Saunterings Part 5

Other cities project new things, and grow with a modern impetus: Nuremberg lives in the past, and traffics on its ancient reputation. Of course, we went to see the houses where these old worthies lived, and the works of art they have left behind them,--things seen and described by everybody. The stone carving about the church portals and on side b.u.t.tresses is inexpressibly quaint and naive. The subjects are sacred; and with the sacred is mingled the comic, here as at Augsburg, where over one portal of the cathedral, with saints and angels, monkeys climb and gibber. A favorite subject is that of our Lord praying in the Garden, while the apostles, who could not watch one hour, are sleeping in various att.i.tudes of stony comicality. All the stone-cutters seem to have tried their chisels on this group, and there are dozens of them. The wise and foolish virgins also stand at the church doors in time-stained stone,--the one with a perked-up air of conscious virtue, and the other with a penitent dejection that seems to merit better treatment. Over the great portal of St. Lawrence--a magnificent structure, with lofty twin spires and glorious rosewindow is carved "The Last Judgment." Underneath, the dead are climbing out of their stone coffins; above sits the Judge, with the attending angels. On the right hand go away the stiff, prim saints, in flowing robes, and with palms and harps, up steps into heaven, through a narrow door which St. Peter opens for them; while on the left depart the wicked, with wry faces and distorted forms, down into the stone flames, towards which the Devil is dragging them by their stony hair.

The interior of the Church of St. Lawrence is richer than any other I remember, with its magnificent pillars of dark red stone, rising and foliating out to form the roof; its splendid windows of stained gla.s.s, glowing with sacred story; a high gallery of stone entirely round the choir, and beautiful statuary on every column. Here, too, is the famous Sacrament House of honest old Adam Kraft, the most exquisite thing I ever saw in stone. The color is light gray; and it rises beside one of the dark, ma.s.sive pillars, sixty-four feet, growing to a point, which then strikes the arch of the roof, and there curls up like a vine to avoid it. The base is supported by the kneeling figures of Adam Kraft and two fellow-workmen, who labored on it for four years. Above is the Last Supper, Christ blessing little children, and other beautiful tableaux in stone. The Gothic spire grows up and around these, now and then throwing out graceful tendrils, like a vine, and seeming to be rather a living plant than inanimate stone. The faithful artist evidently had this feeling for it; for, as it grew under his hands, he found that it would strike the roof, or he must sacrifice something of its graceful proportion. So his loving and daring genius suggested the happy design of letting it grow to its curving, graceful completeness.

He who travels by a German railway needs patience and a full haversack.

Time is of no value. The rate of speed of the trains is so slow, that one sometimes has a desire to get out and walk, and the stoppages at the stations seem eternal; but then we must remember that it is a long distance to the bottom of a great mug of beer. We left Lindau on one of the usual trains at half-past five in the morning, and reached Augsburg at one o'clock in the afternoon: the distance cannot be more than a hundred miles. That is quicker than by diligence, and one has leisure to see the country as he jogs along. There is nothing more sedate than a German train in motion; nothing can stand so dead still as a German train at a station. But there are express trains.

We were on one from Augsburg to Nuremberg, and I think must have run twenty miles an hour. The fare on the express trains is one fifth higher than on the others. The cars are all comfortable; and the officials, who wear a good deal of uniform, are much more civil and obliging than officials in a country where they do not wear uniforms. So, not swiftly, but safely and in good-humor, we rode to the capital of Bavaria.

OUTSIDE ASPECTS OF MUNICH

I saw yesterday, on the 31st of August, in the English Garden, dead leaves whirling down to the ground, a too evident sign that the summer weather is going. Indeed, it has been sour, chilly weather for a week now, raining a little every day, and with a very autumn feeling in the air. The nightly concerts in the beer-gardens must have s.h.i.+vering listeners, if the bands do not, as many of them do, play within doors.

The line of droschke drivers, in front of the post-office colonnade, hide the red facings of their coats under long overcoats, and stand in cold expectancy beside their blanketed horses, which must need twice the quant.i.ty of black-bread in this chilly air; for the horses here eat bread, like people. I see the drivers every day slicing up the black loaves, and feeding them, taking now and then a mouthful themselves, wetting it down with a pull from the mug of beer that stands within reach. And lastly (I am still speaking of the weather), the gay military officers come abroad in long cloaks, to some extent concealing their manly forms and smart uniforms, which I am sure they would not do, except under the pressure of necessity.

