Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume II

Charles James Lever

Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume II (of II)

CHAPTER I

The Ortl’er is the Mont Blanc of the Tyrol, and seen from Nauders, a village on a green, grassy table land, more than four thousand feet above the sea, can well bear comparison with the boldest of the Swiss Alps. Nauders itself, a type of a Tyroler village, is situated in a wild and lonely region; it has all the picturesque elegance and neat detail of which Tyrolers are so lavish in their houses, and, like every other Dorf in this country, has its proud castle standing sentry over it. The Barons of the Naudersberg were men of station in olden times, and exacted a tribute over a tract extending deep into the Engadine; and now, in this great hall, whose chimney would contain the heaviest diligence that ever waddled over the Arlberg, a few Nauders notabilities are squabbling over some mysterious passage in a despatch from Vienna, for it is the high court of the district, while I wait patiently without for some formality of my passport. To judge from their grave expressions and their anxious glances towards me, one would say that I was some dangerous or suspected personage – some one whose dark designs the government had already fathomed, and were bent on thwarting. If they did but know how few are, in all likelihood, the days I have yet to linger on, they would not rob me of one hour of them in this wild mountain.

And yet I have learned something while I wait. This little dorf, Nauders, is the birthplace of a very remarkable man, although one whose humble name, Bartholomew Kleinhaus, is little known beyond Tyrol. Left an orphan at five years old, he lost his sight in the small-pox, and was taken into the house of a carpenter who compassionated his sad condition. Here he endeavoured to learn something of his protector’s trade; but soon relinquishing the effort, he set to work, forming little images in wood, at first from models, and then self-designed, till, at the age of thirteen, he completed a crucifix of singular beauty and elegance.

Following up the inspiration, he now laboured assiduously at his new craft, and made figures of various saints and holy personages, for his mind was entirely imbued with a feeling of religious fervour; and to such an extent that, in order to speak his devotion by another sense, he actually learned to play the organ, and with such a proficiency, that he performed the duties of organist for nearly a year in the village church of Kaltenbrunnen. As sculptor, his repute is widely spread and great in Tyrol. A St. Francis by his hand is at present in the Ambras collection at Vienna; many of his statues adorn the episcopal palaces of Chur and Brixen, and the various churches throughout the province.

Leaving the sculptor and his birthplace, which already a mountain mist is shrouding, I hasten on, for my passport is at last discovered to be in order, and I am free to pursue my road to Meran.

Of all spots in the Tyrol, none can compare with Merah, the wildest character of mountain uniting with a profusion of all that vegetation can bring. The snow peak, the glacier, the oak forest, the waving fields of yellow corn, the valley, one vast vineyard – where have such elements of grandeur and simple beauty in scenery been so gloriously commingled? And then the little town itself – what a strange reminiscence of long-buried years! The street – there is properly but one – with its deep arched passages, within which the quaint old shops, without windows, display their wares; and the courtyards, galleried around, story above story, and covered at top by a great awning to keep off the sun; for already Italy is near, and the odour of the magnolia and oleander is felt from afar.

I wandered into one of these courts last night; the twilight was closing, and there was a strange, mysterious effect in the dim distances upwards, where figures came and went along the high-perched galleries. Beyond the court lay a garden, covered over with a vine-roofed trellis, under whose shade various tables were placed. A single light, here and there, shewed where one or two guests were seated; but all so still and silently, that one would have thought the place deserted. It seemed as if the great charm was that mellow air softened by silence, for none spoke.

I walked for some time through the alleys, and at last sat down to rest myself at a little table, over which a wide-leaved fig-tree spread its dark canopy.

At first I did not remark that another person was seated near the table; but as my eyes became more accustomed to the shade, I descried a figure opposite to me, and immediately rising, I offered my apology in German for intruding. He replied in French, by politely requesting I would be seated; and the tone and manner of his words induced me to comply.

