Phalsbourg

“ And do you know how many of them there are, these Germans? Do you know that they are a million of men, exercised, disciplined, organized, ready to start at two weeks' notice—artillery, cavalry, infantry? Do you know that? You will receive them!"
"Yes," cried Father Baure, "Phalsbourg, with Bitche, Lichtenberg, and Schlestadt, would stop them for twenty years."
Captain Rondeau did not even take the trouble to reply, and, pointing from the window to the wood-cutters that were going away, he said to me: "Look, Father Frederick, look! Are those men wood-cutters? Do our wood-cutters march in ranks? ”

“ A permanent court-martial replaces ordinary tribunals.
"Inhabitants of Phalsburg! we expect from you courage, devotion, obedience! Vive l'Empereur!"
And a thousand cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" filled the air.
I trembled to the ends of my hair; my spirits of wine were still on the road; I considered myself a ruined man.
The immediate distribution of cartridges, and the order to the battalion to go and forage for provisions, and bring in cattle from the surrounding villages for the supply of the city, prevented me from thinking of my misfortune. ”

“ Parmentier, a tall, thin man, in a sky-blue dress-coat, a white cravat, and the tri-colored sash around his waist, stood on the top of the steps of the guard-house, with the members of the municipal council behind him, under the arch, and shouted out:
"Phalsburgians! The time has come in which to show your devotion to the Empire. A year ago all Europe was with us, now all Europe is against us. We should have everything to fear without the energy and power of the people. He who will not do his duty now will be a traitor to his country! Inhabitants of Phalsburg, show what you are! ”

“ And since the King has transferr'd the Regency of the Country hither from Hall, the Town grows every day finer, so that it may now be reckon'd one of the most beautiful Towns in the two Circles of Saxony.
From Magdebourg in my Way to Berlin I pass'd thro' Brandenburg, which is a City on the River Havel, that was built by M. Branden, a Prince of Franconia. 'Twas heretofore a Bishopric, but now the whole Country is seculariz'd,229 and makes a part of the Marquisate of Brandenburg. Here is a considerable Trade, and the King keeps a Garison in it, consisting of a Battalion of the tall Grenadiers. ”

“ Two days before, Austria's brave people in Vienna had broken its yoke; and summing up despots in the person of their tool, old Metternich, drove him away; and the Hapsburgs, trembling in their imperial cavern of imperial crimes, trembling, but treacherous, and lying and false, wrote with yard-long letters, the words, "Constitution" and "Free Press" upon Vienna's walls; and the people in joy cheered the inveterate liars, because the people knows no falsehood.
On the 14th, I announced the tidings from Vienna to our Parliament at Presburg. ”

“ One morning, like thunder out of a clear sky, news came of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war. I read the paper, but, not feeling that the news need interfere with my sight-seeing, went to the Hofbourg, the old palace, in the heart of the city, of the Imperial family of Austria. The building is extensive; the streets of the city at that time running under it here and there in tunnels. I visited the Schatz Kammer, the treasure-room, and saw men go almost demented at the spectacle of the gold and jewels heaped up in the cases. ”

“ Falkenstein village, close under the castle, looked like a brood of chickens huddled under its mother's wing. Kronberg and its towers were in shadow; but the vast plain beyond was bathed in light, and the Main and the Rhine were sparkling in the distance. All around me was a scene of savage Nature in her stern strength, all beyond of her motherly plentiful production. I counted eighteen villages; a familiar eye would probably have seen twice as many more. They are not easily distinguished from the earth, with which their colour blends harmoniously. ”

“ There came a moment, as I have pointed out in an earlier page in this book, when the Prussian kingship and the electorate of Brandenburg coincided in one person. All men of education know, and all men whatsoever feel, what influence an historical origin will have upon national outlook. East Prussia, therefore, remains to-day something of a political fetish. Its towns may be called colonies of the Germans, the birthplaces or the residences of men famous in the German story. ”

