emperor, they were not disposed to
remain longer in his service. Most of the German auxiliaries,
disbanding, returned to their own countries. Sobieski, declaring that he
was willing to fight against the Turks, but not against Tekeli and his
Christian confederates, led back his troops to Poland. The Duke of
Lorraine was now left with the Austrian troops to struggle against
Tekeli with the Hungarian patriots. The Turks, exasperated by the
defeat, accused Tekeli of being the cause. By stratagem he was seized
and sent in chains to Constantinople. The chief who succeeded him turned
traitor and joined the imperialists. The cause of the patriots was
ruined. Victory now kept pace with the march of the Duke of Lorraine.
The Turks were driven from all their fortresses, and Leopold again had
Hungary at his feet. His vengeance was such as might have been expected
from such a man.

Far away, in the wilds of northern Hungary, at the base of the
Carpathian, mountains, on the river Tarcza, one of the tributaries of
the Theiss, is the strongly fortified town of Eperies. At this remote
spot the diabolical emperor established his revolutionary tribunal, as
if he thought that the shrieks of his victims, there echoing through the
savage defiles of the mountains, could not awaken the horror of
civilized Europe. His armed bands scoured the country and transported to
Eperies every individual, man, woman and child, who was even suspected
of sympathizing with the insurgents. There was hardly a man of wealth or
influence in the kingdom who was not dragged before this horrible
tribunal, composed of ignorant, brutal, sanguinary officers of the king.
Their summary trial, without any forms of justice, was an awful tragedy.
They were thrown into dungeons; their property confiscated; they were
exposed to the most direful tortures which human ingenuity could devise,
to extort confession and to compel them to criminate friends. By scores
they were daily consigned to the scaffold. Thirty executioners, with
their assistants, found constant employment in beheading the condemned.
In the middle of the town, the scaffold was raised for this butchery.
The spot is still called "The Bloody Theater of Eperies."

Leopold, having thus glutted his vengeance, defiantly convoked a diet
and crowned his son Joseph, a boy twelve years of age, as King of
Hungary, practically saying to the nobles, "Dispute his hereditary right
now, if you dare." The emperor had been too of