The ranks of the conspirators could furnish no man worthy, from talent and influence, to replace the loss so unexpectedly incurred at this critical juncture; and the enterprise, falling into inferior hands, was commenced without plan and prosecuted without energy. The young Prince Rakoczy, and Peter Zriny, brother to the deceased, were the inefficient substitutes elected for its guidance. The latter had gained over to the cause his brother-in-law Francis Frangipani, a young and ardent man, incited by motives of revenge for an injury received from a German officer. The governor also of Styria, Count Tettenbach, a man related by marriage with the Hungarian leaders of the conspiracy, joined its ranks. He undertook to arm his peasants and foresters to the number of some thousands, to impart all official intelligence which should reach him, as governor, to the party, and to put them in possession of the town and citadel of Gratz. Frangipani undertook to provide a naval force in the Adriatic, and to gain over the Uskok and Greek population of Croatia. The chief meetings of the parties took place at the castle of Pottendorf, on the Hungarian frontier, a residence of the Count Nadasky, in a summer-house, the roof of which was adorned with a rose in stucco, from which the common expression “sub rosâ” derives its origin. The moment of execution for the designs of the conspirators was near at hand, when the danger, of incalculable magnitude to the Austrian government, was averted by an accidental disclosure. Tettenbach, too confident of success, had thrown into prison for some petty theft a servant initiated into the plot. This man, in the accidental absence of the Count, was submitted, in the usual course of law, to the torture, and to save his life confessed all he knew. The officers who administered the province in the absence of Tettenbach lost no time in forwarding the weighty intelligence to Vienna. Tettenbach on his return to Gratz was arrested. His papers contained ample evidence of his designs, which was confirmed by the discovery of arms for 6000 men in the cellars of his residence. The imperial minister, Prince Lobkowitz, offered a generous forgiveness to Zriny, but sent a force to occupy his residence of Czakathurn. Zriny betrayed a fatal vacillation of purpose, observing in the first instance and afterwards violating the conditions of his pardon. He was finally, together with Frangipani, arrested, and confined at Czakathurn. Effecting their escape, they conceived the project of presenting themselves and offering their submission at Vienna. Their project was betrayed to the Emperor by a friend named Keri, with whom they had taken refuge. He was instructed to encourage them to persevere in their design, but should they depart from it, and proceed to join Rakoczy, to arrest them. Keri preferred, for the purpose of magnifying his own services, to act at once on the latter part of the instruction. He arrested and conveyed them to Neustadt. Rakoczy, who had taken as yet no open measures, fled to his mother, who by her influence with the Jesuits procured his pardon. Charles Duke of Lorraine besieged the fortress Murany, occupied by the widow of Wesseleny, Maria Szetsi. She surrendered it without resistance, and died some years after, a prisoner at Vienna. The papers found at Murany compromised many leading men, and especially Nadasky, the Judex Curiæ of Hungary, who bore the name of the Hungarian Crœsus, coin to the amount of five millions being found in his treasury at Pottendorf. He also was conveyed a prisoner to Vienna. Of the remaining conspirators Stephen Tekeli was the most formidable. He died during the siege of his fortress of Arva by the imperialists. His daughters were dragged to prison at Vienna; but his son Emerich, afterwards so famous, escaped to Transylvania, and, joining the Turks, became an active adviser and promoter of every design of that power hostile to Austria. An extraordinary commission was instituted at Vienna for the trial of the accused. Its acts were submitted to the Imperial Chamber at Spire, and to the universities of Ingoldstadt, Tubingen, and Leipzick, and these learned and merciless bodies unanimously condemned the prisoners to suffer all the refinements of cruelty which the practice of the age assigned to the crime of treason in the highest degree. The Imperial Privy Council advised the loss of the right hand and beheading, which the Emperor mitigated to simple beheading, accompanied by degradation from the rank of noble and confiscation of property. The ceremony of the degradation of Nadasky took place with the accustomed form of words, “No longer Count Nadasky, but—_thou_ traitor.” He was then brought to the town-house by the Captain of the city guard in a close carriage.