Leipzig

“ Such was the fate of Leipzig, and of the beautiful environs of our inner city-walls.
You must know that the bread and forage waggons of a great French army are destined merely, as they pass through the villages, to receive the stores collected from all the barns, cellars, lofts, and stables, which are taken by force from the wretched husbandman, who is beaten, cut, and mangled, till he puts-to his last horse, and till he carries his last sheaf of corn and his last loaf of bread to the next bivouac ”

“ His youngest brother, Samuel, a talented boy, was now ready for college; so Jean Paul determined to make Leipzig his home while his brother pursued his course. What changes the last few years had wrought! Then he was stealing away from Leipzig in debt for his board, cold, hungry, and desolate; now he was coming, the brilliant author whom everybody delighted to honor. When we are in want, few are ready to help; when above want, the world stands ready to lavish all upon us. After spending some time in Leipzig, he visited Dresden to enjoy the culture of that artistic city. ”

“ The museum was erected with part of the munificent bequest made to the city by Dominic Grassi in 1881. As a musical centre Leipzig is known all over the world for its excellent conservatorium, founded in 1843 by Mendelssohn. The series of concerts given annually in the Gewandhaus is also of world-wide reputation, and the operatic stage of Leipzig is deservedly ranked among the finest in Germany. There are numerous vocal and orchestral societies, some of which have brought their art to a very high pitch of perfection. ”

“ On the north side of the inner town and on the promenade are the handsome exchange with library, and the reformed church, a pleasing edifice in late Gothic.
Leipzig has some interesting monuments; the Siegesdenkmal, commemorative of the wars of 1866 and 1870, on the market square, statues of Goethe, Leibnitz, Gellert, J. Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann, Hahnemann, the homeopathist, and Bismarck. There are also many memorials of the battle of Leipzig, including an obelisk on the Randstädter-Steinweg, on the site of the bridge which was prematurely blown up, when Prince Poniatowski was drowned ”

“ The sky was without a cloud, and all the country and even the forest, which lay three-quarters of a league before us, shone in the moonlight like silver. I thought involuntarily of the wood at Leipzig, where I had slipped into a clay-pit with two Prussian hussars, when poor Klipfel was cut into a thousand pieces at a little distance from me. ”

“ Many of the most audacious remained in Leipzig even when there was no guard duty to fulfil, and peopled the place for some time with champions of an extraordinarily desperate and dissipated type, who had been repeatedly sent down from various universities for rowdyism or debt, and who now, thanks to the exceptional circumstances of the day, found a refuge in Leipzig, where at first they had been received with open arms by the general enthusiasm of their comrades. ”

“ The prevailing tone of Leipzig society was, in point of fact, deliberately imitated from the pattern set to Europe by the Court of France. In contrast to the old-fashioned formality of Frankfort, the Leipziger aimed at a graceful insouciance in social intercourse and light, cynical banter in the interchange of his ideas on every subject, trifling or serious. In such a society all free, spontaneous expression of emotions or opinions was a mark of rusticity, as Goethe was not long in discovering. ”

“ On the following day, to his surprise, the Count of Mansfeld strode into his tent.
“Ah! my young friend,” he exclaimed, “I am glad indeed to see you so far recovered. I came to Leipzig with the countess and my daughter; for Leipzig at present is the centre where all sorts of political combinations are seething as in a cooking pot. It is enough to make one sick of humanity and ashamed of one's country when one sees the greed which is displayed by every one, from the highest of the princes down to petty nobles who can scarce set twenty men in the field. ”

“ MEMORIAL Addressed by the City of LEIPZIG to the independent and benevolent BRITISH NATION, In Behalf of the Inhabitants of the adjacent Villages and Hamlets,
who have been reduced to extreme Distress by the Military
Operations in October, 1813.
The prosperity of Leipzig depends upon commerce, as that of commerce depends upon liberty. Till 1806 it was a flourishing city. With England in particular, whose manufactures and colonial produce were allowed to be freely imported, its commercial relations were of the highest importance. ”

“ By the performance of yesterday evening you have gained the whole of the Leipzig public, who truly love music, as permanent friends; none here will ever henceforth speak of you or of your works but with the most heartfelt esteem, and receive with open arms all your future compositions, which will be assiduously studied, and joyfully hailed, by all friends to music in this town. ”

“ These and other glorious memories, suggested by Eisenach, Frankfort, Erfurt, Weimar, Jena, and Leipzig, made this pilgrimage of intense interest, and almost the only discord was the sight of the Leipzig Voelkerschlacht Denkmal, probably the largest, and certainly the ugliest monument in all the world. It has but one justification, in that it commemorates war, and no monument ever more fully symbolized by its own colossal crudity the moral ugliness of that most ghastly phenomenon of human life. ”

“ The total number of those engaged amounted to 507,000 without counting the troops left in fortresses.
The town of Leipzig is one of the most commercial and richest in Germany. It stands in the middle of a great plain which extends from the Elbe to the Harz mountains, to Thuringia, and to Bohemia. Its situation has made it almost always the principal theatre for the wars which have bloodied Germany. A little river named the Elster, which is so small and shallow that one could call it a stream, runs from south to north through water-meadows in a slight valley as far as Leipzig. ”

“ Intellectual interests of a high order have always characterized Leipzig, and what Karl von Holtei once said of it is true to-day: “There is only one city in Germany that represents Germany; only a single city where one can forget that he is a Hessian, a Bavarian, a Swabian, a Prussian or a Saxon; only one city where, amid the opulence of the commercial world with which science is so gloriously allied, even the man who possesses nothing but his personality is honoured and esteemed ”

