# Littell's Living Age/Volume 129/Issue 1662/The Life and Labours of Francis Deak, 1803-1876

From Fraser's Magazine.
THE LIFE AND LABOURS OF FRANCIS DEAK. 1803-1876.
In the lofty Academic Hall at Pesth, where the remains of the great Hungarian patriot lately stood amidst a nation's sympathetic sorrow, there might be seen on the black drapery with which the marble walls were hung, the escutcheon of the Deak family; showing, in the middle, a pen and a book—a battle-axe crowning the top. In a way, this rare coat of arms prefigured the late statesman's character and life.
For his country's rights he battled manfully, though his own hands never grasped the war-hatchet, which he would have readily buried forever. The pen and the book more fitly symbolize his doings. Public speech and public writings were his only weapons. By these he wrought an extraordinary success; entering his name, with indelible letters, in the checkered history of his fatherland. Yet the battle-axe that surmounted his armorial bearings, and the use of which he personally spurned, had a good deal to do with the triumph of his efforts; for without the repeated favour of warlike events in neighbouring lands, Hungary could not have regained those constitutional rights of which he was the moderate, but steadfast, champion.
The outward career of Francis Deak can scarcely be called an eventful one. His life was one of the simplest. Averse to all show, he neither sought distinction, nor power. No stars or crosses covered his breast; nor would he accept any of those titles which royalty showers upon men it wishes to fetter. The consciousness of having done right was ever enough for him, from early youth down to his dying hour.
Born on October 17, 1803, at Söjhör, in the comitat of Zala, the offspring of a family belonging to the lesser nobility, he studied law at Raab. The first training in the knowledge of State affairs he received from a brother—his senior by twenty years. At an early age, we find Francis Deak as a leader of the liberal party in his native comitat. The county assemblies of Hungary have always served as a nursery for political talents — as a preparatory school for greater action in the Diet. When returned, in 1832, for the latter assembly, after the withdrawal of his brother, he rose almost at once to the foremost rank as an opposition speaker.
His bearing, at that time, is described as serious and dignified; of a gravity almost too great for so young a man. Of shortish build; with features by no means striking; the clear and quiet eyes overshadowed by bushy brows; with a good forehead; but otherwise lacking the characteristics that might have marked him as a future leader of men: so he stepped into the Parliament at Pressburg. In bodily form, as well as in temperament, he had few of the peculiarities of his race. But he soon proved himself a very Magyar of Magyars in his profound acquaintance with parliamentary lore; in the fertility of his legal resources; in the copiousness of his vocabulary when a point was to be gained by speaking, as it were, against time; as well as in his wonderful tenacity, which in later years almost served the purposes of a death-defying enthusiasm.
His maiden speech, modest in tone, but showing great tact and full of maturity of judgment, created a deep impression on both sides of the House. Unadorned by any rhetorical flowers; studiously free from all invective or pathetic appeals, his eloquence, entirely of a persuasive kind, mainly influenced the hearer by the logical marshalling of facts and arguments; by the strong array of weapons taken from the arsenal of constitutional legality; by the homely illustrations and quaint anecdotic humour with which the orator relieved his otherwise plain speech. The whole was given in an easy conversational tone, but in well rounded, sometimes even stately periods. Simple common sense marked every utterance. Deak wished to convince, not to rouse and to hurry on, those whom he addressed. Only reluctantly he grappled with an enemy in the strong polemic vein; but then he generally managed to make his foe beware of a future quarrel with him. At a glance it could be seen that, in ordinary times, this youthful, almost precociously wise statesman would exercise a leading influence. But the very strength which he displayed for such an epoch of exclusively legal contests, bore in it a germ of weakness for those mighty revolutionary struggles when an outraged people — to speak with Stauffacher, in Schiller's "Tell" — "boldly reclaims those natural ​rights which hang, like stars eternal, in high heaven."
A few more speeches in the Diet brought Deak fully to the front. In the Parliament of 1839-40, he acted already as a prominent party-leader. If the effect of Eötvös' harangues was often marred by rhetorical involution; if Stephan Szechenyi — upon whose mind, in later days, dark clouds lowered —had alternate accesses of sanguine hope and deep despondency, Deak always gave his temperate counsel with clearness and unchanging force. He neither hoped beyond measure, nor ever did despair. The even strength of his nature came out when he fought, at one and the same time, the battle of his country's charter against Habsburg encroachment, and of popular enfranchisement against the harsh feudal rule of the nobles.
