But these great citizen festivals offered other opportunities of display of strength and art. When they were in their full vigour in the fifteenth century, there were public games arranged for the marksmen, and prizes appointed for the conquerors. In these games ancient traditions were maintained. They were prize contentions similar to that in the Niebelung, of Siegfried against Brunhild, hurling the stone, leaping, and running. They were in the programme in the prize-shooting of 1456; the Zuricher, Hans Waldmann, carried off the prize for leaping, who, later as Burgomaster, lost his proud head on the block. At the cross-bow shooting at Augsburg in 1470, a golden ring was prepared for him who could hurl furthest a stone of forty-five pounds weight, at an easy run, with three throws, according to the laws of the game; a knight, Wilhelm Zaunried, won the prize. Thus also at Zurich, in 1472, there were three prizes for hurling stones of fifteen, thirty, and fifty pounds. Christoph, Duke of Bavaria, won the golden ring at Augsburg in 1470, for leaping. The task was three springs on one leg with a run, afterwards a jump with both feet, then again three springs on the other leg, and a second jump. In Zurich, in 1472, leaps of three different kinds were prescribed: from the spot with both feet, in the run with both feet, and in a run three springs on one foot. All this was done with great earnestness, and was actually notified to the guests in the programme of the council. In prize races in 1470, at Augsburg, the course measured 350 paces; Duke Christoph, of Bavaria, won the gold ring also for running. At Zurich, in 1472, the length of the course was 600 paces. At Breslau, in 1518, the prizes for running were articles of the favourite pewter. Besides the men, sometimes horses ran: as at the rifle-shooting at Augsburg, in 1446, fourteen horses appeared in the lists; the prize was a piece of scarlet cloth; the conqueror was a horse of Duke Albrecht's, which he had sent from Munich for the races.[66] At the races at the same place, in 1470, a horse of Duke Wolfgang's, of Bavaria, won a prize of forty-five gulden. Wrestling, and even dancing, obtained prizes, as in 1508 again, at Augsburg. And at the same place a whimsical prize was won by the person who could amuse the people with the greatest lies.
To these national popular amusements were added others not less old, but from the traditions of foreign life. The descendants of the Roman gladiators, whose rough struggles had once caused great scandal to strict Christians, led a despised life as roving fighters[67] through the whole of the Middle Ages. In the fifteenth century they had taken refuge behind the city gates and in the guardrooms of the royal court, in various mercenary service, as fencing-masters, soldiers, police, valets, and messengers. Out of the secret brotherhoods which were formed by these strolling fighters had arisen associations which were openly tolerated; they were arranged in two societies, as Marxbrüder (the fraternity of St. Mark), and Federfechter (champions of the feather), which cherished a violent antipathy to each other. The Federfechter displayed a winged griffin on their armorial shield; they boasted of having received privileges from a Duke of Mecklenburg, and found later a mild patron in the Elector of Saxony. At the lists, when they raised their swords, they called out, "Soar aloft, feather; mark what we do; write with ink which looks like blood."[68] The Marxbrüders, on the other hand, had for their armorial bearings a lion, and cheered themselves by the defiant rhyme, "Thou noble lion, elevate thy curly hair; thou perceivest the griffin; him shalt thou hew down and tear his feathers." They were privileged by King Maximilian in 1487. These masters of the long sword were under a captain, and their meetings were held at the harvest fair of Frankfort-on-the-Maine. Thither resorted any one who wished to receive the freedom of their company; he had to fence with four masters, then in public meeting to accept a challenge from any one who chose to fight with him. If he stood the trial, he was struck with the sword of ceremony crosswise over the loins; he then took the oath of fellowship, and laid two golden guldens on the sword; then he received the secret sign of recognition of the brotherhood, and the right to instruct others in his art, and to hold fencing schools, that is to say, to arrange public fights. For a long time these public fights were a pleasure to princes and citizens; after the battle of Mühlberg, they enlivened the imprisoned Elector of Saxony during the great Imperial Diet at Augsburg. It was considered by the people an especial privilege for Frankfort, that it was the only town in which one could become a prize-fighter.[69] The fighters made their way into the prize-shootings--already at Augsburg in 1508--especially when princes took a part in the civic pleasures. The procession, and many of the usages of the fighters, remind one strongly of the Roman gladiatorial games, though the combats seldom came to so bloody an end. The princes and cities hired whole bands of fighters, who attended at the prize-shootings and other great festivals. Thus at Stuttgardt, in 1560, the fighters strove in pairs on the shooting-ground; the royal ladies also drove out to see this combat; the first victor received a beautiful waistcoat of taffety; every other prize consisted of two thalers. At a cross-bow meeting at Zwickau, 1573, the Margrave of Anspach introduced a fighting band of forty men, against whom the Elector August of Saxony arranged his Federfechters. They contended for two days, in pairs, with the long sword, the wooden sword, the long spear, and the short lance, bareheaded, according to old custom, and some made many passes without conquering the other. There was much bravado in these combats, but they gave rise to great jealousy, violent blows, and bad wounds.
The society of fencers outlived the prize-shootings and the great war. They lost the old expressions for their art, but substituted French words, and maintained their position in the larger cities in spite of the foreign fencing-masters. In Nüremberg their public combats were forbidden shortly before 1700; but parties long ran high among the people for the two factions: there was no boy in the city who did not contend for the Marxbrüder or Federfechter, who frequently gave their performances in private houses. The last great fencing match took place, in 1741, at Breslau, in the churchyard of Magdalena. On the day when the young King of Prussia, with careless mien and dishevelled hair, and his small parade sword, came to receive the homage of the conquered Silesia on the throne of the Emperor Matthias, when the dawn of a new time broke over Germany, the old fencers, like shadowy figures of a distant time, performed once more their antics over the graves of a past generation, and then passed away.
Other popular amusements intruded themselves into the prize-shootings; the pleasures became more noisy, more abundant, and excited; and whoever takes a view of the shooting-ground at the end of the sixteenth century will see, from the proceedings of spectators, that times had altered. Formerly the marksmen, among them princes and nobles, had taken part in the public gymnastics; the Wittelsbacher had hopped on one leg among the citizens of the imperial town, and had hurled the heavy stone. At the end of the sixteenth century the nobles looked on, so also did the already genteel citizen-marksmen; but the peasant lads came in their Sunday attire, with their lasses, and performed their country dance for the amusement of others. There was great pleasure in seeing the peasant maidens compete in running for a camisol or a stomacher; high springs, fluttering dresses, and sometimes a tumble in their haste, excited especial satisfaction, and their village demeanour contributed to increase the enjoyment of others. It was more particularly the princes who took pleasure in all this; there seldom failed to be grotesque processions and dances of the country people, when a prince made the programme of the festival. The pert waggery of the pritschmeister to the country people excited a laughter on the shooting-ground which would be offensive to us. The dancers, in couples, garlanded with the red berries of the mountain ash, or with carrots, advanced on the ground; men threw themselves on unsaddled horses, and galloped past a goose which was hung above them, and the joke was, that they slid off their nags, and the like.
The amusement of the children, also, was provided for. There was a jesting fool, who, armed with a shield and short leather club, challenged any one to assail him with a lance. If the challenge was accepted, the fool knew so well how to parry the lance, throw his opponent on his back, and belabour him with his club, that the laugh was always on his side. Beside him stood (as at Ratisbon, in 1586) a wild man, who threw balls into his open mouth, nine balls for a kreuzer. A little mannikin was set on a pony: they threw at him with a ball, and whoever hit oftenest won something. Spirited boys climbed up a smooth pole to fetch a cock out of the basket which was hung at the top.
