Such was the situation when the French Revolution, followed by Napoleon’s colossal ambition, startled Europe. During the quarter century of upheaval, the Magyars, still pouring their grievances into Vienna, remained loyal to their King. After Napoleon’s downfall, the Old Régime being firmly reëstablished, Emperor Francis not only failed to keep his promises towards Hungary, but revived the old policy of Austrianization, which meant the substitution of German for Magyar officials, and the removal of the chief branches of government to Vienna. Again the protests became angry, until Francis, baffled and alarmed, convened the Diet. With the year 1825, when that Diet met, began the modern struggle of Hungary to recover that home rule which one after another of her Hapsburg kings had solemnly sworn to respect, and had as perfidiously disregarded. Thus the seed of the Magyar revolution was sown, like that of so many others, in a demand for the restoration of acknowledged rights, and not in a demand for innovation. Home rule,--Hungary to govern herself, instead of being bullied by foreigners who happened to be also subjects of her Emperor-King,--that seemed an object as simple and definite as it was just. Experience soon showed, however, that this cause was not simple; that it no more could be attained alone than gold can be taken from quartz without crushing the quartz and separating the silver and lead, and the crushed quartz itself, from the desired gold. For Hungary was imbedded in an old civilization, which must be broken up before home rule, and many another modern ideal, could be attained. Imagine a country having an area about as large as the State of Colorado, inhabited by people sprung from four different races,--the Magyar, the Slav, the German, and the Italian: imagine, further, these races subdivided into eight different peoples,--Magyars, having poor kinsmen called Szeklers; Slavs, sending forth four different shoots, Slovaks in the North, Croats in the Southwest, Serbs in the South, and Wallachs in the East; imagine this motley population holding various creeds,--Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, and Unitarian: imagine not merely each race, but each people, cherishing its own language, its own customs, its own ambitions, which inevitably clashed with those of its neighbors: and having imagined all this, you have not yet come to the end of Hungary’s complex organism. Beside the conflicts of race and creed, there were political and social complications.