“ On this occasion Pfalz shall escape. You see, Ebearhard, on our first trip down the Rhine it is not my intention to fight if I can avoid conflict. The plan which proved successful with the four castles we have visited is impossible so far as Pfalz is concerned. If we attempted to enter this waterschloss by stealth, we would be discovered by those levying contributions on the barge. There is no cover to conceal us, so I shall give Pfalz the go-by, and also Gutenfels, because the latter is not a robber castle, but is owned by the Count Palatine, a true gentleman and no thief. ”

“ This new government decreed the transference of the Assembly from Berlin to Brandenburg, and brought the troops that had just returned from Denmark under General Wrangel to Berlin. The citizens were disarmed and a state of siege was proclaimed.
The revolutions of Vienna and Berlin had been fruitless; alike fruitless were the proceedings of the first German Parliament (Reichstag) , which met at Frankfort on the 18th of May 1848, and was forcibly dispersed by troops at Stuttgart on the 18th of June 1849. ”

“ The mark of Brandenburg, the mark against the Slave, has grown into the kingdom of Prussia, the Imperial state of Germany in its latest form. The Eastern mark, the mark against the Magyar, has grown into the archduchy which gave Germany so many kings, into the so-called Austrian ‘empire,’ into the Austro-Hungarian monarchy of our own day. ♦Analogies between Brandenburg and other marchlands.♦ The growth of Brandenburg or Prussia again affords an instructive comparison with the growth of Wessex in England, of France in Gaul, and of Castile in Spain. ”

“ The emperor declined the honor, jocularly remarking—
"There is no method more pleasant to kill an old man, than to marry him to a young bride."
The German empire was then divided into ten districts, or circles, as they were then called, each of which was responsible for the maintenance of peace among its own members. {102} These districts were, Austria, Burgundy, the Upper Rhine, the Lower Rhine, Franconia, Bavaria, Suabia, Westphalia, Upper Saxony and Lower Saxony. The affairs of each district were to be regulated by a court of a few nobles, called a diet. ”

“ This mutual engagement between leader and people—their hearts filled with the sacredness of the [Pg 250] moment, and their voices swelling into one grand roll—is almost overwhelming in its touching simplicity and fervour. That the custom has maintained itself with but minor changes through so many centuries answers for the admirable stability of the people, and the suitableness of the régime itself.
The common tie that bound together the thirteen autonomous states into one was the Diet or Tagsatzung. It met at one or other of the chief towns—Zurich, Lucerne, Bern, Baden, and so forth. ”

“ We cross the Donau at Dillingen, at Gunzberg, or I know not where; and by to-morrow's sunset, being rapid travellers, find ourselves at Ludwigsburg,—clear through Canstatt, Stuttgard, and certainly no Katte waiting there! Safe across the intermediate uplands, here are we fairly in the Neckar Country, in the Basin of the Rhine again; and old Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Wurtemberg bidding us kindly welcome, poor old bewildered creature, who has become the talk of Germany in those times. ”

“ But when the Prussian constituent assembly had met in Berlin and began to pass laws, and to design constitutional provisions, and to interfere with the conduct of the government in the spirit of the revolution, the king's mind gradually opened itself to other influences, and those influences gained access to him and surrounded him all the more readily since he removed his residence from Berlin to his palace at Potsdam, a little town preponderantly inhabited by courtiers and soldiers and other dependents of the government. ”

“ You shall serve the fatherland—you shall serve Germany, for Germany is in Austria just as well as in Prussia. Oh, believe me, my friend, only in Austria will you find men strong and bold enough to brave the intolerable despotism of the French. And the leading men there will welcome you most cordially; an appropriate sphere will be allotted to your genius, and the position to which you will be appointed will amply satisfy the aspirations of your ambition. ”

“ You should have seen how the citizens looked every morning, when they heard that the Austrians and Russians occupied Alsace, that the Prussians were marching upon Sarrebruck, or when an order was published for domiciliary visits, or for days' labor to wall up the posterns and orillons of the place, or to form companies of firemen to remove at once all inflammable matter, or to report to the governor the situation of the city treasury, and the list of the principal persons subject to taxes for the supply of shoes, caps, bed-linen, and so forth. ”

