Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Count Matthias Sanddorf
The ancestors of the Hungarians were the Magyars, who migrated to present-day Hungary around the ninth century AD, and currently account for one-third of the Hungarian population—a total of more than five million people.Did they come from the Spaniards, the Egyptians, or the Tartars, or were they the descendants of the Huns under King Atla and the Finns in the north? ——Don't go into it for the time being—these issues are still controversial.Remarkably, they were neither Slavic nor Germanic, which they both seem to resent.
These Hungarians kept their own religion.From the eleventh century onwards, they accepted a new religion and became fanatical Catholics.However, what they speak is still their ancient language, which is pure, soft, beautiful, and has the charm of poetry.Although not as rich in vocabulary as German, it is more precise and sonorous.During the two hundred years from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, this language replaced Latin and was used to write laws and decrees, and then gradually evolved into the national language.
On January 21, 1699, Hungary and Transylvania were placed under Austrian jurisdiction.
Twenty years later, the Austrian monarchy issued a rescript reaffirming the indivisible unity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.The new succession law stipulates that the king has no son, and the princess can succeed.Thus, in 1749, Maria Theresa ascended the throne of her father Charles VI and became the first queen of the Austrian Empire.
The Hungarians were forced to submit to the imperial force, but a hundred and fifty years later, people of all classes and classes rose up against the imperial edict and the treaty of Karlovac.
At the time when our story begins, there lived a Magyar of good birth, who hated everything Germanic and wished to restore the former independence of his country, and these two distinct passions persisted throughout his life.When he was still young, he made the acquaintance of the revolutionary leader.Although his parentage and education caused him to disagree with Kossuth on many important political issues, he admired the patriot's zeal.
Count Mathias Sanddorf lives in a countship in Transylvania, Fagaras County.This is an old feudal castle standing proudly on a ridge in the northern part of the Eastern Carpathians, the natural border between Transylvania and Vlach.There are steep mountains and steep cliffs. For the rebels, it is the most ideal shelter, where they can stick to the last moment.
There are rich iron and copper mines near the castle. After careful development, they have become a huge wealth of the owner of Altenak Castle.The estate includes part of Fagaras County and has a population of just under 72,000.These citizens and villagers, when they think of the kindness of Count Sandorf, make no secret of their loyalty and infinite gratitude to him.Therefore, the castle has also become the focus of surveillance by the Vienna judiciary.The Ministry of Justice is completely independent and unfettered among the ministries of the Empire.Officials have learned of the mind of the owner of Castle Altenak, and although it has not disturbed him, it has already disturbed him.
Mathias Sandov was thirty-five years old.He is of medium height, muscular and powerful, with broad shoulders, square face, rosy complexion, imposing manner, a typical Magyar appearance.His movements were swift, his speech clear, his gaze firm and peaceful.His blood circulation is strong, his nose and the corners of his mouth are slightly fluttered, his lips are always wearing a benevolent smile, and his speech and demeanor are humorous, all of which show that he is open-minded and generous.We have noted that the characters of the French and the Magyars are very much alike, and Count Sandorf is a living example of this.
In the character of Earl Sandorf, there is a rather prominent feature: he does not care about personal income.If he personally suffers, he may not mind it, but if a friend suffers, he will never tolerate it.He has a strong sense of justice and hates treachery.As a result, he is always objective and impartial, and has nothing to do with treachery.He is by no means the kind of "all evil, let God punish" people.In the comfort and enjoyment created by family property, he delved into the physical sciences and medical research with great interest.He would have made an excellent doctor if the necessities of life had compelled him to save lives.He himself is happy to be a chemist who can be praised by scholars.He is definitely one of the most diligent students of Pace University, Bratislava Academy of Sciences, Schmnitz Royal School of Mines.Assiduous study and life made his natural virtues more mature and perfected.To be precise, he was shaped into a person of noble character.People who knew him, especially the teachers and friends in various colleges and universities in the empire, all praised him.
