Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

LEOPOLD

Specialty Definition: LEOPOLD

Top     

Specialty Definition: Leopold

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Leopold is a first name that often refers to one of the following:

Kings of the Belgians

• Leopold I of Belgium -- (1790-1865)
• Leopold II of Belgium -- (1865-1909)
• Leopold III of Belgium -- (1901-1983)

Holy Roman Emperors

• Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor -- (1640 - 1705)
• Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor -- (1747 - 1792)

In the fictional series the Simpsons, Leopold is the assistant to Superintendant Chalmers at the Springfield Elementary School.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Leopold."

Top     

Leopold I of Belgium

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

- King Leopold I -

Leopold I, first King of the Belgians, (December 16, 1790 - December 10, 1865), was born in Ehrenburg Castle in the Bavarian town of Coburg, Germany, and named "Georges Chrétien Frédéric." He was the youngest son of Duke Francis Frederick of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield (1750-1806) and Augusta Reuss-Ebersdorf (1757-1831).

In 1795 -- as a mere toddler -- Leopold was appointed colonel of the Izmailovski Imperial Regiment in Russia. Seven years later he became a general. When the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg was occupied by Napoleonic troops in 1806 he went to Paris. Napoleon offered him the position of adjutant, but he refused. Instead he succeeded his brother as head of the Duchy. Afterwards he campaigned against Napoleon. In 1815 Leopold was appointed field-marshal.

On May 2, 1816, he married Princess Charlotte Augusta, (1796-1817; the only legitimate child of the Prince Regent (later King George IV) and therefore heiress to the English throne. On November 5, 1817, Princess Charlotte gave birth to a stillborn son; she died the following day.

Later he helped his relatives ascend the thrones of Britain and Portugal, and he functioned as a principal advisor to his niece, Queen Victoria.

On July 2, 1829, Leopold participated in a ?marriage? of doubtful validity, (a marriage contract with no religious or public ceremony) with actress Caroline Bauer, created Countess of Montgomery, a cousin of his advisor, Christian Friedrich Freiherr von Stockmar. The marriage was reportedly ended in 1831.

In 1830 Leopold was offered the Greek crown, but he refused it. After Belgium asserted its independence from the Netherlands on October 4, 1830, the Belgian National Congress asked Leopold to become king of the newly-formed country. He accepted and became "King of the Belgians" on June 26, 1831. His inauguration took place in the Royal Palace in Brussels on July 21, 1831. This day became a Belgian national holiday.

Less than two weeks later, on August 2, the Netherlands invaded Belgium. Skirmishes continued for eight years, but in 1839 the two countries signed a treaty establishing Belgium's independence.

On August 9, 1832 Leopold married Princesse Louise-Marie Thérèse Charlotte Isabelle d'Orléans (April 3, 1812 - October 11, 1850), daughter of King Louis-Philippe of France.

Leopold and Louise had four children:

• Louis-Philippe Leopold Victor Ernst of Saxe-Coburg, born on July 24, 1833, but died the following year on May 16, 1834;
• Leopold Louis-Philippe Marie Victor of Saxe-Coburg, born in Brussels on April 9, 1835, the second King of the Belgians;
• Philippe Eugène Ferdinand Marie Clément Baudouin Leopold George, Count of Flanders, born in Laeken on March 24, 1837 and died in Brussels on November 17, 1905, whose son succeeded Leopold II as Albert.
• Marie-Charlotte Amélie Auguste Victoire Clémentine Léopoldine, born in Laeken on June 7, 1840 and died in Meise on January 19, 1927, wife of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico.

The king also had two sons, Baron Georg von Eppinghoven (1849-1904) and Baron Arthur von Eppinghoven (1852-1940), by a mistress, Arcadia Claret, created Baroness von Eppinghoven (1826-1897).

With the opening of the railway line between Brussels and Mechelen on May 5, 1835, one of King Leopold's fondest hopes -- to build the first railway in continental Europe -- became a reality.

In 1840 Leopold arranged the marriage of his niece Queen Victoria of England to his nephew Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Leopold tried to pass laws to regulate female and child labor in 1842, but the time was not yet ripe for it.

A wave of revolutions passed over Europe after King Louis-Philippe was chased from the French throne in 1848. Belgium remained neutral, mainly because of Leopold's diplomatic efforts.

