The makers of history.—The flight from Schweinfurth.
Happy times, and prosperous people, it has been said, afford but small
materials for history. But great events, which were to shape the
history of Europe for centuries to come, were convulsing Germany in
those middle years of the sixteenth century. And the amount of misery
suffered by the hod–men and day–labourers in this history–building
business, was in proportion to the greatness of the work in hand.
That "great man" Charles V. was a notable provider of "fine subjects"
for history. Poor, gouty, narrow–minded specimen of humanity as he
was, rising up early, and late taking rest, at his weary kingcraft
and history–making, with a very unsound mind in a scarcely sounder
body; with "vast views," analogous to those of the sailor, who having
expended the first of his fairy–granted wishes on "as much rum as ever
he could drink," could only utilise the third of them by asking for "a
little more rum;" and with a "large intelligence," equal to the most
extended application of the theory of that wise monkey who drew the
chestnuts from the fire at the cost of other paws than his own: this
"great figure in history" was a scourge to mankind, useful after the
fashion of many other such scourges, to admonish men of the folly,
meanness, and absurdity of permitting earth to be harassed by such.
[Sidenote: CHARLES V. IN 1552.]
During the winter of 1552, this Charles, suffering much from gout, and
greatly troubled in mind about the proceedings of the great Church
Council, so necessary for "healing the wounds of Christendom,"—for
coupling up the unruly cattle of the great European team, that is
to say, so that he, Charles, might have a somewhat less desperately
difficult job of it, in driving them,—had taken up his quarters at
Innspruck. All paternal care having been well taken for the good
government of his German subjects, the Interim duly published,
refractory preachers chained up, and good faithful Maurice of Saxony
having brought the rebellious Magdeburgers to reason, the mighty
Imperial intellect flattered itself that all was safe behind in
Germany, and gave itself up to watching the goings on of the bishops
down the valley below there at Trent, and endeavouring to persuade them
to give such assurance of personal safety to the Protestant divines, as
might induce them to trust themselves on the southern side of the Alps.
For the smell of the blood of John Huss was strong on the threshold
of the council chamber, and the Protestant representatives, driven up
again and again to the doorway, could not be got to pass it.
But Germany was not in a loyal mood towards its Imperial master. The
princes were discontented at arbitrary infringements of the powers and
privileges of the Diet. They were angry at a recent attempt, inspired
by the "vast views," to impose upon them as successor to the Imperial
dignity that insolent, odious Philip II., who had come from Spain to
be presented to the Electors, and, having thoroughly disgusted every
one of them, had returned to that more congenial country. And they
were revolted by the Imperial cruelty, faithlessness, and tyranny in
the detention of the Landgrave of Hesse in prison; and by the general
prospect held out by the Imperial wisdom, that Germany would ere long
be as well and orderly governed a country as Spain. Then the burghers
were of course discontented enough. It is the nature of such people to
be so, as paternal rulers are too well aware.
In this state of things, Maurice of Saxony, whom the Emperor had made
Elector, when he deposed the unfortunate John Frederick, began to show
his real colour. That good faithful Maurice, of whose attached fidelity
to his fortunes, Charles in his Imperial sagacity, and the profound
political insight of the Imperial ministers had not the slightest
doubt,—crafty, able, Maurice thought that the time was now come for
throwing off a mask long carefully worn, and striking a blow for
himself and for Germany, that should effectually clip the "vast views"
and dangerous talons of the Imperial eagle.
So he suddenly drew together and put in motion the forces long
prepared, and kept afoot on various skilfully devised pretexts,
rendered specious by an abundance of "able" falsehoods, and made a dash
at the wholly unprepared Imperial eagle at Innspruck, which all but
caught him in his nest.
Charles had to escape as best he might across the snows in dreadful
weather, with gnashing of teeth, gout in his legs, and et tu Brute! in
his heart, to remote Villach among the Alps; where, with a foretaste of
the later St. Just mood of thought on life and king–craft, he had to
wait in very un–Imperial sort, till some accommodation could be come to
with his numerous enemies.
[Sidenote: DELIRANT REGES, PLECTUNTUR ACHIVI.]
This was effected on the 2nd of August 1552, at Passau, by a treaty
of peace, which recognised, and in some degree secured the Germanic
liberties, destroyed the life's labour of that mighty Imperial
intelligence, and thenceforth limited very considerably the horizon of
those Imperial vast views.
But, "quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi." For monarch's
madness, subjects pay the smart. The law is inexorable. Despite
treaties of peace, with whatsoever oaths, parchments, and seals of the
Empire, the amount of misery due by normal action of cause and effect
for the "vast views," which Charles had passed his life in endeavouring
to carry out, had to be paid. And that particular little fraction of
suffering, with which the present story is concerned, was assessed and
levied in manner following.
