The exclusiveness of the Court of Vienna has become a byword; so strictly is the right of entry criticised that few indeed of those who pass through the country ever gain a glimpse of the highest circles of all. The nobles of Austria-Hungary rigidly keep within their class limits; they do not meet and mingle with the upper middle class as is the custom in so many countries; there is no overlapping, no exchange of social courtesies; marriages are confined to their own class, and a girl who marries outside it is considered an outcast. The aristocracy suffer therefore from a lack of fresh blood in their veins; they are not constantly recruited either by marriages or by the ennobling of commoners as in England, where—though it may be a source of merriment to see the tide of peerages setting in this or that way according to the political party in power—at all events there is always a constant stream of new life flowing toward the upper classes. And the aristocrats do not suffer. There is a marvellously refining influence in place and state and dignity, and the third generation of the soap-earl or the brewer-baron takes his place as naturally and easily in gentle society as the son of a hundred earls.
The Austrian nobles, however, would never receive recently ennobled peers. The sixteen quarterings are to them a necessary passport to friendliness. It is said that on one occasion when an Austrian noble had been setting forth the impossibility of associating with those he did not consider his equals, the Emperor rebuked him by saying, “If I, like you, wished to confine myself to the society of my equals, I should have to go down into the Capuchin vault [where the Hapsburgs are buried] to find them.”
Not only by the want of new blood do the nobles of the Dual Monarchy suffer, but also from an exclusiveness in regard to the occupations that they consider it dignified for their sons to follow. In England not so very long ago there were only three openings for the sons of gentlemen—Law, the Church, or the Services—and the Austrian nobleman has not arrived even so far as that. To him politics and the army are the only openings, and by this narrowing and stultification of interests originality and initiative are deadened. All the healthy energetic life that might be his is monopolised by the upper middle classes, who prosper accordingly, and have an upper class or aristocracy of their own. Though the government of the country is in reality an oligarchy, very different from the autocracy of its great neighbour Germany, yet at the same time it is the class below that of the nobility which gets the most fun out of life and is most in evidence.
The Austrians are naturally bright and pleasure-loving, for on the basis of their German ancestry, which gives them a certain simplicity, are implanted the livelier qualities of the French and Italians, with which races their own has mingled. It is to this mingling with other nations that the noble classes have survived at all and not died out enfeebled by marriages with too near kin. Mr. Whitman sums up some of the foreign alliances thus:
The Princes Rohan point to Brittany; the Princes Mensdorf-Pouilly, the Counts Dampierre, the Bouquoy to France; the Hoyos to Spain; the Princes Croy, the Counts Fiquelmont to Belgium; the Dukes of Beaufort-Spontin to Lorraine; the Princes Odescalchi, Clasy, Montenuovo, the Counts Palavacini, Bianchi, Paar, Montecuculli, and many others to Italy. Moreover, the aristocratic population of Austria itself has long had nearer home, in the Hungarian, the Polish, the northern Italian aristocratic element, a large variety of noble blood with which to renovate itself, and thus to counteract the ill effects so often seen in princely houses of too close intermarriage.
The sorrows which have fallen on the royal house, and the great age of the Emperor have thrown a shadow over the nobility. But the middle-class people are not affected by it. A gayer, brighter, and withal more orderly crowd is rarely to be found in the capital of any kingdom. The Austrian takes his pleasure lightly, sipping his national wines beneath the avenues of trees in the wide boulevards. He revels in good music and fine acting. He is not extravagant and keeps wonderfully early hours. As is natural in such a cosmopolitan country, every race may be found represented on the boulevards and in the cafés. Greeks, Turks, Jews, Czechs, Germans, Slavs, and Magyars are to be met everywhere.
Oddly enough it is the Hungarian noblemen who are chiefly responsible for the exclusiveness of the Court at Vienna. It is they who, in acknowledging the Hapsburgs as their rulers, have imbued their fellow-subjects, the Austrians, with their own haughty temper. It is impossible to help mentioning here, rather than under the heading of their own capital, Budapest, the names of some of the princely Hungarian families such as the Esterhazys, whose castles stud the country in the neighbourhood of Buda. The estates of this one family alone cover an area equal to Ireland in extent, and include sixty towns and between 400 and 500 villages. Stories are told of the hauteur of the earlier Esterhazys, as when one of them remarked, “Below the rank of Baron no one exists,” and another who happened to be present at one of the famous Holkham sheep-shearings said casually to his host, the Earl of Leicester, that he possessed as many shepherds as the earl had sheep! Travel and mingling with the aristocracy of other countries has widened the views of later Esterhazys as to their own importance, and more than one of them is a welcome visitor to the English Court. It would be impossible indeed for any visitor not peculiarly favoured by introductions to get a glimpse of the interior of any of their feudal castles which still exist, such as that of Fraknó in the county of Sopron, the property of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, which stands high on an outcrop of rock and has fortified walls all round. There are twenty-one country seats belonging to the Esterhazys, ranging from a specimen such as this, through fine palaces, to huge modern buildings. There are acres of gardens, miles of forest, a famous racecourse and parks without end attached to these mansions. There are other names also rivalling that of Esterhazy, such as that of the Prince Festetics, and many another. But we have wandered far from Vienna.
The town itself consists of a rather small kernel enclosed by the celebrated Ringstrasse, a tree-lined boulevard, built over the old fortifications removed in 1858; beyond this an immense outer ring of suburbs is cut by a second promenade. The old saying that “Vienna is the least part of itself” is true more than ever now when it overflows farther and farther on to the broken vine-clad slopes which surround it.
