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A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia
A July Holiday in Saxony, Bohemia, and Silesia
CHAPTER I
What the Bookseller said—A Walk in Frankfort—What the Portress said—Glimpses of Landscapes—Forest and River—Würzburg—Stein Wine—View from the Citadel-hill—A Change of Bedrooms—Coming to an Understanding with the Reader—Good Night!
"How happens it," I said to a bookseller in the Zeil, "that a map of Bohemia is not to be had in all Frankfort?"
"How it happens?" he answered, with a knowing smile: "because no one ever goes to Bohemia."
He searched and searched, as did a dozen of his fraternity whom I had previously visited, and found maps in number of Switzerland, Tyrol, Thuringia, Franconia, Turkey even, and Montenegro; but not the one I wanted.
"Such a thing is never asked for," he said, deprecatingly. "Suppose you go to Franconia instead."
All at once he bethought himself of an inner closet, and there he discovered a map of Bohemia; but not a travelling map: an overcrowded sheet that confused the eye, and promised but little assistance for the byeways. However, under the circumstances, I took it as better than none.
"You will not get the map you want till you arrive at Prague," was the sort of encouragement I got some twenty-four hours afterwards from a Bohemian Professor in the Medical School at Würzburg.
I saw Frankfort under all the charm of a first visit. I perambulated the narrow streets, and the Judengasse, where dwell not a few of the nine thousand Jewish residents; and stood long enough on the bridge that bestrides the muddy Main to note the ancient towers, and the bits of antiquity peeping up here and there in the city and the Sachsenshausen suburb—contrasted by the modern look of the spacious quays. And of course I saw the house in which Goethe was born, and Dannecker's Ariadne, and the Römer, that relic of the olden time, crowded with reminiscences of the Empire. You may see the whole line of Emperors in panels round the wainscot of the stately hall on the first floor; some grim warriors in plate and mail; some in scholar's gown; some in slashed sleeves and tight hosen, and some in velvet robes. Here, after the crown had been placed on their heads in the adjacent cathedral, they went through certain formal ceremonies with cumbrous pomp and held their festival, as may be read in the vivid descriptions of Goethe's Autobiography.
Having glanced at the imperial effigies from Conrad down to Francis, and at the scene from the balcony outside, I dropped half a franc into the hand of the lady portress, and had crossed the landing, when she came tripping after me, and, with an air of lofty pity, returned the coin, requesting me to "give it to a beggar."
The gentleman in charge of the Ariadne had made me a polite bow for a similar fee; so I complied with the lady's request, and gave the piece of silver among five beggars, each of whom favoured me with a blessing in return.
At noon, on the 3rd of July, I left Frankfort for Würzburg. The landscape at first is tame, and you will have to watch closely, in more senses than one, as the train speeds across, for the scenes and objects that relieve it. There are glimpses of the Taunus mountains; of Wilhelmsbad, embowered in a pleasant wood; of Hanau, a dark-red town, where the dark-red sandstone station is enlivened by Virginian creeper running gracefully up the columns; and of memorable battlefields. And of a dark-red mill, in a green grassy hollow, with its dripping wheel; and in the middle of the garden a globe of fire that dazzles your eye, and is nothing other than a carboy inverted on a stake, after the Dutch manner, to serve as a mirror, in which may be seen a panorama of the neighbourhood. And everywhere women cutting down the rye, wearing bright red kerchiefs on their heads that rival the poppies in splendour.
Beyond Aschaffenburg the country improves. Wooded hills alternate with lengthy slopes of vines, deep shady coombs, and leafy valleys, where brooks frolic along in frequent windings, and villages nestle, and gray church spires shoot above the tree-tops. Then parties of woodcutters, well armed with axes and wedges, enter the train, and each man lights his pipe, and they talk of their craft among themselves in a rustic dialect. And the train dashes into the forest of Spessart, and under the hills, winding hither and thither between miles of trees, the remains, as is said, of that great Hercynian forest which schoolboys read about in their Latin studies. The nursery of them that overthrew Rome; and one of the haunts of Freedom before she took refuge in the mountains, and in a certain island of the sea.
At Lohr, a town prettily situate on the Main, the railway road and river come near together, and the frequent windings of the stream brighten the landscape. We saw the steamer labouring upwards on her two days' trip from Frankfort to Würzburg. Then a village where the Saal falls in, and more and more vines, and old walls gay with yellow stonecrop, and on the right the ruin of Karlstadt, and by-and-by Würzburg comes in sight, and our five hours' journey is over.
Bavarian art attracts and gratifies your eye as you alight. The station is an elegant structure in the Pompeiian style, ingeniously contrived for the purposes of the railway and post-office, and yet to preserve the architectural character. An impatient traveller might well beguile the time by admiring the proportions, the colouring, and the tasteful decorations along the colonnades. The building forms one side of a square in the newest quarter of the town.
A curious sign, the Kleebaum, caught my eye in the first street, and I trusted myself beneath it. The Kellner took my knapsack; asked if "that was all," and led me high up to a small homely-furnished room on the third floor, in which, however, the quality of cleanliness was not wanting, and that is what an Englishman cares most about. At dinner I treated myself to a pint of the Stein wine, for which the neighbourhood is famous, and am prepared to add my testimony as to its merits. The bottles have a jolly bacchanalian look about them, being globes somewhat flattened at the sides, and contain, when honest, a quart. The cost is from two to three florins a bottle; but a temperate guest is allowed to drink and pay for the half only, at his pleasure. With vineyards producing such wine around them, it is little wonder that the Prince-Bishops were always ready to fight for their good city of Würzburg. The Strangers' Book followed the dinner as a matter of course, and when the landlord saw that I signed my name as "from London," and heard me inquire for the residence of one of the Professors, he put off his natural manner and became obsequious: a change that gave me no pleasure.
