Between the Hungarian war for freedom and the Asiatc campaign
And now the life of our heroic countryman seemed to be suspended by a single thread, and the gallant spirit that had braved 100 fights doomed to an ignominious, perchance, a felon's death; for, when at Widdin, a demand was made by Austria and Russian, conjointly, for the person of General Guyon to be delivered up. This was met, and successfully, by a claim on the part of the British Ambassador at Constantinople, upon the General, as a British subject; where, shortly after arriving, he was joined by his wife and children, who had undergone all the rigours of a politico-despotic imprisonment, by order of the Austrian government. His family was confined in the Schlossberg of Presburg (says Madame Von Beck), who went to visit them, as also Kossuth's children; and they found, despite the rigours of Austrian rule, that the governor of the prison was, on the whole, a kind-hearted man. The Countess Guyon had been arrested while walking with her mother, who had been a lady-in-waiting upon the Empress. The military authorities of Pesth had summoned the Countess Guyon to subscribe a document, unique in the diplomacy of war. "I, Baroness Splenyi," (so ran the mild condition) "wife of the rebel Guyon, engage myself to be divorced from the said man." The paper was signed, under the vilest. threats; but a power greater than despotism is yet to be evoked, ere the heart can be made to perform, what the hand has been compelled to write. In the September of 1849, General Guyon had made application to Lord Ponsonby, respecting his wife and children, and had never received any answer, direct or indirect, from his Lordship; at length he received intelligence respecting them from the Foreign Office. Prince Schwartzenberg, he was informed, had written two letters, stating, in one, that the Countess Guyon and her children had been taken to Presburg, where the Austrian government provided for her subsistence, as she was totally destitute. Not only the estates of Guyon and of his lady had been confiscated by the Austrian government, but £2000 settled on her had been seized, and after this, Prince Schwartzenberg boasted of her "being supported by the liberality of his government!"
"And even this, on his own evidence, turned out to be a fiction; and, in a second letter, he admitted that he did not know where Countess Guyon (25) and her children were to be found, and wrote to Marshal Haynau to ascertain!"
General Guyon (the fame of whose deeds had gone forth from the Eastern parts of Europe to the remotest shores of the Atlantic,) was offered service by the Turkish government, and, wearied with inaction, readily accepted it. He was sent to Damascus with the rank of lieutenant-general, on the staff, and with the title of "Khourschid (26) Pasha," which, not long after, became as famous as that by which Europe had known and admired him. He was greatly importuned to embrace Mahomedanism, with all the allurements of high honours and military command. For the first, though poor in this worId's goods, he was rich in the possession of a good conscience, and refused to abjure the pure faith of his fathers, or to do an act unworthy of the Christian soldier. For the second, he would win what was conditionally denied him. He resolutely declined conversion, but accepted the duties of an anomalous office. The latter was a necessity, if not a choice; for having lost his civil rights, his goods confiscated, his person outlawed, and himself,—he personality—hanged in effigy, he had little to expect, save, like Othello, "In the big wars, which make ambition virtue." Pursuing with his old ardour the new path of duties opened out for him, and whilst making preparations to suppress an insurrectionary movement among the Druses (27) of Lebanon, who had lately become very turbulent, he received instructions to return to Constantinople, directing him to hold himself in readiness to proceed to European Turkey, for the purpose of being employed in the approaching operations against the encroachments of Russia. This was countermanded, owing to the earnest remonstrances of the Austrian Ambassador to the Porte, who, on political grounds, objected to General Guyon's presence in the vicinity of Hungary. This act of the Austrian government, endorsed and warmly seconded by Russia, was intended to humiliate and degrade General Guyon, and to cause him to be regarded as an outcast in the eyes of Europe, though a more gratifying testimonial to an Englishman could not easily have been conferred by the intolerant and vindictive courts of Vienna and St. Petersburg.