Yet I think this raw weather is not to continue. It is only a rough visit from the Tyrol, which will give place to kinder influences. We came up here from hot Switzerland at the end of July, expecting to find Munich a furnace. It will be dreadful in Munich everybody said. So we left Luzerne, where it was warm, not daring to stay till the expected rival sun, Victoria of England, should make the heat overpowering. But the first week of August in Munich it was delicious weather,--clear, sparkling, bracing air, with no chill in it and no languor in it, just as you would say it ought to be on a high, gravelly plain, seventeen hundred feet above the sea. Then came a week of what the Muncheners call hot weather, with the thermometer up to eighty degrees Fahrenheit, and the white wide streets and gray buildings in a glare of light; since then, weather of the most uncertain sort.

Munich needs the sunlight. Not that it cannot better spare it than grimy London; for its prevailing color is light gray, and its many-tinted and frescoed fronts go far to relieve the most cheerless day. Yet Munich attempts to be an architectural reproduction of cla.s.sic times; and, in order to achieve any success in this direction, it is necessary to have the blue heavens and golden suns.h.i.+ne of Greece. The old portion of the city has some remains of the Gothic, and abounds in archways and rambling alleys, that suddenly become broad streets and then again contract to the width of an alderman, and portions of the old wall and city gates; old feudal towers stand in the market-place, and faded frescoes on old clock-faces and over archways speak of other days of splendor.

But the Munich of to-day is as if built to order,--raised in a day by the command of one man. It was the old King Ludwig I., whose flower-wreathed bust stands in these days in the vestibule of the Glyptothek, in token of his recent death, who gave the impulse for all this, though some of the best buildings and streets in the city have been completed by his successors. The new city is laid out on a magnificent scale of distances, with wide streets, fine, open squares, plenty of room for gardens, both public and private; and the art buildings and art monuments are well distributed; in fact, many a stately building stands in such isolation that it seems to ask every pa.s.ser what it was put there for. Then, again, some of the new adornments lack fitness of location or purpose. At the end of the broad, monotonous Ludwig Stra.s.se, and yet not at the end, for the road runs straight on into the flat country between rows of slender trees, stands the Siegesthor, or Gate of Victory, an imitation of the Constantine arch at Rome. It is surmounted by a splendid group in bronze, by Schwanthaler, Bavaria in her war-chariot, drawn by four lions; and it is in itself, both in its proportions and its numerous sculptural figures and bas-reliefs, a fine recognition of the valor "of the Bavarian army,"

to whom it is erected. Yet it is so dwarfed by its situation, that it seems to have been placed in the middle of the street as an obstruction.

A walk runs on each side of it. The Propylaeum, another magnificent gateway, thrown across the handsome Brienner Stra.s.se, beyond the Glyptothek, is an imitation of that on the Acropolis at Athens. It has fine Doric columns on the outside, and Ionic within, and the pediment groups are bas-reliefs, by Schwanthaler, representing scenes in modern Greek history. The pa.s.sageways for carriages are through the side arches; and thus the "sidewalk" runs into the center of the street, and foot-pa.s.sers must twice cross the carriage-drive in going through the gate. Such things as these give one the feeling that art has been forced beyond use in Munich; and it is increased when one wanders through the new churches, palaces, galleries, and finds frescoes so prodigally crowded out of the way, and only occasionally opened rooms so overloaded with them, and not always of the best, as to sacrifice all effect, and leave one with the sense that some demon of unrest has driven painters and sculptors and plasterers, night and day, to adorn the city at a stroke; at least, to cover it with paint and bedeck it with marbles, and to do it at once, leaving nothing for the sweet growth and blossoming of time.