There is more of life, more to interest the attention in Würzburg, than in some places which are much more frequented and talked of. The streets generally are narrow, and built in picturesque disregard of straight lines; now widening suddenly for a brief space, now diminishing and bending away in a new direction. And you saunter onwards, wondering at the panelled house-fronts with their profuse ornament: grotesque carvings of animals' heads, of clustering fruits in bold relief at the intersections; windows with quaint canopies and curiously-wrought gratings; fanciful door-heads and gables; in short, a variety of architectural conceits on which your eye will fondly linger. Now, at a corner, you come upon an ancient turret with conical roof, now a sculptured fountain, now images of the Virgin or some of the saints over the doors; and anon huge statues of the Bishops remind you of the men who built and prayed for Würzburg. So numerous are the churches erected to perpetuate their memory or adorn their inheritance, that you need not go many yards whenever you feel inclined to meditate in a "dim religious light."
You meet numbers of soldiers, for there is a citadel beyond the river, and water-bearers with their tall tubs slung on their backs going to or from the fountains, and now and then a peasant woman with conical hat and skirts the very opposite of the fashion; and except that nearly all the women you see are bareheaded, there is nothing else remarkable in costume.
Stroll to the river-side; what prodigious piles of firewood at one side of the quay, and what a busy fleet of barges moored on the other. The Main here is about as wide as the Thames at Richmond, and is spanned by a bridge quite in keeping with the city. At either end stands an arched gateway, with statues niched in the massive masonry, and saints above the rounded piers.
Cross the bridge, and mount the citadel-hill on the left bank, and you will have a surprise. The hill terminates in a craggy precipice, crowned by the stronghold and its defences, and you look down on shelfy gardens planted here and there among the rocks; and over the whole city. The river flows by in a bold curve, cutting off a small suburb from the main portion of the city, which spreads, crescent-formed, on the opposite shore. An imposing scene. Thirty-one towers, spires, domes, and steeples spring from the great masses and ridges of dark-red lofty roofs, and these are everywhere dotted with rows of little windows which resemble a half-opened eye. Indeed, the curved line of the tiles makes the resemblance so complete, that you can easily fancy the eyes are taking a sly peep at what is going on below, or winking at the sunbeams, as a prelude to falling asleep for the night.
The sun was dropping behind me in the west, and before me lay the city, looking glorious in the golden light. Row after row of the sleepy eyes caught the ray with a momentary twinkle; the gilded weathercocks flashed and glistened, and the reflection falling on the river made pathways of quivering light across the ripples.
Presently eight struck from the cathedral, and the clocks of all the churches followed, each with its own peculiar note. One or two solemn and sonorous, in imitation of the big bell; others shrill and saucy, as if they alone had the right to record the march of the silent footsteps; a few sedate, and one irresolute. Now here, now there, now yonder, as if the striking never would cease, and suggesting strange analogies between clocks and the race who wind them up.
Trees rise here and there among the houses, and form a green belt round the city, thickest in the gardens of the royal palace, a stately edifice comprising among its two hundred and eighty-four rooms the suite in which the Emperors used to lodge when on their way to be crowned at Frankfort. And beyond the trees begin the vines, acre after acre to the tops of the whole encircling rim of hills. Broad slopes teeming with wine and gladness of heart, but looking bald in the distance from want of trees. One of these hills—the Köppele, so named from a chapel on the summit—is a favourite resort of the inhabitants, who perhaps find in the view therefrom a sufficient reward for a long ascent, unrefreshed by shade or rustling leaves.
Seen from the hill, Würzburg is said to resemble Prague; not without reason, as I afterwards found. It would be, in my opinion, the more pleasing picture of the two, were its frame set off and beautified by patches of forest.
I kept my seat on the outward angle of a thick wall till the golden light, sliding slowly up the hills, at last vanished from their brow, and left the whole valley in shadow. Then I went down and sauntered about the streets, while the gloom within the porticos and gateways, behind buttresses and up the narrow alleys, deepened and deepened; and ended by discovering a stranger willing to talk in a well-lighted coffee-house.
On my return to the Kleebaum the Kellner lit two candles, and conducted me, not to the little room "up three pair," but to the best bedroom on the first floor.
What magic in that little item—"from London!"
Now, gracious reader, suppose we come to an understanding before I get into bed. You are already aware that I am going to Bohemia, not to scale snow-crowned mountains, or plunge into awful gorges, for there are none. The highest summit we shall have to climb together is under five thousand feet; and there is none of that tremendous and magnificent scenery which is to be seen in Switzerland and Tyrol. If, however, you are willing to accompany me to a peculiar country—one which, like Ireland, is most picturesque around its borders—rich in memorials of the past and in historical associations, fertile and industrious, we will journey lovingly together. Now on foot, though perhaps not so much as usual; now a flight by rail, or a steam-boat trip, or by diligence or wagon, according as the circumstances befall. We shall find on the way occasion for discourse, somewhat to observe, for the people are remarkable, and subjects to read about; improving the hours as best we may.
Our next halt shall be at the old Saxon town of Altenburg, where there is something to be seen and heard of worth remembering; then over the Erzgebirge to Carlsbad, the bathing-place of kings, and through the rustic villages to Prague. Then to the Mittelgebirge; down the Elbe, to a scene of rural life and industry; away to the Riesengebirge—the mountains haunted by Rübezahl—and the wonderful rocks of Adersbach. Then over the frontier into Silesia, to Herrnhut, the head-quarters of the Moravians, to Dresden and the Saxon Switzerland, Berlin, Magdeburg, and Hamburg, from whence a voyage across the North Sea will bring us home again.
