CHAPTER XII
THE LIMITATIONS OF
ENLIGHTENED DESPOTISMEvery subject should expect security and protection from his Sovereign, while the
Prince is expected to determine and clearly delineate the rights of his subjects, to
guide their actions in a way more consistent with the public and private good.
—EMPEROR JOSEPH II, 1786
The forces of aristocracy, which in some countries in the 1780’s prevailed over
democratic movements, prevailed in others over monarchy itself. This chapter takes
up a thread left hanging at the close of Chapter IV. It was shown there that, by the
middle 1770’s, or just before the American Revolution, the Kings of France and of
Sweden, and the Queen of Hungary and Bohemia (to which titles the Hapsburg
monarchy owed most of its stature), had asserted royal authority and put the con-
stituted bodies of their several realms under restraint. In France, Chancellor Mau-
peou abolished the old parlements, in Sweden the Freedom Era came to an end, in
Hungary no central diet met after 1764, and in Bohemia none met after 1775.
Victory at the moment went to enlightened despotism. Rulers forced through pro-
grams of reconstruction by suppressing institutions that had or claimed a represen-
tative character. Maupeou and Terray initiated important reforms in tax assess-
ment and judicial organization, while Maria Theresa labored persistently at the
alleviation of serfdom.
The following fifteen years made clear the limits beyond which enlightened des-
potism could not go. However held down, the constituted bodies—estates, diets,
parlements, and the like—had strong powers of survival and resurgence. In France,
a resistance to government begun by the two higher orders soon developed a more
democratic phase. The result was the French Revolution. In Eastern Europe,
though demands of a democratic character within the definitions used in this book
were by no means wholly absent, the serf- owning aristocracy was the only really