Abstract
In the first session of the first Congress under the new Constitution of the United States of America, James Madison announced on 4 May 1789 that he intended to present constitutional amendments to the House of Representatives.1 Far away in central Europe, three months earlier while at war with the Ottoman Empire the German Emperor Joseph II set up a Police Ministry for his Hapsburg Monarchy to help him with his troublesome and rebellious subjects. The proposals of the representative from the state of Virginia resulted in the first ten amendments to the Constitution, ratified on 15 December 1791. Joseph If s Police Ministry was definitively incorporated into the Hapsburg government at the be-ginning of 1793 to guard the security of Austria at war then with revolutionary France.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Irving Brant, James Madison, Father of the Constitution, 1787–1800 (Indianapolis and New York, Bobbs-Merrill, 1950), 264–75.
August Fournier, “Kaiser Joseph II und der Geheime Dienst,” Historische Studien und Skizzen, Dritte Reihe (Vienna, F. Tempsky; Leipzig, G. Freytag; 1922), 1–16, 7.
Learned Hand, The Bill of Rights, The Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures, 1958 (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1958).
For many excellent reminders see Robert Allen Rutland, The Birth of the Bill of Rights 1776–1791 (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, c. 1955gf).
Barron v. Baltimore (1833), 7 Peters 247–51; Rutland, 227–30. (For Madison’s and Jefferson’s comments on the ineffectiveness of “parchment barriers,” especially against “overbearing majorities,” see 81–2, 193, 196–7).
Rutland, 220–1; James Morton Smith, Freedom’s Fetters, The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, c. 1956).
Spectrum Austritte, ed. Otto Schulmeister (Vienna, Herder, 1957), 532, 542–6, 568–73; Nikolaus Pevsner, An Outline of European Architecture (6th, Jubilee ed., Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, c. 1960), 414–64;
Karl Reinöhl, Wien Anno 1786 (Vienna, Wolfrum, 1947).
Hugo Hantsch, Die Geschichte Oesterreichs (2nd ed., 2 v., Vienna and Graz, Steirische Verlagsanstalt, 1947–50), II, 134–43, 202–5;
Hermann Münch, Böhmische Tragödie (Brunswick, Berlin, Hamburg; Westermann, 1949), 78.
See, for example, Friedrich Walter, Die Geschichte der Oesterreichischen Zentralverwaltung in der Zeit Maria Theresias (1740–1780) (Vienna, Holzhausen, 1938), 498. [Hereafter cited as ÖZ (’38).]
Ibid., 3–4, 5, 9, 93–4, 104–5, 107, 110, 157–61, 498; F. Walter, “Preussen und die oesterreichischen Erneuerung von 1749,” Mitteilungen des Oesterreichischen Instituts für Geschichtsforschung [cited hereafter as MÖ InGesch] Li (1937), 415.
Karl and Mathilde Uhlirz, Handbuch der Geschichte Oesterreichs und seiner Nachbarländer Böhmen und Ungarn (2 v., Graz, Vienna, Leipzig, Leuschner and Lubersky, 1927–39), II, 345–6.
Alfred v. Arneth, Geschichte Maria Theresias (10v., Vienna, Braumüller, 1863–79), IV, 39; IX, 337–8;
Otto Hintze, “Der oesterreichische und der preussische Beamtenstaat im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Eine vergleichende Betrachtung,” Historische Zeitschrift [cited hereafter as HZ] LXXXVI (1901), 401–44. New Cambridge Modern History, V. VII, The Old Regime 1713–1763 (Cambridge, University Press, 1957), 141–58. District Captain: Kreishauptmann (Kreishauptleute).
Anna Hedwig Benna, “Die Polizeihofstelle. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Oester-reichischen Zentralverwaltung,” (Inaugural Dissertation, Vienna, 1942), 67–8. I am endebt-ed to Dr. Benna for generously loaning me her dissertation.
Ignaz Beidtel, Geschichte der Österreichischen Staatsverwaltung, 1740–1848 (2 v., Innsbruck, Verlag der Wagerchen Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1896–8), I, 32.
