Ansbach

“ But they would find enough classicism at Ansbach, he promised them, and he entered with sympathetic intelligence into their wish to see this former capital when March told him they were going to stop there, in hopes of something typical of the old disjointed Germany of the petty principalities, the little paternal despotisms now extinct.
As they talked on, partly in German and partly in English, their purpose in visiting Ansbach appeared to the Marches more meditated than it was. In fact it was somewhat accidental; Ansbach was near Nuremberg; it was not much out of the way to Holland. ”

“ ALBERT (1490–1568) , Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, and first duke of Prussia, was the third son of Frederick of Hohenzollern, prince of Ansbach and Bayreuth, and Sophia, daughter of Casimir IV., king of Poland. Born at Ansbach on the 16th of May 1490, he was intended for the church, and passed some time at the court of Hermann, elector of Cologne, who appointed him to a canonry in his cathedral. Turning to a more active life, he accompanied the emperor Maximilian I. to Italy in 1508, and after his return spent some time in Hungary. ”

“ John, and the castle, once the residence of the margraves of Ansbach, now used as a library and picture gallery. The town has several schools, a theatre, and a public slaughter house. It has manufactures of cotton and half-silken fabrics, tobacco, earthenware, playing cards, cutlery, and white lead; also a considerable trade in wool, flax, and corn. Ansbach sprang up around a Benedictine monastery founded by St. ”

“ This is to be a real wedding-journey day, with no extraneous acquaintance to bother; the more strangers the better. Wurzburg is richer than anything I imagined. I've looked it all up; I've got the plan of the city, so that we can easily find the way. We'll walk first, and take carriages whenever we get tired. We'll go to the cathedral at once; I want a good gulp of rococo to begin with; there wasn't half enough of it at Ansbach. Isn't it strange how we've come round to it? ”

“ The architecture of the houses was a party to the illusion. St. Johannis, like the older church of St. Gumpertus, is Gothic, with the two unequal towers which seem distinctive of Ansbach; at the St. Gumpertus end of the place where they both stand the dwellings are Gothic too, and might be in Hamburg; but at the St. Johannis end they seem to have felt the exotic spirit of the court, and are of a sort of Teutonized renaissance.
The rococo margraves and margravines used of course to worship in St. ”

“ You are the cidevant Baron Anspach, of Phalsbourg, and you descend by the female line from the last Dukes of Lorraine. I know that, and I know also that your farm near Phalsbourg has been confiscated, because you emigrated; that you have no funds in France, and that you are there condemned to death.”
“I am obliged to you for the information, but I see nothing in it to prevent my pitching you into the water.”
“You may be right, sir; but even should you drown me, I do not perceive how it will improve your affairs. You will only have one friend less, and very certainly one misfortune more.” ”

“ I came in one day from Wurtzbourg to Anspach, which is twelve Miles, and pass'd thro' two or three little Towns not worth naming. Anspach is the Capital of the Margraviate so call'd, and the Residence of the Margrave of Brandenbourg, Chief of the second Branch of that Family settled in Franconia. 'Tis a small but pretty Town, and very well built. It has no Fortifications, and is only shut in by Walls surrounded with Walks which form a Bulwark. The Prince has a large Castle or Palace building here, which when finish'd will be magnificent. ”

“ Major Anspach hummed a tune as he lounged along with a most gallant air in the long brown scabbard which he called his overcoat, and which gave something so extravagant to his appearance, that the gate-keeper at the Tuileries had some remorse for letting him pass: nevertheless, the major, when he had entered the orangery, resumed his gravity and dignified deportment ”

“ A Prussian recruiting officer and a Prussian soldier's wife induced an Anspach soldier to desert for the sake of re-enlisting in the Prussian army. They were intercepted by the Anspach authorities. The woman was hanged; the officer was obliged to be present at the execution and was then locked up in a fortress. The deserter seems to have escaped with his life, being a valuable merchantable commodity. [9]
Having enlisted his recruits, perhaps under a foreign jurisdiction, the officer, or under-officer, was obliged to get them to his garrison. ”

