A Residence in France / With an Excursion Up the Rhine, and a Second Visit to Switzerland

by James Fenimore Cooper

Rudesheim was a Roman station, and it is probable that its wines date from their government. There is still a considerable ruin, belonging, I believe to the Count of Ingelheim, that is supposed to have been built by the Romans, and which has been partially fitted up by its proprietor, as a place of retreat, during the vintage. This is truly a classical villagiatura. It was curious to examine these remains, which are extensive, so soon after going over the feudal castle, and it must be confessed that the sons of the South maintained their long established superiority here, as elsewhere. Ingelheim, where Charlemagne had a palace, and where some pretend he was born, is in plain view on the other side of the river, but no traces of the palace are visible from this spot. Such is the difference between the false and the true Roman. There is also a ruin, a small high circular tower, that is connected with our inn, forming even one of our own rooms, and which is very ancient, probably as ancient as the great Frank.

We left Rudesheim after breakfast, driving quite near to the hill of Geissenheim, and quitting the main road, for the purpose of visiting Johannisberg, which lies back a mile from the great route. We wound our way around the hill, which on three sides is shaped like a cone, and on the other is an irregular ridge, and approached the house by the rear. If you happen to have a bottle of the wine of this vineyard (real or reputed, for in this respect the false Simon Pure is quite as likely to be true as the real,) you will find a sufficiently good resemblance of this building on its label.

I can give you no other reason why this wine was formerly so little known, while that of Hochheim had so great a reputation, than the fact that the mountain, house, and vines were all the property of a religious community, previously to the French revolution, and that the monks probably chose to drink their own liquors. In this particular they were unlike the people of Brie; for walking one day with Lafayette, over his estate at La Grange, I expressed surprise at seeing some labourers making wine. "Oh, yes, my dear friend," returned the General, "we do make wine here, but then we take very good care not to drink it." The monks of Johannisberg most likely both made wine and drank it.

Johannisberg has changed owners several times. Shortly after our return from the journey on the Rhine of last year, chance placed me, at Paris, at table between the chargé d'affaires of Nassau and the Duc de Valmy. The former observed that I had lately been in Nassau, and asked how I liked the country. Under such circumstances one would wish to praise, and as I could honestly do so, I expressed my admiration of what I had seen. Among other things, I spoke of its rich vineyards, and, as a matter of course, began to extol that of Johannisberg. The more I praised, the graver the diplomate looked, until thinking I had not come up to his own feelings, I began to be warmer still in my expressions. A touch under the table silenced me. The chargé soon after gave me to understand that Johannisberg produced only sour grapes for my neighbour, as Napoleon had given the estate to the first Duke, and the allies had taken it away from his son. This was not the first time I have had occasion to see the necessity of being guarded how one speaks, lest he offend some political sensibility or other in this quarter of the world.

The present owner of Johannisberg has fitted up the house, which is quite spacious, very handsomely, though without gorgeousness, and there is really a suite of large and commodious rooms. I saw few or no signs of the monastery about the building. The vines grow all around the conical part of the hill quite up to the windows. The best wine is made from those near the house, on the south-eastern exposure. The view was beautiful and very extensive, and all that the place wants to make it a desirable residence is shade; an advantage, however, that cannot be enjoyed on the same spot in common with good wine. The nakedness of the ground impaired the effect of the dwelling. The owner is seldom here, as is apparent by the furniture, which, though fresh and suitable, does not extend to the thousand little elegancies that accumulate in a regular abode.

The books say that this celebrated vineyard contains sixty-three acres, and this is near the extent I should give it, from the eye. The produce is stated at twenty-five hogsheads, of thirteen hundred bottles each. Some of the wines of the best vintages sell as high as four and even five dollars a bottle. I observed that the soil was mixed with stone much decomposed, of a shelly appearance, and whitish colour. The land would be pronounced unsuited to ordinary agriculture, I suspect, by a majority of farmers.

