I HAD completed my second year at the University, when, in October 1848, just as I was about to return to Cambridge after the long vacation, an old friend - William Grey, the youngest of the ex-Prime-Minister's sons - called on me at my London lodgings. He was attached to the Vienna Embassy, where his uncle, Lord Ponsonby, was then ambassador. Shortly before this there had been serious insurrections both in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin.
Many may still be living who remember how Louis Philippe fled to England; how the infection spread over this country; how 25,000 Chartists met on Kennington Common; how the upper and middle classes of London were enrolled as special constables, with the future Emperor of the French amongst them; how the promptitude of the Iron Duke saved London, at least, from the fate of the French and Austrian capitals.
This, however, was not till the following spring. Up to October, no overt defiance of the Austrian Government had yet asserted itself; but the imminence of an outbreak was the anxious thought of the hour. The hot heads of Germany, France, and England were more than meditating - they were threatening, and preparing for, a European revolution.
Bloody battles were to be fought; kings and emperors were to be dethroned and decapitated; mobs were to take the place of parliaments; the leaders of the 'people' - I.E. the stump orators - were to rule the world; property was to be divided and subdivided down to the shirt on a man's - a rich man's - back; and every 'po'r' man was to have his own, and - somebody else's. This was the divine law of Nature, according to the gospels of Saint Jean Jacques and Mr. Feargus O'Connor. We were all naked under our clothes, which clearly proved our equality. This was the ******, the beautiful programme; once carried out, peace, fraternal and eternal peace, would reign - till it ended, and the earthly Paradise would be an accomplished fact.
I was an ultra-Radical - a younger-son Radical - in those days. I was quite ready to share with my elder brother; I had no prejudice in favour of my superiors; I had often dreamed of becoming a leader of the 'people' - a stump orator, I.E. - with the handsome emoluments of ministerial office.
William Grey came to say good-bye. He was suddenly recalled in consequence of the insurrection. 'It is a most critical state of affairs,' he said. 'A revolution may break out all over the Continent at any moment. There's no saying where it may end. We are on the eve of a new epoch in the history of Europe. I wouldn't miss it on any account.'
'Most interesting! most interesting!' I exclaimed. 'How I wish I were going with you!'
'Come,' said he, with engaging brevity.
'How can I? I'm just going back to Cambridge.'
'You are of age, aren't you?'
I nodded.
'And your own master? Come; you'll never have such a chance again.'
'When do you start?'
'To-morrow morning early.'
'But it is too late to get a passport.'
'Not a bit of it. I have to go to the Foreign Office for my despatches. Dine with me to-night at my mother's - nobody else - and I'll bring your passport in my pocket.'
'So be it, then. Billy Whistle [the irreverend nickname we undergraduates gave the Master of Trinity] will rusticate me to a certainty. It can't be helped. The cause is sacred.
I'll meet you at Lady Grey's to-night.'
We reached our destination at daylight on October 9. We had already heard, while changing carriages at Breslau station, that the revolution had broken out at Vienna, that the rails were torn up, the Bahn-hof burnt, the military defeated and driven from the town. William Grey's official papers, aided by his fluent German, enabled us to pass the barriers, and find our way into the city. He went straight to the Embassy, and sent me on to the 'Erzherzog Carl' in the Karnthner Thor Strasse, at that time the best hotel in Vienna. It being still nearly dark, candles were burning in every window by order of the insurgents.
The preceding day had been an eventful one. The proletariats, headed by the students, had sacked the arsenal, the troops having made but slight resistance. They then marched to the War Office and demanded the person of the War Minister, Count Latour, who was most unpopular on account of his known appeal to Jellachich, the Ban of Croatia, to assist, if required, in putting down the disturbances. Some sharp fighting here took place. The rioters defeated the small body of soldiers on the spot, captured two guns, and took possession of the building. The unfortunate minister was found in one of the upper garrets of the palace. The ruffians dragged him from his place of concealment, and barbarously murdered him. They then flung his body from the window, and in a few minutes it was hanging from a lamp-post above the heads of the infuriated and yelling mob.
In 1848 the inner city of Vienna was enclosed within a broad and lofty bastion, fosse, and glacis. These were levelled in 1857. As soon as the troops were expelled, cannon were placed on the Bastei so as to command the approaches from without. The tunnelled gateways were built up, and barricades erected across every principal thoroughfare.
Immediately after these events Ferdinand I. abdicated in favour of the present Emperor Francis Joseph, who retired with the Court to Schobrunn. Foreigners at once took flight, and the hotels were emptied. The only person left in the 'Archduke Charles' beside myself was Mr. Bowen, afterwards Sir George, Governor of New Zealand, with whom I was glad to fraternise.