The shooting-ground was fenced in by barriers or ropes, but alongside it stood the tents and booths, where goldsmiths laid out their goblets, vases, spoons, and chains. The pewter-booths were great favourites, before which they gambled for household utensils, throwing dice in the brente, which was painted red and white, similar to our backgammon board; anxious faces thronged round the gambling-booths; vagrants and vagabonds staked more on the game than their last stolen penny; but they were not unobserved, for the city police in their festal attire paced gravely along these booths to see that no offence was committed to disturb the peace of the shooting-ground. Special attention was paid by the giver of the feast to the bowling-ground, which was then not so frequently found in town or country, as now. There were often two, indeed three, prepared for the festival; here, also, there were prizes affixed. Thus, at Breslau, 1518, an ox and pewter utensils were bowled for, on two grounds. In Silesia, Saxony, and Thuringia, they were favourite additions to the festival.
But of all that made the festival agreeable to the people, and attained to the greatest development, was an entertainment of a most doubtful character,--the fortune's urn, the modest ancestor of the state and other lotteries. As early as 1467 it made its appearance at the cross-bow meeting at Munich. In 1470, at the great prize-shooting at Augsburg, it was a well-known part of the programme; the prizes were goblets, materials for dress, velvet girdles, and weapons; there were twenty-two prizes, and more than 76,000 tickets, at eight pfennigs each; a cook won the best prize, which was an agreeable evidence to the people that it had been carried on honourably. By means of the rifle-shooting at Zurich, in 1472, the urn was introduced into Switzerland; the tickets there cost one shilling each. The drawing was much the same as now. There was scaffolding erected in the public place, before the council-house, and thereon a booth, in which the prizes were placed; beside it, the secretaries and the urns. There were two urns, into one of which the names of those were thrown who had drawn a ticket, in the other were the prizes and blanks; a boy of sixteen, who was placed between the urns, drew from both at the same time. First, the name was called out, then the prize or blank. The first ticket and the last in the urn with the names, won something; at Zurich, a ram; those who took many tickets got them cheaper. In 1504, at Zurich, the prizes were already in money; but in Germany the pleasant custom still continued at the prize-shootings for another century, of playing for artistic objects of value; the love of gambling was great, the women especially thronged round the urn; and, if one may judge from the lists of prizes that have been preserved, the inferior clergy of the old church amused themselves with fortune's um. Seldom, in the sixteenth century, did the urn fail to appear at the greater prize-shootings; it was an important concern, and the chroniclers recorded assiduously the prizes and fortunate winners. Thus, only to mention one year, there were, in Central Germany alone, in 1540, two urns of fortune; for there were prize-shootings at Frankenhausen and Hof; at the latter the drawing lasted five days; in both cities the last prize from the urn was the jocose prize--a sow, which had been introduced from the shooting-ground into the urn of fortune. In 1575, at Strasburg, the urn of fortune was very considerable; there were 275 prizes--the first, value 115 gulden; the sale of the tickets was so rapid that they were obliged to increase the number and the prizes in equal proportion. Count Palatine Casimir, an enterprising prince, had bought 1100 tickets, but did not gain much. The Zuricher guests also, with their pot of porridge, took some thousand tickets--in the name of the fortunate ship and of their native city--which, together, cost 101 gulden; for this they won silver to about half the amount. The drawing lasted fourteen days, and the throng of people about the urn was so troublesome that at last they were obliged to use force to secure the urn.
From these beginnings arose the lottery in Italy and Holland, in the sixteenth century; first, they played for wares, but soon for money, and it was used as a source of income by individuals, and then by communities. The first money lottery at Hamburg was established in 1615.
Such was the course of the great feasts of arms of our ancestors. For weeks did the multitude buzz about the shooting-ground and booths, and in the streets of the hospitable city. When the society of marksmen had finished the prescribed number of shots, all those to whom an equal number of circle shots had been scored had to shoot for their prize at a special target, and he who made the worst shot had the smallest prize. In the same way all shot for the knightly prize who had carried away no prize from the great shooting. The chief and the knightly prizes were solemnly delivered with the banner; the money prizes were in coloured silk purses, which hung to the banner; prizes and banners were arranged beforehand in long rows for show, for in the olden days they knew well how to make a grand display of such distinctions. Then followed generally an after shooting for the voluntary deposits of the shooters, more simple and unrestrained, and sometimes at other distances. Last, on the shooting-ground, came the great farewell oration of thanks from the giver of the feast, expressing once more to the guests the pleasure it had given to the city. Finally, there was the great march from the shooting-ground to the city. This was an important ceremony. All the splendour of the festival was again displayed in the long procession. Trumpets and pipes were blown, the big drum and the kettle-drums thundered, the pritschmeisters clattered with their bats; the dignitaries of the festival, councillors, and neuners, marched in front with their long silk scarfs; behind them the fortunate winners of the great prizes, each with his prize borne before him, and accompanied by two men of distinction. The other shooters followed under the banner of their "quarter," and proudly did each carry his prize banner; but the mocking banners also were sometimes to be seen in the procession, and humbly were they carried by their bearers; behind them came the young tomfools. Our ancestors were right when they moved with a feeling of elation in such processions. The dress was already rich in colour; men of even moderate income endeavoured to wear rich materials, silk and velvet, on such occasions. All were accustomed to show themselves before others, and knew well how to maintain a stately pace. With a feather on the cap or hat, the weapon by the side, and one arm supported on the hip under the mantle, they strode along in march time, placing their feet wide apart, as is the custom now, thus moving the body in an easy way, now towards the right, now the left.
Thus they went to the last evening entertainment; those who were departing had often the escort of their friends, for protection and honour, far into the country.
There is something very attractive to our feelings in this hospitality given to the shooters. Not only were they frequently provided with drink on the shooting-ground during the shooting-hours, and refreshed by a collation, but they were at least once, and generally oftener, entertained in the city, sometimes daily, by the councillors; besides this, there were evening dances, in which the daughters of the most distinguished families partook. These hospitalities to the guests, in the fifteenth century, though very hearty, were also very simple; but at a later period they became sometimes profuse, and when such a festival lasted a fortnight, or, as at Strasburg, as much as five weeks, they must have been very expensive to the givers of the feast; more than once did critical chroniclers complain of the immoderate demands on their city coffers. Loud reproaches were made even at Strasburg, and it was reported of the Löwenbergers, after their bird-shooting in 1615, that the city had exerted itself far beyond its powers; for all had been very costly and splendid. In the fifteenth century, they knew better how to calculate. The great cross-bow shooting at Augsburg, in 1470, cost the city more than 2200 gulden, a high sum according to the then value of corn; and yet the influx of strangers was so great that the Augsburgers afterwards said they had suffered no loss. But, indeed, the entertainment of the 466 stranger guests was very simple.
The number of marksmen at the earlier cross-bow shootings was not large. At Augsburg, in 1425, there were only 130; in 1434, 300; and in 1470, 466. After fire-arms had been introduced, at the great country meetings, the number of marksmen was double. Thus, in 1485, at St. Gallen, there were collected 208 cross-bows and 445 guns; and in 1508, at Augsburg, there were 544 cross-bows and 919 guns. According to the old arrangements of the shooting, this large number of men protracted the festival to a great length; consequently, in the sixteenth century, we find efforts sometimes made to limit the number of invitations, but to increase the deposits of the shooters; and it appears that a festival, with from 200 to 300 shooting-guests, was considered most agreeable; in that case it lasted a week; the individual became of more importance, and the body of men was easier to guide. Even with a moderate number of marksmen, the concourse of strangers was incomparably greater than it would be now. Each marksman was accompanied by a lad, who waited upon him with cross-bow or gun; if princes or nobles were invited, they arrived with a large retinue of junkers, servants, halberdiers, and horses; a large rabble of beggars and rogues also flocked together, and the watchmen of the city had to guard against theft, robbery, and fire.
