Medieval and modern times; an introduction to the history of western Europe form the dissolution of the Roman empire to the present time . es with energy and skill. She Enlightenedpatiently attended to all the tiresome matters of State, read ThereL^nTlong documents and reports, and conferred with the ambassa- J°sePh ndors of foreign powers. .After her long reign of forty yearsher son Joseph, who had already been elected emperor asJoseph II, tried in the ten years of his rule (1780-1790) tomodernize these backward states of southeastern Europe by aseries of sweeping reforms. He was a very enlig
Medieval and modern times; an introduction to the history of western Europe form the dissolution of the Roman empire to the present time . es with energy and skill. She Enlightenedpatiently attended to all the tiresome matters of State, read ThereL^nTlong documents and reports, and conferred with the ambassa- J°sePh ndors of foreign powers. .After her long reign of forty yearsher son Joseph, who had already been elected emperor asJoseph II, tried in the ten years of his rule (1780-1790) tomodernize these backward states of southeastern Europe by aseries of sweeping reforms. He was a very enlightened man and 422 Medieval and Modern Times with something of the impetuous zeal of Peter the Great triedto sweep away at once the old abuses of feudalism, to introducemore general education, and to lessen the power of the IPs He even abolished six hundred monasteries. Besides this heattempted to govern more and more from one center wherehe could oversee matters himself, a scheme which also seemedto promise greater unity to his realms. But his peoples did notunderstand his ideas or feared the growth of his own power,. Fig. 114. Joseph II and he was opposed on every hand. He died just as the Revolu-tion in France was beginning to show that a nation could dofor itself in a few months what a king could not do in a must be admitted, however, that the problems which con-fronted Maria Theresa and Joseph II were much more diffi-cult than those of France or England. Poles, Italians, Magyars,and Germans could never be united into one state by suchcommon interests as Englishmen or Frenchmen have felt sokeenly in the last two centuries. Instead of fusing together to Rise of Russia and Prussia ; Austria 423 form a nation, the peoples ruled over by the Hapsburgs were why Austriaon such bad terms with each other that it often seemed as if veiop as athey would split apart, forming separate nations. Moreover, smg^na-since some of these peoples, especially the Slavs,
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