THE CATHEDRAL, POZSONY
The Franciscan church—in the centre of the old town, near the Rathaus—was built in 1272 by Kún Ladislas IV. in memory of the fact that it had been his aid which, four years earlier, had enabled Rudolph of Habsburg to defeat Ottokar of Bohemia at the Battle of Marchfeld; so that Hungary had its share in founding the dynasty. Then in 1741, when things seemed to have come to a bad pass with the Empress Maria Theresa, with enemies threatening on all sides, she boldly appealed to the well-known loyalty of the Hungarians, and summoned the Diet to meet her at the capital. The response was immediate, and the meeting which was at once convened, took place on 11 September, in the Castle of Pozsony (Pressburg).
Here, clad in deep mourning, with the crown of St. Stephen on her head, attended by a solemn retinue of the ladies and officers of her household, and holding in her arms her infant son (afterwards Joseph II.), Maria Theresa addressed the assembled orders of the state in Latin, to the following effect: “Deserted by my friends, persecuted by my enemies, attacked by my nearest relations, my last resource is in your loyalty, your courage, and in my own unshrinking constancy. The time has arrived when the faithful hearts and hereditary prowess of Hungary are to bear testimony before the eyes of the world. A crisis is at hand, when the sword must either be drawn in defence of your sovereign, or in support of her insulting enemies. But in the hearts of brave men, I have a resource in the worst emergencies; I have therefore chosen this hour to place in your hands the son and daughter of your sovereign, who in their extremity look to you for protection.” This simple appeal is said to have met with an instant response—those present drawing their swords and shouting, “Vitam et sanguinem! Moriamur pro rege nostro Maria Theresa!”
The whole country was roused; eighty thousand of the “whiskered Pandoors and the fierce hussars” gathered to the aid of their queen, and the tide of Fortune was turned.
This hailing of Maria Theresa as “king” has been ascribed by some writers to the Hungarian appreciation of the heroism of the queen, but it seems rather to have been in accordance with the Magyar tradition, for when King Louis the Saint died leaving no son, his daughter Maria, out of respect for her father, was acclaimed by the people sovereign, “but as if to mark the exceptional character of the arrangement, they insisted that she should assume the title of King, and affix to all public documents the signature Maria Rex.”
The dress, arms, and ferocity of the Hungarian soldiery are said to have struck terror into the disciplined armies of France and Germany. A contemporary writer said, “when the Hungarian nobility took the field for their King Maria Theresa, the first sight of such troops struck the French army with a panic. They had, indeed, often seen detachments of these “Diables d’Hongrie,” as they used to call them; but a whole army drawn up in battle array, unpowdered from the general to the common soldier, half their faces covered with long whiskers, a sort of round beaver on their heads instead of hats, without ruffles or frills to their shirts, and without feathers, all clad in rough skins, monstrous crooked sabres, ready drawn and uplifted, their eyes darting flashes of rage sharper than the beams of their naked sabres, was a sight our men had not been accustomed to see. Our oldest officers still remember the impression these terrible troops made, and how difficult it was to make the men stand against them, till they had been accustomed to their formidable appearance.”
Near the Danube side of the Coronation Hill “Platz” is a grand equestrian statue of Maria Theresa, with a hussar on one side of the horse, and a Hungarian noble on the other. This beautiful piece of sculpture, by John Fadruoz, which was erected in 1897, is simply and eloquently inscribed, “Vitam et sanguinem.”