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 founded a large number of new schools, in all of which—even in the village schools of the lowest category—the teaching was to be exclusively in the German language. This decree, whose brutality is perhaps only equalled by the recent Prussian school-regulations in Posen, deprived the wretched Bohemian peasants even of the consolations of religion; for the religious instruction also was to be given in German to children, few of whom knew any language but their own. It should be stated to the honour of the Bohemian priesthood that they, in those districts where German was totally unknown, generally disregarded the imperial decree. About the same time a new regulation decreed that the German language should in future be exclusively used in all, even the lowest law courts in the Bohemian lands. The many Bohemians who, particularly in country districts, had no knowledge of German, were thus exposed to constant vexations and frauds.

While the new regulations of Maria Theresa had been without exception injurious to Bohemia, the more extensive and more far-reaching plans of her son Joseph II, who, after her death in 1780 succeeded her as King of Bohemia and Hungary, included some reforms that were very favourable to Bohemia. Among these the most important was the abolition of the system of serfdom, which still oppressed the Bohemian peasants. This great reform was carried out in the first year of Joseph's rule, who on this occasion still acted in accordance with the Diet of Bohemia. In the later years of his reign Joseph entirely suppressed these meetings of the Estates. Though the peasantry of Bohemia even now did not obtain complete freedom—this was only granted them in 1848—their state was greatly improved by this reform.

Of Joseph's policy generally it can be said that it was founded on the conception of "enlightened despotism" which Frederick the Great's example had rendered fashionable among the sovereigns of the eighteenth century. He determined to consolidate the wide and variegated lands over which he ruled into one vast monarchy, whose only language was to be the German one. The historical traditions of Hungary and Bohemia Joseph treated with unconcealed contempt. Thus he had planned to turn the time-honoured palace of the Bohemian kings, on the Hradčany at Prague, into barracks. Joseph was entirely free from the