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After S?dan it was the fashion to regard Louis Napoleon as the only culprit in the gilded shame of the Second Empire; we shall see, however, that the great majority of Frenchmen longed for his coming, applauded his victories, and by frequent vote sanctioned his deeds. A free people keeps no worse ruler than it deserves.

The Napoleonic legend, by which Louis Napoleon rose to power, was not his creation, but that of the French: he was simply shrewd, and used it. What was this legend?

When allied Europe finally crushed the great Napoleon at Waterloo, France breathed a sigh of relief. Twenty campaigns had left her exhausted: she asked only for repose. This the Restoration gave her. But the gratification of our transient cravings, however strong they may be, cannot long satisfy; and when the French recovered from their exhaustion, they felt their permanent cravings return. The Bourbons, they soon realized, could not appease those dominant Gallic desires. For the Bourbons had destroyed even that semblance of liberty Napoleon took care to preserve; they persecuted democratic ideas; they brought back the old aristocracy, with its mildewed haughtiness; they babbled of divine right,--as if the worship of St. Guillotine had not supervened. During twenty years France had been the arbitress of Europe; now, under the narrow, forceless Bourbons, she was treated like a second-rate power. Waterloo had meant not only the destruction of Napoleon, from which France derived peace, but also humiliation, which galled Frenchmen more and more as their normal sensitiveness returned.

The Bourbons, knowing that they might be tolerated so long as they were not despised, got up a military promenade into Spain, to prove that France could still meddle in her neighbors' affairs, and that the Bourbons were not less mighty men of war than the Bonapartes. They captured the Trocadero, and restored vile King Ferdinand and his twenty-six cooks to the throne of Spain; and they hoped that the one-candle power of fame lighted by these exploits would outdazzle the Sun of Austerlitz. But no, the dynasty of Bourbon, long since headless, proved to be rootless too: one evening Charles X played his usual game of whist at St. Cloud; the next, he was posting out of France with all the speed and secrecy he could command.

And now arose the Napoleonic legend, at first no more than a bright exhalation in the evening, but gradually taking on the sweep, the definiteness, the fascination, of mirage at noonday. Time enough had elapsed to dull or quite blot out the recollections of the hardships and strains, the millions of soldiers killed and wounded, the taxes, the grievous tyranny; men remembered only the victories, the rewards, and the splendor. A new generation, unacquainted with the havoc of war, had grown up, to listen with fervid envy to the reminiscences of some gray-haired veteran, who had made the great charge at Wagram or ridden behind Ney at Borodino. Those exploits were so stupendous as to seem incredible, and yet they were vouched for by too many survivors to be doubted. Was not Thiers setting forth the marvelous story in nineteen volumes? Were not B?ranger and even Victor Hugo singing of the departed grandeur? Were not the booksellers' shelves loaded with memoirs, lives, historical statements, polemics? Paris, France, seemed to exist merely to be the monument of one man. And wherever the young Frenchman traveled--in Spain, in Italy, along the Rhine or the Danube, to Vienna, or Cairo, or Moscow--he saw the footprints of French valor and French audacity, reminders that Napoleon had made France the mistress of Europe. No Frenchman, were he Bourbon or Republican, but felt proud to think that his countrymen had humbled Prussia and Austria.

He was born in Paris, April 20, 1808, his mother being Hortense Beauharnais, who had married Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland. The younger Louis could just remember being petted in the Tuileries by the great Emperor: then, like all the Bonapartes, he had been packed off into exile. His youth was chiefly spent on Lake Constance, at Augsburg, and at Thun. In 1831 he had joined the Carbonari plotters in Italy. The next year, through the death of his elder brother and of the great Napoleon's son, he became the official Pretender to the Bonapartist hopes. People knew him only as a visionary, who talked much about his "star," and by writings and deeds tried to persuade the world that he too, like his uncle, was a man of destiny. A few adventurers gathered round him, eager to take the one chance in a thousand of his success. Accompanied by some of these, in 1836, he appeared before the French troops at Strasburg, expecting to be acclaimed Emperor and to march triumphantly to Paris. He did go to Paris, escorted by policemen; but his attempt seemed so foolish that Louis Philippe merely paid his passage to America to be rid of him.