In the past, at Altenac Castle, there was laughter, laughter, excitement.Hunters in Transylvania always love to climb this mountain in the Carpathian Mountains to gather for hunting.Count Sandov was aggressive by nature, unable to display it on the political stage, so he had to resort to dangerous large-scale hunting to dispel his inner depression.He stays out of the current situation, but pays close attention to the development of the situation.He either studies.Either enjoy the ease and ease that wealth allows, and seem to be content with this kind of life.At that time, Countess Rainer Sandov was still alive.She is the soul of the party at Castle Aternac.But just fifteen months before this story happened, the young and beautiful woman died suddenly, leaving only a young daughter, who was just two years old now.
Count Sandov suffered from this sudden blow, and became depressed and without consolation.The castle was silent and deserted.From that day on, Grief reigned, and its owner lived a life that seemed like a hermit.His whole life was devoted to his daughter, who was looked after by the housekeeper's wife, Rosna Langdike.This young and virtuous woman raised the earl's only heir wholeheartedly, like her reborn mother.
During the first months of his lady's death, the Count never left the castle.He meditates quietly and lives in the memories of the past.Afterwards, he thought of his own motherland and her humiliating position in Europe, and then he slowly recovered from his grief.
In fact, China has already dealt a terrible blow to the strength of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The blow was not over, and seven years later, in 1866, it was a heavy blow.The war not only caused Austria to lose its possessions in Italy, but also made it a dependency of Germany.Such a defeated country is still trying to enslave Hungary.The indignation of the Hungarians could no longer be suppressed, their national dignity was insulted.For them, even if they win the war, they cannot avenge Sadova's defeat.
The following year, Count Sandov carefully studied the political situation and believed that launching a movement for independence would be likely to succeed.
The time for action has come.In this year—on May 3, 1867, the Earl embraced his daughter, entrusted her to the care of Rosina Langdike, and left Alternac Castle for the Pace.There, he established contact with friends and supporters of the independence movement, made a preliminary deployment; then, a few days later, he came to Trieste to wait for events.
It will be the command center of the uprising.From there the information concentrated in the hands of the Earl will be disseminated everywhere.In this city, perhaps, the chief conspirators of the insurrection were less suspected, and could act with more completeness, and above all, with greater freedom, to carry the patriotic cause to a successful conclusion.
In Trieste, Earl Sandov has two closest friends who share the same ambition with him and are determined to follow the Earl and carry the independence movement to the end.One was Latisla Zatmar and the other was Professor Etienne Bathory, both Magyars of well-born family, more than ten years older than Sandov, with almost no property.Zatmar earned a meager income from a small estate in Ripadova, on the other side of the Danube; Batory made a living teaching physics at Trieste.
Zatmar's house, the one that Sakani and Zirona had just identified in the Via Akdoto--it was a simple house, after Count Sandov left his castle, that is to say, Zatmar placed the house at his disposal until the end of the expected insurrection.The only person in the room was a fifty-five-year-old Hungarian Paolik, who was as loyal to his master as Sandov's own housekeeper, Langdike.
Professor Etienne Bathory owned a similarly inconspicuous house on Stella Town Street, almost on the same block as Count Zatmar's house.In this very house, with his wife and son, then eight years old, Bathory spent his life.
Professor Bathory was originally a descendant of Prince Magyar of the Kingdom of Transylvania in the sixteenth century.Later, as the branches of the family became more and more complicated, this kinship relationship gradually became distant and lost contact. No wonder people are surprised that an ordinary professor of the Academy of Sciences in Bratislava is actually a descendant of the royal family.Despite this embarrassment, Bathory was a first-rate scholar; solitary, yet accomplished.He is like a spring silkworm in a cocoon, obscurity and self-denial.However, because he made no secret of his political opinions, he was finally forced to resign one day. Since then, relying on the full support of his wife in adversity, he has become a professor without a permanent teaching position in Trieste.
Since the arrival of Count Sandorf, although he had rented a suite at the Hotel Barra Vujdelo on the Grand Place—now known as the Hotel Delorme—the three friends had often met at Zatmal's house. .Little did the police expect that the house on Akdauto Street had become the command center for the plotted uprising and had numerous followers in all the major cities of the Empire.
