The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Volume 2
by
Charles Dudley Warner
Part 2 out of 5
made him repeat it in English and French. He then insisted on
putting me into the room of one of the American gentlemen
and then he knocked at the door of a lady, who cried out in
indignation at being disturbed; and, finally, I found my room. At
the door I reiterated the instructions for the morning; and he
cheerfully bade me good-night. But he almost immediately came back,
and poked in his head with,--
"Is you go by de diligence?"
"Yes, you stupid."
In the morning one of our party was called at halfpast three, and
saved the rest of us from a like fate; and we were not aroused at
all, but woke early enough to get down and find the diligence nearly
ready, and no breakfast, but "the man who spoke English " as lively
as ever. And we had a breakfast brought out, so filthy in all
respects that nobody could eat it. Fortunately, there was not time
to seriously try; but we paid for it, and departed. The two American
gentlemen sat in front of the house, waiting. The lively waiter had
called them at half-past three, for the railway train, instead of the
diligence; and they had their wretched breakfast early. They will
remember the funny adventure with "the man who speaks English," and,
no doubt, unite with us in warmly commending the Hotel Lion d'Or at
Sion as the nastiest inn in Switzerland.
A WALK TO THE GORNER GRAT
When one leaves the dusty Rhone Valley, and turns southward from
Visp, he plunges into the wildest and most savage part of
Switzerland, and penetrates the heart of the Alps. The valley is
scarcely more than a narrow gorge, with high precipices on either
side, through which the turbid and rapid Visp tears along at a
furious rate, boiling and leaping in foam over its rocky bed, and
nearly as large as the Rhone at the junction. From Visp to St.
Nicolaus, twelve miles, there is only a mule-path, but a very good
one, winding along on the slope, sometimes high up, and again
descending to cross the stream, at first by vineyards and high stone
walls, and then on the edges of precipices, but always romantic and
wild. It is noon when we set out from Visp, in true pilgrim fashion,
and the sun is at first hot; but as we slowly rise up the easy
ascent, we get a breeze, and forget the heat in the varied charms of
the walk.
Everything for the use of the upper valley and Zermatt, now a place
of considerable resort, must be carried by porters, or on horseback;
and we pass or meet men and women, sometimes a dozen of them
together, laboring along under the long, heavy baskets, broad at the
top and coming nearly to a point below, which are universally used
here for carrying everything. The tubs for transporting water are of
the same sort. There is no level ground, but every foot is
cultivated. High up on the sides of the precipices, where it seems
impossible for a goat to climb, are vineyards and houses, and even
villages, hung on slopes, nearly up to the clouds, and with no
visible way of communication with the rest of the world.
In two hours' time we are at Stalden, a village perched upon a rocky
promontory, at the junction of the valleys of the Saas and the Visp,
with a church and white tower conspicuous from afar. We climb up to
the terrace in front of it, on our way into the town. A seedy-
looking priest is pacing up and down, taking the fresh breeze, his
broad-brimmed, shabby hat held down upon the wall by a big stone.
His clothes are worn threadbare; and he looks as thin and poor as a
Methodist minister in a stony town at home, on three hundred a year.
He politely returns our salutation, and we walk on. Nearly all the
priests in this region look wretchedly poor,--as poor as the people.
Through crooked, narrow streets, with houses overhanging and
thrusting out corners and gables, houses with stables below, and
quaint carvings and odd little windows above, the panes of glass
hexagons, so that the windows looked like sections of honey-comb,--we
found our way to the inn, a many-storied chalet, with stairs on the
outside, stone floors in the upper passages, and no end of queer
rooms; built right in the midst of other houses as odd, decorated
with German-text carving, from the windows of which the occupants
could look in upon us, if they had cared to do so; but they did not.
They seem little interested in anything; and no wonder, with their
hard fight with Nature. Below is a wine-shop, with a little side
booth, in which some German travelers sit drinking their wine, and
sputtering away in harsh gutturals. The inn is very neat inside, and
we are well served. Stalden is high; but away above it on the
opposite side is a village on the steep slope, with a slender white
spire that rivals some of the snowy needles. Stalden is high, but
the hill on which it stands is rich in grass. The secret of the
fertile meadows is the most thorough irrigation. Water is carried
along the banks from the river, and distributed by numerous
sluiceways below; and above, the little mountain streams are brought
where they are needed by artificial channels. Old men and women in
the fields were constantly changing the direction of the currents.
All the inhabitants appeared to be porters: women were transporting
on their backs baskets full of soil; hay was being backed to the
stables; burden-bearers were coming and going upon the road: we were
told that there are only three horses in the place. There is a
pleasant girl who brings us luncheon at the inn; but the inhabitants
for the most part are as hideous as those we see all day: some have
hardly the shape of human beings, and they all live in the most
filthy manner in the dirtiest habitations. A chalet is a sweet thing
when you buy a little model of it at home.
After we leave Stalden, the walk becomes more picturesque, the
precipices are higher, the gorges deeper. It required some
engineering to carry the footpath round the mountain buttresses and
over the ravines. Soon the village of Emd appears on the right,--a
very considerable collection of brown houses, and a shining white
church-spire, above woods and precipices and apparently unscalable
heights, on a green spot which seems painted on the precipices; with
nothing visible to keep the whole from sliding down, down, into the
gorge of the Visp. Switzerland may not have so much population to
the square mile as some countries; but she has a population to some
of her square miles that would astonish some parts of the earth's
surface elsewhere. Farther on we saw a faint, zigzag footpath, that
we conjectured led to Emd; but it might lead up to heaven. All day
we had been solicited for charity by squalid little children, who
kiss their nasty little paws at us, and ask for centimes. The
children of Emd, however, did not trouble us. It must be a serious
affair if they ever roll out of bed.
Late in the afternoon thunder began to tumble about the hills, and
clouds snatched away from our sight the snow-peaks at the end of the
valley; and at length the rain fell on those who had just arrived and
on the unjust. We took refuge from the hardest of it in a lonely
chalet high up on the hillside, where a roughly dressed, frowzy
Swiss, who spoke bad German, and said he was a schoolmaster, gave us
a bench in the shed of his schoolroom. He had only two pupils in
attendance, and I did not get a very favorable impression of this
high school. Its master quite overcame us with thanks when we gave
him a few centimes on leaving. It still rained, and we arrived in
St. Nicolaus quite damp.
There is a decent road from St. Nicolaus to Zermatt, over which go
wagons without springs. The scenery is constantly grander as we
ascend. The day is not wholly clear; but high on our right are the
vast snow-fields of the Weishorn, and out of the very clouds near it
seems to pour the Bies Glacier. In front are the splendid Briethorn,
with its white, round summit; the black Riffelhorn; the sharp peak of
the little Matterhorn; and at last the giant Matterhorn itself rising
before us, the most finished and impressive single mountain in
Switzerland. Not so high as Mont Blanc by a thousand feet, it
appears immense in its isolated position and its slender aspiration.
It is a huge pillar of rock, with sharply cut edges, rising to a
defined point, dusted with snow, so that the rock is only here and
there revealed. To ascend it seems as impossible as to go up the
Column of Luxor; and one can believe that the gentlemen who first
attempted it in 1864, and lost their lives, did fall four thousand
feet before their bodies rested on the glacier below.
We did not stay at Zermatt, but pushed on for the hotel on the top of
the Riffelberg,--a very stiff and tiresome climb of about three
hours, an unending pull up a stony footpath. Within an hour of the
top, and when the white hotel is in sight above the zigzag on the
breast of the precipice, we reach a green and widespread Alp where
hundreds of cows are feeding, watched by two forlorn women,--the
"milkmaids all forlorn " of poetry. At the rude chalets we stop, and
get draughts of rich, sweet cream. As we wind up the slope, the
tinkling of multitudinous bells from the herd comes to us, which is
also in the domain of poetry. All the way up,we have found wild
flowers in the greatest profusion; and the higher we ascend, the more
exquisite is their color and the more perfect their form. There are
pansies; gentians of a deeper blue than flower ever was before;
forget-me-nots, a pink variety among them; violets, the Alpine rose
and the Alpine violet; delicate pink flowers of moss; harebells; and
quantities for which we know no names, more exquisite in shape and
color than the choicest products of the greenhouse. Large slopes are
covered with them,--a brilliant show to the eye, and most pleasantly
beguiling the way of its tediousness. As high as I ascended, I still
found some of these delicate flowers, the pink moss growing in
profusion amongst the rocks of the GornerGrat, and close to the
snowdrifts.
The inn on the Riffelberg is nearly eight thousand feet high, almost
two thousand feet above the hut on Mount Washington; yet it is not so
cold and desolate as the latter. Grass grows and flowers bloom on
its smooth upland, and behind it and in front of it are the
snow-peaks. That evening we essayed the Gorner-Grat, a rocky ledge
nearly ten thousand feet above the level of the sea; but after a
climb of an hour and a half, and a good view of Monte Rosa and the
glaciers and peaks of that range, we were prevented from reaching the
summit, and driven back by a sharp storm of hail and rain. The next
morning I started for the GornerGrat again, at four o'clock. The
Matterhorn lifted its huge bulk sharply against the sky, except where
fleecy clouds lightly draped it and fantastically blew about it. As
I ascended, and turned to look at it, its beautifully cut peak had
caught the first ray of the sun, and burned with a rosy glow. Some
great clouds drifted high in the air: the summits of the Breithorn,
the Lyscamm, and their companions, lay cold and white; but the snow
down their sides had a tinge of pink. When I stood upon the summit
of the Gorner-Grat, the two prominent silver peaks of Monte Rosa were
just touched with the sun, and its great snow-fields were visible to
the glacier at its base. The Gorner-Grat is a rounded ridge of rock,
entirely encirled by glaciers and snow-peaks. The panorama from it
is unexcelled in Switzerland.
Returning down the rocky steep, I descried, solitary in that great
waste of rock and snow, the form of a lady whom I supposed I had left
sleeping at the inn, overcome with the fatigue of yesterday's tramp.
Lured on by the apparently short distance to the backbone of the
ridge, she had climbed the rocks a mile or more above the hotel, and
come to meet me. She also had seen the great peaks lift themselves
out of the gray dawn, and Monte Rosa catch the first rays. We stood
awhile together to see how jocund day ran hither and thither along
the mountain-tops, until the light was all abroad, and then silently
turned downward, as one goes from a mount of devotion
THE BATHS OF LEUK
In order to make the pass of the Gemmi, it is necessary to go through
the Baths of Leuk. The ascent from the Rhone bridge at Susten is
full of interest, affording fine views of the valley, which is better
to look at than to travel through, and bringing you almost
immediately to the old town of Leuk, a queer, old, towered place,
perched on a precipice, with the oddest inn, and a notice posted up
to the effect, that any one who drives through its steep streets
faster than a walk will be fined five francs. I paid nothing extra
for a fast walk. The road, which is one of the best in the country,
is a wonderful piece of engineering, spanning streams, cut in rock,
rounding precipices, following the wild valley of the Dala by many a
winding and zigzag.
The Baths of Leuk, or Loeche-les-Bains, or Leukerbad, is a little
village at the very head of the valley, over four thousand feet above
the sea, and overhung by the perpendicular walls of the Gemmi, which
rise on all sides, except the south, on an average of two thousand
feet above it. There is a nest of brown houses, clustered together
like bee-hives, into which the few inhabitants creep to hibernate in
the long winters, and several shops, grand hotels, and bathing-houses
open for the season. Innumerable springs issue out of this green,
sloping meadow among the mountains, some of them icy cold, but over
twenty of them hot, and seasoned with a great many disagreeable
sulphates, carbonates, and oxides, and varying in temperature from
ninety-five to one hundred and twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit.
Italians, French, and Swiss resort here in great numbers to take the
baths, which are supposed to be very efficacious for rheumatism and
cutaneous affections. Doubtless many of them do up their bathing for
the year while here; and they may need no more after scalding and
soaking in this water for a couple of months.
Before we reached the hotel, we turned aside into one of the
bath-houses. We stood inhaling a sickly steam in a large, close
hall, which was wholly occupied by a huge vat, across which low
partitions, with bridges, ran, dividing it into four compartments.