It was not always easy for the givers of the feast to keep order between the inhabitants and the strangers, for, together with a natural heartiness and wish to adapt themselves to their guests, there was in many haughty minds a very sensitive pride of home and self-confidence, which inclined them, more than would be the case now, to turn into ridicule the unusual dress, manners, and language of strangers. Betwixt certain districts there always floated, like small thunder-clouds, certain old satirical sayings and ironical stories. Swiss and Suabians, Thuringians and Franconians, Hessians and Rhinelanders, reported laughable things of each other. But a word spoken when drinking, or a mocking reminder, might disturb the peace of the festival, or excite parties to sudden anger; and words of conciliation and redoubled friendliness were not always successful. Thus the "Seehasen"[70] and the "Kühmelker" had a severe quarrel at the cross-bow shooting at Constance in 1458. A man from Constance, who was playing at dice with one from Lucerne, called the Bernese coin plappart, which he had won, a cow-plappart; the Lucerner fired up, blows and uproar followed. The Lucerne marksmen remained to the end of the festival; but they complained loudly that the laws of hospitality were broken, and their honour wounded. After their return home the people of Lucerne and Unterwalden raised the war-banner and fell on the territory of Constance, the inhabitants of which had to pay 5000 gulden as an expiation. Yet, in general, it was provided that such disturbances should be reconciled on the spot, or satisfaction given to the guests. Strictly were the shooting regulations administered by the chosen judges, and zealously did hosts and guests endeavour to enhance the feeling of duty in those belonging to them. Among the numerous specimens of city hospitality of that time the most pleasing is the kindly connection which existed for more than 100 years betwixt Zurich and Strasburg, frequently interrupted by many passionate ebullitions, but always renewed. In 1456, six years after the Swiss had established the first great shooting-feast at Sursee, in the country of Lucerne, some young Swiss, in the early dawn of morning, conveyed a large pot of hot millet porridge, in a vessel, from Zurich to Strasburg; they arrived in the evening; threw the famed Zurich rolls among the people, and delivered the still warm millet porridge to the council of the friendly city, as a token of how quickly their Swiss friends would come to their aid if they ever needed it in earnest; they danced the same night with the Strasburg maidens. After that, the excitement and sufferings of the Reformation knit new spiritual ties betwixt Zurich and the great imperial city. Bucer and the Swiss reformers, the literati and artists of both cities, had been in close alliance; though differences of confession had for a short time produced alienation. The Strasburgers had often experienced the hospitality of the Swiss. Now when, 150 years after the first journey of the porridge-pot, the city of Strasbourg had again announced a brilliant prize-shooting for crossbow and gun, and a strong detachment from Zurich had celebrated with them the first fortnight of the cross-bow shooting, then a number of young Zurichers, under the lead of some gentlemen of the council, determined to repeat the old voyage. Again, like their ancestors, they placed the great metal pot, weighing 120 pounds, filled with hot porridge, in the ship, and voyaged in the early dawn of morning, all dressed alike in rose and black, from the Limmat into the Aar, from the Aar into the Rhine, with trumpeters and drummers. The places by which the ship flew, in the sunny mid-day, greeted the jolly fellows with acclamations; in the evening they reached Strasburg, having been long before announced from the towers. The citizens thronged to meet them; delegates from the council greeted them; they carried the pot on shore and delivered it to the councillors; they scattered amongst the children of Strasbourg 300 strings of Zurich rolls, and again were the manly words spoken: "Quickly as we have come to-day in sport, we will come to help in earnest." And at the abundant supper the old homely dish, still warm, was enjoyed with pleasure. The Strasburger Fischart has described with hearty satisfaction the journey of the porridge-pot, and we find in his verses the warmth which then animated both hosts and guests. The course of the voyage of the porridge-pot, and even the sums which the Swiss deposited in the urn of fortune--"In the name of the fortunate ship and of the parent town"--were paid by the city of Zurich. In return they received the small silver utensils which were won in the urn by the Zurichers. The collective costs of the journey which Zurich then paid for its marksmen amounted to 1500 gulden.
It is of great interest to consider these brotherly festivals of the city communities, according to districts. In the middle of the sixteenth century, a journey from Nuremburg to Augsburg was neither so easy nor free from danger, as now from Leipsig to Zurich. The birds of prey of the country gladly flew from their castellated eyries into the woods which surrounded, in wide circles, the hospitable city; more than once was the fortunate marksman waylaid and robbed, by noble horsemen, of the beautiful purse with the guldens he had won, and his banner broken. Even to greater companies the road was insecure, and the travelling toilsome; the inns at small places were frequently very bad, without meat or drink. It is easily understood that at the largest prize-shooting, to which every unexceptional man was welcome, persons from a distance only took a part when accident had brought them into the neighbourhood. Therefore it is matter of surprise that the district to which cities sent their invitations was so large. The Wittenburghers were welcome guests at Ratisbon and the men of Stuttgart at Meissen. Sometimes accident or the friendship of distinguished citizens, knit these bonds of hospitality betwixt far-distant cities; then the invitations went forty, fifty, or one hundred miles. But, on the whole, we may divide these hospitable cities into groups. The Swiss, Suabians, and Bavarians were in close union. Augsburg, more than Nuremberg, was long the centre and pattern of these groups. To it belonged the Rhine as far as Strasbourg. The greatest and most splendid prize-shootings were for two centuries celebrated in this part of Germany. In Bavaria, about 1400, all the more powerful places were in firm intercommunion. There, the city whose marksmen, at one shooting, had won the first prize, was bound at the next shooting festival to produce the same first prize. Thus Kehlheim, which had won the ram at Munich, invited the Munichers, in 1404, to contend for it again.[71] But smaller festivals also comprehended a wide circle. At Ratisbon, for example, the Bavarians and Suabians shot with the larger cities of Thuringia and Meissen; also with Lindau, Salzburg, and some places in Bohemia. The Tyrolese and Salzburghers collected more especially at small shooting meetings of their districts; so also the Franconians north of the Maine. A lasting union of middle-sized and smaller places existed there. This Franconian union comprehended in the sixteenth century, together with Würzburg and Schweinfurt, forty-one cities and forty-two villages with free peasants, particularly from the bishopric of Würzburg and the royal county of Henneberg.