Zatmar and Bathory acted as Sandov's most loyal assistants without hesitation.They agreed that the time had come to launch an independence movement that would restore Hungary to the ranks of European powers.They knew they would risk their lives for it, but sacrifice did not deter them.Akdoto's house thus became a meeting place for the main leaders of the uprising.Numerous supporters from all over the empire discussed ways and received orders here.Due to some important instructions, neither mail nor telegrams can be sent, so the carrier pigeons are responsible for fast and safe communication tasks, carrying secret letters between Trieste, the main cities of Hungary and Transylvania. .In short, every precaution was taken, which had so far ensured that the insurrection was hardly suspected.Moreover, we also know that all communications use password language, which is an absolutely safe method of keeping secrets.
At 8 o'clock in the evening on May 21st, that is, the third day after the arrival of the pigeon whose coded letter was intercepted by Sakkani, Zatmar and Bathory both stayed in the office, waiting for Sandov to return .In order to deal with some personal matters, Count Sandov recently returned to Transylvania and returned to Altenak Castle; at the same time, he also used this trip to send the contents of the secret letter Pass it on to your friends in the city.In fact, the copy of this secret letter has already fallen into the hands of Sarkani.
After Count Sandov's departure, other letters had been exchanged between Trieste and Buda, and several confidential letters had arrived by pigeon.At this time, Zatmar was using a tool called "cipher square" to translate the secret letter into plain text.
In fact, these secret letters were all written in a very simple way—the transposition of letters.In this way, each letter retains its identity in the alphabet, that is, "b" is "b" and "o" is still "o".However, when the password grid is placed on the password letter in a certain orientation and order, according to the difference between the blank space and the real grid, the letters that should be read are exposed in the blank space, while the others are covered by the real grid.In this way, the letters are recombined to form a letter.
This kind of password grid cardboard is very old.After being improved according to Colonel Fresner's method, it has been improved a lot, and it has become the best and most reliable method at present.The other methods are totally unreliable--either on the basis of constant letters, or single secrets, where each letter of the alphabet is always represented by the same letter or the same symbol; or on the basis of varying letters, or double secrets , each letter of the alphabet is represented by another letter or symbol.A seasoned cryptographer, using either probability or trial and error methods, can successfully break codes in this type of research.As long as it is based on letters, and some letters appear frequently and repeatedly in the use of passwords, such as "e" in French, English, German, "o" in Spanish, "a" in Russian, Italian For the "e" and "i" in the password, cryptographers can recover the true meaning of the password and express it in plain text.Therefore, the encrypted letters and telegrams written by these methods are difficult to resist the keen inference of cryptographers, and very few of them cannot be deciphered.
It appears that a cipher grid or a cipher dictionary - in which some common words representing ready-made sentences are represented by numbers - is sufficient guarantee against deciphering.However, both methods have serious flaws: absolute secrecy is required, and more precisely, the coded graph paper or coded dictionary used to imitate letters and telegrams must never fall into the hands of outsiders.It's useless for anyone to see it because they can't get the square cardboard and the code dictionary, but once they have these two things, everyone can understand it.
Count Sandov and his supporters used this kind of cipher square, that is, cutting square holes in certain positions on the cardboard to write cipher documents.As a matter of prudence, and in order not to cause trouble in case the cardboard was stolen or lost, they stipulated that the letters should be destroyed as soon as they had been read.In this way, the conspiracy can be said to leave no clues.Noble lords, Hungarian dignitaries and representatives of the bourgeoisie and common people can act in unison and go through fire and water.
Zatmar had just burned the last batch of confidential documents when he heard someone knocking lightly on the office door.It was Bollif who came in, followed by Count Sandorf, who had just returned on foot from the nearby railway station.
Zatmar immediately went up to meet him.
"How was your trip, Mathias?..." he asked eagerly, wanting to get some reassuring news at once.
"It worked, Zatmar," replied the count. "I have no doubts about the feelings of our friends in Transylvania, and we can rest assured of their cooperation."
"Did you pass on the letter from Pace three days ago?" Batory asked.He and the earl are very close, and they are commensurate.
