Jakób Sobieski, the only man who was ever four times Marshal of the Polish Diet, travelled all over Europe in his youth. Henry IV of France made a personal friend of him, and it was at Paris that he spent more time than elsewhere, where, eventually, he witnessed the assassination of the king and was nearly lynched himself on the spot by the mob who took it into their heads to regard him as the murderer. However, he not only escaped, but after justice had been done on Ravaillac by his being torn asunder by horses, Sobieski had an invitation to dinner from a bootmaker who had collected certain pieces of Ravaillac and was arranging a loyal dinner-party at which they were to form the chief dish.
It was in the previous year (1609) that he visited England in the train of Myszkowski, the Marshal, negotiations being then in progress for the marriage of James I's daughter Elizabeth to Wladislas, son of the King of Poland. Sobieski, very young and very Catholic, was easily enough taken in by appearances to speak of James I as a model king, and to accept without question the declaration of the English Catholics that things had improved greatly since the death of the "severe and overbearing Queen Elizabeth." But it must be borne in mind that the King had not yet come to the bottom of the Treasury. One of Sobieski's remarks—that the Palace at Westminster is finer inside than outside—is an interesting comment on the impoverishment of the Crown that set in, if taken in conjunction with the remark of Gölnitz of Danzig, less than ten years later, who says exactly the opposite. In comparing the palaces around Paris with those of the English king, he says that the former are fine externally, but contain many rooms in which a respectable German would not care to receive an acquaintance; cobwebs, unpolished woodwork, walls in disrepair. One thing that scandalised Sobieski greatly was that in St. Paul's he found buying and selling going on, a statement confirmed by a Venetian ambassador here in 1607, who says that London possesses many fine churches but that these are mostly used for nothing but driving bargains in.[50]
Sobieski's business, however, lay at the court, and the court was out of town: the King at one palace, the Queen at another, Princess Elizabeth at a third. On paying their respects to the last-named a curiously characteristic thing happened; her chamberlain met them and asked in what language they would speak with the Princess, French, Italian, or Latin; she was equally at home in all three. Myszkowski chose Italian. The occasion, of course, was not a decisive one, but the conversation turned on Wladislas, the most anxious enquirer being an elderly lady-in-waiting who wanted to know if he was tall; the Princess, she would have them know, was tall, really tall, not made so artificially, with high heels, etc., to prove which she raised her mistress's skirt until they saw not merely blue stockings, but also saffron garters and white lace.
The last country of "European Europe" is Sobieski's own country, but only the last because, like England, it led nowhere. If omitted from a tour it was omitted with regret and consciousness of loss, being the largest monarchy in Christendom, 600 miles by 800, with a frontier reaching to within 150 miles of Moscow and 100 of the Black Sea; always on the verge of war, moreover, and a paradise of aristocracy, three good reasons for claiming the Average Tourist's attention, especially as among this aristocracy was always to be found a welcome and as high an average of attainments and qualities as anywhere north of the Alps. The statement, too, that it was not a thoroughfare must not be taken as absolute. Negotiations between the Tsars and the Papacy were frequent and these of course implied journeys through Poland by the friars whom the Papacy was wont to use as emissaries for long distances, as being more accustomed to endure privation and fatigue than bishops.
Besides, from southeast to northwest stretched the high road from the Black Sea through Kamienietz to Danzig, which one of these travellers assures us was the most thickly-populated highroad in Europe.[51] Danzig itself was one of the great centres of world-commerce; so great that its citizens were well justified in one detail of their daily life that Moryson records, that of taking off their hats as they passed the town hall. The commerce was very varied, but its main export seems to have been grain and its main import, Scotchmen. Of these latter there were certainly thousands;[52] in fact, from some date in the reign of Stephen Bathory (1575-86) till 1697, perhaps later, a "brotherhood" of Scots existed, recognised officially; and boys of fifteen to seventeen came over in such quantities and so often with such disastrous results, that in 1625 an edict was issued in Scotland prohibiting skippers taking over any who had not been sent for or had not 500 marks. But these can hardly be reckoned as tourists, travelling, as they did, Scot-fashion, on the "ubi panis, ibi patria" principle, with the object of sharing the retail-trade with Jews, so successfully that there has long lingered in Eastern Prussia the proverb, "Warte bis der Schotte kommt," alluding to the annual visits of these pedlars. Many, too, can be traced as becoming burgesses of Danzig, or of Posen.
Of visitors of the type with which this chapter is more specially concerned, the reign of the Henry who afterwards became Henry III of France marks a starting-point, judging partly from the evidence available before and after that date, partly from the statement in the report of the first resident Venetian ambassador there, Girolamo Lippomano, who came in that reign, that Poland was at that time an unknown land to Venetians.
So much for the Average Tourist at work. Let us now see how he spent his spare time. It goes without saying that the degree to which the foreigner enjoyed himself was more or less dependent on the behaviour of natives. Let us see, first, then, what reception he might expect. Small boys, of course, are the same yesterday, to-day and forever, but they were, if possible, somewhat more outspoken then. An ambassador's wife went to the Hague once, never again, "by reason of the boys and wenches who much wondered at her huge farthingales and fine gowns, and saluted her at every turn of the street with their usual caresses of 'Hoore! hoore!'" Concealing herself from view was impossible, no cart would hold her farthingale. And although with all the detail that is poured forth concerning the Venetian constitution, the feature in it which, though informal, has outlasted all the others, that of the limited despotism of the small boys, is ignored, yet in practice it was felt; Sastrow, for one, did not forget being pursued with "Tu sei tedesco, perciò Luterano."
As regards the adults, Frenchmen, or any one dressed in French fashions, had to beware of the Italian towns where the French had been masters for a time, and although Strassburg had a gate on the west, any one coming from the French side had to enter by the east gate. Commercial quarrels were even more bitter than political. When, for instance, the English removed their "staple" from Hamburg to Stade, nearer the mouth of the Elbe, it was not safe for an Englishman to be seen at Hamburg after the citizens had reached their mid-day stage of drunkenness. As for theological enmity, a Roman Catholic was saying his prayers one evening in Frisia with the windows open; an old woman marked it and came across the street to spit at his inn; the next morning she came again, to spit at him, and he had to put up with it for fear of worse happening.
With such exceptions as these there was not much to be feared from the upper classes; nor even, on the main routes, from the lower; in Dauphiné, for instance, all classes were pleasant enough, whereas at Rochelle strangers were liable to be pulled off their horses if they did not remove their hats when passing the guard at the gates. The two worst towns for brutality towards foreigners were, by general consent, London and Toulouse. In the former, according to Giordano Bruno, whose account only differs from every one else's in being more picturesque, the shop-people and artizans, on seeing a stranger, make faces, grin, laugh, hoot, call him dog, traitor, foreigner, the last name being the rudest they can think of, qualifying him for any other insult. Should he take the offensive, or put his hand to his weapon, an army of ruffians seems to spring out of the ground, flourishing a forest of sticks, poles, halberds, and partizans. In a more playful humour, one will pretend to run away behind a booth and come out charging on the stranger like an angry bull; if an arm gets broken, as happened to one Italian, the bystanders shout with laughter and the magistrate sees nothing reprehensible in the affair.[53] Oxford was a change for the better, for there it was only the students who behaved like brigands; as they did at Carcassonne, too, where the law-students insisted on tribute from visitors,—they called it a "bienvenu,"—or if it was not forthcoming, the contents of the visitor's trunks were shaken out. Yet among those of Oxford, Zinzerling makes an exception in the case of Queen's College, where as soon as a foreigner is recognised as such, he is brought an ox-horn full of beer.