It may be that this scheme is not to your liking. If so, we can part company here, and you will perhaps never read the completion of that "Story of the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles," which Corporal Trim began for Uncle Toby and never finished.
And so, good night!
CHAPTER II
Würzburg—The University—Red, Green, and Orange Caps—The Marienkapelle—The Market—The Cathedral—The Palace—Spacious Cellars—A Professor's Hospitality—To Bamberg—Frost—Hof—A Shabby Peace—The Arch-Poisoner—Dear Bread—A Prime Minister Hanged—Altenburg—The Park—The Castle—Reminiscences and Antiquities—The Chapel—The Princes' Vault—Wends—Costumes in the Market-place—Female Cuirassiers—More about the Wends—Grossen Teich—The Plateau—The Cemetery—Werdau.
Würzburg is now the chief town of the Circle of the Lower Main; it was once the capital of a principality governed by a line of eighty bishops, and figures prominently in German history. The University, founded in 1403, is deservedly famous, having numbered among its professors many of first-rate abilities: a distinction it still retains. What with schools, with resources in art and science, cultivated society, and ample means of recreation, the old city is an agreeable residence.
Under the guidance of Professor Kölliker, I visited the botanic garden, the anatomical museum, and the medical school, which is one of the best in Europe. The Julius Hospital, a noble institution, founded by one of the Prince-Bishops, whose statue is erected not far from the building, affords opportunities for study seldom found in provincial towns. The students, after the manner of their kind, form themselves into societies distinguished by the colour of their caps, as you will soon discover by meeting continually in the streets little groups of red, green, or orange caps, marking the three divisions.
Then, while the Professor lectured to his class, I strolled away to the market-place, and saw how the women, leaving their shoulder-baskets at the door of the Marienkapelle—Mary Chapel—went in and recited a few prayers, kneeling on the floor. A commendable preparation, I thought, for the work of buying and selling. The mounds of vegetables in frequent rows, and numerous baskets of cherries and strawberries, with heaps of fresh dewy flowers between, the many red kerchiefs and moving throng, and the wares displayed at the wooden booths, made up an animated spectacle. Live geese roosting contentedly in shallow baskets awaiting their sale without an effort to escape, were remarkable among the enticements of the poultry-market. A few yards farther were little stalls with rolls of butter, resembling in shape a ship's topsail-yard, alternating with piles of lumps or rather dabs of butter, each wrapped in a piece of old newspaper. These were bought by poor folk.
The Marienkapelle is a fine specimen of pointed Gothic, with a graceful spire, which having become dilapidated and unsafe, was undergoing repair at the time of my visit. The inside is spoiled by overmuch whitewash, and the outside by an irregular row of petty shops—an uncouth plinthe—around the base; and this is not the only church in the city which has its character and fair proportions marred by such clustering barnacles.
On the spot where the cathedral now stands rearing its four towers aloft, St. Killian, an Irish missionary, was martyred more than a thousand years ago. The lofty arched nave is supported by square columns, of which the lower portions are hidden by pictures. Marble statues of the Bishops, with sword and crosier in hand, betokening their twofold character of priest and warrior, are ranged along the walls; and the whole interior has a bright and cheerful aspect.
Of the other churches, I need not say more than that the New Minster enjoys the honour of possessing St. Killian's bones; that St. Peter's at Rome is reproduced in the church of St. John; and that St. Burkhardt's, at the foot of the citadel-hill, is built in the round style.
The spacious grounds and gardens of the palace are well laid out. There are umbrageous avenues, terraces, fountains, paths winding among flower-beds and away under the trees and through the shrubberies to nooks of complete solitude. In some parts the plantations are left untrimmed, and give an air of wildness to the scene. In the rear, steps lead to the top of the wall, from whence you may look over greater part of the grounds, and fancy yourself in a region of forest. The townsfolk have free access; and you meet now and then a solitary student poring over his book, or groups of strollers, or nursemaids with troops of children. The palace, which dates from the year 1720, shows the consequences of neglect. Hohenschwangau has greater attractions for the royal family than Würzburg; and now, after a view of the staircase and chapel, there is nothing in the rusty and faded apartments that once exhibited the magnificence of the Bishops to detain you. The cellars are large enough to contain 2200 tuns of wine. What rollicking nights the retainers must have had!
The Professor proved himself not less hospitable than learned. We dined together, and he introduced me to one of his colleagues, the Bohemian mentioned in the second page, who gave me a letter to his father at Prague. And then, after a sojourn of twenty-four hours, I departed.
To see Nuremberg, and journey from thence into Bohemia, across the Böhmerwaldgebirge, had been in my thoughts; but finding on inquiry that more time would be required for that route than I could spare, I decided for Saxony. So, away to Bamberg, sixty miles distant, the starting-place of the Leipzig and Nuremberg trains. There was an hour to wait, and then in deep twilight on we went for Altenburg.
Although the night was in July, I shivered with cold. The temperature, indeed, was remarkable. Three days previously I had seen white frost between Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and for the first ten nights of the month frosts occurred all over Germany. At two o'clock we came to Hof, where there was a change of train, and time to drink a cup of coffee, doubly acceptable under the circumstances. The country around is bleak, a region of bare low hills, of unfavourable repute owing to its cold. A farmer who came into the train told us there was thin ice on the ponds. Here and there the hollows were filled with a dense mist, and resembled vast lakes, and the outlook was so cheerless that I was glad to sleep, till sunrise, with its splendours, woke up our drowsy party to welcome light and warmth.
