THE EMPEROR JOSEPH II. THE NATIONAL REACTION AND THE NAPOLEONIC WARS.
The royal crown of Hungary has ever been, from the time it encircled
the brow of St. Stephen, an object of jealous solicitude and almost
superstitious veneration with the nation. It continued to loom up as
a luminous and rallying point in the midst of the vicissitudes and
stirring events of the history of the country, during all the centuries
that followed the coronation of the first king. The people looked
upon it as a hallowed relic, the glorious bequest of a long line of
generations past and gone, and as the symbol and embodiment of the
unity of the state. The different countries composing Hungary were
known under the collective name of the _Lands of the Sacred Crown_,
and, at the period when the privileged nobility was still enjoying
exceptional immunities, each noble styled himself _membrum sacræ
coronæ_, a member of the sacred crown. In the estimation of the people
it had ceased to be a religious symbol, and had become a cherished
national and political memorial, to which the followers of every creed
and all the classes without distinction might equally do homage. Nor
was the crown an every-day ornament to be displayed by royalty on
solemn occasions of pageant. The king wore it only once in his life, on
the day of his coronation, when he was bound solemnly to swear fidelity
to the constitution, before the high dignitaries of the state, first
in church, and to repeat afterwards in the open air his vow to govern
the country within the limits of the law. Thus in Hungary it has ever
been the ancient custom, prevailing to this day, that, on the king’s
accession to the throne, it is he who, on his coronation, takes the
oath of fidelity to his people, instead of the latter swearing fealty
to the king. The right of succession to the throne is hereditary, but
the lawful rule of the king begins with the ceremony of coronation
only. It requires this ceremonial, which to this day is characterized
by the attributes of mediæval pomp and splendor, to render the acts of
the ruler valid and binding upon the people; without it every public
act of such ruler is a usurpation.
During eight centuries all the kings and queens, without exception,
had been eager to place the crown on their heads, in order to come
into the full possession of their regal privileges. Joseph II., Maria
Theresa’s son, who succeeded his mother in 1780, was the first king who
refused to be crowned. He felt a reluctance to swear fidelity to the
constitution, and to promise, by a solemn oath, to govern the country
in accordance with its ancient usages and laws. The people, therefore,
never called him their crowned king; he was either styled emperor
by them, or nicknamed the “_kalapos_” (hatted) king. His reign was
but a series of illegal and unconstitutional acts, and a succession
of bitter and envenomed struggles between the nation and her ruler.
The contest finally ended with Joseph’s defeat. He retracted on his
deathbed all his arbitrary measures, and conceded to the people the
tardy restoration of their ancient constitution. The conflict, however,
had left deep traces in the minds of his Hungarian subjects. It roused
them from the dormant state into which they had been lulled by the
gentle and maternal absolutism of Maria Theresa. Thus Joseph’s schemes
not only failed, but, in their effects, they were destined to bring
about the triumph of ideas, fraught with important consequences, such
as he had hardly anticipated. The nation, waking from her lethargy,
gave more prominence than ever to the idea of nationality, an idea
which, as time advanced, increased in potency and intensity.
Yet this ruler, who on ascending the throne disregarded all
constitutional obligations and waged a relentless war against the
Hungarian nationality, must be, nevertheless, ranked amongst the
noblest characters of his century. Thoroughly imbued with the
enlightened views of the eighteenth century, and those new ideas which
had triumphed in the war of independence across the ocean, he was
ever in pursuit of generous and exalted aims. He sincerely desired
the welfare of the people, and in engaging in this fruitless conflict
he was by no means actuated by sinister intentions or by a despotic
disposition. To introduce reforms, called for by the spirit of the age,
into the Church, the schools, and every department of his government,
was the lofty task he had imposed upon himself. A champion of the
oppressed, he freed the human conscience from its mediæval fetters,
granted equal rights to the persecuted creeds, protected the enslaved
peasantry against their arbitrary masters, and enlarged the liberty
of the press. He endeavored to establish order and honesty in every
branch of the public service, being mindful, at the same time, of
all the agencies affecting the prosperity of the people. In a word,
his remarkable genius embraced every province of human action where
progress, reforms, and ameliorations were desirable.
[Illustration: HUNGARIAN PORTER.]
Unhappily for his own peace of mind and for the destinies of the nation
he was called upon to rule, he committed a fatal error in the selection
of the methods for accomplishing his humane and philanthropic objects.
