THE HUNGARIAN CAPITAL
“Buda and Pesth,
Where Hope soared high or dwindled in despair
As Cross and Crescent alternating flew,
An ancient race has quickened with new life.”
_From the Magyar_
The immediate approach to Budapest by river is distinctly and
remarkably impressive. Ahead on the right are seen the heights of the
Gellert Hill and of the nearer one on which the royal palace stands,
while as we pass under the Margaret Bridge we get a striking view of
what is surely one of the most beautiful groups of Parliament buildings
in the world. Coming down-stream to Vienna it is only after we have
got a certain degree of intimacy with it that we begin to do justice
to its fascination. Budapest captures from the outset. Nor are first
impressions of delight diminished on fuller acquaintance--for the place
grows on us.
And apart from all other natural and civic beauties, those portions of
the city along the Danube banks by themselves offer the most varied
attractions. We may sit outside an hotel in the morning and see the
wonderful effect of light and shade on the splendid royal palace,
rising above terraced gardens on the hill on the further side of the
river, on the massy Gellert Hill (or Blocksberg) to the left, and over
the many buildings at the foot of the Castle Hill, while away to the
right rises the beautiful spire of St. Matthias’ church. We may wander
along the quayside and inspect closely the long barges with their tiny
houses, their high-perched steersman’s shelter, their little “gardens”
of flowers; we may see the long roofed-in barges with high, curved,
carven prows, that look like the foreparts of some ancient galleys;
we may watch a throng of busy men, half naked and a rich brown with
exposure, bringing up great measures of grain from the barges to be
put in sacks, weighed, and loaded on wagons on the quayside; we may
idly scan the incessant little paddle steamers fussing to and fro with
passengers who prefer this method of crossing the river to making use
of one of the various handsome bridges that span the Danube.
At sunset the view of the west side of the river against the coloured
heavens takes on new beauty--comparable only in my experience with a
sunset behind the Mala Strana, and Hradcany at Prague, as seen from the
right bank of the Ultava. And again at night the wonderful sky-line
of buildings and hills with myriad specks of light between it and the
river forms another attraction. Cross the river and look down from the
Castle Hill, from the bastion behind St. Matthias’ church, or other
point of vantage, and the scene is newly impressive, where beyond the
broad river lies the newer of the twinned towns spreading far over the
plain, from which the dome and towers of St. Stephen’s cathedral, the
many spires of the Parliament House, and other prominent buildings,
stand out with special distinction.
A magnificent site for a great city has indeed been finely utilized at
this point of the Danube, where three towns have been joined to make
the kingdom’s capital. It is less than forty years ago that Buda and
O-Buda on the right bank and Pest on the left were formed into a civic
whole; and their names combined in one, so that we can no longer say
with our old traveller, “Pest is the representative of modern reforms,
modern ideas, modern architecture, as Buda, on its height, of old
aristocratic stateliness and ancient times,” but we may still echo him
when he says that “the two form a panoramic whole which will scarcely
find its match in the world.”
The progress Budapest has made within the memory of men still
middle-aged is extraordinary. Wandering about its broad streets and
squares, its “Ring” streets, and promenades, we are struck again and
again, not so much by the old buildings, but by the grandeur and
boldness of the new. It bids fair to become a city of palaces--palaces
of art and education, palaces of business and industry. Here I am
not concerned with the many handsome edifices, the museums and art
galleries, but rather with suggesting something of the whole, with
telling something of only some of the places, details of which belong
to guide-book summaries, and something of the story of the place which,
after being the station of a Roman legion, came to be a residence of
the kings of Hungary; then was for a century and a half in the hands
of alien conquerors, and within living memory has become the residence
of the king of the Hungarians, the seat of the Parliament and the Law
Courts, and a commercial centre of great and ever-growing importance.
Buda (Ofen) on the right bank, is the oldest part of the great city.
It was near here that the only Roman legion stationed in the province
of Lower Pannonia had its headquarters; the ancient place as revealed
by excavation may be visited, and a small museum of relics seen at
Aquincum, a short distance to the north of O-Buda (Alt-Ofen). But of
the Roman times there is little to be learnt. Hungarian history may be
said to begin with the conquests of Arpád, who in battle overcame the
various princes then occupying different tracts of the territory--all
but Zalán, prince of the long strip of country between the Danube and
the Tisza, which includes Pest.
