I wasn't working very diligently today morning, but this afternoon – Gosh! – I tell you, I’ve just been working for four hours without a break!
You know, when colleagues at the institute ask me whether I like my work and consider it interesting it’s always difficult not to be too hesitant. Basically the reason is that I’m not reading and typing the whole documents of the Staatsrat over a certain period, or the whole documents on a specific topic but only those documents in which minister Kaunitz (who’s Dr. Szabo’s research topic) was involved. That means for me, that I’ve always got to deal with scattered pieces and I doubt that I could really use it for any own studies. But maybe I shouldn’t be too pessimistic again. After all it’s still only week 2 isn’t it?
Anyway, today afternoon I had an absolutely thrilling document: In march 1781, when Joseph had been effective ruler of the Monarchy for only a bit more then three months he sent a “Circulandum auf allerhöchsten Befehl” to his leading officials, “Chefs”, to explain his future style of governing. This is absolutely fabulous! The whole document fills three and a half typed pages so it might be too long to post it as a whole but I’m sure I simply have to share some parts of it with you at some point. It’s just full of what Joseph was (or of what I see in him) in the negative as well as in the positive - a mixture of a true despot and a true idealist. (So all of you who’re waiting for a mail from me, sorry that I couldn’t make it today..)