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Analysis of Anna Marie Porter’s The Hungarian Brothers

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 6, 2025

Anna Marie Porter’s novel of the French Revolutionary War, The Hungarian Brothers, proved her most popular romance. It either delighted or repulsed readers in later centuries, depending on their fondness for the genre. One contemporary review of the novel read, “In the invention of the incidents, and in the management and general conduct of the tale in which their characters are delineated, or developed, the fair author [sic] has displayed very considerable ingenuity, and an intimate acquaintance with those cords of the heart, which can be touched with the liveliest interest and pleasure.”

Filled with traditionally stereotyped figures, the novel proves entertaining, if only as a perfect example of type. Set in Germany and Austria, it features the two brothers, Charles and Demetrius, both sons of the Hungarian count Leopolstat, who deserted the family, leaving the boys to be raised by their mother. The family fortune has been looted and/or dissipated by the time Charles reaches adulthood, when he is left by their mother’s death to care for Demetrius. Thus, one plot line involves the brothers regaining the fortune to support their titles, another focuses on their romantic entanglements, and another reveals details regarding important military and political campaigns.

The aristocratic characters include an assortment of predictable counts, countesses, princes, princesses, barons, and baronesses, all involved in either various love triangles or present as supportive authority figures. Charles proves the perfect and devoted role model for Demetrius, surviving an excruciating punishment following an undeserved charge of desertion during battle. In truth, he had not deserted, but was tending to his first love, Leonora Berghi, at her deathbed. After her death, he immediately returned to the field. His accuser, the villainous Saxon officer Joseph Wurtzburg, is jealous of Charles’s relationship with Signora Berghi, allowing “envy, like a canker worm,” to eat into his heart. However, Charles rises above his brief period of deranking to distinguish himself as a volunteer battlefield hero. He saves the life of Archduke Charles and, after regaining his previous rank, is presented a major’s commission by the prince. He also safely removes Baron Ingersdorf’s wife and niece from danger, for which he earns the lifelong friendship of that family.

Demetrius, an impassioned and handsome 19-year-old, remains devoted to his brother but does exercise his independence, acting against advice to become involved with the duplicitous, married Madame de Fontainville, a lookalike for another scandalous female, the “melodious wonder of Europe,” Signora Albertina. She is eventually revealed as the mysterious “incognita” who sends Charles secret messages for months prior to identifying herself as his devotee. Both women are described traditionally, the madame first appearing with only white roses, an ironic, symbolic blend of innocence and sexuality, and described as having incredibly white skin and the type of appearance that dazzles but will fade. When Signora Albertina is compared to the madame, her beauty also lacks permanence. Feminist critics will find these the most interesting of the female characters, due to their strength and independence. The madame leaves her husband when he acts against her political ideals, while the signora takes the unusual action of communicating with a man, considered a trait of an aggressive female. When Charles finally meets with her and “awkwardly” thanks her for “her intended kindness,” professes his “inability to return so sudden a passion,” and attempts to leave, she actually bars his path and “acted for two hours . . . a most pathetic scene of despair, tenderness, and entreaty,” using her talents and assets to bargain for her future.

These two “bad” women are balanced by the lovelies with whom the brothers will finally find bliss, the symbolically named Princess Constantia and the irrepressible Adelaide, whom Charles had rescued months earlier. Adelaide contrasts with the madame in her “olive complexion,” which, “though warm with native bloom, was less dazzling than if it had been fair.” She has “uncommonly brilliant eyes,” but keeps them chastely lowered, her lips closed with “a gentle confusion.” “Her charms,” the reader learns, “were the touching charms of twilight; Madame de Fontainville’s the blaze of day.” Constantia’s attributes are more of the personality, which reflects “little girlish simplicity,” always charming and “possessing an instinct . . . of whatever would be most consonant to the tastes or feelings of her associates.” She proves “playful, but never excessively lively . . . it was her happy destiny to endear, even while she entertained.” In romance fashion, both young women, virginal and pure, remain inactive and objectified by the male gaze, desirable for their appearance and the way by which they will complement their male partners. The men sing, strum, and paint their way through high society, adopting female attributes. However, their gender role reversals are viewed as evidence of refinement, safely balanced by their strength in the most male of arenas, the battlefield.

Neither brother is informed regarding his own emotions. Charles at first denies his love for Adelaide, not recognizing his feelings until the baron she has been appointed to marry by her father appears. Then he cannot speak of his love, as that would constitute loutish behavior. Like his brother, Demetrius remains ignorant of his love for Constantia. When he realizes it, he has unwisely pledged himself to the madame. At his epiphany, “he muttered now and then to himself, as if in delirium; and frequently he smiled, but it was a smile of despair.” He attempts to carry on, having “studied the self-command and graceful restraint of Charles.”

Through convoluted plot twists and turns, misrepresentations, disguises, battles of the heart and battles of war, both the male and female protagonists will faint, become ill with brain fever, and suffer the traditional vicissitudes of romance. They include, most dramatically, the unjust charge of treason against Demetrius, supported by fabricated documents and charges by Wurtzburgh and the dastardly Nuremberg, with the help of his servant Pierre. Demetrius subsequently disappears, is “brought to the verge of the grave,” and rescued by his devoted brother. As demanded by the genre, all ends well. Pierre dies of wounds, while Wurtzburgh is “arraigned, tried, condemned, and executed as a traitor.” The narrator adds that while his death proved “shocking . . . it excited no pity.” In the final sentence, Charles looks first at his infant son, then at Demetrius, and then turns his eyes, “floating in tears,” to Heaven.

In her introduction to the 1831 edition, Porter noted that she found “much to smile at” in this work of her youth. She discovered “much lacking” and felt burdened to “remedy the deficiencies.” She did not apologize, however, for the accuracy of her “military statements” summarizing “five campaigns.” Her details had been praised by a “great general,” and she explains that accuracy by mentioning an entire winter when, away from her own home, she read the many books in the strange house, all of which considered military history. Her great admiration of “martial glory” led her to believe that her “humble romance” might achieve her goal of “exalting the military character in public opinion.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Review: The Hungarian Brothers.” Sheffield Hallam University: Corvey Women Writers 1796–1834 on the Web.