The Prince soon returned to Europe and settled in London, where he lived the fast life of the average nobleman. In 1840 he set out on another expedition against France. Carrying a tame eagle with him, he landed at Boulogne: but again neither the soldiers nor populace welcomed him; the eagle seems to have been a spiritless fowl, likewise incapable of arousing enthusiasm; and the Prince shortly after was under imprisonment for life in the fortress of Ham. Nearly six years later he bribed a jailer, escaped to London, and, like Micawber, waited for something to turn up.

The fall of Louis Philippe gave Prince Louis his opportunity. He hurried to Paris, but was considerate, or cunning, enough to hold aloof for a while from disturbing public affairs. In those first months of turmoil many aspirants were destroyed, by their own folly and by mutual collision. Discreetly, therefore, he stood aside and watched them disappear.

Of the several factions, the Socialists and Red Republicans first profited by the Revolution. They organized that colossal folly, the National Workshops, in which 120,000 loafers received from the state good wages for pretending to do work which, had they done it, would have benefited no one. When the state, realizing that it could not continue this preposterous expense, proposed to close the workshops, the loafers became sullen: when the wages were cut off, they throttled Paris. For four days, in June, 1848, they made the streets of Paris their battle-ground, and succumbed only after 30,000 of their number had been killed, wounded, or captured by Cavaignac's troops. The terror inspired by those idlers of Louis Blanc's workshops was the corner-stone of the Second Empire.

A few weeks later, Louis Napoleon, elected by five constituencies, took his seat in the Assembly. His uncle's name was still his only political capital. His own record--the Strasburg and Boulogne episodes--inspired mirth. In person there was nothing commanding about him. An "olive-swarthy paroquet" some one called him. "His gray eyes," says De Tocqueville, "were dull and opaque, like those thick bull's-eyes which light the stateroom of a ship, letting the light pass through, but out of which we can see nothing." In after years "inscrutable" was the word commonly chosen to describe his cold, unblinking gaze. Reserve always characterized his manners; for even when most affable, his intimates felt that he concealed something or simulated something.

In the Assembly he strove for no sudden recognition; outside, however, he and his emissaries busied themselves night and day fanning the embers of Imperialism; and when, in December, 1848, the French people voted for a president, Louis Napoleon received 5,434,000 votes, while Cavaignac, his nearest competitor, had but 1,448,000. How had this come about? Old soldiers and peasants composed the great bulk of his supporters, every one of them glad to vote for "the nephew of the Emperor." Next, Socialists, blue blouses and others, voted for him because they hated Cavaignac for repressing Red Republicanism in June; and Monarchists of both stripes, believing that he would be an easy tool for their plots, preferred him to the unyielding Cavaignac. Mediocrity and other negative qualities thus availed to transform Louis the Ridiculed into the first President of the Republic. "We made two blunders in the case of Louis Napoleon," said Thiers; "first in deeming him a fool, and next in deeming him a genius." Louis Napoleon knew not only how to profit by both of these blunders, but also how to superinduce either belief in the French mind.

Having sworn to uphold the Republic, he began his administration. During several months he let no sign of his ambition flutter into view, but seemed wholly bent on discharging the duties of president. In the spring of 1849, however, he put forth a feeler by engineering the expedition against the Roman Republic. Honest Frenchmen protested, but a majority in the Assembly supported him; and presently the instinct to be revenged on the Romans for defending themselves, and thereby inflicting losses on the French, silenced many who had disapproved of the expedition at the outset. Only the Radicals forcibly resisted, but their revolt was quickly put down. Louis Napoleon gained the prestige of having successfully reasserted French influence in Italy, where, for a generation, it had been supplanted by the influence of Austria. Furthermore, by becoming guardian of the Pope, he propitiated the Clericals, who might some time be useful. That he also roused the wrath of the Red Republicans did not spoil his prospects.