The chief prize was a neck chain--"The Jewel of the Country"--which the victor wore round his neck for a year, and which imposed upon the victorious place the duty of giving the next shooting meeting. If the community of the union who had to give the feast was small and poor, the meeting was badly attended. Thus at Neustadt, on Saale, in 1568, only delegates from eighteen cities and three villages appeared. The small participation of the village communities, at this period, is a proof that their strength was diminished in comparison with the former period. Another group comprehended the possessions of the House of Saxony; the Thuringians and many Franconians and Meisseners who sent the garland to one another. These also zealously maintained the cross-bow at their prize-shootings; the popinjay was seldom erected, except at smaller meetings, where it was long upheld. At these festivals the Franconians, up to and beyond Nuremberg, were regular guests; some of the Suabians and more of the German Bohemians. But, on the frontiers of this group, at Halle, another association began, the centre of which was Magdeburg; here the popinjay was more frequent. Thus at the great prize-shooting at Halle, in 1601, the expression "shooting court" appears, and many special usages. This circle embraced the Harz cities up to Brunswick, and the Altmark, and reaches further to the east and north, for the people of Halle sent their invitations as far as Berlin, Brandenburg, and even Griefswald. Again, the cities of the great province of Silesia were in close union, with Breslau for their centre point; there the popinjay shooting attained to its highest development, and the festivals were very frequent. Competition was not unfrequent between two cities; thus, in 1504, between Liegnitz and Neisse, when the Breslauers said, in answer to the invitation of Neisse, that they had already accepted the invitation of Liegnitz, and therefore could not go. The chief places of meeting of the cities of middle Rhine were Cologne and Aix-la-Chapelle; but the great prize-shootings of this country, which flourished at the end of the fifteenth century, were embittered by religious discord. It is remarkable that in the countries of Lower Saxony, on the North Sea and Baltic, where the old Hanse towns had founded such noble city unions, the prize-shootings were less frequent and distinguished. The most zealous supporters of them were the Swiss, Suabians, Thuringians, Meisseners, and Silesians. With the Swiss these great festivals attained the character of exercises of arms; they were practical and serious; the waggish humour and the tricks of the pritschmeister flourished in Middle Germany.[72] It is not accidental that in the whole of the Protestant portion of the German empire, the power and comfort of the citizen have been most nobly developed.
If these particulars give only a very imperfect picture of the splendour, the opulence, and the independence which were developed in these festivals by the German cities in ancient times, yet they will succeed in making the reader feel, that though we have gained much in comparison with those times, we have also lost something. Only very lately it would have appeared hazardous to the greatest city communities to arrange festivals which, according to our rate of money, would cost perhaps more than fifty thousand thalers; not to do honour to the visit of some sovereign, but for the pleasure of German fellow-citizens, and which would last three or even five weeks, and commit many hundreds, or even thousands of guests during this period to the friendly hospitality, partly of individuals and partly of the city community. It is true that time has become more valuable to us, life is enjoyed more rapidly, and we compress into days what would have employed our ancestors for weeks. It is true that modern men seek recreation in summer in ways which were almost unknown three centuries ago. They isolate themselves from the bustle and hard daily labour of the world among mountain woods and alpine valleys; whilst our ancestors, on the contrary, sought pleasure and refreshment in large societies of men, and left the narrow boundaries of their walls,--the guild room and the council hall,--for those great re-unions in which they could gain honour and prizes by their own exertions. But it must not be forgotten that it was just in those last two centuries in which the great civic festivals became impossible, that many general interests were developed in German citizen life, which, however unsatisfactory they may be, form an immeasurable step in advance of the olden time. There is also a fundamental difference in culture which distinguishes us from our ancestors; but this difference does not rest on the necessary progress of a later race. We feel that the old brotherhood of cities and districts had something noble in it, in which our life is very deficient. The joyful self-assertion of man in social intercourse with others, the facility with which common usages unite together hundreds and indeed thousands, and, above all, the imposing vigour with which cities asserted their position, all this has been too long wanting to us. If it was seldom granted to our forefathers to feel, on the great occasions of life, the unity of German interests in Church and State, and through a common action and great triumph to ennoble the life of every individual, yet they knew at least how to open, by their fellowship, a domain in which expression was given to the German nature, to human relations and to community of spirit.
It is only within a few years that it has become a necessity to Germans to expand their life in this direction. It was no mere accident that made German men of science, in their wandering meetings, the first to give significant expression to some of the noblest interests of the nation by national association. They were followed by the singers and others, then the gymnasts, finally the shooters. We are now, after more than two centuries of preparation, again treading in the same path in which our ancestors so grandly trod, but with a freer and nobler feeling. It has been a long-denied pleasure for us thus to be able to vaunt ourselves. But we should at the same time be mindful, and it is the object of these pages to remind us, that the citizen-class of Germany has striven, for more than two centuries since the Thirty Years' War, to become again as powerful and manly in this respect as their ancestors were.
But even of that time of weakness, the century that followed the great war, a picture shall be given. But it must be short. The hospitable prize-shootings of the cities had ceased; here and there a ruler gave a family festival, or, as a special act of grace, a large country shooting meeting, at which prizes were awarded, and their subjects allowed to participate. In the cities the old shooting associations still existed, though in many cases robbed of their prize cups, chains, and jewels; even the cautious Leipzigers had not preserved the silver statue of their holy Sebastian. Many old customs were maintained in their desolate shooting houses; the cross-bow, at the popinjay and target, had dragged on a miserable existence; it lasts in a few cities as a curiosity up to the present day; the rifled weapon became naturalised; in larger communities the new Imperial nobility favoured shooting guilds and their old "Königsschiessen,"[73] and these festivals acquired a stiff pretentious character of pedantic state action. This great change in the city festival,--the only meagre feast of arms which remained to the German citizen in the eighteenth century,--is apparent in a description of the Breslau shooting in the year 1738. It is found where one would hardly look for it, in the laborious work of the physician Johann Christian Kundmann, entitled "Beruhmte Schlesier in Müntzen," 1738, i., p. 128, and is given as follows, literally, with few omissions:--
"At this time the following solemnities were observed at the 'Königsschiessen.' On Whitsunday the king of the preceding year went with the elders, the Zwinger brotherhood, also with some invited friends, in some twenty carriages, out to the Zwinger.[74] By the side of the carriage went the secretaries as servants, two outriders, the markers, and the king's own servant; they were received with kettle-drums and trumpets. After that, the perquisites of the king were read aloud to the shooters in the room, and those who wished to shoot for the kingdom were to sign their names with their own hand. Then appeared two gentlemen, commissaries of the worshipful and illustrious council, who are usually the two youngest councillors of the nobility; they wore Spanish mantles, trimmed with lace or fringe, and placed themselves opposite to the king in the room,--who stayed there in his kingly attire, bearing the great golden bird. The councillors state that they, as commissioners, have to be present at this shooting. After this the king goes to the shooting ground, accompanied by the commissioners, the elders, and shooters.
"As, according to old usages, a popinjay was to be the mark, a large carved bird with outspread wings was set up, instead of a target, and at this there were six courses, that is, each shooter fired six times. A small silver bird, or a large klippe, was attached to the king as a badge of honour, instead of the large gilt bird, which was too heavy and incommodious to carry. He kept the badge till one of the others had made the winning shot with a bullet. The king shoots always first, amidst the sounding of kettle-drums and trumpets. After these shots the new king is presented to the commissaries, by the zwinger-orator,--usually an advocate, with a well composed speech,--and the usual presents are presented to the king. The first gentleman of the council answers with a similar speech. After that they go to the zwinger repast, and when they rise from table the king is accompanied with kettle-drums and trumpets home. Or the king and the brotherhood march with music and wine round the city, and do honour thereby to their patrons and good friends. The Wednesday after, the king gives his usual silver shooting, at which there are six prizes of silver, that consist of cups and spoons. After the completion of this, the king gives his first entertainment.