What Arpád could not take by force he captured by a trick, for the
story runs that after he had failed to defeat Zalán, he sent him rich
presents of horses, camels, and slaves, asking only in return a piece
of grass from his country, as he wanted to see if the grass was as
green as that in Asia, and some water from the Danube, as he wished to
find if it was as sweet as that from the Don. Zalán received the envoys
well, accepted the rich gifts, and returned the small acknowledgments
requested, only to be told that the grass and the water represented
all the land along the Danube, which he accepted in return for his
presents. Thus towards the close of the ninth century began the rule
of the Arpád dynasty that continued to rule in Hungary for about four
hundred years.
Except in paintings and sculpture we must not look for any reminders of
this distant past in the Budapest of to-day. The church of St. Matthias
which was begun in the mid part of the thirteenth century by King Béla
IV. contains some ancient tombs, but the remaining links with the
Arpáds are few.
It was this King Béla, too, who first built a royal palace at Buda,
but the present simple and impressive mass of buildings--since much
enlarged and restored--only dates from the reign of Maria Theresa.
Here is preserved the old Hungarian regalia--the crown of St. Stephen,
orb, sceptre, etc.--of the romantic adventures of which we learn
something some hundreds of miles further down the Danube, as we near
the Rumanian frontier. The regalia, which is preserved with special
care, always guarded by soldiers, and not shown to visitors, was used
when Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, was crowned King of Hungary
in St. Matthias’ church in 1867. After the crowning he carried out on
the Eskuter on the Pest bank, the ceremony of waving the sword to the
four quarters, and repeating the time-honoured oath which the kings of
the country had hitherto sworn at Poszony (Pressburg).
To the south of the Palace rises the great mass of St. Gellert’s
Hill (Blocksberg) with the ancient citadel. Nearly four hundred feet
above the Danube, from the side and summit of this hill are to be had
magnificent views, not only over the city outspread below, but also
far over the adjacent plain and along the noble river from which the
hill abruptly rises. On the hillside overlooking the town, is a statue
of the sainted bishop Gellert, who, having been the first bringer of
Christianity to the land, was martyred at Buda in the year 1046.
Nearly two hundred years after the martyrdom of Gellert, King Béla IV.,
builder of the palace and of St. Matthias’ church, found his unhappy
country overrun by devastating hordes of Tartars. He sought assistance
from neighbouring states in vain, and his own nobles were with him
debating what should be done when the terrible news came: “Sire, you
and our country are lost. The Tartars have defeated our forces and
are quickly approaching.” The king called to him one of his friends,
and giving him the crown of St. Stephen and other national treasures,
begged him to take them to a place of safety out of the country, and
then drawing his sword said, “The fate of the nation is in the hands
of God, but its honour is in mine. Those who wish to die with glory
for their country, let them follow me--but those who wish to live in
disgrace can remain at home!” There was ready response to the brave
appeal, but it came too late.
Place after place was burnt by the advancing hordes, “and the flames
of the burning towns and villages were already to be seen from Pest.”
King Béla with a force of six thousand men sought, but unavailingly, to
stop the invaders. The king and such of his followers as survived had
to seek shelter in caves and in the mountains.
Meanwhile, Pest and other places were destroyed and the people
slaughtered wherever the Tartars passed. At length domestic affairs
recalled the invaders, and the Hungarian king encouraged the remnant of
his people to build their towns, and return to their farms, inviting
German immigrants to come and settle in the land.
Nearly twenty years later when another Tartar invasion was threatened,
the brave monarch found more prompt assistance, and pushed forward to
the Carpathians before the Mongolians could reach the plain. This time
the Hungarians won so signal a victory that the enemy, after losing it
is said upwards of fifty thousand men, fled back to the East. Looking
down on the magnificent city now, it is difficult to realize that
distant past, or the past of three hundred years later when the Turks,
after long and heroic struggles--after the national Hungarian hero,
Hunyadi Janos, had defeated them in ten pitched battles--at length
overcame the Hungarians and captured Buda.
For nearly a century and a half--a period in which the country was in a
state of perpetual change with rival or usurping rulers--Buda was the
centre of an important pashalik; the crescent flew over the castle,
and the church of St. Matthias became a mosque. A relic of the Turkish
occupation is to be seen in the small octagonal Turkish chapel over the
grave of a holy Mohammedan, Sheikh Gül-Baba, in Buda. When the treaty
of Karlowitz was signed in 1699, it was specifically undertaken that
this monument should be properly preserved, and thus it is that, more
than two centuries after the last pasha was driven out of Buda, the
visitor may still see there a Turkish shrine, may still visit baths
reminding him of the day when there was a slave market in the town and
the ruling pasha had his harem on the Margaret’s Island in mid-Danube.