One year, two years passed. Faction discredited faction. Every one looked on the Republic as but a preparation for either Anarchy or the Empire. The Reds, irreconcilable and ferocious, terrorized the imagination of every one else. No doubt the majority of honest Frenchmen--if by honest we mean the really intelligent and patriotic minority--wished a republic, but those Red Extremists had made all Republicans indiscriminately odious; and as the Royalist plotters showed neither courage nor ability, the great multitude of Frenchmen came to regard the Empire or Anarchy as their only alternatives. Most of them, having nothing to gain through disorder, leaned to the side which promised to leash the bloodhounds of murder and pillage. Spasm after spasm of terror swept over Paris, and when Paris shudders in the evening the rest of France shudders by daybreak. Anything to prevent the triumph of the Reds--with their guillotine and their abolition of private ownership of property--became the ruling instinct of all other Frenchmen.

Louis Napoleon, we may be sure, took care to encourage the belief that he alone could save France from the abyss. In addition to his recognized newspaper organs, he employed a literary bureau to spread broadcast his portrait, his biography, and even songs with an Imperialist refrain. He knew the political persuasiveness of cigars and sausages distributed among the troops, and of wine dispensed to their officers. He was by turns modest--declaring that his sole purpose was to obey the Constitution--and bold, announcing that he would not shrink from making France strong and prosperous, whenever Frenchmen intrusted that task to him. In his capacity for waiting, he gave the best proof of his ability; and we must add that the Assembly, by its folly, gave him indispensable aid.

The Assembly, for instance, restricted the suffrage, in the hope that, by preventing workmen from voting, the victory of the Reds might be staved off. Again, the Constitution declared that no president was eligible for re?lection until he had been four years out of office. As the time for thinking of Louis Napoleon's successor approached, the moderates of all parties urged that the Constitution be amended, so that he might be quietly re?lected,--there being no other candidate who promised to preserve order. But the factious deputies, by a narrow vote, rejected the amendment.

The trade of house or bank burglar long ago fell into disrepute: not so that of the state burglar, who, if he succeed, may wear ermine jauntily,--for ermine, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. Louis Napoleon, ready to risk everything, laid his plans for stealing the government of France. The venture was less difficult than it seems, for if he could win over four or five men the odds would be with him. He must have the Prefect of Paris, the Commandant of the Garrison, the Ministers of War and of the Interior: others might make assurance double sure, but these were absolutely necessary.

Their first move was to send Fleury to Algiers to secure a general to act as minister of war. He had not to search long; for Saint Arnaud, one of the Algerian officers, guessing Fleury's purpose, offered his services forthwith. But Saint Arnaud stood only fifty-third in the line of promotion among French generals; some excuse must be found for passing by his fifty-two seniors. In a few weeks the French press and official gazette announced an outbreak of great violence among the Kabyles in Algeria; a little later they reported that the insurrection had been subdued by the energy of General Saint Arnaud; then, another proper interval elapsing, Saint Arnaud had come to Paris as minister of war.

It took less trouble to dismiss the Prefect of the Seine, and to substitute Maupas for him. Magnan, who commanded the troops, had already been corrupted. Half-brother Morny, at the critical moment, would appear in the Ministry of the Interior. The National Guard and the Public Printer could both be counted on,--the latter required for the prompt issuing of manifestoes. Everything being ready, the President, after some brief delays, set December 2--the anniversary of Austerlitz, and of the coronation of the great Napoleon--for committing the crime.