You see, it is easy to grumble, and especially in a cheerful, open, light, and smiling city, crammed with works Of art, ancient and modern, its architecture a study of all styles, and its foaming beer, said by antiquarians to be a good deal better than the mead drunk in Odin's halls, only seven and a half kreuzers the quart. Munich has so much, that it, of course, contains much that can be criticised. The long, wide Ludwig Stra.s.se is a street of palaces,--a street built up by the old king, and regarded by him with great pride. But all the buildings are in the Romanesque style,--a repet.i.tion of one another to a monotonous degree: only at the lower end are there any shops or shop-windows, and a more dreary promenade need not be imagined. It has neither shade nor fountains; and on a hot day you can see how the sun would pour into it, and blind the pa.s.sers. But few ever walk there at any time. A street that leads nowhere, and has no gay windows, does not attract. Toward the lower end, in the Odeon Platz, is the equestrian statue of Ludwig, a royally commanding figure, with a page on either side. The street is closed (so that it flows off on either side into streets of handsome shops) by the Feldherrnhalle, Hall of the Generals, an imitation of the beautiful Loggia dei Lanzi, at Florence, that as yet contains only two statues, which seem lost in it. Here at noon, with parade of infantry, comes a military band to play for half an hour; and there are always plenty of idlers to listen to them. In the high arcade a colony of doves is domesticated; and I like to watch them circling about and wheeling round the spires of the over-decorated Theatine church opposite, and perching on the heads of the statues on the facade.

The royal palace, near by, is a huddle of buildings and courts, that I think n.o.body can describe or understand, built at different times and in imitation of many styles. The front, toward the Hof Garden, a gra.s.sless square of small trees, with open arcades on two sides for shops, and partially decorated with frescoes of landscapes and historical subjects, is "a building of festive halls," a facade eight hundred feet long, in the revived Italian style, and with a fine Ionic porch. The color is the royal, dirty yellow.

On the Max Joseph Platz, which has a bronze statue of King Max, a seated figure, and some elaborate bas-reliefs, is another front of the palace, the Konigsbau, an imitation, not fully carried out, of the Pitti Palace, at Florence. Between these is the old Residenz, adorned with fountain groups and statues in bronze. On another side are the church and theater of the Residenz. The interior of this court chapel is dazzling in appearance: the pillars are, I think, imitation of variegated marble; the sides are imitation of the same; the vaulting is covered with rich frescoes on gold ground. The whole effect is rich, but it is not at all sacred. Indeed, there is no church in Munich, except the old cathedral, the Frauenkirche, with its high Gothic arches, stained windows, and dusty old carvings, that gives one at all the sort of feeling that it is supposed a church should give. The court chapel interior is boastingly said to resemble St. Mark's, in Venice.

You see how far imitation of the cla.s.sic and Italian is carried here in Munich; so, as I said, the buildings need the southern sunlight.

Fortunately, they get the right quality much of the time. The Glyptothek, a Grecian structure of one story, erected to hold the treasures of cla.s.sic sculpture that King Ludwig collected, has a beautiful Ionic porch and pediment. On the outside are niches filled with statues. In the pure suns.h.i.+ne and under a deep blue sky, its white marble glows with an almost ethereal beauty. Opposite stands another successful imitation of the Grecian style of architecture,--a building with a Corinthian porch, also of white marble. These, with the Propylaeum, before mentioned, come out wonderfully against a blue sky.

A few squares distant is the Pinakothek, with its treasures of old pictures, and beyond it the New Pinakothek, containing works of modern artists. Its exterior is decorated with frescoes, from designs by Kaulbach: these certainly appear best in a sparkling light; though I am bound to say that no light can make very much of them.

Yet Munich is not all imitation. Its finest street, the Maximilian, built by the late king of that name, is of a novel and wholly modern style of architecture, not an imitation, though it may remind some of the new portions of Paris. It runs for three quarters of a mile, beginning with the postoffice and its colonnades, with frescoes on one side, and the Hof Theater, with its pediment frescoes, the largest opera-house in Germany, I believe; with stately buildings adorned with statues, and elegant shops, down to the swift-flowing Isar, which is spanned by a handsome bridge; or rather by two bridges, for the Isar is partly turned from its bed above, and made to turn wheels, and drive machinery. At the lower end the street expands into a handsome platz, with young shade trees, plats of gra.s.s, and gay beds of flowers. I look out on it as I write; and I see across the Isar the college building begun by Maximilian for the education of government officers; and I see that it is still unfinished, indeed, a staring ma.s.s of brick, with unsightly scaffolding and gaping windows. Money was left to complete it; but the young king, who does not care for architecture, keeps only a mason or two on the brick-work, and an artist on the exterior frescoes.

