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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 8x
nobility prevented a meafure, which would have made a country fo favoured by na‘ure
as Bohemia is, one of the moft flourifhing in the world. The Emprefs mad: it a mat-
ter of confcience to deprivea fmall part of her fubjeéts of the leaft part of their income
by fuch a meafure, but never bethought herfelf, that the nobility and priefls confumed
in idlenefs the fweat and blood of fo many thoufand people.
A defpotic prince, who has not a fufficient knowledge of the world, to fee through
the people who furround him, is the moft dependant man in ‘his country. Notwith-
ftanding all her attention to fo many various matters, end notwithftanding all her power,
te good Emprefs cannot prevent herfelf from being cheated by all who approach her.
She imagines that fhe prevents every fin by her eftablifhments of chaftity, and does not
know how many adulterefles fhe makes by them. She would indeed be aftonithed, if the
could fee only a part of the horns, which the men of this place carry about with them
ander their peruques. It is faid, that the Emprefs infifts upon the young women, par-
ticularly thofe who are ‘brought up in the Therefianum, tying their hair &c. in a parti-
cular manner; but notwith{tanding thefe ribbands of chaftity, I have been affured by a
countefs, who was brought up in this feminary, that groffer vices prevailed there, than
any again{t which the commiflion of chattity is dire@ted. I know a woman, who in or-
der to get herfelf, and her andjome daughter a maintenance, procured the latter an
engagement upon a {mall theatre, which hardly brings her in enough to buy pins for
her hair. We know that at Paris the theatre is more a title to a maintenance than a
maintenance of itfelf; but there is this difference betwixt the countries, here the mother
carries her cheap daughter from a rehearfal to church, where both tell their beads with
down-caft eyes, and the moft pious looks, in order to bring themfelves into a reputation
of fanétity with the police. By this means, perfons who love their pleafures, and yet
wifh to be well with the Emprefs, know no better way of compailing both thefe objects,
than by vifiting the.churches. Another inftance of hypocrify. There is a well-known
man of letters here, «who tranflated a prayer-book from the French and dedicated it to the
Emprefs as an.original compofition, with a view of obtaining a place, together with the
prefent cuftomary upon thofe occafions. The plan fucceeded; the Emprefs confidered
him as a pious man, and he had a reward; but he was fo loft to fhame, as to make
{port of the good woman’s credulity in the circle of his friends. _The fame thing takes
place with regard to the prohibition of books. ‘The queen would fink to the ground,
if fhe could fee one of the thoufand private libraries in Vienna, which contain all the
heretical, and all the fcandalous writers which fhe conceives her college of cenfure, and
her Index Expurgatorius, which is thicker than that of Rome, to have banifhed trom the
country for ever. -So it is with feveral of her other intftitutions, the inefficacy of which
fhews they are fit for nothing but to make hypocrites.
LETTER XX.III
Vienna.
In order to have any-idea of the government of this place, it is neceflary to attend to
the three contending parties of the ftate. The firft and ftrongeft is that of the Em-
prefs; it confifts of the great perfonage herfelf, Cardinal Migazzj the archbifhop, fome
monks, principally capuchines, and a few old ladies who make their court to the Em-
prefs by imitating her peculiarities. ‘This party is always pregnant with commiflions of
chaftity, prohibition of books, driving away dangerous preachers and profeffors, increaf-
ing the papal power, and perfecuting the new philofophy. Great part of the old no-
VOL, VI. M bility,
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