Benna, 68; Viktor Bibl, Die Wiener Polizei. Eine kulturhistorische Studie (Leipzig, Vienna, New York; Stein, 1927), 202–3; Beidtel, I, 84–5;
Hermann Oberhummer, Die Wiener Polizei (2 v., Vienna, Gerlach and Wiedling, 1938), I, 131.
Walter Obenaus, Die Entwicklung der Preussischen Sicherheitspolizei bis zum Ende der Reaktionszeit (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1940), 25, 37–8, 42, 43;
Henri Brunschwig, La Crise de l’état prusse à la fin du xviiie siècle (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1947), 73;
Sidney Monas, The Third Section, Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1961), 23–4, 28–34.
Nicolas de Lamare, Traité de la police, où l’on trouvera l’histoire de son établissement, les fonctions et les prérogatives de ses magistrats (2d ed., 4 v. in 2, Amsterdam, 1729), 92, 120–5. De Lamare’s is the classic account of the history of the police in Europe. Jean Pierre Clement, La Police sous Louis XIV (Paris, Didier, 1866), 62–3, 64, 147. Boileau. Oeuvres Classiques, ed. Ch.-M. des Granges, (8th ed., Paris, A. Hatier, 1938), Satire VI (1660), 71–5; 74: Car, sitôt que du soir les ombres pacifiques D’un double cadenas font fermer les boutiques; Que, rétiré chez lui, le paisible marchand Va revoir ses billets et compter son argent; Que dans le Marché-Neuf tout est calme et tranquille, Les voleurs à l’instant s’emparent de la ville. Le bois le plus funeste et le moins fréquenté Est, au prix de Paris, un lieu de sûreté. Malheur donc à celui qu’une affaire imprévue Engage un peu trop tard au détour d’une rue !
Patrick Pringle, Hue and Cry, The Birth of the British Police (London, Museum Press, 1955);
Charles Reith, A New Study of Police History (Edinburgh, London; Oliver and Boyd, 1956), 121–42;
Patrick Pringle, intro., Henry Goddard, Memoirs of a Bow Street Runner (London, Museum Press, 1956), ix–xxii.
In 1845 the Vienna police complained of the difficulties caused by the growth of the city and its population, by travel in steamship or railroad, by the rapid progress of industry, by the increasing self-consciousness of classes as well as individuals, and by the decline of respect for authority and morality. Oberhummer I, 151–4.
Clement, 62–3, 64, 326, 327; De Lamare, 51–67; Marc Chassaigne, La Lieutenance générale de police de Paris (Paris, Arthur Rousseau, 1906), 24, 43, 51, 52, 54, 55, 80–1, 88, 104–5; Notes de René d’Argenson, Lieutenant Générale de Police — intéressantes pour l’histoire des moeurs et de la police de Paris à la fin du règne de Louis XIV (Paris, Emile Voite-lain, 1866); Rapports inédits du lieutenant de police René d’Argenson (1697–1715), Publiés d’après les manuscrits conservés à la Bibliothèque nationale, ed. Paul Cottin, (Paris, Plon, 1891).
Chassaigne, 70–1. Antoine Raymond Jean Gualber Gabriel Sartinez, Chevalier de Sar-tine, Comte d’Alby.
Christian Wilhelm von Dohm, Denkwürdigkeiten meiner Zeit oder Beiträge zur Geschichte von letzten Viertel des 18. und vom Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts 1778 bis 1806 (5 v., Hanover, Halwing, 1814–1819), I, 372–3. Heinrich Steffens, Was Ich erlebte (10 v. in 5, Breslau, J. Max, 1840–44), III, 221–2; Chassaigne, 70–1, 146; Obenaus, 64, 81–2, 92; Marcel Le Clère, Histoire de la Police (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1947), 39–40. Mémoires de Vidocq, Chef de la police de sûreté jusqu’en 1824 (4 v., Brussels, Jonker, 1829); H. de Balzac, Une ténébreuse affaire, Vautrin in Le Père Goriot and elsewhere.
See “The Modern Magus,” The Times Literary Supplement (5 June 1953), 364, and “Crime, Detection, and Society,” ibid. (23 June 1961).