Aristocratic privilege, at that time, stalked about rampant and ﬁerce in Hungary, whilst the country was ever and anon the prey of an absolutistic court whose rule was upheld by the sword, by the executioner's axe, by prison torture, and by an inquisitorial censorship of the press. It is difficult for the present generation to understand the character of that sad epoch, when the personal security of every prominent opponent daily trembled in the balance. Deak, from patriotic motives, as well as from noble sympathy with the sufferings of the masses, earnestly strove to bring about home reforms, all the while resisting Metternich's attacks upon his country's constitution. It was a difficult task—this double struggling. The question was, how to combine the existing political forces, which dwelt in a narrow aristocratic circle, against Metternich's system, and, at the same time, so to conduct the campaign against the misgovernment of the magnates as not to weaken too much the cohesion of the Magyar ranks.
Deak's wisdom and energy were equal to both tasks. In open Parliament, and in committee, he was an indefatigable worker. By word of mouth, and by the press, he laboured for the emancipation of the peasantry; for a reform in the administration of justice, for a more equitable distribution of political rights; for the mitigation of social tyranny. Yet, while using the trowel for the building up of a better State structure at home, he had to keep ready the weapon wherewith to hold the despotic foe at bay.
In those days, Hungarian deputies had to go by the instructions of their constituencies, similar to the cahiers of the pre-revolutionary era in France. When the comitat which Deak represented gave it as its instruction that he should vote for the continued exemption of the aristocracy from taxation, he threw up his mandate, and indignantly withdrew for a time from public life. A true Horatian "just man, tenacious of his aim," he would not buy a distinguished position at the price of his principles. But such was already then his influence that nobody dared to ﬁll the place which he had left; so the comitat was for a while represented by a single member. In those years of retirement he was not inactive. A well-read jurisconsult, he continued working at a reformed law code, the first draft of which he had elaborated in company with Szalay, and which earned great praise from the eminent German legist, Mittermaier. Studies connected with the Parliamentary system also ﬁlled Deak's political leisure. An effort was made to bring him back to Parliament by altering the offensive portion of the instruction. He refused, because questionable means had been employed in a second electoral contest, and because blood had been spilt during the angry excitement of political passions. Above all things he abhorred any act of violence.
Only by fair and pure means would he obtain a success. His aversion to the use of force went so far as to render him, afterwards, when the revolutionary tempest came, more a victim of the foes than a help to the friends of his country's cause. He had all the law-abiding perseverance, all the unbending ﬁrmness, all the qualities of mixed modesty and courage of Hampden and Pym. No better parallel could be found for him, as regards the main substance of his character, than among the doughty men who preceded the English Commonwealth. But as soon as the ground of strict legality was left, he felt out of his place, and became practically powerless.
Towards the end of 1847, when the signs of a coming tempest broke forth on the European horizon, Deak came back to the Diet. Its leading members had often, during his non-appearance in public, sought his private counsel. Now, a powerful party again placed itself under his acknowledged leadership. Already the drift of the movement began, however, to set towards a different goal. We ﬁnd him acting together with Kossuth; but even then it might have been seen that the paths of the two men would soon diverge.
After the revolution of March 1848, ​when Vienna rose with the strength of a young giant, and Milan drove out the armed host of its oppressor, Deak became minister of justice in the cabinet of Count Bathyany. In the stormy movements which now swept over the face of Europe, he did not appear to great advantage. The moderantism to which his whole nature inclined unﬁtted him for the rough task of coping with a tyranny that had only been cowed, but not crushed. Generally a cautious but observant man, he seemed in those days to lack even the foresight which looks far ahead into an enemy's probable tactics. Reforms in the domain of justice he ﬁrmly advocated and carried out. Trial by jury, the freedom of the press, and similar questions of deep home import, had his fullest attention. But in matters affecting the political situation at large he did not come up to the height of a great historical moment.
Whilst the strongest real guarantees were required to uphold the newly-born freedom against a possible and only too probable treachery, he was content with a mere royal rescript. At the risk of his whole popularity, he urged his own trustful view against the party which then began to gather round Kossuth. To the proposition that Prince Metternich's name should be erased from the roll of Hungarian magnates Deak offered a strenuous opposition. This was a fault, even from the point of view of moderate constitutionalism — which at any rate had to break with the despotic past.
