The life of the emperor Francis Joseph

by Francis Henry Gribble

THE EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH IN 1866.

One can imagine Benedek’s anger at this black treachery; but he did not allow it to sting him into the retractation of his pledged word. He maintained to the end the attitude of an honourable man whom a dishonourable Emperor had tricked; and he bore contumely in silence. It was only in his will that he spoke out; but then he gave full vent to the indignation which he had so long suppressed. This is his last word on the matter:—

“That the Austrian Government, having in its hand my promise of silence (given to the Archduke Albert on November 19, 1866) and believing in the honourableness of my promise, should publish this strange article, in which my whole past was ignored, and that this Government article, which it is impossible to qualify, was conceived in the presidential chancellery of the General Staff, corrected and improved by Field-Marshal Lieutenant Baron John, Field-Marshal Archduke Albert and others, and finally published by order of the Government in all its peculiar features—all this surpasses my ideas of right, decency, and propriety. I suffered it in silence, and I have now, for seven years, borne my hard lot as a soldier with philosophy and self-denial. I take credit to myself that, in spite of it all, I feel no anger against anybody and am not soured. I am at peace with myself and the whole world and have a clear conscience; but it has cost me all my poetic feeling for soldiering. I should like to be borne to my grave with the utmost simplicity and without any military honours. A plain stone, or an iron cross, without any epitaph, must be put over my grave.”

Meanwhile Benedek refused ever again to put on his uniform, and lived as a lodger in a boarding-house at Graetz. Francis Joseph did not like it—it was a reflection on him, especially after Von Moltke had complimented Benedek as a commander of courage and merit; but all the overtures which Francis Joseph’s pride permitted him to make were met in a spirit of sullen resentment. When the Archduke Albert was directed to write to Benedek as to an “old campaigner and a brother-in-arms,” he replied “with cold respect.” The Crown Prince Rudolph was then directed to write to him; but he neither asked for an audience, as he was expected to do, nor even answered the letter, merely permitting the Crown Prince’s military tutor to fabricate and carry a message, thanking the Emperor “for the graceful way in which he has remembered me.”

“I am an isolated man” (he then said). “I need no external honour, and I feel that my internal honour is unstained. In this matter I acknowledge no earthly judge.”

Not long afterwards he died of cancer of the larynx; and even then the memory of the wrong lingered. This is what his widow wrote to her nephew in reference to the letters of condolence which she had received:—

“Bismarck’s letter, written throughout with his own hand, was the only one from a high personage which touched me; the telegrams from the Emperor and the Archduke left me very cold. When the Emperor sent the Crown Prince to us in 1873 as an apostle of conciliation, Benedek had suffered so much during the seven years that he refused everything and begged that they would not disturb the repose he had at last attained. The Emperor, always generous, had at least the goodness to ask if there was nothing he could do for me. He is generous. I thanked him sincerely: I need nothing.”

So the story ends; and it has been necessary to tell it at some length because of the luminous light which it throws on Francis Joseph’s character. Some historians have spoken of it as an isolated stain upon an otherwise blameless personality; but it is, in fact, of a piece with the whole personality, though the occasions which have called for such disagreeable manifestations of the personality have happily been rare. Francis Joseph was always able to give his equals, and has gradually learnt to be able to give his inferiors, the impression that he is genial affability incarnate. It is not natural to him to be mean or paltry—he very much prefers to be splendid. But there is, and has always been, at the bottom of his mind, a certain confusion of thought. If he has not mistaken himself for God, at least he has mistaken the interests of the House of Habsburg for that Higher Law to which the ordinary laws of honour and morality which bind ordinary men must be subordinated.

In the case under review the interests of the House of Habsburg needed a scapegoat; and therefore Benedek had to go out into the wilderness. He did not go out of his own accord; he was not driven out; he was tricked out by false pretences, and then pointed at with the finger of scorn. His widow’s letter, which we have just read, reads like a quiet, measured echo of Countess Karolyi’s curse, to the various fulfilments of which we shall come in the course of a few chapters. If she had less reason than Countess Karolyi to curse Francis Joseph, at least she had reason enough.