He desired to render Hungary happy, yet he excluded the nation from
the direction of her own affairs. He wished to enact salutary laws,
yet he reigned as an absolute monarch, unwilling to call the Diet to
his aid in the great work of reformation, ignoring and disdaining
the constitution and laws of the country. He was impolitic enough to
attack a constitution which, thanks to the devotion of the people, had
withstood the shock of seven centuries. He was unwise enough to suppose
that the people, in whose hearts the love of their ancient constitution
had taken deep root, for the defence of which rivers of blood had been
shed, could be prevailed upon to relinquish it to satisfy a theory of
royalty. The old political organization was eminently an outgrowth of
the Hungarian nationality, and all classes of the people, including
the very peasantry to whom the ancient constitution meant only
oppression, clung to it with devoted fervor. The people were as anxious
for reforms as Joseph himself, but they wanted them by lawful methods,
and with the co-operation of the nation and their Diet. Joseph might
have become the regenerator and benefactor of Hungary if he had availed
himself, for the realization of his grand objects, of the national and
lawful channels which lay ready to his hand. But he, unfortunately,
preferred attempting to achieve his purpose out of the plenitude of his
own power, by imperial edicts and arbitrary measures, thus conjuring up
a storm against himself which well-nigh shook his throne, and plunging
the nation into a wild ferment of passion bordering on revolution.
The people presented a solid phalanx against Joseph’s attacks upon
their nationality and language, which to them were objects dearer than
every thing else. They little cared for the emperor’s well-intentioned
endeavors to make them prosperous and happy as long as he asked, in
exchange, for the relinquishment of their nationality. And this, above
all, was his most ardent wish. He wanted Hungary to be Hungarian no
more, and wished its people to cast off the distinctive marks of their
individuality, and to adopt the German language, instead of their own,
in the schools, the public administration, and in judicial proceedings.
In a word, he made German the official language of the country, and was
bent on forcing it upon the people.
Henceforth every reform coming from Joseph became hateful to the
people. The oppressed classes themselves spurned relief which
involved the sacrifice of their sweet mother-tongue. By proclaiming
equal rights and equal subjection to the burdens of the state, he
arrayed the privileged classes against his person. The Protestants
and the peasantry, who had hailed him in the beginning as their new
Messiah, and fondly saw in his innovations the dawn of brighter
days, also turned from him as soon as he attacked them in what they
prized even more than liberty and justice. It was not long before
the whole country, without distinction of class, social standing, or
creed, combined to set at naught the Germanizing efforts of Joseph.
The hard-fought struggle roused the people, hitherto divided by
antagonisms of class and creed, to a sense of national solidarity. It
was during the critical days of these constitutional conflicts that the
foundations of the modern homogeneousness of the Hungarian nation and
society were laid down.
The privileged classes looked upon Joseph, on his advent to the
throne, with distrust. They foresaw that he would not allow himself
to be crowned, in order to avoid taking the oath of fidelity to the
constitution of Hungary. The first measures of his reign concerned the
organization of the various churches of the country. He extended the
religious freedom of the Protestant Church. By virtue of the apostolic
rights of the Hungarian kings, he introduced signal reforms into the
Catholic Church, especially regarding the education of the clergy,
which proved, in part, exceedingly salutary. He abolished numerous
religious orders, especially those which were not engaged either
in teaching or nursing the sick. One hundred and forty monasteries
and nunneries were closed by him in Hungary. The ample property of
these convents he employed for ecclesiastical and public purposes and
for the advancement of instruction. He exerted himself strenuously
and successfully in the establishment of public schools and in the
interest of popular education. He removed the only university of
which the country could then boast from Buda to Pesth, a city which
was rapidly increasing, and added a theological department to that
seat of learning. All these innovations met with the approval of the
enlightened elements of the nation, whilst the privileged classes and
the clergy opposed them with sullen discontent. The opposition was all
the more successful, as the emperor had contrived to insult the moral
susceptibilities of the common people by some of his measures. Thus,
with a view to economizing the boards required for coffins, he ordered
the dead to be sewed up in sacks, and to be buried in this apparel.
This uncalled-for meddling with the prejudices of the lower classes
had the effect of creating a great indignation among them, and of
driving them into the camp of the opposition. Trifling and thoughtless
measures of a similar nature impaired the credit of the most salutary
innovations. The people looked with suspicion at every change, and,
heedless of the lofty endeavors of the emperor, everybody, including
the officials themselves, rejected the entire governmental system of
Joseph.
