THE LIFE OF THE LOWER NOBILITY.
(1500-1800.)
The lot of the German peasant and of the German noble are closely bound
together; the sufferings of the one become the disease of the other:
the one has been lowered by servitude; the capacity, cultivation, and
worth of the other to the State have been impaired by the privileges of
a favoured position. Now both appear to be convalescent.
The lower German noble, before the beginning of the Thirty Years' War,
was experiencing an important transition; he was about to forget the
traditions of the middle ages, and on the point of gaining a new
importance at court. The predatory Junkers of the saddle had become
quarrelsome, drink-loving landed proprietors.
At the end of the sixteenth century it was still difficult for the sons
of the old robber associates to keep the peace. Whilst they were
fighting with the pen, and intriguing at the Kammergericht,[37] they
were frequently tempted to take forcible revenge; not only the
turbulent knights of the Empire in Franconia, Suabia, and on the Rhine,
but also the vassals of the powerful princes of the Empire who were
under the strong law of the land. Even where they were in the exercise
of their rights, they preferred doing it by violence, from pride in
their own power. Thus George Behr, of Duevelsdorf, in Pomerania, shortly
before the storm of the Thirty Years' War broke upon his province,
hired an armed band in order to obtain club law in a private quarrel;
he also claimed supreme jurisdiction on his property, in 1628 he caused
a former secretary of his family who had forged the seal of his master
and drawn a false bond, to be hung on a gallows without any further
ado, and at his leisure gave a laconic account of it to his duke.[38]
Much of the old roistering remained in the daily life of the country
noblemen; they were still prone, as once in the middle ages, to excite
quarrels in the inns and under the village lindens. The young wore
embroidered clothes with concealed weapons, an iron ring in the hat,
and low morions; besides this, very long rapiers and stilettoes, and in
the eastern frontier countries, also Hungarian axes. Thus they went in
crowds to the popular festivals and marriages, especially when these
took place in the households of the hated citizens. There they began
quarrels with the populace and invited guests; they behaved with
offensive petulance, and sometimes committed grievous outrages; they
burst open the doors of the houses, broke into the women's rooms when
they had gone to rest, and into the cellars of the householders. It was
not always easy to obtain justice against the offenders, but in some
provinces the complaints were so loud and general that, as for example
in the Imperial hereditary lands, numerous ordinances appeared
enforcing the duty of giving information of such villanies. Those most
complained of were the rovers who settled here and there in the
country. They were, in the worst cases, compelled to serve at their own
cost against the hereditary enemy,[39] so difficult is it to eradicate
old evil habits. The quarrels also of the country nobles among
themselves were endless. In vain were they denounced by the ordinances
of the rulers, in vain did they declare that it was not necessary for
the person challenged to come forward.[40] The language of the Junker
was rich in strong expressions, and custom had stamped some of these as
unpardonable offences. At this period, after the termination of
tournaments, armorial bearings and ancestors became of great
importance; marriages with ladies not of noble birth became less
frequent; they were eager to blazon coats of arms and genealogies, and
endeavoured to show a pure descent through many generations of
ancestors, in which there was frequently great difficulty, not only
from the want of church books and records, but from other causes.
Whoever endeavoured, therefore, to force a quarrel with another, found
fault with his pedigree, his knightly position, name, and armorial
bearings, and questioned his four descents. Such an offence could only
be appeased by blood. To diminish these brawls, shortly before the
Thirty Years' War, courts of honour were here and there introduced. The
ruler of the country or feudal lord was president; the assessors,
noblemen of distinction, formed the court of honour. The parties chose
three companions, through whom letters of challenge and apologies were
transmitted; and in order to make these subtle formalities easy to
those who had little practice in writing, a form was accurately
prescribed for such letters of summons.
Whilst thus the poorer nobles of the country struggled at home against
the new _regime_, the more enterprising were led by the old German love
of travelling into foreign parts. The noble youths willingly followed
the drum, and even before 1618 it was a frequent complaint that the
Junkers of the nobility had everywhere promotion in the army, whilst it
was difficult for a man of worth and capacity, from the people, to rise
from the ranks. Even before 1618 the heirs of rich families of
pretension, travelled to France, there to learn the language and the
art of war, and to cultivate their minds. Not only in Paris, but in
other great cities of France, they congregated in such numbers, as do
now the idle Russians and English; they only too often endeavoured to
resemble the French in immorality and duels, and were even then
notorious as awkward imitators of foreign customs. Even before 1618
most of the western German courts were so devoted to French manners,
that French was considered the elegant language for conversation and
writing. Thus it was in the court of Frederick the Palatine, the winter
king of Bohemia.
The cleverest of the nobility, however, sought for fine manners,
pleasures, and office in the courts of the numerous German princes.
After the abdication of Charles V. a jovial life prevailed not only at
the Imperial court, but also in those of the greater princes of the
Empire, above all in Electoral Saxony, Bavaria, Wuertemberg, and the
Palatinate. Besides great hunting parties and drinking bouts, there
were also great court festivals; masquerades, knightly exercises, and
prize-shooting had become the fashion, especially at coronations,
marriages, christenings, and visits of ceremony. The old tournaments
were sham fights, fine scenic representations, in which the costume and
the dramatic show were of more importance than the passage of arms
itself. As early as 1570 they were arranged according to the Spanish
custom, when the new fashion of running at the ring was introduced.
Great stages, with mythological and allegorical figures, were drawn in
procession on these occasions. The contending parties appeared in
wonderful attire; they strove together for prizes, as challengers and
knight-errants--_manuten adoren_ and _avantureros_--or married men
against bachelors, man against man and troop against troop, not
only on horse but on foot But the weapons were blunt, the spears so
prepared that they must break at the weakest shock, and the number
of thrusts and passes which one could make against another was
accurately prescribed. The whole was announced to the spectators by a
cartel--written invitation or challenge: it was printed and posted up,
and explained to the public. Some of these specimens of the composition
of educated people of the court have been preserved to us; for example,
a cartel of 1570, when the Emperor Maximilian II. had assembled a large
circle of nobles around him, in which a necromancer, Zirfeo, announced
that he knew of three worthy heroes enchanted in a mountain,--King
Arthur and his companions, Sigestab the Strong, and Ameylot the
Happy,--whom he would disenchant, and arouse to a struggle against
adventurers. At the festival itself a great wooden structure was
presented to view, which represented a rock with an infernal opening,
ravens flew out of it, devils danced busily round its summit, and
scattered fire about them; at last the magician himself appeared, made
his incantations, the hill opened, the knights sprang up into daylight
in ancient armour, and awaited the foreign combatants, who in equally
strange costume encountered them. Even before 1600, gala days,
including pastoral _fetes_, were announced with a flourish by similar
cartels, sometimes in verse, as, after the great war, were the common
village weddings and fairs. These were especially welcome to the
authorities and nobles, because in them etiquette was suspended, and
many opportunities given for free pleasantry and confidential
familiarity.
In some courts, as at that of the Anhaltiners, the Landgrave of Hesse,
and the Duke Philip of Pomerania, the nobles had opportunities of
turning their attention to education, and the acquisition of knowledge;
at these courts they began already to take pleasure in the possession
of objects of art. The Emperor Rudolph collected the pictures of Albert
Duerer, and the princes and some of the wealthy nobles around them
collected rare coins, weapons, drinking-cups, and the works of the
goldsmiths of Nueremberg and the cabinet makers of Augsburg. The
patricians of the great Imperial cities, superior in education to the
court nobility, as political agents and managers of the Imperial
princes, were the purveyors of these novelties of art to the German
courts and their cavaliers. It was not an unheard-of thing to find a
courtier who avoided long drinking bouts, and knew how to value a
conversation upon the course of the world; nay, could even compose a
Latin distich, and leave to his heirs a collection of books; and it was
even considered honourable among the better sort to concern themselves
about their households, and to increase, as far as possible, the
revenues of their property.
On the whole, the importance of the nobility at court had increased
even before the war, as well as the oppression which they exercised
over their dependent country-people; yet, in an equal degree--nay,
indeed, beyond them--the free strength of the nation irresistibly
developed itself. The new culture of the Reformation period, introduced
by burgher theologians and professors, brought into contempt the
coarseness of the country Junkers. The business affairs of the princes
and their territories, the places in the _Kammergericht_, the _Spruch
Collegien_, or (consultative legal boards) of the Universities; indeed
almost the whole administration of justice and government ceased to be
in the hands of the nobles; the greatest opulence and comfort were
introduced into the cities by trade and commerce. Thus, up to the year
1618, the nation was in a fair way to overcome the egotistical
Junkerdom of the Middle Ages, and of putting down pretensions which had
become incompatible with the new life.
It was one of the ruinous consequences of the great war, that all this
was changed. It broke the strength of the burgher class, and the
weakness of the nobility was fostered, under the protection which was
secured to it in most of the provinces by the new military discipline
of the princes and, above all, of the Imperial court, to the prejudice
of the masses. As the income of the landed proprietor was diminished,
he drew his chief advantage from the labour of the working peasant. The
families of the country nobility being decimated, the Imperial court
was very ready to procure a new nobility for money. In the course of
the war the captain or colonel had willingly bought with his booty a
letter of nobility and some devastated property. After the peace, these
nobles by patent became a hateful extension of the order. A childish
offensive tuft-hunting, a worship of rank, servility and a greed for
titles and outward distinctions, were now general in the cities. The
commercial cities on the North Sea were those that suffered least, and
those countries most which were immediately dependent on the Imperial
court. It was customary then in Vienna to accost as noblemen all those
who appeared to have a right to social pretensions.
Among the mass of privileged persons who now considered themselves as a
peculiar ruling class, in contradistinction to the people, there was
undoubtedly the greatest difference in culture and capacity; but no
injustice is done to many honourable, and some distinguished men, when
the fact is brought forward, that the period from 1650 to 1750, in
which the nobility ruled, and were of most importance, was the worst in
the whole of the long history of Germany.
