Before leaving Würzburg I visit the Palace, formerly the residence of the Prince-Bishops, and also several churches. The Palace, die Residenz, is immense, and seems the more so when one reflects that it was destined to ornament the chief town of a small bishopric. Built between the years 1720 and 1744, after the plan of the palace of Versailles, it is very nearly as large. There is not such another staircase to be found anywhere. This, and the hall which precedes it, occupy the entire width of the building and a third of its length, and the effect is really of imperial magnificence. The trains of crowds of cassocked prelates and fine ladies could sweep here with ease. The cut stone balustrades are ornamented with statues. There is a suite of 350 reception-rooms—all for show, none for use. A certain number of these were decorated at the time of the French Empire. How mean the paintings on the ceilings, the pseudo-classic walls, and the mahogany furniture with brass ornaments, appear when compared to the apartments completed at the beginning of the eighteenth century, where the “chicorée” ornamentation exhibits all its seductions. I have never seen, all over Europe, anything in this style so perfect or better preserved. The curtains are in material of the period, and the chairs, sofas, and arm-chairs are covered to match. Each room is of a dominant color. There is a green one with metallic shades, like the wings of a Brazilian beetle. The broché silk on the furniture is to correspond. The effect is magical. In another, splendid Gobelin tapestry, after Lebrun, represents the triumph and the clemency of Alexander. Another, again, is all mirrors, even to the door-panels, but groups of flowers in oil-painting on the glass temper the excessive brilliancy. The stoves are really marvels of inventive genius and good taste, all in white and gold Saxony china. The blacksmith’s art never produced anything finer than the immense wrought-iron gates which enclose the pleasure-grounds, with their terraces, lawns, grass-plots, fountains, and rustic retreats. This princely residence, which has been almost invariably vacant since the suppression of episcopal sovereignty, has remained perfectly intact. It has been deteriorated neither by popular insurrections nor by changes in taste. What finished models of the style of the Regency architects and furniture makers could find here to copy from!
The contemplation of all these grandeurs suggests two questions to my mind. Where did these Sovereigns of tiny States find the money to furnish themselves with splendors and luxuries which Louis XIV. might have envied? My colleague, George Schanz, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Würzburg, informs me that these bishops had scarcely any troops to maintain. “Make,” he says, “builders, joiners, upholsterers, and carpenters of all our soldiers all over the land at the present day, and Germany might soon be covered with such palaces.”
Second question: How could these bishops, disciples of Him “who had not where to lay His head,” spend the money raised by taxation of the poor, on pomps and luxury worthy of a Darius or a Heliogabalus? Had they not read the Gospel condemnation of Dives, and the commentaries of the Church’s Fathers? Was the Christian doctrine of humility and of charity, even to voluntary property, only understood in monasteries and convents? Those grandees of the Church must have been completely blinded by the mistaken sophism which leads to the belief that extravagance and waste benefits the working man, the real producer. This unfortunate error is only too harmful at the present day.
During the eighteenth century the majority of the churches of Würzburg were completely spoilt by being ornamented in that Louis XV. style, suited only to the interior of palaces. As Boileau says, “ce ne sont que festons, ce ne sont qu’astragales,” gothic arches disappear beneath garlands of flowers, clouds with angel’s draperies in relief and interlacings of “chicorée,” the whole in plaster and covered with gilding. The altars are frequently entirely gilt. It is a perfect profusion of make-believe riches. In the towns the façades of some houses here and there are finished examples of this florid architecture. Doubtless the radiance of Versailles magnificence urged Germany to decorate her monuments and dwellings “à la Française,” even after the Sun there had set.
From my windows, which look out on to the square before the palace, I see a battalion of troops march past to exercise. Even the guards at Berlin could not march more automatically. The legs and the left arm move exactly together, while the guns are held precisely at the same angle by each soldier. Their steel barrels form a perfectly straight line as they glisten in the sunshine. The ranks of soldiers are absolutely rectilinear. The whole move in a body as if they were fastened on to a rail. It is perfection. What care and pains must have been bestowed before such a result could be attained! The Bavarians have naturally done their very best to equal and even to surpass the Prussians. They do not choose to be esteemed any longer as mere beer-drinkers, heavy, and somewhat dense. I wonder if this exceedingly severe drill, so effective on parade, is of use on a battle-field of the present day, where it is usual to disperse to attack. I am not competent to answer this question, but it is certain that rigid discipline accustoms the soldier to order and obedience; two very necessary virtues, especially in a democratic age. Obedience is still more wanted when the iron hand of despotism gives place to the authority of magistrates and laws. The mission of schools and military service is to teach this lesson to the citizens of Republics. The more the chief power loosens its hold, the more should free man bend at once to the exigencies necessary for the maintenance of order in the State. If this be not so, anarchy will result, and a return to despotism is then inevitable, for anarchy cannot be tolerated.