Among the various allies whom able Maurice of Saxony had induced to
join him against the Emperor, was one Albert of Brandenburg, who,
having been Grand Master of the Teutonic Order of Knights, then the
rulers of a considerable portion of the country now called Prussia,
was so deeply moved by the doctrines of Luther, that for conscience
sake he was obliged to play false to his brother knights, and seize on
their territory as an independent state for himself. Now this Albert,
being at the head of a powerful force of mercenary soldiers, veterans
ready for anything,—except honest callings and peaceful labour,—and
being as M. Bonnet writes,[114] "one of those brilliant types of the
medieval soldier of fortune, brave, adroit, indefatigable, given to
plunder, cruel, faithless, and lawless," was by no means willing, when
his chief Maurice made peace at Passau, to allow all his _brilliance_
to be rusted for want of action. Peace to him was like a hard frost
to a fox–hunter. Besides his Protestant feelings were very strongly
stimulated by the contemplation of the rich and very defenceless
territories of those malignant Papists, the Bishops of Bamberg and
Würzburg.
So he refused to join in, or be bound by the treaty of Passau, and
determined to carry on the war on his own account. Which he did after
so brilliantly Ishmaelitish a fashion, that a cry of mad dog was
raised, and he was put to the ban of the Empire. Being thus driven from
harrying the countries of the two prince–bishops, and obliged to look
round for some shelter from his pursuers, he dashed at neighbouring
Schweinfurth, seized it as a stronghold for himself and his troops; and
was there besieged by the bishops, in conjunction with the Nürembergers
and the Duke of Brunswick.
Which interrupted very disagreeably the morning Homer readings and the
evening Greek psalm–singing in the quiet little home we were just now
peeping into.
Deliration of princes indeed! Better, if fighting must needs be, to
have a quarrel of your own to fight for, like the bold Magdeburgers,
with Interim at their gates! But these hapless Schweinfurth citizens
had their city turned to the uses of a badger–baiting tub for neither
fault, quarrel, nor interest of their own. Let the upshot of the
struggle be as it might, they had only ruin and destruction to fear
from it. And this siege lasted for fourteen months! "For fourteen whole
months did we live in the greatest possible straits, while the city
was besieged;" writes Olympia to her sister. "If I were to attempt to
recount to you all we went through, I should send you, not a letter,
but a large volume. By day and by night we were in the midst of the
missiles of the besiegers." The lawlessness of the troops within
the town was a dreadful addition to their calamities. The homes of
the citizens were constantly liable to predatory visits from bands
of soldiers, whose "bravery, adroitness, cruelty, thievishness, and
faithlessness" were quite as "brilliant" as their master's.
[Sidenote: THE SIEGE.]
In the ordinary and fitting course of things, pestilence soon made
its appearance in a city thus circumstanced; and, together, with an
excessive scarcity of food, completed the misery of its inhabitants.
It now became Grünthler's duty to be found in the van of the struggle,
and in the hottest of the danger. And as usual in the annals of a
profession, which has, more rarely, probably, than has been the case
in any other department of human effort, been found wanting in the
high estimate and full discharge of its duties in times of danger and
difficulty, the physician was early and late at his post, struggling
hand to hand with _his_ enemy. But the fight had to be carried on
under great disadvantages. All the stock of medicines in the town
was exhausted. And drugs formed a larger portion of the means and
appliances at the command of the skilled physician in those days,
than is now the case. The sickness spread with fearful rapidity.
"By contagion among the soldiers," writes Olympia,[115] "who are
excessively crowded in the city, so malignant a form of disease has
attacked almost the entire population, that nearly one half of the
people have perished, terror and mental distress contributing no small
part to the result."
Before long Grünthler was struck down in the midst of his labours.
Help there was none. Every man was too much engrossed by his own
desperate fight with the misery around him. Medicine there was none,
food but little. And Olympia watched alone and helpless by the bedside
of her husband; sustained only by the belief that her fervent and
unceasing prayers might move Heaven to that miraculous interference
with the unseen working of the material laws, which even then mankind
had ceased to expect in cases where their operation is seen and
comprehended. Even Olympia, whose love for her husband poured itself
forth in such earnest supplications, that the fever in his blood might
not produce the effect upon his organism, which in other men it did
produce,—Olympia herself would not have prayed, that water closing over
his head should fail to drown him.
Not the less did her belief sustain her in those long hours of dreadful
desolation and sickening dread. She was comforted;—though at the cost
of a lower ideal of the nature of the Creator than she would have
attained had such comfort been impossible to her; and, therefore, at
the cost of a proportionate inferiority in her own moral nature.
