CHAPTER XIV.

THE EMPEROR JOSEPH II. THE NATIONAL REACTION AND THE NAPOLEONIC WARS.

The royal crown of Hungary has ever been, from the time it encircled the brow of St. Stephen, an object of jealous solicitude and almost superstitious veneration with the nation. It continued to loom up as a luminous and rallying point in the midst of the vicissitudes and stirring events of the history of the country, during all the centuries that followed the coronation of the first king. The people looked upon it as a hallowed relic, the glorious bequest of a long line of generations past and gone, and as the symbol and embodiment of the unity of the state. The different countries composing Hungary were known under the collective name of the _Lands of the Sacred Crown_, and, at the period when the privileged nobility was still enjoying exceptional immunities, each noble styled himself _membrum sacræ coronæ_, a member of the sacred crown. In the estimation of the people it had ceased to be a religious symbol, and had become a cherished national and political memorial, to which the followers of every creed and all the classes without distinction might equally do homage. Nor was the crown an every-day ornament to be displayed by royalty on solemn occasions of pageant. The king wore it only once in his life, on the day of his coronation, when he was bound solemnly to swear fidelity to the constitution, before the high dignitaries of the state, first in church, and to repeat afterwards in the open air his vow to govern the country within the limits of the law. Thus in Hungary it has ever been the ancient custom, prevailing to this day, that, on the king’s accession to the throne, it is he who, on his coronation, takes the oath of fidelity to his people, instead of the latter swearing fealty to the king. The right of succession to the throne is hereditary, but the lawful rule of the king begins with the ceremony of coronation only. It requires this ceremonial, which to this day is characterized by the attributes of mediæval pomp and splendor, to render the acts of the ruler valid and binding upon the people; without it every public act of such ruler is a usurpation.

During eight centuries all the kings and queens, without exception, had been eager to place the crown on their heads, in order to come into the full possession of their regal privileges. Joseph II., Maria Theresa’s son, who succeeded his mother in 1780, was the first king who refused to be crowned. He felt a reluctance to swear fidelity to the constitution, and to promise, by a solemn oath, to govern the country in accordance with its ancient usages and laws. The people, therefore, never called him their crowned king; he was either styled emperor by them, or nicknamed the “_kalapos_” (hatted) king. His reign was but a series of illegal and unconstitutional acts, and a succession of bitter and envenomed struggles between the nation and her ruler. The contest finally ended with Joseph’s defeat. He retracted on his deathbed all his arbitrary measures, and conceded to the people the tardy restoration of their ancient constitution. The conflict, however, had left deep traces in the minds of his Hungarian subjects. It roused them from the dormant state into which they had been lulled by the gentle and maternal absolutism of Maria Theresa. Thus Joseph’s schemes not only failed, but, in their effects, they were destined to bring about the triumph of ideas, fraught with important consequences, such as he had hardly anticipated. The nation, waking from her lethargy, gave more prominence than ever to the idea of nationality, an idea which, as time advanced, increased in potency and intensity.

Yet this ruler, who on ascending the throne disregarded all constitutional obligations and waged a relentless war against the Hungarian nationality, must be, nevertheless, ranked amongst the noblest characters of his century. Thoroughly imbued with the enlightened views of the eighteenth century, and those new ideas which had triumphed in the war of independence across the ocean, he was ever in pursuit of generous and exalted aims. He sincerely desired the welfare of the people, and in engaging in this fruitless conflict he was by no means actuated by sinister intentions or by a despotic disposition. To introduce reforms, called for by the spirit of the age, into the Church, the schools, and every department of his government, was the lofty task he had imposed upon himself. A champion of the oppressed, he freed the human conscience from its mediæval fetters, granted equal rights to the persecuted creeds, protected the enslaved peasantry against their arbitrary masters, and enlarged the liberty of the press. He endeavored to establish order and honesty in every branch of the public service, being mindful, at the same time, of all the agencies affecting the prosperity of the people. In a word, his remarkable genius embraced every province of human action where progress, reforms, and ameliorations were desirable.