Very rightly he recommended that friendly relations should be entered into with the National Constituent Assembly of Germany by means of a semi-diplomatic mission to Frankfort-on-the-Main. Hungary's separate political existence was thus clearly marked off. In Italian affairs, he failed to understand the drift of the time. Going by the stipulations of the old Pragmatic Sanction, he, a liberal, gave his support to the demand of the court of Vienna that Hungary should furnish troops to help in the overthrow of the Italian cause. In this, it is true, he only did that which even Kossuth had temporarily sanctioned. Written law, which Deak had so often used in support of his own country's rights, was thus made to serve as a chain wherewith to bind another nation rightfully struggling for independence. Yet, could there be a doubt even for a moment that, if the house of Habsburg were victorious against the Italian "rebels," it would speedily lead its troops, fresh from victory, against the Hungarian insurgents?
"I love progress, but not revolution!" Deak was wont to say. But in the midst of a revolution, there was no choice for any one standing in the front but to be hammer or anvil. The situation was given, no individual likings were of any avail. Events had to be resolutely used for the furtherance of freedom—or else the ﬂoodgates of absolutism would be forced open, and every liberty that had been gained be swamped by an ugly rush of reaction. For a moment, the prospects of Hungary had seemed bright in the early part of 1848. Equality of rights was decreed for its manifold races, some of which had, before that time, held the unenviable position of a mere "misera plebs contribuens, optima flens, pessima ridens." Such, indeed, had once been the cruel saying which declared the wretched hind to be at his best when, bathed in tears, he paid his scot; and at his worst, when he felt in a mood for laughter.
Unfortunately, the ﬁerce passions of race-hatred, kindled by dynastic guile, soon ran riot at the expense of that liberty which had been decreed for all, and which all might have equally enjoyed. A discordance of tribes marks the whole east of Europe. Not only in Turkey, but in Hungary, and even in Poland, odd fragments of races are heterogeneously huddled together, as stray remnants and sediments of the migration drifts. In Austrian Galicia, where the Polish race, properly so called, is broken in by a Ruthenian population which holds an intermediate position between the Poles, or Lechs, and the Russians, Prince Metternich, in 1846, was able to make use of this tribal antagonism, as well as of the class feuds between the peasants and the nobles, in order to quell a patriotic Polish movement by a cruel massacre.
In Hungary, after the enthusiastic rising of 1848, the smouldering embers of race-hatred were soon fanned by the Mephistophelic agency of an imperalist camarilla. Hungary is a polyglot country. Within its precincts there are Magyars and Sclaves, Germans and Roumans; nationalities differing from one another in origin and speech as much as the Turks do from the Muscovites, or the English from the Italians. Besides these chief races, there is a medley of Arnauts; Bulgars, Armenians, Gipsy clans, and so forth, which go to eke out the many-coloured State ediﬁce between the Carpathian range and the Danube. In this confusion of tribes and tongues, the Magyars hold the central and most compact ​position, geographically as well as in politics.
An Ugrian, Turanian race, tracing its descent from an eastern nomadic tribe, that rushed into Europe like a whirlwind, the Magyars have since early ages displayed a capacity for self-government fully equal to that of nations boasting of an Anglo-Saxon descent. In the midst of apparently disheartening difficulties, they succeeded in imprinting a common political stamp upon a country made up of the most variegated elements. Strong-handed conquerors at first, they gradually, of late, set to work to change mere aristocratic privilege into an equality of civic ﬁghts. If the German element of Hungary represented general culture, the Magyars were the political mainstay of the realm. Without them, the country fell back into chaos — ready victim of absolutistic statecraft.
All Magyars know by what dangers they are surrounded. Deak, as a Magyar, could not deceive himself on that point; and what had occurred in Galicia must have served him as a warning example. Perhaps his extreme moderation, in his dealings with the Austrian government, arose from the consciousness of these ever-lurking dangers. The camarilla in the Hofburg, did, however, take no account of such moderation. It fretted and chafed under the defeat which it had suffered at the hands of the people of Vienna, Pesth, and Milan. Its whole energy was given to the thought as to how the tables could be first turned upon the Magyars by means of the Slavs. If the Magyars were once got down, then, forsooth, the turn of the German Austrians was to come.
