FROM THE OLD CAPITAL TO THE NEW
“... Where kings have first been girt with Stephen’s sword,
Have first worn Stephen’s crown.”
_From the Magyar_
The scenery of the Danube as we reach the Hungarian frontier has taken
on a new beauty, for there is, as it were, a natural boundary to the
ancient kingdom where a spur of the Little Carpathians comes down to
the left bank of the river, while a lower range of hills on the right
marks off the Vienna valley that we have left from the far larger one
on which we soon enter. At the point where the castled foot of the
Little Carpathians is washed by the mingling waters of the March (the
Morava of old) and the Danube, we have, however, for a brief space, a
return to something like the lofty and rocky scenery of which we have
seen so much in the higher reaches of the great river. On the height
above the point where the two rivers join are castle ruins scarcely
distinguishable from the jagged spurs of the rock itself. These are the
remains of an important fortress castle of old, which was blown up by
the French in the year of the Battle of Wagram, the ancient castle of
Dévény (Theben).[12]
Just beyond is the steamer landing place for the little town of the
same name. It is a point well worth pausing at for the exploring of the
extensive but greatly battered ruins, and for the walk inland among
the hills, especially to the summit of the Thebener Kogel, from which
a grand view of the course of the two rivers, and of the extensive
Marchfeld is to be obtained, with on the right, near the right bank
of the March, the Schlosshof, at one time the residence of Prince
Eugène, one of the most celebrated generals of his age. The view from
the ruins themselves, though less extensive, is even more delightful
with its nearer prospect of the river, in which the castled cone of
Hainburg forms an important feature. With Hainburg thus near, and
Deutsch-Altenburg with its memories of imperial Rome, but a little
beyond, with the great battleground of the Marchfeld stretching below
us to the west, and Pozsony (Pressburg), few miles further down-stream
Dévény (Theben) is a centre of manifold interests as it is certainly a
point of great beauty. Then, too, it makes something of a sentimental
appeal as being the gateway to the ancient kingdom of Hungary.
The name of Dévény has been fancifully derived from Devoyna or Dovina,
“the name of a goddess who was worshipped with honours similar to those
offered to the Roman Venus,” by some early race of Slavonic barbarians,
and that race is supposed to have had a temple on this height. In the
ninth century the Moravian empire is believed to have extended as far
as this, and the founder of that empire to have had a castle here.
These traditions of history, too, have their companion tradition of
romance, for a tragic love story is associated with the ruins.
The story runs that in the once-upon-a-time, a lord of Dévény (Theben)
had fallen in love with a beautiful Carinthian maiden named Bertha,
and had won her, but one day when he was away hunting he was apprised
that a warlike abbot was carrying the lady off to a convent. The lover
pursued the party, recovered the fair Bertha, and bore her back to
his castle. Arrangements for the nuptials in the chapel were promptly
made, and the ceremony just completed when a clash of arms was heard,
and the enraged abbot and the lady’s uncle broke into the place with
so strongly armed a force that the lord’s retainers were overcome
in the panic that ensued. The new-made husband and wife sought the
shelter of the small Nuns’ Tower on a precipitous spur of rock over the
swiftly flowing river. Thither the storming abbot and his followers
pursued them, and the irate man was about to seize his prey when the
lovers, clasped in each other’s arms, threw themselves into the river
below--“and when he looked over the frightful precipice it was only to
behold the flash and ripple of the wave as it received and closed over
his victims--Albert of Theben and his devoted bride.”
Leaving the boldly perched ruins, surmounted now by a slender column,
raised as a memorial of the millenary celebration of the foundation of
the Hungarian kingdom, we pass between the rocky spur of the Little
Carpathians, and the lesser hills of the right bank, and in about
five or six miles come to where the country opens out into one of the
wide Hungarian plains. On our right stands boldly on a hill, nearly
three hundred feet above the river, the great quadrangular mass of
the Castle of Pozsony (Pressburg), and at its foot the ancient city
of the same name--one of the largest towns in Hungary. In itself, for
its history and on account of the many delightful excursions that may
be made from it, Pozsony (Pressburg), is one of the places at which
those journeying by river from Vienna to Budapest, should certainly
“stop-over,” to use the expressive Westernism.