France acquiesced all the more readily because she was put under martial law. One hundred thousand suspects were arrested, and more than ten thousand, were deported to Cayenne and Algeria. Police inquisitions, military commissions, and the other usual devices of tyranny quickly smothered resistance. Under the pretense of suppressing anarchy,--an anarchist meaning any one who did not submit to Louis Napoleon,--persecution supplanted law and justice. Had you asked to see most of the Frenchmen whose names were the most widely known, you would have been told that they were in exile.

Like his uncle, Louis Napoleon waited a little before putting on the purple. Only on December 2, 1852, the anniversary of his crime, did he have himself proclaimed emperor. The mockery of a plebiscite had preceded, and he had assured France and Europe that the "Empire means peace."

Having reached the throne, he made the following arrangements for staying on it. He organized a Senate and a Council of State, whose members he appointed. The public were allowed to elect members to the Corps L?gislatif, or Legislature; but as his minions controlled the polls, only such candidates as he preferred were likely to be chosen. He suffered a few opponents to be elected, in order to have it appear that he encouraged discussion. Otherwise, he scarcely took pains to varnish his autocracy. As a deft Chinese carver incloses a tiny figure in a nest of ivory boxes, so did Bonaparte imprison the simulacrum of Liberty in the innermost compartment of the political cage in which he held France captive.

What must the condition of the French people have been that they submitted! How much antecedent incapacity for government, how much cherishing of unworthy ideals, were implied by the success of such an adventurer! And what could patriotism mean, when the French fatherland meant the land of Louis Napoleon, Morny, Maupas, Persigny, and their unspeakable underlings? The new Empire gave France what is called a strong government, by which commercially she throve. Tradesmen, seeing business improve and their hoards grow, chafed less at the loss of political freedom. The working classes were propitiated by public works--the favorite nostrum of socialists and tyrants--organized on a vast scale. Pensions were showered on old soldiers, or their widows. Taxes ran high; the public debt had constantly to be increased: but an air of opulence pervaded France.

Already, however, sober observers noted other symptoms, and soon the list of Imperial reverses grew ominously long. Early in 1860, Central Italy became a part of Victor Emanuel's kingdom: Napoleon had insisted that it should form a new state for his cousin Plon-Plon. That autumn, Sicily and Naples united themselves to Italy: Napoleon had wished and schemed otherwise. That same year, too, England compelled him to renounce his protectorate over Syria. Then he planned a French empire in Mexico; sent French troops over under Bazaine; set up Maximilian, who appeared to have grafted Napoleonism on our continent. But in 1867 he recalled his army,--"spontaneously" as he said. The world smiled when it reflected that the spontaneity of his withdrawal had been superinduced by a curt message from the United States and the massing of United States troops on the Rio Grande. In 1864 he would have kept Prussia and Austria from robbing Denmark; but as he had only words to risk, they heeded him not. In 1866, when Prussia and Austria went to war, expecting that Austria would be the victor, he had arranged to take a slice of Rhineland while Austria took Silesia. But Prussia was victorious, and so quickly that Napoleon could not save his reputation even as mediator.

At last Europe realized that his nod was not omnipotent,--that Prussia, his enemy, could raise herself to a power of the first rank, not only without but against his sanction. Napoleon also realized that his prestige was tottering. He must have some compensation for Prussia's aggrandizement. But when he asked for a strip of Rhineland, Bismarck replied: "I will never cede an inch of German soil." Napoleon, not ready for war, cast about for some other screen to his humiliation; for even in his legislature men now dared to taunt him with allowing Germany to grow perilously strong. To this taunt one of the Imperial spokesmen retorted, "Germany is divided into three fragments, which will never come together." A day or two later Bismarck published the secret treaties by which North and South Germany had bound themselves to support each other in case of attack.

In 1863 Bismarck said to a friend: "From a distance, the French Empire seems to be something; near by, it is nothing." About the same time Napoleon, who had had much friendly intercourse with the Prussian statesman, said: "M. de Bismarck is not a serious man."

