JOHN PAGET.
[Paget’s “Hungary and Transylvania” is the source of our present selection, we having chosen, from his many pictures of Hungarian life and people, a description of the famous Eszterházys, a family renowned particularly for its jewels, which have been gathering for centuries in the castle of Forchtenstein.]
It was at six o’clock in the morning that the smart Presburg post-boy sounded his bugle, to express his impatience at the half-hour we had already kept him waiting ere we started for the Neusiedler Lake, in the neighborhood of which we intended to pass a few days. The journey to the end of the lake might be some sixty miles, and we reckoned to accomplish this by post within the day.
Of all the modes of travelling in Hungary, the post is the most expensive, and to me, at least, the most disagreeable. The supply of horses is too scanty, and if the traveller happens to arrive before or after the post-wagen, he must generally wait some time before he can obtain the number he requires. There is an awkward rule, too, which it is as well a stranger should know. If he arrives at any place with post, he can oblige the postmaster to send him on with the same number of horses he arrived with; but should he, as occurred to us on the present occasion, feel a wish to leave the post-road, and for that purpose hire private horses, at the next post-station they may refuse him a supply, or oblige him to take as many as they choose.
It was at Gschies we learned this rule, for the postmaster stoutly refused to send us on with a pair of horses, which was all we had previously required, and declared we should either take four or remain where we were. Entirely ignorant as I then was of any other means of getting forward, I at last consented, and desired him to give us the four horses. “But I have only three in the stable at present,” was his cool reply; “and you may either take those and pay for four, or you may remain where you are until to-morrow, when the others will come home.” Nor is this the only instance of gross imposition I could relate. The worst of it is, there is no redress. In one case I applied to the judge and notary of the village, and though they had the best will to protect me, all they could do was to give me peasants’ horses, and so enable me to avoid the like treatment for the rest of the journey.
For the matter of speed, you get on by post at the rate of five miles an hour, with strong, large horses, and post-boys wearing huge cocked hats, each with a plume of feathers worthy a field-marshal, and a red coat with purple facings. But if ever the reader should have occasion to go from Vienna to Pesth, and is an amateur at driving, I recommend him to what is called the bauern post,—that is, if steamboats and railroads have not ere this entirely destroyed it.
The peasants between the frontiers of Hungary and Pesth, on the great high-road from Vienna, combined to supply relays of horses at a cheaper rate and better than the royal post; and though at first opposed by government, they eventually succeeded so well that at present the whole line is supplied by them almost exclusively. The pace at which these men, with their four small horses, take on a light Vienna carriage is something wonderful, especially when the length of some of their stages is considered. The last stage cannot be less than forty miles from Pesth, and, with a short pause of about a quarter of an hour to water, they do it for the most part at full gallop, and with the same horses, in four hours. It is glorious to see the wild-looking driver, his long black hair floating in the wind as he turns round to ask your admiration when his four little clean-boned nags are rattling over hill and hollow in a style which for the first time since he left home shakes an Englishman’s blood into quicker circulation. There is certainly a pleasure in rapid motion which has on some men almost an intoxicating effect.
BUDAPEST
But to return to our five miles an hour. We passed through a well-cultivated country, chiefly inhabited by Germans, who have crept in upon this side of Hungary from Presburg nearly to the borders of Croatia. The Neusiedler Lake, or the Fertö Tava Hungarian, which we soon came in sight of, is about twenty-four miles long by twelve broad, varying in depth from nine to thirteen feet. In parts, particularly at the north end, its shores are hilly and pretty, but on the eastern side they are flat, and terminate in a very extensive marsh, called the Hanság.
It is supposed to be this lake which the Emperor Galerius drained into the Danube, and which has been allowed to re-form by the destruction of the Roman works. There is little doubt, I believe, as to the practicability of draining the lake again, if it were desired; but, as a neighboring proprietor observed, it would spoil some glorious snipe-shooting....
At Eisenstadt, some short distance from the lake, is a palace of the first of the Hungarian magnates, Prince Eszterházy. This palace, though not remarkable for its beauty (it is in a heavy, though florid, Italian style), is well fitted up for a princely residence. We walked through suites of apartments innumerable; but by far the most striking of them was the great ball-room, an elegantly-proportioned hall of great size, and richly ornamented in white and gold. This room was last used when the present prince was installed lord-lieutenant of the county of Oedenburg, an office hereditary in his family; and great is still the fame of the almost regal pomp with which he fêted the crowds of nobles who flocked around him upon that occasion.
The gardens, laid out in the English style, are very fine, and the hot-houses larger than any I remember to have seen; even Alton must bow to Eisenstadt. They contain no less than seventy thousand exotics, and are particularly rich in New Holland specimens. One can hardly help lamenting that so much luxury and beauty should be wasted; for, except the inhabitants of Eisenstadt, to whom the gardens are always open, it is rarely that the palace or its grounds receive a visitor.
Great as is the splendor of some of our English peers, I almost fear the suspicion of using a traveller’s license when I tell of Eszterházy’s magnificence. Within a few miles of this same spot he has three other palaces of equal size.
