On our route to this city from Vienna, we stopped at Brunn, the capital of Moravia, a city with a population of forty thousand. The sect called Moravians originated in this country. It is a manufacturing city, and may be regarded as the Austrian Leeds for its cloths and woollen stuffs. Baron Trenck, the savage leader of the Pandours, the wild vanguard of the Austrian army, died here, and is buried in the church of the Capuchins. About ten miles from Brunn lies the famous battle-field of Austerlitz.
This city stands in a basin-shaped valley, cut in two by the river Moldau. It is surrounded on all sides by rocks or eminences, upon which slope the buildings of the city, rising tier above tier as they recede from the water’s edge. There is something of Asiatic splendor in the aspect and form of the domes, turrets, spires, and minarets, which rise up without number on all sides. The most imposing building is the ancient palace of the Bohemian kings, which stands upon the crest of an eminence, and overlooks all the other buildings of the city. The population is one hundred and twenty thousand.
The city contains much to interest strangers. The Aldstadt, as its name imports, is connected with the new part of the town by a bridge of massive stone, which was begun in the year 1356, by the emperor Charles IV., and finished in 1507; it is one thousand seven hundred and ninety feet long, and is ornamented with fifty-six statues of saints, twenty-eight on each side,—one of them a bronze statue of St. Nepomuck, who, according to the Popish legend, was thrown from this bridge into the river and drowned, in 1383, by king Wenceslaus, because he refused to betray the secrets confided to him by his queen in the holy rite of confession. The spot is now marked by five stars and a cross, in imitation of the miraculous flames which for three days after he was drowned, were seen flickering over the place where his body lay under water. The river was dragged, his body found and encased in a gorgeous silver shrine, and placed in the cathedral. From this circumstance, he became the patron saint of bridges; and wherever I have travelled in Catholic countries, I find the statue of St. John Nepomuck occupying the same situation by the bridges. The shrine and chapel in the cathedral are among the most richly finished in the world. The body is contained in a crystal coffin, inclosed in one of silver, and held aloft by angels as large as life, also of silver. The candelabra which stand around, the ever-burning lamps which hang above, are of the same precious metal, weighing altogether two thousand five hundred pounds. About three miles from the city is the field of the famous battle of Prague, won by Frederick the Great, in the celebrated Seven Years’ War. The cathedral is still standing at which Frederick aimed his cannon when he attacked the city, and is now a perfect museum of antiquities. Two hundred and fifteen balls passed through the roof. It is an interesting place to visit. The Jews quarter here, and occupy a part of the city by themselves, but are not locked up at night as in Rome and some other places that I have visited. It is recorded that in 1290 they were almost exterminated here by the fanaticism of the ignorant part of the people, who charged them with insulting the Host.
The most ancient synagogue here, the Jews assert, is nine hundred years old; the dust of ages remains undisturbed in it, and brooms, water, or whitewash would be considered sacrilege. It is a small apartment, supported on arches by three pillars, dingy with age and smoke. In some of their festivals they bear torches and lamps for days and nights, which accounts for the smoky and gloomy walls. The burial-ground, not far from the synagogue, is a singular spot. It is a large inclosure in the centre of the Jewish city, filled with the dead of centuries. One old headstone was pointed out which bears the date of the twelfth century. Many of them bear symbols of the tribes to which the departed belonged; a pitcher marks Levi, and so on.
We visited the palace of the Bohemian Kings. It is said to contain one thousand four hundred and forty apartments, and some are very splendid in size and decorations. The window is shown where three nobles were thrown out and fell eighty feet, having issued tyrannical edicts against the Protestants, which gave rise to the Thirty Years’ War that ended in 1640. We next visited the palace of the great chieftain Wallenstein. It is stated that one hundred houses were purchased and pulled down to make room for building the palace and clearing the grounds around it. It is now occupied by the descendants of Wallenstein. Those who visited the palace in his lifetime have left behind a surprising account of its splendor, and the regal style kept up by the proprietor. His stables contained three hundred saddle and carriage horses, fed out of marble mangers. Sixty pages, of noble families, were kept in the establishment to wait upon him, and when he went from home fifty carriages each drawn by four or six horses conveyed himself and suite, and fifty wagons carried his baggage, while the whole train was followed by fifty extra horses. His fortune was enormous, and yet during the wars he was often at a loss for means to raise a few thousand florins, so terribly did the country suffer.
The monastery of Straliew, whose library contains fifty thousand volumes, has scarcely its equal in this part of the world for its splendor, being lined throughout with walnut wood, and richly ornamented with gilding. It contains, among other things of interest, the autograph of Tycho Brahe, the great astronomer, and a portrait of the famous Ziska, who, it is said, bequeathed his skin to his followers with directions that it should be tanned and stretched upon a drum, in order that its sound might inflict upon his enemies a portion of that terror which his presence while living had invariably produced among them.
XV.
Dresden, Saxony, July 18, 1841.
It was one day’s ride from Prague to Töplitz, celebrated above all other watering places in Austria for its baths. It is pleasantly located on a small stream, and contains two thousand seven hundred and fifty inhabitants, and four hundred houses, sixty of which are inns. There is hardly a house in the town that is not used at times as a lodging-house. A great part of the place belongs to Prince Clary, who has such very extensive possessions in this part of the Austrian empire that he is put down as the proprietor of sixty villages! On the way from Vienna to Prague we passed for fifty or sixty miles through the estate of Prince Lichtenstein, whose entire possessions extend two hundred miles, the land being nearly all of the choicest quality.
Attached to the palace of Prince Clary in Töplitz are parks and gardens abounding with tall groves of fruit trees, and long promenades, fountains of water, lakes with beautiful flocks of swans gliding over the surface, and within the circuit lie the theatre, reading, dining, and ball rooms, which are thrown open for the use of visitors who wish to patronize the baths. The hot springs are seventeen in number, their temperature one hundred and twenty degrees Fah. During the summer there are thousands of persons at these baths. Being one of the most fashionable watering places, it is frequented not only by the nobility of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, but by the sovereigns of those countries, dukes, and princes of smaller estate, &c. There are six public baths and eighty private ones, which are in requisition from four o’clock in the morning until late at night. Each bathing establishment is placed under the direction of a “Badmeister” and his wife, and at the entrance hangs a list, where the hours at which every bath is engaged are noted down.