Soundtrack:
Dvořák – Symphony no. 1, C Min ‘The Bells of Prague’ - Maestoso - Allegro[2]
*exterior* *Berlin* *a statue of Frederick the Great is ceremonially beheaded* *before a red-gold-black tricolour is unfurled from the now-headless king’s statue*
*exterior* *Paris* *interior of the Elysée, Madame Royal drops a newspaper in the fireplace with a sad look on her face* *as the flames lick at the newspaper, we read that the Prussian monarchy has been declared abolished and a republic declared*
*exterior* *Buda* *a pamphlet is passed out on the street*
V/O by Kossuth: on your feet now, Hungary calls you! Now is the moment, nothing stalls you. Shall we be slaves or men set free? That is the question. Answer me! By all the gods of Hungary we hereby swear that we no more the yoke of Habsburg slavery shall wear-
[3]
*the passerby shoves the pamphlet in their pocket without reading further*
*exterior* *Frankfurt* *Emperor Ferdinand- in the presence of his brother and nephew, Archdukes Stephan and Joseph, Albrecht of Teschen- signs a document that a chamberlain-dressed Frankie sets in front of him* *we pan to see the side of the “stage” where Frankie came from and see that there are several men in civilian dress – some of whom we recognize from meeting Franzi’s train in the Chapter “Bowl of Spaghetti” standing there* *they seem to relax once Ferdinand has signed*
*pan out to the audience- as though this is a theatre- and we see a stony-faced Wilhelm of Prussia seated alongside a scowling Ernst August of Hannover* *to their credit, even the “liberal” Grand Duke of Baden looks pensive*
*exterior* *Berlin* *we see a newspaper vendor selling papers announcing that “
Für Reich und Verfassung[4]” and
Die Gerechtigkeit des Reich[5]*
*exterior* *Frankfurt* *we see Frankie – in ordinary clothes – walking with a uniform-wearing Franzi, Prince Wilhelm and Ernst August*
Ernst August: no good will come of it, your Serene Highness. Giving the mob what they want. Like a constitution. It never ends well.
Frankie: of course it never ends well, Majesty. But we need
time. And
time is one thing we do not have a lot of.
Ernst August: but you cannot retract it when it is no longer required.
Franzi: your Majesty did in Hannover in 1837 with little ill effect.
Frankie: some coffeehouse liberals in London, Paris and Buda I’m sure would beg to differ. *to Ernst August* however, your Majesty is quite right. A constitution is not some
play thing.
Wilhelm: scrap of rubbish is what it is.
Frankie: and yet a scrap of rubbish that may have saved your brother’s throne, sir. He baited the bear, and he lost.
Wilhelm: you would not help him?
Frankie: I call his Imperial Highness and Prince Schwarzenberg
even God as my witnesses that I
did try to help him. Sadly, each time I was refused-
Wilhelm: *looks about to interrupt*
Frankie: and what
can I do when your Royal Highness remains
here rather than return to Berlin? To rally the troops? Defend your brother? I could make a…rather uncharitable comparison to my own uncles if I did not know your Royal Highness better.
Wilhelm: my brother is a fool.
Frankie: and he will meet a fool’s end if your Royal Highness does
not go against your scruples.
Wilhelm: the crown is his by God’s hand alone, your Serene Highness.
Frankie: well, I would hate to think what
that says for God’s judgement, sir, that he was allowed to be pulled down so.
Wilhelm: *shifts uncomfortably*
Frankie: I have every sympathy for your nephew dying, your Royal Highness…him diving into the Rhine to rescue those men when no one else would was commendable. Heroic even. He saved what was it, five of those men?
Franzi: seven.
Frankie: *sadly* seven boatmen…swept off by the current when he was returning for the eighth
[6]. Your wife and her sister have my condolences…no person should have to bury their child. While I understand that it by no means will replace him, the emperor has agreed to name him to posthumously name him to the Order of the Golden Fleece for it-
Wilhelm: but he’s a Protestant.
Franzi: the order’s statutes technically has no limits on religion. It simply states that he may not be a “lapsed heretic”. And, assuming there was no impediment to him being a part of the church, we saw no reason that he could not be named. *aw shucks grin* if such an impediment exists however, we are going to be- *looks at Frankie* what’s that saying that Maxi uses? Up a river with no oar?