Apart from the ruined castle--destroyed by fire in 1811, according to
one story by Italian soldiers, tired of carrying wood and water up the
hill!--which is chiefly impressive for its size and for its four-square
mass only broken by square towers at each angle, the glimpse of the
town which we get from the river is in no way specially attractive.
There are some places that can best be seen as it were in a picturesque
summary from a point of vantage, places that we remember as “views,”
but the ancient capital of Hungary is not one of them. It is necessary
to have wandered about its narrow and tortuous streets, to have gone
into by-ways that are but flights of steps, affording peeps into quaint
old houses on one side, and views over roofs on the other, to have
visited some of the old buildings, to have become impressed with the
grand panorama from the castle hill, to have wandered about the hilly
suburbs, the gardens, orchards, and vineyards, and above all, perhaps,
to have made one of the lively crowd on market day in the long and
irregular Markt Platz--all this is necessary to awaken that pleasant
feeling which makes us remember a place with a lively desire of going
there again.
If Pozsony (Pressburg) has lost something of its dignity since Budapest
became the capital of the kingdom, it has a splendid past--and that
it is not content to dream about that past, but has taken on modern
activity, is shown by the number of factories established in its
neighbourhood. It is, however, justly proud of its history. Twice has
it been the means of establishing the Habsburg dynasty on the Austrian
throne, though, as Godkin puts it in his “History of Hungary,” “it was
the eagle lending his plume to wing the arrow that was to drink his own
life-blood.”
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, POZSONY]
The Franciscan church--in the centre of the old town, near the
Rathaus--was built in 1272 by Kún Ladislas IV. in memory of the fact
that it had been his aid which, four years earlier, had enabled Rudolph
of Habsburg to defeat Ottokar of Bohemia at the Battle of Marchfeld;
so that Hungary had its share in founding the dynasty. Then in 1741,
when things seemed to have come to a bad pass with the Empress Maria
Theresa, with enemies threatening on all sides, she boldly appealed to
the well-known loyalty of the Hungarians, and summoned the Diet to meet
her at the capital. The response was immediate, and the meeting which
was at once convened, took place on 11 September, in the Castle of
Pozsony (Pressburg).
Here, clad in deep mourning, with the crown of St. Stephen on her
head, attended by a solemn retinue of the ladies and officers of her
household, and holding in her arms her infant son (afterwards Joseph
II.), Maria Theresa addressed the assembled orders of the state in
Latin, to the following effect: “Deserted by my friends, persecuted by
my enemies, attacked by my nearest relations, my last resource is in
your loyalty, your courage, and in my own unshrinking constancy. The
time has arrived when the faithful hearts and hereditary prowess of
Hungary are to bear testimony before the eyes of the world. A crisis
is at hand, when the sword must either be drawn in defence of your
sovereign, or in support of her insulting enemies. But in the hearts of
brave men, I have a resource in the worst emergencies; I have therefore
chosen this hour to place in your hands the son and daughter of your
sovereign, who in their extremity look to you for protection.” This
simple appeal is said to have met with an instant response--those
present drawing their swords and shouting, “Vitam et sanguinem!
Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa!”
The whole country was roused; eighty thousand of the “whiskered
Pandoors and the fierce hussars” gathered to the aid of their queen,
and the tide of Fortune was turned.
This hailing of Maria Theresa as “king” has been ascribed by some
writers to the Hungarian appreciation of the heroism of the queen, but
it seems rather to have been in accordance with the Magyar tradition,
for when King Louis the Saint died leaving no son, his daughter Maria,
out of respect for her father, was acclaimed by the people sovereign,
“but as if to mark the exceptional character of the arrangement, they
insisted that she should assume the title of King, and affix to all
public documents the signature _Maria Rex_.”
The dress, arms, and ferocity of the Hungarian soldiery are said to
have struck terror into the disciplined armies of France and Germany.
