Those who know anything of the heroic tragedy that makes up much of the history of Hungary, should not fail to visit the extensive and well laid out cemetery (Kerepesi Köztemetö) with its memorials of the illustrious dead. There is the handsome Kossuth Mausoleum in which was buried in 1894 the remains of one of the chief leaders of the revolution. Louis Kossuth, who died in exile at the great age of ninety-two, had refused to accept the Compromise of 1866, from which his country may be said to date its renaissance, and never returned to Hungary after the tragic failure of the War of Independence. His stern republicanism—possibly, too, his defeated ambition, for there are not wanting critics of the man memorials to whom are to be seen in every town—could allow of no compromise with the Habsburg dynasty.
Some of his fellows were more far-sighted, and among them Francis Déak, who, no less sincere in his patriotism, worked untiringly at home as a simple citizen to bring about the welfare of his country by peaceful methods, rather than by any further appeal to the arbitrament of arms. Though much blamed for his share in the Compromise, Déak may be regarded as one of the chief agents of the renaissance. When at the time of the coronation of Francis Joseph as king of Hungary, it was proposed that Déak should accept a high position, he replied with a simple dignity that “It was beyond the king’s power to give him anything but a clasp of the hand.”
The Déak Mausoleum stands not far away from that of the fellow-worker who, though with like aims, would have chosen other methods than his for their attainment. Not far from the Kossuth memorial, too, is that of Count Louis Batthány, another of the leaders of the revolution and first constitutional Prime Minister of Hungary.
It is not surprising to find when we talk to an enthusiastic Hungarian—and the spirit of the country, so far as a visitor can judge, seems worthy of the patriots just named—to hear in many words what the Bostonian put pithily when he declared that his town was the hub of the universe. On the first night of my first visit to Budapest I happened upon one of these enthusiasts. He told me (and after disclaiming any regard for mere patriotic sentiment) that Budapest is without exception the most beautiful of all the great capitals of Europe; the city with the loveliest river front; the city in which all great improvements in civic amenities had been tested. Where, he asked, was the first road-tunnel made? Where were arc-lamps first used as street illuminants? Where was the first electric underground railway run? Where was the conduit system for electric tramways first employed? And in every instance he triumphantly answered his own queries with the same syllables—in Budapest. Where, he went on, could be seen such luxurious cafés? Where such magnificent stone-built business premises? And he paused triumphantly where, though it was near midnight, great insurance offices were being built—men and women labourers busily engaged by artificial light—to point out that it was all “stone upon stone.”
FOOTNOTES:
[13] George Meredith, “The Nuptials of Attila.”
[14] “Cities,” by Arthur Symons.
CHAPTER X
BUDAPEST TO BELGRADE
“Past wooded isles, and cornlands fair,
By fields of ancient wars