Unhappily for his own peace of mind and for the destinies of the nation he was called upon to rule, he committed a fatal error in the selection of the methods for accomplishing his humane and philanthropic objects. He desired to render Hungary happy, yet he excluded the nation from the direction of her own affairs. He wished to enact salutary laws, yet he reigned as an absolute monarch, unwilling to call the Diet to his aid in the great work of reformation, ignoring and disdaining the constitution and laws of the country. He was impolitic enough to attack a constitution which, thanks to the devotion of the people, had withstood the shock of seven centuries. He was unwise enough to suppose that the people, in whose hearts the love of their ancient constitution had taken deep root, for the defence of which rivers of blood had been shed, could be prevailed upon to relinquish it to satisfy a theory of royalty. The old political organization was eminently an outgrowth of the Hungarian nationality, and all classes of the people, including the very peasantry to whom the ancient constitution meant only oppression, clung to it with devoted fervor. The people were as anxious for reforms as Joseph himself, but they wanted them by lawful methods, and with the co-operation of the nation and their Diet. Joseph might have become the regenerator and benefactor of Hungary if he had availed himself, for the realization of his grand objects, of the national and lawful channels which lay ready to his hand. But he, unfortunately, preferred attempting to achieve his purpose out of the plenitude of his own power, by imperial edicts and arbitrary measures, thus conjuring up a storm against himself which well-nigh shook his throne, and plunging the nation into a wild ferment of passion bordering on revolution.

The people presented a solid phalanx against Joseph’s attacks upon their nationality and language, which to them were objects dearer than every thing else. They little cared for the emperor’s well-intentioned endeavors to make them prosperous and happy as long as he asked, in exchange, for the relinquishment of their nationality. And this, above all, was his most ardent wish. He wanted Hungary to be Hungarian no more, and wished its people to cast off the distinctive marks of their individuality, and to adopt the German language, instead of their own, in the schools, the public administration, and in judicial proceedings. In a word, he made German the official language of the country, and was bent on forcing it upon the people.

Henceforth every reform coming from Joseph became hateful to the people. The oppressed classes themselves spurned relief which involved the sacrifice of their sweet mother-tongue. By proclaiming equal rights and equal subjection to the burdens of the state, he arrayed the privileged classes against his person. The Protestants and the peasantry, who had hailed him in the beginning as their new Messiah, and fondly saw in his innovations the dawn of brighter days, also turned from him as soon as he attacked them in what they prized even more than liberty and justice. It was not long before the whole country, without distinction of class, social standing, or creed, combined to set at naught the Germanizing efforts of Joseph. The hard-fought struggle roused the people, hitherto divided by antagonisms of class and creed, to a sense of national solidarity. It was during the critical days of these constitutional conflicts that the foundations of the modern homogeneousness of the Hungarian nation and society were laid down.

The privileged classes looked upon Joseph, on his advent to the throne, with distrust. They foresaw that he would not allow himself to be crowned, in order to avoid taking the oath of fidelity to the constitution of Hungary. The first measures of his reign concerned the organization of the various churches of the country. He extended the religious freedom of the Protestant Church. By virtue of the apostolic rights of the Hungarian kings, he introduced signal reforms into the Catholic Church, especially regarding the education of the clergy, which proved, in part, exceedingly salutary. He abolished numerous religious orders, especially those which were not engaged either in teaching or nursing the sick. One hundred and forty monasteries and nunneries were closed by him in Hungary. The ample property of these convents he employed for ecclesiastical and public purposes and for the advancement of instruction. He exerted himself strenuously and successfully in the establishment of public schools and in the interest of popular education. He removed the only university of which the country could then boast from Buda to Pesth, a city which was rapidly increasing, and added a theological department to that seat of learning. All these innovations met with the approval of the enlightened elements of the nation, whilst the privileged classes and the clergy opposed them with sullen discontent. The opposition was all the more successful, as the emperor had contrived to insult the moral susceptibilities of the common people by some of his measures. Thus, with a view to economizing the boards required for coffins, he ordered the dead to be sewed up in sacks, and to be buried in this apparel. This uncalled-for meddling with the prejudices of the lower classes had the effect of creating a great indignation among them, and of driving them into the camp of the opposition. Trifling and thoughtless measures of a similar nature impaired the credit of the most salutary innovations. The people looked with suspicion at every change, and, heedless of the lofty endeavors of the emperor, everybody, including the officials themselves, rejected the entire governmental system of Joseph.

