Confessio Peccatoris

By Ferenc Rákóczi II

What is one to make of this very complex man? Reactionary feudal chieftain, rebel against Habsburg modernity? Freedom-fighter seeking the independence of his people, and their natural leader? Religious thinker? Political dreamer? Ferenc Rákóczi was all of these at times.
Born in 1676, he never knew his mysteriously deceased father, hated his largely absent stepfather, and was brought up by his remark-able mother – only to be taken from her on his twelfth birthday, never to see her again. There followed a Jesuit education, the recovery of his sequestrated estates, and the life of a young aristocrat in Vienna. Sympathy with his peasants in Hungary, however, led to a rift with Emperor Leopold and, in 1701, to ill-omened imprisonment – from which he made a daring escape and fled (with a price of 10,000 forints on his head) to Warsaw, remaining in Poland for about two years.
Disappointed of this, in 1713 he went to France at the invitation of Louis XIV – pausing briefly at Hull en route – and lived as a pensioner at Versailles. After some time there he experienced a religious epiphany on a visit to a Carmelite monastery and later went to live as a recluse near a Camaldulian house at Grosbois (now Yerres in south-eastern Paris). Nevertheless, he retained contact with his Hungarian sympathisers, and in 1717 through their agency was invited to Turkey by Sultan Ahmed IV. He hoped that Rákóczi’s presence would bring Hungary to the Ottoman side against Austria, while Rákóczi hoped to regain his Principality of Transylvania.
The Turks had been defeated by the time that Rákóczi and his small court arrived. Unable to return to either France or Hungary, he found himself politically isolated and penniless – his vast estates had been confiscated – and he spent his remaining eighteen years in Turkey, dependent on Turkish largesse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Corvina Kiadó
• Release date: Aug 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9789631366853

Book preview

Book One

Confessio Peccatoris

The confession of a sinner who, prostrate before the crib of the new-born Saviour, in bitterness of heart deplores his past life and recalls the blessings that he has received and the operation of Providence upon him. This confession in the form of soliloquies was begun a few days before the feast of the birth of Jesus Christ in the year 1716.

Oh Jesus, I feel you within me. I seek you, therefore, not at Bethlehem but in my heart, where you have deigned to be born by your grace. You know, Lord, that thought which you presented to my spirit some months ago when I was reading the Confessions of your servant St Augustine, and I remember, because you yourself remind me, that I said to myself that if the account of the life of a man who was in origin a sinner like every other man, and furthermore was of quite modest estate, had been of use in the edifying of Christians and in bringing a great number of them to submit to your infinitely easy yoke, the humble tale of a man who is but dust and sin in your eyes, but who has been a prince in this world, would perhaps not be without value to them. That was merely a simple idea rather than a developed resolve. I spent a day considering it closely in your presence, and I begged for your grace in order to know your will on the matter. It seemed to me that your reply was that you wished me to defer this task to the time when I should be settled in solitude. That time has come; I have, by your grace, begun that work in which I am to be alone with you.

Oh Lord, since you recall to my spirit that which you desire of me, since you increase in me the hope and belief that your aid will not fail me, let me defer no longer the performance of that which I am so firmly persuaded that you desire of your servant. It is true that I am undertaking a work that exceeds my powers. It is necessary for me to call to mind many deeds that I have done, certain things that I have known by hearsay, and several to which at the time I paid scant attention. I feel, however, above all a great repugnance at revisiting the memory of those things which your grace, oh God, now makes me loathe, and I dread so much as to think of those things which I formerly found so pleasing. Yes, Lord, the more you give me love for you the greater my pain at the turpitude of my past life. But is this fear of reconsidering them not just? I am a man, and I bear the treasure of your grace in a vessel of mud more fragile than words can tell, and you have not yet entirely rid me of my enemies, who set snares in my path at every moment. Indeed, although, in solitude as I am, I am no longer, so to speak, of this world, which is your enemy and therefore mine, am I not still enveloped in this wretched flesh which is to make food for worms? I know – and it is because I feel it most keenly that I cannot fail to know – I know that at every moment the devil seeks to devour me. Oh Saviour, it is to you alone that I owe it that the dart in my flesh has been blunted since I made my first confession in this desert. It is, however, still in me, since I live; therefore I must work in fear and trembling.