Kurt Melcher, Die Geschichte der Polizei (Berlin, Gersbach, 1926), 51, 80–4; Obenaus, 34, 36–43; Ludwig Geiger, Berlin 1688–1840, Geschichte des geistigen Lebens der preus-sischen Hauptstadt (2 v., Berlin, Pastel, 1893–5), I, 2, 650–1; Dohm, I, 372, 373, 374–376; Gottfried Ephraim Lessing, Laocoön, etc., ed. W. A. Steel (London, Dent, c. 1959), 238–9 (Minna von Barnhelm, Act II, Scene II): Innkeeper, “Certainly, my pretty dear; the police want to know everything, everything- and especially secrets.” Hitler spread the story of Frederick IF’s rejection of secret police methods. Hitler’s Table talk, 1941–1944 (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1953), 360 (10–11 March 1942).
Jean-Baptiste-Charles Le Maire (ed. A. Gazier), “La Police de Paris en 1770: Mémoire sur l’Administration de la Police en France Contenant les éclaircissements demandés à ce sujet par M. l’Ambassadeur de Vienne, de la part de LL. MM. impériales et royales à M. de Sartine, Conseiller d’État, Lieutenant-général de police de la ville de Paris,” in Mémoires de la Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Ile de France, V (1879), 1–131.
Oberhummer I, 28; he shows no awareness of this report. Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 223, 233; Benna, 70. Compare “Reglement für die Polizeiwache,” 24 November 1775 (Oberhummer, II, 229–55) with Sartine’s survey.
In 1771 Vienna was divided into twelve sections [Viertel] on the example of Paris [arrondissements], and police officials were set up for each section.
Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 225–6; Oberhummer, I, 47; François Fejtö, Un Habsbourg révolutionnaire, Joseph II (Paris, Plon, 1953), 79, 90–2, 144, 241–44; Walter, ÖZ (’38), 14–15; Uhlirz, II, 381–2, 387.
The best brief sketch of the development of the Hapsburg police system is August Fournier, “Entstehung und Entwicklung des ‘geheimen Dienstes’ in Oesterreich,” Die Geheimpolizei auf dem Wienerkongress, Eine Auswahl Ihren Papieren (Vienna, F. Temps-ky; Leipzig, G. Freytag; 1913). Fournier’s “Kaiser Joseph II und der Geheime Dienst,” cited in n. 2 above, is a good sketch of the creation of the system under Joseph II. Friedrich Walter, “Die Organisierung der staatlichen Polizei unter Josef II,” Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Wien [cited hereafter as MVGeschSW], VII (1927), 22–53, gives a useful and fuller summary of Pergen’s administrative steps in setting up the police but neglects the issues, personalities, and historical background. Fejtö, 241–4; Oberhummer, I, 47.
Chassaigne, 52, 54; Clement, IX, 326.
Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, ed. Constantin v. Wurzbach (60 v., Vienna, K. K. Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1856–91), XXII, 1–7; Oesterreichische National-Encyklopädie, eds. F. Gräffer and J. J. H. Czikann (6 v., Vienna, 1835), IV, 177–8; Arneth, Gesch. Maria Theresias, VII, 70–1, 79–81, 83, 87; Aus der Zeit Maria Theresias, Tagebuch des Fürsten Josef Khevenhueller-Metsch, Kaiserlichen Obersthofmeisters, eds. Rudolf Graf Khevenhueller-Metsch, Hanns Schütter (5 v., Vienna, Leipzig, Berlin; Holzhausen, Engelmann; 1907–17), IV, 198–9.
Leopold Mozart to L. Hagenau, Frankfurt, 20 August 1763, in Letters of Mozart and His Family, ed. Emily Anderson (3 v., London, Macmillan, 1938), I, 39; Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe, Aus meinem Leben, Dichtung und Wahrheit, Autobiographisches Schriften I (Leipzig, Insel Verlag, 1908), 193–229.