Frankie: *nods* to return to the matter of your Royal Highness’ brother…while I do not deny that the crown was given to him by God, my father stands as proof that being gifted a crown from the gutter is no more of an assurance. *to Franzi* remind me again what the Council of Constance decided on Jean Petit’s tyrannicide
[7]?
Franzi: *sounds like he’s quoting from memory* that once the tyrant has become the authentic representative of the authority, none can attempt his life.
Ernst August: we are a long way from the Council of Constance
Frankie: *gives a “best I can do” look* it’s not my fault that even after they assassinated Henri IV the Church never updated the rules. I sadly, cannot go back in time…otherwise I would. And
smother my father in the crib.
Ernst August: would that not snuff your own life out by doing so?
Frankie: it’s a conundrum, isn’t it. Thank God we only have to worry about trains and steamboats and Herr Marx, not time travel.
Wilhelm: Prussia is not Catholic, sir.
Frankie: no, it is not. And I look forward to a long discussion on life, death and eternity with the Queen of Prussia
once she and her husband are safe and sound. Either back in Berlin or here in Frankfurt.
Wilhelm: you don’t mean to recognize this…republic?
*even Ernst August looks aghast*
Frankie: *to Ernst August* your Majesty can no doubt recall how everybody declared they would not recognize the French Republic. And look at what war and bloodshed that caused.
*Ernst August gingerly fingers the scar on his cheek
[8]*
Frankie: *to Wilhelm* To quote Metgé’s pamphlet against my father: you French call
us slaves when you are so brutalized you do not even realize that you are a hundred times more so than us. In my country, any general who would’ve committed a thousandth of the criticisms with which Bonaparte sullied himself would have paid with his head! Where is the man who, knowing his rights and his dignity, would care to spend his life under a government where none speak of freedom, of equality? What a travesty. Governments know very well that they will be run by imbeciles and cowards if there is no Brutus
[9]. *end quote*
Wilhelm: and I am to be Brutus?
Frankie: God no. I am simply illustrating the anarchy that the government will suffer. Now that they have… done away with the crown, they have removed the
only thing they could
all agree on. So they will spend weeks, if not months or years, trying to decide what form of government they are to have. There will be in-fighting, purges and blood running in the streets of Berlin. I am told there are some who are in favour of a “pure republic” like Monsieur Guizot favours. Others are more in favour of Marx’s more… babouvisme
[10] ideas-
Franzi: *deliberately misunderstanding* to call them
baboon ideas would be an insult to baboons. *grins*
Frankie: this is our…window, your Royal Highness…that while they are still running around proclaiming their love for one another and willingness to die for one another, we ready ourselves for when they will invariably set upon one another and start tearing one another to pieces.
Wilhelm: you seem rather convinced they will act in such manner?
Frankie: it is the curse of democracy. When you declare everyone
equal, inequality itself becomes a crime. The tall are cut down, the small are set up in their place- my father, for instance *smiles* When you replace “by the Grace of God”
with “by the will of the people”, one becomes a charlatan who dabbles in all sorts of quackery in order to
keep that will on-side. And as a result, what was once a clear pool at the
fons honorem becomes little more than a stagnant swamp. I have no desire to see whether there is a Berliner Robespierre or even a Berliner Bonaparte.
Ernst August: *smugly* are you so afraid of competition, your Serene Highness? *its said as a joke, but you can tell the king is worried by the same thought*
Frankie: if he had my father’s ambition, your Majesty would also be terrified.
Wilhelm: then you will act against them?
Frankie: I will not act, sir. I am in no position to act- not even with the new constitution. I am not, nor ever have been, regent in Germany, contrary to the lies Prince Metternich spread. *turns to face Wilhelm* that being said, do
not think me remiss that I have not found it rankling that the Berliners would term their *snooty tone* little experiment…the “German Republic” when they have little more than Berlin. I trust your Royal Highness will regard
this as a
German matter.
Wilhelm: of course, sir *salutes* *clicks heels smartly* *walks off with the king of Hannover*
Frankie: and off they go like a good little clockwork soldiers.