You can see, Lord, better than I what other enemy I have to oppose. It is self-love, and it is much more powerful than the first. I have lived beneath its yoke since reaching the age of reason, since, as it were, the moment when I lost my first innocence. It is beneath the domination of such a tyrant that I have had to groan even more than under the weight of carnal sin. I do not wish at this point to compare my crimes one with another, to reckon these less significant than those. They were all equal, since the least of them so prodigiously outweighed my love for you. Oh God, give me tears to weep at what I have just said, for I feel, oh infinite goodness, that I have not yet enough sorrow for the sins of my past life even though your grace has placed in my heart the resolve to maintain repentance of them for the rest of my days. Oh God and Man! Oh Word Incarnate! Oh Jesus! Is it truly you that speak to me and command me to continue what I believe I have begun only at your desire? Scarcely have I written these few lines and I doubt whether I shall go on and that the memory of deeds which I cannot mourn sufficiently, and which nevertheless I do not yet mourn at all, disheartens me and makes me despair of my powers. Oh, how often and in what abundance have my eyes shed tears, even despite myself, either out of love for my fatherland or to show the culpable, criminal affection of my heart for other things! Why is their source dried up when it would be so proper for them to pour forth to reveal to a Saviour God the contriteness of my soul? Why do they refuse to give a sign of my penitence after being the loathsome evidence of opprobrious emotions in my heart? Open your eyes upon me, Lord, and see if I am not right to fear even today the flesh that surrounds me and has been so rebellious. Yes, Lord, I fear lest the recollection of the past may lead me to death.

If, then, you wish that I continue this confession assure me, if it please you, of a more abundant grace and never leave me, for fear that I may do the evil that I do not wish for and fail utterly to obtain the blessing that I promise myself. Oh health of my soul, keep me from all illusion and all complaisance; avert from my lips imposture and falsehood; restore to my memory all the repugnance of my life. May its enormity increase my pain, and may the sincere confession that I make of it serve to make known your compassionate acts. Those that you have performed upon me have been truly great and great in number. May my every word speak of the marvellous workings of your providence towards me, and may all that read this humble confession esteem the divine vigilance with which you have guided me. Oh God, your servant sighs for you with longing as great as that with which the exhausted hart desires the water-brooks. I unite myself to you with all my heart and place hope in you alone. May my work be forever covered with confusion if it is contrary to your will. Lest that occur, then, so govern the workings of my spirit and guide my hand as shall be most fitting for your glory and the salvation of my soul. I worship, and this is where I believe that I must begin, the goodness of your providence which has led me into this retreat, and I render thanks to you in the humility and simplicity of my heart for all the grace and consolation that you have granted me since calling me to your service, after delivering me from all the other burdens of my estate.

Shame comes over me, Lord, and I blush when I contemplate your birth and its circumstances and my own. You, God, creator of me and of all that is, were born in a stable, I in a palace; you, amidst ox and ass in the society of poor shepherds, I – dust and worms in your sight – in a great throng of courtiers. Your parents were paupers, mine princes; you came into the world in penury, I in riches. But render me humble, Lord, in the contemplation of this, and cause me to worship in truth your lowliness and to become nothing in your sight. I render thanks to you, Lord, first because you so desired, in calling me from nothing into life by your boundless compassion, that I be born of Christian, and in particular Catholic, parents. You showed mercy and heard their request: for they had lived without male issue for several years since the death of my elder brother,1 only my sister remaining alive.

Far be it from me, Lord, to write the history of my family and to enumerate the princes of Transylvania, my forebears, into which dignity my father too was elected even while my grandfather was alive; having, however, been instructed in the Catholic faith by his mother, Princess Zsófia Báthory, while yet of tender years,2 after the death of my grandfather in consequence of wounds received from his enemies the Turks in the battle of Gyalu3 he chose rather to relinquish the throne than to abandon his holy faith.4 My soul exalts you and blesses you, my God, that you strengthened him by your grace and made him steadfast in that his resolve, which has come down to me too. Because some years later he took to wife Ilona, daughter of Count Zrínyi,5 and on 27 March 1676 in our mansion at Borsi you brought into this wretched life his last child; wretched, I say, and deservedly so, for since I left my mother’s womb you have made me your enemy but blessed me even among adversities, since you have led me from nothing, oh greatest goodness, to the knowledge of you and then, having by the water of holy baptism purged me of the sin in which I was conceived, raised me to be among your sons.6 Thus, Lord, I was born to you; but oh, how often since then have I died to you; yet it has happened by your grace that, as I have often said, you have raised me up, dead that I was. What more shall I say to you of that my condition in which my spiritual and mental abilities, the image of your divine being with which you have clothed man, were locked within the narrow confines of my body and for years, Lord, were incapable of and unsuited to the recognition of you. I lived as if I were not unfortunate in being ignorant of you, nor fortunate in not causing you offence. I hope, however, that you will not lay to my charge my weeping and moaning, although these are signs of the childish impatience, indignation and, so to speak, dissatisfaction by which human nature is corrupted and defies its own nurturing parents. If, nevertheless, I gave you offence in my callow youth, my greatest goodness, I pray you, remember not my ignorance!

