After Königgrätz the extreme parties in Hungary hoped to extort still more favourable terms from the emperor; but Deák remained true to himself and to the constitutional principle. On the 18th of July he went to Vienna, to urge the necessity of forming a responsible Magyar ministry without delay. He offered the post of premier to Count Julius Andrássy, but would not himself take any part in the administration. The diet was resummoned on the 17th of November 1866 and, chiefly through the efforts of Deák, the responsible ministry was formed (February 17th, 1867). There was still one fierce parliamentary struggle, in which Deák defended the Composition (Ausgleich) of 1867, both against the Kossuthites and against the Left-centre, which had detached itself from his own party under the leadership of Kálmán Tisza (q.v.). He, a simple citizen, from pure patriotism, thus mediated between the crown and the people, as the Hungarian palatines were wont to do in years gone by, and it was the wish of the diet that Deák should exercise the functions of a palatine at the solemn ceremony of the coronation. This honour he refused, as he had refused every other reward and distinction. "It was beyond the king's power to give him anything but a clasp of the hand." His real recompense was the assurance of the prosperity and the tranquillity of his country in the future, and the reconciliation of the nation and its sovereign. The consciousness of these great services even reconciled him to the loss of much of his popularity; for there can be no doubt that a large part of the Hungarian nation regarded the Composition of 1867 as a sort of surrender and blamed Deák as the author of it. The Composition was the culminating point of Deák's political activity; but as a party-leader he still exercised considerable influence. He died at midnight of the 28th-29th of July 1876, after long and painful sufferings. His funeral was celebrated with royal pomp on the 3rd of February, and representatives from every part of Hungary followed the "Sage" to the grave. A mausoleum was erected by national subscription, and in 1887 a statue, overlooking the Danube, was erected to his memory.
See _Speeches_ (Hung.) ed. by Manó Kónyi (Budapest, 1882); Z. Ferenczi, _Life of Deák_ (Hung., Budapest, 1894); _Memorials of Ferencz Deák_ (Hung., Budapest, 1889-1890); Ferencz Pulszky, _Charakterskizze_ (Leipzig, 1876). (R. N. B.)