We soon fell into conversation; and although I could barely distinguish his shadow as the night fell thicker, I recognised that he was an old man; his accent proclaimed him to be French. We chatted away, the topics ranging, with that wilfulness conversation always inclines to, from the “Wein-cur “ – the “Grape cure” – for which Meran is celebrated, to the present condition and the past grandeur of the ancient town. With its bygone history my companion seemed well acquainted, and narrated with considerable skill some of its illustrious passages, concluding one by saying, “Here, in this very garden, on a summer morning of 1342, the Emperor and the Margrave of Brandenburg sat at breakfast, when a herald came to announce the advance of the procession with the future bride of the Duke, Margaretta, while the Bishops of Augsburg and Regensberg, and all the chivalry of the Tyrol, rode beside and around her. In yonder little chapel, where a light now glitters over a shrine, was the betrothal performed. From that day forth Tyrol was Austrian. Of all this gorgeous festivity, nothing remains but an iron horse-shoe nailed to the chapel door. The priest who performed the betrothal somewhat indiscreetly suggested that, with such a dowry as the bridegroom received, he might well be generous towards the Church; on which the Duke, a man of immense personal strength, at once stooped down and wrenched a fore-shoe from the bride’s white palfrey, saying, with sarcastic bitterness, ‘Here, I give thee iron for stone!’ in allusion to the rocks and precipices of the Tyrol land.

“Ungratefully spoken at the time,” continued the stranger, “and equally false as a prophecy. These wild fastnesses have proved the best and last defences of that same Austrian Empire. Indeed, so well aware was Napoleon of the united strength and resources of the Tyrol, that one of his first measures was to partition the country between Bavaria, Austria, and Illyria. And yet this Tyrol loyalty is inexplicable. They are attached to the house of Haps-burgh, but they are not Austrian in feeling. The friends of free trade need not go far in Meran to find disciples to their doctrine. Every one remembers the time that an aume of Meraner wine was worth seventy-five gulden, which now is to be had for five; but then they were Bavarian, and might barter the grape-juice for the yellow produce of the Baierisch corn-fields. At the present day they are isolated, shut up, and imprisoned by custom-houses and toll; and they are growing daily poorer, and neglecting the only source they possessed of wealth.”

We talked of Hofer, and I perceived that my companion was strongly imbued with an opinion, now very general in the Tyrol, that his merits were much less than foreigners usually ascribe to him. Sprung from the people, the host of a little wayside inn, a man with little education, and of the very roughest manner, it is somewhat singular that his claims are most disputed among the very class he came from. Had he been an aristocrat, in all likelihood they had never ventured to canvass the merits they now so mercilessly arraign. They judge of his efforts by the most unfair of tests in such matters – the result. They say, “To what end has Tyrol fought and bled? Are we better, or richer, or freer than before?” They even go further, and accuse him of exciting the revolt as a means of escaping the payment of his debts, which assuredly were considerable. What a terrible price is paid for mob popularity, when the hour of its effervescence is past!

We fell to chat over the character of revolutions generally, and the almost invariable tendency to reaction that ensues in all popular commotions. The character of the Three Days and the present condition of France, more despotically governed than ever Napoleon dared, was too palpable an example to escape mention. I had the less hesitation in speaking my opinion on this subject, that I saw my companion’s leanings were evidently of the Legitimist stamp.

From the Revolution we diverged to the struggle itself of the Three Days; and being tolerably familiar, from various personal narratives, with the event, I ventured on expressing my concurrence with the opinion that a mere mob, unprepared, unarmed, and undisciplined, could never have held for an hour against the troops had there not been foul play.

“Where do you suspect this treachery to have existed?” asked my companion.

The tone of the question, even more than its substance, confused me, for I felt myself driven to a vague reply in explanation of a direct charge. I answered, however, that the magnitude of the danger could scarcely have been unknown to many men highly placed in the service of Charles X.; and yet it was clear the King never rightly understood that any real peril impended. The whole outbreak was treated as an “échauffourée”.

