When the royal motor-cars passed through the court of honour the usual bugle-call did not resound; the guard did not turn out, and red flags rose above the roofs of the houses of Schönbrunn. Over the gate the double-headed eagle was covered with red rags; though it had been predatory and had cruelly clawed peoples and countries, it had never returned from its flight without bringing treasures for Vienna. And it may be the greatest tragedy of the Hapsburgs that their unduly favoured capital turned indifferently away from them when the scum of the red power had driven them from home. The rapidly speeding car took the unfortunate prince to Eckhardsau, and henceforth he lived under the protection of the National Council of the Renners and Bauers. Who knows for how long? Who knows what is in store for him? * * * * * _November 13th._ Every day has its news, and the news has eagle’s claws that tear the living flesh. Behind the retreating Mackensen, Roumanians pour through the Transylvanian passes. The Serbians have occupied the Banat and the Bácska. Temesvár and Zombor are in their hands. The Czechs are advancing towards Kassa and, after having robbed our land, they even want to rob the country of its coat of arms. They have stolen our three hills surmounted by a double cross and have assigned it as arms to Upper Hungary, which they have named Slovensko. [Illustration: THE CROWN PRINCE OTTO (_de jure_ KING OF HUNGARY). (_To face p. 122._)] To-day Linder is going to sign in Belgrade the death-bearing armistice conditions. In Arad, Jászi is distributing our possessions to the Roumanians. Károlyi is intriguing to undermine the power of Mackensen, who, at the head of forty to fifty thousand men, is the only armed hope remaining in the midst of destruction. A deputation of magnates, all, without exception, patriotic, faithful lords, has, inconceivably, arrived at Eckhardsau, to ask the King for his resignation. It is more than one can bear. The country is going through the horrors of decomposition while still alive; its counterfeit head is rotting and its members falling off. And there is no silence in our distracting grief; the great decay is accompanied by revolting continuous applause. Those who cause the ruin applaud themselves. In the press, in their speeches, on their posters, in their writings: their applause drowns the groans of agony. The day begins with this abject applause, for it appears in the morning papers, and in the evening it follows us home and haunts our dreams; it tears our self-respect to shreds, for it is a perpetual reminder of our own impotence. The press with its foreign soul, which has enmeshed public opinion completely, now prostitutes the soul and language of Hungary; it has betrayed and sold us; it applauds our degradation, jeers and throws dirt at the nation which has given its partisans a home.