The emperor also wounded the national feeling of piety by his action concerning the crown he had spurned. According to ancient custom and law the sacred crown was kept in safety in Presburg, in a building provided for that purpose. In 1784 the emperor ordered the crown to be removed to Vienna, in order to be placed there in the royal treasury side by side with the crowns of his other lands. The nation revolted at this profanation of their hallowed relic, and the highest official authorities, throughout the land, protested against a measure which, while it created such widespread ill feeling, was not justified by any necessity. A dreadful storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, was raging when the crown was removed to Vienna, and the people saw in this a sign that nature herself rebelled against the sacrilege committed by the emperor. The counties continued to urge the return of the crown in addresses which were sometimes humbly suppliant in their tone and sometimes threatening, but Joseph did not yield either to supplications or menaces.

When the edict, which made German the official language of the country, was published, the minds of men all over the country were already greatly disturbed. It is true, that hitherto the Latin and not the Hungarian language had been the medium of communication employed by the state. But the national spirit and the native tongue, which during the first seventy years of the eighteenth century had sadly degenerated, were awakening to new life during Joseph’s reign. The literature of the country began to be assiduously cultivated in different spheres. Royal body-guards belonging to distinguished families, gentlemen of refinement, clergymen of modest position, and other sons of the native soil labored with equal zeal and enthusiasm to foster their cherished mother-tongue. It would, therefore, have been an easy matter for Joseph to replace the Latin language, which had become an anachronism, by the Hungarian, and thus to restore the latter to its natural and legal position in the state. He was perfectly right in ridding the country of the mastery of a dead tongue, but he committed a most fatal error in trying to substitute for it the German, an error which avenged itself most bitterly. Joseph entertained a special antipathy to the Hungarian tongue, a dislike which betrayed him into omitting the teaching of the native language from the course of public instruction, and refusing to allow an academy of sciences to be established which had its cultivation for its object.

The emperor’s attack upon the language of the nation irremediably broke the last tie between him and the country, and, henceforth, the relations between them could be only hostile. The counties assumed a threatening attitude, some of them refusing obedience altogether. Thus most of them declined to give their official co-operation to the army officers who had been delegated by the emperor to take the census. The count, nevertheless, proceeded, but in many places the inhabitants escaped to the woods, and in some there were serious riots in consequence of the opposition to the commissioners of the census. A rising of a different character took place amongst the Wallachs. The Wallachs, smarting under abuses of long standing, buoyed up by exaggerated expectations consequent upon the emperor’s innovations, and stirred up by evil-minded agitators, took to arms and perpetrated the most outrageous atrocities against their Hungarian landlords. The ignorant common people were assured by their leaders, Hora and Kloska, that the emperor himself sided with them. The Wallach insurgents assassinated the government’s commissioners sent to them, destroyed 60 villages and 182 gentlemen’s mansions, and killed 4,000 Hungarians, before they could be checked in their bloody work. Although they were finally crushed and punished, a strong belief prevailed in the country that the court of Vienna had been privy to the Wallach rising.

Joseph subsequently laid down most humane rules regulating the relations between the bondmen and their landlords. But the country could not be appeased by any boon, especially as the high protective tariff, just then established for the benefit of the Austrian provinces, was seriously damaging the prosperity of the people. Joseph’s foreign policy tended to increase the domestic disaffection. In 1788 he declared war against Turkey, but the campaign turned out unsuccessful, and nearly terminated with the emperor’s capture. The nation, emboldened by his defeat, urged now more emphatically her demands, and requested the emperor to annul his illegal edicts, to submit to be crowned, and to restore the ancient constitution. Joseph continuing to resist her demands, most of the counties refused to contribute in aid of the war either money or produce. In addition to their recalcitrant attitude, they most energetically pressed the emperor to convoke the Diet at Buda, a few counties going even so far as to insist upon the Chief Justice’s convoking it, if the emperor failed to do so before May, 1790.

