Attack on Algiers. 1677.

CAMEO VII. for peace, but the conditions were too hard, and were refused. The people rose, murdered the Dey, seized the French in the town, among others a mission priest who acted as consul, and blew them from the mouths of cannon. Duquesne then recommenced his fire, and destroyed shipping, arsenals, and all within reach. Peace was at last made, a French fort was erected on the coast, and a consul established at Algiers, who was to inspect the captives taken by the corsair ships, and obtain the release of French subjects without ransom. But if Louis fought with the Moors on the coast, he encouraged the Turks on the frontiers of Hungary, out of hatred to the House of Austria. Profiting by the increasing weakness of his hereditary enemies, he continued to encroach in the Spanish Netherlands, interpreting the Treaty of Nimeguen in his own way. Courtrai was seized, Oudenarde and Luxembourg were shelled, Brabant laid waste, and all annexed to France; while Spain was too feeble and exhausted to commence a fresh war on their behalf.

In truth the line of Hapsburg was almost worn out. The morbid tendency to insanity inherited from Juana la loca of Spain had been intensified by frequent intermarriages between the two branches of her descendants in Germany and Spain, and there had hardly been a generation without some member being either idiotical or falling into deep melancholy. The reigning King of Spain was almost imbecile ; and his cousin the Emperor Leopold I. was a little, thin, dark insignificant man, shy, dull and reserved enough, with a great talent for music, so that the compliment was once paid to him by a great performer, "What a pity your Majesty is not a fiddler.

His third wife, Eleonore Magdalene of Neuburg, sister to the claimant of the Palatinate, was a deeply religious and beneficent woman; she went to the opera to please her husband, but with a devotional book hid by the libretto; she knitted for the poor even on her way to church, and for her husband's sake prepared dainty dishes with her own hands, thongh she lived on the hardest fare. Leopold was likewise devout, and thought to evince his religion by persecuting. Hungary still contained many Lutherans, but a disturbance there in 1673 gave him a pretext for declaring that the Magyars had forfeited their freedom. He sent in troops, imprisoned the nobles, pronounced the kingdom hereditary, and instituted courts for trying cases of heresy. Five hundred and fifty Lutheran pastors were seized, and sold for fifty crowns apiece to row in the galleys at Naples, where, as it may be remembered, De Ruyter obtained their liberation. This oppression stirred up a revolt under Count Emmerich Tekeli, who obtained the aid of the Turks, the Sultan, Mahomet IV., being actually encouraged by Louis XIV., who forgot Christianity in his hatred to the House of Austria. In 1682, Tekeli accepted from the Sultan a sword, vest and standard, and was then created Prince of Upper Hungary. Most of the Protestants joined him, and he took

numerous towns.

The next year, the Grand Vizier, Kara Mustafa, invaded Austria itself with 200,000 men, and being joined by Tekeli, advanced towards the very gates of Vienna. The Emperor's distress was great, the fortifications were out of repair, the garrison insufficient, the people flocking into the city in terror. Leopold sent in every direction for aid, especially to John Sobieski, the brave nobleman who nine years before had been raised to the elective throne of Poland, and who made haste to raise his forces. As to the German army, it was slow in collecting, and there was much desertion, so that when Charles, Duke of Lorraine, the Emperor's brother-in-law, brought it to Leopold for review at Presburg, there were only 40,000 men, among whom the young fugitive from France, Prince Eugene of Savoy, was making his first campaign.

The Turks were advancing, and all that the Duke of Lorraine could do was to retreat, devastating the country so as to prevent them from obtaining supplies.

The Emperor hurried back to Vienna, whence, with his wife and family, he fled as far as Linz, where a son was born, on whose face the Empress Eleonore declared she would not look till the enemy had been driven back. The Duke found Vienna in dreadful terror and confusion; the citizens reviling the Jesuits and the Emperor for having caused all this mischief by their persecution in Hungary, and then leaving them to their fate. He did much to encourage them, in concert with the Governor, Rudiger, Count of Staremberg, and the Archbishop, who had been a knight of Malta; the walls were repaired, and the citizens and soldiers trained to the defence. He left 8,000 men to assist the garrison, and fell back with the cavalry to harass the rear of the Turks, and cut off their supplies.

