"I do not treat with rebels!" was the harsh exclamation with which Prince Windischgrätz received these deputies.
Seeing all hope of a peaceful solution at an end, Deak gave up his seat in Parliament, and refused to obey the summons to Debreczyn, whither the representatives of the people had withdrawn for greater safety. Amidst the clangour of arms, the expounder of legality remained silent. Meanwhile, the Hungarian rising, so ably and heroically led, but so dangerously assailed by counter-insurrections of hostile tribes from within, fell before the twofold attack of the armies of the kaiser and the czar. After the terrible catastrophe of Vilagos, and the sanguinary overthrow of the nation's cause, Deak passed nearly ten years in absolute retirement; living in the small town of Kehida, near which some of his family estates lay. For all that could humanly be foreseen, he might have gone down to his grave without seeing a ray lighting up the dark night of reaction in which his country was enveloped.
II.
A deep gloom had settled over the countries under Habsburg sway. At Vienna, Robert Blum, Messenhauser, Becher, and other champions of the German popular cause were in their gory graves, riddled with court-martial bullets. In Italy, the work of reconquest was completed by leisurely conducted fusillades. on the gallows at Arad, the hangman of his imperial, royal, and —aye!-apostolic Majesty had strung up eminent Magyar generals and statesmen by the dozen. By drum-head law, men were condemned to be hung; an imperial "pardon" now and then graciously allowed them to be shot. For women there was Haynau's whip.
A palace revolution in the Austrian capital, led by the archduchess Sophia, with the aid of a high council of generals ("hohe Generalität," as the technical term was), had dethroned the half-witted Ferdinand, who seemed to be an obstacle to the continuance of sanguinary deeds, and appointed in his stead the youthful Francis Joseph, a boy of eighteen, for whom his mother, the archduchess, practically ruled as a regent. The sabre and the crozier were now the symbols of government. By negotiations with the Vatican, the bases of a concordat were laid, which placed the whole intellectual life of the people at the mercy of a hierarchical inquisition. There was no impediment to the execution of the wildest dreams of a reaction gone mad. At least, so it appeared for a time to the politicians of the cabinet and the camarilla. In such a situation the very name of Francis Deak was forgotten.
For the first time there arose, then, that imperialist doctrine which would not acknowledge any marks of distinction between the several component parts of the "Austrian empire." It is true, even Lord Palmerston, in 1849, when Hungary was yet struggling for her rights, had said, in reply to those who wished for the recognition of the Magyar commonwealth, that he "knew of no Hungary, but only of an Austrian empire." That assertion of Lord Palmerston did, however, not tally with public law.[1] Down to 1849, Hungary had been a separate kingdom, so far as its constitution and the tenure of royal power were concerned—a kingdom as clearly marked off from Austria proper as is Norway at present from Sweden, or as was Hanover from England during the time when English kings were at the same time German prince-electors. Hungary had a charter of her own. Her king was only a king after he had sworn a special constitutional oath. The confines of the Hungarian realm were distinct and unmistakable. lts soil was even girded by a cordon of custom-houses, forming a com-
- ↑ After the overthrow of the Hungarian rising, Lord Palmerston certainly spoke out—that is to say, in a private letter—against the atrocities of the Austrian government, whom he styled "the greatest brutes that ever called themselves by the undeserved name of civilized men." He wrote:—"Their late exploit of flogging forty odd people, including two women, at Milan, some of the victims being gentlemen, is really too blackguard and disgusting a proceeding. As to working upon their feelings of generosity and gentlemanlikeness, that is out of the question, because such feelings exist not in a set of officials who have been trained up in the School of Metternich; and the men in whose minds such inborn feelings have not been crushed by court and office power, have been studiously excluded from public affairs, and can only blush in private for the disgrace which such things throw upon their country. But l do hope that you will not fail constantly to bear in mind the country and the government which you represent, and that you will maintain the dignity and the honour of England by expressing openly and decidedly the disgust which such proceedings excite in the public mind in this country. . . . You might surely find an opportunity of drawing Schwartzenberg's attention to these matters, which may be made intelligible to him, and which a British ambassador has a right to submit to his consideration." (See letter to Lord Ponsonby, of September 9, 1849, in "The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, 1846-1865," by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley. M.P.) Very brave words these were of Lord Palmerston—after he had taken sides against Hungary. What he said of the atrocities committed by the generals and officials of the Austrian kaiser, might, no doubt, have been said also of the deeds of the victorious reaction all through Europe— including that new night of St. Bartholomew of December 2, 1851, whose perpetrator Lord Palmerston, only consulting himself hastened to acknowledge as a lawful ruler, whilst the streets still ran with the blood of the defenders of the constitution.
