ht. Andras's
father, Prince Sandor, educated by a French tutor who had been driven
from Paris by the Revolution, was the first of all his family to form
any perception of a civilization based upon justice and law, and not
upon the almighty power of the sabre. The liberal education which he
had received, Prince Sandor transmitted to his son. The peasants, who
detested the pride of the Magyars, and the middle classes of the cities,
mostly tradesmen who envied the castles of these magnates, soon became
attracted, fascinated, and enraptured with this transformation in the
ancient family of the Zilahs. No man, not even Georgei, the Spartanlike
soldier, nor the illustrious Kossuth, was more popular in 1849, at the
time of the struggle against Austria, than Prince Sandor Zilah and his
son, then a handsome boy of sixteen, but strong and well built as a
youth of twenty.

At this youthful age, Andras Zilah had been one of those magnates, who,
the 'kalpach' on the head, the national 'attila' over the shoulder and
the hand upon the hilt of the sword, had gone to Vienna to plead before
the Emperor the cause of Hungary. They were not listened to, and one
evening, the negotiations proving futile, Count Batthyanyi said to
Jellachich:

"We shall soon meet again upon the Drave!"

"No," responded the Ban of Croatia, "I will go myself to seek you upon
the Danube!"

This was war; and Prince Sandor went, with his son, to fight bravely
for the old kingdom of St. Stephen against the cannon and soldiers of
Jellachich.

All these years of blood and battle were now half forgotten by Prince
Andras; but often Yanski Varhely, his companion of those days of
hardship, the bold soldier who in former times had so often braved the
broadsword of the Bohemian cuirassiers of Auersperg's regiment, would
recall to him the past with a mournful shake of the head, and repeat,
ironically, the bitter refrain of the song of defeat:

Dance, dance, daughters of Hungary!
Tread now the measure so long delayed.
Murdered our sons by the shot or the hangman!
In this land of pleasure, oh! be not dismayed;--
Now is the time, brown daughters of Hungary,
To dance to the measure of true hearts betrayed!

And then, these melancholy words calling up the memory of disaster, all
would revive before Andras Zilah's eyes--the days of mourning and the
days of glory; the exploits of Bem; the victories of Dembiski; the
Austrian