The Turkish occupation was disputed again and again, and Buda was
often, but unsuccessfully, besieged. It was in 1686 that that
occupation came to an end, when the Duke of Lorraine, in command of an
army said to have been made up of German, French, English and Spanish
as well as Hungarian soldiers, stormed this formidable height and took
the powerful citadel. The struggle on which so much depended--the
capture of Buda meant the expulsion of the Turks from the kingdom--has
been summarized thus:--
“Pressed on all sides by the Austrian force, the Turks now craved a
suspension of arms, and sent an aga to wait upon Lorraine for that
purpose. But the Duke coolly replied, ‘I have but one duty to perform;
namely to conduct the war, now declared against the Sultan your master;
I will therefore make it my business to attack your general wherever
I can meet him. In the meantime, I will despatch your letter to the
emperor, who will acquaint you with his pleasure.’ Surprised at this
answer, the aga employed every means to shake the Duke’s resolution,
and endeavoured to make interest with the officers of his staff. But
the only reply was, ‘Such is the Duke’s pleasure, and his mind once
made up, no power on earth can turn him aside.’
“Carrying back to the Vizier this stern and uncompromising answer, the
aga re-entered the fortress of Buda. A scene of hurried preparation
and fearful suspense ensued. The storm was gathering fast around the
devoted fortress, and the thunder at last bursting with redoubled fury
on its walls, a breach was speedily effected--the Turks fought with
desperation; and retreating from bastion to bastion, poured their
deadly shot into the serried ranks of the besiegers. But imitating the
example of their intrepid commanders, the Christian host surmounted
every danger. Before sunset they took possession of those castled
heights, and hoisted the Austrian banner on the tower of the old Gothic
church, which still consecrates the spot, and points to the fearful
scene of massacre which followed.” The pasha in command is said to have
been killed “fighting in the breach with a Roman bravery.” Thereafter
it is recorded the Turks were hunted through the Alföld plain like deer.
When Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was journeying through Hungary, thirty
years later than that recapture of Buda, she said that nothing could
be more melancholy than “to reflect on the former flourishing state of
that kingdom, and to see such a noble spot of earth almost uninhabited.
Such are also the present circumstances of Buda, once the royal seat
of the Hungarian kings whose palace there was reckoned one of the most
beautiful buildings of the age, now wholly destroyed, no part of the
town having been repaired since the last siege but the fortifications
and the castle which is the present seat of the governor-general.”
Presumably, by the castle, Lady Mary meant the citadel on St. Gellert’s
Hill, the key to the possession of the town. From this hill, as has
been said, we get one of the most impressive views of Budapest,
though the extensive vineyards, which used to clothe the neighbouring
slopes and form a notable item in the prospect, have been destroyed
by phylloxera. It was from this hill, says the tradition, that Etzel
“hurled his offending brother into the Danube.”
Possibly it is the dim influence of that tradition, outweighing for a
time that of the martyred bishop, which has given rise to another one
that I find recorded only by Dr. Beattie, in whose words I chiefly
give it. The sanctity of the spot, according to the authority of
the people of the neighbourhood, has not protected it from being an
occasional rendezvous for evil spirits! During the awful inundation
of 1838, the summit of St. Gellert’s Hill was crowded with these
unhallowed visitors, and such was their mirth and revelry, whilst from
their commanding point they looked down on the perishing city, that
peals of fiendish laughter bore testimony to the pleasure with which
they viewed the destruction of our race. Afterwards, too--although we
do not vouch for the truth of so weighty a charge--it appeared that
various astronomical instruments belonging to the observatory had
been turned to diabolical purposes; for the first visitor who made
use of the glasses after the fiendish appearances, could see nor sun,
nor moon, nor stars as hitherto--but in place thereof, he beheld a
dance of witches, with Prince Beelzebub at their head--and what was
unspeakably worse, with a near and dear earthly relative of his own,
acting as chief partner to his Satanic Majesty. Frantic at the sight
he shouted out, “Holy St. Gellert! Is that my own wife?” No reply--but
down dropped the glass from his hand, and, happily for the sight
of others, was broken in pieces! He rushed home; and there, at the
hearth-side, sat his wife, rocking their baby in its cradle. But, as he
very shrewdly observed, she was greatly flurried and disconcerted. He
was, fortunately, a learned man, and having read that edifying author
“Adolphus Scribonius de Purgatione Sagarum, etc.,” he remembered that
this philosopher lays it down as an indisputable fact that witches
weigh infinitely less than other persons; for, says he, “the devil is
a spirit and subtle being, and penetrateth so thoroughly the bodies of
his votaries, as to make them quite rare and light.” Now, this thought
no sooner struck him than the experimental astronomer resolved to put
the matter to the test, and seizing his wife with both arms, he threw
her up almost to the ceiling, and might indeed have done so, it is
said, with but three fingers, for in fact, despite her apparent bulk,
she did not weigh four ounces! If ever philosopher had just cause
to run mad, Herr Reisenschloss undoubtedly had. To the glory of his
favourite author his experiment had been only too perfectly successful.
