ll was in force, and that the
laws were consequently invalid. The argument was forcible, but the courts
decided against them. Rudigier, bishop of Linz, was summoned to a criminal
court for disturbing the public peace; he refused to appear, for by the
concordat bishops were not subject to temporal jurisdiction; and when he
was condemned to imprisonment the emperor at once telegraphed his full
pardon. In the rural districts the clergy had much influence; they were
supported by the peasants, and the diets of Tirol and Vorarlberg, where
there was a clerical majority, refused to carry out the school law.

On the proclamation of papal infallibility in 1870, the government took the
opportunity of declaring that the concordat had lapsed, on the ground that
there was a fundamental change in the character of the papacy. Nearly all
the Austrian prelates had been opposed to the new doctrine; many of them
remained to the end of the council and voted against it, and they only
declared their submission with great reluctance. The Old Catholic movement,
however, never made much progress in Austria. Laws regulating the position
of the Church were carried in 1874. (For the concordat see Laveleye, _La
Prusse et l'Autriche_, Paris, 1870.)

[Sidenote: Nationalism in Galicia and Bohemia.]

During 1868 the constitution then was open to attack on two sides, for the
nationalist movement was gaining ground in Bohemia and Galicia. In Galicia
the extreme party, headed by Smolka, had always desired to imitate the
Czechs and not attend at Vienna; they were outvoted, but all parties agreed
on a declaration in which the final demands of the Poles were drawn up;[14]
they asked that the powers of the Galician diet should be much increased,
and that the members from Galicia should cease to attend the Reichsrath on
the discussion of those matters with which the Galician diet should be
qualified to deal. If these demands were not granted they would leave the
Reichsrath. In Bohemia the Czechs were very active; while the Poles were
parading their hostility to Russia in such a manner as to cause the emperor
to avoid visiting Galicia, some of the Czech leaders attended a Slav
demonstration at Moscow, and in 1868 they drew up and presented to the diet
at Prague a "declaration" which has since been regarded as the official
statement of their claims. They asked for the full restoration of the
Bohemian kingdom; they contended that no foreign assembly was qualified