heaven I see written in characters of fire
the name of Kossuth, flagellum Dei!'"

The rumour spread through Hungary,
through Europe.  For one moment the
attention of the civilised world was
withdrawn from the fate of empires, and
concentrated on the prostrate image of a single
man, when it was whispered across Europe,
"Szechenyi has gone mad."

The count's family, unprepared for such
an event, had quitted Pesth.  The calamity
was first revealed to the count's servants.
The servants imparted their impressions to
Dr. Paul Balogh, a medical man of
eminence and ability.  The doctor besought
the count to leave Pesth. He replied, " I
am one of the ministers of Hungary; and
the enemies of Hungary are at the gates."
In a moment of utter exhaustion and
discouragement, however, he was borne away
from Pesth by the watchful doctor.  At
Vorosvar the carriage stopped to change
horses.  The count contrived to escape
from it, and was with difficulty recaptured
in the endeavour to return to the scene of
his long martyrdom.  Once, his attendants
were only just in time to snatch from his
hand the pistol he was about to fire on
himself.  At Gran, he again escaped from
his friendly guardian, and flung himself
into the river.  The crew of a vessel
at that moment descending the stream,
succeeded in saving from its waves the
creator of the navigation of the Danube.
At Wieselburg he, a third time, broke
loose from his keepers, and ran through
the town screaming in agony: "I am on
fire! I burn!"

At last the travellers reached Döbling.
It is a quiet pretty little village, so near
Vienna that the recent growth of the
Austrian capital has now almost converted
it into a suburb.  It still retains, however,
its rural aspect, and is sprinkled with green
garden lawns, and enfolded by the sheltering
slopes of richly-wooded hills.  There,
still stands the "asylum" of Dr. Gorgen.
An asylum it deserves to be called.  We
have often visited it.  There, Dr. Balogh
deposited his noble patient; and there
Count Stephen Szechenyi was still living
when the present writer first visited Vienna,
nine years ago.  Ah, and at that time the
ci-devant great Prince Metternich was still
living also!  Surely it is not years but ideas
which mark the progress of time. From
the moment of his arrival at Döbling, the
condition of the count's health fluctuated
in such precise correspondence with the
fluctuating fortunes of his country, that
henceforth he may be regarded as the
living individualised embodiment of the
sufferings of a whole nation.

CHAPTER VI.

WHICH was the madder world of the
two?  The world inside, or the world
outside, the walls of the Döbling Hospital?

It has been stated in previous chapters
that at the commencement of the conflict
between Magyar and Croat, the Imperial
Government, then completely submissive
to the Revolutionary Cabinet of Pesth,
openly disavowed and condemned the
conduct of its destined saviour, the great Ban.

The Archduke Stephen, when he opened
the Hungarian Diet, had been instructed
to declare on behalf of the King-emperor,
the grief with which the King's paternal
heart had been afflicted by the attempt of
the Croatians to resist the laws of the Diet,
on the pretext that those laws were not the
free expression of his majesty's will.
"Some persons," added the Palatine " have
even gone so far as to pretend that their
resistance to the Diet is undertaken in the
interests of the royal house, and with the
knowledge and approval of his majesty."

Our only comment upon this shall be the
citation of a single passage from the
correspondence, subsequently intercepted,
between Jellachich and the Emperor.  The
Ban writes, " I entreat your forgiveness,
sire; but I am resolved to save your
majesty's empire.  If the empire must fall,
let who will live on.  I, at least, will not
survive it."

From Essig to Funfkirchen the Ban had
marched without resistance.  There, Lake
Balaton—an inland sea somewhat larger
than the lake of Geneva—forms the base of
a triangle, of which the two sides are traced
by the Drave and the Danube, Croatia being
at its apex.  Turning the western corner
of the lake, Jellachich reached the castle
of Kesthely. From Kesthely to
Stuhlweissemburg, the road is guarded, on one
side by the waters of Lake Belaton, on
the other by the mountain slopes of the
forest of Bakony.  The whole of that part
of the country is inhabited by a mixed
population of Germans and Hungarians,
through which Jellachich led his army
without encountering any opposition; and,
possessing himself of the ancient capital of
the Hungarian kings and the tomb of St.
Stephen, he encamped his forces within a
day's journey of Pesth.  The excitement
occasioned by this alarming intelligence
dealt the coup de grace to the moderate