hich he failed, but
even to attach a prophetic importance to his recorded sayings. A promise
attributed to him, that "an Ottoman army should never pass the Raab,"
had been recalled at the time of the signal defeat experienced by
Ahmed-Kiuprili on that river, and his memorable repulse before Vienna
had been ever held as a warning, that the Ottoman arms were destined
never to prevail against the ramparts of the _Kizil-Alma_. These
considerations, however, had little weight with Kara-Mustapha; bridges,
hastily thrown over the ill-omened stream, afforded a passage to the
army, (July 8,) and the march was again directed without stop or stay on
Vienna. A body of Hungarians in the pay of the emperor, under Budiani,
passed over to the ranks of their insurgent countrymen on the first
appearance of the standards of Tekoeli; and the Duke of Lorraine, who
had withdrawn his infantry to the island of Schutt and the other bank of
the Danube, was worsted in a cavalry fight at Petronel by the Tartars,
whose flying squadrons were already seen from the walls of Vienna.
Proclamation had been made, forbidding the citizens to _speak of the
present state of affairs!_--but the emperor and court, who had
confidently reckoned on the invaders being delayed by the sieges of Raab
and Komorn, no sooner learned that they had passed those fortresses
unheeded, and were rapidly approaching the capital, than, seized with a
panic-terror, they fled from the devoted city, on the same day with the
combat at Petronel, (July 7,) in such dismayed haste, that the empress
was forced to lodge one night under a tree in the open air; nor did they
deem themselves in safety from the terrible pursuit of the Tartars, till
they reached Lintz, on the furthest western verge of the hereditary
states. The Austrian towns along the Danube were overwhelmed by the
advancing tide of Turks, or ravaged by the Hungarian followers of
Tekoeli, who vied with their Moslem allies in animosity against the
Germans; and the light troops and Tartars, overspreading the country,
pushed their predatory excursions so far up the river, as even to alarm
the imperial fugitives at Lintz, who consulted their safety by a second
flight to Passau. The three great abbeys of Lilienfeldt, Moelk, and
Klosterneuburg, were preserved from these desultory marauders by the
strength of their walls, and the valour of their monastic inmates, who
took arms in defence of their cloisters; but the open country was laid