HEIDELBERG.
There is hardly a man, woman or child in the world who has not heard of
Heidelberg, and who does not know something of this famous little city
of students, wine, beer, castle and casks. It is a place better known,
probably, than any in Europe of its size and non-political importance,
and it entertains more sight-seers than any other. It is well worth the
attention given it.
Heidelberg is beautifully situated on the River Neckar, about twelve
miles from its junction with the Rhine, and a more delightful spot for
establishing the seat of a palatial residence does not exist in all
Germany.
On the one side is a high range of hills, on the other the beautiful
Neckar, the opposite bank of which is covered to the tops of the lovely
hills with terraced vineyards.
The very first thing the tourist has to see is the old Schloss, founded
by the Count Palatine Rudolph I., about the beginning of the fourteenth
century. It has passed through remarkable events. Various princes and
electors improved and fortified the original structure of Rudolph,
until, in 1720, when Elector Carl Theador rebuilt it, it covered a vast
extent of territory.
[Sidenote: THE OLD SCHLOSS.]
Situated on a spur of the Königestuhl, it is surrounded on three sides
by beautiful woods, while on the fourth the River Neckar flows past the
town down a wondrously beautiful valley, and loses itself in the Rhine,
twelve miles below. The outside walls are plain and unpretending, being
designed entirely for defense. But inside, the façades are embellished
with fine carvings, allegorical figures, the window arches having
medallions of eminent men of ancient times. In niches around the front,
facing the entrance, are statues of the sixteen Counts Palatine. This
front is thought to be the most magnificent, architecturally, of any of
the four, combining, as it does, four different styles: Doric, Tuscan,
Ionic and Corinthian. It certainly is very imposing, and before it was
battered and disfigured by cannon balls, during the war of 1693, it must
have been a wonderfully fine piece of work.
[Illustration: HEIDELBERG CASTLE, INSIDE THE COURT.]
The regular thing to do at Heidelberg is to go through the great,
gloomy subterranean passages that wind in and out under the massive
pile. It is not a cheerful trip, but it gives one a good idea of the
solidity of ancient masonry, and of the security of their old dungeons.
The Grand Balcony is a wide, well-built terrace on the river side of the
castle. From this point the view is magnificent, the whole Neckar valley
being spread out like a map, below us. Then we go on through great
rooms, whose ivy-covered walls once resounded with song and merry jest,
to the huge tower at the eastern angle of the castle. This old tower is,
or was, rather, a monster, being ninety-three feet in diameter, with
walls twenty-one feet thick. In 1689, when the French General, Melac,
was obliged to surrender the castle and town to the Germans, he blew up
the fortifications and set the castle on fire. The attempt to demolish
the tower was only a partial success. The walls were so thick and so
well built that the explosion only detached about a half of it, which
fell, a solid mass, into the moat, where it is to-day, as solid as it
was two centuries ago, though now its rough sides are covered with
shrubs and ivy.
The best view of the castle in its entirety is from the Great Terrace,
quite a little distance from the garden that surrounds the grand old
ruin. From this height is seen the beautiful valley, with the town
spread out in irregular shape on the banks of the Neckar. Across a deep
ravine, beautifully clothed with green, is the ruined castle, standing
out in bold relief, the ruined tower, the dismantled walls, the grand
promenade making a picture of rare beauty.
The castle is decidedly the finest structure of the kind in Europe,
beautiful in its location, beautiful in its design, and beautiful even
in its ruin.
Like most things that are interesting in these old countries, it is,
however, a remembrance of the days when force was the only law, when the
sword and the spear were the only arbiters, and he who had command of
the most of them was the ruler.
[Sidenote: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CASTLE.]
It has had many masters. In 1685 Louis XIV., of France, set up a claim
to the country and invaded it. Of course he had no earthly right to it,
any more than the then occupant, but that didn't matter. They didn't
split hairs in those days.