Just at the southern extremity of the lake stands Eszterház, a huge building in the most florid Italian style, built only in 1700, and already uninhabited for sixty years. Its marble halls, brilliant with gold and painting, are still fresh as when first built. The chamber of Marie Theresa is unchanged since the great queen reposed there; the whole interior is in such a state that it might be rendered habitable to-morrow; but the gardens are already overgrown with weeds, and have almost lost their original form; the numberless pleasure-houses are yielding to the damp position in which they are placed, and are fast crumbling away; while the beautiful theatre, for which an Italian company was formerly maintained, is now stripped of its splendid mirrors, and serves only as a dwelling for the dormant bats, which hang in festoons from its gilded cornices. England is famous for her noble castles and her rich mansions, yet we can have little idea of a splendor such as Eszterház must formerly have presented. Crowded as it was by the most beautiful women of four countries, its three hundred and sixty strangers’ rooms filled with guests, its concerts directed by a Haydn, its opera supplied by Italian artists, its gardens ornamented by a gay throng of visitors, hosts of richly-clothed attendants thronging its antechambers, and its gates guarded by the grenadiers of its princely master, its magnificence must have exceeded that of half of the royal courts of Europe. I know of nothing but Versailles which gives one so high a notion of the costly splendor of a past age as Eszterház.
Haydn was for more than thirty years maestro di capello to Prince Eszterházy; and, during that period, lived chiefly with the family. His portrait is still preserved, and it is almost the only picture of much interest the palace contains. Haydn was a very poor and obscure person when he was appointed one of the prince’s band; so much so, that no one thought even of giving the necessary orders for his being admitted into the palace. The following anecdote of his introduction to the prince is recounted by Carpani:
“The Maestro Friedberg, a friend and admirer of Haydn, lived with Prince Eszterházy. Regretting that Haydn should be overlooked, he persuaded him to compose a symphony worthy of being performed on the birthday of his highness. Haydn consented; the day arrived; the prince, according to custom, took his seat in the midst of his court, and Friedberg distributed the parts of Haydn’s symphony to the performers. Scarcely had the musicians got through the first allegro, when the prince interrupted them to ask who was the author of so beautiful a piece. Friedberg dragged the modest, trembling Haydn from a corner of the room into which he had crept, and presented him as the fortunate composer. ’What,’ cried the prince, as he came forward, ‘that Blackymoor!’ (Haydn’s complexion was none of those which mock the lily’s whiteness.) ‘Well, blacky, from henceforth you shall be in my service; what’s your name?’ ‘Joseph Haydn.’ ‘But you are already one of my band; how is it I never saw you here before?’ The modesty of the young composer closed his lips, but the prince soon put him at his ease. ‘Go and get some clothes suitable to your rank,—don’t let me see you any more in such a guise; you are too small; you look miserable, sir; get some new clothes, a fine wig with flowing curls, a lace collar, and red heels to your shoes. But mind, let your heels be high, that the elevation of your person may harmonize with that of your music. Go, and my attendants will supply you with all you want.’ ... The next day Haydn was travestied into a gentleman. Friedberg often told me of the awkwardness of the poor Maestrino in his new habiliments. He had such a gawky look that everybody burst into a laugh at his appearance. His reputation, however, as his genius had room to manifest itself, grew daily, and he soon obtained so completely the good-will of his master, that the extraordinary favor of wearing his own hair and his simple clothes was granted to his entreaties. The surname of the Blackymoor, however, which the prince had bestowed upon him, stuck to him for years after.”
The only part of Eszterház at present occupied is the stables, which had just received an importation of twelve beautiful thoroughbred horses from England, with some very promising young stock. An old English groom had been sent out with them, and bitterly did he complain of the difficulties he had to encounter before he could convince the beamters—a race of hungry stewards by whom the estates of the nobles are mismanaged and the revenues plundered—of the many little wants and luxuries requisite for English race-horses.
The estates of Prince Eszterházy are said to equal the kingdom of Würtemberg in size; it is certain they contain one hundred and thirty villages, forty towns, and thirty-four castles! The annual revenue from such vast possessions is said, however, not to amount to one hundred and fifty thousand pounds per annum, though it is capable of considerable increase. The incumbrances at the present time are greater than with most other Hungarian magnates, few of whom are indebted to a less amount than half their incomes.
I remember some years since an anecdote going the rounds of the papers to the effect that Prince Eszterházy had astonished one of our great agriculturists who had shown him his flock of two thousand sheep, and asked him with some little pride if he could show as many, by telling him that he had more shepherds than the other had sheep! By a reckoning made upon the spot, with one well acquainted, we found the saying literally true. The winter flock of Merinos is maintained at two hundred and fifty thousand, to every hundred of which one shepherd is allowed, thus making the number of shepherds two thousand five hundred! But, as a spirituelle of the neighborhood observed when we were discussing these matters, “Les Eszterházys font tout en grand: le feu prince a doté deux cents maîtresses, et pensionné cent enfans illégitimes!”
