Joseph II. and His Court Part 182

She strove no longer. Without another word she took the arm of the police-officer and went firmly forward.

Her lips moved, and she murmured: "Alas he is right. My career is at an end." [Footnote: This beautiful woman, "the ornament of the most elegant circles in Vienna," as she is called by the chroniclers of the times, was condemned to three days of pillory, the same punishment as that suffered by the victim of her wickedness and coquetry. She was then sent guarded to the confines of Austria, from whence she was banished for life.--See Hubner, ii., 392. Gross-Hoffinger, iii.]

CHAPTER CLXIII.

HORJA AND THE REBELLION IN HUNGARY.

Four years had gone by since Joseph had reigned sole monarch of Austria.

For four years he had devoted himself to the Austrians, having but one object, that of making them a free, enlightened, and happy people, emanc.i.p.ating them from the influence of the church, and breaking the fetters of serfdom; granting them equality before the law, and enriching them by his encouragement of manufactures and the privileges he accorded to merchants.

What was his reward? Dissatisfaction and opposition from every cla.s.s of society; ingrat.i.tude and ill-will from all parties. The n.o.bles disliked him because he had sought every opportunity of humbling them before the people; the clergy opposed him because of his sequestration of church property, and his a.s.sumption of spiritual authority. But his bitterest enemies were the bureaucratie. He had invaded all their customs, discharging every man who had not studied at the university, and requiring constant labor from the first as well as the last of the employes. He was the terror of all aspirants for civil office, and the whole body hated him, embarra.s.sed his steps, and ruined his plans by voluntary misconception of all his orders.

As yet, there was no outburst of dissatisfaction. The discontent was latent, and Joseph still indulged the hope of outliving opposition, and proving to his subjects that all the innovations which they had so ungratefully endured were for the ultimate good of the Austrian nation.

He was therefore ill-prepared for the news which reached him from Hungary. He had freed the people from slavery and taxation, and had exacted that the n.o.bles should pay their share of the imperial taxes. He had inst.i.tuted a general conscription, and the most powerful Magyar in Hungary was bound to serve, side by side, with the lowest peasant.

Finally he had forbidden the use of any other language in Hungary save the German.

A cry of indignation was heard from every turreted castle in the land.

They were wounded in the rights. .h.i.therto guaranteed to them by every emperor of Austria. And above all other oppression, they were to be robbed of their mother tongue, that they might lose their nationality, and become a poor Austrian dependency. [Footnote: That was precisely Joseph's object: and yet he wondered that this people did not love him.]

But Joseph's enactments were detested not only by the n.o.bles, they were equally unwelcome to the people. The latter were horror-stricken by the general conscription, and fled by thousands to take refuge among the mountains from the conscribing officers.

One of their own cla.s.s, however, succeeded in drawing them from their hiding-places. The loud voice of Horja rang throughout every valley, and ascended to every mountain-summit. He called them to liberty and equality. He a.s.serted that n.o.bility was to be destroyed in Hungary.

There were to be no more castles, no more magnates of the land. The emperor had promised as much in Vienna. He had sworn to free the Hungarian peasantry, and to bring the proud n.o.ble down to an equality with his serf.

The hour for fulfilment had arrived. All the new laws regarded the n.o.bles alone, they had no reference to the peasantry whom the emperor had promised to make free, happy, and rich. He needed the help of his Hungarians. They must complete what he had begun. The peasant was to be free, happy, rich.

This was the magic song which attracted the boor from his thatch under the hill, and the goat-herd from his hut amid the mountain-peaks.

Horja was the Arion who sang--and now to his standard flocked thousands of deluded beings, all eager to complete the work which the emperor had begun. Joseph had made them free--it remained for themselves to plunder the n.o.bles, and appropriate their long-h.o.a.rded wealth. It was the emperor's will. He hated the Magyars, and loved the peasantry.

If ever any of those poor, ignorant wretches held back, Horja showed them a ma.s.sive gold chain to which the emperor's portrait was attached.

This had been sent to him by Joseph himself, and in proof thereof he had a parchment full of gilt letters, with a great seal attached to it, which made him Captain-General of Hungary. They could all come and read the emperor's own writing if they chose.

Poor fellows! None of them knew how to read, so that Krischan, a friend of Horja and a priest of the Greek Church, read it for all who doubted.

This brought conviction to the most skeptical. That a Greek priest could read a lie, never once entered the heads of these simple children of nature.

Now commenced the carnage. The n.o.bles were imprisoned and murdered, their castles burned, and their fields laid waste. The aristocracy of the borders, whose territorial domains the insurgents had not yet reached, armed themselves, and having captured some of the rebels, put them to death under circ.u.mstances of exaggerated cruelty, executing them by the power which the Magyar possessed of administering justice as an independent prince.

These executions, unsanctioned by the emperor, raised the indignation of the people to ungovernable fury, and they now demanded the entire extinction of the n.o.bles. They were summoned to resign their t.i.tles, and, until the coronation of Joseph, the rightful King of Hungary, they were to obey their lawful ruler, Horja.

The n.o.bles, not having condescended to take any notice of Horja's summons, the people began to pillage and murder with redoubled fury.

They spared every thing, however, belonging to the emperor--the only n.o.bleman who, for the future, was to be suffered to own land in Hungary.

