The marching crowd grew noisy again. The news from the veterans clearly contradicted what they had heard before.
"What? The Austrian army captured Rome?"
"Liberated, you mean," the tall stranger corrected him.
"How could that be? Weren't Austria's troubles said to be piling up at home and abroad? They got thrashed on the Italian front, and Marshal Radetzky's beard was even set on fire!"
"Yeah! I heard the Hungarians had already pushed into Pressburg and carried out a massacre."
"That's not all! The Bohemians rebelled too!"
"There are only a few hundred of them."
"So what if there are only a few hundred? Hus only had a few hundred men back then! Didn't they still thrash the Holy Roman Empire's allied forces?"
Either way, the crowd's confidence had been shaken once more.
In fact, news of Franz being crowned King of Rome by Pope Pius IX had reached Vienna as soon as it happened.
It was only a political spectacle, but everyone knew how important it was to Austria at that moment.
The only person who didn't take it too seriously was Franz himself. He was more concerned about the international repercussions the title might bring.
After all, the word "Rome" carried enormous weight in Europe. It brought all sorts of things to mind.
But Vienna's government was in utter chaos. In less than a hundred days, it had gone through more than twenty prime ministers.
The average government lasted less than fifteen days, and even the longest-lived one survived barely a week. Such frequent changes brought not only chaos but also a breakdown in the flow of information.
The royal family was divided over Franz's investiture and coronation, too. Sophie and Archduke Franz Karl naturally thought it was a good thing.
The former was ambitious, so the longer Franz's