cahn

Such was my sinister intention. :) The Amadeus version would have had Mozart to back him up (in theory), though; remember, Mozart has an argument with a bunch of Italian composers in front of Joseph about love being a German virtue (Italians, saracastic: yeah, sure, we Italians know nothing about love! Mozart: No, you don't!). (Which might even be based on something Mozart actually said or wrote in a letter, because I recall something along that line from a childern's book about Mozart which I read as a kid a decade before Peter Shaffer wrote Amadeus. (Shaffer is one of those writers taking great liberties who still clearly did their research; note that Joseph in his few scenes in the movie is wearing modelled-on-Fritz simple uniform, for example.)

On a less hilarious note, Joseph in the end was a tragic figure, because his reforms were deeply unpopular, and his self composed epitaph read "here lies Joseph, who failed in everything he wanted to do"; then, when he was succeeded by his younger brother who was one of the most reactionary Habsburgs ever, Joseph post mortem became "the people's Emperor" (Volkskaiser), anecdotes from his travels and endeavours abounded, and retrospectively he became beloved. He was certainly hands down the brightest of Maria Theresia's kids. (That memorandum to Little sis and her husband about reforms they should understake in France was over thirty hand written pages. If they'd taken him as seriously about that as they did about sex...)