Your providence took great care for me, because although you called my father to you out of this wretched life before he reached his fortieth year when I was six months old7 (have mercy upon him, I most humbly beseech Your Majesty) you did not permit my upbringing in any way to be impaired. My grandmother, your pious handmaid, a woman of holy life in the eyes of men, loved me tenderly. My mother loved me truly, maternally, with serious affection, because she kept watch over my every unseemly act and when I was scarcely five years of age removed me from the women’s room and rescued me from the care of women. My teachers instilled in me the morals befitting my rank and urged me to pray. Be glorified, oh God, for ever for that your grace, which has truly been great in me; for you caused me at that tender age to be very obedient to my elders, but serving and loving you in my innocence, as far as I recall, I gave not the least sign of rebelliousness in the exercises of piety tempered to my age. It is greatly to my consolation to consider the beginning of my childhood and youth; for I believe, Lord, that I was innocent in your eyes, that I had no bad tendencies yet was frequently punished, for I was idle in my studies and was excessively fond of childish games imitating weapons and warfare. But I regret, my God, that I remember not whether I loved you, though I know that I prayed daily morning and evening. You alone know, therefore, how I was. I rejoice if there was anything in me pleasing to you, and it pains me if I was in any way opposed to you or acted contrary to you.

You see, oh Lord, how confused is the picture and image of all that happened to me at the beginning of my childhood! The death of my grandmother8 I remember but as a dream; none the less, I beg your mercy upon her with the most profound humility. But of my mother’s second marriage to Imre Thököly of the Lutheran denomination too I retain scarcely any recollection apart from the celebratory banquets, which, in accordance with national custom, took place with solemn ceremony and yet with great eating and drinking and lavish display. I beg Your Majesty’s forgiveness, therefore, for all in these that incurred your worthy displeasure. Far be it from me that make my confession to tell you the tales which I have heard of the reasons for that marriage which was, in human terms, so unfortunate for my land, although in the opinion of those versed in the affairs of those times it was the council of the imperial court that encouraged my mother, of blessed memory, to cool the heart of the said Thököly by means of a marriage beyond his expectations and rank and to bring about an armistice.9 I will not, however, rack my brains to think and write of these matters pertinent to my life, for it is not to men that I speak but to you, oh God that examine hearts and kidneys, and who have known these things best of all. I wished to mention before you only these few that I might praise with especial memorial the mysteries of your providence, which in following times have preserved me wondrously and in marvellous fashion. I believe it appropriate that I should here recall one particular incident that occurred shortly before your handmaid’s betrothal, for it was perhaps one of those warning signs by means of which your infinite mercy has more than once diverted men from ill-starred affairs.

We were living in the fortress of Munkács,10 which stands on quite a high rock, and since your God-fearing and pious handmaid considered it her motherly duty as far as she was able to suckle her children and, having suckled them, to lay them at her side in her own bed, one day, when my sister and I were abed she chanced to pray longer than was her wont, and after pouring out her requests before you, infinitely good God, she lay down between us, and her maid, who used to keep watch in the same bedroom while her mistress slept, was also engaged in her devotions; she had not, however, yet finished them when by chance she remarked that from beneath the table immediately beside the bed there was emerging a snake of a size usual for such crawling creatures, and while she was in doubt of what she saw in the dim light the snake made its lumbering way towards the bed. She hesitated, quite uncertain what to do, and in alarm at the unaccustomed sight of the worm, and aware as she was of my mother’s natural abhorrence of such, lacked the courage either to rouse her or to approach it; seeing, however, eventually that it was raising its body and climbing into the bed she woke my mother from her sleep with a terrified scream; she, thinking that there must be a fire, caught up my sister out of the bed and on seeing the snake ran headlong from the room; I, however, was left alone with the snake until the arrival of the servants on watch at the door.11