What a change since the former year! Then the war was all the topic among those who were thrown together while travelling. Now, Sebastopol and the Crimea seemed clean forgotten, and no one had a word to say even about the Sick Man at Constantinople. No, all was changed, and talkers busied their tongues concerning the "shabby peace," as they called it, the dearness of food, and—William Palmer. The simple-minded Bavarians could not understand why England should have been so magnanimous towards her Muscovitish antagonist, until it was suggested to them that France, having come to the bottom of her purse notwithstanding all the flourishes to the contrary, the war had to be ended.
"And could England have kept on?"
"Yes, for forty years, if necessary."
"What a country!" they exclaimed—"what gigantic wealth!" And then they wondered that peace had not brought lower prices, and talked with grave faces and timorous forebodings about the dearness of bread. Scarcely a place did I visit where bread was not dearer than in London.
But the arch-poisoner was the prevailing theme; and eager discussions on the incidents of his trial and execution showed how widespread was the excitement he had occasioned. Even in little towns I saw Prozess gegen William Palmer for sale in the booksellers' windows. The Germans, however, thought theirs the best law, as it inflicts perpetual imprisonment only, and not death, in cases where the poison is not discovered in the body of the victim; and they would by no means agree that to hang a villain out of the way whether or no, was the preferable alternative. While the talk was going on, some one was sure to tell of what took place when the news of the execution was flashed from England. Palmer is hanged, was the brief yet fearful despatch. The clerk who received it, by some strange fatality, read Palmer as an abbreviation of Palmerston; and within an hour all Germany was startled by the news, and bewildered with speculations as to the causes which had induced the exemplary English nation to get rid of their Prime Minister by so summary a process. "Palmerston gehänget!" ejaculated one after another, with a chuckle.
At seven o'clock we arrived at Altenburg. A night in a railway train is not the best preparation for a day of sight-seeing. However, after the restorative of a wash and breakfast at the Bayerische Hof, the first hotel that presented itself, I crossed the road to the grounds belonging to the castle. By a bold undulating slope, laid out as an English park, you mount to a plateau, where a well-kept garden contrasts agreeably with the tall avenues and grouped masses of foliage. Small pleasure-houses stand here and there among the trees, and you see a pavilion built in the style of a Greek temple. A little farther, and there are the ducal opera-house, the orangery, and the stables—a handsome range of buildings. And beyond is the Little Forest—Wäldchen—enclosed by a wall, where, among the stately trees, you may see two, the Princes' Oaks—Prinzeneichen—so named from an interesting event in Saxon history, of which we shall perhaps have some particulars by-and-by. The plateau, moreover, commands views of a fertile and well-wooded country all broken up by low hills, the lowest slopes of the Ore mountains—Erzgebirge—which show their dark swelling outlines far away in the south.
You descend suddenly into a gap, which isolates an eminence—the hill of Stirling in miniature—terminating in a porphyry cliff, crowned by the castle. A convenient ascent brings you into an irregular court-yard, shut in on opposite sides by the oldest and newest parts of the building. Architecture of the thirteenth century mated curiously with that of the eighteenth; and both occupying the site of what was already a fortress in the tenth. The castle owes its present form to the Dukes Friedrich the Second and Third, who, in 1744, completed their thirty-eight years of alterations.
The place is a strange medley. Gray, weatherbeaten walls, with square towers and jutting turrets, intruded on by modern masonry—Neptune in his cockle-shell car in the midst of a fountain, and sentries pacing up and down, and soldiers lounging about their shabby-looking quarters—grim passages, and uncomfortable chambers. The Austrian arms, which you may yet see cut in the stone over a doorway, mark the granary built by the Electress Margaret for stores of corn, in order that, when grain became dear, she might save the townsfolk from hunger. A little farther and you come to the Mantelthurm, a round tower, with walls seven yards thick, commonly called the Bottle, from the form of its slated roof. It has two ugly chambers, which were used as dungeons up to 1641, after which it did duty as a magazine; and now the lower part is a cinder-hole. Adjoining is the Jünkerei—once the pages' quarters—in which are certain official apartments and the armoury. The Imperialists plundered the castle, during the Thirty Years' War, of most of its treasures and curiosities; and later, many specimens of mediæval armour were carried off to Coburg, leaving little besides objects which have an intimate relation with Saxon history. Weapons old and new, banners, garments, paraphernalia used in ducal funerals, and many things which belonged to persons connected with the Robbery of the Princes (Prinzenraub). In recent times a museum of antiquities has been added: articles of furniture, books, and other rarities which perpetuate the memory of eminent individuals—urns and other funereal remains dug up in the neighbourhood—ethnographical specimens chiefly from Australia and the Sunda Islands—and a collection of china, presented by the Minister Baron von Lindenau.
The palace, or modern portion of the castle, dates from 1706. The castellan will conduct you through the throne-room, the great hall, where hang life-size pictures of the dukes on horseback by whom the place was built, and paintings of historical scenes, and other apartments bright with gilding and hung with elegant draperies.
The church, built in the old German style, on the spot once occupied by the castle chapel, contains banners, and paintings, and numerous monuments and tablets to the memory of the princely personages buried beneath, and some admirable specimens of oak carving. To read their names as you pass along is a lesson in Saxon genealogy. Among them is that of the Electress Margaret, whose remains, after a rest of more than three centuries, were removed to the Princes' Vault, the door to which, studded with iron stars, you may see in the nave. But, in 1846, Duke Joseph caused the old tomb to be cleared out and repaired, and honouring the memory of her whose name is yet revered in Saxony, had her coffin restored to its former place with solemn ceremony.