When we entered, we were assailed with yells in many languages, and
howls in the common tongue, as if all the fiends of the pit had
broken loose. We took off our hats in obedience to the demand; but
the clamor did not wholly subside, and was mingled with singing and
horrible laughter. Floating about in each vat, we at first saw
twenty or thirty human heads. The women could be distinguished from
the men by the manner of dressing the hair. Each wore a loose woolen
gown. Each had a little table floating before him or her, which he
or she pushed about at pleasure. One wore a hideous mask; another
kept diving in the opaque pool and coming up to blow, like the
hippopotamus in the Zoological Gardens; some were taking a lunch from
their tables, others playing chess; some sitting on the benches round
the edges, with only heads out of water, as doleful as owls, while
others roamed about, engaged in the game of spattering with their
comrades, and sang and shouted at the top of their voices. The
people in this bath were said to be second class; but they looked as
well and behaved better than those of the first class, whom we saw in
the establishment at our hotel afterward.
It may be a valuable scientific fact, that the water in these vats,
in which people of all sexes, all diseases, and all nations spend so
many hours of the twenty-four, is changed once a day. The
temperature at which the bath is given is ninety-eight. The water is
let in at night, and allowed to cool. At five in the morning, the
bathers enter it, and remain until ten o'clock,--five hours, having
breakfast served to them on the floating tables, "as they sail, as
they sail." They then have a respite till two, and go in till five.
Eight hours in hot water! Nothing can be more disgusting than the
sight of these baths. Gustave Dore must have learned here how to
make those ghostly pictures of the lost floating about in the Stygian
pools, in his illustrations of the Inferno; and the rocks and
cavernous precipices may have enabled him to complete the picture.
On what principle cures are effected in these filthy vats, I could
not learn. I have a theory, that, where so many diseases meet and
mingle in one swashing fluid, they neutralize each other. It may be
that the action is that happily explained by one of the Hibernian
bathmen in an American water-cure establishment. "You see, sir,"
said he, "that the shock of the water unites with the electricity of
the system, and explodes the disease." I should think that the shock
to one's feeling of decency and cleanliness, at these baths, would
explode any disease in Europe. But, whatever the result may be, I am
not sorry to see so many French and Italians soak themselves once a
year.
Out of the bath these people seem to enjoy life. There is a long
promenade, shaded and picturesque, which they take at evening,
sometimes as far as the Ladders, eight of which are fastened, in a
shackling manner, to the perpendicular rocks,--a high and somewhat
dangerous ascent to the village of Albinen, but undertaken constantly
by peasants with baskets on their backs. It is in winter the only
mode Leukerbad has of communicating with the world; and in summer it
is the only way of reaching Albinen, except by a long journey down
the Dala and up another valley and height. The bathers were
certainly very lively and social at table-d'hote, where we had the
pleasure of meeting some hundred of them, dressed. It was presumed
that the baths were the subject of the entertaining conversation; for
I read in a charming little work which sets forth the delights of
Leuk, that La poussee forms the staple of most of the talk. La
poussee, or, as this book poetically calls it, "that daughter of the
waters of Loeche," "that eruption of which we have already spoken,
and which proves the action of the baths upon the skin,"--becomes the
object, and often the end, of all conversation. And it gives
specimens of this pleasant converse, as:
"Comment va votre poussee?"
"Avez-vous la poussee?"
"Je suis en pleine poussee"
"Ma poussee s'est fort bien passee!"
Indeed says this entertaining tract, sans poussee, one would not be
able to hold, at table or in the salon, with a neighbor of either
sex, the least conversation. Further, it is by grace a la poussee
that one arrives at those intimacies which are the characteristics of
the baths. Blessed, then, be La poussee, which renders possible such
a high society and such select and entertaining conversation! Long
may the bathers of Leuk live to soak and converse! In the morning,
when we departed for the ascent of the Gemmi, we passed one of the
bathing-houses. I fancied that a hot steam issued out of the
crevices; from within came a discord of singing and caterwauling;
and, as a door swung open, I saw that the heads floating about on the
turbid tide were eating breakfast from the swimming tables.
OVER THE GEMMI
I spent some time, the evening before, studying the face of the cliff
we were to ascend, to discover the path; but I could only trace its
zigzag beginning. When we came to the base of the rock, we found a
way cut, a narrow path, most of the distance hewn out of the rock,
winding upward along the face of the precipice. The view, as one
rises, is of the break-neck description. The way is really safe
enough, even on mule-back, ascending; but one would be foolhardy to
ride down. We met a lady on the summit who was about to be carried
down on a chair; and she seemed quite to like the mode of conveyance:
she had harnessed her husband in temporarily for one of the bearers,
which made it still more jolly for her. When we started, a cloud of
mist hung over the edge of the rocks. As we rose, it descended to
meet us, and sunk below, hiding the valley and its houses, which had
looked like Swiss toys from our height. When we reached the summit,
the mist came boiling up after us, rising like a thick wall to the
sky, and hiding all that great mountain range, the Vallais Alps, from
which we had come, and which we hoped to see from this point.
Fortunately, there were no clouds on the other side, and we looked
down into a magnificent rocky basin, encircled by broken and
overtopping crags and snow-fields, at the bottom of which was a green
lake. It is one of the wildest of scenes.
An hour from the summit, we came to a green Alp, where a herd of cows
were feeding; and in the midst of it were three or four dirty
chalets, where pigs, chickens, cattle, and animals constructed very
much like human beings, lived; yet I have nothing to say against
these chalets, for we had excellent cream there. We had, on the way
down, fine views of the snowy Altels, the Rinderhorn, the Finster-
Aarhorn, a deep valley which enormous precipices guard, but which
avalanches nevertheless invade, and, farther on, of the Blumlisalp,
with its summit of crystalline whiteness. The descent to Kandersteg
is very rapid, and in a rain slippery. This village is a resort for
artists for its splendid views of the range we had crossed: it stands
at the gate of the mountains. From there to the Lake of Thun is a
delightful drive,--a rich country, with handsome cottages and a
charming landscape, even if the pyramidal Niesen did not lift up its
seven thousand feet on the edge of the lake. So, through a smiling
land, and in the sunshine after the rain, we come to Spiez, and find
ourselves at a little hotel on the slope, overlooking town and lake
and mountains.
Spiez is not large: indeed, its few houses are nearly all
picturesquely grouped upon a narrow rib of land which is thrust into
the lake on purpose to make the loveliest picture in the world.
There is the old castle, with its many slim spires and its square-
peaked roofed tower; the slender-steepled church; a fringe of old
houses below on the lake, one overhanging towards the point; and the
promontory, finished by a willo drooping to the water. Beyond, in
hazy light, over the lucid green of the lake, are mountains whose
masses of rock seem soft and sculptured. To the right, at the foot
of the lake, tower the great snowy mountains, the cone of the
Schreckhorn, the square top of the Eiger, the Jungfrau, just showing
over the hills, and the Blumlisalp rising into heaven clear and
silvery.
What can one do in such a spot, but swim in the lake, lie on the
shore, and watch the passing steamers and the changing light on the
mountains? Down at the wharf, when the small boats put off for the
steamer, one can well entertain himself. The small boat is an
enormous thing, after all, and propelled by two long, heavy sweeps,
one of which is pulled, and the other pushed. The laboring oar is,
of course, pulled by a woman; while her husband stands up in the
stern of the boat, and gently dips the other in a gallant fashion.
There is a boy there, whom I cannot make out,--a short, square boy,
with tasseled skull-cap, and a face that never changes its
expression, and never has any expression to change; he may be older
than these hills; he looks old enough to be his own father: and there
is a girl, his counterpart, who might be, judging her age by her
face, the mother of both of them. These solemn old-young people are
quite busy doing nothing about the wharf, and appear to be afflicted
with an undue sense of the responsibility of life. There is a
beer-garden here, where several sober couples sit seriously drinking
their beer. There are some horrid old women, with the parchment skin
and the disagreeable necks. Alone, in a window of the castle, sits a
lady at her work, who might be the countess; only, I am sorry, there
is no countess, nothing but a frau, in that old feudal dwelling. And
there is a foreigner, thinking how queer it all is. And while he
sits there, the melodious bell in the church-tower rings its evening
song.
BAVARIA.
AMERICAN IMPATIENCE
We left Switzerland, as we entered it, in a rain,--a kind of double
baptism that may have been necessary, and was certainly not too heavy
a price to pay for the privileges of the wonderful country. The wind
blew freshly, and swept a shower over the deck of the little
steamboat, on board of which we stepped from the shabby little pier
and town of Romanshorn. After the other Swiss lakes, Constance is
tame, except at the southern end, beyond which rise the Appenzell
range and the wooded peaks of the Bavarian hills. Through the dash
of rain, and under the promise of a magnificent rainbow,--rainbows
don't mean anything in Switzerland, and have no office as
weather-prophets, except to assure you, that, as it rains to-day, so
it will rain tomorrow,--we skirted the lower bend of the lake,--and
at twilight sailed into the little harbor of Lindau, through the
narrow entrance between the piers, on one of which is a small
lighthouse, and on the other sits upright a gigantic stone lion,--a
fine enough figure of a Bavarian lion, but with a comical,
wide-awake, and expectant expression of countenance, as if he might
bark right out at any minute, and become a dog. Yet in the
moonlight, shortly afterward, the lion looked very grand and stately,
as he sat regarding the softly plashing waves, and the high, drifting
clouds, and the old Roman tower by the bridge which connects the
Island of Lindau with the mainland, and thinking perhaps, if stone
lions ever do think, of the time when Roman galleys sailed on Lake
Constance, and when Lindau was an imperial town with a thriving
trade.
On board the little steamer was an American, accompanied by two
ladies, and traveling, I thought, for their gratification, who was
very anxious to get on faster than he was able to do,--though why any
one should desire to go fast in Europe I do not know. One easily
falls into the habit of the country, to take things easily, to go
when the slow German fates will, and not to worry one's self
beforehand about times and connections. But the American was in a
fever of impatience, desirous, if possible, to get on that night. I
knew he was from the Land of the Free by a phrase I heard him use in
the cars: he said, "I'll bet a dollar." Yet I must flatter myself
that Americans do not always thus betray themselves. I happened, on
the Isle of Wight, to hear a bland landlord "blow up" his glib-
tongued son because the latter had not driven a stiffer bargain with
us for the hire of a carriage round the island.
"Didn't you know they were Americans?" asks the irate father. "I
knew it at once."
"No," replies young hopeful: "they didn't say GUESS once."
And straightway the fawning-innkeeper returns to us, professing, with
his butter-lips, the greatest admiration of all Americans, and the
intensest anxiety to serve them, and all for pure good-will. The
English are even more bloodthirsty at sight of a travelere than the
Swiss, and twice as obsequious. But to return to our American. He
had all the railway timetables that he could procure; and he was
busily studying them, with the design of "getting on." I heard him
say to his companions, as he ransacked his pockets, that he was a
mass of hotel-bills and timetables. He confided to me afterward,
that his wife and her friend had got it into their heads that they
must go both to Vienna and Berlin. Was Berlin much out of the way in
going from Vienna to Paris? He said they told him it was n't. At
any rate, he must get round at such a date: he had no time to spare.
Then, besides the slowness of getting on, there were the trunks. He
lost a trunk in Switzerland, and consumed a whole day in looking it
up. While the steamboat lay at the wharf at Rorschach, two stout
porters came on board, and shouldered his baggage to take it ashore.
To his remonstrances in English they paid no heed; and it was some
time before they could be made to understand that the trunks were to
go on to Lindau. "There," said he, "I should have lost my trunks.
Nobody understands what I tell them: I can't get any information."
Especially was he unable to get any information as to how to "get
on." I confess that the restless American almost put me into a
fidget, and revived the American desire to "get on," to take the fast
trains, make all the connections,--in short, in the handsome language
of the great West, to "put her through." When I last saw our
traveler, he was getting his luggage through the custom-house, still
undecided whether to push on that night at eleven o'clock. But I
forgot all about him and his hurry when, shortly after, we sat at the
table-d'hote at the hotel, and the sedate Germans lit their cigars,
some of them before they had finished eating, and sat smoking as if
there were plenty of leisure for everything in this world,
A CITY OF COLOR
After a slow ride, of nearly eight hours, in what, in Germany, is
called an express train, through a rain and clouds that hid from our
view the Tyrol and the Swabian mountains, over a rolling, pleasant
country, past pretty little railway station-houses, covered with
vines, gay with flowers in the windows, and surrounded with beds of
flowers, past switchmen in flaming scarlet jackets, who stand at the
switches and raise the hand to the temple, and keep it there, in a
military salute, as we go by, we come into old Augsburg, whose
Confession is not so fresh in our minds as it ought to be. Portions
of the ancient wall remain, and many of the towers; and there are
archways, picturesquely opening from street to street, under several
of which we drive on our way to the Three Moors, a stately hostelry
and one of the oldest in Germany.
