last the whole magistracy of the county, and I and all my colleagues, were standing on the table. The Burgomaster announced from the balcony of the town hall that the town of Pest had adopted the Twelve Articles, and with that the avalanche carried the whole of the burgesses along with it. . . . In the evening the town was illuminated, and a free performance was given at the theatre, Bánk Bán, Katona's celebrated historical drama, being the piece selected. But the mob, which, by this time, was in a state of ecstasy, had no longer the patience to listen to the sublime declamations of the Ban Peter. It called for 'Talpra Magyar!' (Up, up, Magyars!), the Hungarian Marseillaise. What was to be done? The brilliant court of King Andrew II., with the Queen and Bánk Bán to boot, had to form a group round Gabriel Egressy, who, in a simple attila, and with a sword by his side, stood in the middle of the stage and declaimed, with magnificent emphasis, Petöfi's inspiring poem. . . . Then the band struck up the Rákóczy march, so long prohibited in Hungary because of its supposed revolutionary tendency. This naturally increased the excitement instead of extinguishing it. . . . Then a voice from the gallery suddenly cried, 'Long live Tancsis!'—Tancsis, by the way, was a political prisoner who had been released that very morning from the citadel of Buda by the mob—and with that the whole populace suddenly roared with one voice, 'Tancsis! Tancsis!' A frightful tumult arose. Tancsis was not at hand. He lived somewhere in a distant suburb. But even had he been near, it would have been a cruel thing to have dragged on to the stage a poor, worn-out invalid, that he might merely make his bow to the public. But what was to be done? 'Well, my sons,' said Nyáry, with whom I was standing in the same box, 'you have awakened this great monster; now see if you can put him to sleep again!' All my young friends, one after the other, attempted to address the people. . . . The curtain was let down, but then the tumult grew more than ever, the gallery stamped like mad; it was a perfect pandemonium. Then an idea occurred to me. I could get on to the stage from Nyáry's box. I rushed on through the side wings. A pretty figure I cut, I must say. I was splashed up to the knees with mud, from scouring the streets all day. I wore huge goloshes; my battered cylinder, surmounted by a gigantic red feather, was drenched with rain, so that I could easily have thrust it under my arm and made a crush hat of it. I looked around me and perceived Egressy. I told him to draw up the curtain; I would harangue the people from the stage. Rozsa Laborfalvi, who played the part of 'Queen Gertrude,' came towards me. She smiled upon me with truly majestic grace, greeted me, and pressed my hand. She was wearing the Magyar tricolour cockade—red, white, and green—on her bosom, and she took it off and pinned it on my breast. Then the curtain was raised. When the mob beheld my muddy, saturated figure, it began to shout afresh, and the uproar gradually became a call for every one to hear me. When at last I was able to speak, I delivered myself of this masterly piece of oratory: 'Brother citizens! Our friend Tancsis is not here, he is at home in the bosom of his family. Allow the poor blind man to taste the joy of seeing his family once more.' It was only then that I became conscious of the nonsense I was talking. How could a blind man see his family? If the mob began to laugh I was done for! It was the tricoloured ribbon which saved me. 'Regard this tricoloured cockade on my breast!' I cried. 'Let it be the badge of this glorious day! Let every man who is freedom's warrior wear it! It will distinguish us from the hirelings of slavery. These three colours represent the three sacred words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! Let every one in whom Magyar blood and a free spirit burns wear them on his breast.' And so the thing was done. The tricoloured cockade preserved order. Whoever wished to pin on the tricoloured cockade had to hurry home first. Ten minutes later the theatre was empty, and the next day the tricoloured cockade was to be seen on every breast. . . . In the intoxication of my triumph I hastened after Rozsa Laborfalvi as soon as this scene was over and pressed her hand. And with that pressure our engagement began. . . . And the honeymoon was in keeping with the engagement. The roar of cannon and the clash of arms was the music that played at my wedding."

The lady whose heart and hand Jókai won under such stimulating circumstances was in every way worthy of him. Born at Miskolcz in 1817, Judith Laborfalvi-Benké, to give her her full family name, was thus eight years her husband's senior. Her father, Joseph Benké, a retired actor, and subsequently a teacher at the Roman Catholic girls' school at Miskolcz, permitted her, in her sixteenth year, to try her fortune on the stage, at Budapest. But the first attempt was a decided failure, and she returned home, apparently disillusioned. A second attempt proved much more successful. Her fine figure, handsome face, and sweet voice now made a great impression, and the experienced stage-manager, Egressy, recognizing her great capabilities, encouraged her to proceed. By 1837 she had superseded Madame Kantor, hitherto the chief heroine of the Magyar stage, and henceforth, till her retirement from the stage in 1859, was accounted one of the leading Hungarian actresses. Her best rôles were "Volumnia," "Lady Macbeth," "Adrienne Lecouvreur," "Mary Stuart" in Schiller's play of that name, and "Queen Gertrude" in Bánk Bán. She had already reached the height of her fame when she gave her hand to young Jókai, and it was her courage and devotion which sustained him during the dark years of trial and depression upon which he was now about to enter.

But at first there was no thought of calamity. Jókai flung himself heart and soul into the revolutionary movement. He converted the literary Életképek into a political organ of the most uncompromising character, which he edited along with Petöfi; rejected the aristocratic terminal "y" of his name for the more democratic "i,"[1] and adopted for his journal the motto: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." Yet Jókai was no friend of unnecessary violence; and when his co-editor, Petöfi, during Jókai's absence for a few days on his honeymoon (he married Rozsa Laborfalvi on August 27, 1848), inserted, contrary to his solemn promise, an abusive tirade against the poet Vörösmarty, Jókai severely blamed his friend's want of straightforwardness in an editorial in Életképek. Petöfi instantly and most virulently attacked Jókai in the columns of the same paper; accused him of ingratitude, declined to be lectured, threw up his co-editorship, and broke off all intercourse with him. Some coolness had previously arisen between the two friends owing to Petöfi's taking it upon himself to disapprove of Jókai's marriage, and communicating his views on the subject to Jókai's mother, who had disapproved of it all along. Jókai naturally resented both the criticism and the interference, and the rupture was unfortunately final, as Petöfi perished mysteriously at the Battle of Segesvár, twelve months later, before there had been any reconciliation. For now the Hungarian revolution tore every true Magyar along with it, and wonderful, incredible things were the order of the day. On September 24, 1848, Kossuth received the permission of the Hungarian Parliament to organize a rising of the population in the