Chapter 1494: The Austrian Revolution
In front of the Schönbrunn Palace Square, Adorno felt the spine of a stranger pressing against his chest and the thin shoulder of a young boy against his back.
Nearly twenty thousand people had gathered here—a figure he’d overheard from a few officers talking near the palace gates.
This massive presence filled Adorno with a newfound strength, a power that made him feel as though he could finally challenge his own fate.
The people around him seemed to have exhausted their voices; they fell into a collective silence. Yet, in the surging crowd of the square, this stillness was far more unsettling than any roar of anger.
Adorno looked up at the leaden grey clouds in the sky, then turned his gaze toward the second-floor balcony of Schönbrunn Palace.
Four imperial guards stood there, but the figure he truly wanted to see had yet to appear.
In truth, every single soul among the twenty thousand in the square was staring at that balcony.
They were twenty thousand people awaiting judgment, and at the same time, twenty thousand people participating in a judgment of their own.
Adorno didn’t know how long he had been waiting. It might have been two hours, or perhaps four. The sky had shifted from a pale ash to a deep, dark grey, yet the Emperor never showed his face.
"His Majesty has received your petition," the court official’s shrill voice rang out across the square. "It will be given serious consideration! Now go back! All of you, go home!"
He gestured vaguely toward the ground below.
The palace gates cracked open, and dozens of servants filed out one after another, carrying massive baskets filled with bread.
Another ten or so maids grabbed loaves of bread, frantically distributing them to the protesting crowd in an attempt to pacify them.
The bread was white, with a golden-brown crust. Adorno had never tasted bread like this in his life.
But he didn't reach out to take it. Most of the people around him were the same, watching the display with cold, indifferent eyes.
Some did take the bread, only to hurl it violently back toward the ground. They shouted up at the palace balcony, "Don't think you can just buy us off! The murderers must be punished!"
"Abolish the war tax! Otherwise, we still won't be able to afford bread in the future!"
"That's right! And lower the poll tax!"
"Establish a Parliament! That is the only way to solve our problems!"
Count Salazar muttered something under his breath and retreated inside, looking quite pathetic as he hurried away.
As dusk approached, some women used their aprons to carry bread, distributing it to those who refused to leave the square.
Adorno slept that night on the cold stone slabs of the square. By daybreak, more than twenty-six thousand people had surrounded Schönbrunn Palace.
More people, having just heard the news, were still streaming in from all directions.
Just as Adorno was listening to a few men nearby discuss how much longer it would take for the Emperor to make up his mind, a commotion broke out among the protesters on the outer edge.
Adorno jumped up and looked out. Squads of police were emerging simultaneously from several street corners.
His pupils constricted instantly.
Those grey uniforms, the sidearms at their waists—they were exactly the same as the ones he had seen that night at the café!
What he didn't know was that Count Pelgen, the head of the Vienna Secret Police, had realized the gravity of his mistake and was now desperately trying to fix it.
Police and Secret Police from all over Vienna and the surrounding towns had been mobilized. Ideally, they would disperse the protesters; if not, at the very least, they had to show the Emperor that the police were making an effort to maintain order.
Adorno suddenly pointed at the nearest group of police and screamed with every ounce of strength in his body, "It's them! They were the ones who opened fire at the café on Mud-Brick Street!"
The people around him erupted in fury. "They're here to kill us!"
"Those damned murderers!"
"Don't be afraid! Fight them!"
"Yes! Let these devils see what we're made of!"
The shouts were like sparks catching tinder, spreading through the protest crowd at lightning speed.
The memory of the cold touch of Karen's body from the night before flashed through Adorno's mind. He shuddered violently, then began shoving his way through the crowd, desperately pushing toward the police just dozens of steps away.
He didn't know exactly what he planned to do; he just kept moving forward. It felt as if this were the very reason for his existence.
When he was less than twenty meters from the front line, the police began to raise their firearms.
Just as they had done outside the café.
Adorno didn't flinch. Instead, he raised the wooden club in his hand high and let out a howl that didn't even sound human—a sound he had never heard himself make before.
An echo rose up behind him. It started with a dozen voices, then hundreds, then thousands, until tens of thousands joined in. It was a roar as deafening and unstoppable as the Danube River bursting its banks.
The police didn't dare fire.
There were less than two thousand of them, facing thirty thousand enraged citizens.
The Secret Police began to turn and flee in terror. Some were knocked down by stones and then ruthlessly trampled underfoot.
Adorno chased them for three full blocks. His legs were shaking violently from the adrenaline, and he finally stopped, gasping for air.
"We won!" someone shouted.
Cheers immediately erupted all around him.
Adorno watched the Secret Police retreating in a disheveled state, then turned his gaze back toward the silent palace. For a fleeting moment, he suddenly understood what Mr. Steffens meant by 'rights.'
At that moment, several men dressed like civil servants pointed toward the northeast and shouted, "I heard Mr. Steffens has been thrown in prison! Let's go save him!"
"That's right! And the twenty or so people from the café that night were also snatched by the Secret Police. To the Hofburg!"
"We cannot let those who preach freedom lose their own! To the Hofburg!"
In an instant, the crowd surged like a tidal wave toward the city center. Adorno was at the very crest of that wave.
In reality, they didn't know that Steffens and the others weren't actually in the Hofburg—their 'status' wasn't high enough to warrant being held there.
However, the Hofburg dungeons were the most dreaded place in the minds of the Viennese, making it the natural, subconscious target for the mob.
Meanwhile, in the far northern outskirts of Vienna, Gagern looked at his fellow students gathered before the trees and spoke with loud encouragement: "We are going to create a brand new Austria. For that, we are prepared to sacrifice everything!"
Over a thousand Vienna University students, armed with flintlock muskets, immediately followed with a roar: "For freedom and equality!"
"Burn the old order with the flames of revolution!"
"We shall crush any minion of the tyrant!"
Indeed, these students of Vienna had organized nearly two thousand people in just a few months and had undergone a significant amount of training.
Following the incident at the café, the Stieler Society and other liberal organizations had decided to seize the opportunity provided by the massive riots in Vienna to launch an all-out uprising.
As for the weapons Lukas had acquired through his 'French connections,' they had been hidden across several universities over a month ago. They were quickly distributed to the student army.
However, just this afternoon, a student from a noble background revealed that the Emperor had already summoned the Moravian Legion to suppress them.
Gagern, the leader of the student legion, immediately decided to ambush the Emperor's army in the outskirts of the city.
Gagern checked his watch and turned to a student leader beside him. "Why hasn't Mr. Scherer arrived yet?"
Hardly had he finished speaking when a student on horseback galloped toward them, shouting at the top of his lungs, "This is bad! Mr. Scherer has gone to the enemy lines alone!"
Comments