Körmöczi Katalin szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum 3 - From the End of the Turkish Wars to the Millennium - The history of Hungary in the 18th and 19th centuries (Budapest, 2001)

ROOM 10. Hungary in the 18th Century (Gábor Németh)

25. The "Martinovics Tree ". The execution of Martinovics and his comrades on the Vérmező (Field of Blood), 1795. Gouache The Hungarian nobility, recoiling in horror from the events in France and at home, fell into line behind the Court. During the Napoleonic Wars, Hungary, too, became a theatre of military operations. These wars are recalled by the sabre used by a member of Napoleon's Imperial Guard. Napoleon issued a proclamation to the Hungarians mentioning the possibility of ending Habsburg rule, but his offer was unanimously rejected by the Hungarian nobility. The last noble levée en masse, directed against Napoleon, ended in ignominious failure at the Battle of Győr in 1809. Items were made to commemorate the French Revolution and the war years - for example, the rings commemorating the martyrs of the French Revolution with the inscriptions "Babette" and "Marat et Lepelisie Martyrs de la Liberté / Viata / Chasita / 1793". The wartime boom, and the slump which followed it, disrupted co-operation between the Court and the Estates. The Court's attempt to increase taxes and to devalue the currency was followed by the dissolution of the Hungarian Diet which met in 1811. This marked the beginning of more absolutist government, which was bolstered by the Holy Alliance system created at the Congress of Vienna and by the ending of the wars. I. Zacko's copper engraving commemorates the Congress of Vienna, while András Petrich's painting commemorates the "festive illumination of Buda in honour of the monarchs participating at the Congress of Vienna", 1814.