ministries of war and finance, when the base game of the degradation and restoration of Jellachich was played, and when the Hungarian army, fighting in the name of the King against the insurrections of the Serbians and Croats, became aware that the balls of that same King thinned their ranks from the hostile camp, the nation arrived at the universal conviction that the Hapsburg dynasty were only pursuing their old absolute tendencies, and that they wanted to force Hungary into self-defence, in order, under the pretext of rebellion, to deprive it of all its constitutional rights and guarantees.  It needs no proof that a loud indignation, and even hatred of the dynasty, spread far and wide in the country, in consequence of these intrigues and proceedings.  In spite of this natural excitement, and of the war itself, carried on by the nation with an increasing enthusiasm of hatred of the House of Austria, no party in the country urged a declaration of decheance or forfeiture against the dynasty.  Even all the faithless acts recorded in the letter of Count Casimir Bathyanyi, and the cruelties committed in the name of that court in Lower Hungary and Transylvania, did not turn the scales in this direction.  The Pragmatic Sanction was still considered as good in law; and the many precedents of our history, when the nation and its kings went to war with each other, and ultimately settled their disputes by solemn pacts confirming the constitution of the land, conveyed the notion that a reconciliation was even then not impossible.

Without these precedents and reminiscences of history, and only guided by the universal feeling of the country against the dynasty, the Hungarian parliament would have pronounced the forfeiture of the House of Austria so far back as October, 1848, when Jellachich was appointed absolute plenipotentiary of the King in Hungary, with discretionary power of life and death; or in December, 1848, when in Olmuetz the succession of the Hungarian throne was changed and determined, without the concurrence of the nation through the Diet.  To force the nation and its parliament to the last step in this momentous crisis, the court itself broke the dynastic tie.

This was done by the imposition of the constitution of the 4th of March, 1849, by which the House of Austria itself annihilated the Pragmatic Sanction, treating free and independent Hungary with the arrogance of a conqueror.  The nation, more irritated by this act than by any preceding event, saw that the hour was come, beyond which further to defer the dethronement of the dynasty would be alike incompatible with the laws and the honour of Hungary. All the channels of public opinion, the public press, the popular meetings, and even the head quarters of the army, resounded with emphatic declarations of the impossibility of reconciliation with the dynasty.  The garrison of Komorn—­the most important fortress of the country—­petitioned the government for the declaration of forfeiture.  Most assuredly no party manoeuvres were wanted in this universal excitement, caused by the constitution of the 4th of March, to carry a parliamentary resolution of forfeiture.