A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4

W >> Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks >> Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4




Herder, although no less noble, was exactly his opposite. Of a soft
and yielding temperament, unimaginative, and gifted with little
penetration, but with a keen sense of the beautiful in others, he
opened to his fellow countrymen with unremitting diligence the
literary treasures of foreign nations, ancient classical poetry, that,
hitherto unknown, of the East, and rescued from obscurity the old
popular poetry of Germany. In his "Ideas of a Philosophical History of
Mankind," he attempted to display in rich and manifold variety the
moral character of every nation and of every age, and, while thus
creating and improving the taste for poetry and history, ever, with
childlike piety, sought for and revered God in all his works.

Goethe, with a far richer imagination, possessed the elegance but not
the independence of Lessing, all the softness, pathos, and
universality of Herder, without his faith. In the treatment and choice
of his subjects he is indubitably the greatest poet of Germany, but he
was never inspired with enthusiasm except for himself. His personal
vanity was excessive. His works, like the lights in his apartment at
Weimar, which were skilfully disposed so as to present him in the most
favorable manner to his visitors, but artfully reflect upon self. The
manner in which he palliated the weaknesses of the heart, the vain
inclinations, shared by his contemporaries in common with himself,
rendered him the most amiable and popular author of the day. French
frivolity and license had long been practiced, but they had also been
rebuked. Goethe was the first who gravely justified adultery, rendered
the sentimental voluptuary an object of enthusiastic admiration, and
deified the heroes of the stage, in whose imaginary fortunes the
German forgot sad reality and the wretched fate of his country. His
_fade_ assumption of dignity, the art with which he threw the veil of
mystery over his frivolous tendencies and made his commonplace ideas
pass for something incredibly sublime, naturally met with astonishing
success in his wonder-seeking times.

Rousseau's influence, the ideas of universal reform, the example of
England, proud and free, but still more, the enthusiasm excited by the
American war of independence, inflamed many heads in Germany and
raised a poetical opposition, which began with the bold-spirited
Schubart, whose liberal opinions threw him into a prison, but whose
spirit still breathed in his songs and roused that of his great
countryman, Schiller. The first cry of the oppressed people was, by
Schiller, repeated with a prophet's voice. In him their woes found an
eloquent advocate. Lessing had vainly appealed to the understanding,
but Schiller spoke to the heart, and if the seed, sown by him, fell
partially on corrupt and barren ground, it found a fostering soil in
the warm, unadulterated hearts of the youth of both sexes. He recalled
his fellow-men, in those frivolous times, to a sense of self-respect,
he restored to innocence the power and dignity of which she had been
deprived by ridicule, and became the champion of liberty, justice, and
his country, things from which the love of pleasure and the
aristocratic self-complacency, exemplified in Goethe, had gradually
and completely Weaned succeeding poets. Klinger, at the same time,
coarsely portrayed the vices of the church and state, and Meyern
extravagated in his romance "Dya-Na-Sore" on Utopian happiness. The
poems of Muller, the painter, are full of latent warmth. Burger,
Pfeffel, the blind poet, and Claudius, gave utterance, in Schubart's
coarse manner, to a few trite truisms. Musæus was greatly admired for
his amusing popular stories. As for the rest, it seemed as though the
spiritless writers of that day had found it more convenient to be
violent and savage in their endless chivalric pieces and romances
than, like Schiller, steadily and courageously to attack the vices and
evils of their age. Their fire but ended in smoke. Babo and Ziegler
alone, among the dramatists, have a liberal tendency. The spirit that
had been called forth also degenerated into mere bacchanalian license,
and, in order to return to nature, the limits set by decency and
custom were, as by Heinse, for instance, who thus disgraced his
genius, wantonly overthrown.

