A Scene At A Review

There was a beautiful instance of fine horsemanship displayed at a late review held at Vienna, up on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the military order of the Maria Theresa, when some thirty thousand cavalry were in line. A little child in the front row of the spectators, becoming frightened, rushed forward just as a squadron of hussars were charging at full tilt – swooping down with maddening velocity, nay, almost on the child. Terror paralyzed alike the spectators and the mother of the child, while the lovely and amiable Empress almost fainted with horror, for the child’s destruction seemed to be inevitable. The little one was almost under the horses’ feet – another instant would have sealed its doom – when a hussar, with out lessening his speed or loosening his hold, threw himself along his horse’s neck, and seizing the child, placed it in safety in front of his saddle, without so much as changing the pace or breaking the alignment in the least. A hundred thousand voices hailed with pride and joy the deed, while two voices could but sob their gratitude – the one a mother’s, the other that of her sympathizing and beloved Empress. – A proud moment that must have been for the hussar when his Emperor, taking the enameled cross of merit, attached it to his breast – a proud moment alike for the sovereign and the man.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Monday Morning, February 10, 1862, p. 2