Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (310 page)

A little before sun-set, we came to Appenweyer, one of these towns, from the entrance of which the spires of Strasbourg were so plainly visible that we could see the fanes glittering against the light, and even the forms of the fortifications near the water could be traced. In the midst of the straggling town of Appenweyer the loud sounds of martial music and then the appearance of troops, entering at the opposite end, surprised us. This was the advanced guard of several Austrian regiments, on their march to reinforce the allied army in the Low Countries. Our postillion had drawn up, to surrender as much of the road as possible to them, but their march was so irregular, that they frequently thronged round the carriage; affording us sufficient opportunity to observe how far their air corresponded with what has been so often said of the Austrian soldiery.

Except as to their dress and arms, their appearance is not military, according to any notion, which an Englishman is likely to have formed; that is, there is nothing of activity, nothing of spirit, of cheerfulness, of the correctness of discipline, or of the eagerness of the youthful in it. There is much of ferocity, much of timid cruelty, of sullenness, indolence and awkwardness. They dress up their faces with mustachios, and seem extremely desirous to impress terror. How far this may be effectual against other troops we cannot know; but they certainly are, by their ferocious manners, and by the traits, which a nearer view of them discloses, very terrible to the peaceful traveller. Though now immediately under the eyes of their officers they could scarcely refrain from petty insults, and from wishfully laying their hands upon our baggage.

About a thousand men passed in two divisions, which had commenced their march a few hours before, for the purpose of avoiding the heat of the day. As we proceeded, the trodden corn in the sields shewed where they had rested.

It was night before we reached Offenburg, where we were compelled to lodge at a wretched inn called the Post-house, the master of the other having that day removed to admit a new tenant; but the condition of the lodging was of little importance, for, all night, the heavy trampling of feet along the road below prevented sleep, and with the first dawn the sound of martial music drew us to the windows. It seemed like a dream, when the Austrian bands played
ça ira,
with double drums, and cymbals thrown almost up to our casements, louder than any we had ever heard before. This was the main body of the army, of which we had met the advanced party. Each regiment was followed by a long train of baggage carriages, of various and curious descriptions, some of the cabriolets having a woman nearly in man’s apparel in the front, and behind, a large basket higher than the carriage, filled with hay. This ‘“tide of human existence”’ continued to pass for several hours. But the whole army did not consist of more than three regiments of infantry, among which were those of D’Arcy, and Pellegrini, and one of horse; for each of the Austrian regiments of foot contains, when complete, two thousand three hundred men. They had with them a small train of artillery, and were to proceed to the Low Countries as quick as they could march; but, so uniform are the expedients of the councils of Vienna, that the opportunity of carrying these troops down the Rhine in barges from Phillipsburg, where it was practicable, was not adopted, though this method would have saved two weeks out of three, and have landed the army unfatigued at its post.

All their regimentals were white, faced either with light blue, or pompadour, and seemed unsuitably delicate for figures so large and heavy. The cavalry were loaded with many articles of baggage, but their horses appeared to be of the strongest and most serviceable kind. This was a grand military show, which it was impossible to see without many reflections on human nature and human misery.

Offenburg is a small town, in the Margraviate of Baden Baden, pleasantly seated at the feet of the Bergstrasse, which the road again approaches so near as to be somewhat obstructed by its acclivities. Our way lay along the base of these steeps, during the whole day; and as we drew nearer to Switzerland, their height became still more stupendous, and the mountains of Alsace seemed advancing to meet them in the long perspective; the plains between, through which the Rhine gleamed in long sweeps, appeared to be entirely covered with corn, and in the nearer scene joyous groups were loading the waggons with the harvest. An harvest of another kind was ripening among the lower rocks of the Bergstrasse, where the light green of the vines enlivened every cliff, and sometimes overspread the ruinous walls of what had once been fortresses.

We passed many villages, shaded with noble trees, which had more appearance of comfort than any we had seen, and which were enviable for the pleasantness of their situation; their spacious street generally opening to the grandeur of the mountain vista, that extended to the south. In these landscapes the peasant girl, in the simple dress of the country, and balancing on her large straw hat an harvest keg, was a very picturesque figure.