To effect such a reaction, a base game of treachery was enacted, almost unparalleled in history. Jellacic, the governor of Croatia, who made the first armed attack upon the new order of things in Hungary, was in secret league with the court of Vienna. Deposed, degraded, styled a "rebel" by imperial letter, he had all the while the clandestine support of the emperor Ferdinand, or rather of the intriguing clique which made use of that half-witted monarch as a puppet. Field ofﬁcers, artillery, ammunition were sent through Ferdinand's minister of war, Latour, to the banus of Croatia, whilst official decrees apparently deprived him of all his civil and military functions. Thus, an insurrection of Croats, Serbs, and Valachs was cunningly fanned against the Hungarian cause. When the day for avowing the real object came, the emperor-king, by an order dated September 4, 1848, revoked the decree against the "rebel;" expressed his high approval of the conduct of his "faithful Jellacic;" suspended the constitution; proclaimed martial law; and appointed the "rebel" as his plenipotentiary for the kingdom of Hungary; investing him with unlimited authority to act in the name of his Majesty within the said kingdom.
"The king was a traitor." By the more far-seeing, this had long been suspected. With good reason, Kossuth, anticipating coming events, had kept up relations with the popular leaders at Vienna. German Austrians and Magyars had a common foe: the Slav reaction, championed by Croats, Serbs, and Czechs. Between the capitals of Hungary and Austria there was, therefore, a sympathetic chord. On the treachery of the ruling house becoming manifest, action without delay was urgently needed. Almost on the spur of the moment, higher resolutions had to be formed than suited the steady-going, but somewhat lawyer-like, character of the leader of the moderate constitutionalists. Deak, discouraged and disconcerted, hastened to Vienna, making a last hopeless attempt. From the lips of Archduke Franz Karl he learnt that all was lost—that Hungary had only to choose between submission or revolution.
Thereupon Deak withdrew from the ministry. Henceforth, though Bathyany stood at the head of the new cabinet, the chief part naturally fell to Lewis Kossuth, the idol of the masses, the popular orator and bold writer, the gifted leader of the advanced party, who — with an almost Oriental style of eloquence, very dissimilar from that of Deak - combined an active fervour and an ambition deeply impatient of the continuance of royal and imperial rule. In Parliament, Deak still stayed for a short time after his resignation as a minister. But his political occupation was gone. His last public act, during the tragic events of war which now became the order of the day, was his appearance before Prince Windischgrätz, the imperial commander, as a member of a deputation from the Hungarian Diet. Counts Anthony and George Majlath, Count Lewis Bathyany, and Archbishop Lonowiez were with him — truly no republicans of very deep dye!
​"I do not treat with rebels!" was the harsh exclamation with which Prince Windischgrätz received these deputies.
Seeing all hope of a peaceful solution at an end, Deak gave up his seat in Parliament, and refused to obey the summons to Debreczyn, whither the representatives of the people had withdrawn for greater safety. Amidst the clangour of arms, the expounder of legality remained silent. Meanwhile, the Hungarian rising, so ably and heroically led, but so dangerously assailed by counter-insurrections of hostile tribes from within, fell before the twofold attack of the armies of the kaiser and the czar. After the terrible catastrophe of Vilagos, and the sanguinary overthrow of the nation's cause, Deak passed nearly ten years in absolute retirement; living in the small town of Kehida, near which some of his family estates lay. For all that could humanly be foreseen, he might have gone down to his grave without seeing a ray lighting up the dark night of reaction in which his country was enveloped.
II.
A deep gloom had settled over the countries under Habsburg sway. At Vienna, Robert Blum, Messenhauser, Becher, and other champions of the German popular cause were in their gory graves, riddled with court-martial bullets. In Italy, the work of reconquest was completed by leisurely conducted fusillades. on the gallows at Arad, the hangman of his imperial, royal, and —aye!-apostolic Majesty had strung up eminent Magyar generals and statesmen by the dozen. By drum-head law, men were condemned to be hung; an imperial "pardon" now and then graciously allowed them to be shot. For women there was Haynau's whip.