The emperor also wounded the national feeling of piety by his action
concerning the crown he had spurned. According to ancient custom and
law the sacred crown was kept in safety in Presburg, in a building
provided for that purpose. In 1784 the emperor ordered the crown to be
removed to Vienna, in order to be placed there in the royal treasury
side by side with the crowns of his other lands. The nation revolted
at this profanation of their hallowed relic, and the highest official
authorities, throughout the land, protested against a measure which,
while it created such widespread ill feeling, was not justified by any
necessity. A dreadful storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, was
raging when the crown was removed to Vienna, and the people saw in this
a sign that nature herself rebelled against the sacrilege committed by
the emperor. The counties continued to urge the return of the crown
in addresses which were sometimes humbly suppliant in their tone and
sometimes threatening, but Joseph did not yield either to supplications
or menaces.
[Illustration: SLOVAK WOMAN AND CHILDREN.]
When the edict, which made German the official language of the country,
was published, the minds of men all over the country were already
greatly disturbed. It is true, that hitherto the Latin and not the
Hungarian language had been the medium of communication employed by the
state. But the national spirit and the native tongue, which during the
first seventy years of the eighteenth century had sadly degenerated,
were awakening to new life during Joseph’s reign. The literature of
the country began to be assiduously cultivated in different spheres.
Royal body-guards belonging to distinguished families, gentlemen of
refinement, clergymen of modest position, and other sons of the native
soil labored with equal zeal and enthusiasm to foster their cherished
mother-tongue. It would, therefore, have been an easy matter for Joseph
to replace the Latin language, which had become an anachronism, by the
Hungarian, and thus to restore the latter to its natural and legal
position in the state. He was perfectly right in ridding the country of
the mastery of a dead tongue, but he committed a most fatal error in
trying to substitute for it the German, an error which avenged itself
most bitterly. Joseph entertained a special antipathy to the Hungarian
tongue, a dislike which betrayed him into omitting the teaching of the
native language from the course of public instruction, and refusing
to allow an academy of sciences to be established which had its
cultivation for its object.
The emperor’s attack upon the language of the nation irremediably
broke the last tie between him and the country, and, henceforth, the
relations between them could be only hostile. The counties assumed
a threatening attitude, some of them refusing obedience altogether.
Thus most of them declined to give their official co-operation to
the army officers who had been delegated by the emperor to take the
census. The count, nevertheless, proceeded, but in many places the
inhabitants escaped to the woods, and in some there were serious riots
in consequence of the opposition to the commissioners of the census.
A rising of a different character took place amongst the Wallachs.
The Wallachs, smarting under abuses of long standing, buoyed up by
exaggerated expectations consequent upon the emperor’s innovations,
and stirred up by evil-minded agitators, took to arms and perpetrated
the most outrageous atrocities against their Hungarian landlords. The
ignorant common people were assured by their leaders, Hora and Kloska,
that the emperor himself sided with them. The Wallach insurgents
assassinated the government’s commissioners sent to them, destroyed 60
villages and 182 gentlemen’s mansions, and killed 4,000 Hungarians,
before they could be checked in their bloody work. Although they were
finally crushed and punished, a strong belief prevailed in the country
that the court of Vienna had been privy to the Wallach rising.
Joseph subsequently laid down most humane rules regulating the
relations between the bondmen and their landlords. But the country
could not be appeased by any boon, especially as the high protective
tariff, just then established for the benefit of the Austrian
provinces, was seriously damaging the prosperity of the people.
Joseph’s foreign policy tended to increase the domestic disaffection.
In 1788 he declared war against Turkey, but the campaign turned out
unsuccessful, and nearly terminated with the emperor’s capture. The
nation, emboldened by his defeat, urged now more emphatically her
demands, and requested the emperor to annul his illegal edicts, to
submit to be crowned, and to restore the ancient constitution. Joseph
continuing to resist her demands, most of the counties refused to
contribute in aid of the war either money or produce. In addition
to their recalcitrant attitude, they most energetically pressed the
emperor to convoke the Diet at Buda, a few counties going even so far
as to insist upon the Chief Justice’s convoking it, if the emperor
failed to do so before May, 1790.
The courage of the nation rose still higher when the news of the
revolution in France and the revolt in Belgium reached the country.