On December 10, 1865, the king died in Laeken and was interred in the Royal vault at the Church of Our Lady, Laeken Cemetery, Brussels, Belgium.

Preceded by: (no one)

List of Belgian monarchs

Succeeded by: Leopold II

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Leopold I of Belgium."

Top     

Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Leopold I Habsburg (June 9, 1640-May 5, 1705), Roman emperor, was the second son of the emperor Ferdinand III and his first wife Maria Anna daughter of Philip III of Spain, was born on the June 6 1640.

Intended for the Church, he received a good education but his prospects were changed by the death of his elder brother the German king Ferdinand IV, in July 1654, when he becam his father's heir. In 1655 he was chosen king of Hungary and in 1656 king of Bohemia, and in July 1658, more than a year after his father's death, he was elected emperor at Frankfurt in spite of the intrigues of Cardinal Mazarin, who wished to place on the imperial throne Ferdinand Maria, elector of Bavaria, or some other prince whose elevation would break the Habsburg succession.

Mazarin, however, obtained a promise from the new emperor that he would not send assistance to Spain, then at war with France, and, by joining a confederation of German princes, called the league of the Rhine, France secured a certain influence in the internal affairs of Germany. Leopold's long reign covers one of the most important periods of European history; for nearly the whole of its forty-seven years he was pitted against Louis XIV of France, whose dominant personality completely overshadowed Leopold. The emperor was a man of peace and never led his troops in person; yet the greater part of his public life was spent in arranging and directing wars. The first was with Sweden, whose king Charles X found a useful ally in the prince of Transylvania, George II Rakocky, a rebellious vassal of the Hungarian crown.

This war, a legacy of the last reign, was waged by Leopold as the ally of Poland until peace was made at Oliva in 1660. A more dangerous foe next entered the lists. The Turks interfered in the affairs of Transylvania, always an unruly district, and this interference brought on a war with the Empire, which after some desultory operations really began in 1663. By a personal appeal to the diet at Regensburg Leopold induced the princes to send assistance for the campaign; troops were also sent by France, and in August 1664 the great imperialist general, Montecucculi, gained a notable victory at St Gotthard. By the peace of Vasvar the emperor made a twenty years' truce with the sultan, granting more generous terms than his recent victory seemed to render necessary.

After a few years of peace began the first of three wars between France and the Empire. The aggressive policy pursued by Louis XIV towards the United Provinces had aroused the serious attention of Europe, and steps had been taken to check it. Although the French king had sought the alliance of several German princes and encouraged the Turks in their attacks on Austria the emperor at first took no part in this movement. He was on friendly terms with Louis, to whom he was closely related and with whom he had already discussed the partition of the lands of the Spanish monarchy; moreover, in 1671 he arranged with him a treaty of neutrality.

In 1672, however, he was forced to take action. He entered into an alliance for the defence of the United Provinces and war broke out; then, after this league had collapsed owing to the defection of the elector of Brandenburg, another and more durable alliance was formed for the same purpose, including, besides the emperor, the king of Spain and several German princes, and the war was renewed. At this time, twenty-five years after the peace of Westphalia, the Empire was virtually a confederation of independent princes, and it was very difficult for its head to conduct any war with vigour and success, some of its members being in alliance with the enemy and others being only lukewarm in their support of the imperial interests. Thus this struggle, which lasted until the end of 1678, was on the whole unfavourable to Germany, and the advantages of the treaty of Nijmegen (February 1679) were with France.

Almost immediately after the conclusion of peace Louis renewed his aggressions on the German frontier. Engaged in a serious struggle with Turkey, the emperor was again slow to move, and although he joined a league against France in 1682 he was glad to make a truce at Regensburg two years later. In 1686 the league of Augsburg was formed by the emperor and the imperial princes, to preserve the terms of the treaties of Westphalia and of Nijmegen. The whole European position was now bound up with events in England, and the tension lasted until 1688, when William of Orange won the English crown and Louis invaded Germany. In May 1689 the grand alliance was formed, including the emperor, the kings of England, Spain and Denmark, the elector of Brandenburg and others, and a fierce struggle against France was waged throughout almost the whole of western Europe. In general the several campaigns were favourable to the allies, and in September 1697 England and the United Provinces made peace with Louis at Rijswijk.