When he looked at his wife, the sleeping baby in the cradle, and all
the home surroundings, he became quite frantic, rushed out of the
house, ravingly related his frightful story to a sympathizing friend,
and subsequently found refuge in a public hospital. Afterwards it
became a favourite maxim, says the grave historian in the neighbourhood
of the hill, that husbands should never consult the stars too
closely on “St. Gellert’s Eve.” It is a story which, for its proper
presentation, like an earlier one recorded, calls for the genius of a
Thomas Ingoldsby.
Reference at the beginning of this fearsome tale to the inundation of
1838 seems to call for fuller mention. The Pest side of the river is a
plain, and in the spring of that year--the Danube having been covered
with ice over three feet thick--when the break-up began the country
was flooded in a disastrous fashion. At the first menace a breakwater
of earth and timber six feet high was thrown up on the river-side all
along the town front, but--
“Lo, upon a silent hour,
When the pitch of frost subsides,
Danube with a shout of power
Loosens his imprisoned tides:
Wide around the frighted plains
Shake to hear his riven chains,
Dreadfuller than heaven in wrath,
As he makes himself a path:
High leap the ice-cracks, towering pile
Floes to bergs, and giant peers
Wrestle on a drifted isle;
Island on ice-island rears;
Dissolution battles fast,
Big the senseless Titans loom,
Through a mist of common doom
Striving which shall die the last.”[13]
Meredith might, when writing his poem, have remembered the awful
episode of 1838. When the ice broke, the water dashed through the
improvised embankment, until within a few hours it was twenty-seven
feet deep in some parts of the city. Street after street, building
after building collapsed, until, when the waters went down and the
damage could be estimated, it was said that a thousand lives have been
lost and over two thousand houses entirely destroyed. Indeed, out of
4255 houses but 1147 were left intact.
“The day of horror, the acme of misery, was 15 March. Pest will
probably never number in her annals so dark a day again--she might
perhaps not be able to survive such another--the maddened river as
that day dawned, rioted in ruin; and many looked upwards to the clear
cold sky, and wondered whether the Almighty promise was forgotten.
Thousands of men, women and children, homeless, houseless, hopeless
beings, clinging to life, when they had lost nearly all that made
life a blessing; parents and children, and sisters and lovers--the
young helpless in their first weakness and the old trembling in their
last--the strong man whose weapon was stricken from his hand by a
power against which the strongest contends in vain; the philosopher
who in all his abstraction had found no preparation for so hideous a
death as this; the mother whose hope had withered as her babe died
upon her bosom, who clung to life rather from instinct than volition;
the fond, the beautiful, the delicately nurtured--all were huddled
together during that fearful day, upon the narrow spaces scattered over
the town and suburbs, which the water had not yet reached. And, as it
wore by, every half-hour added to the devastation around them; houses
and buildings which had survived the first shock, seemed to have been
preserved only to add to the horrors of that day. Many of them fell and
perished from roof to base; others became rent by the heavy dashings
of the waters, and through the yawning apertures the wasting tide
poured in and ruined all it touched; while, to add to the confusion,
in some quarters of the city the heavy barges, which had been procured
to remove the sufferers from their threatened houses, broke loose, and
went driving onward through the streets on the crests of the foaming
waters.”
Many of the nobles and other inhabitants devoted themselves to the
succouring of their fellows, and a memorial of such service is to be
seen on a wall in the Kossuth Lajos Ut, where there is a fine tablet
in relief depicting Baron Nicholas Wesselényi engaged as boatman in
rescuing sufferers from almost submerged houses.
So great was the devastation that we may well marvel over the energy
and determination of the people who set about rebuilding the place.
Indeed, it was said when the new Pest began to rise where the old had
been ruined that, but for the terrible loss of life, the disaster was
a blessing in disguise, so boldly was the new town planned, so solidly
were the new buildings designed. Since then it may be hoped that the
improvements of the Danube for navigation have also had the effect of
greatly reducing the chance of any repetition of such a visitation.
