CHAPTER V
1843
OF all the capitals of Europe, Vienna is that in which the citizens are most devoted to pleasure. And the Prater with its cafes, its music, its shows and theatricals, its whirligigs and Punch and Judy displays, is an ideal resort for children and the bourgeoisie. Not a day in which we did not revel there.
The nobility, especially those of Hungary and Bohemia, are vastly wealthy, and they congregate at Vienna to enjoy themselves. At the Reformation most of the nobles, and all the Magyars of Hungary and Transylvania became Calvinists or Unitarians, but later some of the wealthiest, to raise themselves into princes with "immediate jurisdiction," reverted to the Catholic Church. The bulk of the Hungarian and Transylvanian nobility—and nobility runs down to a low degree of fortune, a mere farmer—remain outside the Church. Practically they have no religious belief left; and Mr. John Paget in his Hungary and Transylvania, writes of them as speaking and acting on the Protestant side, not from any conviction in the truths of Christianity whatsoever, but from political reasons, and so as to form a body of opponents to the Court, the Catholic Church, and Austrian ascendency.
With respect to the amusements in Vienna, Baron Pollnitz says: "On the days of Gala the Court is exceedingly gay, and nothing is to be seen but gold and diamonds. The days of this kind that are celebrated with most splendour are the Name-days of the Emperor and Empress. Except on these days of Gala the Court dresses very plainly. It is true that these days are very frequent, and that consequently plain clothes are not much worn; for, if it be a holiday, or the birthday of some Minister, or if some lady of distinction sends for a surgeon to bleed her, it suffices to put the whole city in Gala. These Galas may be
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