Rhine and of King William in the Netherlands, and then repaired with Aspremont to Cologne, where he met the parents of his betrothed and where the wedding took place.1 For having thus acted without the consent and even the knowledge of the Emperor he was on his return confined to his house in Vienna, but as the decree declaring him to be of age had been issued six months before, no further proceedings were taken.
The best-laid plans do not ensure success. Of the considerations which swayed Aspremont in his advising and Rákóczi in his acting, none was realized. His marriage did not lessen the distrust against Rákóczi in Vienna or prevent him from staking his fortune and his life on political enter
prise. Nor did his connection with a German princely house prove of any help in the hour of his need. In fact, his union with Charlotte formed only a passing episode in his life. Six years and a half they lived together decorously and unitedly although
— in the beginning at least— not happily, for she tormented him with fits of groundless jealousy.2 When they had got accustomed to and fond of each other his destiny overtook him and separated them.
He was then twenty-five and she twenty-two years old. When they met again after five eventful years their feelings had drifted apart, and neither of them
1 September 25, 1694.
2 Autobiography, pp. 44 and 457. Compare also, for their marital relations, pp. 62, 1 2 1, and 187 ; and Stepney’s letters to Bruyninx of November 24, 1706, Bruyninx’s letter to Rákóczi, February 7, 1707, and Stepney’s to Addison, March 8, 1707, Simonyi, vol. iii. pp. 265, 3 1 1 - 3 1 2 , and 3 15 .
had any desire to make their union permanent. He was then in the zenith of his career, she a hostage in the hands of the Emperor ; but the obstacle to their reunion did not come from the latter. She certainly had no such wish when a year later she fled from Prague and disregarded the orders of the Emperor to rejoin her husband.1 Still less had he when, after the downfall of his cause, they met in his exile in Poland, and their remaining together depended on their own will alone.
Altogether woman and her influence played but a subordinate part in Rakoczi’s life. His Auto
biography is full of self-incrimination and repentance for having yielded to the sinful admiration of her charms ; but all the love affairs of which he speaks
— with the exception of one— amounted to nothing or very little, and neither the affection for his wife and children, nor the tender ties which linked him afterwards to the Polish princess Helena Sieniawska, exercised any influence on his political decisions and his line of action.
N or were Aspremont’s hopes for the perpetuation of his line destined to fulfilment. Three sons were born of his marriage with Princess Charlotte, of whom two survived him. But they died without male issue, and with them their House became extinct.
Shortly after their marriage the young couple
1 See Stepney as above, Simonyi, vol. iii. p. 3 15 ; also the report of the Venetian envoy in Dispacci d i Germania, vol. 190, of October 16, 1706, where it is told that guards were placed before Princess Rakoczi’s house at Carlsbad, and that she was informed that she would have to rejoin her husband in Hungary without delay, or remain under arrest.
R A K O C Z r S Y O U T H 91 went to live on their Hungarian estates. The years they spent there were those in which what is commonly called the Kollonics regime was in full force. Nowhere was it resented more bitterly than in those north-eastern counties where Rakoczi’s possessions lay, and which in Austria had always been regarded as the hotbed of rebellion. It was inevitable under these conditions that he should awake to the call of his blood ; the question was whether, how, and when he would obey it.
Whether the four years of Jesuit education had actually obliterated the recollection of his childhood, or whether they had merely impressed him with the sense of the Emperor’s power and the consequent necessity of dissembling, it is certain that for many years he exerted himself most anxiously to avoid or to allay the suspicions of the ruling powers in Austria. He had almost forgotten his native language ; he dressed in Austrian fashion (which was the same as the Spanish), his household was composed of Germans and other foreigners, and he is even reported1 to have said that if he knew which one of his ribs drew him towards Hungary he would tear it out. Many years later, when his career had been run, this conduct earned him the reproach of hypocrisy from Prince Eugen of Savoy.2 It is more likely his distrust was sincere, and that the thought of Hungarian championship was not in his mind
1 See contemporary Chronicle o f Cserey, p. 314 .
2 See his letter to the Saxon Minister in Arneth’s L ife o f Prince Eugen, vol. viii. p. 469.
then. But his endeavours were in vain ; the Emperor treated him kindly, and gave him tokens of his good-will,1 as at the time of his being declared of age, so at the birth of his sons, to whom Leopold I. and King Josef stood as godfathers. But to the Emperor’s Government Rákóczi was and remained the born pretender, to be watched, held down, and, if the opportunity offered, suppressed. When he was in Hungary he saw himself surrounded by spies ; when, after his marriage, he took steps to obtain the recognition of the princely rank and title which had descended to him from his great-grand
father, artificial difficulties were made and onerous conditions raised;1 2 and when, at the outbreak of the revolt in 1697, he fled to Vienna because the leaders wanted to put him at their head, the fact that the rebels did not devastate his estates was exploited against him as proof of his secret connivance, and he was in danger of being arrested.3 It was then
1 Autobiography, p. 105, also pp. 62 and 64.
2 The rank and title of a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire had been granted to George Rákóczi I. in the Treaty of Linz, 1645, by Ferdinand III.
All his descendants had borne it, and they had been recognized as such by the court of Vienna, although Francis I. had never reigned in Transylvania.
But when Francis II. was put to school at Neuhaus, the Jesuits there received orders from Kollonics to address him as Count. In Vienna he had been received at court with the etiquette due to a prince, but the formal recognition of his rank was avoided. In the decree declaring him to be of age he was called Francis Rákóczi, son of Prince Francis of Transylvania.
When he applied for the recognition of his title the Board of War wanted him to raise a regiment for the Emperor at his cost. In 1697 the patent of recognition was at last granted, but only for himself and not for his issue, and a few years later Prince Eugen declared that all these tergiversations had been a blunder. The whole question is treated at length in Thaly, Rakoczt's
Youth, pp. 270-300.
3 Autobiography, p. 64 ; see also the instructions of the Board of War in Feldzüge des Prinzen Eugen, vol. ii. pp. 97-99.