The courage of the nation rose still higher when the news of the revolution in France and the revolt in Belgium reached the country. The people refused to furnish recruits and military aid, and the emperor was compelled to use violence in order to obtain either. The counties remained firm and continued to remonstrate in addresses characterized by sharp and energetic language. Joseph yielded at last. He was prostrated by a grave illness, and feeling his end approaching he wished to die in peace with the exasperated nation he had so deeply wounded. On the 28th of January, 1790, he retracted all his illegal edicts, excepting those that had reference to religious toleration, the peasantry, and the clergy, and re-established the ancient constitution of the country. Soon after he sent back the crown to Buda, where its return was celebrated with great pomp, amidst the enthusiastic shouts of the people. Before he could yet convoke the Diet death terminated the emperor’s career on the 20th of February. The world lost in him a great and noble-minded man and a friend to humanity, who, however, had been unable to realize all his lofty intentions. The effect of his reign was to rouse Hungary from the apathy into which it had sunk, and at the time of Joseph’s death, the minds of the people were a prey to an excitement no less feverish than that which had seized revolutionary France at the same period.

But while in Paris democracy was victorious over royalty, the latter had to yield in Hungary to the privileged nobility. The restored constitution was a charter of political privileges for the nobles only, and as such was most jealously guarded by them. This class kept a strict watch over the liberal tendencies of the age, preventing the importation of democratic ideas from France from fear of harm to their exclusive immunities.

Joseph was succeeded by his brother, Leopold II., who until now had been Grand Duke of Tuscany. The new ruler was as enlightened as his predecessor, and had as much the welfare of the people at heart; but he respected, at the same time, the laws and the constitution. He immediately convoked the Diet in order to be crowned, and by this act he solemnly sealed the peace with the nation. The people hailed with joy this first step of their new king, and there was nothing in the way of their now obtaining lawfully from the good-will of the king the salutary legislation which Joseph had attempted to force arbitrarily upon them. But the fond hopes in this direction were doomed to disappointment. The national movement had not helped to power those who were in favor of progress, equality of rights, and democracy. No doubt there were people in the country who differed from the men in authority, who were sincerely attached to the doctrines of the French Revolution and eager to supplant the privileges of the nobles by the broader rights belonging to all humanity. The national literature was in the hands of men of this class. They combated the reactionary spirit of the nobility, and contended for the recognition of the civil and political rights of by far the largest portion of the people, the non-nobles. They boldly and with generous enthusiasm wielded the pen in defence of those noble ideas, and indoctrinated the people with them as much as the restraints placed upon the press allowed it at that period. They succeeded in obtaining recruits for their ideas from the very ranks of the privileged classes, and many an enlightened magnate admitted that the time had arrived for modernizing the constitution of Hungary by an extension of political rights. Their number was swelled also by the more intelligent portion of the inhabitants of the cities, and those educated patriotic people who, although no gentle blood flowed in their veins, had either obtained office under Joseph’s reign or had imbibed the political views of that monarch. But all of these men combined formed but an insignificant fraction of the people compared to the numerous nobility, who, after their enforced submission during ten years, were eager to turn to the advantage of their own class the victory they had achieved over Joseph. During the initial preparations for the elections to the Diet, and in the course of the elections, sentiments were publicly uttered and obtained a majority in the county assemblies, which caused a feverish commotion amongst the common people and the peasantry. The latter especially now eagerly clung to innovations introduced by the Emperor Joseph, so beneficial as regarded their own class, and were reluctant to submit to the restoration of the former arbitrary landlord system. Their remonstrances were answered by the counties to the effect that Providence had willed it so that some men should be kings, others nobles, and others again bondmen. Such cruel reasoning failed to satisfy the aggrieved peasantry. Symptoms of a dangerous revolutionary spirit showed themselves throughout a large portion of the country, and an outbreak could be prevented only by the timely assurance, on the part of the counties, that the matter would be submitted to the Diet about to assemble.