A palace revolution in the Austrian capital, led by the archduchess Sophia, with the aid of a high council of generals ("hohe Generalität," as the technical term was), had dethroned the half-witted Ferdinand, who seemed to be an obstacle to the continuance of sanguinary deeds, and appointed in his stead the youthful Francis Joseph, a boy of eighteen, for whom his mother, the archduchess, practically ruled as a regent. The sabre and the crozier were now the symbols of government. By negotiations with the Vatican, the bases of a concordat were laid, which placed the whole intellectual life of the people at the mercy of a hierarchical inquisition. There was no impediment to the execution of the wildest dreams of a reaction gone mad. At least, so it appeared for a time to the politicians of the cabinet and the camarilla. In such a situation the very name of Francis Deak was forgotten.
For the ﬁrst time there arose, then, that imperialist doctrine which would not acknowledge any marks of distinction between the several component parts of the "Austrian empire." It is true, even Lord Palmerston, in 1849, when Hungary was yet struggling for her rights, had said, in reply to those who wished for the recognition of the Magyar commonwealth, that he "knew of no Hungary, but only of an Austrian empire." That assertion of Lord Palmerston did, however, not tally with public law. Down to 1849, Hungary had been a separate kingdom, so far as its constitution and the tenure of royal power were concerned—a kingdom as clearly marked off from Austria proper as is Norway at present from Sweden, or as was Hanover from England during the time when English kings were at the same time German prince-electors. Hungary had a charter of her own. Her king was only a king after he had sworn a special constitutional oath. The confines of the Hungarian realm were distinct and unmistakable. lts soil was even girded by a cordon of custom-houses, forming a ​commercial division in addition to the political one. A "province" of an "Austrian empire" Hungary therefore was not. The very name of Kaiser-staat, or empire, only dated from the beginning of the present century, when Francis II. was compelled, through the misfortunes of war in the struggle against Napoleon, to lay down the imperial crown of Germany, and to declare that empire, which had lasted for nearly a thousand years, to be dissolved. As a slight solace, he then assumed, under the name of Francis I., the title of "kaiser" for his own dominions. Constitutionally, Hungary was not affected thereby. For her the Austrian emperor remained simply a king. All this hail ever been regarded as self-understood by men like Deak, and by all the living political forces in Hungary.
But now, in return for the declaration resolved upon at Debreczyn, which had pronounced the forfeiture of the "crown of St. Stephen" by the house of Habsburg-Lorraine, the kaiser declared, on his part, the Hungarians to have lost their national existence and their charter through the fact of rebellion. It was done on the Verwirkungs-Theorie, the theory of forfeiture, to use the special phrase of the time. Henceforth Hungary was to be ruled according to the mere pleasure of the monarch; all representative institutions, both in State affairs and in local matters, being set aside by a stroke of the pen, or rather of the sword. There was to be a "centralized Austria," under the black-yellow ﬂag, held together by iron bands; the whole overshadowed by the cowl.
Yet the scheme of triumphant tyranny would not work; neither on this, nor on the other side of the Leitha. In the face of their haughty oppressor—who, the better to mark the relation in which he stood to the people of his capital, would never (from 1848 down to 1860) show himself in public in any other than a soldier's garb—the Viennese maintained an attitude of sullenness all the more galling to the court, because it formed so strong a contrast to the good-natured and forgiving temper of that pleasure-loving, but withal free-minded, population. Even so would the Lombards and Venetians not be weaned from their eager wish for a union with their Italian brethren. In Galicia, the idea of Polish nationality was kept alive with a view to future possibilities. In Hungary, the attempt of Prince Schwarzenberg to make the Magyars yield ready obedience to the rule of the sword, failed miserably. So did the more liberal, but still anti-Hungarian, policy of Herr von Schmerling, who sought to found a centralized Austria on the constitutional principle.
After various kaleidoscopic changes in Hapsburg politics, which all came to nothing, Deak was at last sounded as to whether he would help government in mending things. He ﬁrmly declined. Several times approached in the same way, he always gave the same reply. "There is no Hungarian constitution in force," he answered; "and without that constitution, I am simply Deak, and can do nothing." During the Bach ministry he once remarked in regard to a new constistitutional experiment, that the Austrian minister had "wrongly buttoned his political coat, and that there was nothing left for him but to unbutton it, and to begin afresh." On hearing this expression of Deak, Bach said, "Perhaps we had better cut off the buttons!" Deal: replied, "But then the coat could not be buttoned at all!"