“ I came in one Day from Ludwigsbourg to Carlsrouhe, which is the Residence of the Margrave of Baden-Dourlach. The Name Carlsrouhe signifies Charles's Rest. The present Margrave Charles of Baden-Dourlach was the very Man that laid both the Plan and Foundation of this City, and its Castle. Nothing is so pretty as the Disposition of the whole: I wish I were able to give you an Idea of it. Imagine the Margrave's House to be at the Entrance of a great Forest, in the Center of a Star form'd by thirty two Walks, the chief of which behind the Palace is three German Leagues in length. ”

“ After the Peace of Westphalia, the Emperor Leopold summon’d the Dyet of the Empire to Augsbourg in 1690, and there he caus’d himself to be crown’d, and his Son Joseph to be elected King of the Romans.
The assembling of the Dyets, and the flourishing Trade at Augsbourg, have render’d it one of the most magnificent Cities in Germany. Its Squares are large, its Streets spacious, and its Fountains very beautiful. The Town-House is one of the finest Buildings that I have seen. ’Tis a vast square Edifice, well built of Free-Stone. The Porch is all of Marble. ”

“ I should have lik'd his Reception of me very well, if he had not made me drink so hard, that if I had staid there longer, my next Journey might probably have been a vast way beyond Berlin. 'Tis my Opinion, Things duly consider'd, that there's no need of any extraordinary Vocation to be a Fryar at Fulde; for those Gentlemen enjoy every thing that a Man would wish for in a genteel Life. The House they dwell in is more like the Palace of a great King than a Convent; and the Abbey-Church, and another lately built without the Town, may be reckon'd among the noblest Buildings in Germany. ”

“ Beyond these limits the former United Provinces, with the whole oceanic coast of Germany as far as the Elbe, and the cities of Bremen, Hamburg, and Lübeck, were incorporated with France. France now stretched to the Baltic, and, as Holstein was now incorporated with Denmark, France and Denmark had a common frontier. The Confederation of the Rhine was a protected state, and the Kingdom of Prussia and the self-styled ‘Empire’ of Austria could practically hardly claim a higher place. ”

“ The central cantons, strong in their mountain fastnesses, and on the borders of their sublime lakes, have maintained, under republican forms, the true aristocratic spirit, and the ancient religion of Switzerland. Those encircling these central states, the dwellers in the champaign country and in the cities, have gone into the follies of democracy, and have abandoned more or less the dignity of the old Swiss character, to ape the vices, political and social, of the neighbouring people, whether French or German. ”

“ Amateur statesmen who have never lived in Austria imagine that federalization of this empire and its rapprochement to the Catholic states of South Germany would be the best counterpoise to the evil Prussian influence over the German empire. What a misconception of the realities. Austria is the vanguard of Germany toward the southeast. The Hapsburgs and their German subjects have ever looked upon themselves as the instrument for the Germanization of the inferior races bordering on the territory of the German people. ”

“ How should the Empress of Austria, born, nurtured, and fed in the very center of despotism—not hearing or heeding the current ideas about human rights and freedom—entirely misunderstanding the past, the present, and the future—how should she suspect the terrific forces which were accumulating beneath the throne of France, or that it would become a scaffold for her child? Hapsburg and Bourbon, to her mind, were realities as fixed and enduring as the Alps. ”

“ The greater part of the present Switzerland had been originally included in the Kingdom of Burgundy, and was ceded to the empire, together with that kingdom, in 1033. A feudal nobility, lay and ecclesiastic, had gained a firm footing there. Nevertheless, by the 12th century the cities had risen to some importance. Zurich, Basel, Bern, and Freiburg had an extensive commerce and obtained municipal privileges. Three little cantons, far in the heart of the Swiss mountains, preserved more than all the others their indomitable spirit of independence. When Albert of Austria became Emperor [King?] ”