he ignored the empress consort's sister, Princess Amalia of Baden even more offensive, as the imperial couple wished him to marry her. When it became obvious that he was not interested in the princess, it was unclear why he had even travelled to Saint Petersburg. Sensing these tensions, the archduke's Hofmeister János Szapáry urged him to return to Buda, and even asked Emperor Francis to order him back under some pretense. Joseph himself refused to even consider leaving. Eventually, after the imperial family tried to pressure him into marrying Princess Amalia, he decided to leave in June, and he spent his last few weeks in Pavlovsk as the empress dowager's guest. Once he had returned to Vienna, he honestly described the foreign opinion on the Habsburg monarchy to Emperor Francis and urged him to be more pro-active in his governing. Other achievements During the decades of his palatinate, Archduke Joseph continued to mediate between his dynasty and the Hungarian people. He tried to moderate and unify the latter, especially at the Diet of 1832–1836. Then, he persuaded the House of Magnates to not veto the proposals of the House of Representatives. In 1840, he obtained imperial amnesty for Hungarian progressives László Lovassy, Lajos Kossuth, and Miklós Wesselényi, who had been persecuted for their opinions. When, in 1843, the Viennese government tried to shut down the , an association helping Hungarian industries by promoting and purchasing their products, it was the palatine who protected them. Hungarian education In 1802, Joseph supported the establishment of a national library, which would later develop into the National Széchényi Library and the Hungarian National Museum. He contributed valuable codices and books to its collection. In 1826, he founded the National Royal Joseph Institute and School of the Blind, today the National Institute for the Blind. In 1835, he participated in founding of The Royal Hungarian Ludovica Defense Academy (today ) to provide training for cadets. On the Diet of 1825, which was gathered after a break of thirteen years on Joseph's insistence, the Hungarian Academy of Sciences was established, to which he contributed ten thousand forints. In 1846, he founded the Royal Joseph Polytechnic, predecessor of today's Budapest University of Technology and Economics. Transportation and economy For the development of Hungarian transportation, he first founded the Kőbánya horsecar line in 1827–28, then the first train line of the country between Pest and Vác. In this,