From the balconies or the tower you have a good view of the town lying beneath on a steep hill-slope, with its large ponds, and many ups and downs. And all around lie fields, and gardens, and rich pastures, bearing fruitful testimony to the good husbandry of the Wends.
The main approach to the castle is by a road winding with an easy slope up the steep side of the hill. Its upper extremity is crowned by a gateway in the Romanesque style, and where its lower end sinks to the level of the road stand two obelisks—pyramids as they are called—bearing on their pedestals a statue of Hercules and Minerva.
The streets were full of life and bustle, for it was market day, and the Wends coming into the town from all quarters increased the novelty of the sight by their singular costume. The men wear a flat cloth cap, a short tight jacket drawn into plaits behind, and decorated in front with as many buttons as may be seen on the breast of a Paddingtonian page, loose baggy breeches, and tight boots up to the knee. You will, perhaps, think it a misfortune that the breeches are not longer, for all below is spindle-shanky, in somewhat ludicrous contrast with the amplitude above, and the broad, big foot. How such a foot finds its way through so narrow a boot-leg is not easy to guess. The men are generally tall, with oval faces of a quiet, honest expression.
But the women!—they are something to wonder at. Most of them are bareheaded: some wear a close plain cap, which throws out their round chubby faces in full relief; some display a curiously padded blue horseshoe, kept in place by a belt that hides the ears, from which two red streamers hang down their back; and others content themselves with a ribbon, tying their hair behind in a flat wide bow. Their gown is long in the sleeves and short in the skirt—short as a Highlander's kilt, which it very much resembles, and is in most instances of a carpet-like texture. Plum-colour, blue, pink, and green, dotted with bright flowers or crossed by stripes, are the prevailing patterns; their gay tints relieving the sombre blue and black of the men. The skirt is made to fit pretty closely, much more so, indeed, than the men's breeches, and as it descends no lower than the knee, you can see that if Nature is niggard to the men she is generous to the women. Such an exhibition of well-developed legs in blue worsted stockings I never before witnessed.
Some of the younger ones had put on their summer stockings of white cotton, and, with bodice and skirt of different patterns, went strutting about apparently well pleased with themselves. But they have another peculiarity besides the kilt: they all, young and old, wear a species of cuirass, secured at the waist and rising to their chin. I judged it to be made of light wood, covered with black stuff. It gives them a grotesque appearance when looked at from the front or sideways; suggesting an idea of human turtles, or descendants of a race of Amazons. Some sat at their stalls with their chin resting on it, or face half hidden behind; and many times did I notice the breastplate pushed down to make room for the mouth to open when the wearer wished to speak—the pushings down being not less frequent than the shrugs of ladies in other places to keep their silly bonnets on. Even little girls wear the cuirass, and very remarkable objects they are.
The spacious area of the market-place, enclosed by antique houses, was thronged. Wendish women sitting in long rows behind their baskets of cherries and heaps of vegetables; others arriving with fresh supplies on low wheelbarrows, their white legs twinkling everywhere in the sunshine. And many more who had come to buy roving busily from one wooden booth to another among all sorts of wares—books, ironmongery, jewelry, cakes and confectionery, coarse gray crockery, tubs and buckets, deep trays and kneading troughs chopped from one block; but the drapers and haberdashers, with their stores of gaudy kerchiefs and gay tartans and piles of stockings, attracted the most numerous customers. There was a brisk sale of sausages and bread—large, flat, round loaves (weighing 12lb. English) of black rye bread, at one groschen the pound, which was considered dear.
The men wandered about among the scythes, rakes, and wooden shovels, or the stalls of pipes and cutlery, or gathered round the ricketty wagons laden with small sacks of grain and meal which were continually arriving, led by one of the tribe in dusty boots. And all the while the townsfolk came crowding in to make their weekly purchases till there was scarcely room to move.
Such a scene is to me far more interesting than a picture-gallery. I went to and fro in the throng hearkening with pleasure to the various voices, watching the buying and selling, and noting the honest, cheerful faces of many of the women. Then escaping, I could survey the whole market-place from the rising ground at its upper end, and contemplate at leisure the living picture, framed by houses and shops in the olden style, among which, on one side, rises the ancient Rathhaus. It was built in 1562 with the stones of a church given to the corporation by Duke Johann, whose portrait you may see hanging in the hall inside among electors and dukes, and their wives; and, ever since, it has been used for weddings, dances, and religious meetings, as well as for the grave business of the council and police. Opposite the entrance, the date 1770, inserted with black pebbles into the paving, marks the spot where the last beheading took place under authority of the council.
The Wends are the descendants of a Sclavonic tribe, which, according to ethnologists, migrated from the shores of the Adriatic more than a thousand years ago, carrying in their name (Wend or Wand) a proof of having once lived by the sea. They are remarkable for the tenacity of their adherence to ancient habits and customs, which may, perhaps, account for their still being a distinct people among the Germans by whom they are surrounded. And they are not less remarkable for honesty, health, and an amount of agricultural skill, which distinguishes them from their neighbours. They are clever and successful in rearing cattle; they get on, and save money; and the women have the reputation of being most excellent nurses. The Bohemian peasant on the farther side of the mountains used, if he does not now, when his children were born, to stretch them out, sometimes at the end of a pole, towards the country of the Wends, that the infant might grow up as able and lucky as they. One of their immemorial practices, still kept up, is to talk to their bees, and tell them of all household incidents, and especially of a death in the family. Their number is two hundred thousand, all within the limits of Lusatia.