A contemporary writer said, “when the Hungarian nobility took the
field for their _King_ Maria Theresa, the first sight of such troops
struck the French army with a panic. They had, indeed, often seen
detachments of these “Diables d’Hongrie,” as they used to call them;
but a whole army drawn up in battle array, unpowdered from the general
to the common soldier, half their faces covered with long whiskers, a
sort of round beaver on their heads instead of hats, without ruffles
or frills to their shirts, and without feathers, all clad in rough
skins, monstrous crooked sabres, ready drawn and uplifted, their eyes
darting flashes of rage sharper than the beams of their naked sabres,
was a sight our men had not been accustomed to see. Our oldest officers
still remember the impression these terrible troops made, and how
difficult it was to make the men stand against them, till they had been
accustomed to their formidable appearance.”
Near the Danube side of the Coronation Hill “Platz” is a grand
equestrian statue of Maria Theresa, with a hussar on one side of the
horse, and a Hungarian noble on the other. This beautiful piece of
sculpture, by John Fadruoz, which was erected in 1897, is simply and
eloquently inscribed, “Vitam et sanguinem.”
Pozsony (Pressburg) was not only, until 1848, the meeting place of
the Hungarian Diet, but its cathedral was also the crowning place of
the Hungarian kings, who after the ceremony rode on to the Coronation
Hill by the Danube, and there took the oath of fidelity to the nation,
drawing the sword of St. Stephen, and turning to the four points of
the compass, making the sign of the Cross with it, and saying, “I will
defend my country, wherever it may be attacked, with this sword which
the nation has given into my hands.”
The town no longer sees these sights, for it was deemed advisable to
have the capital further away from the frontier, and so the seat of
government was removed to Budapest; and it was there that the present
Emperor of Austria was crowned king of Hungary in 1867. But if we
cannot have the spectacle of the king thus publicly taking the oath
of fidelity to his country at the ancient seat of government--and the
breaking with such traditions has consequences which those responsible
can scarcely gauge--we can visit the old cathedral where the actual
coronation took place, and can picture for ourselves within that
building something of the scenic splendour once visible there.
Here it may be said that it is a curious fact that, as it is at the
first Hungarian town that we reach on journeying down the Danube we
thus come in touch with the story of the crown of St. Stephen, so we
come in touch with it again when we reach the last town before the
river passes from Hungary to Rumania.
To happen, as I did, on my first visit upon a busy market day in
Pozsony (Pressburg) is to participate in a scene of animation about
which one is tempted to linger. At the top of the irregular market
place stand a number of long narrow wagons with basketwork sides, laden
with vegetables and drawn by large buff-coloured bullocks. Passing into
the crowd of peasants and townsfolk, we see wares displayed on stalls
or spread over the ground in a glorious confusion of colour. Roughly,
the sellers of commodities seem to classify themselves. At one side of
the “Platz” are the sellers of bread in many forms, in another part
are to be seen rows of boot and shoe sellers, dealers in drapery and
haberdashery. Glancing up a court we may notice a buxom peasant woman
trying on a pair of high leather boots reaching above the knees. A
little beyond are the dealers in fruit and vegetables; great mounds
of dark green melons, like large cannon balls, are piled up, and here
and there one that has been cut or broken reveals the beautifully
contrasting purplish red of the flesh within; broad baskets or tubs
tilted to one side show masses of paprika, the national condiment, a
delicate red pepper the rare savour of which some visitors fail to
recognize. All round are peasants who have brought in their wares,
sometimes of the slightest, that they may make something if it be but
a few fillers by the transactions; sometimes the wares consist of but
a few handfuls of half-ripe beans of various kinds, sometimes of three
or four dozen tomatoes, good, bad, or indifferent. From the vegetables,
past the vendors of herbs and of flowers, cut and in pots, we come to
rows of women selling butter and cream and cheese, and beyond them are
stalls after stalls at which ready cooked geese and ducks are being
sold whole or by the half or quarter bird, and beyond these again
are the butchers’ booths. At the lower end of the market place live
geese and fowls are being disposed of, while under the acacias that
surround a statue sits a circle of women each of whom has spread upon
the ground by her little heaps of various fungi unknown to English
culinary art--“toadstools” of all shapes and sizes and colours. These
fungi-sellers are a noticeable feature of many of the markets that
we visit, but here and at Ratisbon they seemed more numerous than
elsewhere. The whole scene is perhaps typical of many of the markets
that may be visited, but it was the busiest of those which I happened
to see. One is struck by the absence of any marked characteristics of
local costume--the various coloured head kerchiefs are much the same as
those to be found in places far apart as Bohemia and northern Spain,
two dominant notes of colour being “butchers’ blue” in the women’s
gowns, and a warm yellow-brown in the kerchief. Of striking costume but
little is to be seen unless the visitor penetrates further from the
river highway, or unless he happens upon some special festival.
