TWENTY YEARS IN EUROPE.
[Illustration: Heidelberg Castle.]
Twenty Years in Europe
A CONSUL-GENERAL’S MEMORIES
OF NOTED PEOPLE, WITH LETTERS
FROM GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN
BY
S. H. M. BYERS,
_U. S. Consul-General to Switzerland and Italy_,
AUTHOR OF
“SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA,” “THE HAPPY ISLES,”
“SWITZERLAND AND THE SWISS,” ETC.
_PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED._
[Illustration]
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS.
Copyright, 1900, by Rand, McNally & Co.
INSCRIBED
TO
MARGARET GILMOUR BYERS.
Time robs us all of some things we would keep,
And favoring winds to-morrow may forsake;
But, joyous thought--O! Future! Smile or weep,
The happy years behind us none can take!
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR.
While staying in Switzerland and Italy as a consular officer, during a
period of well on to twenty years, I kept a diary of my life. Without
being a copy of the diary, this book is made up from its pages and
from my own recollections of men, scenes, and events. It was during an
interesting period, too. There were stirring times in Europe. Two great
wars took place; one great empire was born; another became a republic;
and the country of Victor Emmanuel changed from a lot of petty dukedoms
to a free Italy. It seemed a great period everywhere, and everything of
men and events jotted down at such a time would of necessity have its
interest. This book is not a history--only some recollections and some
letters.
Among the letters are some fifty from General Sherman, whose intimate
friendship I enjoyed from the war times till the day of his death. They
are printed with permission of those now interested, and they may be
regarded as in a way supplementary to the series of more public letters
of General Sherman printed by me in the North American Review during
his lifetime. They possess the added interest that must attach to the
intimate letters of friendship coming from a brilliant mind. Their
publication can only help to lift the veil a little from a life that
was as true and good in private as it was noble in public.
S. H. M. BYERS.
ST. HELENS, DES MOINES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
1869. PAGE.
A Little White Card with President Grant’s Name on It--A
Voyage to Europe--An English Inn--Hear Gladstone Speak--
John Bright and Disraeli. 15
CHAPTER II.
1869.
In Switzerland--The Alps--Embarrassment in Not Knowing
the Language--Celebrated Exiles Meet in a Certain Café--
Brentano--Wagner--Kinkel--Scherr--Keller and Others. 20
CHAPTER III.
1870.
In the Orsini Café--Great News from France--What the Exiles
Think--Letter from General Sherman--I Get Permission to Go
and Look at the War--In the Snow of the Juras--Arrested--
The Surrender of the 80,000--Zurich in the Hands of a Mob--
Friendly Hint. 27
CHAPTER IV.
1871.
The Paris Horrors--Some Excursions with Literary People--Beer
Gardens--A Characteristic Funeral--Funeral of a Poet’s
Child--Caroline Bauer, the Actress--A Polish Patriot--
Celebrating the Fourth of July at Castle Rapperschwyl--The
St. Bernard--The Mules and Dogs--On a Swiss Farm--For
Burning Chicago. 34
CHAPTER V.
1872.
Louis Blanc, the Statesman--His Novel Courtship--His
Appearance--Invites Us to Paris--Just Miss Victor Hugo--
His Speech at Madame Blanc’s Grave--Letter from Louis
Blanc--Alabama Arbitrators--See Gambetta and Jules Favre. 42
CHAPTER VI.
1872.
William Tell--The Rigi in the Good Old Times--Pilatus--Rose
Bushes for Fuel. 48
CHAPTER VII.
1872.
General Sherman Visits Us at Zurich--Letters from Him--Swiss
Officers Entertain Him--His Lake Excursion--He Explains His
Greatest Campaign to Them--He is Entertained at the Swiss
Capital--Letter from General Dufour. 52
CHAPTER VIII.
1872.
Letter from General Sherman--Visit America--Sands of Bremen--
Storms at Sea--Elihu Washburne--Banquet to Him on Ship--
I am a Guest at the Sherman Home--Mrs. Sherman--Arrange
to Take Miss Sherman to Europe--Meet Mr. Blaine--My Song
Sung in the Sherman Home--Conversations with Sherman--Meet
President Grant--How I Happened to Be in the Rebel Army
Once--Letters from General Sherman. 61
CHAPTER IX.
1873.