To this treaty Leopold refused to assent, as he considered that his allies had somewhat neglected his interests, but in the following month he came to terms and a number of places were transferred from France to Germany. The peace with France lasted for about four years and then Europe was involved in the War of the Spanish Succession. The king of Spain, Charles II, was a Habsburg by descent and was related by marriage to the Austrian branch, while a similar tie bound him to the royal house of France. He was feeble and childless, and attempts had been made by the European powers to arrange for a peaceable division of his extensive kingdom. Leopold refused to consent to any partition, and when in November 1700 Charles died, leaving his crown to Philip, duke of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV, all hopes of a peaceable settlement vanished. Under the guidance of William III a powerful league, the grand alliance, was formed against France; of this the emperor was a prominent member, and in 1703 he transferred his claim on the Spanish monarchy to his second son, the archduke Charles. The early course of the war was not favourable to the imperialists, but the tide of defeat had been rolled back by the great victory of Blenheim before Leopold died on May 5 1705.

In governing his own lands Leopold found his chief difficulties in Hungary, where unrest was caused partly by his desire to crush Protestantism. A rising was suppressed in 1671 and for some years Hungary was treated with great severity. In 1681, after another rising, some grievances were removed and a less repressive policy was adopted, but this did not deter the Hungarians from revolting again. Espousing the cause of the rebels the sultan sent an enormous army into Austria early in 1683; this advanced almost unchecked to Vienna, which was besieged from July to September, while Leopold took refuge at Passau. Realizing the gravity of the situation somewhat tardily, some of the German princes, among them the electors of Saxony and Bavaria, led their contingents to the imperial army which was commanded by the emperor’s brother-in-law, Charles, duke of Lorraine, but the most redoubtable of Leopold's allies was the king of Poland, John Sobieski, who was already dreaded by the Turks.

On September 12 1683 the allied army fell upon the enemy, who was completely routed, and Vienna was saved. The imperialists, among whom Prince Eugene of Savoy was rapidly becoming prominent, followed up the victory with others, notably one near Mohacz in 1687 and another at Zenta in 1697, and in January 1699 the sultan signed the treaty of Karlowitz by which he admitted the sovereign rights of the house of Habsburg over nearly the whole of Hungary. Before the conclusion of the war, however, Leopold had taken measures to strengthen his hold upon this country. In 1687, the Hungarian diet in Bratislava (called Pressburg at that time) changed the constitution, the right of the Habsburgs to succeed to the throne without election was admitted and the emperor's elder son Joseph was crowned hereditary king of Hungary.

During this reign some important changes were made in the constitution of the Empire. In 1663 the imperial diet entered upon the last stage of its existence, and became a body permanently in session at Regensburg; in 1692 the duke of Hanover was raised to the rank of an elector, becoming the ninth member of the electoral college; and in 1700 Leopold, greatly in need of help for the impending war with France, granted the title of king of Prussia to the elector of Brandenburg. The net result of these and similar changes was to weaken the authority of the emperor over the members of the Empire, and to compel him to rely more and more upon his position as ruler of the Austrian archduchies and of Hungary and Bohemia, and Leopold was the first who really appears to have realized this altered state of affairs and to have acted in accordance therewith.

The emperor was married three times. His first wife was Margaret Theresa (d. 1673), daughter of Philip IV of Spain (the young infanta depicted in Diego Velasquez' "Las Meninas"), his second Archduchess Claudia Felicitas (d. 1676), the heiress of Tirol and his third Eleanora, a princess of the Palatinate (German: Pfalz). By his first two wives he had no sons, but his third wife bore him two Joseph and Charles, both of whom became emperors. He had also four daughters.

Leopold was a man of industry and education, and during his later years he showed some political ability. Extremely tenacious of his rights, and regarding himself as an absolute sovereign, he was also very intolerant and was greatly influenced by the Jesuits. In person he was short, but strong and healthy. Although he had no inclination for a military life he loved exercises in the open air, such as hunting and riding; he had also a taste for music.

Vienna's second district, Leopoldstadt, is named after him.

