City and the Crown: Vienna and the Imperial Court, 1600-1740

11 "Vienna Gloriosa"

Charles VI died unexpectedly I on October 20, 1740, after s;uffering nine days from a fever he contracted on a hunting eXP1~dition. Maria Theresa succeeded to the dynastic lands by virt~le of the Pragmatic Sanction, that international guarantee of h~r accession for which Charles had sacrificed so much. She was, twenty-three, already five months along in her fourth pregnanc~, which many feared would be endangered by her grief for her 'father. A rumor held that the archI duchess went out onto the ~ity streets in mufti with a trusted servant to hear what the towpspeople were saying about her accession to the throne. If she ~id, in fact, do so, she cannot have been pleased by what she h(~ard, for the Viennese did not disguise their disaffection nor tHeir fears that she and her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, iwould prove incapable of ruling the monarchy. 1 ' In spite of her mod~st education and inexperience, the young empress succeeded in; asserting her' prerogatives over the court and imperial instituti04s. With the help of some daring, often obstinate reformers, institutions were strengthened to provide the resources to fight piussia and build a more efficient administrative mechanism for Ithe· empire. Inauspicious at its beginning , the reign proved to.be one of the most constructive in the dynasty's long history. i 205 Chapter 11 Many things changed for both the court and the city of Vienna, beginning with a sudden shift in the international balance of power. The Turkish threat, still apparent in 1737 after their last capture of Belgrade, diminished steadily through the century and was replaced by a more formidable political and military threat from Prussia. The old alliance between the Habsburgs and the Protestant sea powers held up for one more war, then fell apart in 1756, when Austria allied with its old enemy, France. The empress was, in many ways, the most Viennese of all Habsburg rulers. Since her father had neglected her education , she did not acquire the polished, formal manner and speech that had characterized her predecessors. She spoke and ofteq, wrote the Viennese dialect she h~d picked up from the serva~ts and waiting women at court. In time, her forthrightness and almost overwhelming maternal instincts endeared her to the townspeople, who came to accept even her rather stiff French husband. Entertainments, particularly theater and opera, flourished . Vienna won an international reputation for gaiety, good music, and relaxed sexual mores. Although Maria Theresa tried valiantly to defeat the last of these, her success was modest indeed . The Viennese proved as adroit in dodging the "Chastity Commissioners" that she established to control prostitution as they had been in avoiding the moral policing of Leopold I and Charles VI. Maria Theresa's relations with her capital city, having started uncertainly, improved dramatically as her control over her government became obvious in the first two years. She also brought the city to her side by her appreciation of the importance of public display and of representative sovereignty. Hers were the years of "Vienna Glorioso," when the ruler, usually pregnant during the first two decades of her reign, proceeded through the city periodically in elaborate coaches, sleighs, or whatever conveyanc :.e the weather or her physical condition demanded. Her mastery of Viennese patois and her love of many of their pastimes-including gambling, dancing, and the theater-made her seem less remote than her forbears. Then as her children 206 "Vienna! Glorioso" MARIA THERESA iN PROCESSION THROU~H THE GRABEN. 22 NOVEMBER 1740. En route to hear moss at St. Stephen sprior to her receiving the homage of the Lower Austrian Estates, the pregnant empress rides in a sedan choirfollowed by on empty state carriage. Engraving by Georg Christoph Kriegl. (Courtesy - I Bildarchiv, Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek) came one after another, dynas,tic security brought even Francis Stephen into the popular embrhce. The first major display of the new empress's inherited authority, the formal act of ho1mage rendered her by the Lower Austrian Landtag, provided ~n elaborate public event to reinforce the succession and wi~ over the Viennese. She received the act of fealty in an elaborat~ ceremony in the Hofburg's Ritterstube . This formal recogniti~m of her accession, however, was preceded 'by a public processi~>n to high mass at St. Stephen's. This procession from the Hofburg to the cathedral was commemorated in a series of engr...