Arneth, Gesch. Maria Theresias, IX, 227–38, 244; Walter, ÖZ (’38), 355, 356, 430, 434, 493–4; Beidtel, I, 126–7, 186–9, 409; Hermann Meynett,Kaiser Franz I., Zur Geschichte seiner Regierung und seiner Zeit (Vienna, Hölder, 1872), 208.
Arneth, Gesch. Maria Theresias, VIII, 383, 395–6, 417–18, 422–3; X, 77–89, 91, 92; Walter, ÖZ (’38), 440, 473–474, 495.
Arneth, Gesch. Maria Theresias, X, 13 (Greiner).
Erich Schenk (ed. R. and C. Winston), Mozart and His Times (New York, Knopf, 1959), 43; Memoirs and Correspondence (official and familiar) of Sir R. Murray Keith, K. B., ed. Mrs. Gillespie Smyth (2 v., London, 1849), II, 192–3, 255.
Meldetvesen or Anzeigwesen. “Instruktion für die sowohl in der Stadt, als auf den gesammten Vorstadtsgründen angestellten Polizeiunterkommissarien,” Vienna, 26 June 1754, Oberhummer, II, 132–3 (Compare Beidtel, I, 85). For the practice in Vienna in 1831, see “Schreiben der Polizei-Oberdirektion “Wien an das Polizei-Präsidium in Berlin,” 13 April 1831, Oberhummer, II, 30–3.
I know of no survey of the use of identification papers and registration requirements in order to control residence or travel in the 18th century — or any other time. For registration requirements in Paris, see Mém. de la Soc. de l’bist. de Paris, cited in footnote 19 above, V, 50; in Prussia, Obenaus, 35, 40–1.
Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 227–9; Oberhummer, I, 49; Benna, 110; “Amtsinstrukzion... die auf den Hauptplätzen der Provinzen anzustellende Polizeyindividuen,” 1785, pt. 1, secs. 3–5, Oberhummer, II, 136–7. Pergen made use of a report, “Entwurfe zur Verbesserung der allgemeinen Polizey und Sicherheit,” 3 November 1782, by Franz Anton Beer, who had been in the Vienna police since 1765 and became Director on 6 April 1782. His share in Pergen’s proposals and efforts in the next years has not been investigated; it is not likely to have been small. See Oberhummer, I, 25, 28, 108–12.
Beidtel, I, 197–200; Friedrich Walter, Die Geschichte der Österreichischen Zentralverwaltung in der Zeit Josephs II. und Leopolds II. (Vienna, Holzhausen, 1950) [cited hereafter as ÖZ (’50)], 52, 123–32.
Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 32–3, 44; Benna 110–11.
Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 33–5.
In addition to those mentioned, there were police directorates in Linz (Upper Austria lob den Ens]); Innsbruck (Tyrol); Lemberg [Lvov] (Galicia); Pest (Hungary); Hermann-stadt (Transylvania [Siebenbürgen]); Trieste (Coastal Province); Milan (Lombardy); Freiburg im Breisgau (Further Austria); Brussels (Austrian Netherlands). Walter, ibid.; Oberhummer, I, 50–1, 109–10.
“Amtsinstrukzion nach welcher die auf den Hauptplätzen den Provinzen anzustellende Polizeyindividuen ohne Unterscheid, sich pflichtsschuldig, und unverbrüchlich zu benehmen verbunden sind,” Oberhummer, II, 133–65. (Compare “Instruction für die kaiserl. königl. Polizey-Beamten. 1801,” ibid., II, 176–89.)
Ibid., II, 140.
Ibid., 162.
Biegsamkeit.
August Fournier, Historische Studien und Skizzen, Dritte Reihe, 7–16; republished by Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 46–50, and Oberhummer, II, 168–76. None of these places specifies the month or day.
Fournier, 7; Walter, 46; Oberhummer, II, 168.
Ibid., 170.
Ibid.
