CHAPTER XLVIII

GERMAN LOVE(37)

If the Italian, always agitated between love and hate, is a creature of passion, and the Frenchman of vanity, the good and simple descendants of the ancient Germans are assuredly creatures of imagination. Scarcely raised above social interests, the most directly necessary to their subsistence, one is amazed to see them soar into what they call their philosophy, which is a sort of gentle, lovable, quite harmless folly. I am going to cite, not altogether from memory, but from hurriedly taken notes, a work whose author, though writing in a tone of opposition, illustrates clearly, even in his admirations, the military spirit in all its excesses--I speak of the Travels in Austria of M. Cadet-Gassicourt, in 1809. What would the noble and generous Desaix have said, if he had seen the pure heroism of '95 lead on to this execrable egoism?

Two friends find themselves side by side with a battery at the battle of Talavera, one as Captain in command, the other as lieutenant. A passing bullet lays the Captain low. "Good," says the lieutenant, quite beside himself with joy, "that's done for Francis--now I shall be Captain." "Not so quick," cries Francis, as he gets up. He had only been stunned by the bullet. The lieutenant, as well as the Captain, were the best fellows in the world, not a bit ill-natured, and only a little stupid; the excitement of the chase and the furious egoism which the Emperor had succeeded in awakening, by decorating it with the name of glory, made these enthusiastic worshippers of him forget their humanity.

After the harsh spectacle offered by men like this, who

[Pg 185] dispute on parade at Schoenbrunn for a look from their master and a barony--see how the Emperor's apothecary describes German love, page 188:

"Nothing can be more sweet, more gentle, than an Austrian woman. With her, love is a cult, and when she is attached to a Frenchman, she adores him--in the full force of the word.

"There are light, capricious women everywhere, but in general the Viennese are faithful and in no way coquettes; when I say that they are faithful, I mean to the lover of their own choice, for husbands are the same at Vienna as everywhere else" (June 7, 1809).

The most beautiful woman of Vienna accepts the homage of one of my friends, M. M----, a captain attached to the Emperor's headquarters. He's a young man, gentle and witty, but certainly neither his figure nor face are in any way remarkable.

For some days past his young mistress has made a very great sensation among our brilliant staff officers, who pass their life ferreting about in every corner of Vienna. It has become a contest of daring. Every possible manœuvre has been employed. The fair one's house has been put in a state of siege by all the best-looking and richest. Pages, brilliant colonels, generals of the guard, even princes, have gone to waste their time under her windows, and their money on the fair lady's servants. All have been turned away. These princes were little accustomed to find a deaf ear at Paris or Milan. When I laughed at their discomfiture before this charming creature: "But good Heavens," she said, "don't they know that I'm in love with M. M....?"

A singular remark and certainly a most improper one!

Page 290: "While we were at Schoenbrunn I noticed that two young men, who were attached to the Emperor, never received anyone in their lodgings at Vienna. We used to chaff them a lot on their discretion. One of them said to me one day: 'I'll keep no secrets from

[Pg 186] you: a young woman of the place has given herself to me, on condition that she need never leave my apartment, and that I never receive anyone at all without her leave.' I was curious," says the traveller, "to know this voluntary recluse, and my position as doctor giving me, as in the East, an honourable pretext, I accepted a breakfast offered me by my friend. The woman I found was very much in love, took the greatest care of the household, never wanted to go out, though it was just a pleasant time of the year for walking--and for the rest, was quite certain that her lover would take her back with him to France.

"The other young man, who was also never to be found in his rooms, soon after made me a similar confession. I also saw his mistress. Like the first, she was fair, very pretty, and an excellent figure.

"The one, eighteen years of age, was the daughter of a well-to-do upholsterer; the other, who was about twenty-four, was the wife of an Austrian officer, on service with the army of the Archduke John. This latter pushed her love to the verge of what we, in our land of vanity, would call heroism. Not only was her lover faithless to her, he also found himself under the necessity of making a confession of a most unpleasant nature. She nursed him with complete devotion; the seriousness of his illness attached her to her lover; and perhaps she only cherished him the more for it, when soon after his life was in danger.

"It will be understood that I, a stranger and a conqueror, have had no chance of observing love in the highest circles, seeing that the whole of the aristocracy of Vienna had retired at our approach to their estates in Hungary. But I have seen enough of it to be convinced that it is not the same love as at Paris.