At this rate, the Cologne Cathedral will be finished and decay before this is built. On either side of it, on the elevated bank of the river, stretch beautiful grounds, with green lawns, fine trees, and well-kept walks.

Not to mention the English Garden, in speaking of the outside aspects of the city, would be a great oversight. It was laid out originally by the munificent American, Count Rumford, and is called English, I suppose, because it is not in the artificial Continental style. Paris has nothing to compare with it for natural beauty,--Paris, which cannot let a tree grow, but must clip it down to suit French taste. It is a n.o.ble park four miles in length, and perhaps a quarter of that in width,--a park of splendid old trees, grand, sweeping avenues, open glades of free-growing gra.s.s, with delicious, shady walks, charming drives and rivers of water.

For the Isar is trained to flow through it in two rapid streams, under bridges and over rapids, and by willow-hung banks. There is not wanting even a lake; and there is, I am sorry to say, a temple on a mound, quite in the cla.s.sic style, from which one can see the sun set behind the many spires of Munich. At the Chinese Tower two military bands play every Sat.u.r.day evening in the summer; and thither the carriages drive, and the promenaders a.s.semble there, between five and six o'clock; and while the bands play, the Germans drink beer, and smoke cigars, and the fas.h.i.+onably attired young men walk round and round the circle, and the smart young soldiers exhibit their handsome uniforms, and stride about with clanking swords.

We felicitated ourselves that we should have no lack of music when we came to Munich. I think we have not; though the opera has only just begun, and it is the vacation of the Conservatoire. There are first the military bands: there is continually a parade somewhere, and the streets are full of military music, and finely executed too. Then of beer-gardens there is literally no end, and there are nightly concerts in them. There are two brothers Hunn, each with his band, who, like the ancient Huns, have taken the city; and its gardens are given over to their unending waltzes, polkas, and opera medleys. Then there is the church music on Sundays and holidays, which is largely of a military character; at least, has the aid of drums and trumpets, and the whole band of bra.s.s. For the first few days of our stay here we had rooms near the Maximilian Platz and the Karl's Thor. I think there was some sort of a yearly fair in progress, for the great platz was filled with temporary booths: a circus had set itself up there, and there were innumerable side-shows and lottery-stands; and I believe that each little shanty and puppet-show had its band or fraction of a band, for there was never heard such a tooting and blowing and sc.r.a.ping, such a pounding and dinning and slang-whanging, since the day of stopping work on the Tower of Babel. The circus band confined itself mostly to one tune; and as it went all day long, and late into the night, we got to know it quite well; at least, the ba.s.s notes of it, for the lighter tones came to us indistinctly. You know that blurt, blurt, thump, thump, dissolute sort of caravan tune. That was it.

The English Cafe was not far off, and there the Hunns and others also made night melodious. The whole air was one throb and thrump. The only refuge from it was to go into one of the gardens, and give yourself over to one band. And so it was possible to have delightful music, and see the honest Germans drink beer, and gossip in friendly fellows.h.i.+p and with occasional hilarity. But music we had, early and late. We expected quiet in our present quarters. The first morning, at six o'clock, we were startled by the resonant notes of a military band, that set the echoes flying between the houses, and a regiment of cavalry went clanking down the street. But that is a not unwelcome morning serenade and reveille. Not so agreeable is the young man next door, who gives hilarious concerts to his friends, and sings and bangs his piano all day Sunday; nor the screaming young woman opposite. Yet it is something to be in an atmosphere of music.

THE MILITARY LIFE OF MUNICH

This morning I was awakened early by the strains of a military band. It was a clear, sparkling morning, the air full of life, and yet the sun showing its warm, southern side. As the mounted musicians went by, the square was quite filled with the clang of drum and trumpet, which became fainter and fainter, and at length was lost on the ear beyond the Isar, but preserved the perfection of time and the precision of execution for which the military bands of the city are remarkable. After the band came a brave array of officers in bright uniform, upon horses that pranced and curveted in the suns.h.i.+ne; and the regiment of cavalry followed, rank on rank of splendidly mounted men, who ride as if born to the saddle.