In times of great oppression, a few winged words go far as an embodiment of public opinion. Quips from the retired Hungarian statesman soon became a staple stock in political talk. When a second recruitment for the army was intended in one and the same year, Deak said, in answer to a question put to him, "That will not do for Hungary! Women here are wont to bear children only once a year!"
The rough barrack rule of Schwarzenberg; the bigoted Jesuitical sway of Bach; the federalist mediævalism of Goluchowski; the emasculated parliamentary system of Schmerling—all failed in turn. Schmerling's notion of a constitution was that of a convenient machinery for raising money, and passing enactments, with no "right of resistance" against lawless royal and imperial decrees attached to it. The Hungarian idea of a constitution, as upheld once more towards 1859 by Deak, was that of a historical covenant, somewhat like the old Arragonese charter; the king being only a lawful king after having sworn to observe the ground-law of the nation, and only remaining a sovereign so long as he fulfilled his part of the compact—not longer. In this sense, the trusty leader of the moderate constitutionalists came now again to the front. Though he had been inactive for so many years, he at once attracted a large following. He was called the "Conscience of the Nation." People looked upon him as a kind of ​"Aristides." The "Sage," the "Just"—such were the titles of honour plentifully bestowed upon him during this second epoch of his public career.
It was after the deep humiliation of the kaiser on the Lombard plain in 1859, that Hungary won her first triumph. Without that military event, all the exertions of Deak would have been of little avail. The defender of constitutional legality, who personally discountenanced the use of force, could never have made his voice in the Hofburg so impressive as the roar of guns. Yet, years afterwards, he who in the Hungarian Diet had once manifested his sympathy with the Polish cause, set his face, after Cavour's death, against any solemn celebration in honour of the Italian statesman. Italian Democrats—Garibaldi before all—may have cause to hold Cavour in a different estimate from what the world at large does, which only looks to outward success. Deak's opposition came from narrower views. If he, even after the striking changes that had taken place in Europe, still bore a grudge to Cavour, it was because his own constitutionalism was of a somewhat cramped cast, formed in the mould of the Pragmatic Sanction. But these blemishes, though slightly marring, leave unmutilated his great merits.
For seven years after the loss of Lombardy by Austria, Deak carried on the legal battle for the fuller recognition of Hungarian claims. "A country's rights," he used to say, "are not private property that can be freely disposed of." The more advanced elements, at that time, began to gather round Teleki, in whom the principles of 1849 were still vivid. After the mysterious death of Count Teleki—who, in the last interview I had with him, seemed to hope for a rapid development of public spirit in Hungary, in the sense of the previous revolutionary epoch—Francis Deak became the undisputed leader of the liberal party.
In vain did Kossuth endeavour to cross Deak's path. Whilst the latter strove to regain for Hungary the time-honoured rights of self-government in an amended constitutional form, the exiled leader came out with a programme which would have overthrown the historical basis of the country, and opened the flood-gates of panslavism upon the Magyar race. Down to the Crimean war, Kossuth had been the steadfast champion of the Magyar nationality. Before 1848, he had even, now and then, overstepped the boundary which the strangely mixed condition of Hungary naturally indicates to a statesman when the conflicting claims of race and speech are to be settled. Towards Croats and Serbs, Kossuth had almost been an ultra-Magyar. At all events, he had his eyes wide open to the dangers of panslavism. This line of thought strongly marks still his powerful speeches in England and in the United States between 1851 and 1852, when he styled panslavism "a Russian plot—a dark design to make, out of national feelings, a tool for Russian preponderance over the world."
In his harangues during the Crimean war, which were apparently calculated to urge a more efficient strategy, some expressions occurred, however, which showed that he was entering on a new line. Shortly before Louis Napoleon attacked Austria in Italy, Kossuth declared that he would ally himself even to the devil, in order to overthrow the house of Habsburg; that he would accept aid from anywhere—never mind whether Louis Napoleon or the czar were held to represent the devil. Kossuth's former principles were thus thrown overboard. His connection with the court of the Tuileries soon afterwards became a public fact. His connection with Mazzini and Ledru-Rollin ceased.
These circumstances must be taken into account when judging of the nature of his proposal for the establishment of a Danubian confederacy, by which he sought to traverse the policy of Deak. The aims of Deak may have been modest enough. His ideas of parliamentary autonomy under the old ruling house may not have exercised much charm upon the mind of men that remembered the heroic deeds of the Revolution. But at any rate, Deak's procedure preserved the existence of the Hungarian nation; whereas Kossuth's scheme actually threatened to swamp it.
