The Prince very sulkily informed the Estates that the reason he had summoned them would now be explained to them by Master Michael Teleki; then, wrapping himself in his kaftan, he leaned negligently back in the depths of his huge arm-chair.
Teleki stood up, waited until the applause of the crowd had subsided, then, casting a calm look upon Banfi, thus began—
"Worshipful and valiant Orders and Estates! The recent events in Hungary are well known to you all, and if you did not know them, you need only cast a glance around you, and the sad, despairing faces with which your assembly has been augmented would tell their own tale. These are our unfortunate Hungarian brethren, once the flower of the nation, now its withered leaves, which the storm has scattered far and wide. You have not denied your kinsmen in their adversity; you have shared hearth and home with them; you have mingled your tears with theirs. But oh! they have not turned to us for the bread of charity, or for womanly lamentations. Thou, Bocskai,[48] thou, Bethlen,[49] whose images now look down upon us from these walls with dumb reproaches; whose victorious, dust-stained banners wave around the throne, why can you not rise up again in our midst to seize those banners, and thunder in the ears of an irresolute generation—The banished beg of you a country, the houseless a home?"
[48] Stephan Bocskai, Prince of Transylvania, 1605-1606. A great statesman and warrior.
[49] Gabriel Bethlen, the wisest of all the Transylvanian princes. He reigned 1601-1629.
Here Teleki paused as if awaiting applause, but every one remained perfectly silent; mere rhetoric did not affect that Assembly in the least. Teleki saw his mistake, and instantly changed his tactics.
"You reply to my words by silence. Am I to take it that qui tacet, negat? I'll never believe that your hearts are too cold to be fired. You only hesitate because you would count up your forces. But let me tell you that we shall not take the field alone. The sight of our despoiled churches and our enslaved clergy has called all the Protestant princes of Europe to arms. Even the Belgian King, whom our fate concerns least of all, has rescued our brethren in the faith from the Neapolitan galleys; nor has the sword of Gustavus Adolphus grown rusty in its sheath. Nay, more, even the most Catholic of princes, even the followers of Mahommed, are ready to assist our cause. Behold the King of France, at this moment the mightiest ruler in Europe, raising troops for us, not only in his own land, but in Poland also; and, if necessary, the Sultan certainly will not scruple to break a peace that was forced upon him; or he will, at the very least, place his frontier troops at our disposal. And when all around us we hear the din of battle, when every one grasps the sword, shall we alone leave ours in its scabbard, we who owe so much to our brethren and to ourselves? What happened to them yesterday may happen to us to-morrow, and what country will then offer us a refuge? Therefore, my fellow-patriots, hearken to the prayers of the banished as if you stood in their places; for I tell you, that a time may come when you will be as they are now; and as you treat them now, so will Destiny treat you then!"
Teleki had done. He fixed his eyes on Denis Banfi as if he knew beforehand that he would be the first to reply to him.
Banfi arose. It was plain that he was making a great effort to keep within bounds and speak dispassionately.
"My noble colleagues!" he began, in an unusually calm voice. "Compassion towards unfortunate kinsmen and hatred of ancient foes are sentiments which become a man; but in politics there is no room for sentiment. In this place we are neither kinsmen, nor friends, nor yet foes; we are simply and solely patriots, whose first duty it is to coolly calculate, for, to say nothing of the joy or grief resulting from it, the fate of a whole land depends upon the issue of our deliberations. Now the question before us is really this: Are we to stake the existence of Transylvania for the sake of Hungary? Are we to shed our blood for the sake of raising her from the dead? Listen not to your hearts, they can only feel—'tis the head that thinks. Just now there is peace in Transylvania. The people are beginning to be happy; the towns are rising from their ashes; the mourning weeds are gradually being laid aside, and ears of corn are ripening on fields of blood. At present the Magyar is his own master in Transylvania. No stranger, no adversary, no protector exacts tribute from him. None may interfere in our deliberations. The neighbouring powers are obliged to protect us, and we are not obliged to do them homage for it. Reflect well upon all this ere you stake everything on one cast of the die! Would you again see all Transylvania turned into a huge battle-field, and your vassals transformed into an army, perhaps not even a victorious army? And even if our hosts were sufficient, who is there to lead them? None of us has inherited the genius of a Bethlen or of a Bocskai; neither I, nor Master Teleki. And then again, whom can we trust besides ourselves? The capricious Louis XIV. perhaps? His policy can be changed every moment by a pair of bright eyes. If we depended only on him, a petty Versailles intrigue might leave us in the lurch when we most required assistance."