Eva. Priester, Kurze Geschichte Oesterreichs, Aufstieg und Untergang des Habsburger Ketches (2 v., Vienna, Globus, 1946–9), II, 266, declares that, although the secret police was formed under Joseph II, “he always thought of it as a sort of progressive apparatus for a progressive state, and it never had the task of struggling against ‘subversive elements’...” Priester’s conception of this police was not Pergen’s. (For one of the origins of her simple and misleading view of Joseph IPs police, see Beytrag zur Characteristik und Regierungs-Geschichte der Kaiser Josephs II. Leopold II. und Franz II. (Paris, Deferrieres, 8th Year of the French Republic), 35–7. Scholars regularly attribute this anonymous work to Franz Xaver Huber (thus Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 234–5, and André Robert, Walter C. Langsam, and Ernst Wangermann) although without giving reasons. It is not listed among his publications in the article in Wurzbach’s Biographischen Lexikon (IX, 369–70), and it treats Joseph II more favorably than the Geschichte Josephs II. (Vienna, Mössle, 1792) published earlier under Huber’s own name. (Compare Geschichte, 229–30, and Beytrag, 32–5).
Oberhummer, II, 171–3. (Compare Mém. de la Soc. de l’bist. de Paris, cited in footnote 19 above, V, 65–6, 79–86).
Oberhummef, II, 173–6.
Ibid., I, 8, 50; Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 35.
Ibid., 35–7; Franz Anton Beer, “Amtsinstrukzion,” Vienna, 17 November 1786, Oberhummer, II, 165–8.
Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 37.
Thomas Carlyle, History of Frederick II of Prussia called the Great (6 v., London, Chapman and Hall, 1845), VI, 675.
Ernst Wangermann, From Joseph II to the Jacobin Trials, Government Policy and Public Opinion in the Habsburg Dominions in the Period of the French Revolution (London, Oxford University Press, 1959), 10, 27–36; Fejtö, 308–10, 312–14; Beidtel, I, 205, 393–9.
Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 38–43; Wangérmann 36–7, 39; Beidtel, I, 399–401.
Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 43–5, 51–2; Wangermann, 47–9, 50–5.
Report in August Fournier, “Joseph der Zweite. Eine biographische Skizze,” Historische Studien und Skizzen (Prague, Tempsky; Leipzig, Freytag; 1885), 167–78.
Wangermann, 56–8, 82–91; Fejtö, 79, 144, 332–5, 342; Beidtel, I, 409, 440–3.
Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 26–7, 28 n., 44–5, 50; Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 257, 261–2; Wangermann, 62–5.
Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 51–2.
Wangermann, 91–2. On the two petitioners, Josepha Willias and Georg Philipp Wucherer, see ibid., 40–4, and Huber, Gesch. Jos. II., 228–32.
Wangermann, 92–3.
Ibid., 93, citing J. Kropatschek, Sammlung aller unter der Regierung des Kaisers Leopold II. ergangenen Verordnungen und Gesetze (5 v., Vienna, 1792–4), III, 232–3, N. 503.
Focusing on “the political thought and activity of the Fourth Estate” and “the growing estrangement between the monarchy and the non-privileged classes,” the author does not examine the Hapsburg administrators’ concern for justice, the rule of law, and the rights of subjects, but he presents illuminating evidence about exemplifications of these concerns by Sonnenfels, Count Karl Zinzendorf, and others (here Count Seilern).
On the similar problems of limiting police arbitrariness in Prussia in the 1790s, see Obenaus, 53–5; later, under Justus Gruner, ibid., 98–9, and Ursala Veit, Justus Gruner als Schöpfer der Geheimen Preussischen Staatspolizei (Coburg, Rossteutscher, 1937), 12–18.
Wangermann, 93–5; Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 52, omitted Leopold II’s reproofs.
Walter, MVGeschSW, VII, 52–3; Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 258–64; Oberhummer, I, 57, 59–62.
Wangermann, 95–6.
On Joseph von Sonnenfels (1732–1817), see the sympathetic account by Robert A. Kann, A Study in Austrian Intellectual History From Late Baroque to Romanticism (New York, Praeger, c. 1960), 146–258, which, however, does not treat this conflict in the 1790s over the position of the police.
Wangermann, 21–3, 39, 75–6, 100–1; Beidtel, I, 99, 100–1; Uhlirz, II, 365–6, 368.
