3rd of March. Leopold, during his government in Tuscany, had shown a speculative tendency to grant his subjects a constitution. When he succeeded to the Austrian lands he began by making large concessions to the interests offended by his brother’s innovations. He recognized the Estates of his different dominions as “the pillars of the monarchy,” pacified the Hungarians and divided the Belgian insurgents by concessions. When these failed to restore order, he marched troops into the country, and re-established at the same time his own authority, and 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 (placetum regium).
If Leopold’s reign as emperor, and king of Hungary and Bohemia, had been prolonged during years of peace, it is probable that he would have repeated his successes as a reforming ruler in Tuscany on a far larger scale. But he lived for barely two years, and during that period he was hard pressed by peril from west and east alike. The growing revolutionary disorders in France endangered the life of his sister Marie Antoinette, the queen of Louis XVI., and also threatened his own dominions with the spread of a subversive agitation. His sister sent him passionate appeals for help, and he was pestered by the royalist emigrants, who were intriguing both to bring about an armed intervention in France, and against Louis XVI. 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 Revolution. While they were busy beyond the Rhine, she would have annexed what remained of Poland, and would have made conquests in Turkey. 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 emigrants 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 her weakness by practically tearing up the treaty of alliance made by Maria Theresa in 1756 and opening negotiations with England to impose a check on Russia and Prussia. He was able to put pressure on England by threatening to cede his part of the Low Countries to France, and then, when secure of English 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 the 15th of November 1790, was 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 peace of Sistova being signed in August 1791. The pacification of his eastern dominions left Leopold free to re-establish order in Belgium and to confirm friendly relations with England and Holland.
During 1791 the emperor continued to be increasingly preoccupied with the affairs of France. In January he had to dismiss the count of Artois, afterwards Charles X., king of France, in a very peremptory way. His good sense was revolted by the folly of the French emigrants, 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 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 the conference at Sistova, which in June led to a final peace with Turkey. On the 25th of August he met the king of Prussia at Pillnitz, near Dresden, and they drew up a declaration of 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 England was prepared to act, and he endeavoured to guard against the use which he foresaw the emigrants would endeavour to make of it. In face of the agitation caused by the Pillnitz declaration in France, the intrigues of the emigrants, and the 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 met the threatening language of the revolutionists with dignity and temper. His sudden death on the 1st of March 1792 was an irreparable loss to Austria.
Leopold had sixteen children, the eldest of his eight sons being his successor, the emperor Francis II. Some of his other sons were prominent personages in their day. Among them were: Ferdinand III., grand duke of Tuscany; the archduke Charles, a celebrated soldier; the archduke John, also a soldier; the archduke Joseph, palatine of Hungary; and the archduke Rainer, viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia.
Several volumes containing the emperor’s correspondence have been published. Among these are: Joseph II. und Leopold von Toskana. Ihr Briefwechsel 1781–1790 (Vienna, 1872), and Marie Antoinette, Joseph II. und Leopold II. Ihr Briefwechsel (Vienna, 1866), both edited by A. Ritter von Arneth; Joseph II., Leopold II. und Kaunitz. Ihr Briefwechsel (Vienna, 1873); and Leopold II., Franz II. und Catharina. Ihre Correspondenz nebst einer Einleitung: Zur Geschichte der Politik Leopolds II. (Leipzig, 1874), both edited by A. Beer; and Leopold II. und Marie Christine. Ihrand Briefwechsel 1781–1792, edited by A. Wolf (Vienna, 1867). See also H. von Sybel, Über die Regierung Kaiser Leopolds II. (Munich, 1860); A. Schultze, Kaiser Leopold II. und die französische Revolution (Leipzig, 1899); and A. Wolf and H. von Zwiedeneck-Südenhorst, Österreich unter Maria Theresa, Joseph II. und Leopold II. (Berlin, 1882–1884).
LEOPOLD I. (1790–1865), king of the Belgians, fourth son of Francis, duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and uncle of Queen Victoria of England, was born at Coburg on the 18th of December 1790. At the age of eighteen he entered the military service of Russia, and accompanied the emperor Alexander to Erfurt as a member of his staff. He was required by Napoleon to quit the Russian army, and spent some years in travelling. In 1813 he accepted from the emperor Alexander the post of a cavalry general in the army of invasion, and he took part in the whole of the campaign of that and the following year, distinguishing himself in the battles of Leipzig, Lützen and Bautzen. He entered Paris with the allied sovereigns, and accompanied them to England. He married in May 1816 Charlotte, only child of George, prince regent, afterwards George IV., heiress-presumptive to the British throne, and was created duke of Kendal in the British peerage and given an annuity of £50,000. The death of the princess in the following year was a heavy blow to his hopes, but he continued to reside in England. In 1830 he declined the offer of the crown of Greece, owing to the refusal of the powers to grant conditions which he considered essential to the welfare of the new kingdom, but was in the following year elected king of the Belgians (4th June 1831). After some hesitation he accepted the crown, having previously ascertained that he would have the support of the great powers on entering upon his difficult task, and on the 12th of July he made his entry into Brussels and took the oath to observe the constitution. During the first eight years of his reign he was confronted with the resolute hostility of King William I. of Holland, and it was not until 1839 that the differences between the two states, which until 1830 had formed the kingdom of the Netherlands, were finally settled at the conference of London by the treaty
