Mathias Sandorf Author:Jules Verne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: " That is what I say," said Sarcany. " And the coin will do for us to leave Trieste." " No! we'll stop here !" CHAPTER III. COUNT SANDORF. The Mag... more »yars settled in Hungary towards the end of the ninth century of the Christian era. They now form a third of the population—more than five millions in number. Whence came they—Spain, Egypt, or Central Asia ? Are they descended from the Huns of Attila or the Finns of the North ? A -disputed question, and of little consequence ! One thing is very obvious, that they are neither Sclaves nor Germans, and have no desire to become so. They still speak their old language—a language soft and musical, lending itself to all the charm of poetical cadence, less rich than the German, but more concise, more energetic ; a language which between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries took the place of Latin in the laws and edicts, and became the-national tongue. It was on theaist of January, 1699, that the Treatyof Car- lowitz gave Hungary and Transylvania to-Austria. Twenty years afterwards the Pragmatic Sanction solemnly declared that theStates of Austria-Hungary were thenceforth- indivisible. In default of a son the daughter was to succeed to the crown according to the-rule of primogeniture. And it was in accordance with this new statute that in 1749 Maria Theresa-ascended the throne of her father, Charles VI., the last of the- male line of the House of Austria. The Hungarians had to yield to superior force; but a hundred and fifty years afterwards people were still to be met with amongst all ranks of society who refused to acknowledge either the Pragmatic Sanction or the Treaty of Carlowitz. At the time this story opens there was a Magyar of high birth whose whole life might be summed up in these twosentiments, thc-hatrcd of...« less