“ As to the Troops the Margravine Regent only keeps up196 such a number as is necessary to furnish her Quota to the Empire, and to guard her Person.
The Margraviate of Anspach is very much interspersed with Woods, which makes it a fine Country for Hunting. 'Tis said that it brings in 500000 Crowns every Year to its Sovereign. The Principal Towns are Anspach and Schwabach, in which Manufactures are erected that do great Prejudice to the City of Nuremberg. ”

“ The meteoric train rushed along, scarcely stopping for food or sleep, but occasionally delayed by business of inspection, until it reached Anspach, where the king’s beautiful daughter, then but sixteen years of age, resided with her uncongenial husband. Here the Crown Prince had some hope of escape. He endeavored to persuade his brother-in-law, the young Marquis of Anspach, to lend him a pair of saddle-horses, and to say nothing about it. But the characterless young man, suspecting his brother, and dreading the wrath of his terrible father-in-law, refused, with many protestations of good-will. ”

“ Human nature cannot stand this always; and it is time there were an end of deliberating. Can we ever have such a chance again?—What I find of certain concerning Friedrich while at Anspach is, That there comes by way of Erlangen, guided forward from that place by the Rittmeister von Katte, a certain messenger and message, which proved of deep importance to his Royal Highness. The messenger was Lieutenant Katte's servant: who has come express from Berlin hither. ”

“ The actual buildings, which are among the most magnificent in Austria, were constructed between 1686 and 1745. Its library, with over 70,000 volumes, contains valuable manuscripts and also a fine collection of coins. Enns is one of the oldest towns in Austria, and stands near the site of the Roman Laureacum. The nucleus of the actual town was formed by a castle, called Anasiburg or Anesburg, erected in 900 by the Bavarians as a post against the incursions of the Hungarians. ”

“ Alsace is German at heart and belongs in the Empire. To abandon Lorraine would be to disgrace the fifty thousand graves of brave Germans who gave their lives to win back the lost provinces and to gain the German Rhine. The international politics of Germany hinge on romantic sentiment.
Moreover, though forty years is a long period in the lifetime of a man, it is but a moment in the history of a race. Alsace lies where races meet. She has been part of Germany, of Austria, of France, of Germany again. ”

“ I was not many hours in travelling from Anspach to Nuremberg, thro' a Country extremely sandy, but very well cultivated, and interspers'd with considerable Villages which in our Country wou'd be reckon'd Towns.
So much has already been said by others of the City of Nuremberg, that I have very little to add to it. I assure you this Town is the most disagreeable Place in Europe to live in. The Patricians are the People of the first Rank there, and lord it like the petty Nobles of Venice. The Government here too has very great Resemblance with the Venetian, and they have a sort of Doge. ”

“ In the rapidity of this growth, there was something unnatural. By the two last divisions of Poland, about 1772 square miles of Sclavonic country were added. Shortly before, the Principalities of the Franconian Hohenzollerns, Anspach and Baireuth, were gained, another 115 square miles. Besides this, after the peace of Luneville, forty-seven square miles of the Upper Rhine district of Cleves were exchanged for 222 square miles of German territory; parts of Thuringia, including Erfurt, half Munster, also Hildesheim and Paderborn; finally, Anspach was again exchanged for Hanover. ”

“ Anscharius is admired, both for the author's accuracy and piety, and for the elegance and correctness of the composition. His letter to Walburge, first abbess of Nienherse, is a pathetic exhortation to humility and virginity. The see of Hamburg being united to Bremen by St. Anscharius, this became the metropolitan church of all the north of Germany: but the city becoming Lutheran, expelled the archbishop in the reign of Charles V. This see and that of Ferden were secularized and yielded to the Swedes by the treaty of Westphalia, in 1648. ”

