"We go little into the city; all people of distinction go to the promenade, where there is pleasant intercourse. As many towns have Swiss fashions, which are not similar to the French, such as the dress of the women of Basle, Lucerne, Zurich, and other distant cantons, it gives one the impression of a right gay masquerade, when all the visitors at the baths are assembled for a dance. The Swiss men and women are much given to gallantry. The ladies of Zurich have little opportunity of amusing themselves, except at the bath season at Baden, and they understand how to use this opportunity to the utmost. But if the French Ambassador is not at Baden or does not keep open table, there is not very much amusement. Every Swiss of any importance, is accustomed to have good repasts at the Ambassador's yearly at Baden, so that they are much dissatisfied with the comparison of the present with the past. The mothers tell their daughters of the pleasures they had in former times at the baths, and the young maidens are thereby incited to endeavour to procure some likewise. They labour to this end to the best of their powers, and the foreign cavaliers who know how to take advantage of the simplicity of these young city maidens, find themselves well off. For they are the daughters of magisterial persons, who have plenty of means to spend in Baden, and their marriages with the sons of their country are as good as settled, with such at least as speculate on places in the state, which are conferred principally by the fathers of these maidens; and thus it comes to pass that these little flirtations at the baths, cause no disturbance in the arrangement which has been made concerning their marriage.
"We had the honour of an invitation from the minister, he invited us to a dinner with many ladies. Among others were two Mademoiselles S----, from Schaffhausen, daughters of good families. One of them has wounded more than one cavalier. There was much good entertainment that day; nay, there was even some table plate won in a lottery. The ambassador found Mademoiselle S---- charming, and held her on his knee almost the whole evening of the ball, though he was suffering with his foot. The dance had one effect on the demoiselles which astonished us much. When they had danced very vigorously, and were very warm, lice made their appearance on the locks of their beautiful hair. That was rather unpleasant; but the maidens had such beautiful skins that it became quite a pleasure to take off the vermin as soon as they became visible. The waters of Baden have the effect of producing these with young people; therefore the Germans apply powder after powder but without combing themselves properly.
"These demoiselles were not the only beauties of this ball; there were many pretty women there with their husbands and adorers. The Zurich ladies also would gladly have been there, but they were not allowed to visit the house of the French Ambassador, as their canton was averse to the renewal of the alliance with the King; nay, it was a transgression for a Zuricher even to enter the French hotel, therefore their wives and daughters only took a walk in the Ambassador's garden, who did not fail to betake himself there in an arm-chair on account of his bad foot. Every one on entering made him a reverence, and that procured him the pleasure of giving a kiss to each of these pretty city ladies, both mothers and daughters."
Here we conclude the narrative. These insipid and absurd proceedings ceased gradually towards the end of the last century. Even before the fever of the French revolution had seized the nations of Europe, the forms of social intercourse had changed, and still more so the feelings of men. The burgher life was still insipid, stiff, and philliströs; but the need of new ideas and deeper excitement had become general. Even the adventurers and cavaliers could no longer impose upon the credulity of their cotemporaries, by their old frivolity; it was necessary for them to be to some extent performers of prodigies, in order to get hold of the purses of others.
The Germans meanwhile, had found other places of amusement. The pleasure-seeking youths wandered to Spa and Pyrmont; hardly any now but the citizens of Switzerland assembled at the baths of Zurich. In conclusion, the society at Baden, as it was at the end of the last century, is thus shortly described.
Life at the Baths at the end of the Eighteenth Century.