"I cannot sign Kossuth's programme, even though I might personally have no objection to the idea of a Danubian confederacy," said to me, at the time, one of the foremost army leaders of the Hungarian revolution; "I cannot sign it, because at home I should be looked upon as a traitor!"
Kossuth's plan, in fact, was this. Hungary, with her annexes—comprising, as she does even now, so many discordant tribes that the Magyar nationality is much hemmed in by them—was to be enlarged into a "Danubian Confederacy" by the addition of Roumania, Servia, and—a ​vague Indication!—"the countries allied to it." Whole Turkey north of the Balkan was thus to be joined to the Hungarian realm. Bosniaks, Herzegovinians, Montenegrins, Bulgars—tribes either Slavonian or half-slavonized—were to be thrown into this enlarged tate. Hungary, as it is, forms already, in nationalities and tongues, a Babylonian structure. Yet Kossuth proposed to render that confusion even worse confounded; or, more strictly speaking, he wished to call in new national elements which would have entirely overwhelmed the Magyar race!
According to his scheme, the seat of the executive of the new state was to be, in turns, at Pesth, Bukarest, Belgrad, and Agram. That is to say, in one case, in a semi-Magyar town; in the other three cases, in non-Magyar cities, two of which are hotbeds of panslavist agitation. A constituent assembly was to fix the official language of the confederacy. At a first glance, everybody could see that the result of such a choice would be in favour of some Slav tongue, and against the Magyar language. The scheme was rightly spurned by the Magyar leaders. Passion ran high; and some of Kossuth's adversaries brought to mind that, at the close of the Revolution of 1849, he had proposed to offer the crown of Hungary to a prince of the imperial family of Russia.
A second great defeat of the Austrian kaiser on the field of battle, in 1866, enabled Deak to wring from the government at Vienna a fuller legislative autonomy than it had been ready before to grant. Deak, on that occasion, did not raise his constitutional terms. He simply repeated them. He might, after Sadowa, have gone much further in his demands, with reasonable hope of success. But, partly from his training as a strict parliamentary legist, partly because he would not strain things so far as to cut off the Magyars wholly from the German connection, and thus isolate them amidst jealous or hostile races, Deak remained content with a lesser concession.
After new laborious negotiations, the present state of things was established, which on most essential points renders the Magyar realm independent from Cis-Leithan Austria. To-day, Hungary has once more her old landmarks, and her time-honoured ground-law, modified by the reforms of 1848. Her ruler, placed under a special coronation oath, is recognized only as king. The name of Hungary figures, in all State documents, on equal terms with that of Austria. The Honveds who had fought against the kaiser are acknowledged as having merited well of the fatherland. The rank of general has been given back to Klapka, Perczel, Vetter, once foremost among the military chiefs of the Revolution. Men who once narrowly escaped the gallows have been placed in the highest positions. Count Andrassy himself belongs to that class. In short, the restoration of self-government is well-nigh as complete as it could possibly be under royal rule.
This was Deak's crowning achievement. As the "Father of the Restored Constitution of Hungary," he henceforth had marks of esteem and respect showered upon him from all sides. The people, when speaking of him, used quaint names of endearment; and all kinds of tales about his daily doings cropped up. To the queen-empress Elizabeth, whose favourite sojourn has of late years been the castle of Gödöllö, near Pesth, he became "Cousin Deak," or "Uncle Deak:" so, at least, the popular myth would have it. Meanwhile the great Hungarian patriot never gave up his wonted simplicity of life; a hater, as he was, of all pride and pomp. His bachelor abode at Pesth consisted of two rooms, at an ordinary hotel—the "Queen of England." His landed property he had transferred to other hands for a small annuity. He lived in the most frugal style; was a total abstainer (a rare thing, indeed, in a country famous for good wine!); but, on the other hand, an inveterate smoker. He aged rather soon, and was styled "alter Herr" and "patriarch" at a time when other statesmen still pride themselves on their vigour. His modesty, his retiring disposition, never forsook him. Having nothing about his personality that could be called impressive, he might, in his sombrero hat and his Neapolitan mantle, have passed unobserved in a crowd; but a nation's admiring looks followed his steps, in spite of his occasional strong protests against every ovation.
