Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843

German posting is on a par with German inns, which is as much as to say that it is detestable, even if the roads were good. The roughness, mire, and continual ascents and descents of the roads, try the traveller's patience. The only resource is sleep; but even that is denied by the continual groanings of a miserable French horn, with which the postilion announces his approach to every village.

 
"Silence, ye wolves, while tipsy Mein-Herr howls,
Making night hideous; answer him, ye owls."
 

The best chance of getting a tolerable meal in the majority of these roadside houses, is, to take one's own provisions, carry a cook, if we can, and, if not, turn cooks ourselves; but the grand hotels are too "grand" for this, and they insist on supplying the dinner, for which the general name is cochonerrie, and with perfect justice.

On the 12th of September, the Marquis and his family arrived at Nuremberg, where the Bavarian court were assembled, in order to be present at a Camp of Exercise. To the eye of an officer who had been in the habit of seeing the armies of the late war, the military spectacle could not be a matter of much importance, for the camp consisted of but 1800 men. But he had been a comrade of the king, when prince-royal, during the campaigns of 1814 and 1815; and, as such, had helped (and not slightly) to keep the tottering crown on the brow of Bavaria. He now sent to request the opportunity of paying his respects; but Germany, absurd in many things, is especially so in point of etiquette. Those miraculous productions of Providence, the little German sovereigns, live on etiquette, never abate an atom of their opportunities of convincing inferior mortals that they are of a super-eminent breed; and, in part, seem to have strangely forgotten that salutary lesson which Napoleon and his captains taught them, in the days when a republican brigadier, or an imperial aid-de-camp, though the son of a tailor, treated their "Serene Highnesses" and "High Mightinesses" with as little ceremony as the thoroughly beaten deserved from the conquerors. In the present instance, the little king did not choose to receive the gallant soldier, whom, in days of difficulty, he had been rejoiced to find at his side; and the ground assigned was, that the monarch received none but in uniform; the Marquis having mentioned, that he must appear in plain clothes, in consequence of dispatching his uniform to Munich, doubtless under the idea of attending the court there in his proper rank of a general officer.

The Marquis was angry, and the fragment of his reply which we give, was probably as unpalatable a missive as the little king had received since the days of Napoleon.

"My intention was, to express my respect for his majesty, in taking this opportunity to pay my court to him, in the interesting recollection of the kindly feelings which he deigned to exhibit to me and my brother at Vienna, when Prince Royal of Bavaria.

"I had flattered myself, that as the companion-in-arms of the excellent Marshal Wrede in the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, his majesty would have granted this much of remembrance to an individual, without regard to uniform; or, at least, would have done me the honour of a private audience. I find, however, that I have been mistaken, and I have now only to offer my apologies to his majesty.

"The flattering reception which I have enjoyed in other courts, and the idea that this was connected with the name and services of the individual, and not dependent on the uniform, was the cause of my indiscretion. As my profound respect for his majesty was the sole feeling which led me towards Munich, I shall not delay a moment in quitting his majesty's territory."

If his majesty had been aware that this Parthian arrow would have been shot at him, he would have been well advised in relaxing his etiquette.

In the vicinity where this trifling transaction occurred, is the locale of an undertaking which will probably outlast all the little diadems of all the little kings. This is the canal by which it is proposed to unite the Rhine, the Mayne, and the Danube; in other words, to make the longest water communication in the world, through the heart of Europe; by which the Englishman embarking at London-bridge, may arrive at Constantinople in a travelling palace, with all the comforts—nay, all the luxuries of life, round him; his books, pictures, furniture, music, and society; and all this, while sweeping through some of the most magnificent scenery of the earth, safe from surge or storm, sheltered from winter's cold and summer's sun, rushing along at the rate of a couple of hundred miles a-day, until he finds himself in the Bosphorus, with all the glories of the City of the Sultans glittering before him.