Just as the Luxemburg affair was concluded, all the world went to Paris to attend the Exposition, which was intended to be, and seemed, a symbol of the permanence of the Second Empire. The projectors knew that the immense preparations would enable the government to employ many workmen, who might otherwise be unruly, and that the vast concourse of visitors would bring money to the tradespeople and keep them from grumbling. The ostensible purpose, however, was to dazzle both Frenchmen and strangers by a view of Imperial magnificence; and it was fully achieved.

Paris herself, the Phryne among cities, astonished those who had never seen her, or who had seen her in old days. Where, they asked, were the narrow, crooked streets, in which barricaders once fortified themselves? Were these boulevards, stretching broad and straight,--were these they? And by what magic had the old, irregular dwellings been transformed into miles of tall, stately blocks? New churches, new quays, new parks, new palaces, bearing the impress of grace, symmetry, and a unifying planner, excited the wonder of the cosmopolitan throng of visitors. But the products of industry, the triumphs of the arts of peace, were not allowed to obscure the military glories of the Second Empire. A "Bridge of the Alma" and a "Boulevard of Sebastopol" kept the Crimean prowess in memory; a "Solferino Bridge" and a "Magenta Boulevard" bore witness to the Italian triumphs. And there were pageants, military, courtly, artistic; balls, at which, among the picked beauties of the world, the Empress Eug?nie shone most beautiful; banquets, at which Napoleon sat at the head of the table, with monarchs at his right hand and his left deferentially listening. Little did the on-lookers suppose that the master of those magnificent revels had been lately frustrated by M. de Bismarck, who was merely one of the million whose presence in Paris seemed a tribute to Napoleon's supremacy.

History, it is said, never repeats: but is the saying true? Is there not an old, old story of Belshazzar and the magnificent feast he gave in ancient Babylon, and the mysterious writing on the wall? And was not another Belshazzar repeating the episode in this modern Babylon less than thirty years ago? However that may be, the Exhibition of 1867 was the last triumph of Imperial France.

And all the next year, 1869, though Imperialism abated in language none of its pretensions, it showed in deeds many signs of nervousness. No longer did it think it prudent, for instance, to abet the enormous extravagances of Hausmann, the remodeler of Paris. It even talked Liberalism, and set up a seeming Liberal Cabinet, with Ollivier at its head. "All the reform you may give us, we accept," said Gambetta bluntly; "and we may possibly force you to yield more than you intend; but all you give, and all we take, we shall simply use as a bridge to carry us over to another form of government." Evidently the conscience of France, expressing itself through the Republican spokesman, could not be placated or seduced.

To be deserted by the Parisians, on whom Napoleon had lavished so much pomp,--that, indeed, was hard; but the disaffection in the army meant danger. One desperate remedy remained,--a foreign war. Victory would bring to Imperialism sufficient prestige to postpone for several years the impending collapse; meanwhile, public attention would be diverted from grievances at home.

War came, the Emperor being, by common report, most reluctant to consent to its declaration. He was its first victim. Five weeks after taking the field, he surrendered with nearly one hundred and ninety thousand men at S?dan. The corruption which through twenty years he had fostered, in all parts of the state where he expected to profit by it, had gangrened the army also, that branch which a military tyrant needs to have honestly administered. And now in his need the army failed him. He had been caught, as every one is caught who imagines that he can be wicked with impunity and still keep virtue for an ally when he needs her. From top to bottom his war department was rotten. Conscripts had, by bribe, evaded service; generals had sworn to false muster-rolls; ministers had connived with dishonest contractors. At S?dan, Napoleon paid the penalty of the corruption which he had erected into a system; at S?dan, moreover, he completed that cycle of parallels and imitations which he had made the business of his life. Just as Prussian Bl?cher paralyzed the last rally of the great Napoleon at Waterloo, so Prussian Moltke achieved the ignominy of Napoleon the Little at S?dan.