Leopold's letters to Marco d'Aviano from 1680 to 1699 were edited by O Klopp and published at Graz in I888. Other letters are found in the Fontes rerum Austriacarum, Bände 56 and 57 (Vienna, 1903—1904). See also F Krones, Handbuch der Geschichte Osterreichs (Berlin, 1876—1879); R Baumstark, Kaiser Leopold I (1873); and AF Pribram, Zur Wahl Leopolds I (Vienna, 1888).

Preceded by: Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor

List of German Kings and Emperors

Succeeded by: Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. Please update as needed.

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor."

Top     

Leopold II of Belgium

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Leopold II, King of the Belgians (Louis Philippe Marie Victor) (April 9, 1835 - December 17, 1909), succeeded his father, Leopold I of Belgium, to the Belgian throne in 1865. The monarch was most famous for having his own colony, the Congo Free State, which he virtually made his private property in 1884. In 1908, the Congo free state was annexed by the Belgian state and renamed Belgian Congo.

His life

- King Leopold II -

Leopold was born in Brussels. At an early age he entered the Belgian army, and in Brussels, on August 22, 1853, he was married to Marie Henriette Anne von Hapsburg, Archduchess of Austria, born at Pesth, Austria (now Budapest, Hungary) on August 23, 1836, and who died at Spa, Liège, Belgium on September 20, 1902. She was the daughter of Joseph, Archduke of Austria (1776 - 1847) who was son of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (1747 - 1792).

Leopold II and Marie Henriette Anne's children were:

• Louise-Marie Amélie, born Brussels February 18, 1858 and died at Wiesbaden March 1, 1924. She married Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

• Leopold Ferdinand Elie Victor Albert Marie, Count of Hainaut (as eldest son of the heir apparent), Duke of Brabant (as heir apparent), born at Laeken on June 12, 1859 and died at Laeken on January 22, 1869.

• Stéphanie Clotilde Louise Herminie Marie Charlotte, born at Laeken on May 21, 1864, and died at the Abbey of Pannonhalma at Györszentmarton, Hungary on August 23, 1945. She married (1) Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria and then (2) Elemér Edmund Graf Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény (created, in 1917, Prince Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény).

• Clémentine Albertine Marie Léopoldine, born at Laeken on July 30, 1872 and died at Nice, France on March 8, 1955. She married Prince Napoléon Victor Jérôme Frédéric Bonaparte (1862 - 1926), head of the Bonaparte family.

Leopold II was also the father of two sons, Lucien Philippe Marie Antoine (1906-1984) and Philippe Henri Marie François (1907-1914), born out of wedlock. Their mother was Blanche Zélia Joséphine Delacroix (1883-1948), aka Caroline Lacroix, a prostitute who married the king on December 12, 1909, in a religious ceremony with no validity under Belgian law, at the Pavilion of Palms, Château de Laeken, five days before his death. These sons were adopted in 1910 by Lacroix's second husband, Antoine Durrieux. Though Lacroix is said to have been created Baroness de Vaughan, Lucien the Duke of Tervuren, and Philippe the Count of Ravenstein, no such royal decrees were ever issued.

In Belgian domestic politics Leopold emphasized military defense as the basis of neutrality, but he was unable to obtain a universal conscription law until on his death bed.

King Leopold II died on December 17, 1909 and was interred in the Royal vault at the Church of Our Lady, Laeken Cemetery, Brussels, Belgium.

Interest in Africa

In 1876 Leopold II of the Belgians organized an international association as a front for his private plan to "develop" central Africa. In 1879, under Leopold's sponsorship, Henry Morton Stanley aggressively competed with the French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza to lay claim to the Congo region. For the next five years Stanley worked feverishly to open the lower Congo to commerce, constructing a road from the lower river to Stanley Pool (now Pool Malebo), where the river became navigable. Stanley's ruthless behaviour, which came under much criticism in England, earned him the African nickname Bula Matari, or "breaker of rocks."

At the Berlin Conference of 1884-85, representatives of 14 European countries and the United States recognized Leopold as sovereign of most of the Congo Free State. In 1891 he hired the Canadian explorer, and British Military Commander, William Stairs to command a mission to take control of the copper lands of Katanga.

Reports of outrageous exploitation and mistreatment of the native population, including enslavement, malnutrition, and mutilation, especially as it applied to the rubber industry, led to an international protest movement in the early 1900s. Finally, in 1908, the Belgian parliament compelled the King to cede the Congo Free State to Belgium.

