A careful analyst might here say that Plan Number Three is only a variation of Plan Number Two—the end being gained by hypnotic effects in either event, for the army is conscripted from the people to use against the people, just as you turn steam from a boiler into the fire-box to increase the draft. Possibly this is true, but I have introduced this digression, anyway, only to show that the original office of elector was a wise and beneficent function of the Government, and could be revived with profit in America, to replace the outworn and useless vermiformis that we now possess in way of an electoral college.
hen Kings allowed Church and State to separate they made a grave mistake. With the two united, as they were until a more recent time, they held a cinch on both the souls and the bodies of their subjects.
In the good old days in Germany the elector was always an archbishop. Our bishops now are a weakling lot. With no army to back their edicts the people smile at their proclamations, try on their shovel hats, and laugh at their gaiters. Or if they be Methodist bishops, who are only make-believe bishops, having slipped the cable that bound them to the past, we pound them familiarly on the back and address them as "Bish."
Clement Augustus, Elector of Cologne, maintained a court that vied with royalty itself. In his household were two hundred servants. He had coachmen, footmen, cooks, messengers, a bodyguard, musicians, poets and artists who hastened to do his bidding. He patronized all the arts, made a pet of science, offered a reward for the transmutation of metals, dabbled in astrology and practised palmistry.
Into this brilliant court came the strong and masterful Ludvig van Biethofen.
In a year his gracious presence, superb voice and rare skill as a musician, pushed him to the front and into favor with the powers, with a yearly salary of four hundred guilders. The history of this man is a deal better raw stock for a romance than the life of his grandson.
From Seventeen Hundred Thirty-two, when he entered the court as an unknown and ordinary musician with an acceptable tenor voice, to Seventeen Hundred Sixty-one, when he was Kapellmeister and a member of the private council of the Elector, his life was a steady march successward. Strong men were needed then as now, and his promotion was deserved. Various accounts and mention of this man are to be found, and one contemporary described him as he appeared at sixty. The only mark of age he carried was his flowing white hair. His smoothly shaven face showed the strong features of a man of thirty-five; and his carriage, actions and superb grace as an orchestra-leader made him a conspicuous figure in any company.
Ludvig van Biethofen had one son, Johann by name. This boy resembled his gifted father very little, and his training was such that he early fell a victim to arrested development.