But the physician's malady was not "unto death." He recovered. As
M. Bonnet writes;[116] "It required a miracle to save Grünthler....
Olympia's prayers and those of the Church of Schweinfurth were heard;
and Grünthler was saved!"
Amid the horrors of this time Olympia found means to send out of the
city a letter[117] to Lavinia della Rovere.
[Sidenote: LETTER TO LAVINIA.]
"What a good fortune is it," she writes, "in our misery to have found
an opportunity of telling you of our sorrows. Weep for us, my friend;
hut at the same time be thankful for our mercies. We are besieged in
this town, and shut in without escape, between two great armies. But
God has so kept us hitherto, that we have escaped from what seemed
certain death. He has fed us, and continues to feed us, in a time of
extreme scarcity. My husband, prostrated by disease, was on the brink
of the grave. But He hath deigned to recall him to life in mercy to
me, who could not have supported so heavy a blow.... In all these
afflictions we have had but one consolation, prayer and meditation on
the Holy Scriptures. Not once have I turned to look back with regret
on the riches of Egypt. And I have felt that to meet death here,
is preferable to the enjoyment of all the pleasures of the world
elsewhere." "Egypt," and "elsewhere" of course mean Ferrara, with the
necessity of concealing her religious faith. She concludes this letter,
written amid so great misery, with a burst of affection, which shows
how deeply the friendship of her early years had rooted itself in her
heart, and how profoundly she had felt the kindness shown to her in her
old time of distress.
"Once more, farewell! my own sweetest Lavinia, who livest ever in my
heart's core,—quæ mihi semper hæres in medullis,—and whom I can never
forget while life remains,—dum spiritus hos reget artus. Adieu! Adieu!
and may you live in happiness!"
As the besieging forces, irritated at the length of time the Margrave
had succeeded in holding the town against them, redoubled their
efforts, the condition of those within the city became continually
worse and worse. The houses no longer afforded the inhabitants shelter
from the fire of the enemy. "During the whole of that period," writes
Olympia to Curione,[118] of the latter part of the siege, "we were
obliged to lie concealed in a cellar."
At length, Albert's means of resistance were exhausted; and that
"brilliant" specimen of chivalry evacuated the town at the head of his
soldiery, with the intention of cutting his way through the besieging
forces. Great was the joy in Schweinfurth at his departure; but it was
of very short duration. For while one portion of the allied troops
pursued the flying Margrave, the forces of Nüremberg, and of the
two Bishops, entered the town the next day, determined to treat it
as a place taken by assault. They were all good Catholics, and the
Schweinfurth people were almost all Protestants, unarmed, worn out by
the long miseries of the siege, and much more than decimated by the
pestilence.
It was a good opportunity for indulging in every evil passion, under
the cloak of religious zeal. And Schweinfurth suffered all the horrors
of a sack, inflicted in cold blood by fellow–countrymen, the citizens
of neighbouring towns, divided from their victims only by some
speculative differences of creed!
[Sidenote: ESCAPE FROM THE CITY.]
Olympia has recorded some of the incidents of that dreadful day in
the letter to her sister, that has been already quoted. The soldiers,
rushing into the town in complete disorder, set fire to the houses in
many places. "In that moment of trepidation and panic terror," she
writes, "my husband and I were rushing to the church as the safest
asylum, when a soldier, altogether unknown to us, addressed us, and
warned us to fly from the city if we would not be buried beneath its
ruins. Had we remained in the church, we should have been suffocated
by the smoke, as many were. We followed the man's advice, and made
for the gate accordingly." But before they could reach it, the letter
goes on to say, they fell into the hands of a party of soldiers, who
stripped them of every thing, and took Grünthler prisoner. Escaping
from their hands, he was a second time seized before they could reach
the gate.[119] "Then, I can tell you, I knew what agony of mind is,
if ever I knew it; then I prayed with ardour, if ever I did so. In my
sore distress I cried aloud, 'Help me! Help me, Oh Lord, for Christ
his sake!' nor did I cease my cry until He helped me, and set my
husband free. I would that you could have seen in what a condition I
was, covered with fluttering rags, for my clothes had been torn from
off my back. In my flight I lost both shoes and stockings, and had to
run barefoot over rough stones and rocks, so that in truth I know not
how I won through. Again and again I said, 'Here I must fall and die,
for I can endure no more.' Then I cried to God, 'Lord, if thou wilt,
that I live, command thy angels that they carry me, for carry myself I
cannot!'"
At length they reached the gate, and escaped from the horrors of
the town. "And having my husband with me," says the letter to her
sister, "I minded not the loss of all else, though I had only my
shift—subucula—left to cover me."
