The Pictures of German Life Throughout History. Gustav Freytag

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ developed the tendencies which they have maintained up to the present day. The Imperial Court, and that of Louis XIV., were the pattern; but, at the same time, old home usages were continued at particular courts. Ever greater became the number of court appointments; needy princes even sold them for money.^[54] The lord steward was over the whole court. There was a marshal, called "Hofmarschall" who had charge of the royal household; on occasions of ceremony he marched in front, with his gold staff and keys, and at the festive table he stepped behind the chair of his gracious sovereign as soon as the confectionery was served. The lord high-chamberlain really superintended the wardrobe of his royal master; sometimes with the advice of the royal lady, his wife, and distributed the cast-off clothes, not only to the valet, but to poor cavaliers.^[55] His office also was important, for the costumes at most of the courts were numerous and various; it was only at the Prussian Court, and those connected with it, that the simple military coat of home-made cloth was the usual dress. Elsewhere, not only the gala dresses, but also the special costumes and fancy dresses for the high festivals, were subjects for great consideration, and it was no trifle for the chamberlain to ascertain accurately how the wardrobe at the different entertainments should be fittingly arranged; as when, for example, at the Turkish garden near Dresden the whole court appeared as Mussulmen, or when an extraordinary coronation dress was to be invented, as for the Elector Friedrich August of Saxony at the coronation at Cracow.^[56] Even the stable became noble; it was under the master of the horse, as the hunt was under the grandmaster of the chase. As ceremonial had become the peculiar science of court, it was represented at most of the great courts by a grandmaster of the ceremonies. None watched more jealously than the princes themselves the marks of honour which they were to give and receive at visits; if on a visit sufficient respect was not shown to them, they rode away in anger, and threatened reprisals. Endless, therefore, were the complaints and grievances laid before the Emperor and Aulic Council; and yet this jealous watch over externals was not the result of self-respect, for in dealing with the powerful they were but too deficient in this. Regulations concerning precedence were always being renewed; almost every new ruler had pleasure in thus showing his supremacy, but, in spite of all ordinances, the disputes about rank, offices, and titles were endless--worse than the men, were the ladies. In 1750, at one of the royal courts, all the ladies of the nobility left their places in church because the daughter of one of the newly ennobled officials--a "wirklichen Geheimerath"--sought for a place in their choir.

      This wide sphere of trifling interests gave great importance to the nobility, calculating from the Imperial Court at Vienna down to the household of the baron of the Empire, who always maintained one or more poor Junkers in his circle; together with the collateral and lateral branches of the greater families, it might be estimated that there were somewhere about 5 or 600 court households in Germany, besides 1500 households of "Knights of the Empire;" so that, undoubtedly, there were more than 5000 court offices and employments. The enormous number of these court places was not advantageous to the manly character of the noble. To be able to endure with smiles the humours and roughness of an unbridled sovereign, to be complaisant as the pliant servant of the despot's licentious desires, and of the mistresses' establishment, was not the worst effect. He was in imminent danger of becoming so base that the coarseness of the poor Krippenreiter appeared comparatively virtuous. It was a period when the noble mother gave her daughter with pleasure into the arms of the profligate prince; and when the courtier gave up his wife to him for money. And it was not only done by poor nobles, but also by the offshoots of royal houses. The nobles in some German provinces took the opportunity of practising similar complaisance, even in our century, towards Napoleon's princes and marshals. But the worst was that the great mass of the court nobility drew also the families of landed proprietors, who were related to them, to their residences. Sensible men were never weary of complaining that the country nobles no longer dwelt on their properties to the great damage of their coffers and morals; but thronged to the neighbourhood of the princes to ruin themselves, their wives and daughters in the pestilential atmosphere of the court. But these were fruitless warnings in the greater part of Germany till the middle of the eighteenth century.

      Those who had more manly ambition filled civil or military offices. There was a peculiar aspect, also, about these nobles that bore office. If the son of an old family studied law, he easily gained by his family connection the situation of councillor; and rose from thence, if clever and well informed, to the highest offices, even to be de facto a ruler of states, or political agent and ambassador at foreign courts. Besides divers rogues who were drawn forth in these bad times, there were also some men of education, worth, and capacity, among the German nobility of this class, who already in the time of Leibnitz formed the real aristocracy of the order. It became gradually customary for nobles to occupy the highest official positions and the posts of ambassadors, after they had become an established court institution; also the appointments of officers in the army. Whilst the Imperial armies, to which the young nobles from the greater part of Germany were attracted, retained, even after the reforms of Prince Eugene, somewhat of the aspect of the old Landsknecht army under the Hohenzollerns; the new organization of the Prussian army formed the ground-work of an excellent education for the officers. The Elector Frederic William had perceived that the wild country nobles of his devastated realm could be best turned to account in the army which he created amid the roar of cannon in the Thirty Years' War. He restrained their love of brawls by military discipline; regulated their rude sense of honour by esprit de corps and military laws; and gave them the feeling of being in a privileged position, by raising none but nobles to the rank of officers. Thus was effected one of the most remarkable changes in the civilization of the eighteenth century, especially when King Frederic William I. and Frederic II. had so emphatically declared that every prince of the Hohenzollern house must be both soldier and officer, wear the same coat, be under the same subordination and the same law of honour as the most insignificant Junker from the country.

      Thus it happened that the descendants of many families that had lived as drones in the Commonwealth became closely bound up with the fondest recollections of the people. But this political privilege of the nobility became, it is true, even in the State of the Hohenzollerns, a source of new danger to the families of the nobility, and, which was still more important, to the State itself. We shall have occasion to speak of this later.

      Thus the nobility, about 1750, were at their highest point--everywhere the ruling class. Thousands of their sons did homage, in both the great and small courts; scarcely a less number established themselves in the stalls of ecclesiastical endowments, occupied prebends and carried Imperial "panisbriefs"^[57] in their pockets. The softest seats in the senate, the foremost places in the State carriages of diplomats, were taken by them; almost the whole of the State domains were in their hands. But it was just at this period that a great change took place in the minds of the German people; a new culture arose, and new views of the value of the things of this world spread themselves, quietly, gradually, imperceptibly, no one knew how or from whence. The German sentences received a new cadence; German verses became less majestic, and soon even simple. This new seeking after simplicity spread still further. Certain bold enthusiasts ventured to despise powder, and perukes; this was contrary to all etiquette, but new ideas and new feelings came into circulation. Beautiful tender hearts, and the dignity of man were spoken of. Soon, also, distinguished personages among the nobility caught the infection, even Sovereigns; the Duchess of Weimar went with a certain Wieland in a carrier's cart; two Reichsgrafen von Stolborg were not disinclined to bend the knee to one Klopstock, and embraced by moonlight the citizen students.

      Among the bel-esprits of the citizens who now gained an influence, none was more adapted to reconcile the nobles to the new times than Gellert. He was not genial: he knew well what was due to every one, and he gave every one his proper place; he had a refined, modest disposition, but was rather a pessimist; he was very respectable, and had a mild and benevolent demeanour towards both ladies and gentlemen. Great was the influence that he exercised over the country nobles of Upper Saxony, Thuringia, and Lower Germany. The culture of the new time soon got a footing in these families. The ladies especially opened their hearts to the new feeling for literature, and many of them became proud of being patronesses of the beautiful art of poetry, whilst the gentlemen still looked distrustfully on the new СКАЧАТЬ