In closing, let us read, from a letter Bismarck wrote to his wife the day after the surrender, a description of the meeting of Napoleon and his conqueror:--

That morning the terms of capitulation were drawn up, and the next day Napoleon went a prisoner to Wilhelmsh?he, whence, in due time, he was allowed to depart for England. At Chislehurst, on January 9, 1873, he died, having lived to see not only the extinction of French Imperialism and of the temporal Papacy, but also the creation of the German Empire and the union of Italy. To prevent all of these things had been his aim.

In a life like Garibaldi's we see what a disinterested genius can do by appealing to men's noble motives: the career of Louis Napoleon illustrates not less clearly what a man with talents and without scruples can accomplish by appealing to the instincts of vainglory and selfishness and terror; to the instinct which bullies weak nations and hoists the flag where it does not belong; to the instinct which has not the courage to acknowledge an error, but is quick to impute injuries, and declares that there shall be one conscience for politicians and another for citizens. Let us not flatter ourselves that only the French have cherished these stupendous delusions; let us rather take warning by the retribution exacted from them.

KOSSUTH

The history of Hungary is in this respect unique: it records the career of an alien tribe which, cutting its way from Eastern Asia to the heart of Europe, founded there a nation, and this nation, after the friction of a thousand years, still preserves its racial characteristics. In 894 Duke Arp?d led his horde of Magyars--whose earlier kinsmen were Huns and Avars--up the valley of the Danube. Long were they a terror to Europe; then, gradually, they had to content themselves with Hungary as their home. They became Christians; they adopted a monarchical government; alongside of their Aryan neighbors, they took on mediaeval civilization. Europe, unable to expel or to destroy, acknowledged them as citizens. The time came when the Magyars, in a conflict lasting fivescore years, defended Europe against the invasion of another horde of Asiatic barbarians; till, unsupported by their neighbors, the Magyars succumbed to the Turks in the battle of Moh?cs in 1526. Afterwards, for one hundred and fifty years, Hungary herself writhed in the hands of the Mussulman; when that bondage ceased, she had a different oppressor,--Austria.

The Hungarian monarchy was elective, and after the battle of Moh?cs the Magyars chose for their king the sovereign of the Austrian states. The succession continued in the House of Hapsburg, becoming in fact hereditary; but, before the Magyars accepted him as king, each Hapsburg candidate must be ratified by the Hungarian Diet, and must swear to uphold the Hungarian Constitution. When, however, the expulsion of the Turks, at the end of the seventeenth century, left the Austrian sovereigns free to exercise their authority, they set about curtailing the ancient liberties of Hungary. Throughout the eighteenth century that process went on: the Magyars protested; the Emperor-King encroached, or, when the protests threatened to pass into insurrection, he paused for a while and gave fair promises.

Such was the situation when the French Revolution, followed by Napoleon's colossal ambition, startled Europe. During the quarter century of upheaval, the Magyars, still pouring their grievances into Vienna, remained loyal to their King. After Napoleon's downfall, the Old R?gime being firmly re?stablished, Emperor Francis not only failed to keep his promises towards Hungary, but revived the old policy of Austrianization, which meant the substitution of German for Magyar officials, and the removal of the chief branches of government to Vienna. Again the protests became angry, until Francis, baffled and alarmed, convened the Diet. With the year 1825, when that Diet met, began the modern struggle of Hungary to recover that home rule which one after another of her Hapsburg kings had solemnly sworn to respect, and had as perfidiously disregarded. Thus the seed of the Magyar revolution was sown, like that of so many others, in a demand for the restoration of acknowledged rights, and not in a demand for innovation. Home rule,--Hungary to govern herself, instead of being bullied by foreigners who happened to be also subjects of her Emperor-King,--that seemed an object as simple and definite as it was just. Experience soon showed, however, that this cause was not simple; that it no more could be attained alone than gold can be taken from quartz without crushing the quartz and separating the silver and lead, and the crushed quartz itself, from the desired gold. For Hungary was imbedded in an old civilization, which must be broken up before home rule, and many another modern ideal, could be attained.