"The magistracy stand in high esteem with the citizens, and endeavour to maintain this by the most formal behaviour. Owing to this adherence to forms, a journey to Baden was at that period a great state transaction. Farewell visits were first made to relations and acquaintances. The distinguished people of Zurich ordered, as early as possible, the quarters where they were to be accommodated in Hinterhof, that they might not be mixed up with the common burgher class, who then put up at the Stadthof. The wealthy artisans whom one met with there, were still greeted by the title of 'master,' and generally in the second person; and the patrician families kept exclusively together. Immediately after an arrival visits of ceremony were paid, each one made deep obeisance to the other, and observed strictly the customary etiquette. There was more solemnity than frivolity, and the freer proceedings of the young people were considered as deviations from the rule. They always showed themselves also at the baths, dressed to the best of their power, according to their condition in life, and even the négligé was carefully chosen, and showed the quality of the person. The gentlemen appeared in the morning in dressing-gowns of woollen damask, out of the wide sleeves of which, ruffles of fine cambric fell over the hands, and the Badehren (bath mantles) of both sexes were trimmed with lace, and after the bath, in order to be dried, were spread out ostentatiously as a show, on the bars before the windows of the rooms. In Zurich they restricted the advance of expenditure by moral laws, prudent considering the period, but frequently carried to exaggeration. The material was accurately prescribed in which both sexes were allowed to be dressed. The women especially were kept under strict observation, and they were forbidden to wear blond, fringes, thread or silk lace, except on their caps; all openwork embroidery, all dresses of gauze, and all trimmings, except of the same material as the dress. The ordinance on dress says further: 'Married women may be allowed to curl their hair, but over the curls there must be nothing fastened but a simple silk ribbon; consequently the wearing of so called tocquets, and of all feathers and other ornaments for the hair, were altogether forbidden; farther, the wearing of all enamel work and of portraits painted in miniature or other representations.' The men were forbidden not only all upper garments of silk or velvet, but even a lining of the like material; farther, all gold or silver stuffs and lacing, and all gallooned or embroidered horse covers and housings, except at the quarter musterings; and to both sexes most especially all real or mock jewels on a penalty of fifty pounds. The tribunal, appointed by the government, which drew up these laws, and was charged to administer them, was called Reformation. Meanwhile the power of the Reformation did not extend beyond the frontier of the canton, although in one special article they endeavoured to stretch the mandate to those Zurichers who lived in other parts of the confederation, and especially in Baden. Here alone nothing was prescribed, and they indemnified themselves for restraint elsewhere, by adorning themselves with just those things which were forbidden at home. Many proud ladies and gentlemen, procured themselves objects of luxury for a visit to the baths of a few weeks, which were quite useless to them for the remainder of the year, and displayed themselves therein, in defiance of any reformers who chanced to be present. Gallooned dresses, which had once been worn in foreign parts, were here brought to light again out of the chests wherein they had been preserved, unused for years. The few jewels inherited from great-grandmothers were taken out of their cases to ornament the ears, neck, and stomacher; and in delicately holding a cup of coffee, the little finger was stretched to the utmost, that the ring, brilliant with diamonds, rubies, or emeralds, might glitter before the eye. In great pomp, like the dressed-up altar figures, they passed along the dirty courts and alleys to admire and be admired; but in order that their attire might not be injured, they seldom went further in this beautiful country than to the meadows or to the play. It was a period of stiff buffoonery! That the young people of both sexes, often left alone together till late in the night, danced more perhaps than now-a-days; that the gentlemen sometimes sacrificed largely to Bacchus; and that all, after their fashion, enjoyed themselves right well, may easily be understood. People of rank, some already smartly attired, others in choice morning dresses, assembled usually before dinner in the Hinterhofe, round a small stone table called the Täfeli, where they usually returned again after the repast. Here they gossiped good-humouredly on everything far and wide; no news was left untouched, and many witty and delicate allegorical jests were ventured upon and listened to. The return from Baden took place generally in a very slow formal manner. After manifold long, wordy and drawling compliments, and farewell formularies, packed at last in the lumbering coach, they go; step by step, slowly, still making salutations right and left from the coach door, up to the Halde."
Now Baden has become a respectable, modest, summer residence, little different from fifty other similar institutions. Still however one may observe, not in Baden itself, but at other baths in Switzerland, the ancient arrangement that persons of the same sex may bathe together in a bath, amusing themselves without constraint; and not long ago at the Leuker baths there were galleries round the baths, from which many strangers might watch the bathers. But everywhere the proceedings of men, even in these works of idleness, take another form; and the garlanded maidens of Poggio, the costly suppers of the time of Pantaleon, and the frivolous patrician daughters, who, in defiance of father and bridegroom, went about from bath to bath with foreign cavaliers, have vanished, and forgotten is the tedious ceremonial by which particular classes were closed to one another.