Page - 351 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

351Coping with Enlightenments alternative sources of funding, but ultimately all this was to no avail. Already in a note on a memorandum of the committee of November 25, 1775, Maria The- resa seems to have made up her mind on the matter. A reference to the “poor bookkeepers and bookbinders” and the stress of the need to raise funds “with- out oppressing the citizens” gives the impression that her heart had indeed been softened by von Trattner’s appeals. However, she also adds that she couldn’t possibly decide to launch an accademie des scienses [sic] with three ex-Jesuits and a professor of chemistry, however worthy, we should be a laughing-stock in the world […]. The accademie […] should present a regular plan on how, and what subjects and objects, this accademie would treat with benefit and honor. I find the Abbé Hell not strong enough, an accademie that is worse than the already existing ones would be worth neither the costs nor the effort.24 Despite the comment on Hell’s qualities, Maria Theresa’s fulmination should not be taken as an expression of contempt for Jesuits or Jesuit science, but rather as a sober acknowledgment that soon after the suppression of the Soci- ety of Jesus, establishing an academy effectively under Jesuit control would be a strange and inconsistent step. From Hell’s point of view, the result was all the same: there was to be no Austrian Academy of Sciences. The empress renewed the patents of the principal book dealers, among them the prosperous von Trattner. Hell was at the same time allowed to publish his own calendars. The empress’s words show that besides the embitterment of a representa- tive of powerful commercial interests in the realm, the ruler’s decision to aban- don the project of the academy was also motivated by considerations that had to do with the substance of the enterprise. Ever since Hell had arrived in Vi- enna in 1755, he had felt the unfailing support of Viennese officialdom for his projects. The outcome of the strenuous efforts he was making over two and a half years to establish an academy of sciences—which, from his perspective, may indeed have been an antidote to the blow that Jesuit learning had suffered as a result of the suppression—demonstrated that such support was no longer unequivocal and to be taken for granted. The special relationship with the court and the dynasty became broken. Even among such circumstances, Hell’s personal merits, and the scientific contribution and representational value of his institution, continued to be ac- knowledged and utilized. A case in point is a highly important diplomatic visit 24 HHStA ava Studienhofkommission, 75. Sig. 15. Akad. d. bildenden Künste. 1775: 3007. fol. 10v. Cf. Feil, Versuche, 64; Evans, Austria, Hungary, and the Habsburgs, 50.