It stood here in the year 1500; and the room is still shown,
unchanged since then, in which the rich Count Fugger entertained
Charles V. The chambers are nearly all immense. That in which we
are lodged is large enough for Queen Victoria; indeed, I am glad to
say that her sleeping-room at St. Cloud was not half so spacious.
One feels either like a count, or very lonesome, to sit down in a
lofty chamber, say thirty-five feet square, with little furniture,
and historical and tragical life-size figures staring at one from the
wall-paper. One fears that they may come down in the deep night, and
stand at the bedside,--those narrow, canopied beds there in the
distance, like the marble couches in the cathedral. It must be a
fearful thing to be a royal person, and dwell in a palace, with
resounding rooms and naked, waxed, inlaid floors. At the Three Moors
one sees a visitors' book, begun in 18oo, which contains the names of
many noble and great people, as well as poets and doctors and titled
ladies, and much sentimental writing in French. It is my impression,
from an inspection of the book, that we are the first untitled
visitors.
The traveler cannot but like Augsburg at once, for its quaint houses,
colored so diversely and yet harmoniously. Remains of its former
brilliancy yet exist in the frescoes on the outside of the buildings,
some of which are still bright in color, though partially defaced.
Those on the House of Fugger have been restored, and are very brave
pictures. These frescoes give great animation and life to the
appearance of a street, and I am glad to see a taste for them
reviving. Augsburg must have been very gay with them two and three
hundred years ago, when, also, it was the home of beautiful women of
the middle class, who married princes. We went to see the house in
which lived the beautiful Agnes Bernauer, daughter of a barber, who
married Duke Albert III. of Bavaria. The house was nought, as old
Samuel Pepys would say, only a high stone building, in a block of
such; but it is enough to make a house attractive for centuries if a
pretty woman once looks out of its latticed windows, as I have no
doubt Agnes often did when the duke and his retinue rode by in
clanking armor.
But there is no lack of reminders of old times. The cathedral, which
was begun before the Christian era could express its age with four
figures, has two fine portals, with quaint carving, and bronze doors
of very old work, whereon the story of Eve and the serpent is
literally given,--a representation of great theological, if of small
artistic value. And there is the old clock and watch tower, which
for eight hundred years has enabled the Augsburgers to keep the time
of day and to look out over the plain for the approach of an enemy.
The city is full of fine bronze fountains some of them of very
elaborate design, and adding a convenience and a beauty to the town
which American cities wholly want. In one quarter of the town is the
Fuggerei, a little city by itself, surrounded by its own wall, the
gates of which are shut at night, with narrow streets and neat little
houses. It was built by Hans Jacob Fugger the Rich, as long ago as
1519, and is still inhabited by indigent Roman-Catholic families,
according to the intention of its founder. In the windows were
lovely flowers. I saw in the street several of those mysterious,
short, old women,--so old and yet so little, all body and hardly any
legs, who appear to have grown down into the ground with advancing
years.
It happened to be a rainy day, and cold, on the 30th of July, when we
left Augsburg; and the flat fields through which we passed were
uninviting under the gray light. Large flocks of geese were feeding
on the windy plains, tended by boys and women, who are the living
fences of this country. I no longer wonder at the number of
feather-beds at the inns, under which we are apparently expected to
sleep even in the warmest nights. Shepherds with the regulation
crooks also were watching herds of sheep. Here and there a cluster
of red-roofed houses were huddled together into a village, and in all
directions rose tapering spires. Especially we marked the steeple of
Blenheim, where Jack Churchill won the name for his magnificent
country-seat, early in the eighteenth century. All this plain where
the silly geese feed has been marched over and fought over by armies
time and again. We effect the passage of, the Danube without
difficulty, and on to Harburg, a little town of little red houses,
inhabited principally by Jews, huddled under a rocky ridge, upon the
summit of which is a picturesque medieval castle, with many towers
and turrets, in as perfect preservation as when feudal flags floated
over it. And so on, slowly, with long stops at many stations, to
give opportunity, I suppose, for the honest passengers to take in
supplies of beer and sausages, to Nuremberg.
A CITY LIVING ON THE PAST
Nuremberg, or Nurnberg, was built, I believe, about the beginning of
time. At least, in an old black-letter history of the city which I
have seen, illustrated with powerful wood-cuts, the first
representation is that of the creation of the world, which is
immediately followed by another of Nuremberg. No one who visits it
is likely to dispute its antiquity. " Nobody ever goes to Nuremberg
but Americans," said a cynical British officer at Chamouny; "but they
always go there. I never saw an American who had n't been or was not
going to Nuremberg." Well, I suppose they wish to see the
oldest-looking, and, next to a true Briton on his travels, the oddest
thing on the Continent. The city lives in the past still, and on its
memories, keeping its old walls and moat entire, and nearly fourscore
wall-towers, in stern array. But grass grows in the moat, fruit
trees thrive there, and vines clamber on the walls. One wanders
about in the queer streets with the feeling of being transported back
to the Middle Ages; but it is difficult to reproduce the impression
on paper. Who can describe the narrow and intricate ways; the odd
houses with many little gables; great roofs breaking out from eaves
to ridgepole, with dozens of dormer-windows; hanging balconies of
stone, carved and figure-beset, ornamented and frescoed fronts; the
archways, leading into queer courts and alleys, and out again into
broad streets; the towers and fantastic steeples; and the many old
bridges, with obelisks and memorials of triumphal entries of
conquerors and princes?
The city, as I said, lives upon the memory of what it has been, and
trades upon relics of its former fame. What it would have been
without Albrecht Durer, and Adam Kraft the stone-mason, and Peter
Vischer the bronze-worker, and Viet Stoss who carved in wood, and
Hans Sachs the shoemaker and poet-minstrel, it is difficult to say.
Their statues are set up in the streets; their works still live in
the churches and city buildings,--pictures, and groups in stone and
wood; and their statues, in all sorts of carving, are reproduced, big
and little, in all the shop-windows, for sale. So, literally, the
city is full of the memory of them; and the business of the city,
aside from its manufactory of endless, curious toys, seems to consist
in reproducing them and their immortal works to sell to strangers.
Other cities project new things, and grow with a modern impetus:
Nuremberg lives in the past, and traffics on its ancient reputation.
Of course, we went to see the houses where these old worthies lived,
and the works of art they have left behind them,--things seen and
described by everybody. The stone carving about the church portals
and on side buttresses is inexpressibly quaint and naive. The
subjects are sacred; and with the sacred is mingled the comic, here
as at Augsburg, where over one portal of the cathedral, with saints
and angels, monkeys climb and gibber. A favorite subject is that of
our Lord praying in the Garden, while the apostles, who could not
watch one hour, are sleeping in various attitudes of stony
comicality. All the stone-cutters seem to have tried their chisels
on this group, and there are dozens of them. The wise and foolish
virgins also stand at the church doors in time-stained stone,--the
one with a perked-up air of conscious virtue, and the other with a
penitent dejection that seems to merit better treatment. Over the
great portal of St. Lawrence--a magnificent structure, with lofty
twin spires and glorious rosewindow is carved "The Last Judgment."
Underneath, the dead are climbing out of their stone coffins; above
sits the Judge, with the attending angels. On the right hand go away
the stiff, prim saints, in flowing robes, and with palms and harps,
up steps into heaven, through a narrow door which St. Peter opens for
them; while on the left depart the wicked, with wry faces and
distorted forms, down into the stone flames, towards which the Devil
is dragging them by their stony hair.
The interior of the Church of St. Lawrence is richer than any other I
remember, with its magnificent pillars of dark red stone, rising and
foliating out to form the roof; its splendid windows of stained
glass, glowing with sacred story; a high gallery of stone entirely
round the choir, and beautiful statuary on every column. Here, too,
is the famous Sacrament House of honest old Adam Kraft, the most
exquisite thing I ever saw in stone. The color is light gray; and it
rises beside one of the dark, massive pillars, sixty-four feet,
growing to a point, which then strikes the arch of the roof, and
there curls up like a vine to avoid it. The base is supported by the
kneeling figures of Adam Kraft and two fellow-workmen, who labored on
it for four years. Above is the Last Supper, Christ blessing little
children, and other beautiful tableaux in stone. The Gothic spire
grows up and around these, now and then throwing out graceful
tendrils, like a vine, and seeming to be rather a living plant than
inanimate stone. The faithful artist evidently had this feeling for
it; for, as it grew under his hands, he found that it would strike
the roof, or he must sacrifice something of its graceful proportion.
So his loving and daring genius suggested the happy design of letting
it grow to its curving, graceful completeness.
He who travels by a German railway needs patience and a full
haversack. Time is of no value. The rate of speed of the trains is
so slow, that one sometimes has a desire to get out and walk, and the
stoppages at the stations seem eternal; but then we must remember
that it is a long distance to the bottom of a great mug of beer. We
left Lindau on one of the usual trains at half-past five in the
morning, and reached Augsburg at one o'clock in the afternoon: the
distance cannot be more than a hundred miles. That is quicker than
by diligence, and one has leisure to see the country as he jogs
along. There is nothing more sedate than a German train in motion;
nothing can stand so dead still as a German train at a station. But
there are express trains.
We were on one from Augsburg to Nuremberg, and I think must have run
twenty miles an hour. The fare on the express trains is one fifth
higher than on the others. The cars are all comfortable; and the
officials, who wear a good deal of uniform, are much more civil and
obliging than officials in a country where they do not wear uniforms.
So, not swiftly, but safely and in good-humor, we rode to the capital
of Bavaria.
OUTSIDE ASPECTS OF MUNICH
I saw yesterday, on the 31st of August, in the English Garden, dead
leaves whirling down to the ground, a too evident sign that the
summer weather is going. Indeed, it has been sour, chilly weather
for a week now, raining a little every day, and with a very autumn
feeling in the air. The nightly concerts in the beer-gardens must
have shivering listeners, if the bands do not, as many of them do,
play within doors. The line of droschke drivers, in front of the
post-office colonnade, hide the red facings of their coats under long
overcoats, and stand in cold expectancy beside their blanketed
horses, which must need twice the quantity of black-bread in this
chilly air; for the horses here eat bread, like people. I see the
drivers every day slicing up the black loaves, and feeding them,
taking now and then a mouthful themselves, wetting it down with a
pull from the mug of beer that stands within reach. And lastly (I am
still speaking of the weather), the gay military officers come abroad
in long cloaks, to some extent concealing their manly forms and smart
uniforms, which I am sure they would not do, except under the
pressure of necessity.
Yet I think this raw weather is not to continue. It is only a rough
visit from the Tyrol, which will give place to kinder influences. We
came up here from hot Switzerland at the end of July, expecting to
find Munich a furnace. It will be dreadful in Munich everybody said.
So we left Luzerne, where it was warm, not daring to stay till the
expected rival sun, Victoria of England, should make the heat
overpowering. But the first week of August in Munich it was
delicious weather,--clear, sparkling, bracing air, with no chill in
it and no languor in it, just as you would say it ought to be on a
high, gravelly plain, seventeen hundred feet above the sea. Then
came a week of what the Muncheners call hot weather, with the
thermometer up to eighty degrees Fahrenheit, and the white wide
streets and gray buildings in a glare of light; since then, weather
of the most uncertain sort.
Munich needs the sunlight. Not that it cannot better spare it than
grimy London; for its prevailing color is light gray, and its
many-tinted and frescoed fronts go far to relieve the most cheerless
day. Yet Munich attempts to be an architectural reproduction of
classic times; and, in order to achieve any success in this
direction, it is necessary to have the blue heavens and golden
sunshine of Greece. The old portion of the city has some remains of
the Gothic, and abounds in archways and rambling alleys, that
suddenly become broad streets and then again contract to the width of
an alderman, and portions of the old wall and city gates; old feudal
towers stand in the market-place, and faded frescoes on old
clock-faces and over archways speak of other days of splendor.
