198 FRANCIS I. AND THE DIETS. clusion of this Diet was overcharged with sentiment," which, however, need excite no great surprise when we call to mind the victories of Buonaparte. "Ye Hungarians," said the king, "ye, who are so dear to my heart, have done all that becomes your national character, and which befits your fidelity and honour. Europe will have an opportunity of learning from your conduct, that we and you are one; that the desire which lies deepest in our hearts is to defend our ancient constitutions with the last drop of our blood. We have been united, are united now, and will remain united. Take what I say as the true sentiment of your king and father, who loves you with paternal tenderness, and who will continue to do so for ever." This pathos of king Francis was almost contemporaneous with the appeal made by the Corsican conqueror to the Hungarians, calling upon them to shake off the Austrian yoke, and to declare themselves independent. The nobles in arms were the first to disdain the flattering advances made by Napoleon, a circumstance the more surprising, as even in Austria proper there was a party which implored the protection of that potentate. In fact, no stronger proof is required to show how deep feudality had struck its roots in Hungary than the total absence of any inclination to listen to the advances of Buonaparte, any intercourse with whom they feared might be the means of introducing some of the new principles into their country. Thus it happened that the French revolution-that prodigious flame of heaven and hell, while it awoke and called into action alinost every country of Europe, passed over Hungary like a sick man's dream, a dumb and insipid pantomine. A faint shadow of the influence of the French revolution in Hungary was the existence of a society composed AUSTRIAN STATE BANKRUPTCY. 199 of a few individuals, named Sigsay, Lazkoviz, Hainozy and Szent Marjay, under the leadership of an abbot named Martinovics, who circulated among themselves a sort of catechism embodying the new ideas of France. The abbot and his friends were soon seized, and after a summary trial, conducted with the utmost secrecy, beheaded on the plain encompassed by the mountains of Buda, afterwards known by the name of the field of blood. Nor will these bloody sentences, pronounced by the Septemvir court and the star-chamber of Pesth, fail to prove the vile servility of the judges at that time. The desperate state of finance to which Austria was reduced by the long wars with France, constrained the king-emperor once more to convoke the Diet in 1811. The propositions made by the crown were to the following effect: as a hundred and sixty millions were required to maintain public credit or the currency of the bank notes, his majesty resolved to reduce the paper money to the fifth part of its nominal value; wherefore the Hungarian states are called upon to guarantee the sum of this fifth part, which would enable his majesty to issue an equivalent of new paper money. This smooth way of announcing a state bankruptcy could not fail to startle the assembled states, who, besides feeling its ruinous effects on the already drained Hungary, branded it as an arbitrary act, and diametrically opposed to the law of 1791, which interdicted the king from ruling Hungary by edicts or patents. It is needless to say, that the king was not much touched by these posthumous lamentations, soon hushed by the dissolution of the Diet. The great European war drawing now to its end, Francis determined not to trouble the Hungarian nobles any more 200 AUSTRIAN STATE BANKRUPTCY. with his appeals, or to gladden Presburg with his presence; and, entirely re-assured by the congress of Vienna, he ruled Hungary till the year 1825, without having once convened the states, though encountering the most strenuous and threatening opposition from the counties. It was during these years of absolute rule that the spirit of national action began to manifest itself, especially in the department of literature, which will be referred to in the following chapter. FOURTH PERIOD.-1825-1850. CHAPTER VIII. CONTINUATION OF THE REIGN OF FRANCIS I.KAZINCZY-COUNT SZECHENY-KÖLCSEY—REVI VAL IN LITERATURE AND POLITICS-ACCESSION OF FERDINAND V.—(1825-1840.) THE characteristic of the present period is the reawakening of the national spirit, as manifested in the literature of the country. One of the chief causes of these new manifestations in Hungarian society was undoubtedly the reactionary policy of the crown, which evoked a spirit that otherwise might have remained dormant for a longer time. The modern Hungarian civilization is thus, as it happened with many an unfortunate nation, partly indebted to the denationalizing measures of Joseph II. and the tyranny of Francis I. The toilsome, unrelenting war against deep-rooted prejudices and inveterate habits was the peculiar characteristic of the few literati who stood up for the cultivation of the Hungarian language, and who, in 202 REVIVAL OF THE NATIONAL SPIRIT. As the unison with a new race of politicians, succeeded in leading the national genius from one step of progress to another, till they caused the feudal institutions, doubly endeared to the nobles by the incessant efforts put forth by the crown for their destruction, to give way to salutary, and by this time indispensable, ameliorations. As the progress in literature took precedence of that in politics, the former will first be glanced at. But before proceeding further, it is well to bring back to recollection the calamities with which the language and general culture of Hungary were visited during the middle ages, and not to forget that the fifteenth century, which was an era of preparation for the modern progress of the rest of Europe, turned Hungary into a battle-field. Nor did the subsequent ages prove more favourable. Like the rule of Charles V. and Philip II. in Spain, the reign of the younger branch of Austria was, during the last three centuries, irrespective of the protracted wars, most detrimental to the spread of science and literature. In Hungary, it is true, the Hapsburgs had not much to destroy; but the deeper were felt the effects of a reign, which alternated between political tyranny and ferocious fanaticism, and struck with the same reckless fury the adherents of national independence and the defenders of religious liberty. The dead Latin, rendered predominant since the time of St Stephen, and zealously cultivated by the clergy and laity, to the almost entire neglect of the living idiom, experienced the first shock from Francis Kazinczy, the founder of modern Hungarian prose. Kazinczy reached the age of manhood at the time of the general effeminacy of the nobles, and when Joseph II. strove to sweep away the last remains of historical and traditionary Hungary. This |