I bought a bottle of wine from a servant who professed to have permission to sell it. The price was two florins and a half, or a dollar, and the quality greatly inferior to the bottle that, for the same money, issued from the cellar of the host at Rudesheim. It is probable the whole thing was a deception, though the inferior wines of Johannisberg are no better than a vast deal of the other common wine of the neighbourhood.

From Johannisberg we descended to the plain and took the road to Biberich. This is a small town on the banks of the Rhine, and is the residence of the Duke. Nassau figures in the tables of the Germanic confederation as the fourteenth state, having three hundred and thirty-eight thousand inhabitants, and furnishing three thousand troops as its contingent. The population is probably a little greater. The reigning family is of the ancient line of Nassau, from a junior branch of which I believe the King of Holland is derived; the Duchess is a princess of Wurtemberg, and a sister of the Grand-duchess Helena, of whom I have already spoken so often. This little state is one of the fabricated sovereignties of 1814, being composed of divers fragments, besides the ancient possessions of the family. In short, it would seem to be intended for the government and better management of a few capital vineyards.

Nassau has been much agitated of late with liberal opinions, though the government is already what it is the fashion to term representative, on this side of the Atlantic. It is the old theory, that small states can better support a popular form of government than a large state. This is a theory in which I have no faith, and one, in my opinion, that has been fabricated to suit the accidental situation of Europe. The danger of popular governments are popular excesses, such as those truculent errors that men fall into by a misconception of truth, misstatements, ignorance of their interests, and the sort of village-like gossip which causes every man to think he is a judge of character, when he is not even a judge of facts. The abuses of absolutism are straightforward, dogged tyranny, in which the rights of the mass are sacrificed to the interests and policy of a prince and his favourites. Now, in a large country, popular excesses in one part are checked and repressed by the power and interests of the other parts. It is not an easy matter to make a popular error, that leads to popular excesses, extend simultaneously over a very extended surface; and they who are tranquil, control, and finally influence, those who are excited. In a small state, absolutism is held under the checks of neighbourhood and familiarity. Men disregard accidents and crime in a capital, while they reason on them and act on them in the country. Just so will the sovereign of a small state feel and submit to the authority of an active public opinion. If I must have liberty, let it come in large draughts like learning, and form an atmosphere of its own; and if I must be the subject of despotic power, Heaven send that my sovereign be a small prince. The latter is on the supposition that I am an honest man, for he who would rise by servility and a sacrifice of his principles, had better at once choose the greatest monarch he can find for a master. Small states are usually an evil in themselves, but I think they are least so when the authority is absolute. The people of Nassau had better be moderate in their progress, while they of France should press on to their purpose; and yet the people of Nassau will probably be the most urgent, simply because the power with which they have to contend is so feeble, for men rarely take the "just medium," though they are always talking about it.

We entered the palace at Biberich, which, without being larger than usual, is an edifice well worth viewing. We could not but compare this abode with the President's house, and certainly, so far as taste and elegance are concerned, the comparison is entirely to the disadvantage of us Americans. It is easy to write unmeaning anathemas against prodigal expenditures, and extorting the hard earnings of the poor, on such occasions, but I do not know that the castle of Biberich was erected by any means so foul. The general denunciation of everything that does not happen to enter into our own system, has no more connexion with true republicanism than cant has to do with religion. Abuses of this nature have existed beyond dispute, and the public money, even among ourselves, is not always honestly or prudently expended; but these are the errors inseparable from human nature, and it is silly to quarrel with all the blandishments of life until we can find faultless substitutes. The simple fact that a nation like our own has suffered an entire generation to go by with its chief magistrate living in a house surrounded by grounds almost as naked as a cornfield, while it proves nothing in favour of its economy, goes to show either that we want the taste and habits necessary to appreciate the privation, (as is probably the case), or the generosity to do a liberal act, since it is notorious that we possess the means.