In contradistinction to these wild spirits, which, whether borne aloft
by their genius or impelled by ambition, quitted the narrow limits of
daily existence, a still greater number of poets employed their
talents in singing the praise of common life, and brought domesticity
and household sentimentality into vogue. The very prose of life, so
unbearable to the former, was by them converted into poetry. Although
the ancient idyls and the family scenes of English authors were at
first imitated, this style of poetry retained an essentially German
originality; the hero of the modern idyl, unlike his ancient model,
was a fop tricked out with wig and cane, and the domestic hero of the
tale, unlike his English counterpart, was a mere political nullity. It
is perhaps well when domestic comforts replace the want of public
life, but these poets hugged the chain they had decked with flowers,
and forgot the reality. They forgot that it is a misfortune and a
disgrace for a German to be without a country, without a great
national interest, to be the most unworthy descendant of the greatest
ancestors, the prey and the jest of the foreigner; to this they were
indifferent, insensible; they laid down the maxim that a German has
nothing more to do than "to provide for" himself and his family, no
other enemy to repel than domestic trouble, no other duty than "to
keep his German wife in order," to send his sons to the university,
and to marry his daughters. These commonplace private interests were
withal merely adorned with a little sentimentality. No noble motive is
discoverable in Voss's celebrated "Louisa" and Goethe's "Hermann and
Dorothea." This style of poetry was so easy that hundreds of
weak-headed men and women made it their occupation, and family scenes
and plays speedily surpassed the romances of chivalry in number. The
poet, nevertheless, exercised no less an influence, notwithstanding
his voluntary renunciation of his privilege to elevate the sinking
minds of his countrymen by the great memories of the past or by ideal
images, and his degradation of poetry to a mere palliation of the
weaknesses of humanity.


[Footnote 1: He was a friend of Grotius and is styled the father of
German poetry.--_Trans_.]

[Footnote 2: Of which an edition, much esteemed, was published by
Lessing and Ramler.]

[Footnote 3: Adam Elschlager or Olearius, an eminent traveller and
mathematician, a native of Anhalt. He became secretary to an embassy
sent to Russia and Persia by the duke of Holstein.--_Trans_.]



* * * * *

PART XXII

THE GREAT WARS WITH FRANCE

CCXLVI. The French Revolution


In no other European state had despotism arrived at such a pitch as in
France; the people groaned beneath the heavy burdens imposed by the
court, the nobility, and the clergy, and against these two estates
there was no appeal, their tyranny being protected by the court, to
which they had servilely submitted. The court had rendered itself not
only unpopular, but contemptible, by its excessive license, which had
also spread downward among the higher classes; the government was,
moreover, impoverished by extravagance and weakened by an incapable
administration, the helm of state, instead of being guided by a
master-hand, having fallen under Louis XV. into that of a woman.

In France, where the ideas of modern philosophy emanated from the
court, they spread more rapidly than in any other country among the
tiers-etat, and the spirit of research, of improvement, of ridicule of
all that was old, naturally led the people to inquire into the
administration, to discover and to ridicule its errors. The natural
wit of the people, sharpened by daily oppression and emboldened by
Voltaire's unsparing ridicule of objects hitherto held sacred, found
ample food in the policy pursued by the government, and ridicule
became the weapon with which the tiers-etat revenged the tyranny of
the higher classes. As learning spread, the deeds of other nations,
who had happily and gloriously cast off the yoke of their oppressors,
became known to the people. The names of the patriots of Greece and
Rome passed from mouth to mouth, and their actions became the theme of
the rising generation; but more powerful than all in effect, was the
example of the North Americans, who, A.D. 1783, separated themselves
from their mother-country, England, and founded a republic. France,
intent upon weakening her ancient foe, lent her countenance to the new
republic, and numbers of her sons fought beneath her standard and bore
the novel ideas of liberty back to their native land, where they
speedily produced a fermentation among their mercurial countrymen.

Louis XV., a voluptuous and extravagant monarch, was succeeded by
Louis XVI., a man of refined habits, pious and benevolent in
disposition, but unpossessed of the moral power requisite for the
extermination of the evils deeply rooted in the government. His queen,
Marie Antoinette, sister to Joseph II., little resembled her brother
or her husband in her tastes, was devoted to gaiety, and, by her
example, countenanced the most lavish extravagance. The evil increased
to a fearful degree. The taxes no longer sufficed; the exchequer was
robbed by privileged thieves; an enormous debt continued to increase;
and the king, almost reduced to the necessity of declaring the state
bankrupt, demanded aid from the nobility and clergy, who, hitherto
free from taxation, had amassed the whole wealth of the empire.

