Part 6 (1/2)

The secretary of war, having by this time abandoned the idea of defence, on the ground either that it was useless or impolitic, no shots were fired or active resistance offered; but the orderlies with their horses retired to the stables, and the grenadiers into an inner court. At first only single individuals entered, and their course was not characterized by violence; then groups, proceeding slowly, listening, and searching; and, at last the tumultuous ma.s.ses thundered in the rear.

Ere long the cry rung on the broad staircase, ”Where is Latour? he must die!” At this moment the ministers and their followers in the building, with the exception of Latour himself, found means to escape, or mingled with the throng. The deputies, Smolka, Borrosch, Goldmark, and Sierakowski, who had undertaken to guarantee protection to the threatened ministers, arrived in the hope of restraining the mob. The numerous corridors and cabinets of the war office (formerly a monastery of the Jesuits) were filled with the crowd; the tide of insurrection now rose to an uncontrollable height; and the danger of Latour became every moment more imminent.

The generals who were with him, perceiving the peril, entreated him to throw himself upon the Na.s.sau regiment or the Dutch Meister grenadiers, and retreat to their barracks. He scorned the proposal, denied the danger, and even refused, for some time, to change his uniform for a civilian's dress, until the hazard becoming more evident, he put on plain clothes, and went up into a small room in the roof of the building, where he soon after signed a paper declaring that, with his majesty's consent, he was ready to resign the office of minister of war.

A Tecnicker, named Ranch,[4] who, it was said, had come to relieve the secretary of war, was seized and hung in the court by his own scarf, but fortunately cut down by a National Guard before life was extinct. The mob rushed into the private apartment of the minister, but plundered it merely of the papers, which were conveyed to the university. They came with a sterner purpose. The act of resignation, exhibited to the crowd by the deputy Smolka, was scornfully received by the people, while the freshness of the writing, the sand adhering still to the ink, betrayed the proximity of the hand which had just traced it. Meanwhile, the crowd had penetrated the corridors of the fourth story, and were not long in discovering the place of Latour's concealment. Hearing their approach, and recognizing the voice of Smolka, vice-president of the a.s.sembly, who was doubtless anxious to protect him, Latour came out of his retreat.

They descended together from the fourth story by a narrow stairway, on the right-hand side of the building, and entered the yard by the pump.

At each successive landing place, the tumult and the crowd increased; but the descent was slow, and rendered more and more difficult by the numbers which joined the crowd at every turn of the stairs. At length they reached the court below, and Count Latour, although he had been severely pressed, was still unhurt; but here the populace, which awaited them, broke in upon the group that still cl.u.s.tered around Latour, and dispersed it. In vain did the deputies, Smolka and Sierakowski, endeavor to protect the minister; in vain did the Count Leopold Gondrecourt attempt to cover him by the exposure of his own body. A workman struck the hat from his head; others pulled him by his gray locks, he defending himself with his hands, which were already bleeding. At length a ruffian, disguised as a Magyar, gave him, from behind, a mortal blow with a hammer, the man in the gray coat cleft his face with a sabre, and another plunged a bayonet into his heart. A hundred wounds followed, and, with the words, ”I die innocent!” he gave up his loyal and manly spirit. A cry of exultation from the a.s.sembled crowd rent the air at this event. Every indignity was offered to his body; before he had ceased to breathe even, they hung him by a cord to the grating of a window in the court of the war office. He had been suspended there but a few minutes when, from the outrages committed on it, the body fell.

They then dragged it to the Hof, and suspended it to one of the bronze candelabras that adorn that extensive, and much frequented square, and there treated it with every indignity; it remained for fourteen hours exposed to the gaze of a mocking populace.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] A chapter from Mr. Stiles's forthcoming work on Austria, which we have mentioned elsewhere in this number of the International.

[3] The last order issued by the unfortunate Latour was instructed to Colonel Gustave Schindler, of the imperial engineers, an efficient officer, as well as a most amiable and accomplished gentleman, and one well and favourably known in the United States, from his kind attention to Americans who have visited the Austrian capital. The colonel was in the act of pa.s.sing out of the great door of the war office, which opens on the Hof, when the mob reached that spot. Recognized by his imperial uniform, he was instantly surrounded and attacked. He received many blows on the head, inflicted by the crowd with clubs and iron bars; was most severely wounded, and would probably have been killed but for the timely interference of one of the rabble, who, riding up on horseback between the colonel and the mob, s.h.i.+elded him from further blow, and finally effected his escape.

[4] A student of the Polytechnic school, for brevity, usually called Tecnickers.

SOME SMALL POEMS.

WRITTEN FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MONTHLY MAGAZINE,

BY R. H. STODDARD.

SONG.

I hung upon your breast in pain, And poured my kisses there like rain; A flood of tears, a cloud of fire, That fed and stifled wild desire, And lay like death upon my heart, To think that we must learn to path; For we must part, and live apart!

Had I, that hour of dark unrest, But plunged a dagger in your breast And in mine own, it had been well; For now I had been spared the h.e.l.l That racks my lone and loving heart, To think that we must learn to part;-- For we must part, and die apart!

LU LU.

The s.h.i.+ning cloud that broods above the hill, Casts down its shadows over all the lawns, The snowy swan is sailing out to sea, Leaving behind a ruffled surge of light!

Lu Lu is like a cloud in memory, And shades the ancient brightness of my mind: A swan upon the ocean of my heart, Floating along a path of golden thought!

The light of evening slants adown the sky, Poured from the inner folds of western cloud; But in the cast there is a spot of blue, And in that heavenly spot the evening star!

The tresses of Lu Lu are like the light, Gus.h.i.+ng from out her turban down her neck; And like that Eye of heaven, her mild blue eye, And in its deeps there hangs a starry tear!

THOSE WHO LOVE LIKE ME.

Those who love like me, When their meeting ends Friends can hardly be, But less or more than friends!

With common words, and smiles, We cannot meet, and part, For something will prevent-- Something in the heart!