But the Munich of to-day is as if built to order,--raised in a day by
the command of one man. It was the old King Ludwig I., whose
flower-wreathed bust stands in these days in the vestibule of the
Glyptothek, in token of his recent death, who gave the impulse for
all this, though some of the best buildings and streets in the city
have been completed by his successors. The new city is laid out on a
magnificent scale of distances, with wide streets, fine, open
squares, plenty of room for gardens, both public and private; and the
art buildings and art monuments are well distributed; in fact, many a
stately building stands in such isolation that it seems to ask every
passer what it was put there for. Then, again, some of the new
adornments lack fitness of location or purpose. At the end of the
broad, monotonous Ludwig Strasse, and yet not at the end, for the
road runs straight on into the flat country between rows of slender
trees, stands the Siegesthor, or Gate of Victory, an imitation of the
Constantine arch at Rome. It is surmounted by a splendid group in
bronze, by Schwanthaler, Bavaria in her war-chariot, drawn by four
lions; and it is in itself, both in its proportions and its numerous
sculptural figures and bas-reliefs, a fine recognition of the valor
"of the Bavarian army," to whom it is erected. Yet it is so dwarfed
by its situation, that it seems to have been placed in the middle of
the street as an obstruction. A walk runs on each side of it. The
Propylaeum, another magnificent gateway, thrown across the handsome
Brienner Strasse, beyond the Glyptothek, is an imitation of that on
the Acropolis at Athens. It has fine Doric columns on the outside,
and Ionic within, and the pediment groups are bas-reliefs, by
Schwanthaler, representing scenes in modern Greek history. The
passageways for carriages are through the side arches; and thus the
"sidewalk" runs into the center of the street, and foot-passers must
twice cross the carriage-drive in going through the gate. Such
things as these give one the feeling that art has been forced beyond
use in Munich; and it is increased when one wanders through the new
churches, palaces, galleries, and finds frescoes so prodigally
crowded out of the way, and only occasionally opened rooms so
overloaded with them, and not always of the best, as to sacrifice all
effect, and leave one with the sense that some demon of unrest has
driven painters and sculptors and plasterers, night and day, to adorn
the city at a stroke; at least, to cover it with paint and bedeck it
with marbles, and to do it at once, leaving nothing for the sweet
growth and blossoming of time.
You see, it is easy to grumble, and especially in a cheerful, open,
light, and smiling city, crammed with works Of art, ancient and
modern, its architecture a study of all styles, and its foaming beer,
said by antiquarians to be a good deal better than the mead drunk in
Odin's halls, only seven and a half kreuzers the quart. Munich has
so much, that it, of course, contains much that can be criticised.
The long, wide Ludwig Strasse is a street of palaces,--a street built
up by the old king, and regarded by him with great pride. But all
the buildings are in the Romanesque style,--a repetition of one
another to a monotonous degree: only at the lower end are there any
shops or shop-windows, and a more dreary promenade need not be
imagined. It has neither shade nor fountains; and on a hot day you
can see how the sun would pour into it, and blind the passers. But
few ever walk there at any time. A street that leads nowhere, and
has no gay windows, does not attract. Toward the lower end, in the
Odeon Platz, is the equestrian statue of Ludwig, a royally commanding
figure, with a page on either side. The street is closed (so that it
flows off on either side into streets of handsome shops) by the
Feldherrnhalle, Hall of the Generals, an imitation of the beautiful
Loggia dei Lanzi, at Florence, that as yet contains only two statues,
which seem lost in it. Here at noon, with parade of infantry, comes
a military band to play for half an hour; and there are always plenty
of idlers to listen to them. In the high arcade a colony of doves is
domesticated; and I like to watch them circling about and wheeling
round the spires of the over-decorated Theatine church opposite, and
perching on the heads of the statues on the facade.
The royal palace, near by, is a huddle of buildings and courts, that
I think nobody can describe or understand, built at different times
and in imitation of many styles. The front, toward the Hof Garden, a
grassless square of small trees, with open arcades on two sides for
shops, and partially decorated with frescoes of landscapes and
historical subjects, is "a building of festive halls," a facade eight
hundred feet long, in the revived Italian style, and with a fine
Ionic porch. The color is the royal, dirty yellow.
On the Max Joseph Platz, which has a bronze statue of King Max, a
seated figure, and some elaborate bas-reliefs, is another front of
the palace, the Konigsbau, an imitation, not fully carried out, of
the Pitti Palace, at Florence. Between these is the old Residenz,
adorned with fountain groups and statues in bronze. On another side
are the church and theater of the Residenz. The interior of this
court chapel is dazzling in appearance: the pillars are, I think,
imitation of variegated marble; the sides are imitation of the same;
the vaulting is covered with rich frescoes on gold ground. The whole
effect is rich, but it is not at all sacred. Indeed, there is no
church in Munich, except the old cathedral, the Frauenkirche, with
its high Gothic arches, stained windows, and dusty old carvings, that
gives one at all the sort of feeling that it is supposed a church
should give. The court chapel interior is boastingly said to
resemble St. Mark's, in Venice.
You see how far imitation of the classic and Italian is carried here
in Munich; so, as I said, the buildings need the southern sunlight.
Fortunately, they get the right quality much of the time. The
Glyptothek, a Grecian structure of one story, erected to hold the
treasures of classic sculpture that King Ludwig collected, has a
beautiful Ionic porch and pediment. On the outside are niches filled
with statues. In the pure sunshine and under a deep blue sky, its
white marble glows with an almost ethereal beauty. Opposite stands
another successful imitation of the Grecian style of architecture,--a
building with a Corinthian porch, also of white marble. These, with
the Propylaeum, before mentioned, come out wonderfully against a blue
sky. A few squares distant is the Pinakothek, with its treasures of
old pictures, and beyond it the New Pinakothek, containing works of
modern artists. Its exterior is decorated with frescoes, from
designs by Kaulbach: these certainly appear best in a sparkling
light; though I am bound to say that no light can make very much of
them.
Yet Munich is not all imitation. Its finest street, the Maximilian,
built by the late king of that name, is of a novel and wholly modern
style of architecture, not an imitation, though it may remind some of
the new portions of Paris. It runs for three quarters of a mile,
beginning with the postoffice and its colonnades, with frescoes on
one side, and the Hof Theater, with its pediment frescoes, the
largest opera-house in Germany, I believe; with stately buildings
adorned with statues, and elegant shops, down to the swift-flowing
Isar, which is spanned by a handsome bridge; or rather by two
bridges, for the Isar is partly turned from its bed above, and made
to turn wheels, and drive machinery. At the lower end the street
expands into a handsome platz, with young shade trees, plats of
grass, and gay beds of flowers. I look out on it as I write; and I
see across the Isar the college building begun by Maximilian for the
education of government officers; and I see that it is still
unfinished, indeed, a staring mass of brick, with unsightly
scaffolding and gaping windows. Money was left to complete it; but
the young king, who does not care for architecture, keeps only a
mason or two on the brick-work, and an artist on the exterior
frescoes. At this rate, the Cologne Cathedral will be finished and
decay before this is built. On either side of it, on the elevated
bank of the river, stretch beautiful grounds, with green lawns, fine
trees, and well-kept walks.
Not to mention the English Garden, in speaking of the outside aspects
of the city, would be a great oversight. It was laid out originally
by the munificent American, Count Rumford, and is called English, I
suppose, because it is not in the artificial Continental style.
Paris has nothing to compare with it for natural beauty,--Paris,
which cannot let a tree grow, but must clip it down to suit French
taste. It is a noble park four miles in length, and perhaps a
quarter of that in width,--a park of splendid old trees, grand,
sweeping avenues, open glades of free-growing grass, with delicious,
shady walks, charming drives and rivers of water. For the Isar is
trained to flow through it in two rapid streams, under bridges and
over rapids, and by willow-hung banks. There is not wanting even a
lake; and there is, I am sorry to say, a temple on a mound, quite in
the classic style, from which one can see the sun set behind the many
spires of Munich. At the Chinese Tower two military bands play every
Saturday evening in the summer; and thither the carriages drive, and
the promenaders assemble there, between five and six o'clock; and
while the bands play, the Germans drink beer, and smoke cigars, and
the fashionably attired young men walk round and round the, circle,
and the smart young soldiers exhibit their handsome uniforms, and
stride about with clanking swords.
We felicitated ourselves that we should have no lack of music when we
came to Munich. I think we have not; though the opera has only just
begun, and it is the vacation of the Conservatoire. There are first
the military bands: there is continually a parade somewhere, and the
streets are full of military music, and finely executed too. Then of
beer-gardens there is literally no end, and there are nightly
concerts in them. There are two brothers Hunn, each with his band,
who, like the ancient Huns, have taken the city; and its gardens are
given over to their unending waltzes, polkas, and opera medleys.
Then there is the church music on Sundays and holidays, which is
largely of a military character; at least, has the aid of drums and
trumpets, and the whole band of brass. For the first few days of our
stay here we had rooms near the Maximilian Platz and the Karl's Thor.
I think there was some sort of a yearly fair in progress, for the
great platz was filled with temporary booths: a circus had set itself
up there, and there were innumerable side-shows and lottery-stands;
and I believe that each little shanty and puppet-show had its band or
fraction of a band, for there was never heard such a tooting and
blowing and scraping, such a pounding and dinning and slang-whanging,
since the day of stopping work on the Tower of Babel. The circus
band confined itself mostly to one tune; and as it went all day long,
and late into the night, we got to know it quite well; at least, the
bass notes of it, for the lighter tones came to us indistinctly. You
know that blurt, blurt, thump, thump, dissolute sort of caravan tune.
That was it.
The English Caf‚ was not far off, and there the Hunns and others also
made night melodious. The whole air was one throb and thrump. The
only refuge from it was to go into one of the gardens, and give
yourself over to one band. And so it was possible to have delightful
music, and see the honest Germans drink beer, and gossip in friendly
fellowship and with occasional hilarity. But music we had, early and
late. We expected quiet in our present quarters. The first morning,
at six o'clock, we were startled by the resonant notes of a military
band, that set the echoes flying between the houses, and a regiment
of cavalry went clanking down the street. But that is a not
unwelcome morning serenade and reveille. Not so agreeable is the
young man next door, who gives hilarious concerts to his friends, and
sings and bangs his piano all day Sunday; nor the screaming young
woman opposite. Yet it is something to be in an atmosphere of music.
THE MILITARY LIFE OF MUNICH
This morning I was awakened early by the strains of a military band.
It was a clear, sparkling morning, the air full of life, and yet the
sun showing its warm, southern side. As the mounted musicians went
by, the square was quite filled with the clang of drum and trumpet,
which became fainter and fainter, and at length was lost on the ear
beyond the Isar, but preserved the perfection of time and the
precision of execution for which the military bands of the city are
remarkable. After the band came a brave array of officers in bright
uniform, upon horses that pranced and curveted in the sunshine; and
the regiment of cavalry followed, rank on rank of splendidly mounted
men, who ride as if born to the saddle. The clatter of hoofs on the
pavement, the jangle of bit and saber, the occasional word of
command, the onward sweep of the well-trained cavalcade, continued
for a long time, as if the lovely morning had brought all the cavalry
in the city out of barracks. But this is an almost daily sight in
Munich. One regiment after another goes over the river to the
drill-ground. In the hot mornings I used quite to pity the troopers
who rode away in the glare in scorching brazen helmets and
breastplates. But only a portion of the regiments dress in that
absurd manner. The most wear a simple uniform, and look very
soldierly. The horses are almost invariably fine animals, and I have
not seen such riders in Europe. Indeed, everybody in Munich who
rides at all rides well. Either most of the horsemen have served in
the cavalry, or horsemanship, that noble art "to witch the world," is
in high repute here.
Speaking of soldiers, Munich is full of them. There are huge caserns
in every part of the city, crowded with troops. This little kingdom
of Bavaria has a hundred and twenty thousand troops of the line.