This is the finest speculation that was ever born of this generation of wonders, steam; and if once realized, must be a most prolific source of good to mankind. But the Germans are an intolerably tardy race in every thing, but the use of the tongue. They harangue, and mystify, and magnify, but they will not act; and this incomparable design, which, in England, would join the whole power of the nation in one unanimous effort, languishes among the philosophists and prognosticators of Germany, finds no favour in the eyes of its formal courts, and threatens to be lost in the smoke of a tobacco-saturated and slumber-loving people.

But the chief monument of Bavaria is the Val Halla, a modern temple designed to receive memorials of all the great names of Germany. The idea is kingly, and so is the temple; but it is built on the model of the Parthenon—evidently a formidable blunder in a land whose history, habits, and genius, are of the north. A Gothic temple or palace would have been a much more suitable, and therefore a finer conception. The combination of the palatial, the cathedral, and the fortress style, would have given scope to superb invention, if invention was to be found in the land; and in such an edifice, for such a purpose, Germany would have found a truer point of union, than it will ever find in the absurd attempt to mix opposing faiths, or in the nonsense of a rebel Gazette, and clamorous Gazetteers.

Still the Bavarian monarch deserves the credit of an unrivalled zeal to decorate his country. He is a great builder, he has filled Munich with fine edifices, and called in the aid of talents from every part of Europe, to stir up the flame, if it is to be found among his drowsy nation.

The Val Halla is on a pinnacle of rising ground, about a hundred yards from the Danube, from whose bank the ascent is by a stupendous marble staircase, to the grand portico. The columns are of the finest white stone, and the interior is completely lined with German marbles. Busts of the distinguished warriors, poets, statesmen, and scholars, are to be placed in niches round the walls, but not till they are dead. A curious arrangement is adopted with respect to the living: Persons of any public note may send their busts, while living, to the Val Halla, where they are deposited in a certain chamber, a kind of marble purgatory or limbo. When they die, a jury is to sit upon them, and if they are fortunate enough to have a verdict in their favour, they take their place amongst these marble immortals. As the process does not occur until the parties are beyond the reach of human disappointment, they cannot feel the worse in case of failure; but the vanity which tempts a man thus to declare himself deserving of perpetual renown, by the act of sending his bust as a candidate, is perfectly foreign, and must be continually ridiculous.

The temple has been inaugurated or consecrated by the king in person, within the last month. He has made a speech, and dedicated it to German fame for ever. He certainly has had the merit of doing what ought to have been long since done in every kingdom of Europe; what a slight retrenchment in every royal expenditure would have enabled every sovereign to set on foot; and what could be done most magnificently, would be most deserved, and ought to be done without delay, in England.

At Ratisbon, the steam navigation on the Danube begins, taking passengers and carriages to Linz, where the Austrian steam navigation commences, completing the course down the mighty river. The former land-journey from Ratisbon to Vienna generally occupied six days. By the steam-boat, it is now accomplished in forty-eight hours, a prodigious saving of space and time. The Bavarian boats are smaller than those on the Rhine, owing to the shallows on the upper part of the river, but they are well managed and comfortable. The steamer is, in fact, a floating hotel, where every thing is provided on board, and the general arrangements are exact and convenient. The scenery in this portion of the river is highly exciting.—"The Rhine, with its hanging woods and multitudinous inhabited castles, affords a more cultivated picture; but in the steep and craggy mountains of the Danube, in its wild outlines and dilapidated castles, the imagination embraces a bolder range. At one time the river is confined within its narrowest limits, and proceeds through a defile of considerable altitude, with overhanging rocks menacing destruction. At another it offers an open, wild archipelago of islands. The mountains have disappeared, and a long plain bounds on each side of the river its barren banks."

The steam-boats stop at Neudorf, a German mile from Vienna. On his arrival, the Marquis found the servants and carriages of Prince Esterhazy waiting for him, and quarters provided at the Swan Hotel, until one of the prince's palaces could be prepared for his reception. The importance of getting private quarters on arriving at Vienna is great, the inns being all indifferent and noisy. They have another disqualification not less important—they seem to be intolerably dear. The Marquis's accommodations, though on a third story of the Swan, cost him eight pounds sterling a-day. This he justly characterizes as extravagant, and says he was glad to remove on the third day, there being an additional annoyance, in a club of the young nobles at the Swan, which prevented a moment's quiet. The cuisine, however, was particularly good, and the house, though a formidable affair for a family, is represented as desirable for a "bachelor"—we presume, a rich one.