Certainly it is difficult to realize any such disaster in connexion
with the far-spreading city on which we look down from any of the
heights on the western side of the river.
And it is the river that inevitably draws one; the river to which this
strangely fascinating city owes no small measure of its fascination.
Even when we have been up and down its broad streets, and its “Rings”;
have visited the fine museums; have inspected some of the many
statues--Budapest bids fair to become known as a city of beautiful
sculpture--have wandered about the attractive Városliget or public
park, it is as though we were insensibly drawn back to the Danube; to
the lovely park-like Margaret’s Island; to the fashionable promenade
along the left bank, where for a time in the afternoon it is as though
everybody in the place walked up and down; to the quays to watch the
ever-attractive operations of lading and unlading the barges, the
arrival or departure of the up and down river steamers or the busy
traffic of the bridge.
Here, too, as has been suggested, are to be seen some of the finest
buildings of a city remarkable for such. Notably, first of all, the
beautiful Parliament House, which remains in memory as a wonderful
range of spired buildings with something of the delicacy of lace-work;
the substantial Renaissance Academy; and such palatial offices as the
great Gresham building named after the English merchant prince. “To
name them all would need” if not a thousand tongues, the small type and
concision of a guide book. The handsome bridges form a notable feature
of the Budapest Danube--in which respect the river here contrasts
strongly with the portion of it that flows past Vienna--and the first
of them to be built, the Lánczhid or suspension bridge, is worthy of
note as being one of the longest of its kind in Europe, (1227 feet) and
as having been constructed (1839-49) by an English engineer, William
Tierney Clark. It will be recognized that this bridge was begun the
very year after the terrible inundation. Its stability has been proved
by its withstanding “the shocks of masses of ice, the repeated charges
of an attacking army, and the tumultuous crowding of a retreating
force”; it is even further said to have resisted the attempts of
military engineers to destroy it by gunpowder. This, presumably, was
in the War of Independence at the time when it had only just been
completed at a cost of over six hundred thousand pounds.
[Illustration: THE PALACE, BUDAPEST]
The engineer’s choice of a point for his bridge proved to be exactly
the same as that selected centuries earlier, for while the workmen were
engaged in digging for the foundations of the new bridge they came upon
the remains of a solid stone wall, the existence of which was very
puzzling until it was discovered on searching the national records that
on the very same spot the erection of a bridge had been commenced in
the reign of Matthias Corvinus. It, or the old bridge of boats which
it superseded, was the scene of a grim tragedy at the outbreak of
that war--a tragedy which made the war inevitable--for Count Lamberg
having been appointed by the Emperor of Austria as Commander-in-Chief
of the Hungarian troops, the Diet refused to recognize the nomination,
declaring all who should obey him to be guilty of high treason, and
when he arrived at Pest, while crossing the bridge he was dragged from
his carriage by the infuriated populace and killed.
Unlike Clark’s bridge and the later Francis Joseph bridge which crosses
to the foot of St. Gellert’s Hill, both of which are supported on two
piers in the stream, the graceful Elizabeth bridge, which spans the
river between them, does so in a single span from bank to bank. The
Margaret’s bridge is singular in that from its centre a branch bridge
connects it with the southern end of the island from which it takes its
name.
Less crowded, less superficially animated than Vienna, the Hungarian
capital delights some visitors far more--though in regard to animation,
if we go along the Francis Joseph Quay during the promenade hour, or
along the Andrassy Street in the evening, when the cafés are at their
busiest, then Budapest may compare in that regard, too, with the
Austrian capital. The visitor perhaps feels more at home among the
Hungarians than in the social cosmopolis, and that even though some
travellers have declared that in Budapest we first touch the Orient.
The comparison perhaps becomes the more inevitable in that Vienna is
the last great city at which we stay before Budapest, perhaps also
because we have here the case of the two capitals under one crown.
