initially hoped that he would soon be released, but in September 1849, after the defeat of the revolution in August, he was sentenced to death by hanging. The countess was allowed to see her husband for a last time on October 5. She managed to smuggle a small knife used for cutting paper, which Battyhány used to cut his carotid artery. As he couldn't be hung any longer, he was executed by fire squad on the following day. Later life The widowed countess had to leave the country, and moved to Geneva with her children. She only returned ten years later, for a Requiem that the Hungarian youth organised to remember Battyhány, who was secretly buried in the walls of the crypt of the Franciscan church in Pest and only received a funeral and official burial in 1870. When her son met Countess Marie Louise von Wallersee, the niece of Queen Elisabeth of Hungary, and intended to marry her, Countess Zichy exclaimed in a letter: "We do not marry into the murderer family!", as she could never forgive King Franz Joseph I, Elisabeth's husband, for ordering the execution of her late husband. She threatened her son with committing suicide on the day of the wedding, and the marriage plans were abandoned. On 13 March 1862, she and Emília Csernovics, widow of János Damjanich, a martyr of Arad, founded the Association of Hungarian Housewives. References Zichy Antónia grófnő mult-kor.hu A "first First lady" Zichy Antónia 1816 births 1888 deaths Hungarian nobility Antonia, Zichy