When a king wanted an adjoining country he simply figured up how many
cut-throats he had and how many cut-throats the king had that he
proposed to go for, and if he had more cut-throats than the other king,
why he went for him.
And so Count Melac, Louis's chief cut-throat, assailed Heidelberg, and
the city and castle capitulated to him. He occupied it during the Winter
of 1688, but as the German armies were approaching in too great force to
suit his notions, in March, 1689, he evacuated the place, having first
blown up the fortifications and burned the town, and made what havoc he
could. Four years later the French finished the destruction, then the
Germans rebuilt it in part, but, as if fate had a spite against it, it
was struck by lightning shortly after and was abandoned as a fortress
and palace, and so it stands to-day.
Ruin as it is, it is the most wonderful combination of nature and art I
have ever seen or ever expect to. The old kings who built it had good
eyes for effect as well as defense. The mountain is three hundred and
thirty feet above the river, and it is a precipice inaccessible except
by winding paths, which, when fortified, an hundred men might hold
against ten thousand. This before the days of rifled guns. Our present
artillery would knock the place as it was into a cocked hat in an hour.
But in those smooth-bore days it was a place of strength, and could only
be taken by a systematic siege.
We are much obliged to the French for one piece of vandalism. When they
evacuated it the last time they tried to blow up the principal round
tower. They placed a frightful amount of powder in it, and it exploded,
but so well had the work been built that it merely broke off about a
third of it, which toppled over into the moat and still lies there as it
fell. The walls at the point where the break is, are twenty feet thick,
and are as solid as a rock. There was no shoddy in this work. There
needed to be no shoddy, for the work cost the Rhine robbers who built it
nothing. They confiscated the quarries for the stone, and then drafted a
sufficient force of men from all parts of their dominions to do the
work, feeding them upon black bread and sour wine, which they seized
also, making the building of almost any kind of a castle a very cheap
affair.
It is a curious place--this reminiscence of the past. There are miles
of halls, of passages, secret and open; there are drawbridges and
turrets, and posts for warders; there is the enormous terrace,
overlooking the beautiful Neckar and the vine-clad hills on the opposite
bank; there is the wonderful court in the interior, the walls facing
inward, rich in statuary and wondrous carving, grandly even though a
ruin.
Imagine this vast structure when it was itself, filled with knights and
ladies, on the night of some festival! Think of it, with lights gleaming
from every window, the terrace filled with happy dancers, and the
immense court full of pleasure-seekers!
There have been high jinks in the old Schloss. It must have been a
wonderful place for everyone except the wretched peasantry--whose
unrequited labor built it, whose unrequited labor supported it, and
whose bodies defended it.
[Illustration: GREAT CASK--HEIDELBERG CASTLE.]
It is well that it is in ruins. Its walls are royal, and, the fact is, I
hate everything that savors of royalty.
[Sidenote: THE STUDENTS.]
In the castle is the famous tun of Heidelberg. This famous cask is
twenty-six feet high and thirty-two feet long, and it holds, or rather
held, for it has not been filled for several years, eight hundred
hogsheads of wine, or two hundred and thirty-six thousand bottles. There
is a platform on the top of it, upon which a cotillion can be
comfortably danced.
The University at Heidelberg has in course of preparation for future
beer drinking some eight hundred students, from all the countries of the
world. I suppose they do pay some attention to studies, that they do
attend lectures and recitations, and all that sort of thing; but all I
saw them do was to drink beer, which they do in a way that no other
class of young men in the world can. It is a large thing in Heidelberg
to be able to drink more beer than any one else.
Smoking divides the honors with beer, although, as one student can smoke
about as much as another, there is not that opportunity for display of
talent that there is in beer drinking.
The students are all in societies or clubs, and each club wears a cap of
a peculiar color. You go into one of the innumerable beer halls, and you
see at one table students with blue caps, at another with red, and
another with yellow, and so on. They never mix, and each society is at
deadly feud with all the others. They sit, and sit, and sit, at these
tables, drinking beer out of mugs, and smoking enormous pipes, mostly
meerschaum, which they are at great pains to color.