Letter from General Sherman--Loss of the “Atlantic”--The
Boyhood Home of Napoleon III and of His Mother, Queen
Hortense--A Companion Tells of the Prince’s Pranks and
Studies--Josephine’s Harp--Arenaberg Full of Napoleon
Relics--We Have a Long Interview with the Ex-Empress
Eugenie--Letter from Sherman--Speaks of Thiers. 77
CHAPTER X.
1873.
The Source of the Rhine--Strange Villages There--A Republic
Four Hundred Years Old--The “Gray League”--“The League of
the House of God”--Louis Philippe’s Hiding Place--A Tour in
the Valley of the Inn--Letter from General Sherman--Regrets
His Career Seems Over. 86
CHAPTER XI.
1874.
Sherman on Cuba--Visit Italy--Garibaldi’s Wonderful Reception
at Rome--The Artist Freeman--First American Painter to
Live in Rome--Rome in 1840--See Victor Emmanuel--Joaquin
Miller--His Conversation and Appearance--New Swiss
Constitution--More Letters from General Sherman--Too Many
Commanders in Washington for Him--Will Go to St. Louis--His
Views of War Histories. 95
CHAPTER XII.
1875.
Letters from Mrs. Sherman and the General--He Tells Me He
is Writing His Life--The Negro Question--A Chateau by
Lake Zurich--I Write a Book on Switzerland--Also Write a
Play--A City of Dead Kings--Go to London--Meet Colonel
Forney--Dinner at George W. Smalley’s--Kate Field--Visit
Boucicault--Conversations with the Newer Shakespeare--The
Beautiful Minnie Walton--Breakfast at Her Home--Professor
Fick--His Home Built in the Old Roman Wall--Lectures--
Holidays at the Consulate--Mrs. Congressman Kelley--A
Student Commerz--Beer Drinking--Dukes of the Republic--
Duels--Letter from General Sherman--Prussian Army
Maneuvers. 104
CHAPTER XIII.
1876.
Storm in the Alps--Mr. Benjamin--Kate Sherwood Bonner--
Icebergs--A Scotch Poet--Horatio King’s Literary Evenings--
Colonel Forney--Mr. Robert--A New York Millionaire’s Home--
A Christmas Night Hurricane at Sea--The Tilden-Hayes Fight--
Civil War Feared in Washington--Dennison, the Inventor--A
Strange Murder--The Wreck of the Schiller and Loss of Miss
Dimmick. 119
CHAPTER XIV.
1877.
General Grant Visits Lake Luzern--Conversations with Him--
How I Brought the Good News of Sherman’s Successes in the
Carolinas to General Grant at Richmond--Grant’s Simplicity
in His Travels--A Strange Experience on the Rigi--London
Papers Amazed at the Population of the United States--First
Telephone. 128
CHAPTER XV.
1877.
General Grant and the Swiss President--Banquet to Grant at
Bern--Good Roads--Am Chargé d’Affaires for Switzerland--
Writing for the Magazines. 134
CHAPTER XVI.
1877.
Franz Liszt at Zurich--Swiss Great Lovers of Music--Wagner
Once Lived Here--His Singular Ways--Dr. Willi--Madame
Lucca’s Villa--Liszt’s Kissing Bees--Jefferson Davis’
Daughter--A Laughable Mistake. 140
CHAPTER XVII.
1878.
Some Recollections of Mine about General Grant in the War--
Grant at Champion Hills--Sherman’s Letter on Confiscation by
Taxation in America--Grant at Ragatz--I Give a Banquet in
His Honor at Zurich. 145
CHAPTER XVIII.
1878.
The St. Gothard Tunnel--I Describe It for Harper’s Magazine--
Its Cost--A Great Scare in the Tunnel. 153
CHAPTER XIX.
1879.
American Artists at Munich--I Meet Mark Twain--Take Him to
an Artists’ Club--Conversations with Him--Beer Drinking--
He Reads the Original of “What I Know about the German
Language”--We Entertain the Americans at Zurich--A Letter
from General Sherman--Confederates More Popular than Union
Men--Sherman Ready to Surrender 157
CHAPTER XX.
1879.
A Trip Through the Black Forest--Stein on the Rhine--A Famous
Castle--“All Blown Up”--Good Roads--Fox Hunting. 165
CHAPTER XXI.
1879.