Undoubtedly, in the time of weakness since 1648, a most comfortable
life was led by the wealthy scion of an old family, who possessed large
property, and was protected by old alliances with influential persons
and rulers. His sons gained profitable court appointments, or high
military places; and his daughters, who were well dowered, increased
the circle of his influential "friends." The landed proprietor himself
had served in the army, had travelled to France or Holland, and brought
with him from thence a number of curiosities; arms and painted articles
from the Eastern nations, a hollow ostrich-egg, polished shells,
artistically carved cherry-stones, and painted pottery, or marble limbs
that had been dug up in Italy. He had, perhaps, somewhere favoured a
learned man with his acquaintance, and received from time to time a
ponderous legal treatise, or a volume of poems, with a respectful
letter. He might have visited in his travels the courts of Anhalt or
Weimar, and been created, by letters patent, a poet or author; he was
member of the _Frucht-bringende Gesellschaft_[41] (the Fruit-Producing
Society), had a beautiful medal attached to a silk ribbon, on which his
herb, sage or, mint--or, if he had been sarcastic at court--a radish,
was represented; he bore the surname of "Scarifier," and comforted
himself with the motto--"Sharp and Nutritious;"[42] and he sometimes
wrote letters on the improvement of the German mother tongue,
unfortunately with many French phrases. For his own information he,
with other cavaliers of education, took in, at considerable cost, a
written newspaper, which a well-instructed man in the capital secretly
sent to good customers; for it was revolting to him to read the common,
superficial scribbling of the printed newspapers. He spoke some French,
perhaps also Italian; and if he had been at a University, which did not
frequently happen, he might be able to recite a Latin lucubration. In
this case he was probably commissary of the ruler of the country, a
dignitary of his province; then he had business journeys, and
occasionally negotiations, and he managed, to the best of his power,
what was intrusted to him, with the help of his secretaries. He was
courteous, even to those who were beneath him, and was on good terms
with the citizens. He looked down upon the people with confident
self-complacency; he was, in fact, high bred, and knew right well that
his nobility did not rest on many titles, nor on the knightly ensigns
on his escutcheon; and he smiled at the Lions, Bears, Turks'-heads, and
Wild men, which were painted on the coats of arms, and bestowed by the
heralds' office at Vienna. He regarded with contempt the French
nobility, among whom, through Paris merchants and Italian adventurers,
too much foreign blood had been intermingled; on the Hungarians, who
complacently allowed their nobility to be conferred for a bow and a
chancery fee by the Palatine; on the Danes, whose noblemen had a
monopoly of the cattle trade; and on the Italians, who made unceasing
_mesalliances_. The fine-gentleman airs, also, of the greater part of
his German equals annoyed him: for even at the meeting of his States he
had frequent contentions for precedence, especially with the prince's
councillors, who were not of the nobility, but wished to assert the
privileges of their rank. If there were citizens and noble councillors
in the same board, to these in the sittings, a higher position and
seniority in office, gave the priority; but at banquets and all
representations, according to Imperial decision, the nobleman, as he
well knew, had the precedence. It was his usual complaint, that the
nobles themselves assumed their titles, armorial bearings, and
dignities, or sought them in foreign countries; also that, whoever had
received the diploma of count or baron from the Imperial chancery,
expected to be called _Reichsgraefliche_ or _Reichsfreiherrliche
Gnaden_, literally Countly or Baronial Grace, and speaks of himself in
the royal plural.[43] The worthy gentleman still retained some of the
traditions of knighthood; a valiant officer was treated by him with
respect, and he valued arms and horses much. The best adornment of the
walls of his well-built house, besides the great family pictures, were
beautiful weapons, pistols, _couteaux-de-chasse_, and every kind of
hunting implement. By the side of the flower-garden, kitchen-garden,
and orchard, lay a riding-ground, where were to be found apparatus for
riding at the ring, or for breaking light wooden lances at the
_faquin_, or _quintin_, a wooden figure. His horses had still Italian
or French names,--Furioso, Bellarina, &c., for as yet the English blood
had not been introduced; they had been bred from Neapolitan and
Hungarian horses. Turkish nags, as now the pony, were much sought
after; thoroughbred horses bore a comparatively higher price than now,
for the long war had shamefully lowered the breed of horses throughout
Europe. His dog-kennel was well furnished, for, besides bulldogs, he
required hounds, pointers, and terriers; to these influential
companions of his life he also gave high sounding names--Favour,
Rumour, &c. It is true, the chase of the higher game was the right of
his sovereign; but the hateful custom of _baiting_ the game had been
long ago introduced into the country from France. Thus he rode eagerly
with his hounds after hares and foxes, or, by invitation, he
accompanied[44] some great lord deer-hunting, and received visits from
some friendly court official, who had the command of some falcons,
which were flown at crows. In October he was not ashamed of going after
larks, and inspecting the sprynges. He began the day decorously, and
ended it with pleasure; he regularly took an aperient, was bled, and
went to church; he held every week his magisterial or justice days.
After the morning greetings with his family, on leisure days he had his
horses exercised; in the harvest week he rode to the fields, and looked
after the reapers and the inspector. A great portion of his time was
passed in visits which he received or made in the neighbourhood. At his
repast, which took place soon after twelve, game played the principal
part; if he had guests, seven or eight dishes were served generally at
the same time. If conversation took a high flight, politics were
cautiously touched upon, matters of faith very unwillingly; many fine
sentences and maxims were still in vogue with people of the world; it
was considered refined to quote writers of antiquity or elegant French
authors without pedantry; the peculiarities of foreign nations, and
also the curiosities of natural history, as known from reading and
observation, were gladly discussed. It was considered good taste to
inquire the opinions of individuals by turns. Such conversation, even
among cavaliers of the highest quality, would appear to us more formal
and pedantic than what we should meet with now in the society of poor
schoolmasters; but even from this conversation, of which some
accidental specimens remain to us, we may discover, in spite of a
narrow point of view and numerous prejudices, the striving of the time
for enlightenment and understanding of the world. Usually, indeed, the
conversation runs on family stories, compliments, doubtful anecdotes,
and coarse jokes. There was much deep drinking, and only the most
refined withdrew from drinking bouts.
Sometimes a social meeting with ladies was arranged in another place,
at an hotel or inn; then each lady provided some dishes, the gentlemen
wine and music. If there was a bath in the neighbourhood, a journey to
it was seldom neglected. Shooting matches were arranged, with appointed
prizes, "the first was, then, an ox or a ram;" the gentlemen shot
either together or with the populace. The dress, also, of the landed
proprietor was splendid; his rank might be recognised from afar, for
the old ordinances respecting dress were still maintained, and a value
was placed upon their wardrobe, both by men and women, which we can now
scarcely comprehend. Before the war no insignificant portion of the
property was vested in velvet and gold embroidery, in rings and jewels;
the greater portion of this was lost, but pleasure in such possessions
remained, and the jewels of the daughter long continued an essential
part of her dowry.
Numerous were the members of the household, amongst whom there were
frequently some original characters. Perhaps, besides the tutor, there
might be an old soldier of the great war, addicted to drinking, who
knew how to relate many stories about Torstenson, or Jean de Worth; he
taught the nobleman's son to fence, and "to play with the Banner."[45]
There seldom failed to be a poor relation of the family, who ruled over
the kennel by the title of "Master of the Chase;" the preserver of
mysterious hunting customs, he knew how to charm the gun, and had
greater acquaintance with the infernal night-hunter than the pastor of
the place thought right; he was considered as a trusty piece of old
household furniture, and would assuredly have sacrificed his life
without hesitation for his cousin; but he did not scruple to procure
more wood for the peasant, with whom he drank at the inn, than was
right; and if the old Junker had his _couteau-de-chasse_ ornamented
with silver, the origin of which was doubtful, the landed proprietor
was obliged to wink at it.[46]
Thus passed the life of a wealthy landowner between 1650 and 1700. It
was perhaps not quite so worthy as it might have been, but it may have
transmitted to the next generation family feeling and kindliness of
heart. Yet it must be observed that it was only a very small minority
of the German nobility who were in so favoured a position in the
seventeenth century.
Those who wished to make their fortunes in foreign lands far from their
families, were threatened with other dangers, from which only the most
energetic could escape. The wars in Hungary and Poland, the shameful
struggle against France, and a long residence in Paris, were not
calculated to preserve good morals. The vices of the East, and of the
corrupt court of France were brought by them into Germany. The old love
of quarrelling was not improved by the new cavalier cartel, the
profligate intercourse with peasant women and noble ladies of easy
virtue, became worse by the nightly orgies of fashionable cavaliers, at
which they represented festive processions with mythological
characters, and draped themselves as Dryads, and their ladies as
Venuses and nymphs.[47] The old Landsknecht game of dice was not worse
than the new game of hazard, which became prevalent at the baths and
courts, and which foreign adventurers now added to those of the
country.
But there are two more classes of nobles of that period who appear to
us still more strange and grotesque, both numerous, and both in strong
contrast to one another. They were designated as city nobles and
country nobles, and expressed their mutual antipathy by the use of the
ignominious terms _Pfeffersaecke_ and _Krippenreiter_.[48]
Vain and restless citizens strove to exalt themselves by acquiring the
Emperor's patent of nobility. These patents had of old been a favourite
source of income to needy German emperors. Wenzel and Sigismund had
unsparingly ennobled traders and persons of equivocal character: in
short, every one who was ready to pay a certain amount of florins. On
the other hand, in 1416, at the Council of Constance, the princes and
nobles of the Rhine, Saxony, Suabia, and Bavaria, had set up their
backs, made a revision of their own circle, and cashiered the
intruders. But the Emperor's patents did not cease on that account.