Though Pozsony (Pressburg) is the second important town in Hungary and
the old capital, its closeness to the frontier makes it less peculiarly
Magyar in character than towns further inland, and a large proportion
of its eighty thousand inhabitants are German. There are, too, judging
by one or two of the streets, many Jews in the town, and the fact
is further emphasized by the large, new (and ugly) synagogue near
the cathedral. The cathedral itself is primarily interesting for its
historical association, but its pyramid-topped tower, dating from Roman
times and surmounted by the Hungarian crown, is worthy of notice.
One story that is told of a siege of the ancient capital is worth
recalling as it suggests a similar incident in a Scots ballad. When
King Andrew the First was on the throne in the eleventh century,
his kingdom was threatened by Henry the Third, who entered Hungary
at the head of a large army and laid vigorous siege to Pozsony
maintaining a strict blockade on every side in the hope of starving the
inhabitants into submission. As the attack was wholly unexpected and
the townspeople therefore unprepared, it looked as if the invaders’
expectation might be realized. But while their force was unable to
manage the opening of a passage on the river, their stratagem and the
bravery of one man effected it. In the silence of the night a skilful
swimmer named Zothmund dropped quietly from the wall into the river and
swimming round the enemy’s vessels, bored holes in their sides below
the water mark, and before the morning the majority of them were sunk,
in spite of all the efforts of their crews, so the Emperor was forced
to raise the siege. This is very like the exploit of the cabin-boy of
“Ye Gowden Vanitie” who volunteered to sink a “French gallie, as she
sailed to the lowlands low.”
Long connected with the south side of the river by such a bridge of
boats as was the common means of communication across the Danube,
Pozsony has for some years had an iron bridge which serves for both
road and railway. It communicates with the woodland Au-Park, which
forms a favourite recreation ground for the townsfolk.
Passing under this bridge, the steamer starts upon a long stretch of
country marked by the sameness of tree-grown banks and islets, with
for many miles little to vary a certain monotony beyond the passing of
quaint water-mills, moored singly or in groups of as many as a dozen,
now in midstream and now close to the bank. These mills consist of a
small wooden house on one boat, with a large water wheel, the lower
part submerged, connecting it with another boat. On the shore are
frequent little granaries not much larger than the floating mills, both
being common objects of the Danube for many miles. Before we reach
them, however, it should be pointed out that arms of the river branch
off left and right a little below Pozsony and do not rejoin the main
stream for a long distance. That on the left forms the Csallóköz island
or Grosse Schütt--a rich agricultural island nearly sixty miles long,
more than thirty wide at its broadest part, and having scattered about
it nearly a hundred villages. The right branch of the Danube, which
rejoins earlier, forms the Kleine Schütt. These villages are, however,
but infrequently glimpsed from the steamer as the island shores along
the main stream are broken up into innumerable islets.
Here we are at one of the shallowest parts of the great river’s course,
and exposed banks are not infrequent when the water is low, while
the steamer has to pick its channel now close to the right bank and
then close to the left--especially as we pass some of the rapids. The
islands are said to be rich in wildfowl--which it is easy to believe
when we have seen between Pozsony (Pressburg) and Esztergom (Gran)
flocks of many hundreds of wild duck.
The first stopping place in the river’s long winding through this plain
is Körtvélyes--the steamer station for Somorja (Sommerein), the chief
town on the greater island; the next is Bös or Böös, a mere landing
place, the town which it serves lying two or three miles inland.
Passing the little-varying green banks, broken into islets, with a rare
spire seen at a distance over the trees, or an occasional peasant with
a small herd of cattle, we reach the end of the smaller of the islands
where the river Raba or Raab (with which the Danube branch has united)
comes in on the right. The town of the same name, once the frontier
town between the Turkish and German empires, is a few miles up that
stream--and then, on the same flat and unattractive bank, we reach
Gönyö from which local steamers run up to Györ (Raab), an interesting
old town, described as peculiarly Hungarian, on the site of the Roman
station of Arabona, now an important manufacturing centre with more
than forty thousand inhabitants.
