Pálffy János és a „lőcsei fehér asszony”
János Pálffy and the „White Lady Of Lőcse”

Summary/Abstract: The paper analyses the role of Count János Pálffy, commander-in-chief of the imperial army in Hungary in the antecedents of the legal action against Julianna Géczy, Mrs. János Korponay (known as the „White Lady of Lőcse” after the roman of Mór Jókai) in 1712. She said that the leaders of the refugees of the succumbed war of independence (1703–11), led by the prince Francis II Rákóczi, sent letters in secret to her from Polonia, to deliver them to their sympathizers in Hungary. The woman however, hoping for some prize, decided to show these documents to Pálffy, who was at first slightly interested in these. Mrs. Korponay tried therefore to take her chance in the entourage of the emperor-king, stayed in Presburg on the occasion of the Hungarian diet. However, when she received the false information, that Rákóczi obtained pardon from the ruler, and he will come to the diet, she, to avoid the detection of her duplicity, committed the letters to the flames. This at the moment, when Pálffy, on the order of the king, became interested in the documents, offering to Mrs. Korponay the possibility to destroy the letters containing damning information of her father, who participated as revolter in the war of independence. The initially indifferent, later open-handed attitude of the commander-in-chief might be in connection with the actual political situation: Pálffy probably didn’t want to risk the agreement and confidence, established in 1711 partly by him between the Viennese Court and the revolters with such a delocate matter. After this affair became public, his aim was to make the statements of Mrs. Korponay declared untrue.

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