Every man is obliged to serve in the army continuously three years;
and every man between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five must go
with his regiment into camp or barrack several weeks in each year, no
matter if the harvest rots in the field, or the customers desert the
uncared-for shop. The service takes three of the best years of a
young man's life. Most of the soldiers in Munich are young one meets
hundreds of mere boys in the uniform of officers. I think every
seventh man you meet is a soldier. There must be between fifteen and
twenty thousand troops quartered in the city now. The young officers
are everywhere, lounging in the cafes, smoking and sipping coffee, on
all the public promenades, in the gardens, the theaters, the
churches. And most of them are fine-looking fellows, good figures in
elegantly fitting and tasteful uniforms; but they do like to show
their handsome forms and hear their sword-scabbards rattle on the
pavement as they stride by. The beer-gardens are full of the common
soldiers, who empty no end of quart mugs in alternate pulls from the
same earthen jug, with the utmost jollity and good fellowship. On
the street, salutes between officers and men are perpetual,
punctiliously given and returned,--the hand raised to the temple, and
held there for a second. A young gallant, lounging down the
Theatiner or the Maximilian Strasse, in his shining and snug uniform,
white kids, and polished boots, with jangling spurs and the long
sword clanking on the walk, raising his hand ever and anon in
condescending salute to a lower in rank, or with affable grace to an
equal, is a sight worth beholding, and for which one cannot be too
grateful. We have not all been created with the natural shape for
soldiers, but we have eyes given us that we may behold them.
Bavaria fought, you know, on the wrong side at Sadowa; but the result
of the war left her in confederation with Prussia. The company is
getting to be very distasteful, for Austria is at present more
liberal than Prussia. Under Prussia one must either be a soldier or
a slave, the democrats of Munich say. Bavaria has the most liberal
constitution in Germany, except that of Wurtemberg, and the people
are jealous of any curtailment of liberty. It seems odd that anybody
should look to the house of Hapsburg for liberality. The attitude of
Prussia compels all the little states to keep up armies, which eat up
their substance, and burden the people with taxes. This is the more
to be regretted now, when Bavaria is undergoing a peaceful
revolution, and throwing off the trammels of galling customs in other
respects.
THE EMANCIPATION OF MUNICH
The 1st of September saw go into complete effect the laws enacted in
1867, which have inaugurated the greatest changes in business and
social life, and mark an era in the progress of the people worthy of
fetes and commemorative bronzes. We heard the other night at the
opera-house "William Tell" unmutilated. For many years this liberty-
breathing opera was not permitted to be given in Bavaria, except with
all the life of it cut out. It was first presented entire by order
of young King Ludwig, who, they say, was induced to command its
unmutilated reproduction at the solicitation of Richard Wagner, who
used to be, and very likely is now, a "Red," and was banished from
Saxony in 1848 for fighting on the people's side of a barricade in
Dresden. It is the fashion to say of the young king, that he pays no
heed to the business of the kingdom. You hear that the handsome boy
cares only for music and horseback exercise: he plays much on the
violin, and rides away into the forest attended by only one groom,
and is gone for days together. He has composed an opera, which has
not yet been put on the stage. People, when they speak of him, tap
their foreheads with one finger. But I don't believe it. The same
liberality that induced him, years ago, to restore "William Tell" to
the stage has characterized the government under him ever since.
Formerly no one could engage in any trade or business in Bavaria
without previous examination before, and permission from, a
magistrate. If a boy wished to be a baker, for instance, he had
first to serve four years of apprenticeship. If then he wished to
set up business for himself, he must get permission, after passing an
examination. This permission could rarely be obtained; for the
magistrate usually decided that there were already as many bakers as
the town needed. His only other resource was to buy out an existing
business, and this usually costs a good deal. When he petitioned for
the privilege of starting a bakery, all the bakers protested. And he
could not even buy out a stand, and carry it on, without strict
examination as to qualifications. This was the case in every trade.
And to make matters worse, a master workman could not employ a
journeyman out of his shop; so that, if a journeyman could not get a
regular situation, he had no work. Then there were endless
restrictions upon the manufacture and sale of articles: one person
could make only one article, or one portion of an article; one might
manufacture shoes for women, but not for men; he might make an
article in the shop and sell it, but could not sell it if any one
else made it outside, or vice versa.
Nearly all this mass of useless restriction on trades and business,
which palsied all effort in Bavaria, is removed. Persons are free to
enter into any business they like. The system of apprenticeship
continues, but so modified as not to be oppressive; and all trades
are left to regulate themselves by natural competition. Already
Munich has felt the benefit of the removal of these restrictions,
which for nearly a year has been anticipated, in a growth of
population and increased business.
But the social change is still more important. The restrictions upon
marriage were a serious injury to the state. If Hans wished to
marry, and felt himself adequate to the burdens and responsibilities
of the double state, and the honest fraulein was quite willing to
undertake its trials and risks with him, it was not at all enough
that in the moonlighted beergarden, while the band played, and they
peeled the stinging radish, and ate the Switzer cheese, and drank
from one mug, she allowed his arm to steal around her stout waist.
All this love and fitness went for nothing in the eyes of the
magistrate, who referred the application for permission to marry to
his associate advisers, and they inquired into the applicant's
circumstances; and if, in their opinion, he was not worth enough
money to support a wife properly, permission was refused for him to
try. The consequence was late marriages, and fewer than there ought
to be, and other ill results. Now the matrimonial gates are lifted
high, and the young man has not to ask permission of any snuffy old
magistrate to marry. I do not hear that the consent of the maidens
is more difficult to obtain than formerly.
No city of its size is more prolific of pictures than Munich. I do
not know how all its artists manage to live, but many of them count
upon the American public. I hear everywhere that the Americans like
this, and do not like that; and I am sorry to say that some artists,
who have done better things, paint professedly to suit Americans, and
not to express their own conceptions of beauty. There is one who is
now quite devoted to dashing off rather lamp-blacky moonlights,
because, he says, the Americans fancy that sort of thing. I see one
of his smirchy pictures hanging in a shop window, awaiting the advent
of the citizen of the United States. I trust that no word of mine
will injure the sale of the moonlights. There are some excellent
figure-painters here, and one can still buy good modern pictures for
reasonable prices.
FASHION IN THE STREETS
Was there ever elsewhere such a blue, transparent sky as this here in
Munich? At noon, looking up to it from the street, above the gray
houses, the color and depth are marvelous. It makes a background for
the Grecian art buildings and gateways, that would cheat a risen
Athenian who should see it into the belief that he was restored to
his beautiful city. The color holds, too, toward sundown, and seems
to be poured, like something solid, into the streets of the city.
You should see then the Maximilian Strasse, when the light floods the
platz where Maximilian in bronze sits in his chair, illuminates the
frescoes on the pediments of the Hof Theater, brightens the Pompeian
red under the colonnade of the post-office, and streams down the gay
thoroughfare to the trees and statues in front of the National
Museum, and into the gold-dusted atmosphere beyond the Isar. The
street is filled with promenaders: strangers who saunter along with
the red book in one hand,--a man and his wife, the woman dragged
reluctantly past the windows of fancy articles, which are "so cheap,"
the man breaking his neck to look up at the buildings, especially at
the comical heads and figures in stone that stretch out from the
little oriel-windows in the highest story of the Four Seasons Hotel,
and look down upon the moving throng; Munich bucks in coats of
velvet, swinging light canes, and smoking cigars through long and
elaborately carved meerschaum holders; Munich ladies in dresses of
that inconvenient length that neither sweeps the pavement nor clears
it; peasants from the Tyrol, the men in black, tight breeches, that
button from the knee to the ankle, short jackets and vests set
thickly with round silver buttons) and conical hats with feathers,
and the women in short quilted and quilled petticoats, of barrel-like
roundness from the broad hips down, short waists ornamented with
chains and barbarous brooches of white metal, with the oddest
head-gear of gold and silver heirlooms; students with little red or
green embroidered brimless caps, with the ribbon across the breast, a
folded shawl thrown over one shoulder, and the inevitable
switch-cane; porters in red caps, with a coil of twine about the
waist; young fellows from Bohemia, with green coats, or coats trimmed
with green, and green felt hats with a stiff feather stuck in the
side; and soldiers by the hundreds, of all ranks and organizations;
common fellows in blue, staring in at the shop windows, officers in
resplendent uniforms, clanking their swords as they swagger past. Now
and then, an elegant equipage dashes by,--perhaps the four horses of
the handsome young king, with mounted postilions and outriders, or a
liveried carriage of somebody born with a von before his name. As
the twilight comes on, the shutters of the shop windows are put up.
It is time to go to the opera, for the curtain rises at half-past
six, or to the beer-gardens, where delicious music marks, but does
not interrupt, the flow of excellent beer.
Or you may if you choose, and I advise you to do it, walk at the same
hour in the English Garden, which is but a step from the arcades of
the Hof Garden,--but a step to the entrance, whence you may wander
for miles and miles in the most enchanting scenery. Art has not been
allowed here to spoil nature. The trees, which are of magnificent
size, are left to grow naturally;--the Isar, which is turned into it,
flows in more than one stream with its mountain impetuosity; the lake
is gracefully indented and overhung with trees, and presents ever-
changing aspects of loveliness as you walk along its banks; there are
open, sunny meadows, in which single giant trees or splendid groups
of them stand, and walks without end winding under leafy Gothic
arches. You know already that Munich owes this fine park to the
foresight and liberality of an American Tory, Benjamin Thompson
(Count Rumford), born in Rumford, Vt, who also relieved Munich of
beggars.
I have spoken of the number of soldiers in Munich. For six weeks the
Landwehr, or militia, has been in camp in various parts of Bavaria.
There was a grand review of them the other day on the Field of Mars,
by the king, and many of them have now gone home. They strike an
unmilitary man as a very efficient body of troops. So far as I could
see, they were armed with breech-loading rifles. There is a treaty
by which Bavaria agreed to assimilate her military organization to
that of Prussia. It is thus that Bismarck is continually getting
ready. But if the Landwehr is gone, there are yet remaining troops
enough of the line. Their chief use, so far as it concerns me, is to
make pageants in the streets, and to send their bands to play at noon
in the public squares. Every day, when the sun shines down upon the
mounted statue of Ludwig I., in front of the Odeon, a band plays in
an open Loggia, and there is always a crowd of idlers in the square
to hear it. Everybody has leisure for that sort of thing here in
Europe; and one can easily learn how to be idle and let the world
wag. They have found out here what is disbelieved in America,--that
the world will continue to turn over once in about twenty-four hours
(they are not accurate as to the time) without their aid. To return
to our soldiers. The cavalry most impresses me; the men are so
finely mounted, and they ride royally. In these sparkling mornings,
when the regiments clatter past, with swelling music and shining
armor, riding away to I know not what adventure and glory, I confess
that I long to follow them. I have long had this desire; and the
other morning, determining to satisfy it, I seized my hat and went
after the prancing procession. I am sorry I did. For, after
trudging after it through street after street, the fine horsemen all
rode through an arched gateway, and disappeared in barracks, to my
great disgust; and the troopers dismounted, and led their steeds into
stables.
And yet one never loses a walk here in Munich. I found myself that
morning by the Isar Thor, a restored medieval city gate. The gate is
double, with flanking octagonal towers, inclosing a quadrangle. Upon
the inner wall is a fresco of "The Crucifixion." Over the outer front
is a representation, in fresco painting, of the triumphal entry into
the city of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria after the battle of Ampfing.
On one side of the gate is a portrait of the Virgin, on gold ground,
and on the other a very passable one of the late Dr. Hawes of
Hartford, with a Pope's hat on. Walking on, I came to another arched
gateway and clock-tower; near it an old church, with a high wall
adjoining, whereon is a fresco of cattle led to slaughter, showing
that I am in the vicinity of the Victual Market; and I enter it
through a narrow, crooked alley. There is nothing there but an
assemblage of shabby booths and fruit-stands, and an ancient stone
tower in ruins and overgrown with ivy.
Leaving this, I came out to the Marian Platz, where stands the
column, with the statue of the Virgin and Child, set up by Maximilian
I. in 1638 to celebrate the victory in the battle which established
the Catholic supremacy in Bavaria. It is a favorite praying-place
for the lower classes. Yesterday was a fete day, and the base of the
column and half its height are lost in a mass of flowers and
evergreens. In front is erected an altar with a broad, carpeted
platform; and a strip of the platz before it is inclosed with a
railing, within which are praying-benches. The sun shines down hot;
but there are several poor women kneeling there, with their baskets
beside them. I happen along there at sundown; and there are a score
of women kneeling on the hard stones, outside the railing saying
their prayers in loud voices. The mass of flowers is still sweet and
gay and fresh; a fountain with fantastic figures is flashing near by;
the crowd, going home to supper and beer, gives no heed to the
praying; the stolid droschke-drivers stand listlessly by. At the
head of the square is an artillery station, and a row of cannon
frowns on it. On one side is a house with a tablet in the wall,
recording the fact that Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden once lived in it.
