Winged Wheels in France

by Michael Myers Shoemaker

THE MANOR HOUSE AT WÜLFLINGEN, NEAR WINTERTHUR
From a photograph.

While the town of Winterthur aside from its quaintness is not of much interest, there stands on its outskirts an ancient and curious Manor House called "Wülflingen," a stately stone structure somewhat back from the highway. We visit it on our way to Zurich and the ancient dame in charge seems delighted that any one from the outer world should take an interest in her beloved old charge. She appears to be the only soul in the house and was I believe born here. It is deserted now by the family whose ancestors built it at a period when castles had ceased to be of importance and the protection of a town more to be desired. "Wülflingen" became the home of the Steiner family about 1620 A.D., when their castle on the mountains was deserted for this more cheery habitation. We enter through a curious old doorway into a large square hall wainscotted and ceiled in oak blackened by the flight of years, and we can hear the mice in the walls scamper away as the unusual sound of foot-steps breaks the profound silence. Opposite the doorway a tall old clock built into the wall has grown weary with telling of the flight of time and given up its work—useless work now that it is deserted by all those whose lives it regulated and whose faces were friends to it. A stately staircase with carved balustrade mounts to the floor above, but before going thither we inspect the lower rooms. Both are large square apartments entirely encased in polished oak; but the old dame draws us on and upward to what she claims were the state apartments. Of these also there were two of large size and interest connected by a large square hall like the one below. In that on the left the walls and ceiling are heavily panelled and black with time. Each panel is decorated with Swiss scenes and there are some antique brass drop-lights. In one corner stands one of those great porcelain stoves of elaborate make which are found all through Germany and Russia; this one we are told, is one hundred years older than the house, having been brought from the castle on the mountains when the family migrated. It is very curious and interesting and one discovers that the panels of the room have been decorated to correspond with those of the stove. This was evidently the state apartment, if one may use the term here, yet, for the day in which it was built and for a Swiss house, "Wülflingen" was considered a great mansion. In the Switzerland of three hundred years ago, the family who could produce sufficient funds to abandon one house and build such another as this were people of wealth and importance. In passing again into and across the upper hall one notes the arms of the family carved over the doorways—they are also found in the great hall of the Castle of Chillon on Lake Geneva. Entering the other room, an apartment occupying the entire side of the house and evidently at one period a salon or ball-room, one meets the questioning gaze of some old family portraits. Crossing the polished floor, which causes my foot-falls to resound through the empty house with a solemn sound, I throw open the window and let in the flickering sunshine and the song of birds, and seating myself on the sill, turn to these faces on the walls. There are several of them but I note especially a stately dame and an old gentleman whose eyes meet mine in a questioning gaze seemingly demanding the reason for my intrusion upon their solitude, time was when open-hearted hospitality reigned supreme here, but in these later days visitors have been few and far between and my violation of their solemn state does not appear altogether welcome. However I whisper a fact or two which produces an expression of lively interest. It was either this or the flickering sunshine drifting over their faces. Who or what yonder ancient dame in the high cap was, there is no record, but beneath the portrait of the old gentleman one reads in Latin the following: "Henricus Steinerius Med. Doct. Poliater, Inspector Scholae et Bibliothecarius Ano 1730, Aet 55." And what, my dear Sir, may "Poliater" mean? The rest is plain enough.

INTERIOR OF THE MANOR HOUSE AT WÜLFLINGEN, NEAR WINTERTHUR
From an old woodcut

In one corner of this portrait are his family arms, a steinbock on a white shield; above, a coronet on a closed helmet with a steinbock pawing the air, as crest. I am not versed in heraldry or I might read much from this coat-of-arms. The owner wears a suit of black velvet, a great white ruff and vast yellow curly wig. His hands, delicate and shapely, rest on a pile of books and are shaded by lace ruffles. He wears two signet rings. The custodian tells me that he was born in this house and also that his nephew, the Rev. John Conrad Steiner, also born here in 1707, was sent by the great council of the Reformed Church to that Church in Philadelphia in 1749, and I discover later that that church stood in what is now Franklin Square in that city. He was also in charge in Frederick, Maryland, but returning to Philadelphia to the same church, he died there in 1762, and was buried in what is now Franklin Square—in company with Wesley "Winkhams" and "Hendal" some ten feet below the surface on the north-east side of the fountain, they alone being left there when the place was changed into a public square. It certainly required great fervour in religion on the part of a young man with a family to leave a home like this in sunny comfortable Winterthur and face the ocean and the blackness of America in 1750. He should have his reward now in a brighter land than either Europe or America. This old Herrenhaus smiles down upon us in a friendly manner as we leave its portal and as our car speeds off into the greater world, the ancient dame who cares for it waves us an adieu with the hope that we may return to "Wülflingen."

Our route lies hence through Zurich to Geneva and so on to Berne. While we have no rain, it is chilly and disagreeable, and as for mountains, if I had not seen them often before, I should not believe that in Switzerland there were any, for from first to last we do not get a glimpse of their grandeur.

The roads are good at all times, and the peasants friendly, but it rains heavily as we reach Berne, and the shelter of the hotel is not objectionable.