The Congo Free State

A constitutional, if strong-willed, monarch in Belgium, Leopold ruled the Congo Free State (renamed Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of Congo) as a personal domain.

Exploitation of the Dutch East Indies, French Indochina, German Southwest Africa, Rhodesia, and South Africa paled in comparison to that of the Belgian Congo. The fortunes of King Leopold II, the famed philanthropist, abolitionist, and self-anointed sovereign of Congo Free State (1885) which was seventy-six times larger geographically than Belgium itself and those of the multinational concessionary companies under his auspices, were mainly made on the proceeds of Congolese rubber, which had historically never been mass-produced in surplus quantities. Between 1880 and 1920 the population of Congo thus halved; over 10 million indolent natives unaccustomed to the capitalist ethos of labor productivity, were the victims of murder, starvation, exhaustion induced by over-work, and disease.

Writings about Leopold

Many prominent writers of the time took part in international condemnation of Leopold II's exploitation of the Congo, including Arthur Conan Doyle, Booker T. Washington, and those mentioned below.

The American mystic poet Vachel Lindsay wrote: "Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost / Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host / Hear how the demons chuckle and yell / Cutting his hands off, down in Hell."

King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild describes the history and brutality of King Leopold's rule in the Belgian Congo.

King Leopold's Belgian Congo was described as a colonial regime of slave labor, rape and mutilation in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Mark Twain wrote a biting sarcastic political satire, King Leopold's Soliloquy.

Preceded by: Leopold I

List of Belgian monarchs

Succeeded by: Albert I

External Link

• "Reforming The Heart of Darkness" The Congo under Leopold II

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Leopold II of Belgium."

Top     

Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Leopold II (May 5, 1747 - March 1, 1792), Roman emperor, and grand-duke of Tuscany, son of the empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, was born in Vienna. Leopold was one of the so-called "enlightened monarchs".

He was a third son, and was at first educated for the priesthood, but the theological studies to which he was forced to apply himself are believed to have influenced his mind in a way unfavourable to the Church. On the death of his elder brother Charles in 1761 it was decided that he should succeed to his father's grand duchy of Tuscany, which was erected into a "secundogeniture" or apanage for a second son. This settlement was the condition of his marriage on August 5 1764 with Maria Louisa, daughter of Charles III of Spain, and on the death of his father Francis I (August 13, 1765) he succeeded to the grand duchy.

For five years he exercised little more than nominal authority under the supervision of counsellors appointed by his mother. In 1770 he made a journey to Vienna to secure the removal of this vexatious guardianship, and returned to Florence with a free hand. During the twenty years which elapsed between his return to Florence and the death of his eldest brother Joseph II in 1790 he was employed in reforming the administration of his small state. The reformation was carried out by the removal of the ruinous restrictions on industry and personal freedom imposed by his predecessors of the house of Medici, and left untouched during his father's life; by the introduction of a rational system of taxation; and by the execution of profitable public works, such as the drainage of the Val di Chiana.

As he had no army to maintain, and as he suppressed the small naval force kept up by the Medici, the whole of his revenue was left free for the improvement of his state. Leopold was never popular with his Italian subjects. His disposition was cold and retiring. His habits were simple to the verge of sordidness, though he could display splendour on occasion, and he could not help offending those of his subjects who had profited by the abuses of the Medicean régime. But his steady, consistent and intelligent administration, which advanced step by step, making the second only when the first had been justified by results, brought the grand duchy to a high level of material prosperity. His ecclesiastical policy, which disturbed the deeply rooted convictions of his,people, and brought him into collision with the pope, was not successful. He was unable to secularize the property of the religious houses, or to put the clergy entirely under the control of the lay power.

During the last few years of his rule in Tuscany Leopold had begun to be frightened by the increasing disorders in the German and Hungarian dominions of his family, which were the direct result of his brother's headlong methods. He and Joseph II were tenderly attached to one another, and met frequently both before and after the death of their mother, while the portrait by Pompeo Baltoni in which they appear together shows that they bore a strong personal resemblance to one another. But it may be said of Leopold, as of Fontenelle, that his heart was made of brains. He knew that he must succeed his childless eldest brother in Austria, and he was unwilling to inherit his unpopularity. When, therefore, in 1789 Joseph, who knew himself to be dying, asked him to come to Vienna, and become co-regent, Leopold coldly evaded the request. He was still in Florence when Joseph II died at Vienna on February 20 1790, and he did not leave his Italian capital until March 3.