A much-frequented promenade is the dam of the Great Pond—Grossen Teich—on the southern side of the town, which, planted with chestnuts and limes, forms a series of green and shady alleys, with a pleasant prospect across gardens and meadows to the village of Altendorf. Swans glide about on the surface of the water, which covers sixteen acres, and a gondola plies to a small wooded island in the centre, resorted to by lovers and picnic parties. A short distance northwards lies the Little Pond, bordered by rows of poplars, and three other ponds in different parts of the town are also made to contribute to its attractions.
Another pleasure-ground is the "Plateau," on an eminence between the railway station and the road to Leipzig, from which you may wander through shady alleys to the old ruin of Alexisburg. The cemetery, on a hill to the west of the town, is worth a visit for a sight of some of the tombs, among which appears the entrance to the new Princes' Vault, constructed in 1837, in the form of a small chapel, lighted by richly-stained glass windows, through the floor of which the coffins are lowered to the vault beneath. On St. John's Day the cemetery is thronged by the townsfolk, decorating the graves of their departed friends with flowers.
After a visit to all these places, and a peep into the two churches in which Luther once preached—the Bartholomäikirche and the Brüderkirche—I travelled on to Zwickau, and as there is little to be seen on the way besides fields, low hills, and the tall-chimneyed, smoking, stocking-weaving town of Werdau, we will glance at an interesting event in Saxon history incidentally alluded to in the foregoing pages.
CHAPTER III
Origin of Altenburg—Prosperous Burghers—A Princely Crime—Hussite Plunderers—Luther's Visits—French Bonfire—Electress Margaret's Dream—Kunz von Kauffungen—"Don't burn the Fish"—A Conspiracy—Midnight Robbers—Two Young Princes Stolen—The Flight—The Alarm—The Köhler—The Rescue—Kunz Beheaded—The Triller's Reward, and what a famous Author said concerning it.
Wends had long peopled the Pleissengau when King Henry I.—the Fowler, as his contemporaries named him—conquered it during one of his many inroads among his neighbours, and made it part of the Osterland early in the tenth century. The newly-won territory was soon settled by German colonists, who, finding an ancient fortification on the summit of a bluff, rocky hill, called it alte Burg, whence the present name of the town and principality of Altenburg. Henry, or his successor, Otho, built a castle on the hill, no portion of which, or of the one which replaced it, now remains. The town is first mentioned in a document of the year 986. Its story is the old one: family feud, rapine and revenge, chivalry and heroism, intermingled with quaint and quiet glimpses of social life, characteristic of the "dark ages." Earliest among its possessors were the Hohenstaufens; latest are the Hildburghausens. At one time it was imperial; at another independent; now pledged or given away by an emperor; now held by a duke. In 1286 its prosperity was such that the burghers went carried in sedan-chairs to the council-house, and their wives walked to church festivals on carpets spread before them in the street.
Six years later Friedrich the Bitted quarrelled with Adolf von Nassau for having pledged Altenburg to King Wenzel of Bohemia; whereupon Adolf invited Friedrich to a Christmas feast, and while he sat at table employed a ruffian to murder him, as the speediest way of settling the dispute. The blow, however, fell on the wrist of a burgher of Freiberg who rushed between, and lost his hand in preventing the crime. Friedrich escaped, changed his dress, and, under cover of night, fled the city; but, having gained a battle in the interval, he returned as ruler in 1307. The scene of this malignant assault is supposed to have been a house in the market-place.
Then came a succession of Friedrichs: the Earnest, the Strong, the Warlike, the Quarrelsome, the Mild, and such like. It was in 1430, during the lifetime of the last mentioned, that those fierce Reformers, the Hussites, came across the mountains and made an inroad into the principality. They chose Three-Kings' Day for their attack on the town, which was abandoned to them by the inhabitants, who fled to neighbouring villages, or took refuge in the castle; and, having burnt and plundered to the satisfaction of their cupidity or their conscience during four days, they left the place to recover as best it might.
The same Elector, Friedrich the Mild, married the Austrian Princess Margaret—fit wife for such a prince, if we may judge from her endeavours to prevent bread becoming too dear for the townsfolk.
Luther was in Altenburg from the 3rd to the 9th of January, 1519, to hold a conference with Karl von Miltitz, the papal legate. The two met in the house of George Spalatin, who became a firm friend of the great Reformer. Luther visited the town also when on his famous journey to Worms, and on several occasions afterwards.
The council-house was the scene of a religious conference from October, 1568, to March of the following year. The parties in presence were—the theologians of Electoral Saxony on the one hand, of Ducal Saxony on the other; and among the subjects mooted they discussed the questions, "Whether good works were needful for salvation?" and, "Whether man can co-operate in the attainment of his own salvation?" and with the usual result; for the disputants separated without coming to a decision.
The old town suffered from the disasters and commotions of the Peasants' War. The Imperialists quartered themselves upon it after the fatal battle of Lützen. The troubles of the Seven Years' War fell upon it, and of the campaigns that ended in the downfall of Napoleon. In 1810, the French commissioners seized a quantity of English manufactures in possession of resident merchants, and made a great bonfire therewith in the market-place. In 1813, the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia visited the town, and in the same year it afforded quarters to 671 generals, 46,617 officers, and 472,399 ordinary troops.
