A new official always lit three fires upon taking office; Franz, a newly crowned emperor, all the more so. If he failed to produce some accomplishments, how could he live up to his identity as a transmigrator?
"Reform" became the government's central theme. The Austrian Empire had many problems. Even after last year's great revolution had cleared away much of the rubbish, the rotten flesh clinging to the empire still remained.
Cut away the flesh? That would hurt too much. Franz felt that the Austrian Empire, as it stood, could not withstand such trauma. There was no anesthetic; if things went wrong, people might die.
He had no intention of courting death like that, so he could only remove the hidden dangers bit by bit. The serfs had been emancipated, the land issue resolved, and the working class could at least barely fill their stomachs.
As for the troublemaking bourgeoisie—the Cannon Party lot—after the recent sweeping purge, few remained.
The survivors were all clever people. They knew what could be said and what could not, what could be done and what could not.
Having lived through a revolution, Vienna's citizens hated the revolutionaries to the bone. Anyone who dared preach revolutionary ideas to them was guaranteed a sound beating before being sent to the police station.
By now, Vienna Police had already received dozens of such rabble-rousers. Catch one and pull in a whole nest; after several months of public-security crackdowns, hundreds of insurgents had been arrested, dealing a heavy blow to the revolutionaries' rampant arrogance.
A large proportion of them were young students, which made Franz exceedingly angry and strengthened his resolve to reform Austria's education system.
Freedom of speech was acceptable, but everyone had to take responsibility for what they said. Those who spouted nonsense, spread rumors, stirred