The next place is Komárom (Komorn) a place with about twenty thousand
inhabitants, which, though it does not look particularly picturesque
from the river, has a long history, as a town that has withstood many
sieges. It is now connected with the south bank by an iron bridge
about 440 yards long, and is an important military centre owing to its
situation at the extreme eastern end of the Csallóköz Island (Grosse
Schütt) where the left arm of the Danube united with the river Vág
rejoins the main stream. The town, largely hidden by the long Elizabeth
Island, round the narrow eastern end of which we turn to approach the
landing place, is strongly fortified and has the reputation of never
having been successfully besieged, despite the many times that it has
been attacked. The boast of its impregnability is typified in the
statue of a virgin placed on the ramparts of the newer fortifications
with the inscription “Nec arte, nec Marte.” An older form of the boast
took the shape of a female figure in one of the streets, inscribed
with a pun upon the town’s name “Kom-morn” or “come to-morrow.” The
tradition is that when summoned to capitulate the scornful reply of the
defenders was “Komme-morgen,” which an anonymous versifier rendered
thus--
“The walls are manned, the gates are strong,
Advance ye sons of plunder--
They come! The siege is fierce and long,
And loud the rival thunder!
‘Yield!’ cries the foe--but still in scorn,
Though seemingly in sorrow--
Their answer was--‘Who wins Komorn
Must call again to-morrow!’”
Komárom (Komorn) was one of the principal points of the War of
Hungarian Independence. Near it a big battle was fought and won by
the Hungarian leader, Görgy, and the Austrians were again defeated at
the town by General Klapka less than a month later. During this war,
indeed, the place justified its boast of impregnability, for General
Klapka not only held it against all assaults but only surrendered
the town--and then with all the honours of war--when the cause which
he represented was known to have failed. In 1866, when Vienna was
threatened by the Germans, the Austrians remembered the place that had
stood out so strongly nearly twenty years earlier, and the national
treasury was removed thither from Vienna. A statue of Klapka was
fittingly erected some years ago.
But this town, strong in its pride as a place of strategical importance
in the time of war, has something else that it may boast of, for here
was born on 19 February, 1825, the great Hungarian romancer Maurus
Jókai--the novelist to whom, more than any other English readers owe
such knowledge as they possess of his country and of the character
of his compatriots. Komárom (Komorn) will be regarded as one of the
chief literary shrines of Hungary, as being the place of Jókai’s
birth and upbringing, for his reputation became not only national but
international, and we look with new interest on the town to which his
fame first belongs.
A Hungarian critic, writing in 1898, said of Maurus Jókai: “The
number of his works is very great, and although over fifty years have
elapsed since the appearance of his first novel (in 1846), he is still
enriching Hungarian and European literature with ever new works. Nearly
everything has changed in Hungary during the last forty years; but
the love and admiration for the genius of Jókai has never suffered
diminution. In his chequered life there is not a blot, and in his long
career there is not a single dark spot. Pure, manly, upright as a
patriot, faithful and loving as a husband, loyal as a subject, kind as
a patron, indefatigable as a worker, and, highest of all, a true friend
both to men, fatherland and literature, he has given his nation not
only great literary works to gladden and enlighten them, but also a
sterling example of Magyar virtue and Magyar honour.”
Opposite to Kómarom (Komorn) is the small town of Szöny, with remains
indicating a past of some importance in the distant days when it was
the Brigetio of the Roman occupation. Leaving the low-lying place of
many fortifications--mostly hidden from sight as we journey along the
river--with its pleasant river-side promenade, the trees of which
successfully mask the walls, we soon find ourselves approaching low
hills on the right, which promise that the tedious sameness of this
part of the journey is about to be varied, and among which half a dozen
miles inland is the beautiful Lake Tata with the towns of Tata and
Tóváros and their interesting surroundings, but they lie too far from
the river for our present purpose. As we near the rounded hills, the
northern portion of the Tata Mountains, some of the marble quarries
for which the district is remarkable are to be seen, while a long row
of handsome poplars near the shore is a striking feature. At Nezmély
(Nesmühl) we reach one of the famous centres of Hungarian wine-growing.