Whether this happened by chance or by your ordinance, Lord, the course of following times caused us to see that our mother, your handmaid, had received into her bed a serpent in the person of her husband, with whom she nevertheless lived until her last breath with such great patience, humility and conjugal, or at least I would venture to say in your presence, Lord, servile obedience that she may indeed rightfully be held an example in the practice of the virtues of that holy estate. My recollection of this incident may be obscure, but yet I venture to speak of it, for I have kept the circumstances of it fresh in my memory since the age of four partly through the accounts of the maid and partly through those of my sister, frequently repeated. It was by your saving bounty, oh infinite goodness, that that snake (for I am not afraid even before your face to designate with that appellation my stepfather) did me no harm in body or soul; for he often tried by one means and another to remove me, the last of my line, from under his feet so as to be able to gain and keep for himself the castles and fortresses belonging by right of inheritance to my family, together with Hungary and the Hungarian crown, for which he yearned. To that end strove all his counsellors, for the most part Lutherans, who foresaw that I, a child, could become, through the far-sightedness of our family, the sole support of the true faith, and desired either my destruction or that I should join their denomination. How happy I would have been, oh Lord, if I could have revealed to you with more mature judgement all those hardships which befell me until the age of nineteen in order that my enfeebled youthful constitution might be undermined.

Prominent among these was the device of taking me on all journeys and military campaigns, in heat and frost, though I was often thirsty and even more often hungry and cold. For my mother loved me indeed, but partly because she did not know of my hardships, partly because she did not believe them, and furthermore was unable to bring about any change, she conformed with her husband’s every wish. I was taken under your protection among the armies of Turk and Tartar, who hated my fatherland because of the wars of my grandfather. I was often craftily put to the test to make me waver from my faith, although János Badinyi, as a true Christian and fully committed servant of you and us, defended me as best he could. I too did the same; but be gracious, Lord, for I know not what I say! You defended me inwardly and supported my frailty, and thus made me steadfast in my faith; but even in the most menacing trouble a healing balm came to me, for you gave me strength to defy the said hardships; you covered me when I was cold and lay on the snowy ground; you refreshed me with a draught of water in my frequent thirst and with a piece of bread when I hungered, and despite these my health was preserved and my weak body grew strong. The loyalty of my chamberlain György Kőrösy was tested with offers of a castle and extensive estates if he would poison me.12 Here too, however, your hand protected me, because he was horrified and spurned the offer, and since you, father of the fatherless, preserved his loyalty and increased his care and watchfulness, he himself eventually began to be my cook and my everything, but nevertheless hunger and my lack of everyday necessities became more frequent. You preserved me then, Lord, innocent as I perhaps was, and even then you must have foreseen that I would be ungrateful and unmindful of all your blessings. Oh, hapless prisoner of frailty that I was! Why did I forget them when I strayed so often from your boundless mercy; for had I recalled them again and again perhaps, my God, I would have been more faithful to you. With renewed pain, therefore, I worship your judgements; support henceforth my plans, which you have laid upon me to your service, on every day of my life, that by your compassion these great works may not perish within me.

Let those that write the history of Hungarian affairs tell mankind of the reasons for a nation’s war and the Turks’ advance to the assault on Vienna, and then of the victories that the Germans won over them! I shall proclaim to you your great works and your grace that has ceaselessly been shown to me. I shudder to recall, as a dream, the plundering and enslavement of Christian people by the Turks and Tartars; because at the time of the said assault on Vienna I was there among them, in the camp of the Hungarians from Pozsony,13 leaving my mother in the castle of Léva, and although dysentery tormented me greatly I was without any medical assistance (because my stepfather’s doctors, eager though they were to attend me, were not allowed to); your providence, however, God, was with me and I recovered. After the Turks had suffered defeat at Vienna Thököly, though no one was pursuing him (so you confound the wicked, oh eternal wisdom) turned to headlong flight. Even now I remember that as camp was struck in the darkness of night I was almost brained by the big tent as it crashed down, as was a servant of my stepfather; which would indeed have been a clear occasion for humble gratitude had I been able to know you better, oh humility incarnate, than my years permitted. When, after fleeing without pause, we reached the castle of Sempte, I joined my mother, and after the army had turned in the direction of Esztergom we endeavoured to make straight for Upper Hungary; until my stepfather arrived, therefore, I was restored in spirit at the side of my tenderly loving mother. Winter too we spent on various journeys on which my hardships were not in short supply – but as we became accustomed to it the suffering diminished day by day and was eased by your mercy, protector of the young.