Imagine a country having an area about as large as the State of Colorado, inhabited by people sprung from four different races,--the Magyar, the Slav, the German, and the Italian: imagine, further, these races subdivided into eight different peoples,--Magyars, having poor kinsmen called Szeklers; Slavs, sending forth four different shoots, Slovaks in the North, Croats in the Southwest, Serbs in the South, and Wallachs in the East; imagine this motley population holding various creeds,--Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Unitarian: imagine not merely each race, but each people, cherishing its own language, its own customs, its own ambitions, which inevitably clashed with those of its neighbors: and having imagined all this, you have not yet come to the end of Hungary's complex organism. Beside the conflicts of race and creed, there were political and social complications.

The dominant race was the Magyars, who numbered, however, only a third of the total population; their prevailing system was the feudal. A few hundred great nobles, or magnates, a considerable body of small nobles and a multitude of artisans, tradesmen, and peasants made up the social strata. Every Magyar who could trace descent to Arp?d and his followers--though he were but a peasant in condition--was a noble: members of all the other races had no political rights. Hungary proper comprised fifty-two counties, each of which had its local congregation or assembly, which met four times a year, and sent suggestions or bills of grievances to the Central Diet, composed of the Table of Magnates and the Table of Deputies. A Palatine or Viceroy, representing the Sovereign, was the actual head of the kingdom. Outside of Hungary proper, the Croats had their local Diet at Agram, and Transylvania had hers; both also chose representatives to the Hungarian Diet. In a measure, therefore, we may call Hungary a federation, not forgetting, however, that it was a federation in which one race, the Magyars, domineered. The Latin language was the common medium of communication between Hungary and Austria, and among the diverse peoples.

That Magyar aristocracy has played so prominent a part in the history of Hungary that we may pause a moment to describe it. In 1830 the Magyar magnate was still the most picturesque noble in Europe. Like the Spanish grandee and the Venetian senator of an earlier time, he represented one of the highest expressions of the privileged classes. He was haughty, but warm-hearted; emotional, but brave: appeal to his honor, to his magnanimity, and--as Maria Theresa found--he would forget his grievances, disregard his interests, and devote himself body and soul to your cause. He might be ignorant, a spendthrift, an exacting master, but in his capacity for generosity he was--by whatever standard--truly a noble. In old times his forefathers had assembled every year, or when an emergency required, on the plain of R?kos,--a host of gallant warriors, in brilliant armor and gorgeous cloaks and trappings. There they deliberated--perhaps chose a king or deposed one--and then each rode home with his retinue, to live in a splendor half-barbaric for another year. In his dress the Magyar had an Oriental love of color, and in his music there is a similar glow, a similar charm.

"The sword-belt is frequently a heavy gold chain, such as our ancient knights wore over their armor. The colors, as in many respects the form, of the Hungarian uniform, depend entirely on the taste of the individual, and vary from the simple blue dress of the hussar, with white cotton lace, to the rich stuffs, covered with pearls and diamonds, of the Prince Esterh?zy.

"On the whole, I know of no dress so handsome, so manly, and at the same time so convenient. It is only on gala days that gay and embroidered dresses are used; on ordinary occasions, as sittings of the Diet, county meetings, and others in which it is customary to wear uniform, dark colors with black silk lace, and trousers, or Hessian boots, are commonly used."

Such, in its dress, was the Magyar aristocracy which the reformers set themselves to overcome; and in their character those Magyar nobles--were they magnates or simply gentlemen--cherished a tenacity of class unsurpassed by any other aristocrats in Europe. Nevertheless, the reformers boldly put forth a programme which involved the complete social and political reorganization of the country,--even throwing down a challenge to the aristocracy to surrender privileges in which these deemed their very existence rooted. Parties had begun to array themselves on these lines when Louis Kossuth entered public life.