The clatter of hoofs on the pavement, the jangle of bit and saber, the occasional word of command, the onward sweep of the well-trained cavalcade, continued for a long time, as if the lovely morning had brought all the cavalry in the city out of barracks. But this is an almost daily sight in Munich. One regiment after another goes over the river to the drill-ground. In the hot mornings I used quite to pity the troopers who rode away in the glare in scorching brazen helmets and breastplates. But only a portion of the regiments dress in that absurd manner. The most wear a simple uniform, and look very soldierly. The horses are almost invariably fine animals, and I have not seen such riders in Europe. Indeed, everybody in Munich who rides at all rides well. Either most of the hors.e.m.e.n have served in the cavalry, or horsemans.h.i.+p, that n.o.ble art "to witch the world," is in high repute here.

Speaking of soldiers, Munich is full of them. There are huge caserns in every part of the city, crowded with troops. This little kingdom of Bavaria has a hundred and twenty thousand troops of the line. Every man is obliged to serve in the army continuously three years; and every man between the ages of twenty-one and forty-five must go with his regiment into camp or barrack several weeks in each year, no matter if the harvest rots in the field, or the customers desert the uncared-for shop.

The service takes three of the best years of a young man's life. Most of the soldiers in Munich are young one meets hundreds of mere boys in the uniform of officers. I think every seventh man you meet is a soldier.

There must be between fifteen and twenty thousand troops quartered in the city now. The young officers are everywhere, lounging in the cafes, smoking and sipping coffee, on all the public promenades, in the gardens, the theaters, the churches. And most of them are fine-looking fellows, good figures in elegantly fitting and tasteful uniforms; but they do like to show their handsome forms and hear their sword-scabbards rattle on the pavement as they stride by. The beer-gardens are full of the common soldiers, who empty no end of quart mugs in alternate pulls from the same earthen jug, with the utmost jollity and good fellows.h.i.+p.

On the street, salutes between officers and men are perpetual, punctiliously given and returned,--the hand raised to the temple, and held there for a second. A young gallant, lounging down the Theatiner or the Maximilian Stra.s.se, in his s.h.i.+ning and snug uniform, white kids, and polished boots, with jangling spurs and the long sword clanking on the walk, raising his hand ever and anon in condescending salute to a lower in rank, or with affable grace to an equal, is a sight worth beholding, and for which one cannot be too grateful. We have not all been created with the natural shape for soldiers, but we have eyes given us that we may behold them.

Bavaria fought, you know, on the wrong side at Sadowa; but the result of the war left her in confederation with Prussia. The company is getting to be very distasteful, for Austria is at present more liberal than Prussia. Under Prussia one must either be a soldier or a slave, the democrats of Munich say. Bavaria has the most liberal const.i.tution in Germany, except that of Wurtemberg, and the people are jealous of any curtailment of liberty. It seems odd that anybody should look to the house of Hapsburg for liberality. The att.i.tude of Prussia compels all the little states to keep up armies, which eat up their substance, and burden the people with taxes. This is the more to be regretted now, when Bavaria is undergoing a peaceful revolution, and throwing off the trammels of galling customs in other respects.

THE EMANc.i.p.aTION OF MUNICH

The 1st of September saw go into complete effect the laws enacted in 1867, which have inaugurated the greatest changes in business and social life, and mark an era in the progress of the people worthy of fetes and commemorative bronzes. We heard the other night at the opera-house "William Tell" unmutilated. For many years this liberty-breathing opera was not permitted to be given in Bavaria, except with all the life of it cut out. It was first presented entire by order of young King Ludwig, who, they say, was induced to command its unmutilated reproduction at the solicitation of Richard Wagner, who used to be, and very likely is now, a "Red," and was banished from Saxony in 1848 for fighting on the people's side of a barricade in Dresden. It is the fas.h.i.+on to say of the young king, that he pays no heed to the business of the kingdom. You hear that the handsome boy cares only for music and horseback exercise: he plays much on the violin, and rides away into the forest attended by only one groom, and is gone for days together. He has composed an opera, which has not yet been put on the stage. People, when they speak of him, tap their foreheads with one finger. But I don't believe it. The same liberality that induced him, years ago, to restore "William Tell" to the stage has characterized the government under him ever since.