Meanwhile, as I have said, through the victories gained by the Germans at Vienna and Párkány14 Thököly’s affairs went into a decline. Under the command of General Schultz, a cunning man but one least familiar with the Hungarian nature, the German army pressed us hard. Pursued by it we wandered through puszta and marsh, but after the army dwindled day by day and the castles fell we were obliged to seek refuge in our castle of Munkács. As, however, of all the castles of Hungary this offered the greatest safety Thököly considered it good to leave my mother there and for the sake of counsel or to seek assistance to go to the Turkish stronghold of Nagyvárad, on the slopes of the mountains surrounding Transylvania. I did not know it then, but you knew, Lord, as I later learnt from his confidential adviser, that he had decided to take me with him in order that if the Turks (whose situation, as I have said, was becoming more and more parlous) should doubt his loyalty, he would give me to them as a hostage and send me to Constantinople. My attendants had already received instructions to prepare me for the journey, my mother had consented amid wailing and complaints, and I, the sacrifice intended for death, desiring a ride on horseback, was pleased, for we were to leave all luggage at home and I had been taught to ride some months before. My tutor Badinyi, however, guessed better than I what the future held and turned to you, Lord, as he had no other means of drawing me back from the whirlpool, and while Thököly was taking his final leave of my mother he went to the chapel and instructed the chaplain to offer a truly placatory sacrifice to you. And indeed he gained for me your mercy, because by a final decision, or rather because Thököly changed his plans at the last moment, he set off after divine service and left me to my mother. May my soul praise you, God, and bless you for your mercy. The peril which you averted from me was soon in evidence, for after the heathen had been once more routed at Esztergom and [Érsek]újvár, and Esztergom and Buda had been lost to them, utmost ruin befell their affairs; they clutched at any means of making peace, and since the Duke of Lotharingia (then commander in chief of the imperial army) caused them to believe that peace was in no way to be made unless they first, as a token of sincere conciliation, made Thököly a prisoner, they were not loth to resort to that disgraceful expedient, breaking the promise made to him in the document of state (called by them an atname) to which the Turkish emperor himself had ceremoniously sworn. They therefore resolved to capture him and entrusted the task to the pasha of Várad, who accomplished it by inviting Thököly to the castle under the pretext of a feast and locking the gate.15 His escort and court deserted and surrendered to the Germans, after which the latter derided the Turk’s naivety, spurned the proposals for peace and continued the war.

Seeing the Turks break faith the Hungarians laid down their arms, and although once the deception of Thököly’s enemies was revealed the sultan ordered that he be set free, and as recompense for his injured dignity caused the pasha to be beheaded, the Hungarian nation no longer ventured to take his side with the exception of a few who were of his denomination and followed his tendencies. My soul is horrified when I reflect upon what would have happened to me had I been there. And do you cultivate its horror, Lord, because the greater that danger is perceived to be, the more may my soul praise you and proclaim your compassion. There is, however, no desire in me to love you because I shall be horrified; that is to say, you have ordained that even if there were to remain in me no recollection of your bounty I shall still love you; therefore I shall have cause for dread ensuing from love, but the cause of pain will be present too. For if I had been there I would have been sent, as is the custom of their nation, to the imperial court and forcibly converted to their religion. See, the cause of fear stems from acknowledgement of my own frailty! Yet surely, boundless goodness, you would have had mercy on me, strengthened me and defended me because of my innocence from that monstrous sin; perhaps by your grace you would have made me esteem death and martyrdom more than life, and thus have saved me from the coming slavery of sin. Oh, I had indeed sufficient reason for pain! But far be it from me, Lord, to accuse your holy providence of plucking me from that danger, even if I know that by your grace I could have won the crown of martyrdom; since your will must be accomplished as is pleasing to you. You have suspended, when I have sinned, the great workings of your justice and have shown me the face of your mercy, and since you have given me double cause to love you better, oh God, increase in my heart love for you, and I shall not fear the evil which I shall gladly suffer for you until that day when you visit me.

