to Frederick, who, after their first interview in 1769, described him as ambitious, and as capable of setting the world on fire. The French minister Vergennes, who met Joseph when he was travelling incognito in 1777, judged him to be “ambitious and despotic.”
Until the death of his mother in 1780 Joseph was never quite free to follow his own instincts. After the death of his father in 1765 he became emperor and was made co-regent by his mother in the Austrian dominions. As emperor he had no real power, and his mother was resolved that neither husband nor son should ever deprive her of sovereign control in her hereditary dominions. Joseph, by threatening to resign his place as co-regent, could induce his mother to abate her dislike to religious toleration. He could, and he did, place a great strain on her patience and temper, as in the case of the first partition of Poland and the Bavarian War of 1778, but in the last resort the empress spoke the final word. During these wars Joseph travelled much. He met Frederick the Great privately at Neisse in 1769, and again at Mährisch-Neustadt in 1770. On the second occasion he was accompanied by Prince Kaunitz, whose conversation with Frederick may be said to mark the starting-point of the first partition of Poland. To this and to every other measure which promised to extend the dominions of his house Joseph gave hearty approval. Thus he was eager to enforce its claim on Bavaria upon the death of the elector Maximilian Joseph in 1777. In April of that year he paid a visit to his sister the queen of France (see Marie Antoinette), travelling under the name of Count Falkenstein. He was well received, and much flattered by the encyclopaedists, but his observations led him to predict the approaching downfall of the French monarchy, and he was not impressed favourably by the army or navy. In 1778 he commanded the troops collected to oppose Frederick, who supported the rival claimant to Bavaria. Real fighting was averted by the unwillingness of Frederick to embark on a new war and by Maria Theresa’s determination to maintain peace. In April 1780 he paid a visit to Catherine of Russia, against the wish of his mother.
The death of Maria Theresa on the 27th of November 1780 left Joseph free. He immediately directed his government on a new course, full speed ahead. He proceeded to attempt to realize his ideal of a wise despotism acting on a definite system for the good of all. The measures of emancipation of the peasantry which his mother had begun were carried on by him with feverish activity. The spread of education, the secularization of church lands, the reduction of the religious orders and the clergy in general to complete submission to the lay state, the promotion of unity by the compulsory use of the German language, everything which from the point of view of 18th-century philosophy appeared “reasonable” was undertaken at once. He strove for administrative unity with characteristic haste to reach results without preparation. His anti-clerical innovations induced Pope Pius VI. to pay him a visit in July 1782. Joseph received the pope politely, and showed himself a good Catholic, but refused to be influenced. So many interferences with old customs began to produce unrest in all parts of his dominions. Meanwhile he threw himself into a succession of foreign policies all aimed at aggrandisement, and all equally calculated to offend his neighbours—all taken up with zeal, and dropped in discouragement. He endeavoured to get rid of the Barrier Treaty, which debarred his Flemish subjects from the navigation of the Scheldt; when he was opposed by France he turned to other schemes of alliance with Russia for the partition of Turkey and Venice. They also had to be given up in the face of the opposition of neighbours, and in particular of France. Then he resumed his attempts to obtain Bavaria—this time by exchanging it for Belgium—and only provoked the formation of the Fürstenbund organized by the king of Prussia. Finally he joined Russia in an attempt to pillage Turkey. It began on his part by an unsuccessful and discreditable attempt to surprise Belgrade in time of peace, and was followed by the ill-managed campaign of 1788. He accompanied his army, but showed no capacity for war. In November he returned to Vienna with ruined health, and during 1789 was a dying man. The concentration of his troops in the east gave the malcontents of Belgium an opportunity to revolt. In Hungary the nobles were all but in open rebellion, and in his other states there were peasant risings, and a revival of particularist sentiments. Joseph was left entirely alone. His minister Kaunitz refused to visit his sick-room, and did not see him for two years. His brother Leopold remained at Florence. At last Joseph, worn out and broken-hearted, recognized that his servants could not, or would not, carry out his plans. On the 30th of January 1790 he formally withdrew all his reforms, and he died on the 20th of February.
