The work was awarded the Gutenberg Scholarship from the city of Mainz. This political biography examines the electoral chancellery politics in the late period of the Holy Roman Empire, specifically during the reign of the Archbishop Elector Friedrich Carl Joseph von Erthal (1774-1802). The paradigm shift posited in research from law before power to power before law as the constitutional reality of the Holy Roman Empire around 1800 served as a theoretical model for analyzing the archival records of the Reichserzkanzlerarchiv in Vienna, the Mainz records in Würzburg, and the Coudenhove estate in the State Archive of Pilsen. The oscillating politics previously attributed to the Elector is revealed to be quite consistent and coherent in terms of preserving the Empire and its constitution.