Vienna has had her share in the general improvement of the Continent. She has become commercial, and her streets exhibit shops with gilding, plate-glass, and showy sign-boards, in place of the very old, very barbarous, and very squalid, displays of the last century. War is a rough teacher, but it is evidently the only one for the Continent. The foreigner is as bigoted to his original dinginess and discomfort, as the Turk to the Koran. Nothing but fear or force ever changes him. The French invasions were desperate things, but they swept away a prodigious quantity of the cobwebs which grow over the heads of nations who will not use the broom for themselves. Feudalities and follies a thousand years old were trampled down by the foot of the conscript; and the only glimpses of common-sense which have visited three-fourths of Europe in our day, were let in through chinks made by the French bayonet. The French were the grand improvers of every thing, though only for their own objects. They made high roads for their own troops, and left them to the Germans; they cleared the cities of streets loaded with nuisances of all kinds, and taught the natives to live without the constant dread of pestilence; they compelled, for example the Portuguese to wash their clothes, and the Spaniards to wash their hands. They proved to the German that his ponderous fortifications only brought bombardments on his cities, and thus induced him to throw down his crumbling walls, fill up his muddy ditches, turn his barren glacis into a public walk, and open his wretched streets to the light and air of heaven. Thus Hamburgh, and a hundred other towns, have put on a new face, and almost begun a new existence. Thus Vienna is now thrown open to its suburbs, and its suburbs are spread into the country.

The first days were given up to dinner at the British ambassador's, (Lord Beauvale's,) at the Prussian ambassador's, and at Prince Metternich's. Lord Beauvale's was "nearly private He lived on a second floor, in a fine house, of which, however, the lower part was understood to be still unfurnished. His lordship sees but few people, and seldom gives any grand receptions, his indifferent health being the reason for living privately." However, on this point the Marquis has his own conceptions, which he gives with a plainness perfectly characteristic, and very well worth being remembered.

"I think," says he, "that an ambassador of England, at an imperial court, with eleven thousand pounds per annum! should not live as a private gentleman, nor consult solely his own ease, unmindful of the sovereign he represents. A habit has stolen in among them of adopting a spare menage, to augment private fortune when recalled! This is wrong. And when France and Russia, and even Prussia, entertain constantly and very handsomely; our embassies and legations, generally speaking, are niggardly and shut up."

However the Lord Beauvale and his class may relish this honesty of opinion, we are satisfied that the British public will perfectly agree with the Marquis. A man who receives L. 11,000 a-year to show hospitality and exhibit state, ought to do both. But there is another and a much more important point for the nation to consider. Why should eleven thousand pounds a-year be given to any ambassador at Vienna, or at any other court of the earth? Cannot his actual diplomatic functions be amply served for a tenth of the money? Or what is the actual result, but to furnish, in nine instances out of ten, a splendid sinecure to some man of powerful interest, without any, or but slight, reference to his faculties? Or is there any necessity for endowing an embassy with an enormous income of this order, to provide dinners, and balls, and a central spot for the crowd of loungers who visit their residences; or to do actual mischief by alluring those idlers to remain absentees from their own country? We see no possible reason why the whole ambassadorial establishment might not be cut down to salaries of fifteen hundred a-year. Thus, men of business would be employed, instead of the relatives of our cabinets; dinner-giving would not be an essential of diplomacy; the ambassador's house would not be a centre for all the ramblers and triflers who preferred a silly and lavish life abroad to doing their duty at home; and a sum of much more than a hundred thousand pounds a-year would be saved to the country. Jonathan acts the only rational part on the subject. He gives his ambassador a sum on which a private gentleman can live, and no more. He has not the slightest sense of giving superb feasts, furnishing huge palaces, supplying all the rambling Jonathans with balls and suppers, or astonishing John Bull by the tinsel of his appointments. Yet he is at least as well served as others. His man is a man of business; his embassy is no showy sinecure; his ambassador is no showy sinecurist. The office is an understood step to distinction at home; and the man who exhibits ability here, is sure of eminence on his return. We have not found that the American diplomacy is consigned to mean hands, or inefficient, or despised in any country.

