Looking south from the village of Metz, one could see the former site of Laeken Palace. The wife of the Duke of Teschen, governor of the Austrian Netherlands, was Emperor Joseph II's sister. After Governor Alexander of Lorraine died, she should originally have inherited the governorship. But in light of the turmoil caused by Queen Maria Theresa inheriting the imperial throne, the Austrian crown ultimately passed to Maria Theresa's husband, Franz I. Thus, the Duke of Teschen inherited the governorship of the Austrian Netherlands.
Joseph II would not allow his sister Maria Christina to hold the power to levy taxes. She had complained about this to her brother Leopold, but she and the Duke of Teschen still found a way to build a palace for summer recreation.
Empress Maria Theresa had once carried out fiscal reforms in the Holy Roman Empire. The Empire had suffered through successive wars at the time, leaving its finances strained, while internal structures such as fiefs and tariffs severely hampered imperial tax revenues.
Taxes from feudal fiefs belonged to the nobility, who in turn had to fulfill feudal obligations—providing troops in wartime, giving gifts when their lord married or had children, and so on. In practice, a lord could only squeeze a little money from a small number of vassals, and could not interfere with the nobles' exploitation of the serfs within their fiefs. Maria Theresa's reforms abolished noble privileges, requiring them to pay taxes as well. The reforms liberated the serfs; tenant farmers and freeholding farmers paid agricultural taxes directly to the Habsburg dynasty, while tenant farmers paid only rent to the nobility. Machinery was also introduced into production, swiftly increasing tax revenues. However, the reforms were limited to areas under strong Habsburg rule, such as Austria and Bohemia. The other duchies, including even