Smardorff[50] is a small Catholic town. We had lodging at the “Standard of Cologne,” a post-house which is kept here for the Emperor’s route into Italy. There, as in other places, they fill the mattresses with the leaves of a certain tree, which serves the purpose better than straw and lasts longer. The town is surrounded by a wide plain of vineyard which produces excellent wine. On Monday, the 10th October, we started after breakfast; for M. de Montaigne was persuaded by the beauty of the day to change the plan he had made of going to Ravensburg, and make a day’s journey to Lindau instead. M. de Montaigne never took breakfast, but caused to be brought to him a piece of dry bread which he would eat during the journey, adding thereto occasionally such grapes as he could get on the road, the vintage being still in course of gathering in this region even up to the outskirts of Lindau. Their practice is to train the vines up on trellises, and they leave therein divers verdurous alleys which are delightful to the view. We passed through Sonchem,[51] an imperial Catholic town on the bank of the Lake of Constance, to which all the wares of Ulm and Nuremburg and divers other places are brought in waggons, thence to be conveyed through the lake to the Rhine route. After travelling three leagues we arrived about three in the afternoon at Linde.[52]
The little town is situated some hundred paces out into the lake, which distance is traversed over a stone bridge. There is no other entrance, all the rest of the town being surrounded by the lake, which is at least a league in width, and on the other side rise the mountains of the Grisons. The lake and all the streams are low in winter and full in summer on account of the melting of the snow. All through these parts the women cover their heads with bonnets of fur like our skull-caps, each costing about three testoons;[53] the outside being trimmed with some seemly grey fur, and the inside with lambs’-wool. The opening which in our caps is in front is in theirs behind, and through it may be seen their hair tucked up. Their favourite foot-gear is boots, and these are either red or white, each sort suiting the wearer not amiss. Both religions are followed. We went to see the Catholic cathedral, built in 866, where all things are as they have always been, and we saw also the church served by the Lutheran ministers. All the imperial towns have liberty in the matter of the two religions, Catholic and Lutheran, according to the leanings of the people, and they devote themselves more or less to that form which they prefer. At Lindau, from what the priest told M. de Montaigne, there are not more than two or three Catholics. The priests do not fail to draw their incomes and to perform the service, and the nuns who are there do the same. M. de Montaigne had some talk also with the minister, from whom he got but little information, except to learn that the common hatred against Zwingle and Calvin was prevalent here likewise. It seems clear that almost every separate place holds for its belief some particular view; and, under the authority of Martin, whom they hail as their head, they set up divers disputes on the interpretation of the meaning of Martin’s works.
We lodged at the “Crown,” a good house. Near the stone on the panelled wall there was a sort of wooden cage for the keeping of a vast number of birds. It was fitted with hanging perches made of copper wire, which gave room for the birds to shift from one end to the other. The furniture and woodwork of their houses is generally made of pine, the most common forest tree, but they paint and varnish and polish it carefully, and even use hair brushes for the furbishing of their chairs and tables. They have great abundance of cabbages, which they shred with a tool made for the purpose, and then salt the same in vessels for making soup in the winter. At this place M. de Montaigne made trial of the feather coverlets, such as they use in bed, and was full of praise thereof, finding them light and warm at the same time. It was a saying of his that people of fastidious taste had more occasion to complain when travelling of their bed furniture than of aught else, and he commended those who carried a mattress or curtains amongst the baggage when visiting strange countries.
As to fare at table, they have such vast abundance of provisions, and vary the service so widely in the matter of soups, sauces, and salads, that nothing in our own way of living can be found to equal it. They gave us soups made of quince, of apples cooked and cut into strips, and cabbage salad. They make pottage of all sorts, one of rice which they eat in common, having no separate service of this dish, an excellently flavoured one. The kitchens are incomparably superior to those of our great houses, and the sitting-rooms are better furnished than with us.
They have abundance of excellent fish, which is served at the table with the meat. Of trout they only eat the liver, and they have also great plenty of game, hares, and woodcocks, which they dress in a fashion differing from our own, but a good one all the same; indeed I have never met with meat so tender as that which was commonly set before us. They serve with the meat cooked plums and slices of apples and pears, sometimes putting the roast first and the soup last, and sometimes reversing this order. As to their fruits, they have only pears and apples, which are both good, and nuts and cheese. During the meat course they hand round a utensil, made either of silver or tin, having four compartments filled with divers sorts of spices. They also use cummin, or some similar grain with a hot stinging savour, as an admixture to their bread; this bread being made for the most part with fennel added thereto. After the meal they replace the glasses filled full on the table, and offer two or three sorts of eatables which serve to provoke thirst.