Here the river offers a broad expanse of water though far ahead loom
the mountains that are once more to narrow its course, and nearer still
over the trees on the left bank is to be seen a lofty, domed building.
The winding course of the river soon shows that this Italianate
building is really situated on a high bluff on the right bank. It is
the cathedral of Esztergom (Gran) which has been more than once spoken
of as one of the most beautiful achievements of modern architecture.
It is only appropriate that it should form so striking an object as we
near it, for the town is the ecclesiastical centre of the kingdom of
Hungary. It was the Archbishop Rudnay who re-established the primacy at
Esztergom (Gran) in the early part of the nineteenth century and who is
responsible for the magnificent cathedral, which he designed to rival
St. Peter’s at Rome, and which, commenced in 1821, was completed in
1870.
Yet another appropriate reason for this town’s possessing the finest
church in Hungary is to be found in the fact that it was here that St.
Stephen, the first Christian king and patron saint of the land, was
born, and that it was here that he founded an archbishopric in the year
1000.
Esztergom (Gran) was at one time a favourite residence of the kings of
Hungary--a magnificent “Calvary” that once belonged to King Matthias
Corvinus is shown in the cathedral treasury--but its history also goes
back to Roman times, when it was known as Strigonium. On the opposite
side of the river--with which it is connected by an iron bridge of over
550 yards--is Párkány and a little beyond, also on the left side, the
river Garam (Gran) flows into the Danube. The river winds considerably
during the next few miles, and looking back, the magnificent cathedral
that we have just passed shows even more strikingly picturesque than
as it is approached down-stream--especially when seen against a
gorgeous crimson sunset sky. The hills draw together and the scenery
once more becomes variedly beautiful. The heights on the left form the
termination of out-lying ranges from the Carpathian Mountains. Ahead,
the hills seem too close together to afford any passage for the river,
which turns abruptly southwards and sweeping round the point doubles
into a northerly and then an easterly direction. It is a wonderfully
beautiful bit of the journey--the most beautiful between Vienna and
Budapest--all the way from Esztergom (Gran) to Vácz (Waitzen). Rounding
the point past Dömös, prettily situated among trees on the right, we
see ahead of us the ruin-topped height of Visegrád--rich in historical
associations. The steamer stops on the left bank at Nagy-Maros (Gross
Maros) and looking around at the grandly beautiful scenery, we feel
that this district is most justly a favourite holiday resort of the
people of Budapest.
This portion of the river alone, made an English traveller of over
sixty years ago declare that the scenery of the Danube “partakes
much of the nature of the Rhine, only infinitely superior, from the
far greater volume and majesty of its own vast stream, and the more
imposing and bolder forms of its rocky banks.”
Nagy-Maros is pleasantly situated, but it owes its chief attraction to
the great rocky hill of Visegrád on the further side of the river. Here
was an ancient palace of the kings of Hungary, a palace celebrated for
its splendour and for the magnificent gardens which one of the monarchs
laid out on the mountain-side.
Of this one-time splendid centre of Hungarian Court life in the
reign of King Louis (who died in 1382), the late E. L. Godkin in his
“History of Hungary,” said: “The Magyar historians love to dwell
upon the glories of his reign, and above all upon the splendour of
his palace of Visegrád, in which he fixed his residence during the
greater part of his life. They tell, with pardonable pride, of its vast
extent, which could afford ample accommodation for two kings and many
minor princes, with all their suites; of its three hundred and fifty
chambers, furnished in a style of dazzling splendour; of its gardens
stocked with the rarest exotics, and cooled by the rush of flowing
water; of the soft and voluptuous music which every evening, from one
of the highest towers, soothed or delighted the courtly guests, and
floating on the breeze, cheered the peasant as he ‘plodded his weary
way’ homeward; and the neighbouring mountains crowned with wood and
studded with pleasant villas and rustic churches; of the pleasant and
shady alleys that sloped away to the Danube’s edge, and afforded calm
contentment to him who chose to escape for a season from the gaieties
of the palace.”
[Illustration: GRAN]
Now, however, the splendid palace is but a group of scattered ruins,
and the rocky slopes are largely covered with trees. From the “high
fortress”--for such is the significance of its Magyar name--to a
ruined tower on a rock by the river, runs a ruined wall reminiscent of
Dürrenstein.
