English Translation

- 6 - 35, which on the other hand reinforces the social and territorial dimension, which is already evident in the Theresian directives and even more so in the late 18th century. The Theresians' administrative and tax reforms had been the prelude to a new idea of the state. But the staati wise sense of the empress had mostly passed over the prihcipal question and limited himself to practicality. If she had abolished or restricted the territorial rights, she nevertheless offered the high nobility by drawing on worthwhile and interesting political tasks in the great sphere of power of the Habsburg substitute. Joseph II. But, although it was a great idealist, it was radical and impractical. Against him, therefore, also and especially in Bohemia, opposition rose. The centralization measures of both rulers were not least based on the experiences that Maria Theresia had had had to make during the struggles against Prussia with the Bohemian states. In contrast to the Hungarians, the Bohemians had immediately made pacts with the Elector of Bavaria, to which four hundred stalls had paid homage to him in Prague. They thought that the opportunity had come for them to evade the flock of l62o, possibly to reshape Bohemia to an electoral kingdom, where of course they would have played the first violin. Maria Theresia has responded to this with her comprehensive administrative measures. Her, the most important result for the Bohemian region, is the end of Bohemia as a special body under state law, carried out by the merger of the Bohemians with the Austrian court chancellery. Bohemia was now a province, of course, equipped with significantly autonomous rights. Josegf II., now had a pronounced distrust against the nobility in general. He saw in him mainly privileged beneficiaries of the work of others. A characteristic of his attitude is the response to the protest, from the aristocracy, that a Viennese park reserved until now only for the visit of the nobility was opened to the general public, "If he always wanted to be among his peers", the emperor said, "may he stay only in the Capuchin tomb". His social measures shook the economic position, in particular the Urbarial legislation, which made the farmers free hereditary owners of their reasons.