Klemens von Metternich, under the Habsburgs, was the Foreign Minister, Chancellor of Austria and chief censor of word and speech in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic Era.

A strict monarchist, he attempted to suppress liberal democracies and nationalist movements by censoring the press, books, speech, and even tombstones through a process that became known as the Metternich System spanning the years from 1815-1848. This period subsequently became known as the Age of Metternich.

His system of censorship was implemented through the Habsburgs Court Police. Attacks against the monarchy, government, heads of state, religion, and immoral utterances were forbidden. The press was relentlessly controlled and censored. Violators of the censorship rules faced imprisonment, fines, confiscation of their works, and banning of publications.

The Metternich System collapsed when revolutionary idealism broke out in Vienna in 1848, and Metternich fled to England to save his skin.

Source: A Little History by E. H. Gombrich. Graphic: Metternich by Sir Thomas Lawrence 1814-1819.