Szatmári Gizella: Walks in the Castle District - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)
lution—hence the acquaintance. Suggestive of the popularity and professional standards of the Müllers is the fact that in 1884 Károly Müller was commissioned to run the buffet of the newly opened Opera House by the intendant-general Baron Frigyes Podmaniczky. Vilmos Ruszwurm, who married Róza Müller, took over the shop in 1890. The restaurant called Fehér Galamb, or White Dove, in the adjoining building (No. 9-11) was opened by Karl Siebert, probably in the late 1850s. By that time the severe oppression following the defeat of the 1848- 49 War of Independence had been considerably relaxed. Behind this was the fact that the forces of Joseph Francis I were vanquished at Solferino by the Italian army reinforced with Garibaldi’s volunteers, and thus the Hapsburg emperor lost the province of Piedmont. He intended to retain his hold on Hungary by somewhat downgrading the Austrian presence in the country and dismissing his infamous Interior Minister, Alexander Bach. Hence Siebert is believed to have chosen the white dove, the traditional symbol of peace, for the trademark of his establishment. At the end of Szentháromság utca, in fact already in Úri utca which broadens out here, there stands the equestrian statue of András Hadik by György Vastagh Jr. (1937). Under Empress-Queen Maria Theresa, field- marshal Hadik lead his 2,500 hussars and 2,000 foot soldiers against Frederick the Great and managed to take Berlin in the anti-Prussian campaign of 1757 (a feat which turned out to be insufficient to recapture the rich province of Silesia). A glass case built into the pediment contains a document with the name of every hussar in Hadik’s regiment who had died in battle between the establishment of the unit in 1702 and its disbanding in 1918. The walk now continues south along Úri utca back to the starting point in Bécsi kapu tér. The only three-storey mansion in the Castle District (at No. 31 Úri utca) towers above its neighbours with the well-balanced arrangement of its vaulted windows set in elegant beaded frames above similar ledges. Senator János Hölbing made a lucky strike when purchasing the property in 1696. A master-builder by trade, the senator worked on the construction of the Town 28