"They all know," said Sandov, "that they have been informed and are ready: one word and they will rise. Within two hours we will control Buda and Pest, and in half a day we will take The main provinces on both sides of the Tisza River; in just one day, they will become the masters of Transylvania and the military government. At that time, eight million Hungarian people will regain their freedom and independence!"
"And what about Congress?" Bathory asked.
"We have a majority," Sandov replied, "and they will at once form a new government and preside over their affairs. Since the states are practically independent of the king's administration, and each governor has his own police, all activities will It will all run smoothly and normally.”
"But what about the special committee chaired by the Vice-Prince in Buda?" Zatmar continued.
"The Vice-Prince and the Buda Special Committee will soon be inactive."
"Can't get in touch with the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office in Vienna?"
"Yes, all the measures we have taken are for the unity of action to ensure the success of this uprising."
"It's going to work!" Bathory said.
"Yes, it will succeed! In the army, every soldier of Hungarian blood stands with us and serves us. Descendants of the Magyars, wouldn't it be exciting to see the flags of Rodolphe and Corvin ?”
Count Sandorf said these words with a patriotic passion of the highest order.Then, he changed the subject and said:
"However, just in case, we must not be negligent and cautious, it will only make us stronger! Have you heard any suspicious rumors in Trieste?"
"No," Zatmar replied. "Here, people are particularly concerned about the projects that the government has done in Pula Port, and most of the workers have been recruited to participate in the construction."
For fifteen years, the Austrian government has always worried that Venice may be lost-in fact, it has already lost it-and has always wanted to build a large-scale arsenal and naval port at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula to control the Adriatic North of the sea.The city of Trieste had protested the project because it undermined the city's importance in maritime transport.Still, engineering moved forward at a frenetic pace.Therefore, Sandov and his friends are convinced that once the independence movement spreads here, the citizens of Trieste will support them.
Although they seized the opportunity, in order to ensure the success of the Hungarian independence movement, the rebels still strictly kept the secret.The police had no doubts that the main leaders of the movement were about to gather in this ordinary house in Via d'Alduoto.
From this point of view, for the success of the cause, every detail has been considered, and the only thing to do is to act immediately when the time for uprising comes.Coded communication between Trieste and the major cities of Hungary and Transylvania, barring an accident, has ceased.Now that the final disposition of the uprising had been determined, the carrier pigeons had nothing left to convey.Prudent and cautious, they decided to close the shelter of Zatmal House.
Another point that cannot be ignored is that if money is inseparable from war, uprising also needs it.In this moment of insurrection, the insurgents cannot be without funds.
Both Zatmar and Bathory are known to have sacrificed their lives for the independence of their homeland, but they were unable to contribute, given that neither of them had a well-off personal life.But Earl Sandov was extremely rich, and he was ready to devote his life, together with all his property, to the cause of patriotism.Thus, over the past few months, through the efforts of the steward Langdike, a considerable sum of money—a total of more than two million florins (about five million francs)—has been raised from his lands.
But this money must be at his disposal; and can be drawn at any time.So he deposited them in a bank in Trieste in his own name.At that time, the bank had a good reputation and a solid position.It was called the Doronta Bank, and it was the one Saccani and Zirona had mentioned when they rested on the cemetery in the city's highlands.
However, this accidental saving of money will lead to the most serious consequences, as we will see in the following story.
In Sandov's last conversation with Zatmar and Bathory, he mentioned this money at one point. He said that he wanted to visit the banker Doronta recently in order to inform him that he would withdraw the money in two days. money.
Sure enough, the situation had an unexpected development, especially that night when Earl Sandov discovered that Zatmar's house was being watched, which made him even more worried, prompting him to quickly send out the secret signal agreed by Triet.
At eight o'clock in the evening, when Sandov and Bathory walked out of the gate and returned to Kocia Stadion's apartment and the Delorme Hotel respectively, they found two figures spying from the dark, following them furtively, and Do your best not to let them know.
The count and his companions walked towards the two suspicious people without hesitation, wanting to find out.Before catching up with them, the figure disappeared without a trace around the corner of St. Anthony's Church at the end of the Grand Canal.
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