Leopold, during his government in Tuscany, had shown a speculative tendency to grant his subjects a constitution. When he succeeded to the Austrian lands he began by making large concessions to the interests offended by his brother's innovations. He recognized the Estates of his different dominions as " the pillars of the monarchy," pacified the Hungarians and divided the Belgian insurgents by concessions. When these failed to restore order, he marched troops into the country, and re-established at the same time his own authority, and the historic franchises of the Flemings. Yet he did not surrender any part that could be retained of what Maria Theresa and Joseph had done to strengthen the hands of the state. He continued, for instance, to insist that no papal bull could be published in his dominions without his consent (placetum regium).

If Leopold's reign as emperor, and king of Hungary and Bohemia, had been prolonged during years of peace, it is probable that he would have repeated his successes as a reforming ruler in Tuscany on a far larger scale. But he lived for barely two years, and during that period he was hard pressed by peril from west and east alike. The growing revolutionary disorders in France endangered the life of his sister Marie Antoinette, the queen of Louis XVI, and also threatened his own dominions with the spread of a subversive agitation. His sister sent him passionate appeals for help, and he was pestered by the royalist emigrants, who were intriguing both to bring about an armed intervention in France, and against Louis XVI.

From the east he was threatened by the aggressive ambition of Catherine II of Russia, and by the unscrupulous policy of Prussia. Catherine would have been delighted to see Austria and Prussia embark on a crusade in the cause of kings against the French Revolution. While they were busy beyond the Rhine, she would have annexed what remained of Poland, and would have made conquests in Turkey. Leopold II had no difficulty in seeing through the rather transparent cunning of the Russian empress, and he refused to be misled.

To his sister he gave good advice and promises of help if she and her husband could escape from Paris. The emigrants who followed him pertinaciously were refused audience, or when they forced themselves on him were peremptorily denied all help. Leopold was too purely a politician not to be secretly pleased at the destruction of the power of France and of her influence in Europe by her internal disorders. Within six weeks of his accession he displayed his contempt for her weakness by practically tearing up the treaty of alliance made by Maria Theresa in 1756 and opening negotiations with England to impose a check on Russia and Prussia.

He was able to put pressure on England by threatening to cede his part of the Low Countries to France, and then, when secure of English support, he was in a position to baffle the intrigues of Prussia. A personal appeal to Frederick William II led to a conference between them at Reichenbach in July 1790, and to an arrangement which was in fact a defeat for Prussia: Leopold's coronation as king of Hungary on the November 11, 1790, was preceded by a settlement with the diet in which he recognized the dominant position of the Magyars. He had already made an eight months' truce with the Turks in September, which prepared the way for the termination of the war begun by Joseph II, the peace of Sistova being signed in August 1791. The pacification of his eastern dominions left Leopold free to re-establish order in Belgium and to confirm friendly relations with England and Holland.

During 1791 the emperor continued to be increasingly preoccupied with the affairs of France. In January he had to dismiss the count of Artois, afterwards Charles X, king of France, in a very peremptory way. His good sense was revolted by the folly of the French emigrants, and he did his utmost to avoid being entangled in the affairs of that country. The insults inflicted on Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, however, at the time of their attempted flight to Varennes in June, stirred his indignation, and he made a general appeal to the sovereigns of Europe to take common measures in view of events which "immediately compromised the honour of all sovereigns, and the security of all governments." Yet he was most directly interested in the conference at Sistova, which in June led to a final peace with Turkey.

On August 25 he met the king of Prussia at Pillnitz, near Dresden, and they drew up a declaration of their readiness to intervene in France if and when their assistance was called for by the other powers. The declaration was a mere formality, for, as Leopold knew, neither Russia nor England was prepared to act, and he endeavoured to guard against the use which he foresaw the emigrants would endeavour to make of it. In face of the agitation caused by the Pillnitz declaration in France, the intrigues of the emigrants, and the attacks made by the French revolutionists on the rights of the German princes in Alsace, Leopold continued to hope that intervention might not be required.