The siege began on the 14th of July, 1683, and lasted three months, so that provisions were exhausted, and the people reduced to living on horses, dogs and cats, dache hasen, roof hares, as the name of the cats was disguised. The Duke did his best, defeating Tekeli, who had been detached to secure the passage over the Danube at Presburg, and keeping back Tartar invasions towards Moldavia; but time went on, the German troops did not arrive, and the Polish army was only mustering. Messenger after messenger was sent to hasten them, and the Emperor wrote to John Sobieski to hasten his march without waiting for his army. "The bridge over the Danube at Tuln is ready to afford you a passage," he said; "however inferior in number, your name, so terrible to the enemy, will insure victory.

Sobieski started at the head of 3,000 light horse, and dashed on to Tuln; but there he found the bridge unfinished, and no imperial troops, except a corps under the Duke of Lorraine. He was greatly angered.

66

"Does the Emperor take me for an adventurer," he said; I quitted my army to command his; it is not for myself but for him that I fight!" The Duke had formerly stood for election for the crown of

CAMEO VII.

Siege of
Vienna.

1682.

CAMEO VII.
Relief of

Vienna.
1682.

Poland against him, but they met as hearty coadjutors and friends. Staremberg sent a messenger, who swam the Danube, bearing a note with the words, "No time to be lost!-No time to be lost!" The Polish army came up on the 5th of September, the German, under the Electors of Saxony and Bavaria, on the 7th, and together they crossed the Danube; but several fortresses had to be secured on their advance, and Vienna was at the last extremity, outworks taken, sickness prevailing, and starvation causing intense misery.

The Turks themselves were extremely weary of the blockade, and the soldiers, looking towards the hills, exclaimed—

“Oh, ye infidels, if ye will not come yourselves, let us at least see your crests over the hills; for once seen, the siege will be over and we shall be released."

To content the murmuring troops, on the 12th of September, Kara Mustafa commanded a general assault. The struggle was desperate, the great Turkish cannon did such damage, and the garrison suffered so terribly that the citizens thought the end had come, when, as darkness came on, they beheld five rockets fired from the summit of the Kahlenberg mountain, the signal of deliverance.

The Vizier sent 10,000 Tartars to watch the hill; but Sobieski, after a spirited address to his troops, descended and drove these in to the main body, and so routed all who came out to oppose him, that Kara Mustafa decided on retreating in the night, after having first given orders that every captive should be slaughtered, as well as every Turkish woman who could not be conveyed away. Before the next evening his vanguard had reached the Raab, while Staremberg and his garrison sallied out and hung on the rear preventing any rally.

The Poles descending, found an enormous booty, so that, as Sobieski wrote to his wife, "The Grand Vizier has left me his heir, and I inherit millions of ducats. When I return, I shall not be met with the reproach of the Tartar wives, 'You are not a man! You bring no booty!'" The great Ottoman standard was taken, an immense treasure, 180 large cannon, jewels without number, and provisions, including coffee in such quantities that it then became a popular beverage, and Staremberg's faithful messenger set up the first coffee-house in Europe. Five hundred deserted infants were found whose mothers had perished in the massacre, and these the good Bishop Kollowitisch and his clergy took under their care.

Sobieski was rapturously greeted when he entered Vienna, the people rushing to kiss his horse and his garments as their deliverer, as he rode to the cathedral and knelt at a grand Te Deum; after which he dined in public and returned to his camp.

Leopold, on hearing the news, was more embarrassed than grateful. He wanted to know what precedents there were for the meeting before him. "How should an elected king be received by a kaiser?" he asked. “With open arms,” said the Duke of Lorraine.