The people refused to furnish recruits and military aid, and the
emperor was compelled to use violence in order to obtain either. The
counties remained firm and continued to remonstrate in addresses
characterized by sharp and energetic language. Joseph yielded at last.
He was prostrated by a grave illness, and feeling his end approaching
he wished to die in peace with the exasperated nation he had so deeply
wounded. On the 28th of January, 1790, he retracted all his illegal
edicts, excepting those that had reference to religious toleration, the
peasantry, and the clergy, and re-established the ancient constitution
of the country. Soon after he sent back the crown to Buda, where its
return was celebrated with great pomp, amidst the enthusiastic shouts
of the people. Before he could yet convoke the Diet death terminated
the emperor’s career on the 20th of February. The world lost in him
a great and noble-minded man and a friend to humanity, who, however,
had been unable to realize all his lofty intentions. The effect of his
reign was to rouse Hungary from the apathy into which it had sunk,
and at the time of Joseph’s death, the minds of the people were a
prey to an excitement no less feverish than that which had seized
revolutionary France at the same period.
But while in Paris democracy was victorious over royalty, the latter
had to yield in Hungary to the privileged nobility. The restored
constitution was a charter of political privileges for the nobles
only, and as such was most jealously guarded by them. This class kept
a strict watch over the liberal tendencies of the age, preventing the
importation of democratic ideas from France from fear of harm to their
exclusive immunities.
Joseph was succeeded by his brother, Leopold II., who until now had
been Grand Duke of Tuscany. The new ruler was as enlightened as his
predecessor, and had as much the welfare of the people at heart; but
he respected, at the same time, the laws and the constitution. He
immediately convoked the Diet in order to be crowned, and by this
act he solemnly sealed the peace with the nation. The people hailed
with joy this first step of their new king, and there was nothing in
the way of their now obtaining lawfully from the good-will of the
king the salutary legislation which Joseph had attempted to force
arbitrarily upon them. But the fond hopes in this direction were
doomed to disappointment. The national movement had not helped to
power those who were in favor of progress, equality of rights, and
democracy. No doubt there were people in the country who differed from
the men in authority, who were sincerely attached to the doctrines
of the French Revolution and eager to supplant the privileges of the
nobles by the broader rights belonging to all humanity. The national
literature was in the hands of men of this class. They combated the
reactionary spirit of the nobility, and contended for the recognition
of the civil and political rights of by far the largest portion of
the people, the non-nobles. They boldly and with generous enthusiasm
wielded the pen in defence of those noble ideas, and indoctrinated
the people with them as much as the restraints placed upon the press
allowed it at that period. They succeeded in obtaining recruits for
their ideas from the very ranks of the privileged classes, and many an
enlightened magnate admitted that the time had arrived for modernizing
the constitution of Hungary by an extension of political rights.
Their number was swelled also by the more intelligent portion of the
inhabitants of the cities, and those educated patriotic people who,
although no gentle blood flowed in their veins, had either obtained
office under Joseph’s reign or had imbibed the political views of that
monarch. But all of these men combined formed but an insignificant
fraction of the people compared to the numerous nobility, who, after
their enforced submission during ten years, were eager to turn to the
advantage of their own class the victory they had achieved over Joseph.
During the initial preparations for the elections to the Diet, and
in the course of the elections, sentiments were publicly uttered and
obtained a majority in the county assemblies, which caused a feverish
commotion amongst the common people and the peasantry. The latter
especially now eagerly clung to innovations introduced by the Emperor
Joseph, so beneficial as regarded their own class, and were reluctant
to submit to the restoration of the former arbitrary landlord system.
Their remonstrances were answered by the counties to the effect that
Providence had willed it so that some men should be kings, others
nobles, and others again bondmen. Such cruel reasoning failed to
satisfy the aggrieved peasantry. Symptoms of a dangerous revolutionary
spirit showed themselves throughout a large portion of the country, and
an outbreak could be prevented only by the timely assurance, on the
part of the counties, that the matter would be submitted to the Diet
about to assemble.
The Diet, which had not been convened for twenty-five years, opened in
Buda in the beginning of June, 1790. The coronation soon took place.