“ Were I to revisit Alsace-Lorraine at the present time, I should only hear French speech among intimate friends and in private, so strictly of late years has the law of lèse-majesté been, and is still, enforced.
Nothing strikes the sojourner in Alsace-Lorraine more forcibly than the outspokenness of its inhabitants regarding Prussian rule. Young and old, rich and poor, wise and simple alike unburden themselves to their chance-made English acquaintance with a candour that is at the same time amusing and pathetic. For the most part no heed whatever is paid to possible German listeners. ”

“ He saw the entire sky unveiled, and below him, in front, to the left and to the right, something of a softer, more misty blue, the land of Alsace. The smell of the fields and of plants wet with the dew, rose from the soil like a harvest of the night. The wind wafted it, the cold wind, the familiar passer-by on this plain, the vagabond companion of the Rhine. One could distinguish no detail in the shadow where Alsace slept, except at a distance of a few hundred yards, where lines of roofs clustered about a round grey belfry ending in a steeple. That was the village of Alsheim. ”

“ They bent over to kiss the hand of their mother who, with a distant smile on her well preserved though somewhat tired and peaked features, looked over their heads and directed a few words to the governess in French. Then she walked to the glass door. The children followed her: the girls in the order of their age, after them the governess, the boy last. For some reason or other he turned around before crossing the sill, and since no one else was in the lobby his strange dusky eyes met those of Aschenbach who, his newspaper on his knees, lost in thought, was gazing after the group. ”

“ M. Ulrich and Jean went to the middle of the room without his giving the least sign that he was conscious of their presence. This poor human ruin was, however, the same man who had founded the factory at Alsheim, who had raised himself from the condition of a little country proprietor, who had been elected protesting deputy, who had been seen and heard in the Reichstag, claiming the unrecognised rights of Alsace and demanding justice of Prince Bismarck. Intelligence was watching, imprisoned, like the flame which lit up the room that night ”

“ As France tried for years to suppress the German language and German culture in Alsace, it becomes Germany's national duty in turn to wean these people from the French. The FrancoPrussian war was begun by Napoleon, with the avowed purpose of seizing the Rhine provinces for France. 'To guard against the repetition of such an offense,' the Pangermanists contend,' we have taken the Rhine valley for Germany. The connection of Elsass-Lothringen with the Empire is the very last word of irrevocability. ”

“ Thus even as a young man continually devoted to the pursuit of craftsmanship—and that of no ordinary kind—he had never known the careless freedom of youth. When, around thirty-five years of age, he had been taken ill in Vienna, one sharp observer said of him in company, "You see, Aschenbach has always lived like this," and the speaker contracted the fingers of his left hand into a fist ”

“ No one who has not stayed in Alsace among Alsatians can realize the intense clinging to France among the people, nor the sacrifices made to retain their nationality. And it is well the true state of feeling throughout the annexed territory should be known outside its limits. With a considerable knowledge of French life and character, I confess I went to Mulhouse little prepared to find there a ferment of feeling which years have not sufficed to calm down. ”

“ It has been torn from France and transferred to Germany, without the consent of its own people; and though the conquerors try to make things pleasant, and to soften as much as may be the bitterness of subjugation, they cannot succeed in doing the impossible. The people feel that they have been conquered, and the iron has entered into their souls. One can see it in a silent, sullen look, which is not natural to Frenchmen. This is the more strange, because a large part of the population of Alsace are Germans by race and language. ”

“ There it was that all the pilgrims to Sainte Odile met to see Alsace when the weather was clear. A wall, high enough to lean on, runs along the top of an enormous block of rock, advancing like a spur above the forest. It overlooks the pines which cover the slopes everywhere. From the extreme point shut in, like the lantern of a lighthouse, one can see to the right quite a group of mountains, and in front and to the left the plain of Alsace. At this moment the fog was divided into two parts, for the sun was shining on the peaks of the Vosges. ”