The Austrian sovereigns, after conferring upon them the rights of citizens, deemed it but fair that the Jews should, like all the other classes of society, furnish soldiers for the public defence. This just requisition they resisted, and it was necessary to employ force to compel submission to this general measure. It was not without great difficulty that fifteen hundred were levied in Galicia: some of them served in the ranks, and others in the artillery and wagon-train.
The active commerce subsisting between Austria and Turkey, brings a great number of Turks into the former empire. All or nearly all of them are merchants. The advantages which they enjoy gradually induce them to settle in the country; but they are not yet sufficiently numerous to have mosques. These Turks therefore are content to practise their religion within their own houses; and when they do meet, it is not so much to worship God as to smoke and chat together. The coffee-houses of the Prater, and of Leopoldstadt, at Vienna, are commonly full of these foreigners, who carelessly seated on handsome divans, surrounded by sherbet and other liquors, and smoking long cigars, exhibit a picture of oriental manners amidst a European population. The stranger is equally struck by the splendour of their dress, the fashion of which is so different from that of the close garments of Europe.
CHAPTER IV.
CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE OF AUSTRIA IN GENERAL.
The south of Germany would be the most fortunate country in Europe, if the government to which it is subject had not shown in many circumstances a weakness that but ill accords with the wisdom of its views. Temperate in its climate, fertile from the nature of its soil, and happy in its institutions, it remains invariably in a monotonous state of well-being, which is prejudicial to the activity of the mind alone, not to the happiness of the citizens. The inhabitants of this peaceful and fertile country have but one wish, that is, to live to-morrow as they lived yesterday. This tranquillity which in Austria pervades all classes of society is surely preferable to that agitation and thirst of wealth which torment almost all ranks in other countries. Thus industry, ease and domestic enjoyments are more highly valued in Austria than elsewhere: there every thing is done rather out of duty than for fame; and no man looks for the reward of his actions in the empty popularity which merely flatters pride and vanity, without ever gratifying the heart.
A nation which has no other motive than a love of its duties must be essentially a generous and an upright nation. What nation displays, on the whole, more integrity and generosity than the Austrians? They carry the love of their sovereigns to the highest pitch, and that because they regard this love as the most sacred of duties. Let their rulers be ever so unfortunate, their attachment is but the stronger, and the greatest sacrifices seem to cost them nothing.
The Germans in general, and the Austrians in particular, possess a sincerity and a probity that are proof against every thing. These valuable qualities originate as much in the excellence of their institutions as of their hearts. Their tranquil and peaceful disposition as well as their domestic habits, encourage in them a love of order and union from which they never deviate.
In consequence of this love of order the Austrians are remarkably neat in their dress, so that you seldom see among them, as in other countries, wretches in rags by the side of elegance and luxury. There is not an Austrian peasant but possesses a decent suit of clothes, boots, and a furred great coat for winter. Enter their habitations and you will find the same neatness and cleanliness which are conspicuous in their habiliments. In these rustic dwellings nothing announces affluence, but on the other hand there is nothing to denote poverty and indigence. When the lower classes of a nation are well dressed, who can doubt its wealth and its prosperity?
The Austrians have been generally considered as ceremonious, and as attaching too much importance to the formalities of etiquette. Foreigners have been apt to ridicule them on this account, without reflecting that this adherence to forms and ceremonies is a result of their love of order and decorum. It must nevertheless be confessed that, if etiquette and the forms of politeness are more strictly observed in Germany than in other countries, this is partly owing to the prerogatives enjoyed there by the nobility. Though the line between the classes is much more strongly marked than elsewhere, still there is nothing offensive in that demarcation. The differences of rank are confined to a few court privileges, and the right of admittance to certain assemblies, which afford too little pleasure to deserve much regret. In fact the grandees of Vienna, who are the most magnificent and wealthy in Europe, are so far from abusing the advantages they possess, that in the streets they suffer the meanest vehicles to stop their brilliant equipages. The emperor himself, and his brothers, when they go abroad drive quietly along in the file of hackney-coaches, and take delight to appear in their amusements as private individuals.