After Franz finished reviewing those productions, he handed the list to the secret police without hesitation. Their intent to influence was glaringly obvious, and, more importantly, hardly anyone watched them—even the actors were listless.
The public did not like them, the theaters were on tenterhooks, and the playwrights earned nothing.
Yet productions like these always managed to secure sponsorship and make it onto the stage. Franz had no choice but to suspect that someone was fanning the flames behind the whole affair.
Franz admitted that these productions did have some merit and showed a certain understanding of the Austrian Empire's national conditions. Otherwise, no theater would have staged them only to smash its own signboard.
But swimming against the current was no easy thing, especially when it came to finding a patron willing to recognize and support one's talent.
Franz very much wanted to meet these so-called patrons and prophets, but after investigating, he discovered that nine out of ten of them were using false identities.
There was indeed a small group of people who held such ideas, but most were fish that had slipped through the net after Franz's purge, with at least some connection to those once-glorious families.
As for the so-called university students, they were instead rather indifferent to such things. Perhaps Franz's personal radiance was simply too dazzling, or perhaps it was a problem with education in the Austrian Empire.
University students in the Austrian Empire—at least those in Vienna—mostly sniffed at such productions with disdain.
Franz specifically had a group of university students investigated, and personally questioned several students working part-time as assistants at the Royal Academy of Sciences.
Their answers were remarkably consistent and very simple: they liked to stand on the side of the victors. Besides, Vienna offered far too many forms of