"The Saturday following, early in the morning, about eight o'clock, the king is conducted, with his retinue, in his costly attire, before the illustrious and worshipful council in the council room, where the zwinger-orator again delivers an oration, and begs for the king all the immunities; the president answers with a similar speech, confirms him in his kingdom, conveys to him the regal dues, and concludes with congratulations. Then the day for the king's benefit is solicited, generally some Monday a few weeks later. This is a pleasure shooting of twelve courses. He who makes the best shot, and he who with gun and dice (the equally bad shots cast lots by dice), fails most, must both place themselves in front of the shooting-house. To the first a large orange will be delivered on a pewter plate, together with a glass of wine and a garland of roses, and some verses will be recited in his praise, when the kettle-drums and trumpets will sound. But he who has failed gets a whey cheese in a wreath of nettles on a wooden plate, together with a glass of beer, upon which the bagpipes and a small fiddle are played; the verses are generally very pungent, and the zwinger poets are frequently wont to recite truths in jest to their dear friends. Besides this, for each shot on the outer circle of the target in all the courses, a citron is given, and in like manner to every one who hits, a citron, an orange, or a curd cheese, which are painted on the target, together with other pictures characteristic of the time. Then they go to another meal, when the zwinger-orator and the first deputy of the council deliver speeches, and distribute the banners and prizes to the best shots and the victors in the twelve courses, with the sounding of kettle-drums and trumpets. Then the king gives a costly repast, which often lasts nearly till daybreak. Over the king hangs the great king's bird: he himself sits in a large arm chair. From thence the king is accompanied to the patrons and then home, and this solemnity generally finishes with some merriment. Finally, the king gives, the following day, a sausage shooting, and appoints a prize of silver and gold; this is again concluded by an entertainment, followed by dice playing for pewter."
Here ends the account of Kundmann. Of how little importance was such a "Königsschiessen" of the seventeenth century may be gathered from the description. The popular festival of the olden time had become a pretentious solemnity. To do everything in a genteel way was the great desire; only the wealthy could become kings; to drive in carriages, to be accompanied by servants, to give costly meals and expensive prizes, were the main objects; the shooting was a minor point: and it was very significant that the king was no longer expected to speak publicly before his fellow-citizens; he represented in dumb show; the advocate spoke for the citizen at the festival also. Lastly, it may be perceived that the remnants of some of the old jovial customs had still been retained; they stand out in contrast to the prudery and susceptibility of the time; the improvisation of the pritschmeister had ceased, and even the ironical verses on bad shots had to be prepared; gradually the reminiscences of a more vigorous time were laid aside as obsolete and absurd.
It was not, however, the wretchedness of the people alone,--the bitter fruit of the war,--that destroyed the great brotherly feasts of the citizen, nor yet the ruling tendency to haughty exclusiveness against all who held a modest position in life, but equally injurious was the peculiar stamp impressed upon even the best and most highly cultivated, after that period of humiliation.
It is time now to observe the great change in the German popular mind, which turned the martial citizen, who knew how to use powder and shot and to direct a gun, into the shy, timid gentleman, who hastened his steps when he heard near him the thump of the butt end of a musket, and feared lest his son should grow too tall, and come into the horrible position of having to shoulder a weapon in rank and file.
This change was effected by the new polity of the princes.
CHAPTER IV.
STATE POLICY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
(1600-1700.)
The last stage of the process of dissolution which the holy Roman empire passed through occupies the hundred and fifty years from Oxenstern to Napoleon. The mortal disease began in 1520, when Charles V., the Burgundian Hapsburger, was crowned Emperor of Germany; the death struggle itself did not begin till the election of Ferdinand II., the Jesuit protector, in 1620. The peal of bells that celebrated the Westphalian peace was a death-knell; what followed was the last slow destruction of an expiring organism. But it was also the beginning of a new organic formation. The rise of the Prussian state coincides precisely with the end of the Thirty Years' War.
Whether joy or sorrow ought to predominate in the consideration of such a period depends not only on the political point of view, but on the culture and character of those who form a judgment on it. To those who love to depict with poetic warmth the glories of a German empire, such as perhaps might have been, the advent and character of a time so poor in great men and in national pride can only be repugnant; whoever is in the unfortunate position of considering the interests of the Hapsburgers or those of the Order of Jesus as essentially German, will form an imaginary picture of the past, which will be as far removed from the reality, as the relique worship of the ancient church is from the free man's worship of God. But whoever investigates temperately and sensibly the connection of events, should be careful, in writing the history of this period, not to forget, in the hatefulness of appearances, to do justice to what was legitimate in the reality, and equally so, not for the sake of what, is good, to throw a veil over that which is odious. It is not purely accidental that it is only easy to one who is both a Protestant and a Prussian, to regard with conscious pride and a cheerful heart the historical development of the last two centuries.
Immediately after the peace of Münster and Osnabruck, two views of German politics confronted one another, the one which, in spite of the diminution of the Hapsburg influence and the decision of the Westphalian peace, still maintained the old traditions of Imperial supremacy, and the other that of the great territorial princes who sought to secure full freedom of action and independence for themselves, and who had, in fact, become sovereigns. The history of these opposing principles comprehends, in the main, the history of the political development of our fatherland up to the present day. Still do the two parties remain, but the aims and the means of agitation of both are changed, for above them has arisen a new formation, a third party. After 1648 it was the Imperial party who strongly proclaimed the unity of Germany; the political supremacy was claimed for the House of Hapsburg, and that was desired which is almost precisely what is at present termed the diplomatic and military lead Then weak public opinion, in which there was still a lively recollection of the old connection with the Empire, was for the most part, even among the Protestants, on its side, and the Imperial politicians endeavoured to enlist supporters through the press. If a few literary men, who stood up for German nationality in opposition to foreign influences, murmured at the weakness of the fatherland, the conclusion always presented itself to them, that the Emperor was pre-eminently entitled to revive the old supremacy of the Empire. At that time the strength of this party lay in the fact, that the only German state power of any magnitude was that of the House of Hapsburg, but their weakness consisted in this, that the policy of the Emperor was not in the main German, and that the bigotry and intrigues of the Vienna court did not inspire either the princes with fear, or the estates with confidence. On the other hand, the opposition party of princely politicians, looking to their own advantage, with very little consideration for the Empire, sought the isolation of individual states, the weakening of the connection of the Empire, the policy of the free hand and temporary alliances of the courts among themselves, instead of submitting to the power of the Diet; and their mutual union at the Diet, and in all diplomatic negotiations, tended to counteract the influence and policy of the Emperor. In the midst of this struggle betwixt two adverse principles, a new state arose in Germany, the princes of which, allying themselves sometimes with one party, sometimes with the other, endeavoured to make use of both, and collected round them a nation, which at the end of the eighteenth century appeared capable of a more vigorous development of German strength than the inheritance of the Hapsburgers. And so completely has the situation of Germany changed, that now the Imperial party acts with most of the German princes against the party of the new State. The old opponents have united in a struggle against the new party, both in the difficult position of having to uphold what is unsatisfactory, both under the fatal necessity of working against a long-cherished desire of the nation.
It was a desperate political situation which placed the centre of gravity of German power in the hands of individual German princes, and gave them the almost unlimited disposal of the property and lives of their subjects. The political weakness of Germany, the despotic sway and corruption of the rulers, the servility of the subjects, the immorality of the courts, and the dishonesty of officials, was the sad result, and has often been sufficiently pourtrayed. But with this time begins also the modern State life of Germany. The progress of a nation is not always understood and valued by contemporaries, the necessary changes are not always effected by great men; sometimes the good genius of a nation requires the bad, the insignificant, and the shortsighted, as instruments in a powerful reconstruction. Not in the French revolution alone has a new life proceeded from evil deeds: in Germany also, iron necessity, despotism, and contempt for old rights, have produced much that we now consider as the necessary groundwork of well-regulated State life.