When we came to Munich, the great annual fair was in progress; and
the large Maximilian Platz (not to be confounded with the street of
that name) was filled with booths of cheap merchandise, puppet-shows,
lottery shanties, and all sorts of popular amusements. It was a fine
time to study peasant costumes. The city was crowded with them on
Sunday; and let us not forget that the first visit of the peasants
was to the churches; they invariably attended early mass before they
set out upon the day's pleasure. Most of the churches have services
at all hours till noon, some of them with fine classical and military
music. One could not but be struck with the devotional manner of the
simple women, in their queer costumes, who walked into the gaudy
edifices, were absorbed in their prayers for an hour, and then went
away. I suppose they did not know how odd they looked in their high,
round fur hats, or their fantastic old ornaments, nor that there was
anything amiss in bringing their big baskets into church with them.
At least, their simple, unconscious manner was better than that of
many of the city people, some of whom stare about a good deal, while
going through the service, and stop in the midst of crossings and
genuflections to take snuff and pass it to their neighbors. But
there are always present simple and homelike sort of people, who
neither follow the fashions nor look round on them; respectable, neat
old ladies, in the faded and carefully preserved silk gowns, such as
the New England women wear to "meeting."
No one can help admiring the simplicity, kindliness, and honesty of
the Germans. The universal courtesy and friendliness of manner have
a very different seeming from the politeness of the French. At the
hotels in the country, the landlord and his wife and the servant join
in hoping you will sleep well when you go to bed. The little maid at
Heidelberg who served our meals always went to the extent of wishing
us a good appetite when she had brought in the dinner. Here in
Munich the people we have occasion to address in the street are
uniformly courteous. The shop-keepers are obliging, and rarely
servile, like the English. You are thanked, and punctiliously wished
the good-day, whether you purchase anything or not. In shops tended
by women, gentlemen invariably remove their hats. If you buy only a
kreuzer's worth of fruit of an old woman, she says words that would
be, literally translated, "I thank you beautifully." With all this,
one looks kindly on the childish love the Germans have for titles.
It is, I believe, difficult for the German mind to comprehend that we
can be in good standing at home, unless we have some title prefixed
to our names, or some descriptive phrase added. Our good landlord,
who waits at the table and answers our bell, one of whose tenants is
a living baron, having no title to put on his doorplate under that of
the baron, must needs dub himself "privatier;" and he insists upon
prefixing the name of this unambitious writer with the ennobling von;
and at the least he insists, in common with the tradespeople, that I
am a "Herr Doctor." The bills of purchases by madame come made out
to "Frau----, well-born." At a hotel in Heidelberg, where I had
registered my name with that distinctness of penmanship for which
newspaper men are justly conspicuous, and had added to my own name "&
wife," I was not a little flattered to appear in the reckoning as
"Herr Doctor Mamesweise."
THE GOTTESACKER AND BAVARIAN FUNERALS
To change the subject from gay to grave. The Gottesacker of Munich
is called the finest cemetery in Germany; at least, it surpasses them
in the artistic taste of its monuments. Natural beauty it has none:
it is simply a long, narrow strip of ground inclosed in walls, with
straight, parallel walks running the whole length, and narrow
cross-walks; and yet it is a lovely burial-ground. There are but few
trees; but the whole inclosure is a conservatory of beautiful
flowers. Every grave is covered with them, every monument is
surrounded with them. The monuments are unpretending in size, but
there are many fine designs, and many finely executed busts and
statues and allegorical figures, in both marble and bronze. The
place is full of sunlight and color. I noticed that it was much
frequented. In front of every place of sepulcher stands a small urn
for water, with a brush hanging by, with which to sprinkle the
flowers. I saw, also, many women and children coming and going with
watering-pots, so that the flowers never droop for want of care. At
the lower end of the old ground is an open arcade, wherein are some
effigies and busts, and many ancient tablets set into the wall.
Beyond this is the new cemetery, an inclosure surrounded by a high
wall of brick, and on the inside by an arcade. The space within is
planted with flowers, and laid out for the burial of the people; the
arcades are devoted to the occupation of those who can afford costly
tombs. Only a small number of them are yet occupied; there are some
good busts and monuments, and some frescoes on the panels rather more
striking for size and color than for beauty.
Between the two cemeteries is the house for the dead. When I walked
down the long central all& of the old ground, I saw at the farther
end, beyond a fountain) twinkling lights. Coming nearer, I found
that they proceeded from the large windows of a building, which was a
part of the arcade. People were looking in at the windows, going and
coming to and from them continually; and I was prompted by curiosity
to look within. A most unexpected sight met my eye. In a long room,
upon elevated biers, lay people dead: they were so disposed that the
faces could be seen; and there they rested in a solemn repose.
Officers in uniform, citizens in plain dress, matrons and maids in
the habits that they wore when living, or in the white robes of the
grave. About most of them were lighted candles. About all of them
were flowers: some were almost covered with bouquets. There were
rows of children, little ones scarce a span long,--in the white caps
and garments of innocence, as if asleep in beds of flowers. How
naturally they all were lying, as if only waiting to be called!
Upon the thumb of every adult was a ring in which a string was tied
that went through a pulley above and communicated with a bell in the
attendant's room. How frightened he would be if the bell should ever
sound, and he should go into that hall of the dead to see who rang!
And yet it is a most wise and humane provision; and many years ago,
there is a tradition, an entombment alive was prevented by it. There
are three rooms in all; and all those who die in Munich must be
brought and laid in one of them, to be seen of all who care to look
therein. I suppose that wealth and rank have some privileges; but it
is the law that the person having been pronounced dead by the
physician shall be the same day brought to the dead-house, and lie
there three whole days before interment.
There is something peculiar in the obsequies of Munich, especially in
the Catholic portion of the population. Shortly after the death,
there is a short service in the courtyard of the house, which, with
the entrance, is hung in costly mourning, if the deceased was rich.
The body is then carried in the car to the dead-house, attended by
the priests, the male members of the family, and a procession of
torch-bearers, if that can be afforded. Three days after, the burial
takes place from the dead-house, only males attending. The women
never go to the funeral; but some days after, of which public notice
is given by advertisement, a public service is held in church, at
which all the family are present, and to which the friends are
publicly invited. Funeral obsequies are as costly here as in
America; but everything is here regulated and fixed by custom. There
are as many as five or six classes of funerals recognized. Those of
the first class, as to rank and expense, cost about a thousand
guldens. The second class is divided into six subclasses. The third
is divided into two. The cost of the first of the third class is
about four hundred guldens. The lowest class of those able to have a
funeral costs twenty-five guldens. A gulden is about two francs.
There are no carriages used at the funerals of Catholics, only at
those of Protestants and Jews.
I spoke of the custom of advertising the deaths. A considerable
portion of the daily newspapers is devoted to these announcements,
which are printed in display type, like the advertisements of
dry-goods sellers with you. I will roughly translate one which I
happen to see just now. It reads, "Death advertisement. It has
pleased God the Almighty, in his inscrutable providence, to take away
our innermost loved, best husband, father, grandfather, uncle,
brother-in-law, and cousin, Herr---, dyer of cloth and silk,
yesterday night, at eleven o'clock, after three weeks of severe
suffering, having partaken of the holy sacrament, in his sixty-sixth
year, out of this earthly abode of calamity into the better Beyond.
Those who knew his good heart, his great honesty, as well as his
patience in suffering, will know how justly to estimate our grief."
This is signed by the "deep-grieving survivors,"--the widow, son,
daughter, and daughter-in-law, in the name of the absent relatives.
After the name of the son is written, "Dyer in cloth and silk." The
notice closes with an announcement of the funeral at the cemetery,
and a service at the church the day after. The advertisement I have
given is not uncommon either for quaintness or simplicity. It is
common to engrave upon the monument the business as well as the title
of the departed.
THE OCTOBER FEST THE PEASANTS AND THE KING
On the 11th of October the sun came out, after a retirement of nearly
two weeks. The cause of the appearance was the close of the October
Fest. This great popular carnival has the same effect upon the
weather in Bavaria that the Yearly Meeting of Friends is known to
produce in Philadelphia, and the Great National Horse Fair in New
England. It always rains during the October Fest. Having found this
out, I do not know why they do not change the time of it; but I
presume they are wise enough to feel that it would be useless. A
similar attempt on the part of the Pennsylvania Quakers merely
disturbed the operations of nature, but did not save the drab bonnets
from the annual wetting. There is a subtle connection between such
gatherings and the gathering of what are called the elements,--a
sympathetic connection, which we shall, no doubt, one day understand,
when we have collected facts enough on the subject to make a
comprehensive generalization, after Mr. Buckle's method.
This fair, which is just concluded, is a true Folks-Fest, a season
especially for the Bavarian people, an agricultural fair and cattle
show, but a time of general jollity and amusement as well. Indeed,
the main object of a German fair seems to be to have a good time and
in this it is in marked contrast with American fairs. The October
Fest was instituted for the people by the old Ludwig I. on the
occasion of his marriage; and it has ever since retained its position
as the great festival of the Bavarian people, and particularly of the
peasants. It offers a rare opportunity to the stranger to study the
costumes of the peasants, and to see how they amuse themselves. One
can judge a good deal of the progress of a people by the sort of
amusements that satisfy them. I am not about to draw any
philosophical inferences,--I am a mere looker-on in Munich; but I
have never anywhere else seen puppet-shows afford so much delight,
nor have I ever seen anybody get more satisfaction out of a sausage
and a mug of beer, with the tum-tum of a band near, by, than a
Bavarian peasant.
The Fest was held on the Theresien Wiese, a vast meadow on the
outskirts of the city. The ground rises on one side of this by an
abrupt step, some thirty or forty feet high, like the "bench" of a
Western river. This bank is terraced for seats the whole length, or
as far down as the statue of Bavaria; so that there are turf seats, I
should judge, for three quarters of a mile, for a great many
thousands of people, who can look down upon the race-course, the
tents, houses, and booths of the fair-ground, and upon the roof and
spires of the city beyond. The statue is, as you know, the famous
bronze Bavaria of Schwanthaler, a colossal female figure fifty feet
high, and with its pedestal a hundred feet high, which stands in
front of the Hall of Fame, a Doric edifice, in the open colonnades of
which are displayed the busts of the most celebrated Bavarians,
together with those of a few poets and scholars who were so
unfortunate as not to be born here. The Bavaria stands with the
right hand upon the sheathed sword, and the left raised in the act of
bestowing a wreath of victory; and the lion of the kingdom is beside
her. This representative being is, of course, hollow. There is room
for eight people in her head, which I can testify is a warm place on
a sunny day; and one can peep out through loopholes and get a good
view of the Alps of the Tyrol. To say that this statue is graceful
or altogether successful would be an error; but it is rather
impressive, from its size, if for no other reason. In the cast of
the hand exhibited at the bronze foundry, the forefinger measures
over three feet long.
Although the Fest did not officially begin until Friday, October 12,
yet the essential part of it, the amusements, was well under way on
the Sunday before. The town began to be filled with country people,
and the holiday might be said to have commenced; for the city gives
itself up to the occasion. The new art galleries are closed for some
days; but the collections and museums of various sorts are daily
open, gratis; the theaters redouble their efforts; the concert-halls
are in full blast; there are dances nightly, and masked balls in the
Folks' Theater; country relatives are entertained; the peasants go
about the streets in droves, in a simple and happy frame of mind,
wholly unconscious that they are the oddest-looking guys that have
come down from the Middle Ages; there is music in all the gardens,
singing in the cafes, beer flowing in rivers, and a mighty smell of
cheese, that goes up to heaven. If the eating of cheese were a
religious act, and its odor an incense, I could not say enough of the
devoutness of the Bavarians.