In the evening the sound of bugles is heard. It is the retreat sounding for the garrison troops. It is a melancholy farewell to the day passing away, and, religious, like a call to rest, from the night, which is fast falling. Alas! how sad it is to think that these trumpets thus harmoniously sounding the curfew will one day give the signal for battle and bloodshed! Men are still as savage as wild beasts, and with less motive, for they no longer devour their slaughtered enemy. I am a member of at least four societies whose object is to preach peace and recommend arbitration. No one listens to us. Even free nations prefer to fight. I admit perfectly that when the security or the existence of a country is at stake, it is impossible to have recourse to arbitration, although its decisions would be at least as just as those of violence and chance; but there are cases which I call “Jenkins’s ears,” since reading Carlyle’s “Frederic the Great.”[55] In such as these, where the question is one of amour propre, of obstinacy, and frequently, I may say, also, of stupidity, arbitration might often prevent conflicts.
But if man is still hard on his fellow, he has become more tender towards animals. He has forbidden their being uselessly tortured. I take note of a touching example of this. I walk up to the Citadel, whence there is a splendid view over all Franconia. I cross the bridge over the Maine. In a street where the quaint pinions of the houses and gaudy sign-posts over the doors would delight the eye of a painter, I see a sort of sentry-box, on which is written in large characters, Theirschutz-Verein (“Society for the Protection of Animals”). A horse is standing there. Why? To be at the disposal of waggoners with a heavy load who are going up the slope to the bridge, and thus to prevent them ill-treating their horses. This seems to me far more ingenious and efficacious than the infliction of a fine.
Würzburg is not an industrial town. There appears to be no special reason why the population and the wealth of the city should increase rapidly, and yet the old town is surrounded with fine new quarters, fashionable squares, pretty walks and fine wide streets, handsome houses and villas. Here, as elsewhere, that singular phenomenon of our age, the immense increase in the number of well-to-do families, is distinctly apparent. If this continue in the same proportions, the “masses” of the future will not be composed of those who live on wages and salaries, but of those living on profit, interest, or revenue. Revolutions will become impossible, for the established order of things would have more protectors than assailants. These countless comfortable residences, these edifices of all kinds which spring up in every direction, with their luxurious and opulent appointments, all this wealth and well-being, is the result of the employment of machinery. Machinery increases production and economizes labor, and as the wages of labor have not diminished, the number of those who could live without working has increased.
Würzburg possesses an ancient University. It is a very old sixteenth-century building, situated in the centre of the town. As they recently did me the honor to confer on me the degree of Doctor honoris causa, I wished to see the Rector to offer him my thanks, but I had not the good fortune to meet him. On the Boulevard, special institutes have been constructed for each separate science, for chemistry, physics, and physiology. Immense sums have been spent in Germany to add a number of those separate institutes to the different Universities. The eminent professor of chemistry at Bonn, M. Kekulé, recently took me over the building constructed for his branch of science. With its Greek columns, and its palatial façade, it is considerably more extensive than the whole of the old University. The subsoil devoted to experimental and metallurgical chemistry resembles immense works or foundries. The professor’s apartments are far more sumptuous than those of the first authorities. Neither the Governor, the Bishop, nor even the General himself, can boast of anything to be compared with them. In the drawing-rooms and dancing saloons the whole town might be assembled. This Institute has cost more than a million francs. In Germany it is very rightly considered that a professor who has experiments to make ought to live in the same building where are the laboratories and lecture-rooms. It is only thus that he is able to follow analyses which need his supervision, at times even at night. Comparative anatomy and physiology have also each their palace. Several professors of natural sciences complain that it is really an excess. They say they are crushed by the extent and complications of their appurtenances, and especially by the cares and responsibilities they involve; nevertheless, if exaggeration there be, it is on the right side. Bacon’s motto, “Knowledge is Power,” becomes truer every day. The proper application of science is the chief source of wealth, and, consequently, of power. Nations, do you wish to be powerful and rich? Then encourage to the utmost your learned men.
I stop a day en route to revisit Nuremberg, the Pompeii of the Middle Ages. I will not speak of its many interesting churches, houses, towers, of the Woolding Chamber, nor of the terrible Iron Virgin, covered inside with spikes, like Regulus’ barrel, which, in closing, pierced its victim through and through, and opened to drop the corpse into the torrent roaring a hundred feet below. Nothing gives a more vivid idea of the refined cruelty of these dark ages. But I have no wish to encroach upon Baedeker’s prerogative. A word only as to what I see before the cathedral. I observe there a small Gothic monument, which reminds me of the Roman column of Igel, on the Mosel, near Trèves. It has a niche on each of the four sides, under glass. In the first niche is a thermometer, in the second an hygrometer, in the third a barometer, and in the fourth the day’s telegrams from the observatory, and the meteorological maps. These instruments are enormous, from four to five feet in height at least, so that the figures may be large enough to be clearly legible. I have seen similar monuments in several German towns, and in Switzerland, at Geneva, in the gardens near the Rhone, at Vevey, close to the landing-stage, and at Neuchatel, on the promenade near the lake. It would be excellent if all towns would adopt them. I take every opportunity of urging this. Their cost is but trifling. A perfectly plain one can be made for £40, something more elegant might cost £80 or £100; they are a source of amusement and a means of instructing the people, and a daily lesson in physics for all classes. The laboring man learns there far better than he would do at school the practical use of these instruments, which are most useful for agricultural purposes and for sanitary precautions.