The Emperor Incognito

It is the end of the eighteenth century, and the European royal houses are beginning to falter. The young Habsburg emperor Joseph II realises that reform is inevitable, and he eagerly soaks up Enlightenment ideas. Incognito, and without the usual pomp and entourage, he travels through his vast empire. He wants to see with his own eyes how his subjects live, suffer and starve.
Along with princes and kings he meets ordinary people, and visits hospitals and factories on the search for new insights that will help him build a modern state. When he visits his sister in Versailles, he can see the French revolution looming on the horizon. By the end of his journey, he has spent a quarter of his twenty-five-year reign on the road. Based on countless sources, Monika Czernin’s The Emperor Travels Incognito tells the story of an extraordinary man in an age of great upheaval, who was far ahead of his time.