Joseph II. was twice married, first to Isabella, daughter of Philip, duke of Parma, to whom he was attached. After her death on the 27th of November 1763, a political marriage was arranged with Josepha (d. 1767), daughter of Charles Albert, elector of Bavaria (the emperor Charles VII.). It proved extremely unhappy. Joseph left no children, and was succeeded by his brother Leopold II.
Many volumes of the emperor’s correspondence have been published. Among them are Maria Theresia und Joseph II. Ihre Korrespondenz samt Briefen Josephs an seinen Bruder Leopold (1867–1868); Joseph II. und Leopold von Toskana. Ihr Briefwechsel 1781–1790 (1872); Joseph II. und Katharina von Russland. Ihr Briefwechsel (1869); and Maria Antoinette, Joseph II. und Leopold II. Ihr Briefwechsel (1866); all edited by A. Ritter von Arneth. Other collections are: Joseph II., Leopold II. und Kaunitz. Ihr Briefwechsel, edited by A. Beer (1873); Correspondances intimes de l’empereur Joseph II. avec son ami, le comte de Cobenzl et son premier ministre, le prince de Kaunitz, edited by S. Brunner (1871); Joseph II. und Graf Ludwig Cobenzl. Ihr Briefwechsel, edited by A. Beer and J. von Fiedler (1901); and the Geheime Korrespondenz Josephs II. mit seinem Minister in den Oesterreichischen Niederlanden, Ferdinand Graf Trauttmannsdorff 1787–1789, edited by H. Schlitter (1902). Among the lives of Joseph may be mentioned: A. J. Gross-Hoffinger, Geschichte Josephs II. (1847); C. Paganel, Histoire de Joseph II. (1843; German translation by F. Köhler, 1844); H. Meynert, Kaiser Joseph II. (1862); A. Beer, Joseph II. (1882); A. Jäger, Kaiser Joseph II. und Leopold II. (1867); A. Fournier, Joseph II. (1885); and J. Wendrinski, Kaiser Joseph II. (1880). There is a useful small volume on the emperor by J. Franck Bright (1897). Other books which may be consulted are: G. Wolf, Das Unterrichtswesen in Oesterreich unter Joseph II. (1880), and Oesterreich und Preussen 1780–1790 (1880), A. Wolf and H. von Zwiedeneck-Südenhorst, Oesterreich unter Maria Theresia, Joseph II. und Leopold II. (1882–1884); H. Schlitter, Die Regierung Josephs II. in den Oesterreichischen Niederlanden (1900); and Pius VI. und Joseph II. 1782–1784 (1894); O. Lorenz, Joseph II. und die Belgische Revolution (1862); and L. Delplace, Joseph II. et la révolution brabançonne (1890).
JOSEPH, FATHER (François Leclerc du Tremblay) (1577–1638), French Capuchin monk, the confidant of Richelieu, was the eldest son of Jean Leclerc du Tremblay, president of the chamber of requests of the parlement of Paris, and of Marie Motier de Lafayette. As a boy he received a careful classical training, and in 1595 made an extended journey through Italy, returning to take up the career of arms. He served at the siege of Amiens in 1597, and then accompanied a special embassy to London. In 1599 Baron de Mafflier, by which name he was known at court, renounced the world and entered the Capuchin monastery of Orleans. He embraced the religious life with great ardour, and became a notable preacher and reformer. In 1606 he aided Antoinette d’Orléans, a nun of Fontevrault, to found the reformed order of the Filles du Calvaire, and wrote a manual of devotion for the nuns. His proselytizing zeal led him to send missionaries throughout the Huguenot centres—he had become provincial of Touraine in 1613. He entered politics at the conferences of Loudun, when, as the confidant of the queen and the papal envoy, he opposed the Gallican claims advanced by the parlement, which the princes were upholding, and succeeded in convincing them of the schismatic tendency of Gallicanism. In 1612 he began those personal relations with Richelieu which have indissolubly joined in history and legend the cardinal and the “Eminence grise,” relations which research has not altogether made clear. In 1627 the monk assisted at the siege of La Rochelle. A purely religious reason also made him Richelieu’s ally against the Habsburgs. He had a dream of arousing Europe to another crusade against the Turks, and