It was by King Matthias Corvinus in the latter part of the fifteenth
century--one of the greatest of Hungarian monarchs--that Visegrád was
largely made the magnificent summer palace of the rulers, but it had
been a royal residence for centuries earlier and in the tower near
the river--known as Solomon’s tower--King Solomon was kept a prisoner
by his usurping cousin Ladislas during the early part of the twelfth
century. It is said that Solomon owed his release to a miracle; for
when the ceremonies for the canonization of King Stephen were being
arranged, it was found that no human efforts could remove a great
stone from the entrance to Stephen’s tomb. A certain virgin, named
Charis, informed Ladislas that the stone could not be moved owing to
the imprisonment of Solomon! The prisoner was released, and lo! the
stone was moved with ease, and the canonization of St. Stephen properly
carried out. When the triumphing Turks in the time of Solyman the
Magnificent, about 1526, after having annihilated the Hungarian army
at Mohacs, overran the country, the royal castle was given over to
destruction and plunder:--
“How still, how lonely--not a sound
Disturbs the deep repose
That wraps within one dreary mound
The Magyar and his foes.
Here sabres clashed and banners flashed,
And high the crescent flew,
As through the gap the Moslem dashed
With shouts of ‘Allah hu!’”
Visegrád did not survive this visitation of “the terrible Turk,” but
having been dismantled was left for time to beautify, and now it
remains one of the most impressive of Danubian ruins--impressive from
its grand situation and as offering to the sturdy climber a magnificent
view.
A gruesome tragedy is said to have taken place in this old castle in
1336, when King Charles was on the throne. That monarch had married
a Polish princess, whose brother Casimir, visiting Visegrád, fell in
love with a beautiful girl named Clara Zacs. His affection was not
returned, and his passion was such that the outraged girl had to flee
with her story to the Count, her father. Count Zacs sought Casimir,
only to find that he had fled, and rushing into the chamber at which
the royal family were at dinner attacked the queen--whom he believed
to have aided her brother--with a sabre cutting the fingers off her
right hand. The king, who sought to defend the queen, was wounded, when
three nobles, rushing in, fell upon the maddened Count Zacs and cut him
to pieces. The royal vengeance was by no means satisfied, but seemed
to increase by what it fed on; the unhappy girl was compelled to walk
through the town having her nose, lips, and fingers cut off, to the cry
of: “This is the punishment of traitors!” while her brother was dragged
through the town at the tail of a horse until he died. Other members of
the Zacs family only saved themselves by fleeing the country.
One traveller declared that he could have filled a volume with half
of the legends told him of Visegrád, on the spot! In these more
matter-of-fact days, my inquiries gathered accounts only of the
former grandeur of the place as a royal residence, and the story of
King Solomon’s imprisonment in the tower still known by his name. The
massive hill with its rocks showing through the trees, its summit
ruins, and its town grouped at the foot, is probably more picturesque
than in the distant days when the castle was occupied by kings, and the
mountain-side was largely given over to gardens.
Shortly after we leave Visegrád, the Danube forks at the end of the
long serpentine island of St. Andreas, only to be reunited about
eighteen miles farther on as we near the capital. The steamer follows
the left branch and calls at Vácz (Waitzen) where the river takes a
definite southern turn, and continues in that direction for about three
hundred miles. The hills have fallen away from the river again, though
they show as a background to Vácz (Waitzen) which stretches along the
left bank, its eighteenth century cathedral and prison being prominent
buildings. This is an old town which was so entirely destroyed by the
Tartars in 1141-42 that it had to be refounded and recolonized, partly
by the king Bela IV., inviting German settlers.
Below Vácz (Waitzen) the river flows between St. Andreas island on the
right and the low land on the left, with no special features to take
the eye or hold the interest until Budapest itself comes in sight.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Throughout Hungary the visitor is struck by the duality of
nomenclature in places, streets, etc., (the Donau becomes the Duna
in Magyar) and it has seemed best to avoid any confusion as much as
possible, by giving first the national name of a place and then in
parenthesis the Germanized name imposed since the period of Austrian
domination.