In 1810 Napoleon I. married a daughter of the emperor Francis. In 1b12, during the Russian campaign, an auxiliary Austrian corps nutter Sohwartaenberg, acted in Poland against Russia, but it effected little. in 1813 Austria resumed Its neutrality, and offered its medi ation between Russia and Franco on condition that both lowers should evacuate Germany. On Napoleon'. refusal, Austria joined the allies, and its army contributed largely to the success of the great battle of Leiptig, which decided that campaign. In the following year the Austrian armies entered Franca by the way of Switzerland, and occupied Burgundy and Lyon. The emperor Francis followed the movements of his troops, and after the Itussiates and Prussian; had enterel Paris, in April 1814, be proceeded to that capital, where he remained two months. In June 1814 he returned to Vienna, where the congress of the European powers opened its sittings. In 1815, after Bonaparte's return from Elba, the Austrian troops advanoed agaiu by the Simplon road and occupied Lyon. Meantime another Austrian army bad driven Murat from Naples and re established the old king Ferdivand. From that epoch till his death the emperor Francis remained at peace, with the exception of a short campaign against the constitutional party at Naples in 1821, when his troops appeared as auxiliaries to King Ferdinand. When the events of July 1830 were known at Vienna, Francis and his minister, Prince Metternich, with stood the suggestions of the more violent legitimists, and determined, as England had already done, not to interfere in the internal affairs of France, provided that power respected the existing treaties with regard to its foreign policy. Prussia followed the same course, and thus Europe was saved from another general war. Francis died at Vienna on the 2nd of 3Iarch 1835, in his eixty-eeventh year, and was succeeded by his eldest son FERDINAND, who, after a quiet reign of twelve years, but one in which the country was bowed down under the yoke of • le•deu despotism, was forced by the revolutionary events, as noticed below to abdicate on the 2nd of December 1848.
In Austria and his other German states the emperor Francis was popular, and personally beloved, (especially by the middling and lower clues's. lie was accessible, kind, and plain-spoken, simple and regular in his habits, assiduous to business, and his moral conduct was unex ceptionable. His policy and administration were of a paternal charac ter. Ile was averse to every form of political innovation ; having suffered much from the French revolution and Its consequences, he bad conceived a horror of revolutions, and of every movement. that partook of a democratic spirit. The ruling principles of his administration were love of order, minuteness of detail, economy, and strict subor dination. These principles, which agreed pretty well with the (ammeter of his German subjects, clashed with the temper of the people of Italy, whose activity, love of pleasure, military ambition, and national spirit, had been stimulated during twenty years of French dominion. The people of Lombardy, especially the educated climes, felt dissatisfied at being reduced to the condition of an Austrian dependency. Con spiracles were hatched, but they all failed, and only served to render the Austrian government more suspicious and severe. Of the persons Implicated some escaped, others wero tried aud condemned to death, which sentence the emperor commuted to Imprisonment for various periods In several fortresses, but mostly in the castle of Spielberg, In Moravia. Francis promoted material improvements, roads, canals, and manufacture.. Ills views of commercial policy wore of the old or Colbert school He deserves praise as the promoter of popular educa tion; he established elementary schools throughout all his dominione, and superintended himself all the details and working of the system : but in this, a., in every other matter, his policy was directed towards the prevention or the eradication of all Independence of opinion.