Charles V. himself, who sometimes looked down on the German lords with
galling irony, and willingly gave to his chancellor and secretaries the
chance of perquisites, had the sad repute "of audaciously raising, for
a few ducats, every salt-boiler to the order of nobility." Still more
business-like were these proceedings under Ferdinand II. and his
successor. For after the Thirty Years' War, not only the living, but
the bones in the graves of their ancestors were ennobled, nay, the dead
ancestors were even declared worthy of being admitted into noble
foundations and to tournaments. At last, after 1648, this traffic of
the Imperial court was carried on to such an extent that the princes
and states at the breaking up of the Imperial Diet of 1654, and a
hundred years later at the election of Charles VII., protested against
the detriment which accrued to their own rights of sovereignty and
revenues from such a privilege. The newly ennobled in the cities were
therefore not to be exempt from the burdens of citizens, and the
possessor of a property by villein tenure was not to be invested with
the privileges attached to a noble estate. In vain did the Imperial
court threaten those with punishment who would not concede the
purchased privileges to its patents of nobility. Those also who were
declared fit for tournaments and noble benefices, were not on that
account received into any knightly order, or noble endowment, nor in
any old noble provincial unions. The noble benefices generally did not
take patents of nobility, as proofs of noble extraction; it was only
the members of old noble families possessing no such patents who were
admissible into these endowments. It was only exceptionally that these
corporations gave way to a high recommendation. Even the court offices,
those of chamberlain, groom of the bed-chamber, equerry, hunting and
other noble pages, were privileges of the old nobility. The patents of
nobility never forgot to celebrate the virtues and the services
rendered both to the prince and commonwealth by the newly ennobled and
his ancestors; but, as a zealous defender of the old nobility
complains, it was too well-known that, in general, it was only for the
"_Macherlohn_" (pay, for the making) that nobility was given.
In the larger cities, which were not the residence of princes, the
position of the nobility was very different. In Hamburg, Luebeck, and
Bremen, the nobles had no political weight; on the other hand, at
Nueremberg, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, Augsburg, and Ulm, the old race of
nobility lived in proud isolation from the rest of the citizens. Worst
of all were the Nuerembergers, who considered it even degrading to carry
on commerce. Of two noble societies of Frankfort-on-the-Maine, one, the
house of Alten-Limpurg, required of every member who presented himself
for admission, eight ancestors, and that he should keep out of trade;
the other society, of the house of Frauenstein, consisted mostly of
newly-ennobled merchants "of distinction." In Augsburg, the old
patricians were more indulgent to merchants: he who had married the
child of a patrician family, could be received into the noble society.
The remaining commercial cities of note, Prague and Breslau, were most
amply supplied with newly ennobled merchants. There was bitter
complaint that, under the Emperor Leopold, even a chimney-sweeper,
whose trade was then in particularly low esteem, could for a little
money procure nobility, and that frequently tradesmen, with patents of
nobility in their pockets, might be found packing up herrings for their
customers in old paper.
After the Thirty Years' War, officers also sought for patents of
nobility, and they were often granted to them for their services, as
also to the higher officials and members of the city administration in
the larger cities.
It was through families who had taken part in the literary and poetical
culture of the time, that patents of nobility in this and the following
century entered into our literary class. Many poets of the Silesian
school, nay, Leibnitz, Wolf, and Haller, were placed among the
privileged of their time by patents of nobility, which they themselves
or their fathers had acquired.
Wholesale traders were never esteemed in Germany, nor held in that
consideration by the privileged classes of the people, which the great
interest they frequently represented deserved. They had of old been
mistrusted and disliked; this originated, perhaps, in the time when the
astute Romans exchanged, among the simple children of Tuisko, the
foreign silver coin, for the early products of the country. The feudal
system of the Middle Ages required this disregard of wealth, and not
less so Christianity, which commanded men to despise the riches of this
world, and granted to the wealthy so little prospect of the Kingdom of
Heaven. Since the time of the Hohenstaufen, after the nobles were
constituted as a privileged order, the antagonism between the rich
money-makers of the city and the needy warriors of the country, was
more and more strongly developed. In the Hanse Towns of the north
undoubtedly the warlike merchant obtained dominion and respect by his
armed vessels, even in distant countries. But the rich and highly
cultivated gentlemen of Nueremberg and Augsburg, were scarcely less
distasteful to the people than to the princes and nobles who dwelt in
predatory habits on the frontiers of their domain; it was not the
Fuggers alone who were accused by the Reformers of usury and un-German
feeling. After the Thirty Years' War, this enmity bore new fruit, and
one can easily believe that the great merchants gave no little occasion
to keep alive such antipathy. No human occupation requires such free
competition and such unfettered intercourse as trade. But the whole
tendency of the olden time was to fence in from the outer world, and to
protect individuals by privileges; such a tendency of the time could
not fail to make the merchant hard and reckless; his endeavours to
obtain a monopoly, and to evade senseless laws with respect to the
interest of money, gave the people, frequently with justice, the
feeling that the gains of the merchant were produced by the pressure
they exercised on the consumer. This feeling became particularly
vigorous after the Thirty Years' War. Whilst in Holland and in England
the modern middle classes were pre-eminently strengthened by widely
extended commerce, German commerce--except in the larger sea-port
towns--was prevented from attaining a sound development by the
subdivision of territory, the arbitrary dues, the varying standard of
money, and, not least, by the poverty of the people; on the other hand,
there was constant temptation to every kind of usurious traffic. The
diversity of German coinage, and the unscrupulousness of the rulers,
favoured an endless _kipperei_: to buy up good coin at an advantage, to
clip gold of full weight, and to bring light money into circulation,
became the most profitable occupation. As now, multifarious
stockjobbing, so then, illegal traffic in coined metal, was to a great
extent the plague of commercial towns. It was not to be exterminated.
If sometimes the scandal became too great, then indeed the governments
tried a blundering interference: but their courts were hoodwinked.
Thus, in Frankfort-on-the-Maine, the clipping of ducats was carried on
to such an extent, that a special commission was sent from Vienna to
the free Imperial city; Jews had been the _colporteurs_ of Christian
commercial houses, among which many great firms, whose names are still
in existence, were the great culprits. The only result was that the
Imperial commissaries pocketed the larger portion of the illicit gains.
Such wealth, acquired rapidly, and contrary to law, had, as now, all
the characteristics of an unstable acquisition: it seldom lasted to the
third generation. It turned the culprits into spendthrifts and
pleasure-seekers; their arrogance and deficiency of culture, and their
ostentation, became especially offensive to their own fellow-citizens.
It was more particularly such individuals who bought patents of
nobility; and it was assuredly no accident that, of the numerous noble
families of this kind, many in proportion have become extinct.
One of the newly ennobled of such a circle kept his real name in the
firm, but among his fellow-citizens he adhered jealously to the
privileges of his new order. He liked to have his coat of arms carved
in stone and richly gilt on the outside of his large house, but the
stone did not guarantee long duration to its possessor. It was
striking, for example, to observe in Breslau, how quickly the houses on
the great crescent, which then belonged almost exclusively to the new
patent nobles, changed their possessors. In the interior of the house
ostentatious luxury was displayed, which in this period of misery was
doubly grating to the people. The rooms were decorated with costly
carpets, with Venetian mirrors of immense size, with silk hangings and
tapestry, which on festive occasions were fixed on the walls or on a
special framework, and afterwards removed. The women sewed diamond
buckles on their shoes, and it was a subject of complaint that they
would wear no lace that was not brought from Venice or Paris, and did
not cost at least twenty thalers the ell; nay, it was reported of them
that their night utensils were of silver. Great was the number of their
lackeys; their carriages were richly gilt, the coachmen drove from a
high box four horses, which were then harnessed abreast; but when the
splendid equipage rattled through the streets, the people called out
deridingly, "That the pot always tasted of the first soup." The rich
man could well keep fine horses, as he at the same time traded in them;
and the workmen in the business, the porter, carpenter, and apprentice,
were put into the costume of lackeys, but the page who went behind the
lady was generally a child from the poor school. In such houses there
was also the most luxurious living. The invited guest was received with
a formality that was then characteristic of the highly educated; the
host met him on the staircase, and to one of the highest distinction
went even to the house door; verbose were the compliments on receiving
precedence or the higher place at table, and yet the greatest value was
attached to not humbling themselves too much. As soon as they were
seated at table, the buffet was opened, in which was a mass of costly
plate. The dishes were large and the viands in keeping, but out of all
proportion to the number of guests; the most expensive things were
procured, with a refinement that still astonishes us; great pies,
filled with various game, black game, pike liver, and Italian salad.
The pheasants and partridges were caponed and fed, a brace cost as much
as a ducat; it was thought horrible that these spendthrifts gave a
gulden for a fresh herring, and from eight to ten thalers for a hundred
oysters. To these were added the costly wines of the seventeenth
century, Tokay, Canary, Marzenin, Frontignac, Muscat, and finally wine
of Lebanon; at dessert there was no longer marchpane, but candied
citron, the fashionable delicacy. The ladies sat adorned and silent. It
was complained that their principal anxiety in the choice of a husband
was, that their intended should be of rank, that they might follow near
to the corpse at funerals, and have a high place at weddings. On such
occasions they went little short of boxing each other's ears for
precedence. So far was the eagerness for rank carried, that he
considered himself materially better whose new patent of nobility dated
ten years earlier than that of another; and these city nobles
considered fresh creations in nowise their equals. Whoever had been
lately ennobled was only called "Wohledel" (just ennobled), but he who
had for some time been in possession of his patent, was called,
"Hoch-and-edelgeborne Gestrengigkeit" (high and noble-born worship).
Every effort was made to obtain a title in addition to their city
dignity.