The relative value of money, too, makes the folly still more extravagant. In Vienna, L. 11,000 a-year is equal to twice the sum in England. We thus virtually pay L. 22,000 a-year for Austrian diplomacy. In France about the same proportion exists. But in Spain, the dollar goes as far as the pound in England. There L. 10,000 sterling would be equivalent to L. 40,000 here. How long is this waste to go on? We remember a strong and true exposé, made by Sir James Graham, on the subject, a few years ago; and we are convinced that, if he were to take up the topic again, he would render the country a service of remarkable value; and, moreover, that if he does not, it will be taken up by more strenuous, but more dangerous hands. The whole system is one of lavish absurdity.

The Russian ambassador's dinner "was of a different description. Perfection in cuisine, wine, and attendance. Sumptuousness in liveries and lights; the company, about thirty, the élite of Vienna."

But the most interesting of those banquets, from the character of the distinguished giver, was Prince Meternich's. The prince was residing at his "Garten," (villa) two miles out of town. He had enlarged his house of late years, and it now consisted of three, one for his children, another for his own residence, and a third for his guests. This last was "really a fairy edifice, so contrived with reflecting mirrors, as to give the idea of being transparent." It was ornamented with rare malachite, prophyry, jasper, and other vases, presents from the sovereigns of Europe, besides statues, and copies of the most celebrated works of Italy.

The Marquis had not seen this eminent person since 1823, and time had played its part with his countenance; the smile was more languid, the eye less illumined, the person more slight than formerly, the hair of a more silvery hue, the features of his expressive face more distinctly marked; the erect posture was still maintained, but the gait had become more solemn; and when he rose from his chair, he had no longer his wonted elasticity.

But this inevitable change of the exterior seems to have no effect on the "inner man." "In the Prince's conversation I found the same talent, the unrivalled esprit. The fluency and elocution, so entirely his own, were as graceful, and the memory was as perfect, as at any former period."

This memorable man is fond of matrimony; his present wife, a daughter of Count Zichy Ferraris, being his third. A son of the second marriage is his heir, and he has by his present princess two boys and a girl. The Princess seems to have alarmed her guest by her vivacity; for he describes her in the awful language with which the world speaks of a confirmed blue:—"Though not so handsome as her predecessor, she combines a very spirited expression of countenance, with a clever conversation, a versatility of genius, and a wit rather satirical than humorous, which makes her somewhat formidable to her acquaintance." We dare say that she is a very showy tigress.

The Marquis found Vienna less gay than it was on his former visit. It is true that he then saw it in the height of the Congress, flushed with conquest, glittering with all kinds of festivity; and not an individual in bad spirits in Europe, but Napoleon himself. Yet in later times the court has changed; "the Emperor keeps singularly aloof from society; the splendid court-days are no more; the families are withdrawing into coteries; the beauties of former years have lost much of their brilliancy, and a new generation equal to them has not yet appeared."

This is certainly not the language of a young marquis; but it is probably not far from the estimate which every admirer of the sex makes, after a five-and-twenty years' absence. But he gallantly defends them against the sneer of the cleverest of her sex, Lady Wortley Montagu, a hundred years ago; her verdict being, "That their costume disfigured the natural ugliness with which Heaven had been pleased to endow them." He contends, however, that speaking within the last twenty (he probably means five-and-twenty) years, "Vienna has produced some of the handsomest women in the world: and in frequenting the public walks, the Prater, and places of amusement, you meet as many bewitching countenances, especially as to eyes, hair, and tournure, as in any other capital whatever."