The Diet, which had not been convened for twenty-five years, opened in Buda in the beginning of June, 1790. The coronation soon took place. Fifty years had elapsed since the last similar pageant had been enacted in Hungary. After a lengthy and vehement contest extending over ten months, in the course of which the Diet was removed from Buda to Presburg, the laws of 1790-1791, which form part of the fundamental articles of the Hungarian constitution, were finally passed. By them the independence of Hungary as a state obtained the fullest recognition. The laws, which were the result of the co-operation of the crown and the Estates, declared that Hungary was an independent country, subject to no other country, possessing her own constitution by which alone she was to be governed. Important concessions were also made to the rights of the citizens of the country. The privileges of the nobility were left intact, but the extreme wing of the reactionary nobles had to rest satisfied with this acquiescence in the former state of things, and were not allowed to push the narrow-minded measures advocated by them. The majority of the Diet was influenced in their wise moderation, partly by the exalted views of the king, and to a greater extent yet by the disaffected spirit rife amongst the people, and especially threatening amongst the Serb population of the country. The laws secured the liberties of the Protestant and the Greek united churches, remedied the most urgent griefs of the peasantry, and declared those who were not noble capable of holding minor offices. Although the most important measures of reform were put off to a future time by the diet of 1790-1791, several preparatory royal commissions having been appointed for their consideration, yet the work it accomplished was the salutary beginning of a liberal legislation which culminated, not quite sixty years later, in the declaration of the equal rights of the people as the basis of the Hungarian commonwealth.

After the meeting of this Diet, however, very little was done in the direction of reforms. The good work was interrupted, partly by the premature death of Leopold II. (March 1, 1792), and partly by the warlike period, extending over twenty-five years, which, in Hungary as throughout all Europe, claimed public attention, and diverted the minds of the leaders of the nation from domestic topics. Francis I., the son and successor of Leopold II., caused himself to be crowned in due form, and much was at first hoped from his reign. But the Jacobin rule of terror in Paris, and the dread of seeing the revolutionary scenes repeated in his own realm, wrought a complete change in his character and policy. He soon stubbornly rejected every innovation, and gradually became a pillar of strength for the European reaction, that extravagant conservatism which expected to efface the effects of the French Revolution by an unquestioning adherence to the old and traditional order of things. This illiberal spirit of the monarch rendered impossible for the time any further reform-movement in Hungary. Every question of desirable change met with the most obstinate opposition on the part of the king, and the reforms submitted by the royal commissions were considered by every successive Diet without ever becoming law. The period which now followed was gloomy in the extreme, as well for Hungary as for the Austrian provinces of Francis I. The inhabitants of these countries were constantly called upon by the king in the course of the wars to make sacrifices in treasure and blood, by furnishing recruits and by paying high taxes. At the same time the government resorted to the most absolute and arbitrary measures to prevent the people from being contaminated with French ideas. The press was crushed by severe penalties. Every enlightened idea was banished from the schools and expunged from the school-books. Only men, for whose extreme reactionary spirit the police could vouch, were appointed to the professorships or to other offices. A system of universal spying and secret information caused everybody to be suspected and to suffer from private vindictiveness, whilst those who dared to avow liberal views were the objects of cruel persecution.

The numerically few but staunch adherents of democracy, being thus debarred from openly laboring for their views, endeavored to accomplish their purposes by secret combinations. A secret society was formed in Pesth, the centre of the political life of the country. This league of Hungarian Jacobins had but a confused idea of its own aims, and of the means of achieving them. They produce, at this distance of time, the impression of an organization, indulging in crude, exaggerated, and even thoughtless visions, but theirs, nevertheless, is the credit of having been the first society of the kind in the country, and of thus furnishing a link in the political development of the public spirit in Hungary. Although the members of the league were unable to secure any tangible results, yet they deserve a place in the national history as the first martyrs of universal freedom and human rights in Hungary, for they forfeited their lives or suffered long imprisonments for the holy cause. The movement was originally planned by Ignatius Martinovics, a learned abbot who entered into relations with the Jacobins abroad, first with those of Paris, and afterwards with their sympathizers in Germany and Austria. With the assistance of these he intended to bring about a republic of Hungary, and to establish there the doctrines of equality and liberty. He organized for that purpose a secret society in Pesth, after the pattern of the masonic societies, which were then flourishing throughout the country. There were in point of fact two distinct associations, one called _the reformers_, the other styled _the friends of liberty and equality_. The former knew nothing of the designs of the latter, whilst these, occupying a higher rank, were fully initiated into the secrets of the reformers. The aim of both alike was to insure the triumph of the principles of the French Revolution. The members recognized each other by secret signs, and used in their correspondence a cipher devised for the purpose. Martinovics’ scheme was to hoist the revolutionary flag as soon as the increased number of members in both societies might render such a step advisable. Meanwhile the sole business of the members consisted in spreading among the people a catechism conceived in a revolutionary spirit.

