Page:Gregor The story of Bohemia.pdf/472



Leopold II was succeeded by his son Francis, who was crowned King of Bohemia in 1792.

During the first years of Leopold’s reign, the Bohemian States continued in their efforts to regain their ancient rights and privileges. The French Revolution having broken out some time before, and Austria being involved in the wars that followed, Francis postponed all consideration of the demands of the States until after peace should again be restored.

In 1798, after the Peace of Campo Formio, Count Buquoi brought forward the question whether it was not time for the government to give its attention to this matter; but the suggestion passed unheeded, partly because the war broke out again, but mostly because the government had grown suspicious of all questions touching upon granting any liberties to the people. Indeed, after this time, when any one dared to lift his voice in behalf of liberty, he was at once arrested as trying to disseminate Jacobite heresies. Instead of granting any rights to the Diets, the government began to curtail those they already possessed. In 1800 it imposed a new tax upon the people, without so much as asking the consent of the Diet, the excuse being made that the urgency of the case demanded it. The government also used the new system of making State debts by issuing a paper currency; and when the burden of this debt crippled trade and wrought great confusion in wages and in the sale of property, the Financial Patent was issued (1811), declaring the value of the paper money to be one-fifth of its face. This