The military dignities also of the city were often occupied by the
greenhorns of such families; a poor wight who had never been on a
battle-field, with a staff thickly set with silver, with armed jaeger
behind him, might be seen passing daily from city gate to city gate, in
order to parade before the people, and to receive the salute of the
guard.
Only one thing was required of him, he must know how to handle his
sword, for duels were part of the existence of the nobleman. It was
desirable for him to have been at least once called out by cartel. He
then rode with his second to the nearest village; behind a hedge he
pulled off his riding-boots, put on light fencing shoes, fastened his
long curly hair under his cap,[49] took off his upper garments, and had
to choose one of the rapiers which were presented to him. They fought
in rounds, by cut and thrust, and a well-settled duel never failed to
be followed by a reconciliatory drinking bout. They liked to boast of
such heroic deeds.
Such were the "_Pfeffersaecke_," who were called also by the country
nobles, "_Heringsnasen_" (flatnoses). This country nobility was of
quite another stamp.
They were more numerous two centuries ago than at present. Besides the
family seat, they possessed village-houses, and small farms. Sometimes
a family had increased so much, that in the neighbourhood of an old
estate, many villages were occupied by relatives; and still more
frequently did branches of different families dwell indiscriminately in
a village, in every grade of authority. Even in our century there have
been middle-sized villages, enclosing ten, twelve, and more gentlemen's
seats. In such districts, each little despot exercised dominion over a
few miserable villagers, and had a seigneurial right to a portion of
the village district; but the poorest had no real property, and
sometimes only rented their dwellings. Thus it was in almost all the
provinces of Germany, more especially east of the Elbe, in the
colonised Sclavonian countries; also in Franconia, Thuringia, and
Swabia. Many of the _Junkers_ only differed from the other country
people in their pretensions, and their contempt for field labour. Even
before the war, most of them had been impoverished, and when peace came
at last, they were in still worse plight. War and pestilence had made
havoc among them, and the survivors had not become better. The more
powerful had tried their luck as soldiers and partisans, differing
little sometimes from highway robbers. During the war they had laid
out their booty in the purchase of some small estate, on which they
dwelt, restless and discontented. These fortunate individuals received
frequent visits from old comrades, and then ventured to make raids from
their property on their own account, which seldom ended without
bloodshed. After the war they ceased plundering; but the lawlessness,
the craving for excitement, the restless roving, and the inclination
for wild revelry and quarrels remained in the next generation. They
united themselves into a large company, which, in spite of endless
brawls, continued to hold together, like entangled water-plants on a
marsh. This family connection became a ceaseless plague to the better
disposed, and a misfortune for the whole class; and more than any other
evil retarded, during the following century, the culture, civilisation,
and prosperity of the landed nobility.
The sons of these poor landowners learnt to ride, dance, and fence, and
perhaps the first rudiments of Latin from a poor candidate; then, if
the father had connections, they served as pages at some small court,
or to a distinguished nobleman. There they learnt, to a certain extent,
good manners; and, more certainly, the weaknesses and vices of the
higher orders. If they remained some years in noble service they were,
according to old usage, declared capable of bearing arms, and released
as Junkers with a gracious box on the ear. Then they returned to the
parental estate, or the parents sold what they could spare to procure
them an outfit befitting a gentleman, and sent them as aspirants for
subaltern places in the Imperial army. Few of them prospered in the
inglorious wars of that period; most returned home, after some
campaigns, corrupted and poor both in honour and booty, to share with
their sisters the paternal inheritance. Soon they differed little from
the relations who had remained at home.
These landowners dwelt in buildings of clay and wood, roofed with straw
or shingles,--a sufficient number of casual descriptions and drawings
have been preserved to us; across the roof lay the great fire-ladders;
the front and back doors of the hall were provided with crossbars for
closing them at night. On the ground-floor was the large sitting-room;
near it the spacious kitchen, which was a warm abode for the servants;
next the sitting-room there was a walled vault, with iron gratings to
the window, and if possible with iron doors, as a protection against
thieves and fire,--whatever valuables a landowner possessed were kept
there, and if a sum of money was deposited there, a special watchman
was placed before the house. Above this vault, in the upper floor, was
the bedroom of the master of the house; there was the marriage-bed, and
there also was a concealed safe, either in the wall or floor, wherein
some plate and the jewellery of the women were kept. The children, the
tutor, and the housekeeper slept in small closets, which could not be
warmed, divided by trellis-work. Sometimes a wooden gallery was
attached to the upper floor, the "little pleasure walk;" there the
linen was dried, the farmyard inspected, and the work of the women
done. The house was under the special care of some old trooper, or poor
cousin, who slept within as watcher. Wild dogs roamed about the
farmyard and round the house during the night; these were specially
intended to guard against beggars and vagrants. But all these measures
of precaution could not entirely hinder the inroads of armed bands.
Even a good-sized estate was an unsatisfactory possession. Most of the
landowners were deeply in debt; ruinous lawsuits, which had begun
during the war, were pending over hearth and hill. The farm was carried
on wretchedly under the superintendence of a poor relation or
untrustworthy bailiff; the farm-buildings were bad and falling into
ruins, and there was no money, and frequently no good wood wherewith to
renew them. For the woods had suffered much from the war; where there
was an opportunity of sale, the foreign commanders had caused large
forests to be felled and sold. In the neighbourhood of fortified places
the stems were employed for fortifications, which then required large
quantities of wood; and after the peace much was felled for the
necessary erection of villages and suburbs. The farm also bore little
produce. Not only teams, but hands, were wanting for the tillage; and
the average price of corn, after the war, was so low that the product
hardly paid for the carriage, and in consequence they kept few horses.
New capital was difficult to acquire; money was dear, and mortgages on
the properties of nobles were not considered an advantageous
investment. They, undoubtedly, gave a certain amount of security; but
the interest was too often irregularly payed, and the capital could not
easily be recovered. The acquisition of mortgaged goods, also, by the
creditor, was possible only in certain cases, and by tedious
proceedings; it was sometimes even dangerous, for the friends and
neighbours of the debtor would threaten the new possessor with their
hatred. In the eastern frontier countries the dissatisfied creditors
endeavoured to indemnify themselves by selling their bonds to Polish
nobles. These procured the money by making reprisals on travellers from
the district of the debtor, and taking the sum from the first comers.
This had, indeed, happened before the great war; and repeated
prohibitions show how much commerce suffered from those deeds of
violence.[50] By such evils even a sensible landed proprietor was soon
easily thrown into a desperate position. A bad harvest, or a mortality
among the cattle, would probably ruin him. But the chief evil was that
a great number had not sense enough to occupy themselves perseveringly
with their farming, and to limit their expenses within the certain
income of the property. Thus few were prosperous. Most of them passed
their lives amidst embarrassments, lawsuits, and endless debts; even
those who had entered on the possession of their property with better
hopes, became at last, like the greater number of those of their own
class, members of the great association which the people nicknamed
"Krippenreiter."
These impoverished gentlemen rode in bands from farm to farm; they
invaded the neighbourhood like troublesome parasites whenever a feast
was celebrated, whenever they scented the provisions in the kitchen and
cellar. Woe to the new acquaintance whom they picked up at the houses
of others; they immediately volunteered to accompany him home for a day
or week. Where they had once quartered themselves it was very difficult
to get rid of them. Not select in their intercourse, they drank and
brawled with the peasants at the tavern; when drunk, they would do a
citizen, with a full purse, the honour of receiving him into their
brotherhood. Then kneeling amid broken glasses and flasks, the
brotherhood was sealed, eternal fidelity sworn, and generally, he, was
denounced as the worst scoundrel, who did not preserve unbroken
friendship. Such brotherhood did not, however, prevent a great fight
the very next hour. But, common as they made themselves on these
occasions, they never forgot that they were "wild noblemen of ancient
family." Citizens, and those who had patents of nobility from the
Emperor might, indeed, become brothers. This kind of familiarity was
after the way of the world, but he could not obtain the acknowledgment
of family association conveyed by the terms "uncle" and "cousin;" and
even if allied to them by marriage, he was not admitted to their
relationship unless he were of noble race. Their children went about in
tatters; their wives sometimes collected provisions from relations, and
they themselves trotted over the stubble on shaggy horses, in old
greatcoats, with a bit of carved wood instead of a second pistol in the
old holster. Their usual place of rest was at the village tavern, or,
if they came to a town, in the worst inn. Their language was coarse,
full of stable expressions and oaths. They had adopted many of the
usages of the rogues, both in language and habits; they smelt of
"_finckeljochen_" (a bad kind of spirit) more than was agreeable to
others. They were, indeed, ragamuffins; and, with all their pugnacity,
without real courage. They were considered the pest of the country, and
those who had anything to lose compared them to bluebottle-flies; more
than once sharp decrees[51] were issued against them by the different
rulers, and even from the Imperial court, but they were,
notwithstanding, haughty and thoroughly aristocratic-minded fellows.
Their genealogy, their escutcheons, and their family connection were to
them the highest things upon earth. Unbounded was the hate and contempt
with which they regarded the rich citizens; they were always ready to
begin a quarrel with the newly ennobled, if they did not give them
their full titles, or presumed to bear a coat of arms similar to their
own.
The following account will make us better acquainted with these
fellows, and their mode of intercourse. It carries us to the right bank
of the Oder in Silesia, a corner of Germany where "_Krippenreiterei_"
was particularly bad. There, according to an old popular jest, the
devil burst the sack when he endeavoured to carry off in the air a
number of "_Krippenreiters_," and thus emptied out the whole rubbish on
this district.
