Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (307 page)

One of the luxuries of Franckfort is a
Cabinet Literaire,
which is open to strangers by the introduction of members. There the best periodical publications of the Continent are received, and their titles immediately entered in a book, so that the reading is not disturbed by conversation with the librarian. It excited our shame to hear, that some contrivance had, for several months, prevented the society from receiving a very valuable English publication.

After this, the Theatre may seem to require some notice. It is a modern, but not an elegant building, standing in an area, that renders it convenient of access, and nearly in the middle of the city. The interior, which has been gaudily decorated, contains a pit, three rows of boxes, that surround the audience part, and a gallery over them in the centre. It is larger than the Little Theatre in the Haymarket, and, in form, resembles that of Covent Garden, except that six or seven of the central boxes, in each tier, encroach upon the oval figure by a projection over the pit. The boxes are let by the year; the price of admission for non-subscribers, is a florin, for which they may find places in the boxes, engaged by their friends, or in the pit, which is in the same proportion of esteem as that at an Opera-house.

The performances are plays and operas alternately; both in German; and the music of the latter chiefly by German composers. The players are very far beneath mediocrity; but the orchestra, when we heard it, accorded with the fame of German musicians, for spirit and precision. In these qualities even the wandering parties, that play at inns, are very seldom deficient.

The stage was well lighted, but the other parts of the theatre were left in duskiness, which scarcely permitted us to see the diamonds, profusely worn by several ladies. Six o’clock is the hour of beginning, and the performances conclude soon after nine.

The Cabinet Literaire and the Theatre are the only permanent places of public amusement at Franckfort, which is, however, in want of no more, the inhabitants being accustomed to pass much of their time in friendly parties, at their houses. Though wealth is, of course, earnestly and universally sought for in a place purely mercantile, we were assured, that the richest persons, and there are some, who have above half a million sterling, find no more attention in these parties than others. This was acknowledged and separately boasted of by some of the very rich, and by those who were comparatively poor. We are so far able to report it for true, as that we could never discern the least traces of the officiousness, or subserviency that, in a corrupt and debased state of society, frequently point to the wealthiest individuals in every private party.

These and many other circumstances would probably render Franckfort a place of residence for foreigners, if the magistrates, either dreading the increase of luxury, or the interference of strangers with their commerce, did not prevent this by prohibiting them from being lodged otherwise than at inns. It was with difficulty, that an English officer, acting as Commissary to some of the German regiments, lately raised upon our pay, could obtain an exemption from this rule, at the request of the Hanoverian Minister.

Round the city, are several well-disposed walks, as pleasant as the flatness of the nearer country will permit; and, at intervals, along these, are the country houses of the merchants, who do not choose to go beyond the city territories, for a residence. Saxenhausen, a small town, on the other side of the Maine, though incorporated with Franckfort, as to jurisdiction, and connected with it by a bridge, is chiefly inhabited by watermen and other labourers.

We left Franckfort, after a stay of six days, fortified by a German passport from M. de Swartzhoff, the Hanoverian Minister, who obligingly advised us to be prepared with one in the native language of the Austrian officers. At Mentz, the ceremonies of examination were rendered much more troublesome than before, the Governor, General Kalkreuth, happening to be in the great square, who chose to make several travellers wait as if for a sort of review before him, though, after all, nothing was to be said but ‘“Go to the Commandant, who will look at your passports.”’ This Commandant was M. de Lucadou, a gentleman of considerate and polite manners, who, knowing our friends in Mentz, added to his confirmation of M. de Swartzhoff’s passport an address to M. de Wilde, the Intendant of some salt mines in Switzerland, which he recommended to us to see. These circumstances are necessary to be mentioned here, because they soon led to a disagreeable and very contradictory event in our journey.

The next morning, we set out from Mentz, and were conducted by our voiturier over a summer road, on the left bank of the Rhine, then flowing with the melted snows of Switzerland.

2.17. OPPENHEIM
.

THIS is the first town of the Palatinate, on arriving from the north; and it bears marks of the devastation, inflicted upon that country, in the last century, more flagrant than could be expected, when the length of the intervening time, and the complete recovery of other cities from similar disasters, are considered. Louis the Fourteenth’s fury has converted it from a populous city into little more than a picturesque ruin. It was burned in 1668; and the walls, which remain in double, or sometimes in treble circles, are more visible, at a distance, than the streets, which have been thinly erected within them. Above all, is the
Landscroon,
or crown of the country, a castle erected on an eminence, which commands the Rhine, and dignisies the view from it, for several miles. The whole city, or rather ruin, stands on a brow, over this majestic river.

