mercial division in addition to the political one. A "province" of an "Austrian empire" Hungary therefore was not. The very name of Kaiser-staat, or empire, only dated from the beginning of the present century, when Francis II. was compelled, through the misfortunes of war in the struggle against Napoleon, to lay down the imperial crown of Germany, and to declare that empire, which had lasted for nearly a thousand years, to be dissolved. As a slight solace, he then assumed, under the name of Francis I., the title of "kaiser" for his own dominions. Constitutionally, Hungary was not affected thereby. For her the Austrian emperor remained simply a king. All this hail ever been regarded as self-understood by men like Deak, and by all the living political forces in Hungary.
But now, in return for the declaration resolved upon at Debreczyn, which had pronounced the forfeiture of the "crown of St. Stephen" by the house of Habsburg-Lorraine, the kaiser declared, on his part, the Hungarians to have lost their national existence and their charter through the fact of rebellion. It was done on the Verwirkungs-Theorie, the theory of forfeiture, to use the special phrase of the time. Henceforth Hungary was to be ruled according to the mere pleasure of the monarch; all representative institutions, both in State affairs and in local matters, being set aside by a stroke of the pen, or rather of the sword. There was to be a "centralized Austria," under the black-yellow flag, held together by iron bands; the whole overshadowed by the cowl.
Yet the scheme of triumphant tyranny would not work; neither on this, nor on the other side of the Leitha. In the face of their haughty oppressor—who, the better to mark the relation in which he stood to the people of his capital, would never (from 1848 down to 1860) show himself in public in any other than a soldier's garb—the Viennese maintained an attitude of sullenness all the more galling to the court, because it formed so strong a contrast to the good-natured and forgiving temper of that pleasure-loving, but withal free-minded, population. Even so would the Lombards and Venetians not be weaned from their eager wish for a union with their Italian brethren. In Galicia, the idea of Polish nationality was kept alive with a view to future possibilities. In Hungary, the attempt of Prince Schwarzenberg to make the Magyars yield ready obedience to the rule of the sword, failed miserably. So did the more liberal, but still anti-Hungarian, policy of Herr von Schmerling, who sought to found a centralized Austria on the constitutional principle.
After various kaleidoscopic changes in Hapsburg politics, which all came to nothing, Deak was at last sounded as to whether he would help government in mending things. He firmly declined. Several times approached in the same way, he always gave the same reply. "There is no Hungarian constitution in force," he answered; "and without that constitution, I am simply Deak, and can do nothing." During the Bach ministry he once remarked in regard to a new constistitutional experiment, that the Austrian minister had "wrongly buttoned his political coat, and that there was nothing left for him but to unbutton it, and to begin afresh." On hearing this expression of Deak, Bach said, "Perhaps we had better cut off the buttons!" Deal: replied, "But then the coat could not be buttoned at all!"
In times of great oppression, a few winged words go far as an embodiment of public opinion. Quips from the retired Hungarian statesman soon became a staple stock in political talk. When a second recruitment for the army was intended in one and the same year, Deak said, in answer to a question put to him, "That will not do for Hungary! Women here are wont to bear children only once a year!"
The rough barrack rule of Schwarzenberg; the bigoted Jesuitical sway of Bach; the federalist mediævalism of Goluchowski; the emasculated parliamentary system of Schmerling—all failed in turn. Schmerling's notion of a constitution was that of a convenient machinery for raising money, and passing enactments, with no "right of resistance" against lawless royal and imperial decrees attached to it. The Hungarian idea of a constitution, as upheld once more towards 1859 by Deak, was that of a historical covenant, somewhat like the old Arragonese charter; the king being only a lawful king after having sworn to observe the ground-law of the nation, and only remaining a sovereign so long as he fulfilled his part of the compact—not longer. In this sense, the trusty leader of the moderate constitutionalists came now again to the front. Though he had been inactive for so many years, he at once attracted a large following. He was called the "Conscience of the Nation." People looked upon him as a kind of