The following description is taken from the narrative entitled "The
Nobleman," written a few years before his death, by Paul Winckler, a
Silesian, political agent and councillor at Breslau of the great
Elector; he died 1686. The narrative was first published after his
death in two editions, and finally at Nueremberg, 1697-8. There is no
great skill or invention in it, but it is the more useful here on that
account. Winckler was a well-educated man of the world, and an eminent
jurist, and his numerous travels and alliances, and accurate knowledge
of the condition of the German landed proprietors, made him
particularly capable of forming a sound judgment. He possessed also
qualities which are not rarely found in a Silesian; he knew how to
accommodate himself easily to the world, was a cheerful companion,
impartial in judgment, and a lively narrator. His being a member of the
"_Fruchtbringende_," or literary society, probably contributed to keep
alive his interest in German literature, and encouraged him to modest
attempts at authorship. But he was too sensible a man not to regard
with contempt the purist pedantry with which the associates of his
society endeavoured to raise the German poetry. "They sit behind the
kitchen of Parnassus, and satisfy themselves with the odour of the
roast." He was about fifty when he wrote his narrative, confined to his
room by the gout. His object was to point out by a portraiture, what a
right sort of nobleman ought to be; for it had been his fate,
throughout his whole life, to live in business relations and personal
intercourse with the nobles of different provinces. His wife was a
descendant of the poet Von Logau, and he himself was nephew of Andreas
Gryphius. His own experience undoubtedly gave him a peculiarly sharp
eye for the absurdities of the privileged classes, but he was the true
son of his time, and preserved at heart a deep respect for genuine
nobility. His narrative, therefore, is not by any means a satire,
though it has indeed been called so, and the delineations here imparted
give a peculiar impression of being accurate portraits. That which has
been a hindrance to modern narrators who have a moral tendency, has
indeed been the case with him. He has clearly depicted what the nobles
ought not to be; but his good characters fail in sharp outline and
colouring, nay, they become tedious, because he brings forward their
education and principles in lengthy conversations. His narratives may
be compared with the tale Simplicissimus, but in creative power, fancy,
and fulness of detail the Silesian is incomparably inferior.
Grimmelshausen, however, though possessing greater poetic talent, has
an inclination for the strange and fantastic, which reminds one of the
style of the romance writers, and leaves an impression that what is
there represented is not a thoroughly true picture of the time. From
this defect the Silesian is entirely free; he narrates, in a lively and
frank style, what he has himself seen, not much, nothing particular,
but plainly and precisely.
The events of the narrative are very simple. The Dutch then held in
German society about the same position in the German courts that was
accorded to Englishmen not long ago, the importance of their nation
being almost equal to a letter of nobility. A rich young Dutchman comes
to Breslau, becomes witness of a duel between one of the new nobles and
a country Junker, hears from his landlord a description of country
life, visits the house of an extravagant "_Pfeffersack_," is invited by
a young Herr von K., an acquaintance of former times, to a country
seat, gains thereby much knowledge of the "_Krippenreiters_" from
personal observation, hears an account of an adventure of a Silesian
with an English officer, and passes the rest of the time of his country
visit, in grave but very prosy conversation (in which the author
introduces much of his own views and learning), upon the education of
the soldier, upon the nobles by birth and those risen from trade, upon
the state of politics, and upon the culture of the ancients in
comparison with that of the present day, &c. On his return to Breslau,
the Dutchman learns that the rich merchant who had before invited him
to dinner, had become bankrupt and secretly absconded; his life is then
related, and the hero leaves Breslau. Thus the whole long narrative
contains only five descriptions which would be interesting: two of them
will be given. Some coarse expressions are softened; they are a little
shortened, and the language, only where it appears indispensable,
modernised. First the landlord relates how he studied as the son of a
tailor, then married a wealthy "Kretschmerin" (or landlady), and after
her death, from an unfortunate striving to become great, bought a
patent of nobility in order to settle in the country. He then continues
thus:--
"A not very trusty friend advised me to settle in a part of the country
where certainly the noble estate was at a low price, but of which the
income also was small; another friend, it is true, advised me against
this, and pointed out to me what vexations and crosses I should be
exposed to from the '_Krippenreiters_;' but this did not disturb me, as
I knew I was a match for them with the sword, so I dismissed the useful
warning from my mind. In short, I bought an estate for 6000 thalers,
but soon discovered that I had exposed myself to the lightning, in
avoiding the thunder, and that my good friend with his prophecy had
shot very near the mark. For when I had scarcely half settled myself, a
certain _Junker_, Vogelbach, with a couple of his associates, were the
first to victimise me, as they call it. He lived about half a mile off;
not that he had any property of his own, for he only rented a peasant's
farm worth about 100 Imperial thalers, and spent his life, like others
of the same sort, in '_Krippenreiterei_.' How he maintained his wife
and child I know not, but only that I frequently saw his wife with a
cart and two ragged children on the estate of opulent nobles,
collecting corn, bread, cheese, butter, and the like. They generally
came once a month to beg all such articles of me. This Vogelbach was,
as has been mentioned, the first who, with two of his associates, came
to have a 'housewarming.' The first and second time they behaved
themselves with some degree of discretion, wherefore I put before them
what was best in the house. But this, in their opinion, was abundantly
balanced by the honour of the noble brotherhood into which they had
admitted me, and at last they could no longer refrain from their shabby
tricks. 'It would become you, brother _Kretschmer_,' he began one day
that he had filled himself with beer and brandy up to the eyes. But I
made him remember these words by an unexpected box on the ear in such a
sort that the good fellow was tumbled over into the middle of the room
with his stool. My groom, a robust man who had been a soldier, and whom
I had taken chiefly as a guardian spirit for the like cases of need,
when he saw this, seized the other Junker W. by the collar, so that he
could not stir. 'What,' said he, 'you villain, is it not enough for you
to come here so constantly, to fill your hungry body and to fatten your
meagre carcass? Do you choose to give my master this _Deo gratias_? The
devil take me if one of you stir; I will so trim his Junker jacket,
that there shall be a blue fringe on his bare back for six weeks.' 'We
have nothing to do with these quarrels,' answered the two; 'if brother
Vogelbach has begun one, he will know how to carry it out like a true
cavalier.' The latter had meanwhile picked himself up, and was about to
seize his sword. 'Keep your miserable blood-drawer in its scabbard,' I
said, 'or I will assuredly stick the broken leg of this stool into you
if you are not satisfied yet.' Thereupon he held his tongue, and went
away with a black eye, accompanied by his noble companions. They
mounted their horses and rode out of the gate. But as soon as they
considered themselves safe, then they began to rail; they nicknamed me
a hundred times a trade-fallen ostler. One of them tried to fire his
pistol, but could not succeed; doubtless because there was neither cock
nor trigger to the lock. At last they perceived that I was coming after
them with half-a-dozen peasants; so they, hastened off, and sent me,
about a fortnight afterwards, all three at the same time, a challenge,
in the belief that I should never have the courage to meet them sword
in hand in the open field; but they found themselves much mistaken.
"Being fearful, however, that the whole swarm of surrounding
_Krippenreiters_ would fall upon me, and unite in giving me a good
drubbing, I took with me two troopers who were then in the country, and
in the first pass gave V. such a good cut over the shoulder, that his
sword fell from his hand, which he could no longer use. W. therefore
lost at once all courage, so that on my second fight he was fain to
make peace. No one conducted himself better than Michael von S., whom I
had before considered the most faint-hearted. He fought well enough,
till at last this threefold duel ended thus: the two companions were
reconciled to me, but Vogelbach stipulated to have two more passes on
horseback as soon as his arm should be healed, which, nevertheless, he
has not carried out up to the present day.
"Thus I obtained rest from the brawls of '_Krippenreiters_,' though
there was no diminution of their visits; nevertheless, I soon
experienced a much greater and more costly annoyance. My vendor had not
only cheated me a good deal in the sale itself, but had concealed from
me also an important redeemable interest; besides which, he had not
given up all that was set down in the inventory. So I was obliged to
bring a complaint against him before the government, and to employ an
advocate. It was long beginning I was little disposed to do so; it was
my wish to obtain the daughter of some good citizen with a few thousand
thalers, and thereby to improve my housekeeping. But the false friend
who over-persuaded me to the purchase, advised me to marry no one that
was not of the old nobility, and also in the neighbourhood. 'In the
first place,' said he, 'it is very uncertain whether the gentleman will
meet with a rich party in Breslau, although he has got ennobled. But
further, such city ladies as these have so little knowledge of country
housekeeping that they do not even know a cow or an ox, nor what cheese
or curds are. But the gentleman's household requires a mistress who has
been brought up to it from her youth; such a marriage also is the only
means of forming his children in time into country nobles.' With this
view he proposed a lady of the neighbourhood, and offered himself to be
the wooer. 'She is pretty, a good housekeeper, has some fortune, and is
of old family; it will be impossible for the gentleman to find all that
together in the city.' When I asked him what was the extent of her
means, he boasted that it was 2000 thalers. I certainly doubted this,
even then, as it was so large a marriage dower for the country, that
any baron would have snapped at it; yet I let myself be persuaded at
last, as the lady was not ill-educated, and my new nobility had driven
all sound sense out of my brain. I soon found that the above pretended
2000 thalers sank to 400; even these were pending in a doubtful
lawsuit, which would scarcely leave as much as would amount to the
costs incurred, or as would pay for nuptials suitable to my position.
Nevertheless, in the beginning I loved her on account of her good
looks, and everything was knocked out of my head. As she had brought
with her, however, no jewels, clothes, or other female ornaments, I
inquired once of my lady mother-in-law where the chains, rings, and two
taffeta dresses were, in which I had found my love dressed when I wooed
her. But she answered me with a jeering smile, that if I had got her
only in her shift I ought to be content, and feel thankful that such a
noble family had demeaned itself so far as to give me their child, and
they would still have trouble enough to wipe off this disgrace among
their friends, who would decidedly not have consented to this marriage.