The gates do not now open directly into streets, but into lanes of stone walls between vineyards and gardens, formed on the site of houses, never restored, since the fire. The town itself has shrunk from its antient limits into a few streets in the centre. In some of the interstices, corn grows up to the walls of the present houses. In others, the ruins of former buildings remain, which the owners have not been tempted to remove, for the sake of cultivating their sites. Of the cathedral, said to have been once the finest on the Rhine, nearly all the walls and the tower still exist; but these are the only remains of grandeur in a city, which seems entirely incapable of overcoming in this century the wretchedness it inherits from the last.

Had the walls been as strong as they are extensive, this place might not improbably have endured a siege in the present age, having been several times lost and regained. It was surrendered to the French, without a contest, in the campaign of 1792. After their retreat from Worms, and during the siege of Mentz, it was occupied by the Prussians; and, in December 1793, when the allies retired from Alsace, the Duke of Brunswick established his headquarters in it, for the purpose of covering the fortress. His army ovens remained near the northern gate, in July 1794, when we passed through it. In October of the fame year it fell again into the hands of the French.

No city on the banks of the Rhine is so well seated for affording a view of it as this, which, to the north, overlooks all its windings as far as Mentz, and, southward, commands them towards Worms. The river is also here of a noble breadth and force, beating so vehemently against the water-mills, moored near the side, that they seem likely to be borne away with the current. A city might be built on the site of Oppenheim, which should faintly rival the castle of Goodesberg, in the richness, though not in the sublimity of its prospect.

From hence the road leads through a fertile country of corn and vines, but at a greater distance from the river, to Worms, five or six miles from which it becomes broad, straight, and bordered with regularly-planted trees, that form an avenue to the city. Soon after leaving Oppenheim, we had the first symptom of an approach to the immediate theatre of the war, meeting a waggon, loaded with wounded soldiers. On this road, there was a long train of carriages, taking stores to some military
depôt.
The defacement of the Elector’s arms, on posts near the road, shewed also, that the country had been lately occupied by the French; as the delay in cutting the ripe corn did, that there was little expectation of their return.

2.18. WORMS
.

THE condition of Worms is an aggravated repetition of the wretchedness of Oppenheim. It suffered something in the war, which the unfortunate Elector, son-in-law of our James the First, provoked by accepting the kingdom of Bohemia. Louis the Fourteenth came upon it next, and, in 1669, burned every thing that could be consumed. Nothing was restored, but on that part, which was the centre of the antient city; and the walls include, as at Oppenheim, corn and vineyards upon the ground, which was once covered with houses, and which plainly appears to have been so, from the lanes that pass between, and doors that open into the inclosures. A much larger space is so covered, than at Oppenheim, for you are some time in driving from the northern gate of the old city to the first street of the present one.

On the right of the road stands the skeleton of the Electoral palace, which the French burned in one of the late campaigns; and it is as curious as melancholy to observe how the signs of antient and modern desolation mingle with each other. On one hand is a palace, burned by the present French; on the other, the walls of a church, laid open by Louis the Fourteenth.

The first and principal street of theplace leads through these mingled ruins, and through rows of dirty houses, miserably tenanted, to the other end of the city. A few others branch from it, chiefly towards the Rhine, including sometimes the ruins, and sometimes the repaired parts of churches; of which streets, narrow, ill-paved and gloomy, consists the city of Worms. The French General, that lately wrote to Paris, ‘“We entered the fair episcopal city of Worms,”’ may be supposed to have derived his terms from a geographical dictionary, rather than from a view of his conquest.

We were now in a place, occupied by part of the acting army of the allies, which, if not immediately liable to be attacked, was to be defended by the maintenance of posts, at a very short distance. Troops passed through it daily, for the service of these posts. The noise of every cannonade was audible, and the result of every engagement was immediately known, for it might make an advance, or a retreat necessary from Worms. The wounded men arrived, soon after the intelligence, to the military hospitals of the Prussians. A city, so circumstanced, seemed to differ but little from a camp; and we were aware, for a few hours, of a departure from the security and order of civil life.

The inn, which was not otherwise a mean building, was nearly destitute of furniture; so that the owner was prepared to receive any sort of guests, or masters. The only provision, which we could obtain was bread, the commonest sort of wine, and one piece of cold veal; for the city was under military jurisdiction, and no guests were allowed to have more than one dish at their table.

