Whoever remembers the condition of the French kingdom, and is accurately and circumstantially acquainted with it from later writings, will easily figure to himself how, at that time, in the Alsatian semi-France, people used to talk about the king and his ministers, about the court and court-favorites. These were new subjects for my love of instructing myself, and very welcome ones to my pertness and youthful conceit. I observed every thing accurately, noted it down industriously; and I now see, from the little that is left, that such accounts, although only put together on the moment, out of fables and uncertain general rumors, always have a certain value in after-times, because they serve to confront and compare the secret made known at last with what was then already discovered and public, and the judgments of contemporaries, true or false, with the convictions of posterity.
Striking, and daily before the eyes of us street-loungers, was the project for beautifying the city; the execution of which according to draughts and plans, began in the strangest fashion to pass from sketches and plans into reality. Intendant Gayot had undertaken to new-model the angular and uneven lanes of Strasburg, and to lay the foundations of a respectable, handsome city, regulated by line and level. Upon this, Blondel, a Parisian architect, drew a plan, by which an hundred and forty householders gained in room, eighty lost, and the rest remained in their former condition. This plan accepted, but not to be put into execution at once, now, should in course of time have been approaching completion; and, meanwhile, the city oddly enough wavered between form and formlessness. If, for instance, a crooked side of a street was to be straightened, the first man who felt disposed to build moved forward to the appointed line, perhaps, too, his next neighbor, but perhaps, also, the third or fourth resident from him; by which projections the most awkward recesses were left, like front court-yards, before the houses in the background. They would not use force, yet without compulsion they would never have got on: on which account no man, when his house was once condemned, ventured to improve or replace any thing that related to the street. All these strange accidental inconveniences gave to us rambling idlers the most welcome opportunity of practising our ridicule; of making proposals, in the manner of Behrisch, for accelerating the completion, and of constantly doubting the possibility of it, although many a newly erected handsome building should have brought us to other thoughts. How far that project was advanced by the length of time, I cannot say.
Another subject on which the Protestant Strasburgers liked to converse was the expulsion of the Jesuits. These fathers, as soon as the city had fallen to the share of the French, had made their appearance and sought a /domicilium/. But they soon extended themselves and built a magnificent college, which bordered so closely on the minster that the back of the church covered a third part of its front. It was to be a complete quadrangle, and have a garden in the middle: three sides of it were finished. It is of stone, and solid, like all the buildings of these fathers. That the Protestants were pushed hard, if not oppressed by them, lay in the plan of the society which made it a duty to restore the old religion in its whole compass. Their fall, therefore, awakened the greatest satisfaction in the opposite party; and people saw, not without pleasure, how they sold their wines, carried away their books: and the building was assigned to another, perhaps less active, order. How glad are men when they get rid of an opponent, or only of a guardian! and the herd does not reflect, that, where there is no dog, it is exposed to wolves.
Now, since every city must have its tragedy, at which children and children's children shudder; so in Strasburg frequent mention was made of the unfortunate Praetor Klingling, who, after he had mounted the highest step of earthly felicity, ruled city and country with almost absolute power, and enjoyed all that wealth, rank, and influence could afford, had at last lost the favor of the court, and was dragged up to answer for all in which he had been indulged hitherto,—nay, was even thrown into prison, where, more than seventy years old, he died an ambiguous death.
This and other tales, that knight of St. Louis, our fellow-boarder, knew how to tell with passion and animation; for which reason I was fond of accompanying him in his walks, unlike the others, who avoided such invitations, and left me alone with him. As with new acquaintances I generally took my ease for a long time without thinking much about them or the effect which they were exercising upon me, so I only remarked gradually that his stories and opinions rather unsettled and confused than instructed and enlightened me. I never knew what to make of him, although the riddle might easily have been solved. He belonged to the many to whom life offers no results, and who, therefore, from first to last, exert themselves on individual objects. Unfortunately he had with this a decided desire, nay, even passion, for meditating, without having any capacity for thinking; and in such men a particular notion easily fixes itself fast, which may be regarded as a mental disease. To such a fixed view he always came back again, and was thus in the long run excessively tiresome. He would bitterly complain of the decline of his memory, especially with regard to the latest events, and maintained, by a logic of his own, that all virtue springs from a good memory, and all vice, on the contrary, from forgetfulness. This doctrine he contrived to carry out with much acuteness; as, indeed, any thing may be maintained when one has no compunction to use words altogether vaguely, and to employ and apply them in a sense now wider, now narrower, now closer, now more remote.