The school of diplomats and statesmen who had been trained during the war in Germany, defended the interests of the German sovereigns up to the time of the French revolution. The endless peace negotiations brought together in Germany the most distinguished politicians of Europe. Pupils of Richelieu, able Netherlanders, countrymen of Macchiavelli, and the proud followers of Gustavus Adolphus. The struggle of antagonisms gave to a large number of talented Germans superabundant opportunities of forming themselves; for around the representatives of the great powers were more than a hundred political agents, writing and haranguing. From the passionate struggle which was brought to a conclusion at Münster and Osnabruck amid the constraint of ceremonials and with an appearance of cold tranquillity, from the chaotic confusion of numberless contending interests, and from the mountains of acts, controversial writings, replications, and projects of treaty, a generation of politicians was, after the peace, spread over the country, hard men, with stubborn will and indomitable perseverance, with gigantic power of work and acute judgment, learned jurists and versatile men of the world, with great knowledge of human nature, but at the same time sceptical despisers of all ideal feelings, unscrupulous in the choice of means, dextrous in making use of the weak point of an opponent, experienced in demanding and giving honour, and well inclined not to forget their own advantage. They became the leaders of politics at the courts and in the Imperial cities, quiet leaders or dextrous tools of their lords--in fact, the real rulers of Germany. They were the creators of the diplomacy and bureaucracy of Germany. Their method of negotiating may appear to us very prolix and pettifogging, but it is just in our time, when a superficial dilettanteism is to be complained of in diplomacy and State government, that the legal culture and sagacious dexterity of the old school should be looked back upon with respect. It was not the fault of these men that they were obliged to spend their lives in a hundred little quarrels, and that only few of them found themselves in the happy position of promoting a great and wise policy. But it will always be to their honour, that under unfavourable circumstances they more than once preserved the esteem and respect of the external enemies of Germany, for German diplomacy, where they no longer felt it for the power of German armies.
They regulated also the internal concerns of the devastated provinces of the new "State." According to their model was formed the official class, also the colleges of judges and administrators; often, it is true, more awkward and pedantic, but just as tenacious of rank, and not unfrequently as corruptible, as the chancellors and privy councillors on whom they depended. The new politicians carried on also important negotiations with the provincial Diets, and had no easy task to render them pliant or harmless. Ever since the end of the fifteenth century there existed, in almost all the larger territories of Germany, State representatives of the country, who voted the taxes, attaching conditions to such votes, and also giving their opinion on the application of the taxes; in the sixteenth century they had attained to increased importance, as they superintended a provincial bank, which assisted the Government in raising money. At the end of the great war, these provincial banks became the last and most important help, for they had strained their credit to the uttermost to provide a war contribution to rid the country of foreign armies. Thus after the peace they were most influential corporations, and the existence of the great portion of creditless sovereigns depended, in fact, upon them. Unfortunately the provincial States were ill fitted to be the true representatives of the country; they consisted for the most part of prelates, lords, and knights, all of them representatives of the nobility, who were, as regarded their own persons and property, exempt from taxes: under them were the deputies of the desolated and deeply involved cities. Thus they were not only inclined to lay the burden of these money grants upon the mass of the people, but it also became possible for the Government, through the preponderance of the aristocratic element, to exercise every kind of personal influence. Whilst the ruler drew the nobles of his province to his court, in order to divert himself in fitting society, his chief officials knew how to take advantage of their craving for rank and titles, and through offices, dignities, and gifts, and lastly by threats of royal displeasure, to break the resistance of individuals. Thus in the eighteenth century the States in most of the principalities sank into insignificance, in some they were entirely abolished. Still some continued to exist, and did not everywhere lose their influence and importance.
The sums, however, which they were able to grant did not by any means suffice for the new state--to maintain a costly court, numerous officials and soldiers. Regular imposts had to be devised which would be independent of their grants. The indirect taxes quickly increased to a threatening extent. The necessaries of life--bread, meat, salt, wine, beer--and many other things, were taxed to the consumers, at the end of the seventeenth century. The custom and excise officials were stationed at the city gates, and custom-houses were placed at the frontiers, for the merchandise which passed in and out. Commercial intercourse was made use of through stamped paper, even the pleasures of the subject were made available for the state; for example (in 1708 in the Imperial hereditary lands), not only public but private dances were taxed, and also, in 1714, tobacco. At last the poor comedians were likewise obliged to pay a gulden for each representation, and even the quack and eye doctors paid at each yearly market a few kreuzers, and heavy claims were made on the Jews. It was long before either people or officials could accustom themselves to the pressure of the new imposts; the tariff and the mode of levying it were always being altered, and frequently the governments saw with dissatisfaction their expectations disappointed. On the impoverished people the pressure of the new taxes fell very severely; loud and incessant were the complaints in the popular literature.
Meanwhile the subject worked with the plough and the hammer; he sat at the writing-desk, and saw around and over him everywhere the wheels of the great state machine; he heard its clicking and creaking, and was hindered, tormented, and endangered by its every movement. He lived under it as a stranger, timid and suspicious. In about six hundred great and small courts, he saw daily the splendid households of his rulers, and the gold-embroidered dresses of the court people; the lace of the lacqueys and the tufts of the footmen were to him objects of the highest importance, his usual topic of discourse. When the ruling lord kept a grand table, the citizens had sometimes the privilege of seeing the court dine. When the court, forming a sledge party, or a so-called wirthschaft,[75] drove through the streets in disguise, the subjects might look on. In winter they might even themselves take a share in a great masquerade, but a barrier was erected which separated the people from the sports of the court. Once the prince had contended with the citizens, shooting at the same target, and was only treated in the jokes of the pritschmeister with somewhat greater consideration. Now the court were entirely separated from the people; and if a courtier condescended to notice a citizen, it was generally no advantage to the purse or family peace of the privileged one. Thus the poor citizen acquired an abject feeling. To obtain an office or title which would give him somewhat of this courtly power, became the object of his ambition, and the same even with the artisan. In the five or six hundred court establishments the desire for titles spread from the nobles and officials down to the lowest class of the people. Shortly before 1700 began the monstrous custom of giving court titles to the artisans, and with these an order of precedence. The court shoemaker tried by petitioning and bribery to obtain the right of nailing the coat of arms of his sovereign over his door; and the court tailor and court gardener quarrelled bitterly which should go before the other, for the tailor, according to the letter of the rule of precedence, went as a matter of course before the gardener, but the latter had obtained the right of bearing a sword.[76] Wealth was the only thing besides rank that gave a privileged position. Whoever calls ours a money-seeking time, should remember how great was the influence of money in former times, and how eagerly it was sought by the poor. The rich man could, it was thought, effect everything. He could be made a nobleman, provided with a title, or by his presents put his rulers under an obligation to him. These presents, were in general received willingly. Greedily did the chancellor, the judge, or the councillor accept them, and even the most sensitive rarely withstood a delicately offered gift. The protection, however, obtained by the citizen in the new state was still very deficient; it was difficult for him to obtain justice against people of distinction and influence. Lawsuits in most of the German territories were endless. A difficult case of inheritance, or a bankruptcy business, would go on to the second and third generation. Government, with the best will, could not always punish even violent injury to property from burglary or robbery. It is instructive to investigate the proceedings against the bold robber bands; even when they succeeded in catching the delinquent, the stolen goods could seldom be restored to the owners. The neighbouring governments sometimes delivered up, on requisition and petition, the criminal who had found an asylum in their country, but such deliveries were generally preceded by special influence, and frequently by presents of money; but the confiscated possessions of the criminal were in many cases retained, and disappeared in the hands of the officials. When in 1733, at Coburg, a gold and silver manufactory was robbed, and strong suspicion fell on a wealthy Jewish trader, the proceedings were often stopped and interfered with, in consequence of the relations the Jew had with the court; and even after he was known to be in intimate connection with a band of robbers and murderers, the proceedings against his assistants could not be pursued further, because the magistrates of the place in Hesse where the robbers dwelt, helped their flight; and the further ramifications of the band, which spread to Bavaria and Silesia, could not be traced on account of the unwillingness of the tribunals. And yet this trial was carried on with great energy, and the person who had been robbed had made distant journeys and offered large sums. Everywhere the multiplicity of rulers, and the dismemberment of territories, were productive of weakness. The Margravate of Brandenburg and a portion of Lower Saxony formed almost the only great connected unity, except the Imperial possessions. In the rest of Germany lay interspersed many thousands of large and small domains, free cities, and parcels of land appertaining to the nobility. But even a modest pride in their own province could not be cultivated in individuals. For each of the countless frontiers occasioned far more isolation than in the olden time. Even in the larger cities, excepting in the cities on the Northern Ocean, municipal spirit had disappeared. Besides his own interests, the German had little to occupy him but the tittle-tattle of the day concerning family events and any remarkable news. It may be seen from many examples how trifling, pedantic, and malicious was the talk of the city for three generations, and how morbidly sensitive, on the other hand, men had become. Anonymous lampoons in prose and verse, an old invention, became ever more numerous, coarse, and malicious; they stirred up not only families, but the whole community of citizens; they became dangerous for the propagators, if they ever ventured to, attack any influential person or royal interests. Yet they increased everywhere; no government was in a position to prevent them; for an artful publisher easily found opportunity to print and distribute them on the other side of the frontier.
