To face p. 128, vol. i.
This is reckoned the fairest town of Germany, as Strasburg is the strongest. The first sight we got of their household arrangements was a strange one, but it assuredly bore witness to their cleanliness. This was when we found the steps of the staircase of our lodging covered with pieces of linen cloth, upon which we were required to walk in order that we might not soil the steps aforesaid, seeing that they had just washed and polished them, as is their wont to do every Saturday. We saw no trace of cobweb or of mud in our lodging: in certain of the rooms were curtains which any one may at will draw over the windows. It is rare to find tables in the chambers, save those which are attached to the foot of the bed, and these are made to go with hinges so they can be raised or lowered at pleasure. The footboards of the beds are elevated two or three feet above the frame, and are often as high as the bolsters, beautifully carven in pinewood, but the pine they use is inferior to our walnut. They make use of pewter plates polished bright, but they put inside these other plates of wood, and on the walls, beside the beds, they often hang up linen cloths and curtains in order that the walls may not be sullied by the spitting of the guests. The Germans set great store on coats-of-arms, and in every apartment may be found a great number of these which the gentlefolk of the country on their travels have left behind; the glass in the windows, moreover, is often garnished with the same. The routine of table service varies greatly. Here they gave us first crayfish of a wonderful size, but in other places this dish has always come last. In many of the large inns they bring everything in covered dishes. The reason why their window glass is so brilliant is that they have no set window-frames like ours, but casements which open at will and which they clean often.
On the following morning, which was Sunday, M. de Montaigne went to see several churches. He went to some which were Catholic, and everywhere he found the service very well done. Six of the churches are Lutheran and are served by sixteen ministers, two of these churches being taken from the Catholics, and four built by the Lutherans themselves. One of the last-named he visited in the morning, and found it like the great hall of a college, with neither images nor organs nor cross, but with the walls covered with inscriptions in German taken from the Bible. There were two chairs, one for the minister or for whomsoever might preach, and another one placed lower for the leader in singing the psalms. At every verse the people wait for the leader aforesaid, who gives the note. They sing in haphazard fashion, each one according to his humour, and with head bare or covered. After the singing, a minister who had been in the assembly went to the altar, and read from a book several prayers, at certain of which the people stood up and clasped their hands, and made deep reverence at the name of Jesus Christ. After he had finished his reading to the assembly, he put before him on the altar a napkin, a basin, and a saucer, in which was water. A woman, followed by a dozen others, brought to him a child, swaddled and with face bare, whereupon the minister thrice took the water in the saucer and sprinkled it on the child’s face and said certain words. This being finished, two men approached and each one of them placed two fingers of the right hand upon the child; the minister then addressed them, and this was all.
M. de Montaigne held a conversation with this minister after he left the church, and was informed that the ministers receive no stipend from the church, their salary being paid by the Senate as a public charge; that there was a greater crowd of worshippers in this one church than in two or three of the Catholic churches together. We did not see a single handsome woman. The women wear a vast variety of attire, and in the case of the men it is a hard matter to say who is noble and who is not, forasmuch as all sorts of men wear bonnets of velvet and carry swords by the side. We had our lodging at the sign of the “Linde,” called after a tree of the country, which stands adjoining the palace of the Foulcres.[72] A certain member of this family, who died some years ago, left a sum of two millions of French crowns to his heirs, and these heirs made over to the Jesuits of the city thirty thousand florins for prayers for the soul of the deceased, with which sum the Jesuits are very handsomely equipped and provided. This house of the Foulcres is roofed with copper: as a rule the houses are much finer, larger, and higher than in any French town, and the streets much wider. M. de Montaigne estimated the population of Augsburg to equal that of Orléans.
After dinner we went to see a show of fencing in the public hall, where there was a vast crowd. We had to pay for entrance as to a puppet show, and for our seats in addition. They showed us some play with the poignard, with the two-handed sword, with the quarter-staff, and with the hanger. Afterwards we saw them shooting for a prize with bow and crossbow, on a ground far finer than that of Schaffhausen. Beyond this place, at the city gate by which we had entered, we observed a copious stream of water which was brought into the city from outside and led under the bridge used for traffic. It is conveyed by a wooden aqueduct built below the bridge aforesaid, and is thus carried over the stream which forms the city ditch. This current in its course turns a number of water-wheels attached to pumps which, by means of two leaden pipes, raise the water of a spring, which rises in a hollow, to the top of a tower some fifty feet in height. On the top of this tower the water is poured into a great stone cistern, and from this cistern it runs down through divers pipes and is distributed all over the city, which in consequence is abundantly supplied with fountains. Private persons, if it be their wish, may have a right of water for their own use on payment of an annual rent of ten florins to the city, or for two hundred florins paid down. The city was enriched by this magnificent work about forty years ago.[73]
Marriages of Catholics with Lutherans are common, and the one most keenly set on marriage commonly conforms to the faith of the other. There are thousands of marriages of this sort. Our host was a Catholic and his wife a Lutheran. Here they clean the glasses with a hairbrush fixed to the end of a stick. According to report, excellent houses may be bought for forty or fifty crowns apiece. The city guard did M. de Montaigne and M. d’Estissac the honour of presenting to them fourteen large vessels of wine for supper. This was brought by seven sergeants clad in uniform and an officer of worship, whom our gentlemen invited to sup, as is the custom in such cases. Something, moreover, is always given to the bearers of the offering, and the sergeants aforesaid got a crown. The officer who remained to supper told M. de Montaigne that the city maintained three officials whose duty it was to greet strangers of quality who came to visit the place, and that on this account they always took care to ascertain the quality of each visitor, so that he might receive the honours due to him. Moreover, they offered more wine to some than to others. If a duke should arrive in the city, one of the burgomasters would attend to bid him welcome. Us they took for barons and knights. For certain reasons M. de Montaigne was inclined to assume this counterfeit dignity, and to keep silence as to our real quality. He spent the whole of the day walking through the town by himself, and was convinced that he was treated with greater consideration on account of the aforesaid subterfuge. A like honour indeed was paid by all the German towns.