Joseph could no longer turn a deaf ear to the remonstrances of the Magyars. He had hoped to be able to quell the rebellion by lenity, offering a general amnesty to all offenders with the exception of Horja, for whose capture a reward of three hundred ducats was offered.

But the poor, deluded peasantry, having faith in no one but Horja, thought that the offer of pardon was nothing but an artifice of the enemy. The emperor, then was obliged to march the imperial troops against the people, and to bring about with musket and cannon what he had hoped to accomplish through moral suasion.

Horja, finding that he had nothing more to hope from the clemency of the emperor, tried to induce the disaffected n.o.bles to accept his peasantry, and rebel against Joseph. But they rejected the offer with disdain, and gave their support to the imperial troops.

Thousands delivered themselves up, imploring mercy, which was granted them. Thousands fled to the mountains, and thousands were taken prisoners. Among these latter were Horja and Krischan. Both were condemned to death. Horja pleaded hard to be allowed to see the emperor, alleging that he had something of importance to communicate to him, but his prayer was not granted.

Perhaps Joseph suspected that Horja would prove to him, what he already dreaded to know, namely, that the n.o.bles had connived at this insurrection of the peasantry to frighten him with the consequences of his own acts.

Horja was not permitted, then, to see his sovereign. He was broken on a wheel on the market-place at Carlsburg, and two thousand of the cap-bared insurgents were forced to witness the cruel spectacle. [Footnote: On the 3d of January, 1785.]

Thus ended this fearful outbreak, by which four thousand men perished, sixty-two villages and thirty-two castles were consumed; and the deluded peasantry, instead of freedom, happiness, and wealth, found threefold oppression at the hands of their masters. The magnates and n.o.bles, meanwhile, stood upon the ruins of their castles, and cried out:

"This is the work of Joseph! These are the fruits of his insensate reforms!" [Footnote: Hubner, i., p. 273 Gross-Hoffinger, iii., p. 135.

Ramshorn, p. 138.]

CHAPTER CLXIV.

THE JEW'S REVENGE.

The emperor paced his cabinet in unusual agitation. Contrary to his daily habits, the Controlorgang was closed, and his secretaries had been ordered to remain in the chancery, and do their writing there.

The emperor had been weeping; and he wished his anguish to be hidden from any eye save that of G.o.d.

A great sorrow had befallen him. Gunther, his indefatigable co-laborer, the trustiest of counsellors, the man whom, next to Lacy and Rosenberg, he loved best on earth--Gunther had betrayed him! He had sold a secret of state for gold!

There, before him on the table, lay the reports of the secret police, whose duty it was to open all letters pa.s.sing through the post, and to present such as looked suspicious. [Footnote: "The Emperor Franz and Metternich: a Fragment." (From Hormayer, p. 795)] Among these letters was one which strongly inculpated Gunther. It was written by Baron Eskeles Flies to a commercial friend in Amsterdam. It stated that he (Eskeles Flies) had just received a communication of such vital importance that it was worth much more to him than the thousand ducats he had paid to his informer. The emperor, tired of his contention with Holland regarding the navigation of the Scheldt, had agreed to accept the ten millions offered by Holland in return for his guaranty that she should still preserve her right to demand toll of all s.h.i.+ps pa.s.sing through that portion of the river which was within the Dutch boundaries.

[Footnote: Joseph had claimed from Holland the right to navigate the Scheldt and the ca.n.a.ls dug by the Dutch, free of toll. These latter refused, and the emperor forth-with marched his troops into Holland. He had expected to be sustained by the other maritime powers of Europe, but they protecting the Dutch, Joseph was obliged to withdraw his troops.

But he claimed an indemnity for the expenses incurred by putting his regiments upon a war-footing, and demanded twenty millions. He then agreed to take fifteen, but was finally obliged to be content with ten, which was all that the Dutch would allow him. Whereupon Frederick the Great said that Joseph had cried out for a great sum, but had been obliged to come down to a "pour boire."]

Eskeles Flies besought his Amsterdam correspondent to procure him this loan, which he was ready to advance to the republic in four instalments.

He bound his friend to strict secrecy, for the information he imparted was not to be made public for twenty-four hours, and the possession of this secret gave them signal advantage over all other bankers.

Now Gunther alone had been intrusted by the emperor with this secret of state. With the exception of Prince Kaunitz, not another man in Austria knew that Joseph intended to accept the proffered indemnity.

It was clear, then, that Gunther was the traitor, and yet his imperial master would not believe. He clung to the hope that something might yet occur to exculpate his favorite, though how or whence exoneration was to come, he could not conceive.

The banker had been summoned, and the emperor awaited his coming. In the impatience of his heart he had sent a courier, and after the courier his own carriage, for he could not endure his suspense one moment longer than was unavoidable.

Often as he paced the room, his heart throbbing violently, he paused to listen, and then glanced again and again at the clock to see if the banker could be nigh.

"If it be true," thought he, resuming his agitated walk, "I never shall trust man again. I believed that Gunther's heart was as n.o.ble as his face. Is it possible that such a countenance should lie? Gunther, the generous, disinterested Gunther--can it be that he has sold my secrets?

I cannot, will not believe it. I must see himself, and hear his defence from his own lips."

Hurried along by this magnanimous impulse, the emperor approached the door. But he paused, and shook his head.

"No, no. Conviction must come from testimony, not from a.s.sertion. Men are all actors, and often have I seen how skilfully they wear the mask of innocence. I have been too often deceived. Ah! there at last is the banker."