The aristocracy, ever blind to their true interest, refused to comply,
and, by so doing, compelled the king to have recourse to the
tiers-etat. Accordingly, A.D. 1789, he convoked a general assembly, in
which the deputies sent by the citizens and peasant classes were not
only numerically equal to those of the aristocracy, but were greatly
superior to them in talent and energy, and, on the refusal of the
nobility and clergy to comply with the just demands of the tiers-etat,
or even to hold a common sitting with their despised inferiors, these
deputies declared the national assembly to consist of themselves
alone, and proceeded, on their own responsibility, to scrutinize the
evils of the administration and to discuss remedial measures. The
whole nation applauded the manly and courageous conduct of its
representatives. The Parisians, ever in extremes, revolted, and
murdered the unpopular public officers; the soldiers, instead of
quelling the rebellion, fraternized with the people. The national
assembly, emboldened by these first successes, undertook a thorough
transformation of the state, and, in order to attain the object for
which they had been assembled, that of procuring supplies, declared
the aristocracy subject to taxation, and sold the enormous property
belonging to the church. They went still further. The people was
declared the only true sovereign, and the king the first servant of
the state. All distinctions and privileges were abolished, and all
Frenchmen were declared equal.

The nobility and clergy, infuriated by this dreadful humiliation,
embittered the people still more against them by their futile
opposition, and, at length convinced of the hopelessness of their
cause, emigrated in crowds and attempted to form another France on the
borders of their country in the German Rhenish provinces. Worms and
Coblentz were their chief places of resort. In the latter city, they
continued their Parisian mode of life at the expense of the avaricious
elector of Treves, Clement Wenzel, a Saxon prince, by whose powerful
minister, Dominique, they were supported, and acted with unparalleled
impudence. They were headed by the two brothers of the French king,
who entered into negotiation with all the foreign powers, and they
vowed to defend the cause of the sovereigns against the people. Louis,
who for some time wavered between the national assembly and the
emigrants, was at length persuaded by the queen to throw himself into
the arms of the latter, and secretly fled, but was retaken and
subjected to still more rigorous treatment. The emigrants, instead of
saving, hurried him to destruction.

The other European powers at first gave signs of indecision. Blinded
by a policy no longer suited to the times, they merely beheld in the
French Revolution the ruin of a state hitherto inimical to them, and
rejoiced at the event. The prospect of an easy conquest of the
distracted country, however, ere long led to the resolution on their
part of actively interfering with its affairs. Austria was insulted in
the person of the French queen, and, as head of the empire, was bound
to protect the rights of the petty Rhenish princes and nobility, who
possessed property and ecclesiastical or feudal rights[1] on French
territory, and had been injured by the new constitution. Prussia,
habituated to despotism, came forward as its champion in the hope of
gaining new laurels for her unemployed army. A conference took place
at Pilnitz in Saxony, A.D. 1791, between Emperor Leopold and King
Frederick William, at which the Count D'Artois, the youngest brother
of Louis XVI., was present, and a league was formed against the
Revolution. The old ministers strongly opposed it. In Prussia,
Herzberg drew upon himself the displeasure of his sovereign by
zealously advising a union with France against Austria. In Austria,
Kaunitz recommended peace, and said that were he allowed to act he
would defeat the impetuous French by his "patience;" that, instead of
attacking France, he would calmly watch the event and allow her, like
a volcano, to bring destruction upon herself. Ferdinand of Brunswick,
field-marshal of Prussia, was equally opposed to war. His fame as the
greatest general of his time had been too easily gained, more by his
manoeuvres than by his victories, not to induce a fear on his side of
being as easily deprived of it in a fresh war; but the proposal of the
revolutionary party in France--within whose minds the memory of
Rossbach was still fresh--mistrustful of French skill, to nominate him
generalissimo of the troops of the republic, conspired with the
incessant entreaties of the emigrants to reanimate his courage; and he
finally declared that, followed by the famous troops of the great
Frederick, he would put a speedy termination to the French Revolution.

Leopold II. was, as brother to Marie Antoinette, greatly embittered
against the French. The disinclination of the Austrians to the reforms
of Joseph II. appears to have chiefly confirmed him in the conviction
of finding a sure support in the old system. He consequently strictly
prohibited the slightest innovation and placed a power hitherto
unknown in the hands of the police, more particularly in those of its
secret functionaries, who listened to every word and consigned the
suspected to the oblivion of a dungeon. This mute terrorism found many
a victim. This system was, on the death of Leopold II., A.D. 1792,[2]
publicly abolished by his son and successor, Francis II., but was ere
long again carried on in secret.