He now proposed to edit in similar fashion the proceedings of the quarterly meetings of the fifty-two county assemblies; but Government, no longer restrained by his inviolability as member of the Diet, arrested him. He spent two years in prison, denied books and all intercourse with his friends, before his case came to trial: then he was sentenced to a further confinement of four years, during which his great solace was the study of Shakespeare.

Meanwhile, political and social agitation was swelling. The King, thinking a European war over the Eastern Question imminent, summoned another Diet to vote him a fresh subsidy and more soldiers. But the Diet, indignant and headstrong, refused all help till Kossuth and some other political prisoners should be released. The King yielded. Kossuth came forth a national hero.

Doubt not that Kossuth knew how to kindle the fuel which ages of hatred had been storing. He had the gift peculiar to really great popular leaders of appealing directly to racial pride and passion; so it mattered little that he dealt in generalizations. Speaking broadly, he preached the abolition of feudalism and the aggrandizement of the Magyar nationality. The former purpose brought him and the Liberals into conflict with the conservative aristocracy; the latter inflamed against the Magyars the long-smouldering hatred of their subject peoples.

Thus through all the arteries of the body politic new blood was throbbing. Give a people a great idea, and they will find how to apply it to every concern of life. The Magyar Liberals were surely undermining feudalism; their race was growing more and more restive at Austria's obstinate delays. When Austria removed the native county sheriffs and put German administrators in their stead, all the Magyar factions joined in denouncing such an assault on their national life. The county system had been the safeguard of Hungary's political institutions for well-nigh eight hundred years; the sheriff was the foremost official in the county, to whose guidance its interests and civic activity were intrusted. To make an alien sheriff was therefore to check national agitation at its source. Accordingly, the Diet which met in the autumn of 1847 met full of defiance and resentment, though the platform of the Liberals, drawn up by the judicial De?k, wore on its surface a conciliatory aspect. After a hot canvass, Kossuth was elected to represent Pesth in the Chamber of Deputies. A few sessions sufficed to establish his pre?minence as an orator, and his leadership of the Liberal party.

During the winter months of 1847-48 but little was done, though much was discussed. As usual, the Magnates resisted the reforms aimed at their class; as usual, Government temporized and postponed. Suddenly, at the beginning of March, 1848, news reached Presburg of the revolution in Paris, and of the flight of Louis Philippe. That news passed like a torch throughout Europe, kindling as it passed the fires of revolt. At Presburg, on March 3, Kossuth rose in the Diet and interrupted a debate on the financial difficulties with Austria. That question of finance, he said, could never be settled separately; in it was involved the whole question of Austria's disregard of Hungary's rights. Hungary must have her own laws, her own ministry; taxation must be equal; the franchise must be extended. More than that, he added, Hungary could never prosper until every part of the Empire should be governed by uniform constitutional methods.

Kossuth's "baptismal speech of the revolution" took the Lower House by storm. An address to the Throne was framed, which, after fruitless reluctance on the part of the Magnates, a large committee, headed by Kossuth and Count Louis Batthy?nyi,--the Liberal leader in the Upper House,--carried twelve days later to Vienna. The delegates found the Austrian capital in an uproar. On March 13 Metternich, deserted by the aristocracy on whose behalf he had labored unscrupulously for fifty years, had been hounded from office. The people, after a bloody struggle, had possession of the city, and they welcomed Kossuth as a deliverer; for his "baptismal speech" had made their aims articulate.

The next day, Emperor Ferdinand received the deputation very graciously, and promised to grant their petition. Exulting, they returned to Presburg. A Cabinet was formed in which Batthy?nyi held the premiership, and Kossuth the portfolio of finance. Soon, very soon, tremendous difficulties beset them: Radicals clamored for a republic; the subject races revolted; the Imperial government proved perfidious.

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