions " of those Statutes. This Hungarian attitude has a double if not

a triple purpose. As regards the actual possession of BosniaHerzegovina, it seeks, by referring, to the ancient ties which bound those provinces to the glorious predecessors of Francis Joseph on the Hungarian Throne, to establish a special Hungarian claim to the eventual incorporation of the provinces in the Kingdom of Hungary; and, by citing the Hungarian Pragmatic Sanction, of which Clause 5 deals with the " succession to the Kingdom and Crown of Hungary and to the Lands and Kingdoms thereto belonging which with God's help have been won back (from the Turks) and may be won back in future," to make it appear as though special provision had been made in 1723 for the reservation of Hungarian rights to Bosnia - Herzegovina, which Hungarian historians identify with the legendary Kingdom of Rama, that is reputed once to have been subject for a brief period to the Hungarian Crown. But the special purpose of the Hungarian attitude is to reject the pretension that the Act of Annexation was an act of the joint Austro-Hungarian Monarch, or the sovereignty he extended the joint Austro-Hungarian Sovereignty, and thus to counteract as far as possible the Austrian claim that Bosnia- Herzegovina are provinces belonging to the Monarchy as a whole and a kind of Dual Reichsland.

In point of fact the Hungarian claim to special rights to the possession of Bosnia-Herzegovina is very nebulous, although the banners and emblems of the "Kingdom of Rama" figure at the coronation of the Kings of Hungary. The Turkish title to the possession of Bosnia- Herzegovina was repeatedly recognized by Austro-Hungarian monarchs, particularly by the peace of Sistovo (August 4, 1791) ; and the occupation of the provinces in 1878-79 was undertaken on the strength of a mandate given by Europe to "AustriaHungary," and effected by Austro-Hungarian troops. But in order to appreciate Hungarian doctrine in regard to territories once connected with the Hungarian Crown it should be observed that even so cautious a Hungarian authority as

Professor Henrik Marczali writes [1] that Hungary has never renounced her right to the possession of the Kingdoms of Bosnia, Galicia, and Lodomeria, although Galicia and Lodomeria were recognized in 1867 as Austrian Crown Lands!

The conflicting standpoints in regard to the possession of Bosnia- Herzegovina and the existence of a joint Austro-Hungarian Sovereignty, the leverage acquired by the peculiar position of Hungary in regard to the marriage declaration of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and the tendency of Hungary towards political and economic separation from Austria, are signs that a radical readjustment of the relationship between Austria and Hungary may become indispensable. The present relationship, with its ambiguities and friction, its unfulfilled premisses and its restrictions of the political development of various Hapsburg peoples, is a product of the chequered history of Francis Joseph's reign, and to some extent a reflection of Francis Joseph's own individuality. Years, perhaps decades, may pass even after he has been gathered to his fathers before his political portrait can be faithfully drawn, and before his personal action during the great crises of his reign can be accurately determined. No modern ruler has lived through so many changes as he, and none has passed through trials so cruel. Historically, he is not one but several personalities ; psychologically, he is a compound of them all. The youth, not illiberally educated, who in 1848 succeeded to the throne of an Empire in revolt and learned to distrust constitutionalism, liberalism, and all forms of progressive political aspiration ; the absolutist ruler, led by stress of circumstance and reactionary advisers to believe that the Army, the Church, the Police, and the Bureaucracy are the only reliable pillars of a throne, and induced on his twenty-fifth birthday to present his peoples with a Concordat involving an abject capitulation of the State to the Church ; the defeated commander-in-chief at Solferino, whom the loss of Lombardy and the imminence

of State bankruptcy caused to doubt the wisdom of his reactionary counsellors ; the semi-constitutional Emperor of 1860-65, who, anxious to save his leadership among German princes but, being out-manoeuvred by Bismarck at the Frankfurt Diet of Princes in 1863 and by Moltke at Sadowa in 1866, was compelled to fall back on his hereditary peoples, to bargain with Hungary and to bedizen Austria with Constitutional robes in the vain hope that what was irrevocably lost might yet be retrieved ; the Dual Monarch of 1870-71, convinced at last that in Austria and Hungary alone lay the guarantees of a prosperous dynastic future, but too conscious of the changeability of human affairs to neglect threads of policy that might lead to fresh avenues of home and foreign development ; and, finally, the Constitutional King of Hungary and Constitutionally-absolutist Emperor of Austria, working from dawn to dark as one dynastic person in pursuit of a perennial dynastic aim and persuaded by innate conviction, religious sentiment, and family tradition that, despite bickerings and struggles, race feuds and ethnic rivalries, the power of the monarchical function and the prestige of the dynasty would bring him and his House triumphantly into a better future.

Such a man or some such man is Francis Joseph of Hapsburg Lorraine. None would call him "great" as greatness is judged in Monarchs; those who call him "good" think chiefly of his private characteristics ; but all call him venerable, some call him wise, and few feel deep enmity towards him. It has yet to be proved that the Hapsburg Monarchy can be governed on a " system." Joseph II tried and failed ; Metternich tried, and ended his career in flight before a revolution ; Alexander Bach tried, and found his nemesis at Solferino; Schmerling tried, and prepared Sadowa. These were unitary "systems." Then came the Dual System, which has lasted, well and ill, some forty-six years, but has not proved a panacea. Francis Joseph has lived through or under all these " systems," save that of Joseph, and has reigned over most of them. He has acquired by experience

the feeling that systems are made for the moment and for the public men who seek to apply them, but that the monarchical function is more than they, however completely the Monarch may seem at times to be identified with them. It may be doubted whether Francis Joseph ever sanctioned, in Home Affairs at least, any project or policy without having considered two or more alternatives which a slight change of circumstance might render feasible. Hence much of his vacillation, opportunism, and apparent inconsistency. Had he been endowed with creative statesmanship, he might perhaps, during his long reign, have used the power of the Crown to stamp his dominions with a permanent impress. Who can say what the Austrian Monarchy, and, indeed, Central Europe, might not have become, had Joseph 11. been granted the years of Francis Joseph, and had he controlled the fortunes of the House of Hapsburg from 1790 to 1830 ; or had Francis Joseph been endowed with the qualities of his ancestor ! True, he might have wrecked his realms in the process ; and those who argue that " whatever is, is right " will find little difficulty in proving that during an era of economic transition, acute race-consciousness and democratic aspirations, the temporizing caution and cynically good-natured adaptability of Francis Joseph may have been the qualities requisite for the preservation of the Hapsburg patrimony. " En theorie, en theorie, peut-ˆtre ; mais, en pratique, il faut avoir ‚t‚ Empereur soixante ans," he replied smilingly to an ardent adviser who laid before him some new scheme for the reorganization and regeneration of the Monarchy. Whatever the verdict of history may be, it cannot fail to acquit him of base motives and narrowness of mind ; and it must recognize that he brought to the discharge of his task a never-flagging sense of duty, a spirit of selfdenial and an ever-present feeling that an account of his stewardship would one day be required of him. Though he followed more than he directed the course of events, there is hardly an episode in the development of his peoples that would not have been otherwise but for the touch of his hand.

Francis Joseph will bequeath to his successor a rich store of dynastic prestige and a perennial example of the truth that, high above the internal struggles and vicissitudes of the Monarchy, stands, or may stand, the all but indestructible influence of the wearer of the Crown.