Obedience had to be rooted in the heart: that was what really counted. People had to be certain that everything was in its place

Fifty million people found their security in the feeling that their Emperor [Franz Josef] was in bed before midnight and up again before five, sitting by candlelight at his desk in an American rush-bottomed chair, while everyone else who had pledged their loyalty to him was obeying the customs and the laws. Obedience had to be rooted in the heart: that was what really counted. People had to be certain that everything was in its place.

...

Vienna and the monarchy made up one enormous family of Hungarians, Germans, Moravians, Czechs, Serbs, Croats, and Italians, all of whom secretly understood that the only person who could keep order among this fantastical welter of longings, impulses  and emotions was the Emperor, in his capacity of Sergeant Major and Imperial Majesty, government clerk in sleeve protectors and Grand Seigneur, unmannerly clod and absolute ruler.

S. Marai, Embers (1942), tr. C.B. Janeworthy (2001), 66-8