Wangermann, 23; Uhlirz, II, 368.
Wangermann, 96.
Ibid., 95–9. Beidtel, I, 444–5, did not understand the significance of these changes, as 409 also suggests. Beytrag, 102–5, misunderstands if it does not simply misrepresent.
Meynert, Kaiser Franz I., 206–7; Johann P. C. Wolfsgruber, Franz I., Kaiser von Oesterreich (2 v., Vienna and Leipzig, Braumüller, 1899), II, 180; Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 261–2; Benna, 163–9;
Alfred von Reumont, Geschichte Toskanas seit dem Ende des floren-tinischen Freistaates (2 v., Gotha, Perthes, 1876–7), II, 107–14.
For rumors and errors about Leopold II’s secret police, see Beytrag, 98–9, 102–25; 138–9 claims that there were more than two thousand spies.
Wangermann, 99; compare 89.
Ibid.; Fritz Valjavec, Die Entstehung der politischen Strömungen in Deutschland, 1770–1815 (Munich, R. Oldenbourg, 1951), 193–5, 315–6; Beidtel, I, 443, 444;
Anton H. Springer, Geschichte Österreichs seit dem Wiener Frieden 1809 (2v., Leipzig, S. Hirzel, 1863–5), I, 49.
As Fournier, Geheimpolizei, 4 n., quite rightly said, “Nothing is more erroneous than the opinion long expressed in historical writing, that Leopold II was the creator of the Austrian secret police, the elements of which he brought from Italy.” So excellent a scholar as Louis Eisenmann fell into that error; Le Compromis austro-hongrois de 1867 (Paris, Société nouvelle de librairie et d’édition, 1904), 53. Beytrag, 98–99, 102–5, 218–20, was an early source of the error. Franz Xaver Huber, Geschichte Josephs II., 152, 228, correctly attributed responsibility to Pergen and Joseph.
Wangermann, 106–12.
Ibid., 109–10, 116–7.
Ibid., 117, 120–1.
Benna, 123, 133–4; Wangermann, 121–2.
Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 272–3; Oberhummer, I, 83; Benna, 123, 133–4; Meynert, Kaiser Franz I., 199; Wangermann, 121–2.
Benna, 127–42; briefly extracted, Oberhummer, I, 86–7.
Benna, 141.
Benna, 145; Wangermann, 123–7.
Benna, 150–2; Oberhummer, I, 87–9; Wangermann, 127–8; Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 282–3.
Wangermann, 128–32. See E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London, Gollancz, 1963), 132, 147.
Meynert, Kaiser Franz I., 201–2; compare Wangermann, 183, and more generally Chs. III–V.
There is now a fine summary in English on “The Jacobin Conspiracy” and “The Jacobin Trials” in Wangermann, Chs. IV and V with those titles. This replaces such introduc-
tions as Walter C. Langsam, “Emperor Francis II and the Austrian ‘Jacobins,’ 1792–1796”, American Historical Review, I, (1945), 471–90.
Beethoven to Simrock, 2 August 1794, J.-G. Prodhomme, La Jeunesse de Beethoven (1770–1800) (Paris, Delagrave, 1927), 189; The Letters of Beethoven, ed. Emily Anderson (3 v., London, Macmillan, 1961), I, 18.
Wangermann, 133–55.
Ibid., 140, 146; compare Beytrag, 224–64.
Freiherr Karl Anton von Martini (1726–1800), writer on natural law and long a professor at the University of Vienna. Wangermann, 188–95.
Ibid., 153–65.
Ibid., 166–7.
Meynert, Kaiser Franz I., 213–14; Wangermann, 168, 169–70, 170–1.
Vertrauliche Briefe des Freiherrn von Thugut oesterr. Ministers des Aeussern, ed. Alfred Ritter von Vivenot (2 v., Vienna, Braumueller, 1872), I, 155–6 (24 November 1794).
Ibid., 277 (15 December 1795), 280 (27 December 1795); II, 3 (10 January 1797).
