“That the Austrian Government, having in its hand my promise of silence (given to the Archduke Albert on November 19, 1866) and believing in the honourableness of my promise, should publish this strange article, in which my whole past was ignored, and that this Government article, which it is impossible to qualify, was conceived in the presidential chancellery of the General Staff, corrected and improved by Field-Marshal Lieutenant Baron John, Field-Marshal Archduke Albert and others, and finally published by order of the Government in all its peculiar features—all this surpasses my ideas of right, decency, and propriety. I suffered it in silence, and I have now, for seven years, borne my hard lot as a soldier with philosophy and self-denial. I take credit to myself that, in spite of it all, I feel no anger against anybody and am not soured. I am at peace with myself and the whole world and have a clear conscience; but it has cost me all my poetic feeling for soldiering. I should like to be borne to my grave with the utmost simplicity and without any military honours. A plain stone, or an iron cross, without any epitaph, must be put over my grave.” Meanwhile Benedek refused ever again to put on his uniform, and lived as a lodger in a boarding-house at Graetz. Francis Joseph did not like it—it was a reflection on him, especially after Von Moltke had complimented Benedek as a commander of courage and merit; but all the overtures which Francis Joseph’s pride permitted him to make were met in a spirit of sullen resentment. When the Archduke Albert was directed to write to Benedek as to an “old campaigner and a brother-in-arms,” he replied “with cold respect.” The Crown Prince Rudolph was then directed to write to him; but he neither asked for an audience, as he was expected to do, nor even answered the letter, merely permitting the Crown Prince’s military tutor to fabricate and carry a message, thanking the Emperor “for the graceful way in which he has remembered me.” “I am an isolated man” (he then said). “I need no external honour, and I feel that my internal honour is unstained. In this matter I acknowledge no earthly judge.” Not long afterwards he died of cancer of the larynx; and even then the memory of the wrong lingered. This is what his widow wrote to her nephew in reference to the letters of condolence which she had received:— “Bismarck’s letter, written throughout with his own hand, was the only one from a high personage which touched me; the telegrams from the Emperor and the Archduke left me very cold. When the Emperor sent the Crown Prince to us in 1873 as an apostle of conciliation, Benedek had suffered so much during the seven years that he refused everything and begged that they would not disturb the repose he had at last attained. The Emperor, always generous, had at least the goodness to ask if there was nothing he could do for me. He is generous. I thanked him sincerely: I need nothing.”