When Louis XVI swore to observe the constitution of September 1791, the emperor professed to think that a settlement had been reached in France. The attacks on the rights of the German princes on the left bank of the Rhine, and the increasing violence of the parties in Paris which were agitating to bring about war, soon showed, however, that this hope was vain. Leopold met the threatening language of the revolutionists with dignity and temper. His sudden death was an irreparable loss to Austria.

Leopold had sixteen children, the eldest of his eight sons being his successor, the emperor Francis II. Some of his other sons were prominent personages in their day. Among them were: Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany; the archduke Charles, a celebrated soldier; the archduke John, also a soldier; the archduke Joseph, palatine of Hungary; and the archduke Rainer, viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Preceded by: Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

List of German Kings and Emperors

Succeeded by: Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor."

Top     

Leopold Mozart

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Johan Georg Leopold Mozart (November 14, 1719 - May 28, 1787) was a composer, music teacher and violinist. He was born in the City of Augsburg, in the Swabian part of the Dukedom of Bavaria, was legal citizen of the Diocese of Salzburg, but spent a lot of time in Vienna, Austria, (all within the Holy Roman Empire). He is best known today for being the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but was a well-known figure himself in his own time.

Leopold Mozart was born on November 14, 1719 in Augsburg (today Germany), the son of a bookbinder. He studied theology at Salzburg University, but was more interested in music, becoming violinist and valet to one of the university's canons, Count Thurn und Taxis, in 1740. In 1747 he married Anna Maria Pertl, who bore him seven children, although only two of them survived, Maria Anna Wallburga Ignatia (called "Nannerl") and Wolfgang Amadeus. In 1756, the same year as Wolfgang Amadeus' birth, Leopold wrote his Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule, a comprehensive treatise on violin playing. Today it is one of the main sources on performance practice in the 18th century, along with Johann Joachim Quantz's Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversière zu spielen (on flute playing) and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (on keyboard playing).

Leopold Mozart died on May 28, 1787, in Salzburg, today Austria.

External Links

• http://www.otago.ac.nz/DeepSouth/vol2no3/nancy1.html -- A French Edition of Leopold Mozart's Violinschule

  Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Leopold Mozart."

Top     

Top     

Modern Usage: LEOPOLD

Top     

Commercial Usage: LEOPOLD

Top     

Image Slideshow: LEOPOLD

Illustrations: LEOPOLD More pictures...

Top     

Photo Album: LEOPOLD

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Figure 10. Bulldog sounder, invented by Marine Engineer Roughton, assistant engineer Steil, and naturalist George C. Wallich for use in deep water sounding operations by HMS BULLDOG in the North Sea and North Atlantic Ocean in 1860 while under command of Sir Leopold McClintock RN. This device was also used on HMS PORCUPINE in water depths up to 3200 meters in 1862. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now.		Leopold v. Dittel. Credit: National Library of Medicine.
	Leopold, King of the Belgians. Credit: Library of Congress.		Leopold Stokowski. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Leopold Seyffert painting portrait of Helen Wills Moody. Credit: Library of Congress.		Leopold Aldo, half-length portrait, seated, facing slightly left, pipe in mouth, studying dead birds. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Remains of timber support and tailings of abandoned copper mine at Leopold, New Mexico. Credit: Library of Congress.		Tailings at abandoned copper mine at Leopold, New Mexico. Credit: Library of Congress.
	Portrait photograph of Leopold Stokowski. Credit: Library of Congress.		Stokowski, Leopold, Mr., portrait photograph. Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

Top     

Digital Photo Gallery: LEOPOLD
 

"Chichén Itza Ballcourt" by Luis Alves Commentary: "The Mayans were great sportsmen and build huge ballcourts to play their games. The Great Ballcourt of Chichén Itzá is 545 feet long and 225 feet wide overall. It has no vault, no discontinuity between the walls and is totally open to the sky. Each end has"

Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

Top     

Non-Fiction Usage: LEOPOLD

Top     

Usage Frequency: LEOPOLD

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

Top     

Name Usage Frequency: LEOPOLD

Top     

Derived & Related Names: LEOPOLD

Top     

Usage in Company Names: LEOPOLD

Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.

Top     

Cities: LEOPOLD

INDEX

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.