Not long after Thököly’s departure the German army arrived to besiege our said castle.16 At my mother’s side there remained Thököly’s chancellor Absolon, a quick-witted but ill-disposed man (he had been the standard-bearer of his councillors and belonged to the Lutheran denomination) and András Radics (likewise a councillor and a Lutheran), the former to attend to political matters, the latter to military. Nevertheless, your handmaid, my mother, whom you, oh treasury of wisdom, had endowed with wits and heroic spirit exceeding the usual capabilities of her sex, surpassed them in council. Courageously and truly, with manly spirit17 she saw the approach of her tormentors, and to those that requested the surrender of the castle she replied that she was the guardian of her fatherless children, into whose castle she had withdrawn without any malicious intent, and she could not surrender their castle, which no one had the right to demand from them. She therefore desired to refrain from all hostile action; if, however, anyone were to try to take by force that which belonged to her said fatherless children she would be compelled to repulse the attack; as indeed she showed for the three years which followed, because for the next three years the German army sometimes held the castle under light siege, sometimes sent into it a great quantity of grenades and bombs from cannon and mortars and endeavoured to force her to surrender, but in vain. I confess that it was a pleasant sight for me to see almost daily from the high hill the skirmishes and greater and quite daring military operations, and for that reason it was sometimes necessary for me to be held more firmly to the humanities, the study of which was not congenial to me; but I did not fail to worship you, oh consolation of the oppressed, in the fashion of my tender years. You remember, Lord, nor do I believe that you have forgotten, the works of your oft-mentioned handmaid, performed every day until the day that you called her to yourself, towards the weak and injured, whom she very often, indeed every day, treated and healed with medicines made by her own hand. Sometimes she would walk fearlessly round the walls. You held a shield against the cannonball which on one occasion so smashed the head of the maid standing beside her that she was spattered with her brains. You preserved her that she might render herself all the more worthy of your mercy after those sorrows and miseries through which you led her, and for which, I hope, she praises you better in heaven than I, poor and sinful, can praise you on earth.

During the siege letters were frequently exchanged; as I heard, Thököly encouraged us with thoughts of Turkish assistance, but one of the last ones was worthy of note; his affairs had become all but hopeless on all sides, and he enjoined my mother to send her chaplain Ferenc Bárkányi, of the order of St Francis, on some pretext by way of Poland to Rome to offer the Pope that he, Thököly, would be converted if he would arrange his affairs as he desired with the Viennese court, and to undertake that he would strive for the conversion of heretics with no less zeal than he had hitherto shown in continual warfare against the Catholics. But you doubtless perceived, Lord, as in the outcome it was revealed, that his intention was insincere, and confounding him therein you made him the means of the revelation of your judgements, and perhaps for that reason permitted my mother, a woman blessed with especially great wisdom, to act negligently. That is to say, as was her regular custom she handed the letter, which was written in secret signs, to Absolon the chancellor to be transcribed into ordinary writing; but since it was written in unfamiliar signs so that he was unable to accomplish the task he brought it back to my mother who recalled that she also had the key to the secret signs, which her husband had left with her for the discovery of the greatest secrets, and as this work wearied her more than usual she gave that key also to Absolon. The Lutheran was dreadfully amazed on reading his master’s intention and made it known to his companion András Radics, who, as I have said, discharged the office of castellan, and by mutual consent they concocted another message in place of the contents of the letter and returned that to my mother; considering, therefore, that from then on they could hope for nothing more from Thököly they made every effort to thwart his plan. They conferred together and resolved to forget their loyalty and earn the goodwill of the Germans; to that end they sent to Caraffa, the commander of the imperial forces attacking the castle, promising to surrender the castle on such terms as they saw fit to ask for their own benefit. Caraffa was pleased at the unexpected outcome, decided to act as the traitors desired in the matter, the achievement of which began on their part with great extravagance of victuals and munitions, in consequence of which the defenders were in a short space of time suffering need, grumbling and sometimes even clamouring; my mother, however, called them to discussion and by her wise words calmed them; as, nevertheless she was unable to counter the deliberately created shortage and the purposely contrived famine she was forced to agree with the counsel of the evildoers; with regard to the terms for surrendering the castle, agreement was reached with the above-mentioned Caraffa, who held a document from the emperor fully empowering him for that purpose, on the basis of a written statement declaring it necessary.