Fifty years had elapsed since the last similar pageant had been enacted
in Hungary. After a lengthy and vehement contest extending over ten
months, in the course of which the Diet was removed from Buda to
Presburg, the laws of 1790-1791, which form part of the fundamental
articles of the Hungarian constitution, were finally passed. By
them the independence of Hungary as a state obtained the fullest
recognition. The laws, which were the result of the co-operation of
the crown and the Estates, declared that Hungary was an independent
country, subject to no other country, possessing her own constitution
by which alone she was to be governed. Important concessions were also
made to the rights of the citizens of the country. The privileges of
the nobility were left intact, but the extreme wing of the reactionary
nobles had to rest satisfied with this acquiescence in the former state
of things, and were not allowed to push the narrow-minded measures
advocated by them. The majority of the Diet was influenced in their
wise moderation, partly by the exalted views of the king, and to a
greater extent yet by the disaffected spirit rife amongst the people,
and especially threatening amongst the Serb population of the country.
The laws secured the liberties of the Protestant and the Greek united
churches, remedied the most urgent griefs of the peasantry, and
declared those who were not noble capable of holding minor offices.
Although the most important measures of reform were put off to a future
time by the diet of 1790-1791, several preparatory royal commissions
having been appointed for their consideration, yet the work it
accomplished was the salutary beginning of a liberal legislation which
culminated, not quite sixty years later, in the declaration of the
equal rights of the people as the basis of the Hungarian commonwealth.
After the meeting of this Diet, however, very little was done in the
direction of reforms. The good work was interrupted, partly by the
premature death of Leopold II. (March 1, 1792), and partly by the
warlike period, extending over twenty-five years, which, in Hungary
as throughout all Europe, claimed public attention, and diverted the
minds of the leaders of the nation from domestic topics. Francis I.,
the son and successor of Leopold II., caused himself to be crowned in
due form, and much was at first hoped from his reign. But the Jacobin
rule of terror in Paris, and the dread of seeing the revolutionary
scenes repeated in his own realm, wrought a complete change in his
character and policy. He soon stubbornly rejected every innovation,
and gradually became a pillar of strength for the European reaction,
that extravagant conservatism which expected to efface the effects of
the French Revolution by an unquestioning adherence to the old and
traditional order of things. This illiberal spirit of the monarch
rendered impossible for the time any further reform-movement in
Hungary. Every question of desirable change met with the most obstinate
opposition on the part of the king, and the reforms submitted by the
royal commissions were considered by every successive Diet without ever
becoming law. The period which now followed was gloomy in the extreme,
as well for Hungary as for the Austrian provinces of Francis I. The
inhabitants of these countries were constantly called upon by the king
in the course of the wars to make sacrifices in treasure and blood,
by furnishing recruits and by paying high taxes. At the same time the
government resorted to the most absolute and arbitrary measures to
prevent the people from being contaminated with French ideas. The press
was crushed by severe penalties. Every enlightened idea was banished
from the schools and expunged from the school-books. Only men, for
whose extreme reactionary spirit the police could vouch, were appointed
to the professorships or to other offices. A system of universal spying
and secret information caused everybody to be suspected and to suffer
from private vindictiveness, whilst those who dared to avow liberal
views were the objects of cruel persecution.
The numerically few but staunch adherents of democracy, being thus
debarred from openly laboring for their views, endeavored to accomplish
their purposes by secret combinations. A secret society was formed in
Pesth, the centre of the political life of the country. This league of
Hungarian Jacobins had but a confused idea of its own aims, and of the
means of achieving them. They produce, at this distance of time, the
impression of an organization, indulging in crude, exaggerated, and
even thoughtless visions, but theirs, nevertheless, is the credit of
having been the first society of the kind in the country, and of thus
furnishing a link in the political development of the public spirit in
Hungary. Although the members of the league were unable to secure any
tangible results, yet they deserve a place in the national history as
the first martyrs of universal freedom and human rights in Hungary, for
they forfeited their lives or suffered long imprisonments for the holy
cause. The movement was originally planned by Ignatius Martinovics,
a learned abbot who entered into relations with the Jacobins abroad,
first with those of Paris, and afterwards with their sympathizers in
Germany and Austria. With the assistance of these he intended to bring
about a republic of Hungary, and to establish there the doctrines of
equality and liberty. He organized for that purpose a secret society
in Pesth, after the pattern of the masonic societies, which were then
flourishing throughout the country. There were in point of fact two
distinct associations, one called _the reformers_, the other styled
_the friends of liberty and equality_. The former knew nothing of
the designs of the latter, whilst these, occupying a higher rank,
were fully initiated into the secrets of the reformers. The aim of
both alike was to insure the triumph of the principles of the French
Revolution. The members recognized each other by secret signs, and used
in their correspondence a cipher devised for the purpose. Martinovics’
scheme was to hoist the revolutionary flag as soon as the increased
number of members in both societies might render such a step advisable.
