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over by Achmet III. This sultan, it may cursorily be remarked, was entirely engrossed in the intrigues of the harem, and was not to be roused into action either by the favourable opportunity offered to the Porte by Charles XII. of Sweden, or by the Hungarian war. In fact, it was during that time that the Porte began to decline, and Russia to raise its head under Peter the Great, who neglected no effort that might secure for himself the sympathies of the Sclavonic tribes living under Turkish rule.1

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1 Salaberry, vol. iii. p. 78, illustrates most strikingly the apathy of the divan, which turned a deaf ear to the admonition of the vizier Kinperli and Poniatowski, a Polish nobleman and adherent of Charles XII. They accused the Czar of engaging the subjects of the Porte, especially the mountaineers, allied to the Russian by the community of religion, urging upon the sultan to take the field. "Les Montenegrins," says the historian, sur la renommée des succês d'une peuplade de leur nation contre leurs ennemis communs, avaient envoyé, dans le tems de la paix de Carlowitz, offrir leur alliance a la Russie. La prevoyance de Pierre I., n'avais pas dedaigné depuis des Montagnards dont la haine et la bravoure pouvaient devenir utiles; et sans avoir de dessein fixé ou de but present, il avait cultivé les germes de cette amitié profitable. Les presents de Pierre I., avaient decoré les Eglises des Montenegrins, ses aumones avaient eté secourir les prétres grecs jusque dans les celulles du Mont Athos. Ainsi dés-lors, tous les peuples, les uns de même origine, les autres de même religion que les Russes, partagaient la bienveillance de leur nom, l'assurance de leur amitié, l'esperance de leur protection en Epire, en Thessalie, dans la Grèce, dans la Morée."

THIRD PERIOD-1711-1825.

CHAPTER VI.

CHARLES VI.-MARIA THERESA—(1711-1780.)

AFTER the peace of Szathmar, Hungarian history assumes a quite different character. The Hungarians will no more be seen to rise against their Hapsburg monarchs, but on the contrary to save the Austrian empire from the bold and ambitious designs of two of the most warlike princes of Europe, Frederick the Great and Napoleon Buonaparte. It will be seen how, in the midst of the stirring spirit of the present century, so memorable from its mental activity, and the race of giant minds which it had sent forth, Hungary without producing a single man of note lay in a state of deep lethargy; how the privileged classes, entrenching themselves behind the ramparts of feudalism, scorned every idea of progress; farther, how the national feeling and language, vanishing from among the higher classes, were guarded and treasured up by the oppressed and rude, but incorruptible peasants;

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finally, how the first spark of national regeneration was kindled in a time of greatest reaction by a few dispersed and unknown literati.

Charles the VI. was crowned king of Hungary under the name of Charles the Third. Immediately after the death of his brother Joseph (1711) he left Spain to receive the imperial unction at Frankfort. Hence he proceeded first to Austria, and then to Presburg to appear at the diet of 1712. Previous to his coronation, Charles swore to observe all the ancient laws and privileges of the country, with the exception of the 31st article of the Golden Bull, pledging himself, further, to incorporate into the mother country all the provinces regained from the Turks, and acknowledging the right of the Hungarian States freely to elect their king after the extinction of the male line of the House of Austria. In consequence of an epidemic disease, the diet was soon dissolved, but met again in 1714. The most important enactments of this assembly were, the reorganization of the Courts of Chancery and Administration; the renewal of the privileges of the towns retaken from the Turks; the election of a palatine in the person of John Palfy, and the assurance of redeeming the districts of the Cumans and Jasiges from the knights of the Teutonic order. Of no less importance was the nomination of commissioners ordered to inquire into the state of properties (commissiones neo-acquisitica), which had passed into new and illegal hands during the long wars.

In the same year Charles concluded the peace of Radstadt with the king of France, beginning, however, a new war against the Porte, then bent on wresting Morea from the Republic of Venice. The Court of Vienna used all possible means to persuade the Vene

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TREATY OF PASSAROWITZ.

tian Republic resolutely to resist the aggressions of the Turks, while Eugène began to concentrate his troops in Hungary on the banks of the Danube. The sultan Achmet III., anticipating the design of the imperial general, marched his army across the Save, and, as will be seen, to his own destruction. After a small success gained by Palfy, Eugène routed the Turks at Petervardein, and captured besides nearly all their artillery. Profiting by the general consternation of the Turks, Eugène sent Palfy and the prince of Wurtemberg to lay seige to the fortress of Temesvar, which commands the whole Banat, and which was surrendered by the Turks after a heavy seige. By these repeated disasters the Mussulmans lost all confidence in the success of their arms; and in the year 1717 they opened the gates of Belgrade to the imperial army. The present campaign paved the way for the peace of Passarowitz, a little town in Servia, a peace concluded between the Port and the Emperor in 1718. In virtue of the provisions of this treaty, the Porte abandoned the Banat, the fortress of Belgrade, and a part of Bosnia, on the hither side of the Unna, promising besides the free navigation of the Danube to the people of the Austrian empire.

These last victories, gained over the Turks, with the loss of much Hungarian blood, were far from inducing the Emperor to a strict observance of the last acts of the diet. Instead of being incorporated into the kingdom, the parts reconquered from the Turks were divided into seventeen districts, colonized without the concurrence of the Hungarian States, and directly governed by the court of Vienna. More flagrant, however, were the oppressions exercised on the protestants. Protestant orphans were in many instances

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put by force under Catholic guardians; Catholic priests forced their way to the death-bed of protestants, while the formula of the oath required of those who entered on public offices, excluded the protestant from participation in public affairs. Printing offices belonging to protestants were closed, the use of their books interdicted, while a bigotted censorship was instituted at Presburg to take cognisance of all publications. In short, the Catholic bishops forced the protestants to submit family disputes to the decision of their tribunals; while all those towns that were reconquered from the Turks, and where protestantism spread without any restraint, were bereft of hundreds of their churches, and were besides obliged to build Catholic sanctuaries and schools.1

In the meantime, Charles VI., who had no male offspring, was endeavouring to secure to the female branch of the Hapsburg House the succession to the Hungarian throne. With this view he convoked the diet in 1722. The archbishop Csaky, the staunchest supporter of the emperor's interest, was not negligent in proving the good results to be expected from the proposed change in the succession. The States soon made up their mind, and conferred the right of succession to the crown of St Stephen, even on the female descendants of the Hapsburg dynasty. This compact is known by the name of the Pragmatic Sanction.

In the meantime new discontents arose in Hungary, caused partly by the rapacity of the foreign troops, and partly by the restrictions laid on the exportation of

1 Lampe, Hist. Eccles. Hungar., pages 519 and 541, describes the proceedings of the Commission of Pesth, instituted by the king to investigate the grievance of the protestants in 1721.