You know, Lord, what decisions were taken then concerning me; I remember, nevertheless, that shortly afterwards my mother complained that the terms of the surrender were not being complied with, indeed what is more, that after the passage of a few weeks an imperial command forced her to leave the possessions of her fatherless children together with us and to go to Vienna, even leaving Hungary.18 The journey, which began in winter, was also completed in the course of it, and since greater cares drive out lesser, and in any case we were accustomed to hardship, we scarcely noticed the rigour of the season. There is, however, oh eternal goodness, one among your blessings to keep silent concerning which would be particularly ungrateful of me. My mother, my sister and I were travelling in a carriage with the furnishings of the women’s apartment, and we were approaching the town of Rózsahegy, which lies beneath the castle of Likava, and making our way by roads in the narrow space between the mighty range of hills and the waters of the river Vág;19 the roads had been washed away by the destructive floods of the swift-flowing river and formed terrible gullies – what soil there was the constant flooding had torn away – when suddenly the whole river bank gave way under the near horse, and together with the mounted groom (in the old-fashioned manner) it was flung into the depths; the weight of the horse naturally would have dragged the front wheels and the whole carriage too with it, had your invisible right hand been far from us in our peril. This it was which, at that moment, stopped both the leading horse and the carriage following us and preserved unharmed both the groom as he clung to the bushes and the horse as it hung in the harness, giving us time to leap from the carriage as servants came hurrying from all sides to our aid. Praised be you, therefore, oh God, for that our preservation too, and may my heart be inflamed to the love of you and never forget your blessing. We lingered a few days in our mansion known as Rovna and our castle of Lednice,20 during which time, as I recall, discussions took place concerning my mother’s lodging and her reconcilement to the new situation.

I will tell you briefly, oh God, and not with sighs and complaints, that while we were besieged in our castle of Munkács my castles of Sárospatak and Regéc were sequestered as pledges for our return to loyalty, and all the treasure of our house which, after the extinction of the royal and princely families from which I too sprang, had come down to me and was to be found there, was removed from them to the imperial treasury. That had been yours which was mine. You took it back, since perhaps the possession of it stood in the way of my salvation. Many were enriched by it, for of the value of several millions (as the inventory showed) not a fillér’s worth was restored to me despite the word of honour given in the emperor’s name. Sufficient be it that you so ordained for me; nor will I mention these things again, but I render thanks that you took from me the opportunity of perhaps abusing them had they become my property.

I heartily believe, oh source and spring of mercy, that I am omitting all manner of things for which I should exalt and praise you in the deeply humiliated fate of ourselves and our mother, your faithful handmaid. Yet is it praiseworthy, oh supreme majesty, as I stand before you and, oh infant Jesus, as I bow before your manger, for me to complain of our humiliation and disclose the vicissitudes of our fate before you, you, I say, who are the mirror of humility? Far be from me, I lovingly beg, every such thought; for I wish to remember nothing other than your compassion; my youth and inexperience of your grace were the cause, that is, if I did not then bring before you my hardships and sufferings, and did not kiss your scourging hand. For if you had to empty yourself for my salvation, oh true God, what would I not have to do for it; and everything that I did would be in vain, had you not given satisfaction to the righteousness of the eternal father by the shedding of your blood and your death. Nor do you ask anything for your measureless goodwill but that I love you; oh, a command truly dear to those that your grace sustains; but hard for them to understand that do not know your word, with which your grace made me acquainted not so long since. May I hear it, Lord, ceaselessly, and may I serve only you among all the dangers of this world and life, and may I follow it in a spirit of humility.

It was my twelfth birthday21 when we reached the Austrian Vienna, and after we had had to wait two hours or more at the gates of the city, which (I do not know for what reason) were closed, exposing us as a spectacle to the deeply offensive populace, we were escorted to the suburbs, to the cloister of the Augustinian fathers, where my mother, now trusting in you, awaited anxiously the outcome of our disorderly reception; but who said what to her, and in whose name, you know, Lord, that I do not know; and I remember only that towards evening a carriage came for me and my sister Julianna, to take us to the house of Archbishop Kollonics, to whom Emperor Leopold, after himself assuming guardianship over us, had entrusted the care of our upbringing and the governance of our estates. He received us with a disdain befitting not our rank but our years, and we were soon seated with him in a carriage because he said that he was about to present us to the emperor. You yourself know, however, Lord, how great was my pain when the carriage stopped, and through the open gate I caught sight of the nuns of the order of St Ursula as, though she wept and resisted, they forcibly separated from me my sister, whom the archbishop forcibly pushed inside.

After that had happened and the gate had closed I, in my helplessness, separated from my mother and sister amid tears and sobbing, was taken with my tutor Badinyi and my chancellor Kőrösy to the dwelling of a certain man who was the bailiff of the archbishop’s estates, where I spent three days sighing and complaining in anxiety over my mother, and on the fourth I received permission to visit my mother and sister in order to say good-bye, the former at her lodging, the latter at the nuns’ barred window. For I had been told that I was to leave Vienna, but for where was deliberately withheld. Oh Lord, I would recall these things even now with indignation, did not your grace direct my frailty.