In that plight, the fugitives had to travel ten miles that dreadful
night, till they reached the village of Hammelburg. Olympia had been
suffering the whole time from tertian fever, and was absolutely unable
to proceed further. "Among the poorest of the poor," she writes to
Curione, "I might have been taken for the queen of the beggars." At
Hammelburg they met with scant hospitality. The people were afraid of
giving offence to their prince–bishop by harbouring fugitives from
Protestant Schweinfurth. Nevertheless, in the absolute impossibility
of dragging herself out of the town, Olympia and her companions were
allowed to remain there three days. On the fourth, though still very
ill, and hardly able to walk with the support of her husband, the
miserable wanderers were obliged again to take the road. But they were
still in an enemy's country, and surrounded by danger. At the next town
they reached, they were arrested and thrown into prison for several
days, while the authorities of the place applied to their superiors
for directions what was to be done with them. A general order had been
given to put to death all fugitives from Schweinfurth; and these days
were spent accordingly, as Olympia says in the letter already quoted,
in an agony of hope and fear. They were at length released, and met
with assistance of some charitable individuals, especially of one
who, without allowing them to know his name, gave them fifteen golden
crowns,[120] which enabled them to reach the residence of the Count de
Reineck on the Saal. There they were kindly received, and assisted to
continue their journey to Erbach, in the Odenwald.
The Counts of this picturesque little mountain town were at that time
three brothers, who lived together in the castle, which may yet be
seen there; and the eldest of whom had married the sister of the Count
Palatine, Frederick II., the principal builder of the magnificent
pile, still the boast and ornament of Heidelberg. They were zealous
Protestants, who had more than once risked life and fortune in the
cause, and enjoyed a very high reputation for their piety among their
co–religionists, and even among their opponents, for their virtues and
uprightness.
[Sidenote: THE COUNTS OF ERBACH.]
By these excellent men, and by the Countess, the wanderers were
received with open arms, and comforted in every way that their
miserable condition required. Olympia was not unknown to them by
reputation; and the tale of sorrows she had now to tell, was not needed
to make her a welcome guest at Erbach. She reached the hospitable roof
utterly prostrated and broken down, almost literally naked, and having
lost all that she and her husband possessed in the world. Worst and
most irreparable loss of all, her books, those much–loved books, which
had been the companions of her life, and with them a great quantity of
her manuscripts, had perished in the burning of Schweinfurth.
It needed all the motherly care and kindness of the good Countess of
Erbach, who insisted on ministering to her as she lay on a bed of
sickness for several days, with her own hands, to restore her to some
degree of convalescence.[121] Indeed, the shock which her system had
received from the sufferings and fatigue of that awful night during
the escape from the city, and the ten miles of weary wayfaring which
followed it, was ultimately, though not immediately, fatal to her. She
never recovered from the effects of it, though the repose and kind
cares of which she was the object in the castle of Erbach, apparently
restored her to some degree of health for the present.
Olympia and her husband and little brother seem to have remained
some considerable time with these kind and noble hosts. She had an
opportunity of observing the ordinary habits of their daily life, and
has left us an interesting little sketch of the patriarchal manners
prevailing in the pious household of a German country nobleman of that
day.[122]
"The Count," she writes, "maintains sundry preachers in the town, and
is always the first to be present at their sermons. Every day before
breakfast, he gathers around him the members of his family and his
servants, and reads to them a portion of one of St. Paul's Epistles.
Then he kneels in prayer, together with his whole household. His next
care is to visit his subjects, one by one, in their homes, when he
talks familiarly with them and exhorts them to piety. For he says, that
he is responsible before God for their souls. Would that all princes
and lords resembled him!"
Of the Countess she writes to her sister, that "she is a woman
religious before all else. Her conversation is ever of God and of the
life hereafter, of which she speaks with the greatest enthusiasm and
desire."
Grünthler's friends were meanwhile endeavouring to find some
independent position for him. There is a letter from one Hubert of
Heidelberg to him, among the collection of Olympia's letters,[123]
in which he tells him, that all the councillors of the Palatine's
court being then at Worms, "seeking means to avert, if possible, the
calamities that menace Germany," he has no immediate hope of being
able to obtain for him a chair in the University of Heidelberg. "But
be assured," he continues, "that my house is open to you and to your
family. Come to me without hesitation; and be sure that better days are
in store for you;—'Grata superveniet, quæ non sperabitur, hora.'"
[Sidenote: TO HEIDELBERG.]
But very soon after receiving this kind, though unsatisfactory letter,
Grünthler learned from the Count of Erbach, that he had obtained for
him the Professorship of Medicine at Heidelberg from his brother–in–law
the Elector. Thus, once more there was an assured life and sphere of
duty before them; and taking leave of their benefactors and the quiet
mountain home which had refitted them after the storm, they started
pilgrim–wise across the Odenwald, with full hearts and renewed hopes
towards their new home.