became too
unwieldy for an effective cabinet, and Maria Theresa established the
council of state. During the early years of the reign of Francis, the
emperor kept himself in touch with the various departments by means of a
cabinet minister; but he had a passion for detail, and after 1805 he
himself undertook the function of keeping the administration together. At
the same time he had no personal contact with ministers, who might
communicate with him only in writing, and for months together never met for
the discussion of business. The council of state was, moreover, itself soon
enlarged and subdivided; and in course of time the emperor alone
represented any synthesis of the various departments of the administration.
The jurisdiction of the heads of departments, moreover, was strictly
defined, and all that lay outside this was reserved for the imperial
decision. Whatever was covered by established precedent could be settled by
the department at once; but matters falling outside such precedent, however
insignificant, had to be referred to the throne.[2] A system so inelastic,
and so deadening to all initiative, could have but one result. Gradually
the officials, high and low, subjected to an elaborate system of checks,
refused to take any responsibility whatever; and the minutest
administrative questions were handed up, through all the stages of the
bureaucratic hierarchy, to be shelved and forgotten in the imperial
cabinet. For Francis could not possibly himself deal with all the questions
of detail arising in his vast empire, even had he desired to do so. In
fact, his attitude towards all troublesome problems was summed up in his
favourite phrase, "Let us sleep upon it": questions unanswered would answer
themselves.

The result was the gradual atrophy of the whole administrative machine. The
Austrian government was not consciously tyrannical, even in Italy; and
Francis himself, though determined to be absolute, intended also to be
paternal. Nor would the cruelties inflicted on the bolder spirits who dared
to preach reform, which made the Austrian government a by-word among the
nations, alone have excited the passionate spirit of revolt which carried
all before it in 1848. The cause of this is to be sought rather in the
daily friction of a system which had ceased to be efficient and only
succeeded in irritating the public opinion it was powerless to curb.

Metternich himself was fully conscious of the evil. He recognized