Of the picturesqueness and oddity of the Bavarian peasants' costumes,
nothing but a picture can give you any idea. You can imagine the men
in tight breeches, buttoned below the knee, jackets of the jockey
cut, and both jacket and waistcoat covered with big metal buttons,
sometimes coins, as thickly as can be sewed on: but the women defy
the pen; a Bavarian peasant woman, in holiday dress, is the most
fearfully and wonderfully made object in the universe. She displays
a good length of striped stockings, and wears thin slippers, or
sandals; her skirts are like a hogshead in size and shape, and reach
so near her shoulders as to make her appear hump-backed; the sleeves
are hugely swelled out at the shoulder, and taper to the wrist; the
bodice is a stiff and most elaborately ornamented piece of armor; and
there is a kind of breastplate, or center-piece, of gold, silver, and
precious stones, or what passes for them; and the head is adorned
with some monstrous heirloom, of finely worked gold or silver, or a
tower, gilded and shining with long streamers, or bound in a simple
black turban, with flowing ends. Little old girls, dressed like
their mothers, have the air of creations of the fancy, who have
walked out of a fairy-book. There is an endless variety in these old
costumes; and one sees, every moment, one more preposterous than the
preceding. The girls from the Tyrol, with their bright neckerchiefs
and pointed black felt hats, with gold cord and tassels, are some of
them very pretty: but one looks a long time for a bright face among
the other class; and, when it is discovered, the owner appears like a
maiden who was enchanted a hundred years ago, and has not been
released from the spell, but is still doomed to wear the garments and
the ornaments that should long ago have mouldered away with her
ancestors.
The Theresien Wiese was a city of Vanity Fair for two weeks, every
day crowded with a motley throng. Booths, and even structures of
some solidity, rose on it as if by magic. The lottery-houses were
set up early, and, to the last, attracted crowds, who could not
resist the tempting display of goods and trinkets, which might be won
by investing six kreuzers in a bit of paper, which might, when
unrolled, contain a number. These lotteries are all authorized: some
of them were for the benefit of the agricultural society; some were
for the poor, and others on individual account: and they always
thrive; for the German, above all others, loves to try his luck.
There were streets of shanties, where various things were offered for
sale besides cheese and sausages. There was a long line of booths,
where images could be shot at with bird-guns; and when the shots were
successful, the images went through astonishing revolutions. There
was a circus, in front of which some of the spangled performers
always stood beating drums and posturing, in order to entice in
spectators. There were the puppet-booths, before which all day stood
gaping, delighted crowds, who roared with laughter whenever the
little frau beat her loutish husband about the head, and set him to
tend the baby, who continued to wail, notwithstanding the man knocked
its head against the doorpost. There were the great beer-
restaurants, with temporary benches and tables' planted about with
evergreens, always thronged with a noisy, jolly crowd. There were
the fires, over which fresh fish were broiling on sticks; and, if you
lingered, you saw the fish taken alive from tubs of water standing
by, dressed and spitted and broiling before the wiggle was out of
their tails. There were the old women, who mixed the flour and fried
the brown cakes before your eyes, or cooked the fragrant sausage, and
offered it piping hot.
And every restaurant and show had its band, brass or string,--a full
array of red-faced fellows tooting through horns, or a sorry
quartette, the fat woman with the harp, the lean man blowing himself
out through the clarinet, the long-haired fellow with the flute, and
the robust and thick-necked fiddler. Everywhere there was music; the
air was full of the odor of cheese and cooking sausage; so that there
was nothing wanting to the most complete enjoyment. The crowd surged
round, jammed together, in the best possible humor. Those who could
not sit at tables sat on the ground, with a link of an eatable I have
already named in one hand, and a mug of beer beside them. Toward
evening, the ground was strewn with these gray quart mugs, which gave
as perfect evidence of the battle of the day as the cannon-balls on
the sand before Fort Fisher did of the contest there. Besides this,
for the amusement of the crowd, there is, every day, a wheelbarrow
race, a sack race, a blindfold contest, or something of the sort,
which turns out to be a very flat performance. But all the time the
eating and the drinking go on, and the clatter and clink of it fill
the air; so that the great object of the fair is not lost sight of.
Meantime, where is the agricultural fair and cattle-show? You must
know that we do these things differently in Bavaria. On the
fair-ground, there is very little to be seen of the fair. There is
an inclosure where steam-engines are smoking and puffing, and
threshing-machines are making a clamor; where some big church-bells
hang, and where there are a few stalls for horses and cattle. But
the competing horses and cattle are led before the judges elsewhere;
the horses, for instance, by the royal stables in the city. I saw no
such general exhibition of do mestic animals as you have at your
fairs. The horses that took the prizes were of native stock, a very
serviceable breed, excellent for carriage-horses, and admirable in
the cavalry service. The bulls and cows seemed also native and to
the manor born, and were worthy of little remark. The mechanical,
vegetable, and fruit exhibition was in the great glass palace, in the
city, and was very creditable in the fruit department, in the show of
grapes and pears especially. The products of the dairy were less,
though I saw one that I do not recollect ever to have seen in
America, a landscape in butter. Inclosed in a case, it looked very
much like a wood-carving. There was a Swiss cottage, a milkmaid,
with cows in the foreground; there were trees, and in the rear rose
rocky precipices, with chamois in the act of skipping thereon. I
should think something might be done in our country in this line of
the fine arts; certainly, some of the butter that is always being
sold so cheap at St. Albans, when it is high everywhere else, must be
strong enough to warrant the attempt. As to the other departments of
the fine arts in the glass palace, I cannot give you a better idea of
them than by saying that they were as well filled as the like ones in
the American county fairs. There were machines for threshing, for
straw-cutting, for apple-paring, and generally such a display of
implements as would give one a favorable idea of Bavarian
agriculture. There was an interesting exhibition of live fish, great
and small, of nearly every sort, I should think, in Bavarian waters.
The show in the fire-department was so antiquated, that I was
convinced that the people of Munich never intend to have any fires.
The great day of the fete was Sunday, October 5 for on that day the
king went out to the fair-ground, and distributed the prizes to the
owners of the best horses, and, as they appeared to me, of the most
ugly-colored bulls. The city was literally crowded with peasants and
country people; the churches were full all the morning with devout
masses, which poured into the waiting beer-houses afterward with
equal zeal. By twelve o'clock, the city began to empty itself upon
the Theresien meadow; and long before the time for the king to arrive
--two o'clock--there were acres of people waiting for the performance
to begin. The terraced bank, of which I have spoken, was taken
possession of early, and held by a solid mass of people; while the
fair-ground proper was packed with a swaying concourse, densest near
the royal pavilion, which was erected immediately on the race-course,
and opposite the bank.
At one o'clock the grand stand opposite to the royal one is taken
possession of by a regiment band and by invited guests. All the
space, except the race-course, is, by this time, packed with people,
who watch the red and white gate at the head of the course with
growing impatience. It opens to let in a regiment of infantry, which
marches in and takes position. It swings, every now and then, for a
solitary horseman, who gallops down the line in all the pride of
mounted civic dignity, to the disgust of the crowd; or to let in a
carriage, with some overdressed officer or splendid minister, who is
entitled to a place in the royal pavilion. It is a people' fete, and
the civic officers enjoy one day of conspicuous glory. Now a
majestic person in gold lace is set down; and now one in a scarlet
coat, as beautiful as a flamingo. These driblets of splendor only
feed the popular impatience. Music is heard in the distance, and a
procession with colored banners is seen approaching from the city.
That, like everything else that is to come, stops beyond the closed
gate; and there it halts, ready to stream down before our eyes in a
variegated pageant. The time goes on; the crowd gets denser, for
there have been steady rivers of people pouring into the grounds for
more than an hour.
The military bands play in the long interval; the peasants jabber in
unintelligible dialects; the high functionaries on the royal stand
are good enough to move around, and let us see how brave and majestic
they are.
At last the firing of cannon announces the coming of royalty. There
is a commotion in the vast crowd yonder, the eagerly watched gates
swing wide, and a well-mounted company of cavalry dashes down the
turf, in uniforms of light blue and gold. It is a citizens' company
of butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers, which would do no
discredit to the regular army. Driving close after is a four-horse
carriage with two of the king's ministers; and then, at a rapid pace,
six coal-black horses in silver harness, with mounted postilions,
drawing a long, slender, open carriage with one seat, in which ride
the king and his brother, Prince Otto, come down the way, and are
pulled up in front of the pavilion; while the cannon roars, the big
bells ring, all the flags of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria, on
innumerable poles, are blowing straight out, the band plays "God save
the King," the people break into enthusiastic shouting, and the young
king, throwing off his cloak, rises and stands in his carriage for a
moment, bowing right and left before he descends. He wears to-day
the simple uniform of the citizens' company which has escorted him,
and is consequently more plainly and neatly dressed than any one else
on the platform,--a tall (say six feet), slender, gallant-looking
young fellow of three and twenty, with an open face and a graceful
manner.
But, when he has arrived, things again come to a stand; and we wait
for an hour, and watch the thickening of the clouds, while the king
goes from this to that delighted dignitary on the stand and
converses. At the end of this time, there is a movement. A white
dog has got into the course, and runs up and down between the walls
of people in terror, headed off by soldiers at either side of the
grand stand, and finally, becoming desperate, he makes a dive for the
royal pavilion. The consternation is extreme. The people cheer the
dog and laugh: a white-handed official, in gold lace, and without his
hat, rushes out to "shoo" the dog away, but is unsuccessful; for the
animal dashes between his legs, and approaches the royal and carpeted
steps. More men of rank run at him, and he is finally captured and
borne away; and we all breathe freer that the danger to royalty is
averted. At one o'clock six youths in white jackets, with clubs and
coils of rope, had stationed themselves by the pavilion, but they did
not go into action at this juncture; and I thought they rather
enjoyed the activity of the great men who kept off the dog.
At length there was another stir; and the king descended from the
rear of his pavilion, attended by his ministers, and moved about
among the people, who made way for him, and uncovered at his
approach. He spoke with one and another, and strolled about as his
fancy took him. I suppose this is called mingling with the common
people. After he had mingled about fifteen minutes, he returned, and
took his place on the steps in front of the pavilion; and the
distribution of prizes began. First the horses were led out; and
their owners, approaching the king, received from his hands the
diplomas, and a flag from an attendant. Most of them were peasants;
and they exhibited no servility in receiving their marks of
distinction, but bowed to the king as they would to any other man,
and his majesty touched his cocked hat in return. Then came the
prize-cattle, many of them led by women, who are as interested as
their husbands in all farm matters. Everything goes off smoothly,
except there is a momentary panic over a fractious bull, who plunges
into the crowd; but the six white jackets are about him in an
instant, and entangle him with their ropes.
This over, the gates again open, and the gay cavalcade that has been
so long in sight approaches. First a band of musicians in costumes
of the Middle Ages; and then a band of pages in the gayest apparel,
bearing pictured banners and flags of all colors, whose silken luster
would have been gorgeous in sunshine; these were followed by mounted
heralds with trumpets, and after them were led the running horses
entered for the race. The banners go up on the royal stand, and
group themselves picturesquely; the heralds disappear at the other
end of the list; and almost immediately the horses, ridden by young
jockeys in stunning colors, come flying past in a general scramble.
There are a dozen or more horses; but, after the first round, the
race lies between two. The course is considerably over an English
mile, and they make four circuits; so that the race is fully six-
miles,--a very hard one. It was a run in a rain, however, which
began when it did, and soon forced up the umbrellas. The vast crowd
disappeared under a shed of umbrellas, of all colors,--black, green,
red, blue; and the effect was very singular, especially when it moved
from the field: there was then a Niagara of umbrellas. The race was
soon over: it is only a peasants' race, after all; the aristocratic
races of the best horses take place in May. It was over. The king's
carriage was brought round, the people again shouted, the cannon
roared, the six black horses reared and plunged, and away he went.
After all, says the artist, "the King of Bavaria has not much power."
"You can see," returns a gentleman who speaks English, "just how much
he has: it is a six-horse power."
On other days there was horse-trotting, music production, and for
several days prize-shooting. The latter was admirably conducted: the
targets were placed at the foot of the bank; and opposite, I should
think not more than two hundred yards off, were shooting-houses, each
with a room for the register of the shots, and on each side of him
closets where the shooters stand. Signal-wires run from these houses
to the targets, where there are attendants who telegraph the effect
of every shot. Each competitor has a little book; and he shoots at
any booth he pleases, or at all, and has his shots registered. There
was a continual fusillade for a couple of days; but what it all came
to, I cannot tell. I can only say, that, if they shoot as steadily
as they drink beer, there is no other corps of shooters that can
stand before them.
