The teaching of Febronius, paving the way as it did for the supremacy of the State in religious matters, was welcomed by the Emperor Joseph II., by the Elector of Bavaria, as well as by the spiritual princes of the Rhine provinces. In Austria, especially, violent measures were taken to assert the royal supremacy. Joseph II. was influenced largely by the Gallican and liberal tendencies of his early teachers and advisers. He dreamed of making Austria a rich, powerful, and united kingdom, and becoming himself its supreme and absolute ruler. During the reign of his mother, Maria Theresa, he was kept in check, but after her death in 1780, in conjunction with his prime minister, Kaunitz, he began to inaugurate his schemes of ecclesiastical reform. He insisted upon the Royal /Placet/ on all documents issued by the Pope or by the bishops, forbade the bishops of his territories to hold any direct communication with Rome or to ask for a renewal of their faculties, which faculties he undertook to confer by his own authority. He forbade all his subjects to seek or accept honours from the Pope, insisted upon the bishops taking the oath of allegiance to himself before their consecration, introduced a system of state- controlled education, and suppressed a number of religious houses. In order that the clergy might be instructed in the proper ecclesiastical principles, he abolished the episcopal seminaries, and established central seminaries at Vienna, Pest, Louvain, Freiburg, and Pavia for the education of the clergy in his dominions. Clerical students from Austria were forbidden to frequent the /Collegium Germanicum/ at Rome lest they should be brought under the influence of ultramontane teaching. Even the smallest details of ecclesiastical worship were determined by royal decrees. In all these reforms Joseph II. was but reducing to practice the teaching of Febronius. By personal letters and by communications through his nuncio Pius VI. sought to induce Joseph II. to abstain from such a policy of state aggression; but, as all his representations were ineffective, he determined to undertake a journey to Vienna, in the hope that his presence might bring about a change in the policy of the Emperor, or at least stir up the bishops to defend the interests of the Church (1782). He arrived at Vienna, had frequent interviews with the Emperor and with his minister Kaunitz, and was obliged to leave without any other result, except that he had assured himself of the fact that, whatever about the Emperor or the bishops, the majority of the people of Austria were still loyal to the head of the Catholic Church. The following year (1783) Joseph II. paid a return visit to Rome, when he was induced by the representations of the Spanish ambassador to desist from his plan of a complete severance of Austria from the Holy See.