As a red-capped student is supposed to be at mortal feud with all the
other colored caps, duels are as common as beer--and I can't say more
than that. But a duel in Heidelberg is not a remarkably sanguinary
affair. It is about as harmless as a French duel. They don't fight with
revolvers at ten paces, or shot-guns at thirty, or sabres, or anything
of that sort; and instead of trying to kill each other, every possible
precaution is taken not to kill at all. The weapons are rapiers, very
sharp, and ugly enough, if the duelist really meant business; but both
contestants are so swaddled in cloths, so wrapped in cotton defences,
that any harm, aside from a cut in the face, is impossible. They fence
and thrust, and do all sorts of things, the object being to inflict a
wound upon the face; and the student receiving the wound is very proud
of it, and if his flesh is healthy enough to heal without a scar, he
tears it open. The scars he must have, for they are testimonials, as it
were, of his bravery.
So you see on the streets of Heidelberg any number of students with
their faces scarred and seamed, horribly disfigured, but not one of them
would sell a scar for anything earthly.
Their beer-drinking proclivities I have referred to. Tibbitts had a
letter to one of the red-capped students, who immediately introduced him
to his club, and the result was--beer. The quantity that Lemuel could
consume nettled his friend, and an attempt was made to put him under the
table. The Professor, who believes that there is a devil in every drop
of beer, warned Tibbitts against joining the party.
"They will get you intoxicated," said the good old man.
"Will they? Perhaps they will. But, Professor, a young man of good
physique, a son of nature, who has lived in Oshkosh, need not fear any
man who comes of the effete civilization of Germany. Don't fear the
result of this encounter. I shall do credit to the old flag. To my
beloved country I dedicate my stomach. I will fetch them all."
And so Tibbitts sat down with them, and he drank as often as they did
for a half hour, then he urged the drinking, and he called for larger
mugs.
There was consternation among the students. Tibbitts' friend was the
President of the club, and a mighty man among the beer drinkers; indeed,
he owed his official position to his prowess in this line, and here was
a fresh American urging him to deeper and deeper draughts.
The contest waxed warm. One by one the feebler men dropped out until
only two remained--Tibbitts and the President. Tibbitts was cool and
collected, the President was hot and flurried.
Tibbitts made the President understand that he wanted larger mugs. He
explained that he was thirsty, and that the time consumed in bringing
the small mugs (they held nearly a quart) was so much waste, and that
the effect of one quencher died out before another could be brought.
What he wanted was a mug that held some beer. He was not a baby, but a
man.
[Sidenote: MR. TIBBITTS AND THE STUDENTS.]
And so mugs were brought about twice the size of those they had been
using. Tibbitts touched his opponent's mug in good-fellowship, after
the custom, and putting his lips to it drank it off at one pull, and
tapped on the table to have it re-filled, to the delight of the other
colored caps, and the dismay of the reds. The President smiled in a
sickly sort of way and drank. He finished the mug, and leering wildly
around the room, made a feeble attempt to get his pipe to his mouth,
reeled and fell prostrate. He was vanquished, and his friends bore him
senseless from the floor.
"The idea of a mere German attempting to drink with a man who was weaned
on Oshkosh whisky," said Tibbitts, contemptuously. "I am now just in
humor to tackle the Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer of this
Club, all at once."
[Illustration: MR. TIBBITTS AND THE STUDENTS.]
He did not, however, for they were all gone. But the honor of America
was saved--according to the notion of Tibbitts.
A curious place is the famous restaurant on Haupstrasse, which for many
years has been the resort of the University student. Here he sits and
drinks his beer at a table that is literally covered with the names of
students carved in the solid oak. Many of the names there engraved are
now known the world over, though when they were cut there, many decades
ago, the youthful carvers were great in literature, science or art, only
in the dreams of their early manhood.
[Illustration: A RHINE STEAMER.]