SOURCE: "Régime Metternich," in Studies in German Literature in the Nineteenth Century, Macmillan, 1903, pp. 79-104.

In the following excerpt, Coar describes the relationship between Raimund's artistic achievement and the contemporary social and political atmosphere in early nineteenth-century Austria.

When the Congress of Vienna ushered in the so-called Restoration, princely diplomacy and selfish fear robbed the people of the fruits of their struggle. Patriots like Arndt, Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Stein, and so many others were made to feel the heavy hand of royal displeasure for insisting upon the fulfilment of royal promises. The notorious decrees of Carlsbad throttled the young press of the country and placed institutions of learning under police supervision. Again, the peasantry found itself practically at the mercy of the landed nobility, and the best civic reforms initiated by Napoleon were heedlessly abrogated along with the worst. National unity, the great hope of...