It was reckoned a shabby trick, but all is fair, we are told, in love and war, and if the Turks had not fled so soon, they might have carried off their own property. The peace of Carlowitz put an end to a terrible war, terminated the campaign, and concluded Count Tekeli’s military and political career. By this treaty, in which the Count’s name was not even mentioned, Turkey ceded most of the disputed territories to Austria, completely ignoring the man whom she had invested with so many titles appertaining to these provinces.
Once more Tekeli proceeded to Constantinople, in spite of all this treatment, to renew his offers of service to the Sultan, on the breaking out of a fresh war. But on arriving near the city he was met by a high officer, who desired him not to enter. It appears that our English Ambassador, Lord Paget, had had an interview with the Sultan, to warn him against harbouring Tekeli. He was therefore ordered off, to a kind of sumptuous banishment, at a delightful country house at Nicomedia, whither a few Hungarians and Transylvanians followed the man who had been their Sovereign in name. His faithful wife joined him the moment she regained her liberty; and here Count de la Mottraye visited him, spending eight days, as he says,—‘where I was nobly entertained, till I was tired, with pheasants and wild-fowl, which were found there in prodigious plenty.’
Towards the end of 1703 the Count and Countess removed to another country house called The Field of Flowers, and here died the brave, noble, and devoted, Helena Princess Ragotski, Countess Tekeli.
For the strange story of the hundred ducats, we refer the reader to the notice of her life. Be that true or false, there is no doubt Tekeli was treated with ingratitude, neglect, and caprice; his revenues stopped, and he himself obliged to gain a scanty subsistence by carrying on the trade of a vintner: the Prince, the Prime Minister, the Generalissimo, the Waiwode, the King of Hungary! Monsieur de la Mottraye visited him a second time at The Field of Flowers, and alluding to the affair of the ducats, he says: ‘The Jesuits made many visits to the Count in the hope of converting him to their creed, but he remained a steadfast Lutheran.’ Other writers testify to his having embraced the Roman Catholic faith; but this is the testimony of one who saw him in his latter days, and thus describes him:—
‘He was sitting in an elbow-chair, according to his usual custom, with a carpet over his knees, much afflicted with the gout. His beard had grown greyer, and new troubles, especially the death of his Countess, seemed to grieve him much. He complained that France had promised him large sums of money for expenses in the war, and had not sent him two-thirds, and since his misfortunes had not sent him ten ducats. I observed that it had to pass through too many hands on its way to Turkey.’
The same writer tells us ‘Count Tekeli had the most taking countenance, and one of the finest tongues, also that he spoke good Latin fluently,’ but that is an accomplishment shared by most of his countrymen. His personal beauty was acknowledged even by his enemies, who gave him the sobriquet of Absalom.
Poor Tekeli was (as La Mottraye observes) as ill treated by the gout as by fortune. He survived his faithful wife only two years, and was interred in the Greek cemetery at Constantinople. Emeric Tekeli, from his wild adventures, his romantic history, and all his curious vicissitudes, became a marked man, the observed of all observers, and there are very curious books extant, with squibs, some in Italian, some in German, as also caricatures of a rude kind of pleasantry, representing him in prison beating against the bars, and bewailing his sad fate.
‘So lohnt der Turk denen die ihm trauen,
Man sollt’ die Trauerspiel recht anschauen,’ etc. etc.