Franzi: speaking of revolutionaries, how do you plan to deal with those in Buda?
Frankie: *walking* do you know what the problem with clockwork soldiers are?
Franzi: they’re not very effective against real soldiers?
Frankie: they need to be wound up.
Repeatedly. Kossuth and his ilk are trying a scheme- a very
old scheme, mind you- that I suspect will meet the same fate as all the times it has been tried before.
Franzi: to echo Prince Wilhelm, you sound supremely confident.
Frankie: look at what they are trying to do. Their method is not pleasing anyone. To the republicans, that they want a figurehead monarch is anathema. To the monarchists, the idea that they have a monarch in mind who
isn’t a Habsburg is likewise repugnant. In their compromise, they neglect one of Werbőczy’s fundamental principles of the Hungarian monarchy, do you know which that is?
Franzi: that the king must be a native born Hungarian.
Frankie: *climbing into carriage* exactly.So, they have selected a two-bit Italian-born bastard to be their fig-leaf. No stretch of legal fiction can claim that
Parma was
ever part of the Lands of Saint Stephen. There was a reason I never signed his naturalization papers.
Franzi: you knew they would choose him?
Frankie: *as the carriage pulls off* that would make me clairvoyant, so no. I simply refused to sign the papers making him a natural born citizen because I didn’t see the point of it all *sorting through his correspondence*
Franzi: you mean because then you’d have to admit you share a mother?
Frankie: *hands a letter* from Maxi for you.
Franzi: *takes it*
Frankie: and even if I signed the naturalization papers we
still wouldn’t share a mother. Since that would
imply that I actually
had one who
wasn’t Aunt Leopoldine or Oma.
*exterior* *Prague* *title card flashes April 17th 1848
[11]* *the church bells ring out*
*we see a parade of students and marching down Celetná Street led by priest, Jan Arnold
[12]* *Prince Windischgrätz is on horseback at the head of his men watching them advance* *suddenly, a gunshot rings out* *Windischgrätz falls from his horse* *dead
[13]*
*the picture “drips” out, like blood dripping* *we hear gunfire in the background*
[1] [2] This symphony wasn’t written until 1865 (after all, at the time of these events, Dvořák is only 7yo and still living in Nelahozeves)
[3] Except for one word, the text of Sandór Petőfi’s
Nemzeti Dal (the “Hungarian Marseillaise of 1848”. Narrated here by Kossuth because otherwise I’d have to explain who Petőfi is. I'm not sure how naturalization laws in the kingdom of Hungary worked, but
@Fehérvári @Tibi088 I figured that
Werbőczy's legal argument for a "native born" king could be used to
exclude Montenuovo. The Habsburgs- by my interpretation of Werbőczy's argument- despite being "foreigners" fall under the argument that if "children of the king are
not native to the country, who is?" Also, AFAIK, Hungary elected
dynasties not
individuals. Which would mean that any (male-line?) descendant of Maria Theresia (or Ferdinand I before her) was "Hungarian"
[4] For the Empire and the Constitution
[5] The Justice of the Reich
[6] The nephew, Prince Karl of Prussia (son of the late Prince Karl and Marie of Weimar) was awarded the Rettungsmedaille for doing this OTL. TTL, he gets caught in the current and drowns.
[7] The murderer of the duc d’Orléans (brother of Charles VI) who claimed justification as tyrannicide not regicide (which was deemed as a sin by the church)
[8] Sustained during a cavalry charge during the Flanders Campaign in 1794/1795
[9] From Bernard Metgé’s
Le Turc et le Militaire Français (1800)
[10] François Noël ‘Gracchus’ Babeuf, French Revolutionary journalist. Originally, in English, the first communists were termed “Disciples of Babeuf”. Babeuf’s own maxim that “
Society must be made to operate in such a way that it eradicates once and for all the desire of a man to become richer, or wiser, or more powerful than others” sounds eerily like proto-Marxism.
[11] The day after Palm Sunday 1848. The day that will give the 1848 in Prague the nickname of “Prague Easter” or (in Czech) Velikonoční povstání (the Easter Rising)
[12] Brother of radical, Emanuel Arnold
[13] OTL, it was Windischgrätz’s wife who was killed by an accidental shot
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