“ Leipzig (357) , in the W. of Saxony, and largest city of that kingdom; is the third city in Germany. The old portion is narrow and quaint, with historic buildings; the new is well built, with splendid edifices. It is the seat of the supreme court of the Empire, of an old university which has a magnificent library and well-equipped medical school, and of one of the finest conservatories of music in Europe. ”

“ Leipzig is not only the seat of a famous university and the great book market of Germany, but has one of the largest annual fairs in the world, to which merchants come from all parts of the earth, even from America and China. ”

“ Commerce, Fairs.—The outstanding importance of Leipzig as a commercial town is mainly derived from its three great fairs, which annually attract an enormous concourse of merchants from all parts of Europe, and from Persia, Armenia and other Asiatic countries. The most important fairs are held at Easter and Michaelmas, and are said to have been founded as markets about 1170. The smaller New Year’s fair was established in 1458. Under the fostering care of the margraves of Meissen, and then of the electors of Saxony they attained great popularity. ”

“ Our chronicle of this first day of motoring includes a brief glimpse of Wittenberg, where Luther burned the Papal Bull and thus kindled the flame of the Reformation. After Wittenberg came Leipzig, famed as the home of immortal Baedeker. One cannot ride far in Germany without encountering a city counting its population by the hundred thousand. This wealth of population explains in part how Prussia, only a generation ago so agricultural, could have changed so quickly into a vast workshop; there has always been a plentiful supply of labor. ”

“ HISTORY OF THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR IN GERMANY. BOOK III. The glorious battle of Leipzig effected a great change in the conduct of Gustavus Adolphus, as well as in the opinion which both friends and foes entertained of him. Successfully had he confronted the greatest general of the age, and had matched the strength of his tactics and the courage of his Swedes against the elite of the imperial army, the most experienced troops in Europe. From this moment he felt a firm confidence in his own powers—self-confidence has always been the parent of great actions. ”

“ The Leipzig, itself, like the Schwaben, is a hawk's nest or eyrie. Up there one can look down by Authuille Wood to Albert church and chimneys, the uplands of the Somme, the Amiens road, down which the enemy marched in triumph and afterwards retreated in a hurry, and the fair fields that were to have been the booty of this war. Away to the left of this is the wooded clump of Bécourt, and, beyond it, One Tree Hill with its forlorn mound, like the burial place of a King. On the right flank is the Ancre Valley, with the English position round Hamel like an open book under the eye ”

“ The University and Education.—The university of Leipzig, founded in 1409 by a secession of four hundred German students from Prague, is one of the most influential universities in the world. It was a few years since the most numerously attended of any university in Germany, but it has since been outstripped by those of Berlin and of Munich. Its large revenues, derived to a great extent from house property in Leipzig and estates in Saxony, enable it, in conjunction with a handsome state subvention, to provide rich endowments for the professorial chairs. ”

“ The movement thereafter adopted Leipzig as its centre, an Independent stronghold; but when later the Government picked a quarrel with Leipzig, occupied it with troops and abolished its Independent régime, there was no resistance.
In this autumn of 1919 the German revolution seems hunted to death. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII MARCH-APRIL 1819 Journey from Dresden to Leipzig—The University of Leipzig—Liberal spirit—The English disliked in Saxony—The English Government hostile to liberty—Journey to Frankfort—From Frankfort to Metz and Paris—A.F. Lemaître—Bon voyage to the Allies—Return to England.
I left Dresden on the 2nd March, 1819. A Landkutsche conveyed me as far as Leipzig in a day and half, stopping the first night at Oschaly, where there is a good inn. At Leipzig I put up at the Hôtel de Bavière and remained five days. Leipzig is a fine old Gothic city. ”

“ Obstinately as the French in general defended themselves, they were, nevertheless, unable to withstand the iron masses of their assailants. They were overthrown in all quarters, and driven out of the place. The streets, especially in the suburbs, were strewed with dead. The writer often counted eight in a very small space. In about an hour you might venture abroad without danger in all parts of the town. But what sights now met the eye! Leipzig, including the suburbs, cannot occupy an area of much less than one (German) square mile. ”

“ Such a good reputation is certainly not without material advantage for the town of Leipzig, even independent of the intellectual benefit to art. Shall, then, those individuals to whom such happy results are owing, remain in a state of privation, now as formerly, irrespective of these services, and the change in the times, while the whole community thrives by their merits, and the city itself derives honour and profit from them? ”

“ On one side we have the worthy civilians, who think that Leipzig is Paris, and that everything is admirable,{191} and that if the members of the orchestra were not starving it would no longer be Leipzig ”

“ Another friar, a German of Leipzig, that same lecturer, you know, on the whole canon of the Scriptures, has written a book against me concerning the sacrament in both kinds, and is planning, I understand, still greater and more marvelous things. The Italian was canny enough not to set down his name, fearing perhaps the fate of Cajetan and Sylvester [10] . But the Leipzig man, as becomes a fierce and valiant German, boasts on his ample title-page of his name, his career, his saintliness, his scholarship, his office, glory, honor, ay, almost of his very clogs [11] . ”

“ Leipzig also contains about two hundred printing-works, some of great extent, and a corresponding number of type-foundries, binding-shops and other kindred industries.
The book trades give employment to over 15,000 persons, and since 1878 Leipzig has grown into an industrial town of the first rank. The iron and machinery trades employ 4500 persons ”

“ The news, which it appears some papers have published, that I was thinking of arranging a concert in Leipzig, belongs to the generation of ducks [geese?] who amuse themselves in swimming around my humble self. My visit to Leipzig has no other object than to make some of the musicians acquainted with one or two of my symphonic works. Should they be pleased with them, they might perhaps be given there next season. In any case, however, several of them will appear in score next autumn. ”