Catherine II., with the view of seizing the rest of Poland, employed
every art in order to instigate Austria and Prussia to a war with
France, and by these means fully to occupy them in the West. The
Prussian king, although aware of her projects, deemed the French an
easy conquest, and that in case of necessity his armies could without
difficulty be thrown into Poland. He meanwhile secured the popular
feeling in Poland in his favor by concluding, A.D. 1790, an alliance
with Stanislaus and giving his consent to the improved constitution
established in Poland, A.D. 1791. Herzberg had even counselled an
alliance with France and Poland, the latter was to be bribed with a
promise of the annexation of Galicia, against Austria and Russia; this
plan was, however, merely whispered about for the purpose of blinding
the Poles and of alarming Russia.

The bursting storm was anticipated on the part of the French by a
declaration of war, A.D. 1792, and while Austria still remained behind
for the purpose of watching Russia, Poland, and Turkey, and the
unwieldy empire was engaged in raising troops, Ferdinand of Brunswick
had already led the Prussians across the Rhine. He was joined by the
emigrants under Conde, whose army almost entirely consisted of
officers. The well-known manifesto, published by the duke of Brunswick
on his entrance into France, and in which he declared his intention to
level Paris with the ground should the French refuse to submit to the
authority of their sovereign, was composed by Renfner, the counsellor
of the embassy at Berlin. The emperor and Frederick William, persuaded
that fear would reduce the French to obedience, had approved of this
manifesto, which was, on the contrary, disapproved of by the duke of
Brunswick, on account of its barbarity and its ill-accordance with the
rules of war.[3] He did not, however, withdraw his signature on its
publication. The effect of this manifesto was that the French, instead
of being struck with terror, were maddened with rage, deposed their
king, proclaimed a republic, and flew to arms in order to defend their
cities against the barbarians threatening them with destruction. The
Orleans party and the Jacobins, who were in close alliance with the
German Illuminati, were at that time first able to gain the mastery
and to supplant the noble-spirited constitutionalists. A Prussian
baron, Anachasis Cloots,[4] was even elected in the national
convention of the French republic, where he appeared as the advocate
of the whole human race. These atheistical babblers, however, talked
to little purpose, but the national pride of the troops, hastily
levied and sent against the invaders, effected wonders.

The delusion of the Prussians was so complete that Bischofswerder said
to the officers, "Do not purchase too many horses, the affair will
soon be over"; and the duke of Brunswick remarked, "Gentlemen, not too
much baggage, this is merely a military trip."

The Prussians, it is true, wondered that the inhabitants did not, as
the emigrants had alleged they would, crowd to meet and greet them as
their saviors and liberators, but at first they met with no
opposition. The noble-spirited Lafayette, who commanded the main body
of the French army, had at first attempted to march upon Paris for the
purpose of saving the king, but the troops were already too much
republicanized and he was compelled to seek refuge in the Netherlands,
where he was, together with his companions, seized by command of the
emperor of Austria, and thrown into prison at Olmütz, where he
remained during five years under the most rigorous treatment merely on
account of the liberality of his opinions, because he wanted a
constitutional king, and notwithstanding his having endangered his
life and his honor in order to save his sovereign. Such was the hatred
with which high-minded men of strict principle were at that period
viewed, while at the same time a negotiation was carried on with
Dumouriez,[5] a characterless Jacobin intriguant, who had succeeded
Lafayette in the command of the French armies.

Ferdinand of Brunswick now became the dupe of Dumouriez, as he had
formerly been that of the emigrants. In the hope of a counter-
revolution in Paris, he procrastinated his advance and lost his most
valuable time in the siege of fortresses. Verdun fell: three beautiful
citizens' daughters, who had presented bouquets to the king of
Prussia, were afterward sent to the guillotine by the republicans as
traitoresses to their country. Ferdinand, notwithstanding this
success, still delayed his advance in the hope of gaining over the
wily French commander and of thus securing beforehand his triumph in a
contest in which his ancient fame might otherwise be at stake. The
impatient king, who had accompanied the army, spurred him on, but was,
owing to his ignorance of military matters, again pacified by the
reasons alleged by the cautious duke. Dumouriez, consequently, gained
time to collect considerable reinforcements and to unite his forces
with those under Kellermann of Alsace. The two armies came within
sight of each other at Valmy; the king gave orders for battle, and the
Prussians were in the act of advancing against the heights occupied by
Kellermann, when the duke suddenly gave orders to halt and drew off
the troops under a loud _vivat_ from the French, who beheld this
movement with astonishment. The king was at first greatly enraged, but
was afterward persuaded by the duke of the prudence of this
extraordinary step. Negotiations were now carried on with increased
spirit. Dumouriez, who, like Kaunitz, said that the French, if left to
themselves, would inevitably fall a prey to intestine convulsions,
also contrived to accustom the king to the idea of a future alliance
with France. The result of these intrigues was an armistice and the
retreat of the Prussian army, which dysentery, bad weather, and bad
roads rendered extremely destructive.