An unselfish man; not a republican by conviction, yet distinguished by an incorruptibility reminding us of the noblest models of republican virtue, Deak declined all favours from the court. To the question, more than once addressed to him confidentially by the court, as to what he wished, he uniformly replied, "I am not in want of anything." At last, on the advice of one of his ministers, Francis Joseph sent him a royal family portrait, in a frame of pure gold, set with costly gems.
"It would look like a present of money," Deak said; "I cannot accept that!" ​Taking the picture from the rich frame, he sent back the latter with his thanks and compliments. All decorations he also refused to accept—much to the annoyance of the king-emperor, who, in the alter Herr's off-hand manner, seemed to detect a slight upon the crown. Deak's constant resolve was to remain independent. No calumny could touch so disinterested a character.
Of late years, Deak's influence, though still an extensive one, gradually waned. A more advanced party came up, which, under Koloman Tisza, is now in power, and some of whose members aim at the establishment of a strict "personal union" that would entail the separation of the military forces of Hungary from those of Austria proper. It has been much remarked that Mr. Ghyczy, the president of the House of Commons at Pesth, in his speech on the life and career of Francis Deak, said: "He did not give us complete autonomy and independence, such as a nation may have under the rule of a prince; but he has given us that which could be attained within the existing political framework." From these words it may be inferred that a more thorough separation from Cis-Leithan Austria is the aim of an influential party in Hungary.
The death of the great patriot (January 29) has occurred at a moment when new storm-clouds are drifting over the Austro-Hungarian horizon. The opening up of the Eastern question has emboldened once more the so-called Sclavonian court party at Vienna. Reactionary Federalists and Centralists are already in eager expectancy. The political danger is enhanced by the contest between the upholders of the free-trade system in Hungary, and the protectionists in the western part of the Habsburg dominions. At present, the outlook is dark indeed. Francis Deak had seen the triumph of his country's cause; but, before closing his eyes, he also saw fresh perils gathering round it. He had fought his battles well for his nation's rights and for the extension of popular freedom; and though new struggles may soon have to be gone through by Hungary, no fitter words could be applied in his honour than those written on a garland laid on his bier,—"Fading flowers for never-fading merit." Karl Blind.
* ↑ For a succinct, but telling, account of these events see the letters, originally addressed to the Daily News and Times, by Sabbas Vucovics, late minister of justice, and by Bartholomew Szemere, late minister of the Interior, in Hungary; reprinted in "Speeches of Kossuth," edited by Francis W. Newman.
* ↑ After the overthrow of the Hungarian rising, Lord Palmerston certainly spoke out—that is to say, in a private letter—against the atrocities of the Austrian government, whom he styled "the greatest brutes that ever called themselves by the undeserved name of civilized men." He wrote:—"Their late exploit of ﬂogging forty odd people, including two women, at Milan, some of the victims being gentlemen, is really too blackguard and disgusting a proceeding. As to working upon their feelings of generosity and gentlemanlikeness, that is out of the question, because such feelings exist not in a set of officials who have been trained up in the School of Metternich; and the men in whose minds such inborn feelings have not been crushed by court and ofﬁce power, have been studiously excluded from public affairs, and can only blush in private for the disgrace which such things throw upon their country. But l do hope that you will not fail constantly to bear in mind the country and the government which you represent, and that you will maintain the dignity and the honour of England by expressing openly and decidedly the disgust which such proceedings excite in the public mind in this country. . . . You might surely ﬁnd an opportunity of drawing Schwartzenberg's attention to these matters, which may be made intelligible to him, and which a British ambassador has a right to submit to his consideration." (See letter to Lord Ponsonby, of September 9, 1849, in "The Life of Henry John Temple, Viscount Palmerston, 1846-1865," by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley. M.P.) Very brave words these were of Lord Palmerston—after he had taken sides against Hungary. What he said of the atrocities committed by the generals and officials of the Austrian kaiser, might, no doubt, have been said also of the deeds of the victorious reaction all through Europe— including that new night of St. Bartholomew of December 2, 1851, whose perpetrator Lord Palmerston, only consulting himself hastened to acknowledge as a lawful ruler, whilst the streets still ran with the blood of the defenders of the constitution.
* ↑ See his "Speeches," edited by F. W. Newman.