At that time I did not know what your holy and truly to be worshipped providence wanted with me; since then, however, you have shown that it was right to abase the princely child and then to break his stubbornness, so that in every vicissitude through which you have led him, and will lead, he should be able to accommodate himself to your yoke, which is, to those that so bear it, exceeding glorious. If only, Lord, I had brought before you the tears which flooded my eyes at my mother’s last embrace, for I was never allowed to see her again. The tears brought forth by maternal love I took to my sister, at the sight of whom through the cloister’s barred window they flowed more freely still; our conversation was brief, rent continually by sobbing, its place taken by sighs; for the affection between my sister and myself, which we both felt towards our mother and which she returned, was deep; nevertheless I would venture to say that she enthused in greater measure over me than over my sister. That too was your kindness, Lord, that you granted me that filial obedience which even on her deathbed caused her, when she thought of me, to testify that I had never occasioned her sadness.

When that day had passed in weeping and bitterness of heart, on the morrow the archbishop placed me in his own carriage and, when I had heard Mass in the church of a hospital for the treatment of the unfortunate, together with a certain provost of Eiskorn and my tutor, Badinyi, into a public cab, quite shabby as such things are by nature and drawn by two nags. Do not now recall either, oh Lord, I beg, my ignorance, if I did not set before you my bitterness with a more sincere heart, though I have no doubt that I told you quite frequently; but perhaps in the way of children, who are alarmed at your punishment, I only feared you but did not love. But forgive me, Lord, for I had not yet understanding sufficiently mature to acknowledge that you had sustained and comforted me in the bitterness of which I have spoken above, and in my hardships and humiliation calmed me as you strengthened me thereby for those that were to come. We progressed slowly, and only on the second day of our journey was I told that I was being taken to Bohemia.22 Only my tutor, who concealed his sorrow from me as much as he was able, comforted me by his presence and the hope that he would remain with me. As I knew neither the language nor the customs everything appeared new to me, and every single object renewed my pain, the cause of which was my separation from my mother and sister.

I did not know, oh God, that you were with me everywhere. The weakness of my tender years made me forgetful of your blessings of old and, mindful of my misfortunes, I wept. What I did not yet know was that it is by means of the natural vicissitude of transitory things that you sustain human weakness. A man never remains in the same condition. That alternation of good and evil, of consolation and affliction, of joy and sadness, is an apparently natural means by which your providence steers his life towards the ends that it proposed on putting him in the world. This word ‘providence’ is often on men’s lips without their having living faith in it; without your grace, however, they do not really know it and cannot put their trust in it. That is what makes them so impatient in tribulation and so anxious for the future. They believe that both are at their command. But when one believes firmly that you are the creator and preserver of all things one is convinced that under both titles you take care of everything. This conviction drives away all anxious care over future happenings because one knows that they are in your power and not ours. A man that is thus instructed by faith believes that all good, and principally his preservation, comes from you. This belief causes him to love you, and because he loves you he has hope in your goodness. From that time on he rejoices in prosperity only because you are its author, and adversity does not crush him, because he places his confidence in you. Always unruffled, he tries to please you, and in order to succeed he learns your wishes and obeys them.

Oh consoler of the afflicted, if your grace had then taught me these truths they would have consoled me more than the presence of my preceptor. I would have realised that I was a sojourner upon earth and that it mattered little whether I spent my pilgrimage in Hungary, Austria or Bohemia. Persuaded that we have no fatherland for which we must needs reach out other than the heavenly, I would have scorned the opulence of my house, the empty honour of a prince and those titles which have no reality except in the minds of those with whom they come and go. Indeed, often, and alas! most often of all, a prince on earth is a beggar before you, and a beggar in the eyes of men is a prince in your sight. Oh Lord, thinking in that way I would have found in you my fatherland, my wealth, my princedom, my honours, my mother and my sister, because I would have known myself to be subject to the decrees of your providence. Oh God, I have no ambition to sound the depths of your judgements nor to discover why you allowed me to be ignorant of these truths when I was innocent and free from sin, nor why your compassion makes me aware of them now that I am forty and am the greatest of sinners. You say that you love children and little ones, and yet you have loved