Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede poena claudo.
Perhaps; but, if Francis Joseph’s punishment was to come slowly, that of his instrument, Marshal Haynau, was to come quickly.
The day soon arrived when the Emperor realised that he must break his instrument. The butchery could not go on for ever, and the butcher—this Hyaena of Brescia—could not always be kept in evidence. When he had served his purpose, he must go. So his command was withdrawn from him; and he retired into private life, and went upon his travels. His travels took him to London, whither his reputation had preceded him. He called upon the banker Rothschild, who gave him an introduction to the brewers Barclay and Perkins, whose brewery he had expressed a desire to “go over.”
Whether the banker deliberately set a trap for a hyaena or merely wished to oblige a client remains uncertain, even after a careful perusal of the letters of explanation which he sent to The Times. What is quite certain is that the draymen employed by Messrs. Barclay and Perkins knew that Haynau was coming, knew that he was responsible for the public flogging of women, and resolved to deal with him accordingly. Hardly had the brewery gates closed on him, when a truss of straw fell on his head from above, and then the trouble began.
A coherent account of the adventure might be difficult to give; but there are certain details of it concerning which all the witnesses are agreed. Marshal Haynau was beaten with rods, as his victims had been beaten, and some of the rods were broken across his back. He fled for refuge into a dustbin, and was pulled out of it by the beard. Somehow or other, he escaped from the brewery and ran like a hare down the street; but he was caught, knocked over, and dragged along the ground by his fierce moustaches. A woman threw a pair of scissors out of the window of an upper chamber, appealing to the men to cut those moustaches off. Ultimately he ran into a public house, and there managed to evade his pursuers until the police delivered him.
The story was a nine days’ wonder. The Times arose in its majesty and rebuked the draymen for their presumption in imagining that the misdeeds of people of importance were any concern of theirs; and The Times might as well have rebuked a volcano for forgetting its dignity and giving way to eruptions. The general sentiment found expression in a public meeting—also reported by The Times—whereat a vote of thanks to the draymen was carried unanimously, and Messrs. Barclay and Perkins themselves were warned that, if any one of their employees was punished for his part in the transaction, no British workman, from Land’s End to John o’ Groat’s House, would ever again drink a glass of Barclay and Perkins’s beer.
Then the writers of popular songs took the matter up, and this sort of thing was circulated on broad-sheets:—
There was an Austrian General strong,
Who flogged the ladies with a thong;
He had a beard twelve inches long,