But as concerned the dresses and ornaments, I must know that they had
other daughters to think of and provide for. It was, besides, the
custom in the country to procure a dress and ornaments which might do
for two or three daughters; when one of them was smartly attired, it
was the duty of the others to attend to the housekeeping, or if guests
arrived, to feign illness, and content themselves with bed, till it was
their turn. Therefore I must be satisfied, and if I would not let my
wife appear so as to be a disgrace to me, I should, out of my own
means, provide her with dress and ornaments befitting a noble lady.
Thus all my ready money went, especially as the wedding had cost me
much, for almost the whole province, with their wives, children,
servants, and horses, fastened themselves upon me for a fortnight, and
I could not rid myself of them so long as anything was to be found in
the kitchen and cellar. Also what I procured for my wife was never rich
and costly enough to please her and her mother; they always found some
deficiency, and wished to have everything more perfect.
"Nevertheless, I controlled myself, and would have minded no expense,
if I had only gained the smallest thanks for it; but what most pained
me, was to feel that neither my wife nor any of her friends held me in
the slightest consideration. Moreover my dear mother-in-law was a
thoroughly malicious, proud, false woman, and as, according to the root
of the tree, so are the leaves, her daughter followed in her footsteps.
And as on this account I could no longer be fond of her, my groom often
met with more friendly looks than I did. I had no reason to complain of
her relatives not visiting me, for they did so oftener than I liked,
and they did their best to consume all that they found. They thought
that the devil would take them if they called me brother-in-law or
uncle; the brotherhood must be considered all allegorical, and my
mother-in-law took care, that the word 'son' should not escape her
lips, especially if strangers were present. Never were they so
comfortably together as when I was absent at Breslau or elsewhere; then
they had the best opportunity to make themselves jolly at my expense,
and they did so with some wine of which I kept three or four bottles in
my cellaret for myself and my wife, and I found it quite empty when I
returned home. Yet even that might have passed, if they had only not
taken from me the corn from the ground, nay, even the cows and calves
without my knowledge, and conveyed them away secretly for their noble
relatives. But he who receives four thalers, and has to spend six, has
no reason to care for a purse. So that I could easily calculate that in
a short time I should become as good a _Krippenreiter_ as my
neighbours.
"But it pleased God to deliver me from this danger by the death of my
beloved, who died in childbirth. Even under these circumstances I had
to undergo a severe storm from my vexatious noble mother-in-law. She
filled heaven and earth with her lamentations over the decease of her
daughter, and wished to persuade all the world that the good woman had
died of grief, that she had not married suitably to her position, and
that it had been her (the mother-in-law's) fault I bore with her folly
for a time, in hopes that the game would some day come to an end; but
at last she broke out still further, and desired to have the ornaments
and dresses I had bought for her daughter, and whatever else she
had in her keeping, for another daughter. I threw at her feet some
rags she had brought with her, and caused the corpse to be placed
in a respectable coffin in the family vault, without inviting the
mother-in-law or any other relations. I then determined to sell the
property at the first good opportunity and betake myself again to the
city.
"Sitting one evening thoughtfully at the window, looking at the servant
doing his work, I accidentally observed that some one was at the gate
defending himself with naked sword against the assault of the dog. I
called out to the servant to hold back the dog, whereupon I was
accosted by a well-dressed man with many compliments. 'My lord uncle,'
he said, 'will not take it amiss if, according to knightly fashion, I
do myself the honour of calling on you for a night's lodging in order
to have the honour of making your acquaintance.' 'Not in the least,' I
replied, 'if the noble gentleman will please to be satisfied.' I
invited him in, and as the cavalier was so free with his cousinship, I
could easily perceive that he was not of the neighbourhood. He soon let
me know that he was a free knight of the Empire, from Alsace, and had
been so ruined by the French, that he preferred turning his back upon
his burnt property to submitting to their sway; now he was going to the
Imperial court to seek military service. I could perceive the emptiness
of this braggadocio from his knowing none of the noble families with
whom I had made acquaintance in a former residence in Alsace. Therefore
I dealt cautiously with the fellow, and the good lord and brother of
the Imperial nobility was obliged to be satisfied with a straw mattress
and pillow for his head. When I rose the next morning, I found neither
Junker nor bedclothes, and missed, besides, my sword and pistols, which
I had left in the sitting-room. I forthwith ordered my servants to
mount and pursue him with clubs, and if they found the rascal, to knock
him down and then let him escape, but bring back my things; for I was
convinced that the man was a pickpocket, and that I should gain no
advantage by his capture, but an expensive penal process, and have at
last to pay for his hanging. The servants found him with his booty in
the nearest wood, and executed my orders thoroughly. They brought my
things back, but these cost me dear in the end; for, scarcely four days
after, my place was burnt over my head in the night, without doubt by
this rascal, so that I could hardly save the dwelling-house, but was
obliged to look on at the destruction of the barns and stables, which
with corn and cattle were burnt to the ground.
"This misfortune disgusted me so with country life, that I only built a
couple of stalls for the remaining cattle, and shortly afterwards sold
for 4000 thalers the property for which I had given 6000. After that I
betook myself to the city."
Such is the narrative of the country householder to the young Dutchman.
A few days after, the stranger had an opportunity himself of observing
the life of an impoverished Silesian country noble. A young Herr von
K., an educated and travelled cavalier, invited him to the property of
his parents, and asked him to take a ride with him from thence to a
neighbouring property where a christening was to be celebrated. The
Herr von K. begged our hero to consent to allow himself to be
introduced as a major in the Dutch service, "For I know," he said,
"that otherwise these noble peasants will have no scruple in giving you
the last place, and will show you no consideration, in spite of your
superior education, and although, without impoverishing yourself, you
might easily buy the whole of their property put together." What the
Dutchman then observed he relates as follows:--
"The entertainment was of such a nature that there was no danger of the
table breaking down under the weight of the dishes: a good dish of
small fish with onion sauce, calf's head and trimmings, the whole
interior of a pig in as many various dishes as there were parts, a
couple of geese, and two hares; besides this, such rough watery beer,
that one was soon obliged to have recourse to not much better brandy.
In spite of this the society, which consisted of some twenty persons,
was right merry, and the ladies more lively than the affected
mercantile ladies of the city nobility. When the table was removed, a
portion of the cavaliers danced about merrily to a couple of fiddles,
and the room was filled with the fumes of tobacco. Then Frau von K.
began, 'I have taken a fancy for this foreign cavalier, and have hopes
that my son, who is also an officer, will be as much loved and esteemed
in other places.' Frau Ilse von der B. answered, 'I, dear and honoured
sister, am quite of another opinion. I could never exercise such
tyranny on those belonging to me as to thrust them among these fierce
soldiers, for I hear that they sometimes fare badly enough--have no
warm beds for many nights, and besides, have no one to make them a mug
of warm beer or bring them a glass of brandy. If I should hear that my
son had been devoured by a long-necked Tartar, such as I have lately
seen painted at Kretschem, I should be choked with grief. Therefore, I
have thought it better to maintain my Junker Hans Christoph as well as
I can on our little property at home. I must acknowledge that he has
already cost me more than enough; for when I fitted him out as became a
noble, my two best cows went, and I have not been able to replace the
loss. But what does that matter; I see with pleasure that he knows how
to behave himself like a nobleman. Only see, dear honoured sister, does
he not dance nimbly, and hasn't he got a capital knack of whirling
round with the ladies; he does not refuse to drink a glass of beer or
brandy with any one; tobacco is his only pleasure in life; in all
societies he makes himself so agreeable, that he sometimes does not
come home for three weeks, possibly with a black eye. From that I can
quite believe that he lays about him, and defends himself valiantly
like a cavalier. Such also shall my Junker Martin Andres become.' The
Junker who was standing by her, laid his head on the lap of his dear
mother. 'The wild lad knows already that he is a Junker, therefore he
does not desire to learn, but prefers riding in the fields with the
young horsemen; he has already got into his head that he must wear a
sword. This is a new anxiety to me, for I well know that in the end it
will cost me a horse, and without special help from God, I shall have
to part with a couple more cows. I must, however, buy him an alphabet,
for his father always wished him to become a thorough scholar, as he
himself was. Yes, if it cost nothing, and it were not necessary to buy
so many expensive books for the learned lad, it would delight me. My
eyes run with tears when I think how beautifully his honoured father
said grace after meals, and did it as well as the pastor; also how he
once recited before the prince, for a whole half hour, something, I
know not what, in pure Latin. One thing pleases me much in my Martin
Andres, that he has such a subtle, reflecting head. He himself
suggested to me to help him sometimes to gain money, by allowing him to
keep the redemption money for the stray cattle impounded on my fields.
He is so intent upon this that he lurks the whole day in the corn to
catch a couple of pigs or the like, whereby he has already gained as
much as half a thaler. But, nevertheless, if I only knew for certain
that my Junker Hans Christoph would prosper in this war business, like
your noble sons, honoured sister, I would not let another year pass
without endeavouring to persuade him to go. If he would but become for
certain an officer or a baron, and obtain a rich wife. She, however, to
suit me, must be of true, real, noble blood, for otherwise, I swear she
should never be permitted to appear before me, even though she were up
to her ears in gold. And who knows, dear honoured sister? I have all my
life long heard that in other countries the nobility are not so good as
with us, and that in Holland, from whence this officer comes, the women
are driven to the market naked as God has created them, just like the
cows. For my deceased honoured mother's sister, the dear Frau Grete von
T. lived to see her son devil-ridden, and he brought home just such a
wild woman. This so grieved her that she did not live much longer, and
she could not be persuaded to see this wild woman more than once. But
to return to my son. Junker Hans Christoph, if it should so happen that
he were not sent among the Tartars, nor obliged to be a sentinel, I
would try to persuade my old maid, who altogether reared and waited
upon him, to accompany him for a year, and look after him, to wash his
shirts and keep his head clean, and I would provide for her by sowing a
half peck of flax seed on her account.'