Now we must go back for awhile to the year 1455, the times of Friedrich the Mild. On the night of the 6th of July in that year the Electress Margaret, his wife, dreamt that two young oaks, growing in a forest near the castle, were torn up by a wild boar. Herein her maternal heart foreboded danger to the two princes Ernest and Albert, both still in their boyhood. The times were indeed disquieting, what with Hussite wars, territorial quarrels, and the ominous foretokens of the coming Reformation. Mild as Friedrich was, he, too, had had some fighting with his brother, Duke Wilhelm, about their lands. Among his officers was a certain Conrad, or, as he was commonly called, Kunz von Kauffungen, formerly captain of the castle, who, through disappointment, had come to entertain two causes of quarrel against his master. One was that, having been sent to surprise and capture Gera, he was taken himself, and only recovered his liberty by payment of four thousand florins ransom. Of this sum Kunz claimed reimbursement from the Elector, and met with denial. The second was, a demand for the restoration of estates of which he had been granted temporary possession, but which, defying legal authorities, he refused to give up until the coveted four thousand florins should be once more in his pocket. Chafing under his twofold grievance, he broke out into threats of reprisal, to which Friedrich answered jocularly, "Don't burn the fish in the ponds."
Baffled and exasperated, Kunz devised a scheme for bringing the question to a speedy issue: persuaded Hans Schwalbe, one of the scullions at the castle, into his interest; concerted measures with his brother Dietrich von Kauffungen, Wilhelm von Mosen, and others, thirty-seven altogether, and watched his opportunity.
Treacherous Schwalbe failed not in the service required of him, and gave information of the Elector's absence: called away by affairs to Leipzig. Whereupon Kunz and his confederates, mounting to horse, rode to Altenburg, and halted under cover of a wood—where now the pleasure-ground is laid out at the foot of the castle—between eleven and twelve in the night of the 7th of July. Finding all quiet, he sent his body-servant, Hans Schweinitz, forward to fix a rope ladder, with Schwalbe's help, at a window above the steepest side of the rock, and, following with Mosen, the two climbed up and got into the castle. Once in, they hastened to the chamber of the young princes, and each seizing one, made their way to the gate. But, instead of Albert, the little Count Barby had been picked up. Kunz was no sooner aware of the mistake, than, giving Ernest, whom he carried, into Mosen's arms, he hurried back with the terrified count, and brought out Albert. Quicker, however, than the robbery was the spread of an alarm. The Electress, apprehensive, perhaps, because of her dream on the previous night, appeared at a window, imploring Kunz to restore her children, and promising to intercede with the Elector in favour of his demands. Her entreaties and lamentations fell on deaf ears; Mosen had already made good his retreat, and Kunz speedily followed him through the gate, which was easily opened, there being but a single invalid on guard. The time was singularly favourable for the success of the plot, as nearly all the residents and functionaries were enjoying themselves at a feast given by the Chancellor in the town.
The alarm-bell began to ring. Mosen and the others galloped off with their prize, and Kunz, mounting his horse with young Albert before him, and attended by Schweinitz, lost no time in making for the frontier. If Isenburg could be reached before the pursuers came up, the game would be in his own hands. On they went in the dim night through the Rabensteiner Forest, along rugged and darksome ways, where they wandered from the track, their horses stumbled or floundered in miry holes, forced to choose the wildest and least-frequented routes, for dogs were barking and alarm-bells ringing in all the villages, warning honest folk that knaves were abroad. The dewy morning dawned, birds twittered among the branches, the sun arose, daylight streamed into the forests, and still the fugitives urged their panting horses onwards. A few hours later the young prince, worn out by want of rest and the increasing heat, complained of thirst; whereupon Kunz, though still a half-score miles from the Bohemian frontier, halted not far from the village of Elterlein, and crept about in the wood to pluck berries for the boy's refreshment. While the captain was thus occupied, a certain charcoal-burner—George Schmidt by name—at work near the spot, attracted by the glint of armour between the trees, approached the halting-place, made suspicious, perhaps, by the alarm-bells. To his surprise, he saw horses showing marks of hasty travel, and a fair-haired boy well attired, who said at once, "I am the young prince. They have stolen me." No sooner spoken than the Köhler, running up to Kunz, who was still stooping over the berries, felled him with a blow of the stout pole which he used in tending his fires. A shout brought up a gang of his comrades, sturdy fellows with long hair and grimy faces, who promptly laid hold of Kunz and Schweinitz, bound their hands, and carried them off for safe keeping to the neighbouring monastery of Grünhain. Thither also was the young Albert borne in friendly arms, and from thence, on the following day, an escort, among whom went the Köhler, conducted him back to his weeping mother—a real triumphal procession by the time they arrived at Altenburg.
Mosen and his troop, meanwhile, had betaken themselves to a hiding-place not far from the castle of Stein, on the right bank of the Mulde, about half way towards the frontier. While some made good their retreat to secret quarters, the principals concealed themselves with Prince Ernest in a rocky cave screened by trees, waiting for a favourable opportunity to renew their flight. But hearing, while on their look-out, sundry passers-by talk of the capture of unlucky Kunz, they sent a messenger to Friedrich von Schonburg at Hartenstein, offering to deliver up the prince on condition that they should be left free to depart unmolested. The condition was granted: they gave up their captive, and were seen no more in all the province; and Schonburg conveyed Ernest to Chemnitz, where he was received by his father the Elector.
Unlucky Kunz having been carefully escorted to Freiberg, was there beheaded on the 14th of July—an example to knightly kidnappers. On the next day the Köhler's homely gaberdine and the garments of the princes were hung up in the church at Ebersdorf, not far from the scene of the rescue. As for the Köhler himself, he had but to speak his wishes, for the Electress, in the joy of her heart at the restoration of her sons, could not sufficiently reward the man who had saved the younger. "I worried them right well"—(wohl getrillt)—he said, when recounting how he had laid about him with his pole at the time of the rescue; and ever afterwards was he known as the Triller. His wishes were modest enough;—a little bit of land, and liberty to hunt and cut wood in the forest—and amply were they gratified.