"The feeling of love is considered by the Germans as a virtue, as an emanation of the Divinity, as something mystical. It is riot quick, impetuous, jealous, tyrannical,

[Pg 187] as it is in the heart of an Italian woman: it is profound and something like illuminism; in this Germany is a thousand miles away from England.

"Some years ago a Leipsic tailor, in a fit of jealousy, waited for his rival in the public garden and stabbed him. He was condemned to lose his head. The moralists of the town, faithful to the German traditions of kindness and unhampered emotion (which makes for feebleness of character) discussed the sentence, decided that it was severe and, making a comparison between the tailor and Orosmanes, were moved to pity for his fate. Nevertheless they were unable to have his sentence mitigated. But the day of the execution, all the young girls of Leipsic, dressed in white, met together and accompanied the tailor to the scaffold, throwing flowers in his path.

"No one thought this ceremony odd; yet, in a country which considers itself logical, it might be said that it was honouring a species of murder. But it was a ceremony--and everything which is a ceremony, is always safe from ridicule in Germany. See the ceremonies at the Courts of the small princes, which would make us Frenchmen die with laughter, but appear quite imposing at Meiningen or Koethen. In the six gamekeepers who file past their little prince, adorned with his star, they see the soldiers of Arminius marching out to meet the legions of Varus.

"A point of difference between the Germans and all other peoples: they are exalted, instead of calming themselves, by meditation. A second subtle point: they are all eaten up with the desire to have character.

"Life at Court, ordinarily so favourable to love, in Germany deadens it. You have no idea of the mass of incomprehensible _minutiæ_ and the pettinesses that constitute what is called a German Court,[1]--even the Court of the best princes. (Munich, 1820).

[Pg 188] "When we used to arrive with the staff in a German town, at the end of the first fortnight the ladies of the district had made their choice. But that choice was constant; and I have heard it said that the French were a shoal, on which foundered many a virtue till then irreproachable."

* * * * *

The young Germans whom I have met at Gottingen, Dresden, Koenigsberg, etc., are brought up among pseudo-systems of philosophy, which are merely obscure and badly written poetry, but, as regards their ethics, of the highest and holiest sublimity. They seem to me to have inherited from their Middle Age, not like the Italians, republicanism, mistrust and the dagger, but a strong disposition to enthusiasm and good faith. Thus it is that every ten years they have a new great man who's going to efface all the others. (Kant, Steding, Fichte, etc. etc.[2])

Formerly Luther made a powerful appeal to the moral sense, and the Germans fought thirty years on end, in order to obey their conscience. It's a fine word and one quite worthy of respect, however absurd the belief; I say worthy of respect even from an artist. See the struggle in the soul of S---- between the third [sixth] commandment of God--"Thou shalt not kill"--and what he believed to be the interest of his country.

Already in Tacitus we find a mystical enthusiasm for women and love, at least if that writer was not merely aiming his satire at Rome.[3]

One has not been five hundred miles in Germany,

[Pg 189] before one can distinguish in this people, disunited and scattered, a foundation of enthusiasm, soft and tender, rather than ardent and impetuous.

If this disposition were not so apparent, it would be enough to reread three or four of the novels of Auguste La Fontaine, whom the pretty Louise, Queen of Prussia, made Canon of Magdeburg, as a reward for having so well painted the Peaceful Life.[4]

I see a new proof of this disposition, which is common to all the Germans, in the Austrian code, which demands the confession of the guilty for the punishment of almost all crimes. This code is calculated to fit a people, among whom crime is a rare phenomenon, and sooner an excess of madness in a feeble being than the effect of interests, daring, reasoned and for ever in conflict with society. It is precisely the contrary of what is wanted in Italy, where they are trying to introduce it--a mistake of well-meaning people.

I have seen German judges in Italy in despair over sentences of death or, what's the equivalent, the irons, if they were obliged to pronounce it without the confession of the guilty.

[1] See the Memoirs of the Margrave de Bayreuth and _Vingt ans de séjour à Berlin_, by M. Thiébaut.

[2] See in 1821 their enthusiasm for the tragedy, the _Triumph of the Cross_,(38) which has caused _Wilhelm Tell_ to be forgotten.

[3] I have had the good fortune to meet a man of the liveliest wit, and at the same time as learned as ten German professors, and one who discloses his discoveries in terms clear and precise. If ever M. F.(39) publishes, we shall see the Middle Age revealed to our eyes in a full light, and we shall love it.

[4] The title of one of the novels of Auguste La Fontaine. The peaceful life, another great trait of German manners--it is the "farniente" of the Italian, and also the physiological commentary on a Russian droski and on the English "horseback."

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