It was evening when we came within view of Friburg, the last city of Germany on the borders of Switzerland, and found ourselves among mountains, which partook of the immensity and sublimity of those of that enchanting country. But what was our emotion, when, from an eminence, we discovered the pointed summits of what we believed to be the Swiss mountains themselves, a multitudinous assemblage rolled in the far-distant prospect! This glimpse of a country of all others in Europe the most astonishing and grand, awakened a thousand interesting recollections and delightful expectations; while we watched with regret even this partial vision vanishing from our eyes as we descended towards Friburg. The mountains, that encompass this city, have so much the character of the great, that we immediately recollect the line of separation between Germany and Switzerland to be merely artificial, not marked even by a river. Yet while we yield to the awful pleasure which this eternal vastness inspires, we feel the insignificance of our temporary nature, and, seeming more than ever conscious by what a slender system our existence is upheld, somewhat of dejection and anxiety mingle with our admiration.

2.24. FRIBUR
G

IS an ancient Imperial city and the capital of the Brisgau. Its name alludes to the privileges granted to such cities; but its present condition, like that of many others, is a proof of the virtual discontinuance of the rights, by which the Sovereign intended to invite to one part of his dominions the advantages of commerce. Its appearance is that, which we have so often described; better than Cologne, and worse than Mentz; its size is about a third part of the latter city. On descending to it, the first distinct object is the spire of the great church, a remarkable structure, the stones of which are laid with open interstices, so that the light appears through its tapering sides. Of this sort of stone fillagree work there are said to be other specimens in Germany. The city was once strongly fortified, and has endured some celebrated sieges. In 1677, 1713, and 1745 is was taken by the French, who, in the latter year, destroyed all the fortifications, which had rendered it formidable, and left nothing but the present walls.

Being, however, a frontier place towards Switzerland, it is provided with a small Austrian garrison; and the business of permitting, or preventing the passage of travellers into that country is entrusted to its officers. The malignity, or ignorance of one of these, called the Lieutenant de Place, prevented us from reaching it, after a journey of more than six hundred miles; a disappointment, which no person could bear without severe regret, but which was alloyed to us by the reports we daily heard of some approaching change in Switzerland unfavourable to England, and by a consciousness of the deduction which, in spite of all endeavours at abstraction, encroachments upon physical comfort and upon the assurance of peacefulness make from the disposition to enquiry, or fancy.

We had delivered at the gate the German passport, recommended to us by M. de Schwartzkoff, and which had been signed by the Commandant at Mentz; the man, who took it, promising to bring it properly attested to our inn. He returned without the passport, and, as we afterwards found, carried our voiturier to be examined by an officer. We endeavoured in vain to obtain an explanation, as to this delay and appearance of suspicion, till, at supper, the Lieutenant de Place announced himself, and presently shewed, that he was not come to offer apologies. This man, an illiterate Piedmontese in the Austrian service, either believed, or affected to do so, that our name was not Radcliffe, but something like it, with a German termination, and that we were not English, but Germans. Neither my Lord Grenville’s, or M. de Schwartzkoff’s passports, our letters from London to families in Switzerland, nor one of credit from the Messrs. Hopes of Amsterdam to the Banking-house of Porta at Lausanne, all of which he pretended to examine, could remove this discerning suspicion as to our country. While we were considering, as much as vexation would permit, what circumstance could have afforded a pretext for any part of this intrusion, it came out incidentally, that the confirmation given to our passport at Mentz, which we had never examined, expressed ‘“returning to England,”’ though the pass itself was for Basil, to which place we were upon our route.

Such a contradiction might certainly have justified some delay, if we had not been enabled to prove it accidental to the satisfaction of any person desirous of being right. The passport had been produced at Mentz, together with those of two English artists, then on their return from Rome, whom we had the pleasure to see at Franckfort. The Secretary inscribed all the passports alike for England, and M. de Lucadou, the Commandant, hastily signed ours, without observing the mistake, though he so well knew us to be upon the road to Switzerland, that he politely endeavoured to render us some service there. Our friends in Mentz being known to him, he desired us to accept an address from himself to M. de Wilde, Intendant of salt mines near Bec. We produced to Mr. Lieutenant this address, as a proof, that the Commandant both knew us, and where we were going; but it soon appeared, that, though the former might have honestly fallen into his suspicions at first, he had a malignant obstinacy in refusing to abandon them. He left us, with notice that we could not quit the town without receiving the Commandant’s permission by his means; and it was with some terror, that we perceived ourselves to be so much in his power, in a place where there was a pretext for military authority, and where the least expression of just indignation seemed to provoke a disposition for further injustice.