At first it was amusing to hear him; nay, his persuasiveness even astonished us. We fancied we were standing before a rhetorical sophist, who for jest and practice knew how to give a fair appearance to the strangest things. Unfortunately this first impression became blunted but too soon; for at the end of every discourse, manage the thing as I would, the man came back again to the same theme. He was not to be held fast to older events, although they interested him,—although he had them present to his mind with their minutest circumstances. Indeed, he was often, by a small circumstance, snatched out of the middle of a wild historical narrative, and thrust into his detestable favorite thought.
One of our afternoon walks was particularly unfortunate in this respect: the account of it may stand here instead of similar cases, which might weary if not vex the reader.
On the way through the city we were met by an old female mendicant, who, by her beggings and importunities, disturbed him in his story. "Pack yourself off, old witch!" said he, and walked by. She shouted after him the well-known retort,—only somewhat changed, since she saw well that the unfriendly man was old himself,—"If you did not wish to be old, you should have had yourself hanged in your youth!" He turned round violently, and I feared a scene. "Hanged cried he, "have myself hanged! No: that could not have been,—I was too honest a fellow for that; but hang myself—hang up my own self—that is true—that I should have done: I should have turned a charge of powder against myself, that I might not live to see that I am not even worth that any more." The woman stood as if petrified; but he continued, "You have said a great truth, witch- mother; and, as they have neither drowned nor burned you yet, you shall be paid for your proverb." He handed her a /büsel/, a coin not usually given to a beggar.
We had crossed over the first Rhine-bridge, and were going to the inn where we meant to stop; and I was trying to lead him back to our previous conversation, when, unexpectedly, a very pretty girl met us on the pleasant foot-path, remained standing before us, bowed prettily, and cried, "Eh, eh, captain, where are you going?" and, whatever else is usually said on such an occasion. "Mademoiselle," replied he, somewhat embarrassed, "I know not"—"How?" said she, with graceful astonishment, "do you forget your friends so soon?" The word "forget" fretted him: he shook his head and replied, peevishly enough, "Truly, mademoiselle, I did not know!"—She now retorted with some humor, yet very temperately, "Take care, captain: I may mistake you another time!" And so she hurried past, taking huge strides, without looking round. At once my fellow- traveller struck his forehead with both his fists: "Oh, what an ass I am!" exclaimed he, "what an old ass I am! Now, you see whether I am right or not." And then, in a very violent manner, he went on with his usual sayings and opinions, in which this case still more confirmed him. I can not and would not repeat what a philippic discourse he held against himself. At last he turned to me, and said, "I call you to witness! You remember that small-ware woman at the corner, who is neither young nor pretty? I salute her every time we pass, and often exchange a couple of friendly words with her; and yet it is thirty years ago since she was gracious to me. But now I swear it is not four weeks since this young lady showed herself more complaisant to me than was reasonable; and yet I will not recognize her, but insult her in return for her favors! Do I not always say, that ingratitude is the greatest of vices, and no man would be ungrateful if he were not forgetful?"
We went into the inn; and nothing but the tippling, swarming crowd in the ante-rooms stopped the invectives which he rattled off against himself and his contemporaries. He was silent, and I hoped pacified, when we stepped into an upper chamber, where we found a young man pacing up and down alone, whom the captain saluted by name. I was pleased to become acquainted with him; for the old fellow had said much good of him to me, and had told me that this young man, being employed in the war- bureau, had often disinterestedly done him very good service when the pensions were stopped. I was glad that the conversation took a general turn; and, while we were carrying it on, we drank a bottle of wine. But here, unluckily, another infirmity which my knight had in common with obstinate men developed itself. For as, on the whole, he could not get rid of that fixed notion; so did he stick fast to a disagreeable impression of the moment, and suffer his feelings to run on without moderation. His last vexation about himself had not yet died away; and now was added something new, although of quite a different kind. He had not long cast his eyes here and there before he noticed on the table a double portion of coffee, and two cups, and might besides, being a man of gallantry, have traced some other indication that the young man had not been so solitary all the time. And scarcely had the conjecture arisen in his mind, and ripened into a probability, that the pretty girl had been paying a visit here, than the most outrageous jealousy added itself to that first vexation, so as completely to perplex him.