Under such circumstances some qualities were developed in the German character which have not yet quite disappeared. A craving for rank and title, servility to those who, whether as officials, or as persons of rank, lived in a higher position, fear of publicity, and above all a striking inclination to form a morose, mean, and scornful judgment of the character and life of others.
This gloomy, hopeless, discontented, and ironical disposition showed itself everywhere, after the Thirty Years' War, by individuals giving vent to their thoughts about the state within whose jurisdiction they lived. It is true that the Germans continued after the great war to take an interest in politics: newspapers of all kinds increased gradually, and bore the news to every house; confidential reports from the seats of government and great commercial cities were circulated; the half-yearly reports of fairs comprised an abstract of the occurrences of many months; and numberless flying sheets, representing party interests, appeared upon every weighty event, both internal and external. The execution of the king, in England, was generally condemned by German readers as a frightful crime, and the sympathies of the whole nation were long with the Stuarts; but shortly before William of Orange put to sea against James II. it was read and believed that James had ventured to substitute a false child as heir to the throne. No one, however, excited public opinion so strongly against himself as Louis XIV. If ever a man was hated by the whole of Germany, he was. It is remarkable, that whilst the manners of his court and the fashions of his capital were everywhere imitated by the upper classes, and even the people could not escape from their influence, his politics were from the first rightly estimated by them. Countless were the flying sheets which were scattered about from all sides against him. He was the disturber of the peace, the great enemy, and in the lampoons also the proud fool. After the Palatinate was laid in ashes, the people called their dogs Melac and Teras; after the taking of Strasburg, a deeper cry of woe passed through the land. Finally, when in the great War of Succession the German armies long kept the upper hand, a feeling of self-respect was excited, which appeared in the small literature of the day. Had there been a German prince who could have awakened an energetic patriotism in the weak people, this hatred would have helped him. But a powerful outburst of patriotic feeling was hindered by the political condition of the country; in Cologne and Bavaria, French printing-presses were at work, and German pens wrote against their own countrymen.
One cannot, therefore, say that the Germans were deficient altogether in political feeling in the century from 1640 to 1740, for it burst forth everywhere; even in works of imagination, in novels, and also in the drama, political conversation found a place, as did aesthetic talk in Goethe's time. But it was unfortunate that this feeling vented itself on the political quarrels of other countries, and that the transactions in Germany itself, excited less interest than the daily occurrences of the Parisian court, or the abdication of the Queen of Sweden. The indifferent public still continued to occupy itself as earnestly about comets, witches, appearances of the devil, a quarrel amongst ecclesiastics, disputes between councillors and citizens of some Imperial city, or the conversion of some small prince by the Jesuits, as about the battle of Fehrbellin. The preparations of the Turks and the war in Hungary were, perhaps, spoken of with a shake of the head; but to pay money for it, or render assistance, was seldom thought of; even after the siege of Vienna by the Turks, in 1683, Count Stahremberg was scarcely as interesting to the great German public as the spy Kolschitzky, who had brought the account from the city to the Imperial main army; his figure was engraved in copper in Turkish dress, and sold in the market. It is true he shared this glory with every distinguished thief and murderer who had ever been executed anywhere, to the great diversion of the public. Sometimes, indeed, the attention of the Germans was fixed with deeper interest on one man, the Elector of Brandenburg. In Southern Germany, also, he was spoken of respectfully; he was a powerful-minded prince, but, unfortunately, his means were small. This was the general opinion; but, as upon his character, so, likewise, upon other vital questions, did the German people give their opinion with as much tranquillity as if it were a question of the Muscovite Czar, or of the distant Japan, concerning which Jesuit accounts had been narrated centuries before. And this was not the result of the trammels of the press, though it certainly was much fettered; for, in spite of all the recklessness with which the ruling powers sought to revenge themselves on its unruly spirit, the multiplicity of states, and the mutual hatred of neighbouring governments, made it difficult to crush an unbridled press. It was other causes which made the people so indifferent to their own interests.
Neither was it deficiency in judgment. If the numberless political discourses of that time are clumsy and diffuse in composition, without any sufficient knowledge of facts and persons, yet they deserve credit for much sound sense and frequently a surprising comprehension of the condition of Germany. The Germans, even before 1700, were not deficient in political discernment; nay, before the Thirty Years' War, much progress was apparent. But it was their peculiar characteristic that, with this comprehension of their dangerous situation, of the helplessness of the Empire, and of its miserable, dislocated state, the people calmly and quietly recognised it with a shake of the head; even their literary teachers were rarely roused to manly indignation, still less to determined will, nor even to form fruitless projects. Thus, the nation in the seventeenth century might be compared to a hopeless invalid, who, free from the excitement of fever, soberly, calmly, and sensibly contemplates his own condition. We know, indeed, that it is our own century which has cured this morbid state of the German people; but we also perceive the cause of the singular, cold, and gloomy objectiveness which became so peculiar to our nation, and of which traces are yet to be discovered in many individuals. It is the disease of a rightly-gifted, genial nature, whose volition has been crushed by the horrors of war and the struggles of fate, and whose warm heart has been benumbed. A clear, circumspect, just spirit remains to the German; noble political enthusiasm is lost to him. He no longer finds pleasure and honour in being the citizen of a great State; he has no nation that he loves, no State that he honours; he is an individual among individuals; he has well-wishers and detractors, good friends and bad enemies, scarcely any fellow-citizens as yet, scarcely yet any countrymen.