The only relief, which could be hinted to us, was to write to the Commandant at Mentz, who might re-testify his knowledge of our destination; yet, as an answer could not be received in less than eight days, and, as imagination suggested not only all the possible horrors of oppression, during that period, but all the contrivances, by which the malignant disposition we had already experienced, might even then be prevented from disappointment, we looked upon this resource as little better than the worst, and resolved in the morning to demand leave for an immediate return to Mentz.

There being then some witnesses to the application, the Lieutenant conducted himself with more propriety, and even proposed an introduction to the Commandant, to whom we could not before hear of any direct means of access; there being a possibility, he said, that a passage into Switzerland might be permitted. But the disgust of Austrian authority was now so complete, that we were not disposed to risk the mockery of an appeal. The Lieutenant expressed his readiness to allow our passage, if we should choose to return from Mentz with another passport; but we had no intention to be ever again in his power, and, assuring him that we should not return, left Friburg without the hope of penetrating through the experienced, and present difficulties of Germany, into the far-seen delights of Switzerland.

As those, who leave one home for another, think, in the first part of their journey, of the friends they have left, and, in the last, of those, to whom they are going; so we, in quitting the borders of Switzerland, thought only of that country; and, when we regained the eminence from whence the tops of its mountains had been so lately viewed with enthusiastic hope, all this delightful expectation occurred again to the mind, only to torture it with the certainty of our loss; but, as the distance from Switzerland increased, the attractions of home gathered strength, and the inconveniences of Germany, which had been so readily felt before, could scarcely be noticed when we knew them to lie in the road to England.

We passed Offenburg, on the first day of our return, and, travelling till midnight, as is customary in Germany during the summer, traversed the unusual space of fifty miles in fourteen hours. Soon after passing Appenweyer we overtook the rear-guard of the army, the advanced party of which we had met at that place three nights before. The troops were then quartered in the villages near the road, and their narrow waggons were sometimes drawn up on both sides of it. They had probably but lately separated, for there were parties of French ladies and gentlemen, who seemed to have taken the benefit of moonlight to be spectators, and some of the glowworms, that had been numerous on the banks, now glittered very prettily in the hair of the former.

At Biel, a small town, which we reached about midnight, the street was rendered nearly impassable by military carriages, and we were surprised to find, that every room in the inn was not occupied by troops; but one must have been very fastidious to have complained of any part of our reception here. As to lodging, though the apartment was as bare as is usual in Germany, there was the inscription of ‘“Chambre de Monsieur”’ over the door, and on another near it ‘“Chambre de Condé le Grand;”’ personages, who, it appeared, had once been accommodated there, for the honour of which the landlord chose to retain their inscriptions. Their meeting here was probably in 1791, soon after the departure of the former from France.

The second day’s journey brought us again to Schwetzingen, from whence we hoped to have reached Manheim, that night; but the post horses were all out, and none others could be hired, the village being obliged to furnish a certain number for the carriage of stores to the Austrian army. Eighteen of these we had met, an hour before, drawing slowly in one waggon, laden with cannon balls. We stayed the following day at Manheim, and, on the next, reached Mentz, where our statement of the obstruction at Friburg excited less surprise than indignation, the want of agreement between the Austrian and Prussian officers being such, that the former, who are frequently persons of the lowest education, are said to neglect no opportunity of preying upon accidental mistakes in passports, or other business, committed by the Prussians. Before our departure we were, however, assured, that a proper representation of the affair had been sent by the first estaffette to the Commandant at Friburg.

