The large, new streets, however, will, in time, rival the Boulevards in beauty and attractiveness. Great blocks of buildings are built on the Parisian model, elegant restaurants and stores, with plate glass windows, rich displays of goods, and a profusion of gas-jets, give quite a Paris air to the scene; in fact, the improvements in the way of new buildings and new streets, not only here but in Munich and other cities, seem to be after the Paris, or Haussman model. The tourist can hardly help thinking that Louis Napoleon made his influence to be felt in more ways than one, and has taught the monarchs of some of these sleepy old empires a good lesson in widening, enlarging, and beautifying their capitals, making them attractive to visit and pleasant to live in, and to realize that it is money in their purses, or those of their subjects,—which is much the same,—to render their cities inviting to the hosts of travellers who traverse the continent, and to induce them to remain and spend money, or come again and spend more.
To bona fide tourists there are now very few restrictions. Custom-house examinations are a mere form; passports, except in the intolerant Roman States, are never called for, and admissions to galleries, palaces, or collections, which require tickets from government officials, are granted to foreigners without restraint. One of our first sight-seeing excursions took us to the Imperial Library—a magnificent collection of books and manuscripts, commenced in the thirteenth century, and which now contains nearly three hundred thousand books, and over sixteen thousand manuscripts, including many rare literary curiosities, among which we saw Charlemagne's psalm book; a roll of hieroglyphics on skin, sent by Cortes from Mexico to the King of Spain; Tasso's own manuscript of Jerusalem Delivered; the Latin Bible of 1462, on parchment; elegant illuminated manuscripts and parchment volumes, whose exquisite penmanship and still brilliant colors make it hard to believe that the hands that laboriously fashioned them, in shady cloister and convent cell, have crumbled into undistinguishable dust hundreds of years ago.
One of the most magnificent collections of royal jewelry we have ever looked upon we saw at the Imperial Treasury, or Jewel House. Here were necklaces of diamonds as big as filberts, and of a brilliancy that others pale before; a bow-knot as large as a half sheet of commercial note-paper, that blazed like fire with clear, pure diamonds; great crowns; conquerors' wreaths in emeralds and diamonds; royal orders and decorations; magnificent chains and collars belonging to the dresses of various orders worn by the emperor. But it was not only the sparkling collection of gems of purest ray serene that attracted our attention—the curious historic relics that are preserved here are of great value and interest. Think of standing and looking upon the coronation robe, crown, and sceptre of the stout old Charlemagne himself; the great diamond worn by Charles the Bold; the robes and crown worn by Napoleon at his coronation at Milan; an elegant crucifix, with the wondrous carving and chasing of that renowned artificer, Benvenuto Cellini; a collection of curious watches of olden times, the "Nuremburg eggs" that we have so often read of. Besides the huge falchion of Charlemagne, we were shown the sword of Maximilian I., that of Francis I. of France, the scimeter that was once wielded by Tamerlane, and the celebrated iron crown of Lombardy.
I cannot begin to enumerate the stories of relics connected with the history of Austria; the wealth of cut and uncut jewels which we were hurried through by the thick-headed, stupid guide, who recited a description he had learned by rote in the most monotonous manner; who was utterly unable to answer the simplest question, and only went from one object to another that was in his programme of performance, commencing with his everlasting "Dies is der," and going on with a monotonous enumeration of facts, running his words and sentences together, like a state official repeating a formula. I ought not to omit mentioning that they have several sacred relics here, some of which cannot fail to excite a smile, and others such as tourists always expect to find in every collection. Among the first is what is said to be part of the table-cloth used at the Last Supper! The visitor is not expected to inquire if table-cloths were used in those days, or he might be answered, "Of course they were; else how came this piece here?" The piece of the true cross is here, of course, for no well-regulated collection of relics or cathedral is complete without it; while the tooth of St. John the Baptist and leg bone of St. Anne may cause some unbelieving Thomases to wonder how long these mortuary relics can be kept preserved from the crumbling touch of time.