It is not right to leave Eszterház without mention of Hánystock, or the wild man of the Hanság. The Hanság is a bog about twenty miles long, on the borders of which Eszterház is built. About eighty years since, in some part of this bog, an extraordinary creature is said to have been found, possessing something of the human form, but with scarcely any other quality that could entitle it to a place among our species. It was three feet high, apparently of about the middle age, strongly built, and said to have webbed feet and hands. It was unable to utter any articulate sounds, lived entirely on fish and frogs, showed no signs of any passion or feeling, except fear and anger, and was in every respect in the lowest state of brutality. The most curious part of its history is that no one ever heard of it till accidentally found by a peasant in the bog, when it was brought to Eszterház, where, after remaining fourteen months, it escaped, and was never heard of again. I believe there is some reason to suspect an imposition, for an Italian adventurer appeared and disappeared about the same time with Hánystock, and though unable to cite name or place, I feel pretty certain that a similar occurrence took place in another part of Europe soon after.
A few miles from Eisenstadt, and just on the confines of Austria, is a yet more interesting monument of what we should call feudal greatness, belonging to the Eszterházy family. The castle of Forchtenstein, built by a Count Eszterházy, is still in a perfect state of preservation. It is placed on a bold rock, and commands a view of the whole country to the northeast and south. It is now used as a prison for Prince Eszterházy’s peasantry,—for he is one of the few who retain the right of life and death, the jus gladii, on his own estates,—and is consequently guarded by a small detachment of very venerable-looking grenadiers.
The castle is sufficiently modern to have been laid out for the employment of artillery, as may be seen by the heavy bastions and long curtains, and is still sufficiently old to bear marks of the Gothic architect about it, of which the high watch-tower is not the least elegant. The interior has all the inconvenient straightness of a walled-in castle, and the apartments are for the most part small and simple. The most interesting object after the well, which is one hundred and seventy yards deep, and said to have been worked in the solid rock by Turkish prisoners, is the collection of arms. Besides arms sufficient for a regiment of foot and another of horse, which ere this an Eszterházy has equipped and maintained at his own cost, there is the gala equipment of a troop of cavalry which attended one of the princesses on her wedding-day, thirty pieces of artillery, suits of plain black armor for several hundred men, many curious specimens of early German matchlocks, and a quantity of Turkish arms of almost every description.
One suit of armor is interesting from the tale of rude courtesy attached to it. It formerly belonged to a Count Eszterházy who fell in a battle against the old enemies of Hungary, the Turks. A ball from the Pasha’s own pistol had already pierced the Count’s cuirass, but, anxious to make more certain of his death, the Moslem leaped from his horse and beat the helmet of the Christian till he broke open his visor, when he discovered in the fallen foe an old friend by whom he had been most kindly treated when a prisoner in Hungary. Faithful to his friendship, the Turk made the only reparation in his power, for, after treating the body of Eszterházy with every possible mark of respect, he collected the armor in which he had died, and sent it, with the arms which had caused his death, as a present to his family.
A great number of banners, as well those taken from the enemy as those under which the followers of Eszterházy fought, are hung round the walls. It is characteristic of the times that most of the Hungarian flags bear a painting of the cross, with a figure of Christ as large as life.
In one room we noticed the genealogical tree of all the Eszterházys, in which it is made out, as clearly as possible, that, beginning with Adam, who reclines in a very graceful attitude at the bottom of the tree, they pass through every great name, Jewish as well as heathen, from Moses to Attila, till they find themselves what they are now, magnates of Hungary. What is still more extraordinary, there is a long series of portraits of these worthies from Attila inclusive, with their wives and families dressed in the most approved fashion, and continued down to the present century.
It is a pity the noble owner of Forchtenstein does not imbibe a little of that Gothic mania so often ill-directed in England, and restore this castle to its former state. As a national monument of the taste of the Middle Ages in Hungary its restoration would be very desirable, and it would possess peculiar attractions, not merely from being the only castle of the kind here, but as a specimen of that mixture of the Asiatic and Gothic which, in those days, so strongly characterized the habits and customs of the Magyars, and the remains of which even yet distinguish them from the rest of Europe.
The only purpose for which it is at present used, except as a prison, is to contain the treasures of the prince. Of these I can only speak from report, for previously to my visit I did not know that in order to see them it is necessary to have two persons present who live at a distance, each of whom has a key, without which the other is of no use, and therefore had not provided against the difficulty.
The splendor of the Eszterházy jewels is no secret in England, and it is in this good castle those heaps of treasure, which so tempted her majesty’s fair lieges at her coronation, are commonly preserved. It is said that each prince is obliged to add something to these jewels, and that they can never be sold except to ransom their possessors from captivity among the Turks. When the French entered Hungary, a small party presented themselves before Forchtenstein and demanded its surrender. The grenadiers, however, shut the gates, cut the bridge, and set them at defiance; and, as the enemy had no means of enforcing obedience, Prince Eszterházy saved his jewels. Besides the jewels there is an extensive collection of ancient Hungarian costumes; among others, if I recollect rightly, one worn by King Mathias Corvinus.