Such is in brief the story of the Prinzenraub, as it happened four hundred years ago—a memorable event in Saxon history. A walled-up window in the castle at Altenburg, on the side towards the Pauritzer Pond, is said to indicate the place where in the former building the robbers entered. The Princes' Oaks still flourish; and the cave in which Ernest was hidden is still known as the Prinzenhöhle. And our own history is involved in the event, for from that same Ernest descends the Consort of our Queen.
To most English readers the Prinzenraub was an unknown story until a few years ago, when Thomas Carlyle published it from his vigorous pen in the Westminster Review, where all the circumstances are brought before us in the very vividness of life. "Were I touring in those parts, I would go and see," says the author, referring to the rumour that the estate bestowed on the Triller remained still in possession of his posterity. By inquiry at Altenburg, I learned that this estate lay in the neighbourhood of Zwickau, so, as I also was bound for the Bohemian frontier, I did go and see on the way.
CHAPTER IV
Zwickau—Beer Bridge—Beer Mount—The Triller Estate—Triller Bierbrauerei—The Braumeister—The Beer—Four Hundredth Anniversary of the Prinzenraub—A Friendly Clerk—"You will have a Tsigger?"—Historical Portraits—A Good Name for a Brewery—A Case of Disinterestedness—Up the Church Tower—The Prospect—Princess Schwanhildis—The Fire-god Zwicz—Luther's Table—The Church—Geysers—Petrified Beds—Historical Houses—Walk to Oberhaselau—The Card-players—The Wagoners.
The dark roofs of a few dull streets, a lofty old church tower, the tall chimneys, and clouds of steam and smoke of a busy suburb, rising amid orchards, gardens, and hop-grounds in the pleasant and thickly-wooded valley of the Mulde, are the features presented by Zwickau as you approach it from the terminus. There needs no long research to discover that the Prinzenraub is a household word among the people: hanging on the wall in the hotel you may see engravings of the Prinzenhöhle, the castle of Stein, the monastery at Grünhain, and other places incidental to the robbery; and the waiters are ready to tell you that the Triller estate lies near Eckersbach, about half an hour's walk to the east of the town.
On my way thither I crossed the Mulde, a lively stream, flowing between steep slopes of trees, broken here and there by a red fern-fringed cliff. A Saxon liking—one which the Anglo-Saxon has not forgotten—is betrayed in the name of the bridge—Beer Bridge; it leads to Beer Mount, which conceals within its cool and dark interior countless barrels of the national beverage. While walking up the hollow road that winds round the hill, you see on one side the entrances to the deeply excavated cellars, on the other a tavern, overshadowed by linden-trees, offering refreshing temptations to the thirsty visitor.
The road presently rising across open fields brings you in sight of a pile of huge bright-red brick buildings, erected on the farther side of a deep, narrow dell, contrasting well with the green of a cherry orchard and woods in the rear. There lies the Triller estate. Times are changed; and where the sinewy Köhler tilled his field and reared his family, now stands a brewery—Triller Bierbrauerei. The wakeful genius of trade has taken possession, and finds in the patriotic sentiment inspired by the history of the place a handsome source of profit.
I addressed myself to the Braumeister—Brewmaster—who on hearing that one of England's foremost authors had published the story of the Prinzenraub, manifested a praiseworthy readiness to satisfy my curiosity. The estate had long been out of the hands of the Triller family, so long that he could not remember the time—perhaps fifty years. But the Trillers were not extinct: one was living at Freiberg, and two others elsewhere in Saxony. The place now belongs to a company, under whose management Triller beer has become famous in all the country round; and not undeservedly, as I from experience am prepared to affirm. There is a large garden, with paths winding among the trees, and open places bestrewn with tables and chairs enough for the innumerable guests who quench their thirst at the brewery.
As we strolled about the premises, the Braumeister called my attention to a writing over the main entrance—
Dulcius ex ipso fonte bibuntur aquæ,
remarking that he had never known a visitor disposed to quarrel with it. Then, abandoning his laconic phrases, he told me how the four hundredth anniversary of the Prinzenraub had been celebrated on the 8th of July, 1855. It was a day to be remembered in all the places made historic by the event. From Schedewitz, on the farther side of Zwickau, a long procession had walked to the Brewery, under triumphal arches erected on the way. First came a troop of Coalers, in forest garb, then friends of the company on foot and in wagons, and bands of music; altogether eight hundred persons, and among them the three Trillers. Airs were played and songs sung that made all the fire of patriotism glow again; and so earnestly did the multitude enter into the spirit of the celebration, that—a merry twinkle gleamed in the Braumeister's eye as he told it—"They drank a hundred eimers of beer. There they are: look at them," he added, pointing to an engraving of the whole procession—the Trillerzug, as he called it.
A similar festival was held at Altenburg, Hartenstein, and Grünhain on the same day, to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, and the reinvigoration of Saxon loyalty.
I was seated at one of the tables with a tankard of beer before me, when a young man came up, looked at me inquisitively, and said, "E shmall Eng-lish speak"—meaning, "I speak a little English."
I felicitated him on his acquirements, when he proceeded to tell me that he was one of the clerks employed in the counting-house, and having heard of my arrival from the Braumeister, could not resist the desire of speaking with an Englishman. Moreover, he would like to show me certain things which I had not yet seen, and he said, "If you pleasure in Prinzenraub find, so is glad to me."