Austria was now, owing to the intrigues of the duke of Brunswick and
the credulity of Frederick William, left unprotected. As early as
June, old Marshal Lukner invaded Flanders, but, being arrested on
suspicion, was replaced by Dumouriez, who continued the war in the
Netherlands and defeated the stadtholder, Albert, duke of Saxon-
Tescheu (son-in-law to Maria Theresa, in consideration of which he had
been endowed with the principality of Teschen and the stadtholdership
at Brussels), at Jemappes, and the whole of the Netherlands fell into
the hands of the Jacobins, who, on the 14th of November, entered
Brussels, where they proclaimed liberty and equality. A few days later
(19th of November) the national convention at Paris proclaimed liberty
and equality to all nations, promised their aid to all those who
asserted their liberty, and threatened to compel those who chose to
remain in slavery to accept of liberty. As a preliminary, however, the
Netherlands, after being declared free, were ransacked of every
description of movable property, of which Pache, a native of Freiburg
in Switzerland, at that time the French minister of war, received a
large share. The fluctuations of the war, however, speedily recalled
the Jacobins. Another French army under Custines, which had marched to
the Upper Rhine, gained time to take a firm footing in Mayence.


[Footnote 1: To the archbishopric of Cologne belonged the bishopric of
Strasburg, to the archbishopric of Treves, the bishoprics of Metz,
Toul, Verdun, Nancy, St. Diez. Würtemberg, Baden, Darmstadt, Nassau,
Pfalz-Zweibrücken, Leiningen, Salm-Salm, Hohenlohe-Bartenstein,
Löwenstein, Wertheim, the Teutonic order, the knights of St. John, the
immediate nobility of the empire, the bishop of Basel, etc., had,
moreover, feudal rights within the French territory. The arch-
chancellor, elector of Mayence, made the patriotic proposal to the
imperial diet that the empire should, now that France had, by the
violation of the conditions of peace, infringed the old and shameful
treaties by which Germany had been deprived of her provinces, seize
the opportunity also on her part to refuse to recognize those
treaties, and to regain what she had lost. This sensible proposal,
however, found no one capable of carrying it into effect.]

[Footnote 2: His sons were the emperor Francis II., Ferdinand,
grandduke of Tuscany, the archduke Charles, celebrated for his
military talents, Joseph, palatine of Hungary, Antony, grand-master of
the Teutonic order, who died at Vienna, A.D. 1835, John, a general (he
lived for many years in Styria), the present imperial vicar-general of
Germany, and Rayner, viceroy of Milan.--_Trans_.]

[Footnote 3: Gentz, who afterward wrote so many manifestoes for
Austria, practically remarks that this celebrated manifesto was in
perfect conformity with the intent and that the only fault committed
was the non-fulfillment of the threats therein contained.]

[Footnote 4: From Cleve. He compared himself with Anacharsis the
Scythian, a barbarian, who visited Greece for the sake of learning. He
sacrificed the whole of his property to the Revolution. Followed by a
troop of men dressed in the costumes of different nations, of whom
they were the pretended representatives, he appeared before the
convention, from which he demanded the liberation of the whole world
from the yoke of kings and priests. He became president of the great
Jacobin club, and it was principally owing to his instigations that
the French, at first merely intent upon defence, were roused to the
attack and inspired with the desire for conquest.]

[Footnote 5: Dumouriez proposed as negotiator John Müller, who was at
that time teaching at Mayence, and who was in secret correspondence
with him. Vide Memoirs of a Celebrated Statesman, edited by Rüder.
Rüder remarks that John Müller is silent in his autobiography
concerning his correspondence with the Jacobins, for which he might,
under a change of circumstances, have had good reason.]

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