Bret Harte--Letters from Him--Visits Us--Stay at Bocken--
Conversations--Mrs. Senator Sherman--Evenings at Bocken--
We All Go to the Rigi--How We Got the “Prince’s” Rooms--
Harte Goes with Us to Obstalden in the Alps--Very Simple
Life--A Strange Funeral--Harte Finds His Stories in a
Village Inn--More Letters--We Visit the Moselle River--
Finer than the Rhine--A Wonderful Castle of the Middle
Ages--All Furnished and Fresh as When New--The French Did
Not Find It When They Were Demolishing German Castles--An
Exquisite Gothic Church Five Hundred Years Old--Wonderful
Roman Ruins at Treves--More Letters from Bret Harte--A
Happy Man. 170
CHAPTER XXII.
1880-1881.
A Little Stay by the Mediterranean--Am Offered a Position
in China--An Article on the Swiss Rhine--Also One on My
Experiences in the Rebel Army--Two Letters from General
Sherman--Grant and the Presidency--Says the Bare Narrative
of My Escape from Prison Would Be an Epic--Banquet at
the Legation--I Write for the New York Tribune an Exposé
of How Certain European Communities Sent Paupers to the
United States--Am Violently Attacked for It by Many
American Journals and Reprimanded by State Department--
Swiss Government Complains--Investigation Follows--I Am
Justified--Letter from Sherman as to His Son Tom--Visit
America--Secretary Blaine Compliments Me--The Press Changes
Its Tone and New Laws Are Adopted as to Immigration in United
States and Switzerland--Tribune Says Editorially, “Mr. Byers
Deserves the Thanks of the American People”--A Little Visit
to the Poet Longfellow, and the Alcotts; also to the Author
of “America.” 189
CHAPTER XXIII.
1881.
Elm and All Its People Destroyed by an Avalanche--A Foot
Trip in Ireland--Fenians--Red Coats--Poverty--The
Queen Hooted--Out of Jail and a Hero--Muckross Abbey by
Moonlight--An Irish Funeral--A Duplicate Blarney Stone--
Letters from General Sherman--The Duke of Wellington--The
Assassination of President Garfield. 205
CHAPTER XXIV.
1882-1883.
Visit Northern Italy--American Indians in Zurich--Death of
the Poet Kinkel--Letters from Carl Schurz and the Poet’s
Wife--Letter from Sherman as to the Bounteous Mississippi
Valley--A Second Letter from Sherman--The Presidency--
Conversations with Scherr, the Writer--The Poet Kinkel’s
Son--His Powerful Memory--We Visit Berlin--Minister
Sargent’s Trouble with Prince Bismarck over American Pork--
Sargent Is Appointed to St. Petersburg--Indians Again--Baby
Lions--Visit America Again--Funeral of the Author of “Home,
Sweet Home”--Swiss National Exhibition--The Swiss War
Minister Visits Me--We Had Been Comrades in Libby Prison--
Trouble with Fraudulent Invoices--Origin of Expert System
at Consulate--I Succeed in Stopping the Frauds--My Action
is Reported at Washington as Saving a Million Dollars to the
Government--Another Letter from General Sherman--His Coming
Retirement from the Army. 216
CHAPTER XXV.
1884.
Some Interesting Letters from General Sherman--Requests for
Souvenirs--His “Flaming Sword”--One on the Presidency--
I Am Appointed Consul General for Italy--An American
Fourth of July Picnic on Lake Zurich--Lord Byron’s Home in
Switzerland--Some Old Letters about His Life There--The
Lake Dwellings of Switzerland--Keller, the Antiquarian--
Power of Swiss Torrents. 225
CHAPTER XXVI.
1884.
Start for Italy--The Cholera--Ten Days in Quarantine on
Lake Maggiore--A Heroic King--We Are Presented to Queen
Margaret--American Artists in Rome--The Royal Balls--
Receptions and Parties--Meet Many People of Note--The
Hills of Rome--Minister Astor and His Home--Hugh Conway--
Ibsen--Marion Crawford--One of the Bonapartes--Keats’
Room--The Cardinals--Ischia Destroyed--Christmas in Rome--
Letter from General Sherman--His Views of Rome--Cleveland’s
Election--Franz Liszt Again. 244
CHAPTER XXVII.
1885.
Still in Rome--Presented to Pope Leo XIII--Story, the Poet
Sculptor--Randolph Rogers--Tilton--Elihu Vedder--Astor
Resigns--Secretary of Legation Dies with Roman Fever--I
Am Put in Charge of Legation--Capri--Governor Pierpont--
Things Supernatural--Talk against Gladstone--Shakespeare
Wood--Senator Moleschott, a Remarkable Man--Interesting
Letters from General Sherman--Party Stronger than
Patriotism; My Recall--Money Lending and Taxes--Keep Out of
Debt. 261
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1886.