"The Frau von K. would, probably have given a good answer to this
nonsense, if she had not been led off to dance by Herr von K. Thus she
left the old lady alone, with whom the Junker Vogelbach, who was
present, and had a tobacco-pipe of a finger's length in his mouth, held
this discourse:--'How are you--how fares it with you, my honoured and
dear cousin? I observe that you rejoice to see Junker Hans Christoph
enjoy himself. My word for it, he is an honest lad; I could have wished
that he had been with me some days ago, when I had a tussle with a
'Peppersack' of Breslau; he would have seen with wonder how I
belaboured the fellow; he had to beg for life, and afterwards to give a
stately banquet in the best style to me and my seconds, at which we so
enjoyed ourselves, that the good wine flowed like a river.' To this the
old lady Von der B. replied: 'It is truly to your honour that, for the
sake of a drinking bout, you make yourself so common with the citizens;
and, above all, you, Junker Martin Heinrich, who are always hankering
after wine, if only you can catch a glass, you drink in brotherhood
with all sorts of people, be they citizens or nobles. Yes, you, indeed,
as I have heard, call these Peppersacks uncle or cousin. If I could be
sure of this, I swear that all my life long I will never call you
cousin. Tell me, what is that scar you have on your forehead? Without
doubt you have got it in another quarrel with them. That would do well
enough if you would only not mix with the citizens.'
"'Do you take me for a fool,' said Junker Vogelbach, 'that I should
call these fellows uncle or cousin, though the Emperor should have
given them ever so grand a patent? Brother is well enough, so long as
they give good wine; but we say, henceforth we will let the knaves
alone.'
"Meanwhile the guests made themselves merry with tobacco, drinking, and
varied converse, during which the Dutchman remarked, that, of the two
tolerably well educated daughters of the host, one only was to be seen
at a time at the dance, and each was dressed from head to foot the same
as the other; from which he concluded that these good maidens were
obliged to content themselves with one and the same dress, and that
whilst one danced in the room, the other, who had retired, had to wait
patiently without till her turn came again. 'Are not those dear
children?' said their mother, who had seated herself with the other
ladies, to Frau von der B.; 'they do all in so noble and suitable a
style, it does my heart good to see how everything becomes them. If the
Peppersacks in the city were to hang ever so much finery about them,
the citizen would still peep out.' 'You say rightly,' said the other;
'my heart leaps within me when I see these city people swagger about in
such fine dresses and ornaments, in their gilded carriages. Think I to
myself, be as ostentatious as you will, were you every day, even to
drink pearls instead of your best wine, you are still citizens, will
remain citizens, and can never become equal to us.'
"Amidst such woman's prattle, laughing, shouting, dancing, and jumping,
the night wore away, and as Von K. could well anticipate, that this
entertainment would be concluded with the usual brawls and quarrels, he
gave our Dutchman a wink, and retired with him to the house of a
peasant of his acquaintance, where they passed the night on straw. The
groom of the Herr von K. awoke them the following morning, saying, if
they desired to witness a three-fold fight, in which Vogelbach would be
the most distinguished combatant, they must rise quickly and betake
themselves to a spot near the village, on the Polish frontier. Neither
of them having any desire to do so, Von K., who felt ashamed that
his countrymen were such ragamuffins, made a sign to his groom to
be silent; they then mounted, and rode away conversing together
pleasantly."
Here we conclude the narrative of Paul Winckler. About the year 1700,
the habits of the country nobles became more civilised, their life more
comfortable, and the bands of _Krippenreiters_ became rarer. Still,
however, individuals were sometimes tempted to defy the weak laws of
the country, and repeatedly did the governments exert themselves
against the cunning and violence by which unlawful possession was taken
of the property of the deceased. Still did the greater part of the
country nobles suffer from the burden of mortgages; frequent were the
complaints about the rashness with which they were given and sold; and,
as it is usually the custom to cheat in drawing up such mortgage-deeds,
they far exceeded the value of the estate. Under these circumstances,
there were everywhere legal auctions, where they were not prevented by
feudal tenure or family regulations; only too frequently were the wax
lights again seen burning, which, according to old custom, were burnt
on the morning of an auction, and the duration of their flame marked
the time during which the bidding of those who were desirous to
purchase would be accepted.[52]
In most of the districts of Germany the acquisition of a nobleman's
estate depended on the _Ritterrecht_, or laws and usages prevalent
among the nobility in that district. Undoubtedly this custom was not in
accordance with common law, but almost everywhere the noble proprietors
of the district formed a powerful corporation, which excluded those who
were not noble from the fall enjoyment of seigneurial rights of
_Standschaft_, and from their assemblies. Even where those who were not
noble were capable of holding a fief, they were so only under
limitations. Sometimes the citizens of certain privileged cities had
the right of acquiring the properties of noblemen, but this expired as
soon as they ceased to belong to the favoured city. An exception, also,
was sometimes made in favour of the city councillors forming part of
the government of the country, and members of the universities. But the
general rule was that those not noble, could only occupy a property as
a mortgage, not with seigneurial rights as a possession. Even those who
had been ennobled were not free to acquire a nobleman's estate as a
possession; it required the consent of the rulers of the country or of
the noble States. In the Imperial hereditary provinces this right could
only be obtained by those noblemen who were raised to some rank of the
higher nobility; and even then this right had to be purchased in each
individual case, and from the sovereign ruler, and secured by a
diploma. The Emperor endeavoured to obtain money even from the old
families by obliging them to renew this right by the purchase of a
general diploma for all their members.
But the Imperial Court imposed other limitations, dividing, up to the
most modern times, the last escutcheon of its nobility into _Edle_,
nobles, _Herren_, gentlemen, and _Ritter_, knights. Whoever was
transferred from the order of citizens to that of nobles or knights,
could not be buried with mourning horses and escutcheons if he
continued his vocation as a citizen. And so far did Imperial
administration reach, that even in 1716 a noble lady was forbidden to
marry a Lutheran ecclesiastic, because that would be unbecoming a
noble.[53]
But the approach of a new time may be clearly perceived, soon after
1700, in the life of the noble, as well as that of the peasant. It
consisted in a better tone of feeling, both as head of a household and
as a landed proprietor. A new literature started up suddenly, large and
copious compilations, in which were introduced systematically the
duties and secrets of agriculture, husbandry, and housekeeping; also of
domestic and gentlemanlike education and training; they are respectable
folios, handsomely bound and adorned with copper-plates, and it was
considered meritorious to educate yourself from them. In 1682, von
Hochberg had already dedicated his "Country Life of the Noble" to the
landed proprietors of Upper Austria Soon after, the Count Palatine,
Franz Philipp, under the name of Florinus, wrote a similar work, "To
the Prudent Householder versed in the Law." Already, in Holstein, and
soon after in Mecklenburg, the system of double rotation was introduced
on the properties of the nobility. At the same time there was in most
of the wealthy old families an increasing interest in art and science;
it was thought becoming to have some historical and legal knowledge, to
be acquainted with family traditions, and well versed in the aids to
history, numismatics, and heraldry. The wives of the country nobles
were benefitted by the deeper earnestness of the new pietism, and also,
after 1700, from the sensible, sober character of the new culture. They
were so often told that it was praiseworthy for a lady of rank to
concern herself about her household affairs, and to bring up her
children as Christian gentlemen in the fear of God, that one may well
believe that these views entered into their daily life. About 1750, a
travelled nobleman describes with pleasure what the daily work of the
housewife ought to be. Indeed, a nobleman, in the middle of the last
century, who lived peaceably on his property, and was tolerably
wealthy, had a right to consider himself as one of the most fortunate
representatives of his time. He lived uprightly, concerned himself
about the great world no more than was necessary, lived in familiar
family intercourse with the whole nobility of the neighbourhood, was
only occasionally tipsy, reared his foals, sold his wool, and disputed
with his pastor; by moderate strictness he got on tolerably well with
his villeins, and had but rarely a suspicion how detrimental even to
himself was the servitude of his labourers. If an old family was in
danger of becoming impoverished, they were advised by the
aforementioned zealous and well-meaning coadjutor of the noble, to
marry with a rich heiress of the respectable citizen class, in case of
necessity the family of the lady might be ennobled, and provided with
ancestors on both father's and mother's side; the business, it is true,
caused a small blot on their escutcheons, but it would be folly to
regard that much.
But the old families were saved from sinking again into the people by
numerous lucrative privileges. Very large was the number of benefices
and prebends, and of sinecures in the cathedral church, in the orders
of Malta and St. John, and in the monasteries of the nobles and other
ecclesiastical endowments; and there was hardly an old family that had
not some connection with them. Very general was the feeling among the
nobility, that the Roman Catholic nobles were better off, because they
could more easily provide for their sons and daughters; whilst the
Protestant princes had seized most of the foundations. With pride,
therefore, did the so-called knights of the Empire in Franconia,
Swabia, and on the Rhine, look down upon the landed nobility; the
Imperial capitulation not only assured them privileges, dignity, and
greatness, but they were also closely united with the ecclesiastical
princes and the foundations in their territories, and their families
lived, with almost heritable right, to numerous ecclesiastical
benefices. But, unfortunately, this support had not the effect of
ensuring lasting prosperity to their families; nay, it was a chief
cause of many becoming impoverished and corrupted in their isolation.
But still more fatal to the lower nobility was a privilege to which,
even in the present day, they cling fast as a valuable advantage, and
the lowering effect of which is not confined to them,--their right of
admittance at court. The principle that any of the old nobility must
have free access at court, and that it was not befitting a prince to
have social intercourse in any other circle, acquired great importance
after the year 1700. At this period the German courts gradually
developed the tendencies which they have maintained up to the present
day. The Imperial Court, and that of Louis XIV., were the pattern; but,
at the same time, old home usages were continued at particular courts.