There is a feeling of hospitality about Budapest which is increased and
fixed by the cordial reception accorded by the people with whom we come
in touch. Mr. Arthur Symons, who has, as it were, made a study of the
psychology of cities declares that at Budapest “coming from Austria,
you seem, since you have left Vienna, to have crossed more than a
frontier. You are in another world, in which people live with a more
vivid and a quite incalculable life: the East has begun.” In his brief
account of Budapest he gives a suggestive summary of the impression
of that river-side promenade which, as I have said, is one of the
abiding memories of the fascinating city: “To the stranger Budapest
hardly exists beyond the Ferencz-Josef Rampart along the river, which
has at all hours an operatic air, as of something hastily got up for
your pleasure, and with immense success. Well-dressed people walk to
and fro upon this cheerful boulevard, with its trees, cafés and flags;
little trams run smoothly along it between you and the water, with a
continual, not unpleasant agitation; steamers pass on the river. At
sunset every point of the abrupt hill opposite is detailed in sharp
silhouette against a glowing sky, out of which the colour is about to
fade; the whole uninteresting outline of the palace, seen under this
illumination, becomes beautiful. Lights begin to star the two hills,
the hill of the citadel and the hill of the palace, sparkling out of
the darkness like glow-worms; lights come out along the bridge and
strike the water like gold swords. Some charm is in the air, and a
scarcely definable sense of pleasure, which makes one glad to be there.
One has suddenly been released from the broad spaces, empty heights,
and tiring movements of Vienna, in which, to the stranger, there is
only the mechanical part of gaiety and only the pretentious part of
seriousness. Here, in Budapest, it is delightful to be a stranger; it
is as if a door had been thrown open, and one found oneself at home
with bright strangers. Idleness becomes active; there is no need for
thought, and no inclination to think beyond the passing moment.”[14]
Those closing sentences sum up, in so far as it can be summed up, much
of the impression that we bear away with us from Budapest. Though,
perhaps, Mr. Symons somewhat too narrowly limits the impressions to
those that remain of the Danube-side promenade, along with it one’s
memory dwells upon the views from the right or Buda bank; upon the
broad streets; upon the beautiful horses, which in every thoroughfare
remind us again and again of the equine display in our Hyde Park
drive when society in the season takes its airing; upon the palatial
buildings and upon the delightful Városliget (People’s Park).
Those who know anything of the heroic tragedy that makes up much of
the history of Hungary, should not fail to visit the extensive and
well laid out cemetery (Kerepesi Köztemetö) with its memorials of
the illustrious dead. There is the handsome Kossuth Mausoleum in
which was buried in 1894 the remains of one of the chief leaders of
the revolution. Louis Kossuth, who died in exile at the great age of
ninety-two, had refused to accept the Compromise of 1866, from which
his country may be said to date its renaissance, and never returned to
Hungary after the tragic failure of the War of Independence. His stern
republicanism--possibly, too, his defeated ambition, for there are not
wanting critics of the man memorials to whom are to be seen in every
town--could allow of no compromise with the Habsburg dynasty.
Some of his fellows were more far-sighted, and among them Francis
Déak, who, no less sincere in his patriotism, worked untiringly at
home as a simple citizen to bring about the welfare of his country by
peaceful methods, rather than by any further appeal to the arbitrament
of arms. Though much blamed for his share in the Compromise, Déak may
be regarded as one of the chief agents of the renaissance. When at
the time of the coronation of Francis Joseph as king of Hungary, it
was proposed that Déak should accept a high position, he replied with
a simple dignity that “It was beyond the king’s power to give him
anything but a clasp of the hand.”
The Déak Mausoleum stands not far away from that of the fellow-worker
who, though with like aims, would have chosen other methods than his
for their attainment. Not far from the Kossuth memorial, too, is that
of Count Louis Batthány, another of the leaders of the revolution and
first constitutional Prime Minister of Hungary.
It is not surprising to find when we talk to an enthusiastic
Hungarian--and the spirit of the country, so far as a visitor can
judge, seems worthy of the patriots just named--to hear in many words
what the Bostonian put pithily when he declared that his town was the
hub of the universe. On the first night of my first visit to Budapest
I happened upon one of these enthusiasts. He told me (and after
disclaiming any regard for mere patriotic sentiment) that Budapest
is without exception the most beautiful of all the great capitals of
Europe; the city with the loveliest river front; the city in which all
great improvements in civic amenities had been tested. Where, he asked,
was the first road-tunnel made? Where were arc-lamps first used as
street illuminants? Where was the first electric underground railway
run? Where was the conduit system for electric tramways first employed?
And in every instance he triumphantly answered his own queries with
the same syllables--in Budapest. Where, he went on, could be seen such
luxurious cafés? Where such magnificent stone-built business premises?
And he paused triumphantly where, though it was near midnight, great
insurance offices were being built--men and women labourers busily
engaged by artificial light--to point out that it was all “stone upon
stone.”
FOOTNOTES:
[13] George Meredith, “The Nuptials of Attila.”
[14] “Cities,” by Arthur Symons.