INDIAN SUMMER
We are all quiet along the Isar since the October Fest; since the
young king has come back from his summer castle on the Starnberg See
to live in his dingy palace; since the opera has got into good
working order, and the regular indoor concerts at the cafes have
begun. There is no lack of amusements, with balls, theaters, and the
cheap concerts, vocal and instrumental. I stepped into the West Ende
Halle the other night, having first surrendered twelve kreuzers to
the money-changer at the entrance,--double the usual fee, by the way.
It was large and well lighted, with a gallery all round it and an
orchestral platform at one end. The floor and gallery were filled
with people of the most respectable class, who sat about little round
tables, and drank beer. Every man was smoking a cigar; and the
atmosphere was of that degree of haziness that we associate with
Indian summer at home; so that through it the people in the gallery
appeared like glorified objects in a heathen Pantheon, and the
orchestra like men playing in a dream. Yet nobody seemed to mind it;
and there was, indeed, a general air of social enjoyment and good
feeling. Whether this good feeling was in process of being produced
by the twelve or twenty glasses of beer which it is not unusual for a
German to drink of an evening, I do not know. "I do not drink much
beer now," said a German acquaintance,--"not more than four or five
glasses in an evening." This is indeed moderation, when we remember
that sixteen glasses of beer is only two gallons. The orchestra
playing that night was Gungl's; and it performed, among other things,
the whole of the celebrated Third (or Scotch) Symphony of Mendelssohn
in a manner that would be greatly to the credit of orchestras that
play without the aid of either smoke or beer. Concerts of this sort,
generally with more popular music and a considerable dash of Wagner,
in whom the Munichers believe, take place every night in several
cafes; while comic singing, some of it exceedingly well done, can be
heard in others. Such amusements--and nothing can be more harmless
--are very cheap.
Speaking of Indian summer, the only approach to it I have seen was in
the hazy atmosphere at the West Ende Halle. October outdoors has
been an almost totally disagreeable month, with the exception of some
days, or rather parts of days, when we have seen the sun, and
experienced a mild atmosphere. At such times, I have liked to sit
down on one of the empty benches in the Hof Garden, where the leaves
already half cover the ground, and the dropping horse-chestnuts keep
up a pattering on them. Soon the fat woman who has a fruit-stand at
the gate is sure to come waddling along, her beaming face making a
sort of illumination in the autumn scenery, and sit down near me. As
soon as she comes, the little brown birds and the doves all fly that
way, and look up expectant at her. They all know her, and expect the
usual supply of bread-crumbs. Indeed, I have seen her on a still
Sunday morning, when I have been sitting there waiting for the
English ceremony of praying for Queen Victoria and Albert Edward to
begin in the Odeon, sit for an hour, and cut up bread for her little
brown flock. She sits now knitting a red stocking, the picture of
content; one after another her old gossips pass that way, and stop a
moment to exchange the chat of the day; or the policeman has his joke
with her, and when there is nobody else to converse with, she talks
to the birds. A benevolent old soul, I am sure, who in a New England
village would be universally called "Aunty," and would lay all the
rising generation under obligation to her for doughnuts and
sweet-cake. As she rises to go away, she scrapes together a
half-dozen shining chestnuts with her feet; and as she cannot
possibly stoop to pick them up, she motions to a boy playing near,
and smiles so happily as the urchin gathers them and runs away
without even a "thank ye."
A TASTE OF ULTRAMONTANISM
If that of which every German dreams, and so few are ready to take
any practical steps to attain,--German unity,--ever comes, it must
ride roughshod over the Romish clergy, for one thing. Of course
there are other obstacles. So long as beer is cheap, and songs of
the Fatherland are set to lilting strains, will these excellent
people "Ho, ho, my brothers," and "Hi, hi, my brothers," and wait for
fate, in the shape of some compelling Bismarck, to drive them into
anything more than the brotherhood of brown mugs of beer and Wagner's
mysterious music of the future. I am not sure, by the way, that the
music of Richard Wagner is not highly typical of the present (1868)
state of German unity,--an undefined longing which nobody exactly
understands. There are those who think they can discern in his music
the same revolutionary tendency which placed the composer on the
right side of a Dresden barricade in 1848, and who go so far as to
believe that the liberalism of the young King of Bavaria is not a
little due to his passion for the disorganizing operas of this
transcendental writer. Indeed, I am not sure that any other people
than Germans would not find in the repetition of the five hours of
the "Meister-Singer von Nurnberg," which was given the other night at
the Hof Theater, sufficient reason for revolution.
Well, what I set out to say was, that most Germans would like unity
if they could be the unit. Each State would like to be the center of
the consolidated system, and thus it happens that every practical
step toward political unity meets a host of opponents at once. When
Austria, or rather the house of Hapsburg, had a preponderance in the
Diet, and it seemed, under it, possible to revive the past reality,
or to realize the dream of a great German empire, it was clearly seen
that Austria was a tyranny that would crush out all liberties. And
now that Prussia, with its vital Protestantism and free schools,
proposes to undertake the reconstruction of Germany, and make a
nation where there are now only the fragmentary possibilities of a
great power, why, Prussia is a military despot, whose subjects must
be either soldiers or slaves, and the young emperor at Vienna is
indeed another Joseph, filled with the most tender solicitude for the
welfare of the chosen German people.
But to return to the clergy. While the monasteries and nunneries are
going to the ground in superstition-saturated Spain; while eager
workmen are demolishing the last hiding-places of monkery, and
letting the daylight into places that have well kept the frightful
secrets of three hundred years, and turning the ancient cloister
demesne into public parks and pleasure-grounds,--the Romish
priesthood here, in free Bavaria, seem to imagine that they cannot
only resist the progress of events, but that they can actually bring
back the owlish twilight of the Middle Ages. The reactionary party
in Bavaria has, in some of the provinces, a strong majority; and its
supporters and newspapers are belligerent and aggressive. A few
words about the politics of Bavaria will give you a clew to the
general politics of the country.
The reader of the little newspapers here in Munich finds evidence of
at least three parties. There is first the radical. Its members
sincerely desire a united Germany, and, of course, are friendly to
Prussia, hate Napoleon, have little confidence in the Hapsburgs, like
to read of uneasiness in Paris, and hail any movement that overthrows
tradition and the prescriptive right of classes. If its members are
Catholic, they are very mildly so; if they are Protestant, they are
not enough so to harm them; and, in short, if their religious
opinions are not as deep as a well, they are certainly broader than a
church door. They are the party of free inquiry, liberal thought,
and progress. Akin to them are what may be called the conservative
liberals, the majority of whom may be Catholics in profession, but
are most likely rationalists in fact; and with this party the king
naturally affiliates, taking his music devoutly every Sunday morning
in the Allerheiligenkirche, attached to the Residenz, and getting his
religion out of Wagner; for, progressive as the youthful king is, he
cannot be supposed to long for a unity which would wheel his throne
off into the limbo of phantoms. The conservative liberals,
therefore, while laboring for thorough internal reforms, look with
little delight on the increasing strength of Prussia, and sympathize
with the present liberal tendencies of Austria. Opposed to both
these parties is the ultramontane, the head of which is the Romish
hierarchy, and the body of which is the inert mass of ignorant
peasantry, over whom the influence of the clergy seems little shaken
by any of the modern moral earthquakes. Indeed I doubt if any new
ideas will ever penetrate a class of peasants who still adhere to
styles of costume that must have been ancient when the Turks
threatened Vienna, which would be highly picturesque if they were not
painfully ugly, and arrayed in which their possessors walk about in
the broad light of these latter days, with entire unconsciousness
that they do not belong to this age, and that their appearance is as
much of an anachronism as if the figures should step out of Holbein's
pictures (which Heaven forbid), or the stone images come down from
the portals of the cathedral and walk about. The ultramontane party,
which, so far as it is an intelligent force in modern affairs, is the
Romish clergy, and nothing more, hears with aversion any hint of
German unity, listens with dread to the needle-guns at Sadowa, hates
Prussia in proportion as it fears her, and just now does not draw
either with the Austrian Government, whose liberal tendencies are
exceedingly distasteful. It relies upon that great unenlightened
mass of Catholic people in Southern Germany and in Austria proper,
one of whose sins is certainly not skepticism. The practical fight
now in Bavaria is on the question of education; the priests being
resolved to keep the schools of the people in their own control, and
the liberal parties seeking to widen educational facilities and admit
laymen to a share in the management of institutions of learning. Now
the school visitors must all be ecclesiastics; and although their
power is not to be dreaded in the cities, where teachers, like other
citizens, are apt to be liberal, it gives them immense power in the
rural districts. The election of the Lower House of the Bavarian
parliament, whose members have a six years' tenure of office, which
takes place next spring, excites uncommon interest; for the leading
issue will be that of education. The little local newspapers--and
every city has a small swarm of them, which are remarkable for the
absence of news and an abundance of advertisements--have broken out
into a style of personal controversy, which, to put it mildly, makes
me, an American, feel quite at home. Both parties are very much in
earnest, and both speak with a freedom that is, in itself, a very
hopeful sign.
The pretensions of the ultramontane clergy are, indeed, remarkable
enough to attract the attention of others besides the liberals of
Bavaria. They assume an influence and an importance in the
ecclesiastical profession, or rather an authority, equal to that ever
asserted by the Church in its strongest days. Perhaps you will get
an idea of the height of this pretension if I translate a passage
which the liberal journal here takes from a sermon preached in the
parish church of Ebersburg, in Ober-Dorfen, by a priest, Herr
Kooperator Anton Hiring, no longer ago than August 16, 1868. It
reads: "With the power of absolution, Christ has endued the
priesthood with a might which is terrible to hell, and against which
Lucifer himself cannot stand,-a might which, indeed, reaches over
into eternity, where all other earthly powers find their limit and
end,--a might, I say, which is able to break the fetters which, for
an eternity, were forged through the commission of heavy sin. Yes,
further, this Power of the forgiveness of sins makes the priest, in a
certain measure, a second God; for God alone naturally can forgive
sins. And yet this is not the highest reach of the priestly might:
his power reaches still higher; he compels God himself to serve him.
How so? When the priest approaches the altar, in order to bring
there the holy mass-offering, there, at that moment, lifts himself up
Jesus Christ, who sits at the right hand of the Father, upon his
throne, in order to be ready for the beck of his priests upon earth.
And scarcely does the priest begin the words of consecration, than
there Christ already hovers, surrounded by the heavenly host, come
down from heaven to earth, and to the altar of sacrifice, and
changes, upon the words of the priest, the bread and wine into his
holy flesh and blood, and permits himself then to be taken up and to
lie in the hands of the priest, even though the priest is the most
sinful and the most unworthy. Further, his power surpasses that of
the highest archangels, and of the Queen of Heaven. Right did the
holy Franciscus say, 'If I should meet a priest and an angel at the
same time, I should salute the priest first, and then the angel;
because the priest is possessed of far higher might and holiness than
the angel.'"
The radical journal calls this "ultramontane blasphemy," and, the day
after quoting it, adds a charge that must be still more annoying to
the Herr Kooperator Hiring than that of blasphemy: it accuses him of
plagiarism; and, to substantiate the charge, quotes almost the very
same language from a sermon preached in 1785--In this it is boldly
claimed that "in heaven, on earth, or under the earth, there is
nothing mightier than a priest, except God; and, to be exact, God
himself must obey the priest in the mass." And then, in words which
I do not care to translate, the priest is made greater than the
Virgin Mary, because Christ was only born of the Virgin once, while
the priest "with five words, as often and wherever he will," can
"bring forth the Saviour of the world." So to-day keeps firm hold of
the traditions of a hundred years ago, and ultramontanism wisely
defends the last citadel where the Middle Age superstition makes a
stand,--the popular veneration for the clergy.
And the clergy take good care to keep up the pomps and shows even
here in skeptical Munich. It was my inestimable privilege the other
morning--it was All-Saints' Day--to see the archbishop in the old
Frauenkirche, the ancient cathedral, where hang tattered banners that
were captured from the Turks three centuries ago,--to see him seated
in the choir, overlooked by saints and apostles carved in wood by
some forgotten artist of the fifteenth century. I supposed he was at
least an archbishop, from the retinue of priests who attended and
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