Meanwhile the sole business of the members consisted in spreading among
the people a catechism conceived in a revolutionary spirit.
Martinovics commenced the organization of the secret society in the
spring of 1794. He was assisted in his work by John Laczkovics,
formerly a captain in the army, Joseph Hajnóczi, an ex-_alispán_
(vicecomes or deputy sheriff of a county), and Francis Szentmarjay, a
young man of distinction, who were all zealously engaged in recruiting
members for the new association. Among the latter, however, but few
knew of Martinovics’ ultimate object, or of his French connections.
Most of them thought that it was his intention to secure the
introduction of reforms by lawful means. As to the secret character of
the society, they looked upon it as a concession to the fashion of the
period, introduced by the freemasons. During the eighteenth century
a real mania for secrecy of this kind prevailed all over Europe,
and secret societies sprang up in every quarter for purposes which,
if publicly proclaimed, would have met with no opposition whatever.
The society of the Hungarian Jacobins did not owe its existence to
subversionary tendencies, but to that eagerness for reforms which
never ceased to agitate the nation. With the exception of a dozen
unreflecting men who dreamt of overthrowing the Hungarian monarchy
with the aid of the French, the rank and file were entirely composed
of men who believed in reforms achieved by lawful methods. The leaders
themselves, Martinovics, Hajnóczi, and Laczkovics, had filled important
offices under the Emperor Joseph, and had subsequently supported King
Leopold in his efforts at reform. If Leopold had lived, every one of
them would have borne a conspicuous part in public affairs. But the
triumph of the reactionary spirit under the reign of King Francis made
them conspirators. Those of their friends who joined them were all
honest and enthusiastic patriots, who saw in the success of democratic
ideas the welfare of Hungary. But they did not look to a revolution for
the realization of their fond hopes. They entered the society for the
sole purpose of preparing the minds of their countrymen for reforms to
be obtained by constitutional means. Almost every Hungarian writer, who
was not in some dependent position, belonged to the society. Amongst
these was Francis Kazinczy, the regenerator of Hungarian literature,
and one of the most respectable members of the literary guild. The
French ideas found a grateful echo among the intelligent elements of
the country. The reports of French victories were hailed with joy in
the capital, by the professors at the university, and the students, as
well as by people in the country, especially in the county of Zemplén,
the home of Kazinczy. Liberty poles were erected in several places,
many hoping that the victories of the French would establish in Hungary
the reign of liberty and equality. These demonstrations, however,
were entirely independent, and were not inspired by Martinovics. Such
occurrences reflected only the effect of foreign events on the public
mind of Hungary, which had at all times been open to influences from
abroad, and which did not fail, in this instance, to respond to the
voice of humanity which then rang out through a large portion of the
Western world.
The secret society confined its work to procuring fresh members and to
a wide distribution of their political catechisms. The number of the
members amounted altogether to seventy-five, of whom twenty-seven lived
in Pesth, and the remainder belonged to every part of the country.
Only three months had elapsed after the organization of the society
when Martinovics was arrested in Vienna, and Laczkovics, Szentmarjay,
and Hajnóczy in Pesth. The Viennese police had discovered the Austrian
fraternity, and, finding Martinovics amongst its leaders, detained him
at once. Martinovics while in prison made a full confession of every
thing, and the arrests in Hungary were the consequence. About fifty men
were thrown into prison. At the time of their arrest, the distribution
of a few revolutionary pamphlets excepted, no deed, subversive of the
public order, could be traced to the secret society of which they were
members. It was therefore hoped that the government, in punishing them,
would act with moderation and humanity. King Francis disappointed such
hopes. He ordered them to be prosecuted without mercy, being determined
to set a terrifying example, and, by inaugurating a reactionary reign
of terror, to discourage his subjects from sympathizing with French
ideas. Eighteen prisoners were sentenced to death, but Martinovics and
six of his companions only were executed. They lost their heads by
the executioner’s sword on the meadow in Buda, a spot called to this
day the field of blood. The remaining prisoners, with few exceptions,
were sentenced to longer and shorter terms of imprisonment, and two
of the suspected escaped arrest by suicide. Francis Kazinczy suffered
severe imprisonment in an Austrian dungeon during eight long years,
and numerous other Hungarian writers were similarly deprived of their
liberty.