While he was travelling M. de Montaigne noted with regret three steps which he had neglected to take with regard to his journey. One was that he had not taken with him a cook, who might have learnt the particular methods of foreign lands, and some day at home have shown proof of his skill. The next was that he had not engaged a German valet, or joined himself to some gentleman of the country, for he felt it very irksome to be always at the mercy of a blockhead of a guide; and the last was that, before setting out, he had neither consulted those books which might have pointed out to him what rare and remarkable sights were to be seen in every place, nor included in his baggage a copy of Münster[54] or some similar book. In sooth there was mixed up with his judgments a certain asperity and want of regard for his own country, against which for other reasons he harboured dislike and discontent:[55] certain it is that he preferred the accommodation of these lands, without comparison, to those of France, and conformed to them so far as to drink his wine without water. In drinking he never took wine for its own sake, but simply out of courtesy. Travel is more costly in High Germany than in France: for at our reckoning a man with a horse will lay out at least one crown of the sun[56] per diem. In the first place the innkeepers here charge for food at table d’hôte four, five, or six batzen. They make a separate item of everything, even the smallest refreshment that is taken before or after the two regular meals, wherefore the Germans as a rule quit their lodgings in the morning without drinking aught. Any additional service after the principal meals, and the wine consumed therewith—which is for them the chief expense—they reckon together. In sooth, when we consider the plentiful fare put on the table, and this especially applies to wine, even where it is exceedingly dear and brought from afar, I find the prices charged to be quite justified. They themselves have a way of urging the servants of their guests to drink, and make them keep at table two or three hours. The wine is served from large jugs, and it is reckoned a breach of good manners to let a cup be empty and not replenish it forthwith. They will never give water even to those who ask for it, except these should be persons of great worship. They add to the bill the oats eaten by the horses, and lastly the charge for the stable, which includes also the hay. A good point about them is that they ask at once what they mean to accept, and one gains naught by bargaining. They are boastful, quick-tempered, and drunken, but they are neither deceitful nor robbers, according to M. de Montaigne’s opinion. We departed after breakfast and made a journey of two leagues, and arrived at Vanguen[57] at two in the afternoon.
Here a mishap befell our baggage mule, which injured itself, and compelled us in consequence to halt and to hire a cart for the next day at three crowns per diem, the driver, who had four horses, keeping himself in victual for this sum. Vanguen is a small imperial town which has always refused to harbour a congregation of any form of religion other than the Catholic. They make here scythes so famous that they are sent for sale as far as Lorrenne. M. de Montaigne left it on the morrow, to wit, on the morning of Wednesday, October 12th, and set out for Trent by the shortest route. We halted to dine at Isne,[58] two leagues on our road, a small imperial town very pleasantly situated; and M. de Montaigne, according to his wont, went straightway to call upon a doctor of theology for the sake of discourse, and this doctor he brought in to dine with us. He found that all the people were Lutherans, and he went to visit the Lutheran church which, as with all the churches they occupy in the imperial cities, had been taken from the Catholic. While they were holding divers arguments concerning the Sacrament, M. de Montaigne bethought him how, during the journey, certain Calvinists had informed him that the Lutherans now intermix with the original tenets of Martin divers new errors, such as the “Ubi-quis me,” and maintain that the body of Christ is everywhere as well as in the Host; wherefore they fall into the same difficulty as do the Zwinglians, though by a different road, the one by limiting too much the bodily presence, and the other by a too lavish application of the words (for by their reasoning the Sacrament would be no privilege to the body of the Church or to those two or three just men gathered together). Moreover, the principal Lutheran arguments were that the divinity was inseparable from the body, wherefore the divinity being omnipresent the body must be omnipresent also. They declare, in the second place, that Jesus Christ, being bound to be always at the right hand of His Father, is omnipresent, seeing that the right hand of God, to wit, His power, is in all places. The doctor aforesaid gave strong denial to this imputation, and set up a defence against the same as against a calumny; but, indeed, M. de Montaigne gathered the impression that his defence was somewhat weak.
This doctor went afterwards in company with M. de Montaigne to visit a grand and sumptuous monastery, where Mass was being said, and he entered and bided there without removing his headgear until M. d’Estissac and M. de Montaigne had finished their prayers. They next went to view in a cellar of the abbey a long cylinder-shaped fragment of stone,[59] which apparently had once formed part of a column. On it, written in easily legible Latin letters, was an inscription telling how the Emperors Pertinax and Antonius Verus had repaired all the roads and bridges for a distance of eleven thousand paces around Campidonium, that is to say, Kempten, whither we were bound for the night. This stone might have been set up to record some later repair of the road, for report says that this village of Isny is of no great antiquity. In any case, having inspected all the roads about Kempten, we could find no repairs worthy of such artificers, and there was not a single bridge. We certainly remarked that a way had been cut through some of the hills, but this work was not of prime importance.
KEMPTEN
From Civitates Orbis Terrarum