In the afternoon, we saw, for the first time, a crowd in a German city. A narrow waggon, of which nearly all but the wheels was basket-work, had arrived from the army, with a wounded officer, who lay upon the floor, supported by his servant, but occasionally rose to return the salutes of passengers. This was the Prince of Anhalt Plessis, who had been wounded, in the morning, when the French attacked all the neighbouring lines of the allies, and an indecisive engagement ensued, the noise of which had been distinctly heard, at Worms. He was hurt in the leg, and descended, with much difficulty, from the waggon; but did not, for an instant, lose the elegance of his address, and continued bowing through the passage to his apartment. No doubt was entertained of his recovery, but there seemed to be a considerable degree of sympathy, attending this young man.

We had not time to look into the churches, or numerous monasteries, that yet remain, at Worms; the war appeared to have depopulated the latter, for not a monk was to be seen. The cathedral, or church of St. Mary and St. Peter, is one of the most antient sacred buildings in Germany, having been founded at least as early as the commencement of the seventh century. One of the prebends was established in 1033, another in 1058. The Dominicans, Carmelites, Capuchins and Augustines have each a monastery, at Worms; as have the Cistercians and the Augustines a nunnery. A Protestant church was also consecrated, on the 9th of June 1744; something more than two hundred years, after the ineffectual conference held here of Protestant and Catholic divines, which Charles the Fifth interrupted, when Melancthon, on one side, and Echius, on the other, had engaged in it, ordering them to resume their arguments, in his presence, at Ratisbon. This meeting was five years previous to the celebrated diet of Worms, at which Charles, having then estimated the temporal strength of the two parties, openly shewed his animosity to the Protestants, as Maurice of Saxony did his intriguing ambition, by referring the question to the Council of Trent.

The Jews, at Worms, inhabit a separate street, and have a synagogue, of great antiquity, their numbers having been once such as to endanger the peace of the city; but, in 1689, when the French turned their synagogue into a stable, they fled with the rest of the opulent inhabitants to Holland. Those of the present day can have very few articles of traffic, except money, the changing of which may have been frequent, on account of the neighbourhood of France.

Worms is somewhat connected with English history, having been occupied by the troops, which James the First uselessly sent to the assistance of the proscribed Elector Palatine, when his just abhorrence of continental wars was once, though tardily, overcome by the entreaties of his daughter. Here too George the Second held his headquarters, from the 7th to the 20th of September 1743; on the 14th of which month, Lord Carteret concluded, in his name, an offensive and defensive treaty with the Ministers of Hungary and Sardinia.

This city, like Cologne, retains some affectation of the Roman form of government, to which it was rendered subject by Caesar, with the title of
Augusta Vangionum.
The STADTMEISTER is sometimes called the CONSUL, and the SCHULTHEIS, or Mayor, the PRAETOR. But, in 1703, some trivial tumult afforded a pretence for abolishing its little remains of liberty, and the Elector Palatine was declared its protector. This blow completed the desolation, which the disasters of the preceding century had commenced; and a city, that was once called the market of the Palatinate, as the Palatinate was reputed the market of Germany, continues to exhibit nothing more than the ruins of its antient prosperity.

Few of the present inhabitants can be the descendants of those, who witnessed its destruction in 1689; for we could not find, that the particulars of that event were much known, or commemorated by them, dreadful and impressive as they must have been. A column of Louis the Fourteenth’s army had entered the city, in September of the preceding year, under the command of the Marquis de Bonfleur, who soon distressed the inhabitants by preparations for blowing up the walls with gunpowder. The mines were so numerous and large, as to threaten nothing less than the entire overwhelming of the city; but, being fired at different times, the walls of the houses were left standing, though they shook with almost every explosion. The artillery and balls had been previously carried away to Landau, or Mentz, then possessed by Louis. At length, on the 12th of May 1689, the Intendant sent the melancholy news to the magistracy, that he had received orders from his monarch to burn the whole city. Six days were allowed for the departure of the inhabitants and the removal of their property; which period was prolonged by their entreaties to nineteen. At the expiration of these, on Ascension Day, the 31st of May, the French grenadiers were employed from twelve o’clock, till four, in placing combustibles about the houses and public buildings, against several of which large heaps of hay and straw were raised. The word being then given, fire was set to almost every house at once, and, in a few hours, the city was reduced to ashes; the conflagration being so general and strong as to be visible in daylight at the distance of more than thirty English miles. Such was one of the calamities of a city, so unfortunately situated, that the chapter of the cathedral alone proved a loss by wars, previous to the year 1743, amounting to 1,262,749 florins.

The attention, due to so memorable a place, detained us at Worms, till the voiturier talked of being unable to reach Manheim, before the gates would be shut, and we let him drive vehemently towards