Meynert, Kaiser Franz I., 201–2 (Rottenhan), 203–4, 207–8; Wangermann, 147–8, 182 (Zinzendorf’s quotation), 183–4. For a different opinion of Sonnenfels’ influence, see Beidtel, I, 101, 105, 106, 133. Count Rottenhan, the denouncer here, had practiced and advocated severe censorship in 1790 as Governor of Upper Austria (Wangermann, 47–8). Later in Vienna he declared, “... in a well-ordered state a sort of state police must govern the prudent expenditure of the riches of the spirit as well as of every other pleasure of social life.” In his consideration of the schools he believed history especially important to correct the fanaticism of the time and the concepts of “would-be philosophers” (such as Kant) in order to create peaceful, usable citizens. (Carl Glossy, “Zur Geschichte der Wiener Theatercensur,” Jahrbuch der Grillparzer Gesellschaft, VII (1897), 238–340, 291.
Wangermann, 184.
Hof- und Staats-Schematismus der röm. kaiserl. and auch kaiserl. königl. und erzherzoglichen Haupt- und Residenz-Stadt Wien ... (Vienna, Gerold, 1798), 121–4; Benna, 143, 231–4; Oberhummer, I, 85.
Wangermann, 171.
Benna, Appendix 5; Adolf Wiesner, Denkwürdigkeiten der österreichischen Zensur vom Zeitalter der Reformation bis auf die Gegenwart (Stuttgart, Krabbe, 1847), 209.
Oberhummer, I, 96–100; quotation, 97.
Benna, 189–96; Oberhummer, I, 72, 100–5; Springer, I, 116.
“Mémoire an den Herrn Minister Grafen von Stadion gerichtet über eine zweck-massigere Einrichtung der Höheren Staatspolizei in der Residenzstadt Wien, so wie die übrigen Polizei-Zweige, Von einem Unbekannten,” 28 February 1806, MS, Haus-, Hof und Staatsarchiv, Vienna, “Administrativ Polizei,” Fascicle 71.
Ibid. Napoleon recognized the problem in his own administrative centralization of France. “In general headquarters Savary took care of the business of a chief of police, an office which he administered in the same fashion when the Emperor resided in Paris, where Savary headed a police which had the task of keeping watch on Fouçhé’s police. Again, the palaces inhabited by Napoleon were watched over by a third police headed by Lord High Chamberlain Duroc.” Aus Metternichs Nachgelassenen Papieren, eds. Richard Metternich-Win-neburg and Alfons v. Klinkowström (6 v., Vienna, Braumueller, 1880–4), I, 78–9 (June 1809, “As Ambassador of Austria at Napoleon’s Court”).
“Mémoire an ... Stadion,” 28 February 1806; Springer, I, 101–2.
Pergen to Franz I, 21 March 1802, Fournier, Geheimpolizei, 6–7.
Ibid.
Hager to Franz I, 14 March 1810, in Karl Glossy, “Zur Geschichte der Theater Wiens,” Jahrbuch der Grillparzer Gesellschaft, XXV (1915), IV-V; Bibl, Wiener Polizei, 284–5; Wurzbach’s Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, VI, 90–1; M.-H. Weil, Les Dessous du Congrès de Vienne d’après les documents originaux du ministère impérial et royal de l’intérieur à Vienne (2 v., Paris, Payot, 1917), I, 789–91, 792 n.; Benna, 198–200.
Wiesner, 213–20; Julius Marx, Die Österreichische Zensur im Vormärz (Munich, Oldenbourg, 1959), 11–16, 73–6.
Gentz to Metternich, 24 February 1810, Briefe von und an Friedrich von Gentz, eds. Friedrich Carl Wittichen and Ernst Salzer (3 v. in 4, Munich and Berlin, 1909–13), III, 76–7 [cited hereafter as Gentz Briefe]; H. H. Houben, Der gefesselte Biedermeier, Literatur, Kultur, Zensur in der guten, alten Zeit (Leipzig, Haessel, 1924), 66–7.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1968 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Emerson, D.E. (1968). The Establishment of the Hapsburg Police Ministry (1782–1814). In: Metternich and the Political Police. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6095-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-6095-9_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-5734-8
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-6095-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive