It is mainly North Germany with whose institutions we have become more or less familiar through our newspaper literature, and the numbers of students who have from time to time gone thither for educational purposes. Some acquaintance has also been made with Baden and Wirtemberg, in South Germany, as these principalities have a population mainly Protestant; and Heidelberg, at least, has been a favorite resort for American students. But the same is not true of Catholic South Germany. Munich's collections and institutions of art—mainly the work of the late and still living King Lewis I.—have, indeed, become generally known. Mary Howitt, in her 'Art Student in Munich,' has given us some graphic delineations of life there. The talented and witty Baroness Tautphoens has done us still better service in her 'Initials' and 'Quits,' in relation both to life in the capital and in the mountains; yet the character, institutions, and customs of the people remain an almost unexplored field to the American reader.
In the middle of the twelfth century Munich was still an insignificant village on the Isar, and had not even been erected into a separate parish. About this time Henry the Lion added to his duchy of Saxony, that of Bavaria, and having destroyed the old town of Foehring, which lay a little below the site of Munich on the other side of the river, transferred to the latter place the market and the collection of the customs, which had till then been held by the bishops of Freising with the imperial consent. The emperor Frederic I., in the year 1158, confirmed, against the remonstrances of Bishop Otho I., the doings of Henry. The duke hastened to surround the village with a wall and moat to afford protection to those who might choose to settle there, and in twenty years it had become a city. But the duke fell into disgrace with the emperor, and the latter revoked the rights he had granted; but this was like taking back a slander which had already been circulated. The effect had been produced. Munich was to become a capital.
Bishop Otho's successor would gladly have destroyed the infant city and the bridge which had been the making of it. In consequence, however, of his early death, this beneficent purpose toward his see of Freising remained unexecuted. The next successor continued the same policy. He built a castle with the design of seizing the trading trains which should take the road to Munich, perhaps deeming this the best way of magnifying his office as a leader in the church militant. But before he could achieve his purpose of cutting off all supplies from the rival town, and turning trade and tribute all to his own place, a new defender of the rising city had sprung up in the house of Wittelsbocher—the same which still reigns over the kingdom of Bavaria,—and the matter of the feud was finally adjusted by the quiet surrender of the bridge and the tolls to the city.
The imperial decree, therefore, of 1158, must be regarded as having laid the foundation of Munich as a city, and accordingly the seven hundredth anniversary of its founding was celebrated in the year 1858. I shall place a notice of this fête at the head of the list of those which occurred during my residence in that capital.
It was a part of the plan that the ceremony of laying the foundation of a new bridge over the Isar should be performed by the king. This was deemed specially appropriate, because the springing up of the city had depended upon a bridge over the river to draw thither the trade which had gone to the old Freising. This occurred on Sunday, and I did not see it. I never heard, however, but that his majesty acquitted himself as well in this stone mason's work as he does in the affairs of court or state—just as well, perhaps, as one of our more democratic Chief Magistrates, accustomed to splitting rails or other kinds of manual labor, would have done. I took a walk with my children at evening, and met the long line of court carriages returning, followed by a procession on foot, the archbishop, with some church dignitaries, walking under a canopy and distributing, by a wave of the hand at each step of his progress, his blessing to the crowds which thronged both sides of the broad street. Some, perhaps, prized this more than we did, but I do not suppose that there was anything in the nature of the blessing or in the will of the benevolent prelate to turn it from our heretical heads.
The other parts of this celebration consisted in dinners, plays in the theatres, a meeting at the Rathhaus, at which were read papers on the development of Munich for the seven hundred years of its existence, and a procession, the whole occupying about a week. I shall only notice specially the procession, and in connection with it the art exhibition for all Germany, which closed at the same time, having been in progress for three months; for the two greatly contributed to each other.
The illustrated weekly, published at Stuttgart by the well-known novelist Hacklaender, under the title of Ueber Land und Meer, refers to these festivities in the following terms:
'Munich, the South German metropolis of art, was, during the closing days of September, transformed into a festive city. The German artists had assembled from all parts of the country, that they might, within those walls, charmed by the genius of the muses, wander through the halls in which the academy had collected the best works of German art, and take counsel upon the common interests, as they had formerly done at Bingen and Stuttgart. The artists and the magistracy vied with each other in preparing happy days for the visitors—an emulation which was crowned with the most delightful results. The artists' festival, however, was but the harbinger to the the city of the great seventh centennial birthday festival of the Bavarian capital, which had been so long in preparation, and was waited for with such impatience. Concerts and theatres opened the festal series. Services in all the churches of both confessions consecrated the coming days, and the laying of the foundation of the new bridge over the Isar, leading to the Maximilianeum, formed, historically, a monumental memorial for the occasion. Favored by the fairest of weather, the city celebrated the main festival on the 27th of September. It was a historical procession, moved through all the principal streets of the city, and caused departed centuries to pass in full life before the eyes of the citizens and the vast assemblage of strangers there present. It was no masquerade, but a true picture of the civilization of the city, from its first appearance in history to the present day—'a mirrored image,' says a chronicler of the festival, 'of times long since gone by.
'The twelfth century opened the procession—representations of the present time in science, art, and industry, as developed under the reigns of Lewis and Maximilian, which have been so promotive of all that is great, closed it up. But one voice was heard in regard to the success of this festival.'
The plan was to let representatives of the people for this whole period of seven hundred years pass before the eyes of the spectators in the fashions and costumes of their respective ages, bearing the implements or badges of their several guilds or professions. The preparation had been begun months beforehand. Artists had been employed to sketch designs. The best had been selected. The costumes were historical. We see sometimes in every part of our country, costumes extemporized from garrets for old folks' concerts and other like occasions, but generally they do not correspond with each other, or with the performances. The result is committed to accident. The actors wear what their meagre wardrobes of the antique furnish. The wider the divergence from present fashions the better. Chance may bring together the styles of a dozen successive periods, and render the whole without coherence. In such an exhibition our interest is felt simply in the grotesque. It shows us how a countenance familiar to us is set off by a strange and outlandish costume. It represents no history. Such was not this procession. Its front had twelfth century costumes of peasants, burghers, and even the ducal family. So down to the very day of the festival; for statues of the present royal family on open cars closed up the long line. It did not seem indeed quite right that the successive ages of the dead should pass before us living, and the living age alone lifeless. In one part of the procession was an imperial carriage of state drawn by six horses, a man in livery leading each horse, with all the necessary footmen, outriders, and outrunners. The whole was antiquity and novelty happily combined. The costumes and insignia of all classes, with the tools and implements of all handicrafts, from the day when Duke Henry and Bishop Otho, seven hundred years before, had had their petty bickerings about the tolls of a paltry village, down to the present day, the whole transformed into a living panorama, and made to pass in about four hours before the eye.