We think the Marquis fortunate; for we must acknowledge, that in our occasional rambles on the Continent, we never saw beauty in a German visage. The rotundity of the countenance, the coarse colours, the stunted nose, and the thick lip, which constitute the general mould of the native physiognomy, are to us the very antipodes of beauty. Dress, diamonds, rouge, and lively manners, may go far, and the ball-room may help the deception; but we strongly suspect that where beauty casually appears in society, we must look for its existence only among foreigners to Teutchland. The general state of intercourse, even among the highest circles, is dull. There are few houses of rank where strangers are received; the animation of former times is gone. The ambassadors live retired. The monarch's state of health makes him averse to society. Prince Metternich's house is the only one constantly open; "but while he remains at his Garten, to trudge there for a couple of hours' general conversation, is not very alluring." Still, for a family which can go so far to look for cheap playhouses and cheap living, Vienna is a convenient capital.

But Austria has one quality, which shows her common sense in a striking point of view. She abhors change. She has not a radical in her whole dominions, except in jail—the only place fit for him. The agitations and vexations of other governments stop at the Austrian frontier. The people have not made the grand discovery, that universal suffrage is meat and drink, and annual parliaments lodging and clothing. They labour, and live by their labour; yet they have as much dancing as the French, and better music. They are probably the richest and most comfortable population of Europe at this hour. Their country has risen to be the protector of Southern Europe; and they are making admirable highways, laying down railroads, and building steam-boats, ten times as fast as the French, with all their regicide plots, and a revolution threatened once-a-month by the calendar of patriotism. "Like the great Danube, which rolls through the centre of her dominions, the course of her ministry and its tributary branches continue, without any deviation from its accustomed channel." The comparison is a good one, and what can be more fortunate than such tranquillity?

The two leading ministers, the government in effect, are Metternich and Kollowrath; the former the Foreign Minister, the latter the Minister of the Interior. They are understood to be of different principles; the latter leaning to the "Movement," or, more probably, allowing himself to be thought to do so, for the sake of popularity. But Metternich is the true head. A Conservative from the beginning, sagacious enough to see through the dupery of the pretended friends of the human race, and firm enough to crush their hypocrisy—Metternich is one of those statesmen, of whom men of sense never could have had two opinions—a mind which stamped itself from the beginning as a leader, compelled by circumstances often to yield, but never suffering even the most desperate circumstances to make it despair. He saw where the strength of Europe lay, from the commencement of the Revolutionary war; and, guided by the example of Pitt, he laboured for a general European alliance. When he failed there, he husbanded the strength of Austria for the day of struggle, which he knew would come; and when it came, his genius raised his country at once from a defeated dependency of France, into the arbiter of Europe. While this great man lives, he ought to be supreme in the affairs of his country. But in case of his death, General Fiquelmont, the late ambassador to Russia, has been regarded as his probable successor. He is a man of ability and experience, and his appointment to the court of St Petersburg was probably intended to complete that experience, in the quarter to which Austria, by her new relations, and especially by her new navigation of the Danube, must look with the most vigilant anxiety.

The Austrian army is kept up in very fine condition; but nearly all the officers distinguished in the war are dead, and its present leaders have to acquire a name. It is only to be hoped that they will never have the opportunity. The regimental officers are generally from a higher class than those of the other German armies.

After remaining for a fortnight at Vienna, the Marquis paid a visit to his friend Prince Esterhazy.

This nobleman, long known and much-esteemed in England, is equally well known to be a kind of monarch in Hungary. Whatever novelist shall write the "Troubles of rank and riches," should take the prince for his hero. He has eight or nine princely mansions scattered over the empire, and in each of them it is expected, by his subjects of the soil, that his highness should reside.

The Marquis made a round of the principal of those mansions. The first visit was to a castle in the neighbourhood of Vienna, which the prince has modernized into a magnificent villa. Here all is constructed to the taste of a statesman only eager to escape the tumult of the capital, and pining to refresh himself with cooling shades and crystal streams. All is verdure, trout streams, leafy walks, water blue as the sky above it, and the most profound privacy and seclusion.