Ever greater became the number of court appointments; needy princes
even sold them for money.[54] The lord steward was over the whole
court. There was a marshal, called "_Hofmarschall_" who had charge of
the royal household; on occasions of ceremony he marched in front, with
his gold staff and keys, and at the festive table he stepped behind the
chair of his gracious sovereign as soon as the confectionery was
served. The lord high-chamberlain really superintended the wardrobe of
his royal master; sometimes with the advice of the royal lady, his
wife, and distributed the cast-off clothes, not only to the valet, but
to poor cavaliers.[55] His office also was important, for the costumes
at most of the courts were numerous and various; it was only at the
Prussian Court, and those connected with it, that the simple military
coat of home-made cloth was the usual dress. Elsewhere, not only the
gala dresses, but also the special costumes and fancy dresses for the
high festivals, were subjects for great consideration, and it was no
trifle for the chamberlain to ascertain accurately how the wardrobe at
the different entertainments should be fittingly arranged; as when, for
example, at the Turkish garden near Dresden the whole court appeared as
Mussulmen, or when an extraordinary coronation dress was to be
invented, as for the Elector Friedrich August of Saxony at the
coronation at Cracow.[56] Even the stable became noble; it was under
the master of the horse, as the hunt was under the grandmaster of the
chase. As ceremonial had become the peculiar science of court, it was
represented at most of the great courts by a grandmaster of the
ceremonies. None watched more jealously than the princes themselves the
marks of honour which they were to give and receive at visits; if on a
visit sufficient respect was not shown to them, they rode away in
anger, and threatened reprisals. Endless, therefore, were the
complaints and grievances laid before the Emperor and Aulic Council;
and yet this jealous watch over externals was not the result of
self-respect, for in dealing with the powerful they were but too
deficient in this. Regulations concerning precedence were always being
renewed; almost every new ruler had pleasure in thus showing his
supremacy, but, in spite of all ordinances, the disputes about rank,
offices, and titles were endless--worse than the men, were the ladies.
In 1750, at one of the royal courts, all the ladies of the nobility
left their places in church because the daughter of one of the newly
ennobled officials--a "_wirklichen Geheimerath_"--sought for a place in
their choir.
This wide sphere of trifling interests gave great importance to the
nobility, calculating from the Imperial Court at Vienna down to the
household of the baron of the Empire, who always maintained one or more
poor _Junkers_ in his circle; together with the collateral and lateral
branches of the greater families, it might be estimated that there were
somewhere about 5 or 600 court households in Germany, besides 1500
households of "Knights of the Empire;" so that, undoubtedly, there were
more than 5000 court offices and employments. The enormous number of
these court places was not advantageous to the manly character of the
noble. To be able to endure with smiles the humours and roughness of an
unbridled sovereign, to be complaisant as the pliant servant of the
despot's licentious desires, and of the mistresses' establishment, was
not the worst effect. He was in imminent danger of becoming so base
that the coarseness of the poor _Krippenreiter_ appeared comparatively
virtuous. It was a period when the noble mother gave her daughter with
pleasure into the arms of the profligate prince; and when the courtier
gave up his wife to him for money. And it was not only done by poor
nobles, but also by the offshoots of royal houses. The nobles in some
German provinces took the opportunity of practising similar
complaisance, even in our century, towards Napoleon's princes and
marshals. But the worst was that the great mass of the court nobility
drew also the families of landed proprietors, who were related to them,
to their residences. Sensible men were never weary of complaining that
the country nobles no longer dwelt on their properties to the great
damage of their coffers and morals; but thronged to the neighbourhood
of the princes to ruin themselves, their wives and daughters in the
pestilential atmosphere of the court. But these were fruitless warnings
in the greater part of Germany till the middle of the eighteenth
century.
Those who had more manly ambition filled civil or military offices.
There was a peculiar aspect, also, about these nobles that bore office.
If the son of an old family studied law, he easily gained by his family
connection the situation of councillor; and rose from thence, if clever
and well informed, to the highest offices, even to be _de facto_ a
ruler of states, or political agent and ambassador at foreign courts.
Besides divers rogues who were drawn forth in these bad times, there
were also some men of education, worth, and capacity, among the German
nobility of this class, who already in the time of Leibnitz formed the
real aristocracy of the order. It became gradually customary for nobles
to occupy the highest official positions and the posts of ambassadors,
after they had become an established court institution; also the
appointments of officers in the army. Whilst the Imperial armies, to
which the young nobles from the greater part of Germany were attracted,
retained, even after the reforms of Prince Eugene, somewhat of the
aspect of the old Landsknecht army under the Hohenzollerns; the new
organization of the Prussian army formed the ground-work of an
excellent education for the officers. The Elector Frederic William had
perceived that the wild country nobles of his devastated realm could be
best turned to account in the army which he created amid the roar of
cannon in the Thirty Years' War. He restrained their love of brawls by
military discipline; regulated their rude sense of honour by _esprit de
corps_ and military laws; and gave them the feeling of being in a
privileged position, by raising none but nobles to the rank of
officers. Thus was effected one of the most remarkable changes in the
civilization of the eighteenth century, especially when King Frederic
William I. and Frederic II. had so emphatically declared that every
prince of the Hohenzollern house must be both soldier and officer, wear
the same coat, be under the same subordination and the same law of
honour as the most insignificant _Junker_ from the country.
Thus it happened that the descendants of many families that had lived
as drones in the Commonwealth became closely bound up with the fondest
recollections of the people. But this political privilege of the
nobility became, it is true, even in the State of the Hohenzollerns, a
source of new danger to the families of the nobility, and, which was
still more important, to the State itself. We shall have occasion to
speak of this later.
Thus the nobility, about 1750, were at their highest point--everywhere
the ruling class. Thousands of their sons did homage, in both the great
and small courts; scarcely a less number established themselves in the
stalls of ecclesiastical endowments, occupied prebends and carried
Imperial "_panisbriefs_"[57] in their pockets. The softest seats in the
senate, the foremost places in the State carriages of diplomats, were
taken by them; almost the whole of the State domains were in their
hands. But it was just at this period that a great change took place in
the minds of the German people; a new culture arose, and new views of
the value of the things of this world spread themselves, quietly,
gradually, imperceptibly, no one knew how or from whence. The German
sentences received a new cadence; German verses became less majestic,
and soon even simple. This new seeking after simplicity spread still
further. Certain bold enthusiasts ventured to despise powder, and
perukes; this was contrary to all etiquette, but new ideas and new
feelings came into circulation. Beautiful tender hearts, and the
dignity of man were spoken of. Soon, also, distinguished personages
among the nobility caught the infection, even Sovereigns; the Duchess
of Weimar went with a certain Wieland in a carrier's cart; two
_Reichsgrafen_ von Stolborg were not disinclined to bend the knee to
one Klopstock, and embraced by moonlight the citizen students.
Among the _bel-esprits_ of the citizens who now gained an influence,
none was more adapted to reconcile the nobles to the new times than
Gellert. He was not genial: he knew well what was due to every one, and
he gave every one his proper place; he had a refined, modest
disposition, but was rather a pessimist; he was very respectable, and
had a mild and benevolent demeanour towards both ladies and gentlemen.
Great was the influence that he exercised over the country nobles of
Upper Saxony, Thuringia, and Lower Germany. The culture of the new time
soon got a footing in these families. The ladies especially opened
their hearts to the new feeling for literature, and many of them became
proud of being patronesses of the beautiful art of poetry, whilst the
gentlemen still looked distrustfully on the new state of things. As in
Germany, poetry had the wonderful effect of bringing the nobility into
unprecedented union with the citizen class, so at the same time in
Austria, music had for a time a similar effect.
But there were greater results than the mere poetical emotions with
which Kalb, Stein, and the loveable Lengfelds received the German
poets. Science now began to speak more earnestly and more powerfully.
What she commended or condemned became, as if by magic, among hundreds
of thousands, the law of life or the object of aversion. Not many years
after 1750, in a wide circle of highly cultivated minds, which included
the most vigorous of the burgher class, together with the noblest
spirits among the nobility, the privileges which gave the nobles a
position among the people, were considered as obsolete; and the State
ordinances which preserved them were regarded with coldness and
contempt.
Again there came a stern period; the noble generals of the Prussian
army could not maintain the State edifice of the old Hohenzollerns;
they were the first to give up the State of Frederick the Great, and
pusillanimously to surrender the Prussian fortresses to a foreign
enemy. One of the necessary conditions for the preservation and
restoration of Prussia and Germany was, that the nobility must renounce
their valued privileges in civil offices, and officers' appointment.
Since the rising of the people in 1813, the life and prosperity of the
State has mainly rested on the power and progress of culture in the
German citizen. The citizens are no longer, as in the middle ages, a
class confronting the other classes; they form the nation. Whoever
would place himself in opposition to it by egotistical pretensions,
begins a hopeless struggle. All the privileges by which the nobility up
to the present day have sought to maintain a separate position among
the people, have become a misfortune and fatality to themselves. Many
of the best among them have long comprehended this; they are in every
domain of intellectual and material interests, in art, science, and
State, the representatives of the new life of the nation. Even the
country noble, who within the boundary of his village district holds
faithfully and lovingly to the recollections of the olden time, has in
some degree made friends with the new time, and in some sort yielded
unwillingly to its demands. But among the weaker of them there remains
even now somewhat of the hearty disposition of the old mounted rovers.
The modern _Junker_ is an unfavourable caricature of the nobility; if
one observes closely, he is only a pretentious continuation of the old
Krippenreiter. Under uniforms and decorations are concealed the same
hatred of the culture of the times, the same prejudices, the same
arrogance, the same grotesque respect for decaying privileges, and the
same rough egotism with regard to the commonwealth. Not a few of
these court and country nobles still consider the State like the full
store-room of a neighbour, as their ancestors did two centuries ago;
against these rise the hatred and contempt of the people.