Formerly no one could engage in any trade or business in Bavaria without previous examination before, and permission from, a magistrate. If a boy wished to be a baker, for instance, he had first to serve four years of apprentices.h.i.+p. If then he wished to set up business for himself, he must get permission, after pa.s.sing an examination. This permission could rarely be obtained; for the magistrate usually decided that there were already as many bakers as the town needed. His only other resource was to buy out an existing business, and this usually costs a good deal.

When he pet.i.tioned for the privilege of starting a bakery, all the bakers protested. And he could not even buy out a stand, and carry it on, without strict examination as to qualifications. This was the case in every trade. And to make matters worse, a master workman could not employ a journeyman out of his shop; so that, if a journeyman could not get a regular situation, he had no work. Then there were endless restrictions upon the manufacture and sale of articles: one person could make only one article, or one portion of an article; one might manufacture shoes for women, but not for men; he might make an article in the shop and sell it, but could not sell it if any one else made it outside, or vice versa.

Nearly all this ma.s.s of useless restriction on trades and business, which palsied all effort in Bavaria, is removed. Persons are free to enter into any business they like. The system of apprentices.h.i.+p continues, but so modified as not to be oppressive; and all trades are left to regulate themselves by natural compet.i.tion. Already Munich has felt the benefit of the removal of these restrictions, which for nearly a year has been antic.i.p.ated, in a growth of population and increased business.

But the social change is still more important. The restrictions upon marriage were a serious injury to the state. If Hans wished to marry, and felt himself adequate to the burdens and responsibilities of the double state, and the honest fraulein was quite willing to undertake its trials and risks with him, it was not at all enough that in the moonlighted beergarden, while the band played, and they peeled the stinging radish, and ate the Switzer cheese, and drank from one mug, she allowed his arm to steal around her stout waist. All this love and fitness went for nothing in the eyes of the magistrate, who referred the application for permission to marry to his a.s.sociate advisers, and they inquired into the applicant's circ.u.mstances; and if, in their opinion, he was not worth enough money to support a wife properly, permission was refused for him to try. The consequence was late marriages, and fewer than there ought to be, and other ill results. Now the matrimonial gates are lifted high, and the young man has not to ask permission of any snuffy old magistrate to marry. I do not hear that the consent of the maidens is more difficult to obtain than formerly.

No city of its size is more prolific of pictures than Munich. I do not know how all its artists manage to live, but many of them count upon the American public. I hear everywhere that the Americans like this, and do not like that; and I am sorry to say that some artists, who have done better things, paint professedly to suit Americans, and not to express their own conceptions of beauty. There is one who is now quite devoted to das.h.i.+ng off rather lamp-blacky moonlights, because, he says, the Americans fancy that sort of thing. I see one of his smirchy pictures hanging in a shop window, awaiting the advent of the citizen of the United States. I trust that no word of mine will injure the sale of the moonlights. There are some excellent figure-painters here, and one can still buy good modern pictures for reasonable prices.

FAs.h.i.+ON IN THE STREETS

Was there ever elsewhere such a blue, transparent sky as this here in Munich? At noon, looking up to it from the street, above the gray houses, the color and depth are marvelous. It makes a background for the Grecian art buildings and gateways, that would cheat a risen Athenian who should see it into the belief that he was restored to his beautiful city. The color holds, too, toward sundown, and seems to be poured, like something solid, into the streets of the city.

