The guided tour through the personal castle of Francis the I/II was a surprising gem. I wasn't prepared for the many medieval artifacts and personal affects of the Habsburgs that were sprinkled throughout the castle. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable, giving us insights to the life and motivations of this absolute autocrat.
Francis clearly focused on enjoying his life, hosting lavish parties at Laxenburg with many valuable affects to show off.
The guest book is extensive and gave me insight into just how much this summer palace complex meant to the royal family
I like this excerpt from Habsburger.net, " The house of Habsburg remained faithful to Laxenburg over centuries. It was here that monarchs sought distraction and fled their everyday responsibilities. The motto 'Rerum irrecuperabilium summa felicitas est oblivio' translates freely as 'Happy is he who can forget such things as can no longer be changed …'". What really was the role of an absolute monarch if they could be famously incompetent like Leopold I and spend so much time in leisure?
I can imagine, though, the stress that Francis must have been going through as an absolute monarchist living through the French Revolution. Habsburger.net says of Francis that, "outside the walls of the Laxenburg garden, his concept of the old world was gradually falling apart and Napoleon was making life difficult for him. ‘But they will leave me Laxenburg, won’t they?’ Franz is said to have asked in a moment of extreme distress". It seemed that his solution to this issue with Napoleon was very typical of a Habsburg. As I understood it from the tour, he married his oldest daughter Maria-Louise to Napoleon to try to gain influence and France and reign in any male heir that he produced so as to maintain his power balance.
Later that day, and completely unrelated to Laxenburg, I went to an Irish pub (Wind and Mills) and talked to some locals of Vienna named Elias and Daniel. I asked them lots of questions and thankfully they were very patient. Mostly I wanted to understand dialects in this country a bit more so I asked them what they spoke and what they thought about the topic. Elias said that he spoke hochdeutsch and that most young people in Vienna spoke that too, because the Viennese dialect is dying out. Only occasionally would he sprinkle in Viennese words in his daily life. I was very surprised to hear this because I expected a much more stark difference in language all the way out here. But with globalization and the prevalence of hochdeutsch as the standard form, it makes sense.
Elias and I could both agree that the politics in both our countries were embarrassing so it was nice that we could sympathize with each other on that point. So far all the Austrians I've met on this trip are wonderfully self aware (Besides our tour guide Christopher).
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