Martinovics commenced the organization of the secret society in the spring of 1794. He was assisted in his work by John Laczkovics, formerly a captain in the army, Joseph Hajnóczi, an ex-_alispán_ (vicecomes or deputy sheriff of a county), and Francis Szentmarjay, a young man of distinction, who were all zealously engaged in recruiting members for the new association. Among the latter, however, but few knew of Martinovics’ ultimate object, or of his French connections. Most of them thought that it was his intention to secure the introduction of reforms by lawful means. As to the secret character of the society, they looked upon it as a concession to the fashion of the period, introduced by the freemasons. During the eighteenth century a real mania for secrecy of this kind prevailed all over Europe, and secret societies sprang up in every quarter for purposes which, if publicly proclaimed, would have met with no opposition whatever. The society of the Hungarian Jacobins did not owe its existence to subversionary tendencies, but to that eagerness for reforms which never ceased to agitate the nation. With the exception of a dozen unreflecting men who dreamt of overthrowing the Hungarian monarchy with the aid of the French, the rank and file were entirely composed of men who believed in reforms achieved by lawful methods. The leaders themselves, Martinovics, Hajnóczi, and Laczkovics, had filled important offices under the Emperor Joseph, and had subsequently supported King Leopold in his efforts at reform. If Leopold had lived, every one of them would have borne a conspicuous part in public affairs. But the triumph of the reactionary spirit under the reign of King Francis made them conspirators. Those of their friends who joined them were all honest and enthusiastic patriots, who saw in the success of democratic ideas the welfare of Hungary. But they did not look to a revolution for the realization of their fond hopes. They entered the society for the sole purpose of preparing the minds of their countrymen for reforms to be obtained by constitutional means. Almost every Hungarian writer, who was not in some dependent position, belonged to the society. Amongst these was Francis Kazinczy, the regenerator of Hungarian literature, and one of the most respectable members of the literary guild. The French ideas found a grateful echo among the intelligent elements of the country. The reports of French victories were hailed with joy in the capital, by the professors at the university, and the students, as well as by people in the country, especially in the county of Zemplén, the home of Kazinczy. Liberty poles were erected in several places, many hoping that the victories of the French would establish in Hungary the reign of liberty and equality. These demonstrations, however, were entirely independent, and were not inspired by Martinovics. Such occurrences reflected only the effect of foreign events on the public mind of Hungary, which had at all times been open to influences from abroad, and which did not fail, in this instance, to respond to the voice of humanity which then rang out through a large portion of the Western world.

The secret society confined its work to procuring fresh members and to a wide distribution of their political catechisms. The number of the members amounted altogether to seventy-five, of whom twenty-seven lived in Pesth, and the remainder belonged to every part of the country. Only three months had elapsed after the organization of the society when Martinovics was arrested in Vienna, and Laczkovics, Szentmarjay, and Hajnóczy in Pesth. The Viennese police had discovered the Austrian fraternity, and, finding Martinovics amongst its leaders, detained him at once. Martinovics while in prison made a full confession of every thing, and the arrests in Hungary were the consequence. About fifty men were thrown into prison. At the time of their arrest, the distribution of a few revolutionary pamphlets excepted, no deed, subversive of the public order, could be traced to the secret society of which they were members. It was therefore hoped that the government, in punishing them, would act with moderation and humanity. King Francis disappointed such hopes. He ordered them to be prosecuted without mercy, being determined to set a terrifying example, and, by inaugurating a reactionary reign of terror, to discourage his subjects from sympathizing with French ideas. Eighteen prisoners were sentenced to death, but Martinovics and six of his companions only were executed. They lost their heads by the executioner’s sword on the meadow in Buda, a spot called to this day the field of blood. The remaining prisoners, with few exceptions, were sentenced to longer and shorter terms of imprisonment, and two of the suspected escaped arrest by suicide. Francis Kazinczy suffered severe imprisonment in an Austrian dungeon during eight long years, and numerous other Hungarian writers were similarly deprived of their liberty.