You should see then the Maximilian Stra.s.se, when the light floods the platz where Maximilian in bronze sits in his chair, illuminates the frescoes on the pediments of the Hof Theater, brightens the Pompeian red under the colonnade of the post-office, and streams down the gay thoroughfare to the trees and statues in front of the National Museum, and into the gold-dusted atmosphere beyond the Isar. The street is filled with promenaders: strangers who saunter along with the red book in one hand,--a man and his wife, the woman dragged reluctantly past the windows of fancy articles, which are "so cheap," the man breaking his neck to look up at the buildings, especially at the comical heads and figures in stone that stretch out from the little oriel-windows in the highest story of the Four Seasons Hotel, and look down upon the moving throng; Munich bucks in coats of velvet, swinging light canes, and smoking cigars through long and elaborately carved meerschaum holders; Munich ladies in dresses of that inconvenient length that neither sweeps the pavement nor clears it; peasants from the Tyrol, the men in black, tight breeches, that b.u.t.ton from the knee to the ankle, short jackets and vests set thickly with round silver b.u.t.tons, and conical hats with feathers, and the women in short quilted and quilled petticoats, of barrel-like roundness from the broad hips down, short waists ornamented with chains and barbarous brooches of white metal, with the oddest head-gear of gold and silver heirlooms; students with little red or green embroidered brimless caps, with the ribbon across the breast, a folded shawl thrown over one shoulder, and the inevitable switch-cane; porters in red caps, with a coil of twine about the waist; young fellows from Bohemia, with green coats, or coats trimmed with green, and green felt hats with a stiff feather stuck in the side; and soldiers by the hundreds, of all ranks and organizations; common fellows in blue, staring in at the shop windows, officers in resplendent uniforms, clanking their swords as they swagger past. Now and then, an elegant equipage dashes by,--perhaps the four horses of the handsome young king, with mounted postilions and outriders, or a liveried carriage of somebody born with a von before his name. As the twilight comes on, the shutters of the shop windows are put up. It is time to go to the opera, for the curtain rises at half-past six, or to the beer-gardens, where delicious music marks, but does not interrupt, the flow of excellent beer.

Or you may if you choose, and I advise you to do it, walk at the same hour in the English Garden, which is but a step from the arcades of the Hof Garden,--but a step to the entrance, whence you may wander for miles and miles in the most enchanting scenery. Art has not been allowed here to spoil nature. The trees, which are of magnificent size, are left to grow naturally;--the Isar, which is turned into it, flows in more than one stream with its mountain impetuosity; the lake is gracefully indented and overhung with trees, and presents ever-changing aspects of loveliness as you walk along its banks; there are open, sunny meadows, in which single giant trees or splendid groups of them stand, and walks without end winding under leafy Gothic arches. You know already that Munich owes this fine park to the foresight and liberality of an American Tory, Benjamin Thompson (Count Rumford), born in Rumford, Vt., who also relieved Munich of beggars.

I have spoken of the number of soldiers in Munich. For six weeks the Landwehr, or militia, has been in camp in various parts of Bavaria.

There was a grand review of them the other day on the Field of Mars, by the king, and many of them have now gone home. They strike an unmilitary man as a very efficient body of troops. So far as I could see, they were armed with breech-loading rifles. There is a treaty by which Bavaria agreed to a.s.similate her military organization to that of Prussia. It is thus that Bismarck is continually getting ready. But if the Landwehr is gone, there are yet remaining troops enough of the line. Their chief use, so far as it concerns me, is to make pageants in the streets, and to send their bands to play at noon in the public squares. Every day, when the sun s.h.i.+nes down upon the mounted statue of Ludwig I., in front of the Odeon, a band plays in an open Loggia, and there is always a crowd of idlers in the square to hear it. Everybody has leisure for that sort of thing here in Europe; and one can easily learn how to be idle and let the world wag. They have found out here what is disbelieved in America,--that the world will continue to turn over once in about twenty-four hours (they are not accurate as to the time) without their aid. To return to our soldiers. The cavalry most impresses me; the men are so finely mounted, and they ride royally. In these sparkling mornings, when the regiments clatter past, with swelling music and s.h.i.+ning armor, riding away to I know not what adventure and glory, I confess that I long to follow them. I have long had this desire; and the other morning, determining to satisfy it, I seized my hat and went after the prancing procession. I am sorry I did. For, after trudging after it through street after street, the fine hors.e.m.e.n all rode through an arched gateway, and disappeared in barracks, to my great disgust; and the troopers dismounted, and led their steeds into stables.

And yet one never loses a walk here in Munich. I found myself that morning by the Isar Thor, a restored medieval city gate. The gate is double, with flanking octagonal towers, inclosing a quadrangle. Upon the inner wall is a fresco of "The Crucifixion." Over the outer front is a representation, in fresco painting, of the triumphal entry into the city of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria after the battle of Ampfing. On one side of the gate is a portrait of the Virgin, on gold ground, and on the other a very pa.s.sable one of the late Dr. Hawes of Hartford, with a Pope's hat on. Walking on, I came to another arched gateway and clock-tower; near it an old church, with a high wall adjoining, whereon is a fresco of cattle led to slaughter, showing that I am in the vicinity of the Victual Market; and I enter it through a narrow, crooked alley. There is nothing there but an a.s.semblage of shabby booths and fruit-stands, and an ancient stone tower in ruins and overgrown with ivy.

