But all my caution was in vain until I found myself forced to alter the central constitutional structure.
The paralyzing disharmony between all departments was so great that I, like my predecessors, had to spend most of my time in smoothing over these wretched disputes. The Ministers were always particularly embittered against the Hofkammer, against which they made a common front, however much they disagreed between themselves.
That organ was itself a lifeless body, forsaken by everyone. It always had to procure money, while the Chancelleries most often blocked every avenue through which it could obtain it. The progressive and unmanageable indebtedness of the Treasury and the extraordinary confusion prevailing in the Hofkammer, which was often intentionally aggravated out of ulterior motives, led the Hofkammer to take various false steps, against which the Ministries and the public appealed. Yet hardly ever was a Ministry itself prepared to supply the means of covering necessary expenditure, and it seemed likely that the incessant inter-Ministerial warfare would perpetuate itself until the Monarchy collapsed, unless I tried to grasp the evil by the root. I enlarge on this subject in the following
Section III
viz., on the measures which I took during the late nine years’ war and the reasons which led me to act as I did.
In my first section I described the most unhappy situation at my accession, my inexperience, and the various factions, and in the second, how I was at first unable even to see the great and long-standing weaknesses which had crept into the system, much less remedy them completely, with the result that matters reached a state of chaos whence they could never have been extricated without visible miracle and the special help of God. I have already written that I would gladly have renounced all and become Grand Duchess of Tuscany had I believed such to be God’s will. Since, however, He had chosen to lay on me the great burden of government, I resolved that so long as there was any help to be found, or any resources available, I would apply them, and that it was my duty to do so. This gave me such spiritual tranquility that I watched my own fate as though it had been a stranger’s, and felt so little hate against my enemies that I grieved for the unhappy fate and death of the Bavarian Emperor and for the cold and discomfort endured by the French at the siege of Prague, and equally for the Prussians, but not for the King of Prussia, whom I did not, indeed, hate, but felt no sympathy for him since he never needed it, but always detested his false character.
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