A Decade of Italian Women, vol. 2 (of 2)

by Thomas Adolphus Trollope

This was effected on the 2nd of August 1552, at Passau, by a treaty of peace, which recognised, and in some degree secured the Germanic liberties, destroyed the life's labour of that mighty Imperial intelligence, and thenceforth limited very considerably the horizon of those Imperial vast views.

But, "quicquid delirant reges, plectuntur Achivi." For monarch's madness, subjects pay the smart. The law is inexorable. Despite treaties of peace, with whatsoever oaths, parchments, and seals of the Empire, the amount of misery due by normal action of cause and effect for the "vast views," which Charles had passed his life in endeavouring to carry out, had to be paid. And that particular little fraction of suffering, with which the present story is concerned, was assessed and levied in manner following.

Among the various allies whom able Maurice of Saxony had induced to join him against the Emperor, was one Albert of Brandenburg, who, having been Grand Master of the Teutonic Order of Knights, then the rulers of a considerable portion of the country now called Prussia, was so deeply moved by the doctrines of Luther, that for conscience sake he was obliged to play false to his brother knights, and seize on their territory as an independent state for himself. Now this Albert, being at the head of a powerful force of mercenary soldiers, veterans ready for anything,—except honest callings and peaceful labour,—and being as M. Bonnet writes,[114] "one of those brilliant types of the medieval soldier of fortune, brave, adroit, indefatigable, given to plunder, cruel, faithless, and lawless," was by no means willing, when his chief Maurice made peace at Passau, to allow all his brilliance to be rusted for want of action. Peace to him was like a hard frost to a fox–hunter. Besides his Protestant feelings were very strongly stimulated by the contemplation of the rich and very defenceless territories of those malignant Papists, the Bishops of Bamberg and Würzburg.

So he refused to join in, or be bound by the treaty of Passau, and determined to carry on the war on his own account. Which he did after so brilliantly Ishmaelitish a fashion, that a cry of mad dog was raised, and he was put to the ban of the Empire. Being thus driven from harrying the countries of the two prince–bishops, and obliged to look round for some shelter from his pursuers, he dashed at neighbouring Schweinfurth, seized it as a stronghold for himself and his troops; and was there besieged by the bishops, in conjunction with the Nürembergers and the Duke of Brunswick.

Which interrupted very disagreeably the morning Homer readings and the evening Greek psalm–singing in the quiet little home we were just now peeping into.

Deliration of princes indeed! Better, if fighting must needs be, to have a quarrel of your own to fight for, like the bold Magdeburgers, with Interim at their gates! But these hapless Schweinfurth citizens had their city turned to the uses of a badger–baiting tub for neither fault, quarrel, nor interest of their own. Let the upshot of the struggle be as it might, they had only ruin and destruction to fear from it. And this siege lasted for fourteen months! "For fourteen whole months did we live in the greatest possible straits, while the city was besieged;" writes Olympia to her sister. "If I were to attempt to recount to you all we went through, I should send you, not a letter, but a large volume. By day and by night we were in the midst of the missiles of the besiegers." The lawlessness of the troops within the town was a dreadful addition to their calamities. The homes of the citizens were constantly liable to predatory visits from bands of soldiers, whose "bravery, adroitness, cruelty, thievishness, and faithlessness" were quite as "brilliant" as their master's.

THE SIEGE.

In the ordinary and fitting course of things, pestilence soon made its appearance in a city thus circumstanced; and, together, with an excessive scarcity of food, completed the misery of its inhabitants. It now became Grünthler's duty to be found in the van of the struggle, and in the hottest of the danger. And as usual in the annals of a profession, which has, more rarely, probably, than has been the case in any other department of human effort, been found wanting in the high estimate and full discharge of its duties in times of danger and difficulty, the physician was early and late at his post, struggling hand to hand with his enemy. But the fight had to be carried on under great disadvantages. All the stock of medicines in the town was exhausted. And drugs formed a larger portion of the means and appliances at the command of the skilled physician in those days, than is now the case. The sickness spread with fearful rapidity. "By contagion among the soldiers," writes Olympia,[115] "who are excessively crowded in the city, so malignant a form of disease has attacked almost the entire population, that nearly one half of the people have perished, terror and mental distress contributing no small part to the result."

Before long Grünthler was struck down in the midst of his labours. Help there was none. Every man was too much engrossed by his own desperate fight with the misery around him. Medicine there was none, food but little. And Olympia watched alone and helpless by the bedside of her husband; sustained only by the belief that her fervent and unceasing prayers might move Heaven to that miraculous interference with the unseen working of the material laws, which even then mankind had ceased to expect in cases where their operation is seen and comprehended. Even Olympia, whose love for her husband poured itself forth in such earnest supplications, that the fever in his blood might not produce the effect upon his organism, which in other men it did produce,—Olympia herself would not have prayed, that water closing over his head should fail to drown him.

Not the less did her belief sustain her in those long hours of dreadful desolation and sickening dread. She was comforted;—though at the cost of a lower ideal of the nature of the Creator than she would have attained had such comfort been impossible to her; and, therefore, at the cost of a proportionate inferiority in her own moral nature.