The coronation ceremony went smoothly. The interlude was deliberately ignored by some and blown out of proportion by others.
The newspapers were full of arguments about the Roman Empire, as well as reports on the coronation ceremony and the new appointments. The Hungarians' all-out offensive had been relegated to a very remote corner.
Felix Schwarzenberg became the Empire's prime minister. It was an appointment that sparked little controversy. Though he was a reformer, the conservatives considered him one of their own.
During the upheaval of 1848, the conservatives had willingly or unwillingly surrendered many official posts. Franz had not left them vacant; instead, he had directly bestowed them upon candidates he considered promising.
This drove the conservatives to bitterly denounce the Austrian Empire's corrupt system of dispensing offices. They claimed the emperor was acting recklessly and throwing the whole country into chaos.
Of course, they did not dare curse Franz, so they dumped all the blame on Ferdinand I, who had already abdicated.
The strong never complained about their circumstances—unless those circumstances worked against them.
Their complaints were not mere grumbling. They wanted to change the current system, or in a few decades a new privileged class would take their place.
In the past, these people would have simply walked away from their posts and paralyzed the entire country. They might even have raised a rebellion or colluded with demons from beyond the borders.
But now Franz held the military in his hands, and he had beaten those demons they had placed such high hopes in until they were crawling in the dirt. Before the new emperor's influence, vast as a black hole, their own influence was as fragile as a candle flickering in the wind.
They knew perfectly well that Franz was a demon who wore the name of