These bloody executions created widespread dismay in the country. No one felt safe, for everybody was ignorant of the nature of the crimes with which the unhappy victims had been charged. The counties remonstrated, in addresses sent to the king, against these cruel proceedings, but without any effect. Francis pensioned off five liberal professors at the university, interdicted the teaching of Kant’s philosophy at that seat of learning, began to persecute every enlightened man in the country, and especially delighted in vexing in every possible way the intelligent element of Zemplén County. The friends of liberty, the men of progress, were thoroughly frightened. The press, too, was fettered by the government, and thus, by degrees, public life in Hungary became torpid and stagnant, the adherents of reform were reduced to silence, and innovations had to bide their time. The reactionary government achieved a complete victory. It banished from the high offices even the most moderate men, and filled every place of importance with persons who delighted in relentlessly repressing every democratic impulse in Hungary.

The Diets which met during this period paid no attention whatever to reforms. Their main function consisted in voting considerable supplies in money and soldiers for the war against the French. The Hungarian nation sacrificed a great deal for her king during the Napoleonic wars, and, when the hostile armies were approaching the border of the country, every noble personally took up arms to defend the throne of his crowned king with his life and blood. The gentry distinguished themselves by their devotion, especially in 1809. Napoleon made the Hungarians the most enticing offers in order to seduce them from their allegiance to King Francis. He called upon them by proclamation to abandon Francis, to elect, under the French protectorate, a king of their own, and to restore Hungary to complete independence. But the Hungarian nation remained unshaken in their devotion to the king, and rallied round him and the ancient dynasty. The French, failing in their scheme, entered Hungary. The Hungarians gallantly defended their native soil, but were defeated near Raab, owing to the incapacity of their Austrian generals. During the whole Napoleonic contest, to its termination, in 1815, Hungary made immense sacrifices for the royal throne, and thousands of her sons shed their blood in its defence, on the most distant battlefields of Europe.

Francis but scantily rewarded the fidelity of the nation. He always had words of praise for the Hungarians, but constantly put off remedying the evils they complained of. The long wars, paralyzing commerce and trade, had fatally affected the prosperity of the country. The government, in order to meet the expenses of the continuous wars, had issued paper money to such an enormous extent that the paper currency became completely depreciated. The depreciation of one florin to one fifth of its face value was subsequently officially promulgated by the government, causing thereby immense losses to the people. To these miseries were added the numerous illegal acts and arbitrary and unconstitutional proceedings of the government, which continued even after Napoleon had been safely chained to the rock of St. Helena and peace began anew to dawn upon the world. The reign of reaction and absolutism which set in in Europe in 1815 extended its baneful influence also over Hungary. The constitution was completely ignored by the king and no Diet was convened. These were sad days for Hungary. There was no one to promote her national interests, and her advancement in culture was hampered by the meddling rule of the Austrian police. And, indeed, had not, about this time, the national literature infused a fresh and hopeful spirit into the body politic, Hungary would have presented a most deplorable picture of apathy and despair. Literature, science, and poetry, the cultivation of which was sadly interrupted by the imprisonment of most of their votaries in 1795, in consequence of the Martinovics conspiracy, became powerful agencies in rousing the nation to renewed political activity. Numerous distinguished writers sprang up, exerting themselves to inculcate lessons of patriotism and national self-respect into the minds of the people who had been arbitrarily debarred from the most telling influences of legitimate culture by the Viennese government. The latter at last thought that the time had arrived when the absolute government prevailing in her Austrian dominions might be established with safety also in Hungary. The first attempt made by King Francis in this direction was to levy, arbitrarily, solely by his own authority and without the consent of the Diet (which was necessary under the law), 35,000 recruits for the army. This illegal exaction of the king created a tremendous commotion amongst the people, and resulted in a most desperate conflict between the Hungarian nation and the Viennese government. The political contest which lasted five years newly inflamed the national enthusiasm. King Francis finally saw the error of his ways, acknowledged the illegality of his action, and returned to constitutional government. He summoned the Diet, in 1825, which, continuing the work of reform checked in 1791, gave the impulse to a new era of modern progress in Hungary.