Leaving this, I came out to the Marian Platz, where stands the column, with the statue of the Virgin and Child, set up by Maximilian I. in 1638 to celebrate the victory in the battle which established the Catholic supremacy in Bavaria. It is a favorite praying-place for the lower cla.s.ses. Yesterday was a fete day, and the base of the column and half its height are lost in a ma.s.s of flowers and evergreens. In front is erected an altar with a broad, carpeted platform; and a strip of the platz before it is inclosed with a railing, within which are praying-benches. The sun s.h.i.+nes down hot; but there are several poor women kneeling there, with their baskets beside them. I happen along there at sundown; and there are a score of women kneeling on the hard stones, outside the railing saying their prayers in loud voices. The ma.s.s of flowers is still sweet and gay and fresh; a fountain with fantastic figures is flas.h.i.+ng near by; the crowd, going home to supper and beer, gives no heed to the praying; the stolid droschke-drivers stand listlessly by. At the head of the square is an artillery station, and a row of cannon frowns on it. On one side is a house with a tablet in the wall, recording the fact that Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden once lived in it.

When we came to Munich, the great annual fair was in progress; and the large Maximilian Platz (not to be confounded with the street of that name) was filled with booths of cheap merchandise, puppet-shows, lottery shanties, and all sorts of popular amus.e.m.e.nts. It was a fine time to study peasant costumes. The city was crowded with them on Sunday; and let us not forget that the first visit of the peasants was to the churches; they invariably attended early ma.s.s before they set out upon the day's pleasure. Most of the churches have services at all hours till noon, some of them with fine cla.s.sical and military music. One could not but be struck with the devotional manner of the simple women, in their queer costumes, who walked into the gaudy edifices, were absorbed in their prayers for an hour, and then went away. I suppose they did not know how odd they looked in their high, round fur hats, or their fantastic old ornaments, nor that there was anything amiss in bringing their big baskets into church with them. At least, their simple, unconscious manner was better than that of many of the city people, some of whom stare about a good deal, while going through the service, and stop in the midst of crossings and genuflections to take snuff and pa.s.s it to their neighbors. But there are always present simple and homelike sort of people, who neither follow the fas.h.i.+ons nor look round on them; respectable, neat old ladies, in the faded and carefully preserved silk gowns, such as the New England women wear to "meeting."

No one can help admiring the simplicity, kindliness, and honesty of the Germans. The universal courtesy and friendliness of manner have a very different seeming from the politeness of the French. At the hotels in the country, the landlord and his wife and the servant join in hoping you will sleep well when you go to bed. The little maid at Heidelberg who served our meals always went to the extent of wis.h.i.+ng us a good appet.i.te when she had brought in the dinner. Here in Munich the people we have occasion to address in the street are uniformly courteous. The shop-keepers are obliging, and rarely servile, like the English. You are thanked, and punctiliously wished the good-day, whether you purchase anything or not. In shops tended by women, gentlemen invariably remove their hats. If you buy only a kreuzer's worth of fruit of an old woman, she says words that would be, literally translated, "I thank you beautifully." With all this, one looks kindly on the childish love the Germans have for t.i.tles. It is, I believe, difficult for the German mind to comprehend that we can be in good standing at home, unless we have some t.i.tle prefixed to our names, or some descriptive phrase added. Our good landlord, who waits at the table and answers our bell, one of whose tenants is a living baron, having no t.i.tle to put on his doorplate under that of the baron, must needs dub himself "privatier;" and he insists upon prefixing the name of this unambitious writer with the enn.o.bling von; and at the least he insists, in common with the tradespeople, that I am a "Herr Doctor." The bills of purchases by madame come made out to "Frau----, well-born." At a hotel in Heidelberg, where I had registered my name with that distinctness of penmans.h.i.+p for which newspaper men are justly conspicuous, and had added to my own name "& wife," I was not a little flattered to appear in the reckoning as "Herr Doctor Mamesweise."