As he was passing through the church of Notre Dame on a very cold day (for, after having enjoyed the finest weather possible up to our departure from Kempten, we had of late been sharply pricked by the cold), he carried, without thinking thereof, his handkerchief at his nose, deeming that, being alone and plainly dressed, no one would remark him; but after he had become more familiar with certain of the citizens, they told him that the church officers had found his carriage on the morning aforesaid very strange. Thus he committed the fault he was ever most studious to avoid, to wit, that he had made himself conspicuous by a trick alien to the taste of those who remarked the same; for, as far as in him lay, he always conformed and brought himself in line with the manners of whatever place he might frequent; indeed, while he was in Augsburg he always wore a fur cap when he went about the town. Augsburg, they say, is free from the mice and large rats with which the rest of Germany is infested, and they tell many wonderful stories thereanent, attributing this immunity to one of their bishops who is buried there, and affirming that the earth from his tomb, which is sold in little portions the bigness of a nut, will drive away the vermin aforesaid from any place to which it may be taken.[74]
On the Monday we repaired to the church of Notre Dame to witness the marriage of a rich young lady of the city—albeit ill-favoured—to a certain Venetian, a factor in the house of the Foulcres. Amongst the guests there was not one good-looking woman. This family is a very numerous one; they are all very rich, and hold the highest position in this city. We visited two apartments in their house, one high, of grand measurement, and paved with marble, and the other low-ceilinged, enriched with medals, both ancient and modern, and having a small room at the end. These are the most sumptuous rooms I ever beheld. At the gathering after the wedding we saw some dancing, and they danced nothing but Alemandes. They constantly stop dancing and lead the ladies back to their seats, which are ranged in double rows against the walls and covered with red cloth; but the gentlemen do not sit there with them. After a slight pause they take their dames out again, kissing their hands, which salutation the ladies accept without returning it; and then, having placed the arm under the ladies’ armpits, they embrace them, and the ladies put their right hands on the gentlemen’s shoulders. They dance and chat together with heads bare and in sober attire.
We saw more houses belonging to the Foulcres in other parts of the city, which is beholden to this family for the great outlay of money they spend in its adornment. These houses are summer residences. In one we saw a clock which was worked by the flow of water which serves as a counterpoise. At the same place were two large covered fish-ponds full of fish, and twenty paces square. Round the brink of each of the ponds are divers small pipes, some straight and others curving upwards, and through each of these water is poured in very pleasant wise into the pond, some delivering it in a direct jet, and others spouting it upwards to the height of a pikestaff. Between the ponds is a space some ten paces in width floored with planks, and between these planks are hidden certain little taps of brass. Thus, at any time when ladies may go to divert themselves by seeing the fish play about the pond, it needs only the letting go a certain spring to make every tap aforesaid send a jet of water straight upward to the height of a man, and drench the petticoats and cool the thighs of the ladies. In another place there is a fountain pipe, contrived to play a merry jest upon the spectator, for, while you look at the same, any one who is so minded may turn on the water in tiny hidden jets, which will throw in your face a hundred little threads of water; and there is set up a Latin inscription: Quæsisti nugas, nugis gaudeto repertis. Near thereto is a large cage, twenty paces square and twelve or fifteen feet high, which is enclosed all round with copper wire, well knit and fastened, and inside are ten or twelve fir trees and a fountain. This cage is full of birds, amongst others Polish pigeons, which they call D’inde, and which I have seen elsewhere: these are large birds beaked like partridges.
We saw also the handiwork of a certain gardener who, foreseeing cold, inclement weather, had transported into a little shed a great quantity of artichokes, cabbages, lettuces, spinach, chicory, and other vegetables, which he had gathered as if to consume them at once, but in lieu thereof had set them by the root in soil, and hoped to keep them good and fresh three or four months; and indeed he had there a hundred artichokes, not the least withered, though they had been plucked more than six weeks. We saw also an instrument of lead bent and open at either end. If any one should fill this with water and, keeping both ends upwards, reverse it dexterously, so that one end shall suck up from a vessel filled with water, while the other shall discharge outside, they say that if the stream be once set going, the water will continuously rush into the tube and discharge itself at the other end, so as not to produce a vacuum in the tube.