Further intelligence of the course of affairs in Flanders was now made known in Germany; and our regrets, relative to Switzerland, were lessened by the apparent probability, that a return homeward might in a few months be rendered difficult by some still more unfortunate events to the allies. Several effects of the late reverses and symptoms of the general alarm were indeed already apparent at Mentz. Our inn was filled with refugees not only from Flanders, but from Liege, which the French had not then threatened. Some of the emigrants of the latter nation, in quitting the places where they had temporarily settled, abandoned their only means of livelihood, and several parties arrived in a state almost too distressful to be repeated. Ladies and children, who had passed the night in fields, came with so little property, and so little appearance of any, that they were refused admittance at many inns; for some others, it seemed, after resting a day or two, could offer only tears and lamentations, instead of payment. Our good landlord, Philip Bolz, relieved several, and others had a little charity from individuals; but, as far as we saw and heard, the Germans very seldom afforded them even the consolations of compassion and tender manners.

Mentz is the usual place of embarkment for a voyage down the Rhine, the celebrated scenery of whose banks we determined to view, as some compensation for the loss of Switzerland. We were also glad to escape a repetition of the fatigues of travel by land, now that these were to be attended with the uncertainties occasioned by any unusual influx of travellers upon the roads.

The business of supplying post-horses is here not the private undertaking of the innkeepers; so that the emulation and civility, which might be excited by their views of profit, are entirely wanting. The Prince de la Tour Taxis is the Hereditary Grand Postmaster of the Empire, an office, which has raised his family from the station of private Counts, to a seat in the College of Princes. He has a monopoly of the profits arising from this concern, for which he is obliged to forward all the Imperial packets gratis. A settled number of horses and a postmaster are kept at every stage; where the arms of the Prince, and some line entreating a blessing upon the post, distinguish the door of his office. The postmaster determines, according to the number of travellers and the quantity of baggage, how many horses must be hired; three persons cannot be allowed to proceed with less than three horses, and he will generally endeavour to send out as many horses as there are persons.

The price for each horse was established at one florin, or twenty pence per post, but, on account of the war, a florin and an half is now paid; half a florin is also due for the carriage; and the postillion is entitled to a trinkgeld, or drink-money, of another half florin; but, unless he is promised more than this at the beginning of the stage, he will proceed only at the regulated pace of four hours for each post, which may be reckoned at ten or twelve English miles. We soon learned the way of quickening him, and, in the Palatinate and the Brisgau, where the roads are good, could proceed nearly as fast as we wished, amounting to about five miles an hour.

If the postmaster supplies a carriage, he demands half a florin per stage for it; but the whole expence of a chaise and two horses, including the tolls and the
trinkgeld,
which word the postillions accommodate to English ears by pronouncing it
drinkhealth,
does not exceed eight pence per mile. We are, however, to caution all persons against supposing, as we did, that the chaises of the post must be proper ones, and that the necessity of buying a carriage, which may be urged to them, is merely that of shew; these chaises are more inconvenient and filthy, than any travelling carriage, seen in England, can give an idea of, and a stranger should not enter Germany, before he has purchased a carriage, which will probably cost twenty pounds in Holland and sell for fifteen, at his return. Having neglected this, we escaped from the
chaises de poste
as often as possible, by hiring those of voituriers, whose price is about half as much again as that of the post.

The regular drivers wear a sort of uniform, consisting of a yellow coat, with black cuffs and cape, a small bugle horn, slung over the shoulders, and a yellow sash. At the entrance of towns and narrow passes, they sometimes sound the horn, playing upon it a perfect and not unpleasant tune, the music of their order. All other carriages give way to theirs, and persons travelling with them are considered to be under the protection of the Empire; so that, if they were robbed, information would be forwarded from one post-house to another throughout all Germany, and it would become a common cause to detect the aggressors. On this account, and because there can be no concealment in a country so little populous, highway robberies are almost unknown in it, and the fear of them is never mentioned. The Germans, who, in summer, travel chiefly by night, are seldom armed, and are so far from thinking even watchfulness necessary, that most of their carriages, though open in front, during the daytime, are contrived with curtains and benches, in order to promote rest. The postmasters also assure you, that, if there were robbers, they would content themselves with attacking private voituriers, without violating the sacredness of the post; and the security of the postillions is so strictly attended to, that no man dare strike them, while they have the yellow coat on. In disputes with their passengers they have, therefore, sometimes been known to put off this coat, in order to shew, that they do not claim the extraordinary protection of the laws.