It has little left of ancient interest, if we except the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, and the situation lacks any sort of charm. The town lies in the flat plain beside a canal. This canal is as a bow to the string of the river Danube, and was made in order to bring water facilities to the capital. The difficulty is to imagine why this particular place was chosen as a site rather than any other. On one side at a distance of a mile or so are the heights of Kablenburg and Leopoldsburg, which can be reached by rail, and from which the whole place can be seen lying unfolded like a map. The canal with its many bridges curves round at one’s feet, and at the outermost rim of its bow is the town with many fine buildings, including the Cathedral, standing up conspicuously out of the mass of lower ones. Away to the south is the lumpy hill of Wagram where Napoleon won a hard-fought battle. The city has tasted not once but many times in its history the bitterness of capture and was twice occupied by the all-conquering Napoleon.
But if the site shows little to attract attention, the town itself is full of charm, which is felt at once by any foreigner visiting it. Though the architecture shows Italian influence, yet it is characteristic and different from anything seen elsewhere; it carries its own stamp and is Viennese. Then there is a peculiar lightness and brightness in the streets for which it is difficult to account; it is somewhat the same atmosphere as that of Paris, but again has its own distinctive flavour. Everywhere in the boulevards, the shops, the cafés, one meets the same willingness to help, the same cheerful courtesy, the same attractive simplicity of manner; there is nothing over-elaborated or forced. There is plenty of light and air, and if Vienna cannot boast the attractions of ancient buildings, she can boast all the advantages of a modern city.
The chief features of the town are the Cathedral of St. Stephen, the Royal Palace of Schönbrunn, and the Prater.
The Cathedral, founded in 1144, is in an ornate style of Gothic, and its soaring spire, seen far and wide over the country, is balanced and finished by the pointed lesser towers, the gables and the windows, so that the principal note is one of uplifting. At one time the building, like most old churches, was encumbered by a mass of houses, hovels, etc., which clung to its sides like barnacles, but these were all swept away, and the glorious architecture is now seen to advantage. The celebrated tomb of Frederick IV. in the choir is of red marble ornamented by more than 300 figures and subjects. The whole building is one of the finest existing monuments of old German architecture in existence. The lofty vaulting of the nave is supported by eighteen pillars. Anton Pilgram’s chancel is particularly deserving of study, and the visitor should not miss the thirty-eight altars of sculptured marble. Most notable is the High Altar with the sculpture of the Stoning of St. Stephen.
Not far from the Cathedral is the Church of the Capuchins with its royal vault wherein are buried many of the Hapsburg line, including Maria Teresa and her husband. Noteworthy also are the Italian National Church, containing the monument of Metastasio, the Church of St. Ruprecht, founded in the eighth century, the remains of the Burgkapelle, or Court Chapel, and the Salvator Chapel in the former town hall.
The Schönbrunn Palace, which lies outside Vienna, has been added to and altered by many succeeding sovereigns and is especially celebrated for its beautiful gardens. It is rather formal in architecture, and is best seen from the “Gloriette,” standing on rising ground, and affording splendid views all round, either from the terrace or the roof. The Imperial residence in Vienna itself is called the Hofburg, a conglomeration of buildings of various ages.
Even those who have never been to Vienna have heard of the Prater, the public park, comparable with the Row or the Champs Elysées, which covers many miles in extent and stretches to the Danube. Here the fashionable Viennese ride and drive. The entrance to the Prater is usually rather surprising, as the first part is a veritable fair dedicated to shops and book-stalls. At festival times with the flaring illuminations, the noise and fun and jollity, it resembles nothing else, but has an atmosphere peculiarly its own. The open-air cafés and seats and bands are much patronised by the lower middle classes in the evening on ordinary occasions.
In his most interesting book, The Realm of the Habsburgs, Mr. Whitman says:
Unlike many other towns, even Berlin, where festivity among the lower orders frequently degenerates into rowdyism, there is something strikingly pleasurable and Austrian about merry-making here. Even in places of amusement of a more or less boisterous kind, such as music-halls and dancing-saloons, if there is anybody who misbehaves himself, it may be an intoxicated aristocratic Trottel who has returned from the races, but it will hardly ever be a true Viennese.
The fine Imperial Opera House is noted all over Europe. As a musical nation the Dual Monarchy ranks second only to Germany, and the Blue Hungarian band or the Austrian band are now essential parts of every gay gathering in lands far beyond the bounds of Europe. How many a young couple has floated in realms of an ideal delight to the strains of an Austrian waltz! Music is part of the life of the Austrian, and the opera house is a national concern, as are also the chief theatres. The names of Austrian composers are legion, for the national genius seems to take this direction more easily than that of literature. Among them is that of Johann Strauss, composer of waltzes, blessed in many countries, many climes; from torrid to Arctic zones his lilting music moves the feet and no less the hearts of those in youth’s spring-time. He was born at Vienna in 1804, and is not the only one of his name to win fame with his music. His playing was only second to his gifts of composition, and when he visited England at the time of Queen Victoria’s coronation he won the favour of all music-lovers. He died of scarlet fever at Vienna in 1849. His three sons all inherited his musical talent, though in less degree.
The University at Vienna takes high rank and there are good schools in abundance. Altogether Vienna is a gay, self-respecting, pleasant town, which attracts those who have visited it to repeat their visits year after year.
No account of Vienna, however curtailed, could be complete without reference to Baden, which, though some distance away, is linked up by a good railway service with the capital, and is so much patronised by the citizens as to constitute a suburb. The very name carries its own explanation, for it is the natural mineral baths that have made the fame of Baden, though it must not be confused with the greater Baden-Baden in Germany. The only drawback to the place is its excessive popularity, which causes it to be submerged beneath waves of trippers at holiday times. The hot sulphur baths are equal to any in existence, and the music and dancing and entertainments of all kinds draw many who have no desire to improve their health to the gay watering place.