Hungary water is spirit of wine distilled upon rosemary, and which
therefore contains the essential oil and powerful aroma of that plant.
To be really good the spirit of wine ought to be very strong and the
rosemary fresh; and if that be the case, the leaves are as proper
as the flowers, which according to the prescription of some should
only be employed. It is likewise necessary that the spirit of wine be
distilled several times over the rosemary; but that process is too
troublesome and expensive to admit of this water being disposed of at
the low price for which it is usually sold; and it is certain that the
greater part of it is nothing else than common spirit, united with the
essence of rosemary in the simplest manner. In general, it is only
mixed with a few drops of the oil. For a long time past this article
has been brought to us principally from France, where it is prepared,
particularly at Beaucaire, Montpelier, and other places in Languedoc,
where that plant grows in great abundance.
The name, _l’eau de la reine d’Hongrie_, seems to signify that this
water, so celebrated for its medicinal virtues, is an Hungarian
invention; and we read in many books that the receipt for preparing
it was given to a queen of Hungary by a hermit, or as others say, by
an angel, who appeared to her in a garden all entrance to which was
shut, in the form of a hermit or a youth[965]. Some call the queen
St. Isabella[966]; but those who pretend to be best acquainted with
the circumstance affirm that Elizabeth wife of Charles Robert king of
Hungary, and daughter of Uladislaus II. king of Poland, who died in
1380 or 1381, was the inventress. By often washing with this spirit of
rosemary, when in the seventieth year of her age, she was cured, as we
are told, of the gout and an universal lameness; so that she not only
lived to pass eighty, but became so lively and beautiful that she was
courted by the king of Poland, who was then a widower, and who wished
to make her his second wife.
John George Hoyer[967] says that the receipt for preparing this water,
written by queen Elizabeth’s own hand, in golden characters, is still
preserved in the Imperial library at Vienna. But it has been already
remarked by others[968] that Hoyer is mistaken, and that he does not
properly remember the account given of the receipt. It is to be found
for the first time, as far as I know, in a small book by John Prevot,
which, after his death in 1631, was published by his two sons at
Frankfort in 1659[969].
One may easily see that Prevot mistook this Elizabeth for St.
Elizabeth, the daughter of king Andrew II., who was never queen of
Hungary, but died wife of a landgrave of Thuringia in 1235. But
respecting Elizabeth, the wife of king Charles Robert, we know from
the information of Hungarian writers[970], that in her will she
really did mention two breviaries, one of which she bequeathed to
her daughter-in-law, and the other to one Clara von Pukur, with this
stipulation, however, that after her death it should belong to a
monastery at Buda. It is not impossible, therefore, that one of these
books may have come into the hands of Podacather’s ancestors.
I must however confess, that respecting this pretended invention of
the Hungarian queen I have doubts; it may be readily conjectured that
this Elizabeth must have been extremely vain; but when she wished to
make posterity believe that in the seventieth, or seventy-second year
of her age she became so sound and so beautiful that a king, at that
time a widower, grew enamoured of her, we may justly conclude that she
was more than vain--that she was perhaps childish. I have taken the
trouble to search for the king, then a widower, who paid his addresses
to Elizabeth, but my labour has proved fruitless. This proposal of
marriage must have been made about the year 1370; but Casimir III.,
brother of the Hungarian Elizabeth, reigned in Poland till that year,
and was succeeded by her son Louis, who died after her in 1382; and the
throne then remained vacant for three years.
It is rather singular that the name of aqua-vitæ, and the practice
of distilling spirit of wine upon aromatic herbs, should be known in
Hungary so early as the fourteenth century, though I will not pretend
to affirm the contrary. But I consider it as more remarkable that the
botanists of the seventeenth century should have spoken of and extolled
the various properties of rosemary without mentioning Hungary water. It
cannot however be denied, that in the sixteenth century, long before
Prevot, Zapata[971], an Italian physician, taught the method of
preparing rosemary-water: and he has even told us that it was known,
though imperfectly, to Arnoldus de Villa Nova; but he does not say
that it was an Hungarian invention. It appears to me most probable, at
present, that the name _l’eau de la reine d’Hongrie_, was chosen by
those who in later times prepared rosemary-water for sale, in order
to give greater consequence and credit to their commodity; as various
medicines, some years ago, were extolled in the gazettes under the
title of Pompadour, though the celebrated lady from whose name they
derived their importance, certainly neither ever saw them nor used them.