The North American Review Engages Me to Edit Several Chapters
of the Sherman Correspondence--Sherman Writes as to
Magazines and His Book--The General Invites Me to Come and
Stay at His Home in St. Louis--He Offers Me the Use of All
His Papers--I Publish Also in the Review a Prose Narrative
of the March to the Sea--Mrs. Sherman Reads It to the
General--Buffalo Bill--General Gives Me His Army Badge--
Nights in Sherman’s Office--Conversations with Him--Life
in the Sherman Home--The General’s Complete Reconciliation
with His Son Tom--Interesting Letters from Sherman as to
Magazines--His Forthcoming Book--Farms and Taxes--War
Histories--Grant’s Book--Newspapers--Christmas Letter. 274
CHAPTER XXIX.
1887-1890.
An Interesting Letter from General Grant--Sherman Living
in New York--His Immense Popularity with All Americans--
Letters from Him--Exhibited Like a Circus--No Union Man
Left in Foreign Service by Cleveland--He Writes for the
Magazines--Magazines Again--Approves My Article in the
North American Review on the March to the Sea--Humblest
Union Man Better Patriot than the Proudest South Carolina
Rebel--Sheridan Dying--Congress Should Make Rank of
Lieutenant General Permanent--His Reception at Columbus--
Death of Mrs. Sherman--About His Memoirs--No Profit--The
Army of the Tennessee at Cincinnati--My Poem There--An Odd
Interview at the White House--Conversations with Secretary
Blaine--Death of the Great General--Speeches About Him in
the Senate--I Am Again Appointed to Switzerland. 287
CHAPTER XXX.
1891.
Go to Switzerland as Consul General--An Ocean Voyage Then and
Now--A Glimpse of Burns’ Home--The Highest City in Europe--
A Novel Republic--Life in the Higher Alps--Headquarters for
Embroidery--Princess Salm-Salm--An Open Air Parliament--
The Upper Rhine--At Hamburg--A Summer on the Baltic--
Interview with Prince Bismarck. 304
TWENTY YEARS IN EUROPE
CHAPTER I
1869
A LITTLE WHITE CARD WITH PRESIDENT GRANT’S NAME ON IT--A VOYAGE
TO EUROPE--AN ENGLISH INN--HEAR GLADSTONE SPEAK--JOHN BRIGHT
AND DISRAELI.
In the State Department at Washington, there is on file a plain little
visiting card, signed by President U. S. Grant. That card was the
Secretary’s authority for commissioning me Consul to Zurich. “I would
much like to have that little card,” I said to an Assistant Secretary,
long years afterward. “Most anybody would,” replied the official,
smiling. “You may copy it, but it can not be taken from the files.”
That card, in its time, had been of consequence to me. It took me from
a quiet little Western town to a beautiful Swiss city, where I was to
spend many years of my life, and where I was to meet people, look on
scenes and experience incidents worth telling about. And now it has led
to my writing down the recollections of them in a book.
I had served four years, that were full of incident, in the Civil War.
At its close the opportunity was mine to enter the regular army with
a promotion; but many months in Southern prisons had nearly ruined my
health and I declined the proffered commission.
“You did well,” wrote General Sherman to me, “to prefer civil to
military pursuits; and I hope you will prosper in whatever you
undertake. You now know that all things resulted quite as well as we
had reason to expect” (referring to the Carolina campaign), “and now,
all prisoners are free--the war over.”
The years immediately following the war were spent in efforts to get
well, and now when this offer to go to Switzerland, with its glorious
scenery and salubrious climate, came, I was overjoyed.
On the 23d of July, 1869, my newly wedded wife and I were standing on
the deck of an ocean steamer in the harbor of New York. It was the
“City of London.”
As the sun went down in the sea that night, many stood on the deck
there with us, straining their eyes at a long, low strip of land
bordering the horizon, now far behind them. It was America. Some were
looking at it for the last time. My wife and I were not to see it
again, except on flying visits, for sixteen years. The gentle breeze,
the summer twilight, the vast and quiet ocean, the limitless expanse,
the silence, save the panting of the engines, the white sails and
the evening light of distant ships passing, gave us a feeling of
far-offness from all that belonged to home.
Shortly the great broad moon, apparently twice its usual size, quietly
slipped up out of the sea. At first we scarcely realized what it was,
it was so great, so splendid, so unexpected. Moonlight everywhere is
calming and impressive to the senses, but at sea, spread out over the
limitless deep--with the great starlit tent of the heavens reaching
all around and down to the waters, it touches the heart to its very
depths. We scarcely slept that night--the sea and the moonlight were
too beautiful. We walked the deck and built air castles.
