Lajos Batthyány was an aristocrat. To be hanged like a common criminal was an unbearable dishonor. He resolved to avoid it.
On the night before his execution, he obtained a small dagger — smuggled in by his wife during a final visit. In his cell, by candlelight, he stabbed himself in the neck.
But the wound was not fatal. The guards found him bleeding and raised the alarm. Physicians were summoned. They saved his life — so that the authorities could take it the next morning.
Because of his wounds, Lajos could not stand. The hanging was impossible. Instead, he would be shot — a death considered more honorable for a nobleman.
On the morning of October 6, 1849 — the same day the Thirteen of Arad died — Lajos Batthyány was carried to the execution ground on a stretcher. He was too weak to stand. They propped him against a wall.
He refused a blindfold. He looked at the firing squad with clear eyes. His last words were: "Long live the fatherland! Take aim, you dogs!"
The shots were fired. Lajos Batthyány, Prime Minister of Hungary, died at forty-three.
His Signature
His signature was the wound that preceded the wound. He tried to take his own death into his own hands. Denied even this, he faced the executioners with defiance unbroken. The authority who had submitted to higher authority submitted finally to death itself.