The Governour of Vienna had seldom any other Title than Colonel of the City. The present Governour is the Marshal Count de Daun, the same that defended Turin, who was six Years Viceroy of Naples, six Months Governour of the Netherlands, and afterwards four Years Governour of Milan[109]. His Lieutenant-Colonel, who is the Count Maximilian de Staremberg, Lieutenant-General of the Emperor's Forces, and Colonel of a Regiment of Foot, commands in his absence, and has the Direction
of the Fortifications, the Arsenal, and the Garison. This Garison consists of a Regiment of Foot, compos'd of veteran Soldiers, or the Burghers and Artificers of Vienna, from whence this Regiment never stirs. The Employments in this Corps are very lucrative; but as they don't lie in the Road to the Temple of Honour, they are not much solicited by Persons of any considerable Extraction. Yet this Regiment, as little esteem'd as it is, perform'd very good Services during the Siege of Vienna by Kara Mustapha, Grand Vizier to Mahomet IV. It acted then under Ernest-Rudiger Count de Staremberg, who was Commandant in the City; and both the General and his Garison acquir'd very great Glory by the Resistance which they made. But perhaps with all their Bravery they cou'd not have prevented the Place from being taken, had it not been for the Avarice of the Grand Vizier, who hoped to be Master himself of the vast Treasures that he knew were in the City, and was therefore against storming the Town, for fear lest if it were carry'd by that means, the Soldiers would have shar'd the Plunder.
The Siege of Vienna being foreign to my purpose, I shall say nothing of it. You know that it was raised by the Assistance that was brought to it by the brave John Sobieski King of Poland; who defeated the Turks on the 12th of September, 1683, and return'd home laden with Glory and Booty, having made himself Master of all the Grand Vizier's Equipage. Upon this occasion he said a pleasant thing in a Letter which he wrote to the Queen his Wife, who had not a very implicit Faith in the Maxims of Seneca on the Contempt of Riches; 'You shan't say when I come home, as the Tartary Women do to their Husbands when they return from the Army without Booty, You are not a Man for me, because you come empty-handed; for the
Grand Vizier has made me sole Heir of all he had.'
You need not be told that this was the second time the Turks were forc'd to raise the Siege of Vienna; for Soliman the Sultan besieg'd it in the Reign of Charles V. but with no better Success than Kara Mustapha. 'Tis true that the Disappointment he met with was not so fatal in its Consequence to the Sultan as the other was to the Vizier of Mahomet IV. who was strangled at Belgrade when Mahomet was there: And the Head of this Minister is still to be seen in the Arsenal at Vienna. The Translation of this Turkish Relique hither from Belgrade was pretty extraordinary. Some Years after Kara Mustapha had been strangled, when the Germans took Belgrade, the Soldiers being inform'd where the Grand Vizier was buried, open'd his Tomb in hopes of Treasure, but found nothing except the Body in its Shirt, on which there were several Arabic Characters, and an Alcoran. The Governour being told of it, remember'd that this very Grand Vizier, when he laid Siege to Raab, which he was oblig'd to raise, said, That if he took the Town he wou'd have the Head of its Bishop cut off, who was then the Count Leopold de Collonitz, and send it to the Sultan, to be reveng'd of that Prelate for taking Money out of the Convents, and encouraging the Garison therewith to make a vigorous Resistance. The Governour of Belgrade remembring, I say, the Menaces of the Grand Vizier, thought it wou'd be a very agreeable Present to the Count de Collonitz, now a Cardinal[110], to send him the Vizier's Head and Body too, together with the Shirt and Alcoran; and he put up the whole very neatly in a Crystal Shrine, adorn'd with Silver Plates, and sent it accordingly to his Eminence; who not thinking this odd Present a proper Relique to be deposited in his Chapel, gave it to the Arsenal here at
Vienna, where I have both seen the Mussulman and felt him. I wou'd fain have pluck'd some of the Hairs of his Mustachio, but the Guardian of the precious Treasure watch'd my Fingers too narrowly. They say that a piece of the Halter by which a Man hangs himself is lucky, and why mayn't there be the same Virtue in the Mustachio of the Grand Vizier? Be it so or not, 'twill always deserve an honourable Station in some Cabinet of Rarities.
Since the Siege of Vienna this City is much inlarg'd. Its Fortifications are so augmented too that if the Turks should ever be prompted by their ill Fate to besiege it again, they wou'd find a stouter Resistance, and a greater number of their Mustachios sindged than they imagine.
The Emperor has lately given new Lustre to his Capital, by prevailing with Pope Benedict XIII. to erect it into an Archbishopric. Several Bishops, particularly the Archbishop of Passaw, have dismember'd their Dioceses to aggrandise its Jurisdiction. The Cardinal de Collonitz is the Person who at present enjoys this Dignity, which gives him the Character and Rank of a Prince.
The Roman Catholic is the only Religion exercis'd in Vienna, and in all Austria; but the Ministers of the Protestant Crown'd Heads have the Liberty here, as well as elsewhere, of keeping a Chapel. When the holy Sacrament or the Viaticum is carried to any sick Person, 'tis always attended by Guards who oblige all People that meet it to kneel. I have seen the Emperor, when the Viaticum was passing by, alight out of his Coach and accompany it to Church. This Prince, and indeed all those of his Family, always paid a very great Devotion to the holy Sacrament of the Altar. Of this Philip IV. King of Spain gave a very edifying Proof; for this Monarch going the very day that the King his Father died, from the Palace of Madrid to the Monastery of St. Jeronimo del Passo in a close Coach, that he might
be incog. alighted out of it to accompany the Viaticum which they were carrying to a sick Man; whereupon the Condé Duke d'Olivarez told him, That the King his Father was so lately dead that he ought not to have been seen in public. My Lord, said the King, this Custom cannot excuse me from paying that Worship to God which I owe him.