These bloody executions created widespread dismay in the country.
No one felt safe, for everybody was ignorant of the nature of the
crimes with which the unhappy victims had been charged. The counties
remonstrated, in addresses sent to the king, against these cruel
proceedings, but without any effect. Francis pensioned off five
liberal professors at the university, interdicted the teaching of
Kant’s philosophy at that seat of learning, began to persecute every
enlightened man in the country, and especially delighted in vexing in
every possible way the intelligent element of Zemplén County. The
friends of liberty, the men of progress, were thoroughly frightened.
The press, too, was fettered by the government, and thus, by degrees,
public life in Hungary became torpid and stagnant, the adherents of
reform were reduced to silence, and innovations had to bide their
time. The reactionary government achieved a complete victory. It
banished from the high offices even the most moderate men, and filled
every place of importance with persons who delighted in relentlessly
repressing every democratic impulse in Hungary.
The Diets which met during this period paid no attention whatever to
reforms. Their main function consisted in voting considerable supplies
in money and soldiers for the war against the French. The Hungarian
nation sacrificed a great deal for her king during the Napoleonic
wars, and, when the hostile armies were approaching the border of the
country, every noble personally took up arms to defend the throne of
his crowned king with his life and blood. The gentry distinguished
themselves by their devotion, especially in 1809. Napoleon made the
Hungarians the most enticing offers in order to seduce them from their
allegiance to King Francis. He called upon them by proclamation to
abandon Francis, to elect, under the French protectorate, a king of
their own, and to restore Hungary to complete independence. But the
Hungarian nation remained unshaken in their devotion to the king, and
rallied round him and the ancient dynasty. The French, failing in their
scheme, entered Hungary. The Hungarians gallantly defended their
native soil, but were defeated near Raab, owing to the incapacity of
their Austrian generals. During the whole Napoleonic contest, to its
termination, in 1815, Hungary made immense sacrifices for the royal
throne, and thousands of her sons shed their blood in its defence, on
the most distant battlefields of Europe.
Francis but scantily rewarded the fidelity of the nation. He always had
words of praise for the Hungarians, but constantly put off remedying
the evils they complained of. The long wars, paralyzing commerce
and trade, had fatally affected the prosperity of the country. The
government, in order to meet the expenses of the continuous wars, had
issued paper money to such an enormous extent that the paper currency
became completely depreciated. The depreciation of one florin to
one fifth of its face value was subsequently officially promulgated
by the government, causing thereby immense losses to the people. To
these miseries were added the numerous illegal acts and arbitrary
and unconstitutional proceedings of the government, which continued
even after Napoleon had been safely chained to the rock of St. Helena
and peace began anew to dawn upon the world. The reign of reaction
and absolutism which set in in Europe in 1815 extended its baneful
influence also over Hungary. The constitution was completely ignored
by the king and no Diet was convened. These were sad days for Hungary.
There was no one to promote her national interests, and her advancement
in culture was hampered by the meddling rule of the Austrian police.
And, indeed, had not, about this time, the national literature infused
a fresh and hopeful spirit into the body politic, Hungary would have
presented a most deplorable picture of apathy and despair. Literature,
science, and poetry, the cultivation of which was sadly interrupted by
the imprisonment of most of their votaries in 1795, in consequence of
the Martinovics conspiracy, became powerful agencies in rousing the
nation to renewed political activity. Numerous distinguished writers
sprang up, exerting themselves to inculcate lessons of patriotism
and national self-respect into the minds of the people who had been
arbitrarily debarred from the most telling influences of legitimate
culture by the Viennese government. The latter at last thought that
the time had arrived when the absolute government prevailing in her
Austrian dominions might be established with safety also in Hungary.
The first attempt made by King Francis in this direction was to levy,
arbitrarily, solely by his own authority and without the consent of
the Diet (which was necessary under the law), 35,000 recruits for the
army. This illegal exaction of the king created a tremendous commotion
amongst the people, and resulted in a most desperate conflict between
the Hungarian nation and the Viennese government. The political contest
which lasted five years newly inflamed the national enthusiasm. King
Francis finally saw the error of his ways, acknowledged the illegality
of his action, and returned to constitutional government. He summoned
the Diet, in 1825, which, continuing the work of reform checked in
1791, gave the impulse to a new era of modern progress in Hungary.
[Illustration]