Leopold however had the narrowness to insist that Sobieski should

be informed that he could not be received as if he were an hereditary prince; but King John would abate none of the honours he considered due to his country as well as his services.

Finally it was arranged that the two sovereigns should meet between their armies and advance within two paces of each other. The scene was a very curious one-Leopold, stiff and shy, was plainly clad and meanly mounted, while John wore a splendid Polish uniform and rode a superb charger. At the same moment each monarch doffed his hat, and then the Pole spurred forward and a species of embrace passed between them. The German authors say that Leopold uttered his thanks, the Poles that Sobieski began with a flowing Latin harangue, declaring that the victory was due to the Almighty, and that he had done no more than one Christian should do for another. The Emperor, who probably did not half understand him, only mumbled something in return; and the King, presenting his son James, said, "This is a prince whom I am rearing for the service of Christendom.' The Emperor returned only a movement with his head, not even touching his hat, and Sobieski, after introducing some of his officers, left them to do the honours of the army to the ungracious Kaiser, and retired to his tent much offended. The next day however Leopold sent young James a sword with a jewelled hilt, and a letter of apology, and 3,000 ducats to each of the generals. Probably his discourtesy was as much from awkwardness as from pride, but he was an incapable person, and his officers kept their allies, Polish and German, ill-supplied with provisions, nor were the sick admitted into houses nor the dead into the cemeteries.

Prince Eugene was, however, made a colonel, and thus attached to the Austrian service, and Staremberg received the Order of the Golden Fleece. Sobieski's high-spirited Poles were so much disgusted that they would fain have returned home at once, but Sobieski persuaded them to follow up the retreat of the Turks, though the tardiness of the Germans kept them back for five days.

In vexation Sobieski attacked a strong body of janissaries at the Bridge of Barkan, without consulting the Duke of Lorraine. He was in great danger, his hussars deserted him, and he had, with two hundred men, to cut his way through the midst of the enemy, and at last reached the German lines with only six followers, and threw himself panting on some straw. However in two days more he and the Duke together gave the Ottomans a complete and entire defeat, driving them across the Danube with terrible loss; and following up their success by taking the city of Gran. After this Sobieski, having done his work against the Turks, returned to Warsaw; but the insurrection of Hungary, headed by Tekeli, continued, and greatly weakened the resources of Leopold.

The Magyars were always a standing difficulty ever since they had been acquired by Austria, and were sometimes said to be to her what Ireland was to England.

CAMEO VI.

Leopold and Sobieski. 1683.

CAMEO VIII.

The

English

Court.

1676. Innocent XI.

"OPPRESSION maketh a wise man mad," and the English had begun to despair when they saw Charles II. dispensing with a parliament by means of French gold, crushing the municipal freedom of the cities even of London, and when they knew that the next heir was of the muchhated Romanist communion, and, though a more sincere, yet a harsher man than his brother.

"Never fear for me, James; no one will kill me to make you king," Charles had said, with great truth. If there was hope in the Princess of Orange, yet this was very uncertain, since the young Duchess of York, every two or three years, gave birth to an infant, though all died in early childhood. It is curious that this century was remarkable for the mortality of infants, probably immediately owing to some unhealthy mode of treatment, but also a memorable accompaniment of an age of peculiar vice, crime, and temptation.

The Protestant party were however gratified by the Princess Anne's marriage. At seventeen, Anne, a plump, blooming, fair-faced girl, had had a tender correspondence with the Earl of Mulgrave; but one of the letters was surprised by Anne's favourite confidante, Mrs. Churchill, and shown to the King. The Earl was sent in command to Tangier in the same ship with one of the King's sons. The vessel turned out to be unseaworthy, and whenever the King's health was proposed Lord Mulgrave used to say, "Let us wait till we get safe out of his rotten ship.'

A brother of General Churchill's was in the service of the Court of Denmark, and the connection seems to have suggested to King Christian V. to propose his brother George as the husband of Anne of York.

The King was satisfied; the Duke of York, though not pleased,