Lajos Batthyány was born to one of Hungary's oldest noble families. He grew up in castles, educated by tutors, surrounded by privilege. He could have lived a life of ease, hunting on his estates, attending court functions, troubling himself with nothing beyond his own pleasures.
But Lajos was troubled. From youth, he questioned the justice of a system that gave him so much while others had so little. He read the philosophers of the Enlightenment. He saw the suffering of the peasants who worked his lands. He felt the stirring of a conscience that would not be silenced.
In the 1830s and 1840s, he became a leader of the reform movement. He advocated for the abolition of feudal privileges, for constitutional government, for the rights of the common people. His fellow nobles thought him a traitor to his class. He thought of himself as loyal to something greater than class.
"I did not choose to be born a count," he said. "But I can choose what kind of count to be. I can use my privilege to maintain injustice, or I can use it to fight injustice. I have made my choice."
When the revolution came in 1848, he was its natural leader. The Hungarian Diet appointed him the first Prime Minister of a responsible Hungarian government — the first in their nation's history.