As characteristic of such a frame of mind, a flying-sheet will here be given, which, in the allegorical style of the seventeenth century, makes bitter observations on the new State policy. Even during the great war, Bogislaw Philipp Chemnitz, one of the most zealous and talented adherents of the Swedish party, made a prodigious sensation by a book, in which he complains of the Imperial house as the principal cause of the misery of Germany, and finds the only salvation of the country in the independence and complete power of the German princes. From the title of the book,[77] "Staatsraison," this expression became the usual term for denoting the new system of government which, after the peace, began to prevail in the German territories. Since that, this Staatsraison was through half a century condemned in numerous moral treatises from the popular press; it was represented as double and triple headed, and in books, pictures, and satirical verses, always accused of being arbitrary, hard, and hypocritical. To this effect are the contents of the following work, which is here given with some abbreviations and alterations which are indispensable for its easier comprehension[78]:--
"As the ratio status is now not only honoured in the world, but held to be an irrevocable law, so are truth and honesty, on the other hand, no longer valued. When a situation in the service of the state is vacant, there is, indeed, no want of candidates; but out of nine the prince finds scarcely three that will suit him. Therefore, they must be examined. And if, in the examination, any one, in answer to the question, what should be the first and most distinguished virtue of a prince's councillor, should say: 'The men of the olden time teach that a prince should be none other than a servant for the general welfare; therefore, it is his duty to rule according to law and justice, for God and nature have implanted in the heart of every one a true balance for weighing the gold; do to others as you would they should do unto you;' then the prince would give him a courteous dismissal.
"Such a candidate had not long ago got through an examination at a certain court, by shrewd and cautious answers; he was nominated councillor, and as the prince was kindly disposed towards him, he gave him in marriage the daughter of his vice-chancellor. After the new councillor had taken the oath of fidelity and secresy, the vice-chancellor got the keys of the state apartments, and took his son-in-law in to initiate him into state secrets.
"In the first room hung many state mantles of all colours, on the outside beautifully trimmed, but badly lined inside, a portion of them having wolf or fox skins in addition to the bad lining. The son-in-law expressed surprise at this, but the chancellor answered: 'These are state mantles, which must be used when one has to propose anything suspicious to subjects, in order to persuade them that black is white; then must one disguise the matter in the mantle of state necessity, in order to induce the subjects to submit to contributions, rates, and other taxes. Therefore, the first mantle, embroidered in gold, is called the welfare of the subject; the second, with fringe, the advancement of the commonwealth; the third, which is red, the maintenance of divine service: it is used when one desires to drive any one, whom one cannot otherwise catch, from house and home, or give him a bloody back, under pretence of false teaching. The fourth is called zeal for the faith; the fifth, the freedom of fatherland; the sixth, the maintenance of privileges.' Last of all, there hung one very old and much worn, like an old banner or horse cover, concerning which the son-in-law laughed, wondering much; but the father-in-law said--'The daily and too great misuse of this has worn the hair off, but it is called good intentions, and is oftener sought after at the courts of the great than daily bread. For, if one lays insupportable burdens on subjects, and reduces them to skin and bone with soccage service, and if one cuts the bread from their mouths, it is said to be done with the best intentions; if one begins an unnecessary war, and plunges the country and its inhabitants in a sea of blood under fire and sword, it is done with the best intentions. Who could know that it would turn out so ill? If one sends innocent people to prison or to the rack, or drives them into utter misery, and their innocence comes to light, still it must have been with good intentions. If one passes an unjust judgment from hatred, envy, favour, bribery, or friendship, it is only done with a good intention. It comes at last to such a point, that one shall make use of the help of the devil with the best intentions. If one or other of these mantles are too short to disguise the roguery, one may cloak it with two, three, or more.' This room appeared very strange to the new councillor; he, nevertheless, followed his noble father-in-law into another; there they found all sorts of masks, so ingeniously formed both in colour and features that they might be the natural faces of men. 'When the mantles,' said the chancellor, 'do not suffice to the attainment of the above-mentioned object, one must make a change; for if one appears too often in one or the other mantle successively before the States, or subjects, or before neighbouring potentates, they at last learn to understand it, and say: "It is the old story; we know what he wants, he wishes to obtain money; but how can we always get it? One might at least be informed to what these repeated taxes are applied." The masks serve to meet this discontent One is called the oath; another, calumny; a third, deceit; these delude people, be they good or bad, and effect more than all the arguments of logic. But, above all, the oath is the masterpiece of court logic; for an honourable man always thinks that another is like-minded with himself; he holds more to an oath and good faith than to all temporal goods; but if a man is a knave, he must still give credence to an oath, otherwise he puts himself under suspicion that he neither values oaths nor duty. If both the others fail, calumny must be resorted to, to relieve subjects from the burden of some thousand gulden according to their means.'
"In the third chamber were hanging, in all directions, razors and brass basins; the shelves were covered with cupping-glasses and sponges. There were many vessels containing strong alkalies, tourniquets, and pincers, and shears lay on the tables and window-seats. The young councillor crossed himself; what could they have to do at court with this surgical apparatus, as even many artisans hesitate to admit bath-keepers, shepherds, millers, and trumpeters into their guilds? 'It is not so ill imagined,' said the old man; 'this is the least deceptive handiwork of the state policy, and is more profitable than pen and ink. It is so necessary, that no prince, without this handiwork, can long maintain with dignity his state and his reputation; and its use is so general, that even the country nobles practise it in a masterly way on their peasants; hence the maxim comes, that "If a nobleman draws too much blood from the peasants' veins, he himself is ruined." Of what use to the prince are his land and people, if he cannot shear their wool for the rents that are due, and draw contributions with cupping-glasses, and cleanse disobedient leaders by the alkali of sharp punishment? Nay, the potentates shave, pinch, and cup one another, also, whenever they can. Thus did the generals in the last war draw, now from the Imperial cities, now from the benefices, much of their best blood; and the Holy Roman Empire has been as severely pinched by foreign crowns as if it had been done by born bath-servants, only they have made the lie too hot. Many have held the basin to the foreigners, and things have gone so far, that insignificant cavaliers have ventured to shear other princes. But what the princes do not do in person is performed by their councillors, treasurers, and other officials, who allow themselves to be used as the sponge, and where they have attached themselves to an office, a city, or a village, and have sucked up so much moisture that they well-nigh burst asunder, then comes the prince, and gives them such a squeeze of the hand, that they are obliged to disgorge all that they have absorbed, and become as empty as cast-off serpent skins.'
"Silently did the young councillor listen, and entered the fourth chamber. There lay many cases of state spectacles of different kinds. 'Some, when they are put on, make a thing ten times larger than it is, so that a midge appears like an elephant--a thread like a rope--and a farthing like a rose-noble; they serve to blind the eyes of subjects. If the prince presents them with a couple of timber-trees, remits somewhat of their contribution, or gives them the liberty to appear before him in velvet and silk, they prize this as highly as if he had given them many thousand ducats. These spectacles so injure the eyes of the unfortunate courtiers, that the least favour, such as the prince laying his hand upon their shoulder, or even looking upon them, is valued more highly than if they had received from him a rent of 500 gulden. Nay, the prince has, through his most august understanding, discovered a special profitable use of these spectacles. If he finds the States unwilling to give him contributions, he gets up a cry that the enemy is at hand; that we need thus much and more of provisions, money, and men to meet the barbarous enemy, otherwise all would fall into his jaws. By these exaggerations the people are rendered willing, and give as much as they possibly can. But so soon as the fish is caught, then it is found that God has roused up great princes, who, for the sake of peace, have mediated, and the contributions are used for other purposes. Another kind of spectacles have, on the contrary, the property of making a mountain appear not greater than a hazel-nut or bean; they are fixed on the cities and frontier lands, right in the face of which the princes have built castles and fortresses; in order to persuade them that these are only pleasure and garden houses, custom-houses and hunting-boxes. The third kind of spectacles, through which the white appears black, and the black snow white, will always be used when one wishes anything bad to have a glittering appearance; they serve also for those who are induced to marry--under the supposition that they are virtuous ladies--the females who wait upon the royal household, make their beds, and curl their hair.'