After a "most exquisite entertainment" here, the Marquis and his family set out early next morning to visit Falkenstein. Every castle in this part of the world is historical, and derives its honours from a Turkish siege. Falkenstein, crowning the summit of a mountain of granite, up which no carriage can be dragged but by the stout Hungarian horses trained to the work, has been handsomely bruised by the Turkish balls in its day; but it is now converted into a superb mansion; very grand, and still more curious than grand; for it is full of relics of the olden time, portraits of the old warriors of Hungary, armour and arms, and all the other odd and pompous things which turn an age of barbarism into an age of romance. The prince and princess are hailed and received at the castle as king and queen. A guard of soldiers of the family, which the Esterhazy have the sovereign right to maintain, form the garrison of this palatial fortress, and it has a whole establishment of salaried officials within. The next expedition was to two more of those mansions—Esterhazy, built by one of the richest princes of the house, and Eisenstadt. The former resembles the imperial palace at Schonbrun, but smaller. The prince is fitting it up gorgeously in the Louis XIV.th style. Here he has his principal studs for breeding horses; but Eisenstadt outshone all the chateaus of this superb possessor. The splendours here were regal: Two hundred chambers for guests—a saloon capable of dining a thousand people—a battalion of the "Esterhazy Guard" at the principal entrances; all paid from the estate. To this all the ornamental part was proportioned—conservatory and greenhouses on the most unrivalled scale—three or four hundred orange-trees alone, throwing the Duke of Northumberland's gardens into eclipse, and stimulating his Grace of Devonshire even to add new greens and glories to Chatsworth.

On his return to Vienna, the Marquis was honoured with a private interview by the emperor—a remarkable distinction, as the ambassador was informed "that the emperor was too well acquainted with the Marquis's services to require any presentation, and desired that he might come alone." He was received with great politeness and condescension. Next day he had an interview with Prince Metternich, who, with graceful familiarity, took him over his house in Vienna, to show him its improvements since the days of Congress. He remarks it as a strange point in the character of this celebrated statesman, how minutely he sometimes interests himself in mere trifles, especially where art and mechanism are concerned. He had seen him one evening remain for half an hour studiously examining the construction of a musical clock. The Prince then showed his cabinet de travail, which he had retained unchanged. "Here," said he, "is a spot which is exactly as it was the last day you saw it." Its identity had been rigidly preserved, down to the placing of its paper and pencils. All was in the same order. The Prince evidently, and justly, looked on those days as the glory of his life.

We regret that the conversation of so eminent a person could not be more largely given; for Metternich is less a statesman than statemanship itself. But one remark was at once singularly philosophical and practical. In evident allusion to the miserable tergiversations of our Whig policy a couple of years since, he said, "that throughout life, he had always acted on the plan of adopting the best determination on all important subjects. That to this point of view he had steadfastly adhered; and that, in the indescribable workings of time and circumstances, it had always happened to him that matters were brought round to the very spot, from which, owing to the folly of misguided notions or inexperienced men, they had for a time taken their departure." This was in 1840, when the Whigs ruled us; it must be an admirable maxim for honest men, but it must be perpetually thwarting the oblique. To form a view on principle, and to adhere to it under all difficulties, is the palpable way to attain great ultimate success; but the paltry and the selfish, the hollow and the intriguing, have neither power nor will to look beyond the moment; they are not steering the vessel to a harbour; they have no other object than to keep possession of the ship as long as they can, and let her roll wherever the gale may carry her.

After all, one grows weary of every thing that is to be had for the mere act of wishing. Difficulty is essential to enjoyment. High life is as likely to tire on one's hands as any other. The Marquis, giving all the praise of manners and agreeability to Vienna, sums up all in one prodigious yawn. "The same evenings at Metternich's, the same lounges for making purchases and visits on a morning, the same idleness and fatigue at night, the searching and arid climate, and the clouds of execrable fine dust"—all conspiring to tell the great of the earth that they can escape ennui no more than the little.