_August 3, 1869._--Yesterday our ship entered the Mersey and turned
in among a wilderness of masts in front of Liverpool. We walked
about some in the city of Gladstone’s birth, and that night had our
first experience of the quiet comforts of a little English inn.
The gentility, the welcome, the home snugness, the open fireplace,
the teakettle, the high-posted, curtained beds, all contrasted
strongly with a noisy, American tavern, with its loud talk and dirty
tobacco-spitting accompaniments. The enormous feet of the Liverpool
cart-horses also impressed us.
This morning we called at the American Consulate. The clerk said the
Consul was away at the bank. Possibly like Hawthorne, one of his
predecessors, he found nothing to do here but look after his salary.
Anyway this Consulate is one of the best things in the gift of the
President. In Hawthorne’s time, the pay was four times that of a
Cabinet officer. Some years, the fees equaled the President’s own
salary.
_August 10._--The sights we had most wanted to see in London were the
Tower, the Abbey, the Fish Market, the docks, and the fogs; these and
Mr. Gladstone. The fogs we did not need to see; we could _feel_ them
in our very bones. It was fog everywhere. Three people were reported
killed the very day we got here--run over by wagons and omnibuses,
plowing through the murky thickness. Street lamps are burning in the
middle of the afternoon.
Billingsgate Fish Market was not half so wicked as I had heard. It is
said to be two hundred years old. It smells as if it were a thousand.
There is possibly nothing so interesting to an American elsewhere on
English earth, as the “Poets’ Corner” in Westminster Abbey, and, next
to that, the Tower of London.
The opulence of the London docks also simply amazed us. Imagine an
underground wine vault, seven acres in extent. The total vaults of the
Eastern Dock Co. measure 890,000 square feet. The St. Catherine Docks
cost nine millions of pounds.
John Lothrop Motley, the historian, is American Minister at London.
We called. Found him a tall, aristocratic, consumptive-looking man,
apparently not over glad to see traveling Americans. He had in his
youth been a fellow student of Bismarck. Later, his daughters married
Englishmen. Mr. Motley, like some other Americans sent to high office
in London, is not extremely popular among his own countrymen. Neither
did Grant approve him; but removed him later, spite of his backing by
Charles Sumner.
The Secretary of Legation kindly got me a ticket to the gallery of
the House of Parliament. It seemed extraordinary good luck, for whom
else should I hear speak, that very afternoon, but John Bright, Mr.
Gladstone and the future Lord Disraeli. I looked for oratory in Mr.
Gladstone and saw none, either of voice, manner or word. The subject
possibly required none. It was the Scotch Education Bill. The tall,
grave, spare-looking man stood there with papers in his hand, talking
in the most commonplace manner. Often he turned to some colleague
and looked and waited as if expecting an explanation. At last he sat
down suddenly, as if he had got up out of time. Mr. Disraeli had been
sitting there, writing something on the top of his hat, which he had
just taken off for the purpose. There seemed to be no desks. When I
first noticed numbers of the members with their hats on, I wondered
if the session had begun. What I noticed about Mr. Disraeli was the
long legs he stretched out before him, the dark, intellectual face,
the large features, the yellow skin, the long black hair, the Jewish
expression. He followed Mr. Gladstone, but in a voice so subdued that
I, in the gallery, did not understand a word he said. Burly John
Bright, with his noble face and sturdy mien, followed. He looked like
the typical Englishman. He spoke to the bill in an earnest voice and
loud enough, but said nothing that I remember. A Scotch member then
rose in confusion, mumbled a few words, got scared, mixed up, turned
red and sat down. And this is English oratory, I meditated, and called
to mind the names of Douglas and Webster and Lincoln and Blaine. I
suppose I was simply there on the wrong day.
_Sunday._--We spent a rainy Sunday in London, walking about the
deserted streets. Every blind was down--there was silence everywhere.
We seemed the only people alive in great London town. Our melancholy
was added to by having, through misunderstanding, missed a train that
was to take us to a friend in the country, where a hot dinner and
English hospitality had awaited us.
_At the Channel._--Up to this time there had been nothing so
interesting and romantic to me in English scenery as the big castle
above the white cliffs of Dover. There was the high, sloping, green
plateau and the grey old Castle a thousand feet above us--below it was
the sea--across the Channel, only thirty miles away, lay sunny France.