I had no idea what an intensely curious exhibition a cabinet of minerals could be, till I stood within the great building containing the collection here, which is in a series of apartments in all as long as Quincy Market, in Boston, and most admirably arranged and classified. It seemed as if the whole world had been ransacked for specimens in every nook and corner, from the frozen regions of the poles to the coral caves of the tropics; from the surface to the centre; and that geology might be studied here by illustration, and metallurgy and mineralogy thoroughly learned from specimens, so numerous are they, and so perfectly are the different varieties and branches arranged.
Here are marbles from every part of the world, even Greenland; copper from the slave-worked mines of Siberia, and the prolific pits of the Lake Superior country, in fragments, dust, ingots, and masses; coal bearing the familiar names of our American mines, those of the great English pits, and specimens from China, Japan, Bohemia, and New Zealand; gold in all its curious shapes, as found in rock that showed not its glitter, and in the smooth nuggets from California and Australia; the less precious, but not less useful iron, from every part of the globe; diamonds from Brazil; agates; malachite from the Ural Mountains; crystals from the Alps; amethysts, rubies, and uncut gems, plucked from streams or rocky prisons; silver ore from the mines of Potosi; solid lead from Great Britain, Spain, and America; tin, cinnabar, platina—till it seemed that every known metal, ore, rock, mineral, or gem, from every quarter of the world, had its representative specimen in this priceless collection.
Among the remarkable curiosities of the museum were the largest opal in the world,—as large as a man's fist, and weighing seventeen ounces,—too big for the breastpin of the most ambitious American expressman or negro minstrel; a great rock crystal, as big as a man's leg; a great bed or mass of crystals, four and a half feet in diameter; elegant specimens of uncut gems and diamond crystals; a large collection of aerolites, or meteoric stones, which have fallen in various parts of the world. Among the most curious of these is one mass looking like melted rock, weighing over five hundred pounds. Then there are curious fossil remains, bird tracks, and ferns, in stone, and various other interesting illustrations of geology. A very costly wonder is a beautiful bouquet of flowers, made entirely of precious stones, for the Empress Maria Theresa,—the colors of leaves, buds, and petals all being preserved by different-colored gems,—a sparkling but scentless nosegay. This superb collection is one of the wonders of Vienna, and must afford an admirable opportunity to students and others engaged in the study of mineralogy, &c., numbers of whom we saw in different departments, as we passed through, making notes and examinations.
A museum where one having any taste for antiquities may positively luxuriate, is the Ambras Museum of ancient arms and armor, a real, authenticated historical collection,—armor that had actually been worn and fought in by men whose names figure in history hundreds of years ago. How the antiquary will thank the old Archduke Ferdinand, who made this collection in 1560, expressly for the purpose of interesting future ages, and left his own autographic manuscripts (still preserved), authenticating them beyond a doubt.
Three large rooms of six in the museum are devoted to the collection of arms and armor. Here were the helmet of Francis I., of France, that may have been worn in his battle with his warlike opponent, the German emperor, Charles V., or at his meeting with Henry VIII. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold; the complete armor, for man and horse, of the Emperor Maximilian; the armor of Charles V.; that of Philip II.,—armor that he may have ridden in, side by side with his English wife, Bloody Mary; the dinted armor of that fierce warrior, Don John of Austria, that may have shielded its owner in many a deadly encounter; a magnificent steel suit, fluted with gold, belonging to the Archbishop of Salzburg; the handsomely-wrought steel armor of Maurice, Elector of Saxony; a whole room full of armor suits and weapons used at tournaments during the middle ages; the elegant suit of Alexander Farnese, of Parma, made in 1592, of great beauty of workmanship, and which would put our artificers of the present day to their best skill to rival. Here are the battle-axe of Montezuma, emperor of Mexico; the horse-tail standards captured from the Turks, and elegant swords and weapons of Italian warriors, rich in ornament and chasing. Of these interesting memorials of ancient chivalry, there are nearly one hundred and fifty suits of armor, weapons, &c.—historical mementos of the manners of the middle ages.