“I can assure you of your error, so far,” replied my companion. “The greatest difficulty we encountered – ” There was a slight pause here, as if by use of the word “we” an unwitting betrayal had escaped him. He speedily, however, resumed: – “The greatest difficulty was to persuade his Majesty that the entire affair was any thing but a street brawl. He treated the accounts with an indifference bordering on contempt; and at every fresh narrative of the repulse of the troops, he seemed to feel that the lesson to be inflicted subsequently would be the most efficacious check to popular excess in future. To give an instance, – a very slight one, but not without its moral, of the state of feeling of the court, – at four o’clock of the afternoon of the third day, when the troops had fallen back from the Place du Carrousel, and with great loss been compelled to retreat towards the Champs Elysées, Captain Langlet, of the 4th Lancers, volunteered to carry a verbal message to Versailles, in doing which he should traverse a great part of Paris in the occupation of the insurgents. The attempt was a bold and daring one, but it succeeded. After innumerable hairbreadth dangers and escapes, he reached Versailles at half-past seven. His horse had twice fallen, and his uniform was torn by balls; and he entered the courtyard of the Palace just as his Majesty learned that his dinner was served. Lang-let hastened up the great staircase, and, by the most pressing entreaties to the officer in waiting, obtained permission to wait there till the king should pass. He stood there for nearly a quarter of an hour; it seemed an age to him, for though faint, wounded, and weary, his thoughts were fixed on the scene of struggle he had quitted, and the diminishing chances of success each moment told. At last the door of a salon was flung wide, and the Grand Maréchal, accompanied by the officers in waiting, were seen retiring in measured steps before the King. His Majesty had not advanced half-way along the corridor when he perceived the splashed and travel-stained figure of the officer. ‘Who is that?’ demanded he, in a tone of almost asperity. The officer on guard stepped forward, and told who he was and the object of his coming. The king spoke a few words hastily and passed on. Langlet awaited in breathless eagerness to hear when he should have his audience – he only craved time for a single sentence. What was the reply he received? – an order to present himself, ‘suitably dressed,’ in the morning. Before that morning broke there was no King in France!

“Take this – the story is true – as a specimen of the fatuity of the Court. Quem Deus vult perdere; – so it is we speak of events, but we forget ourselves.”

“But still,” said I, “the army scarcely performed their devoir– not, at least, as French troops understand devoir– where their hearts are engaged.‘’

“You are mistaken again,” said he. “Save in a few companies of the line, never did troops behave better: four entire squadrons of one regiment were cut to pieces at the end of the Rue Royale; two infantry regiments were actually annihilated at the Hôtel de Ville. For eight hours, at the Place du Carrousel, we had no ammunition, while the insurgents poured in a most murderous fire: so was it along the Quai Voltaire.”

“I have heard,” said I, “that the Duc de Raguse lost his head completely.”

“I can assure you, sir, they who say so calumniate him,” was the calm reply. “Never before that day was a Marshal of France called upon to fight an armed host, without soldiers and without ammunition.”

“His fate would induce us to be superstitious, and believe in good luck. Never was there a man more persecuted by ill fortune!”

“I perceive they are shutting the gates,” said my companion, rising; “these worthy Meranersare of the very earliest to retire for the night.” And so saying, and with a “Good night,” so hastily uttered as to forbid further converse, my companion withdrew, while I wandered slowly back to my Inn, curious to learn who he might be, and if I should ever chance upon him again.

I heard a voice this morning on the bridge, so exactly like that of my companion of last night, that I could not help starting. The speaker was a very large and singularly handsome man, who, though far advanced in life, walked with a stature as erect, and an air as assured, as he could have worn in youth. Large bushy eye-brows, black as jet, although his hair was perfectly white, shaded eyes of undimmed brilliancy – he was evidently “some one,” the least observant could not pass him without this conviction. I asked a stranger who he was, and received for answer, “Marshal Marmont – he comes here almost every autumn.”

CHAPTER II. THE TYROL

Every traveller in the Tyrol must have remarked, that, wherever the way is difficult of access, or dangerous to traverse, some little shrine or statue is always to be seen, reminding him that a higher Power than his own watches over his safety, and suggesting the fitness of an appeal to Him who is “A very present help in time of trouble.”

Sometimes a rude painting upon a little board, nailed on a tree, communicates the escape and gratitude of a traveller; sometimes a still ruder fresco, on the very rock, tells where a wintry torrent had swept away a whole family, and calling on all pious Christians who pass that way to offer a prayer for the departed. There is an endless variety in these little “Votive Tablets,” which are never more touching than when their very rude poverty attests the simplest faith of a simple people. The Tyrolers are indeed such. Perhaps alone, of all the accessible parts of Europe, the Tyrol has preserved its primitive habits and tastes for centuries unchanged. Here and there, throughout the continent, to be sure, you will find some little “Dorf,” or village, whose old-world customs stand out in contrast to its neighbours; and where in their houses, dress, and bearing, the inhabitants seem unlike all else around them. Look more closely, however, and you will see that, although the grandmother is clothed in homespun, and wears her leathern pocket at her girdle, all studded with copper nails, that her grandaughter affects a printed cotton or a Swiss calico; and instead of the broad-brimmed and looped felt of the old “Bauer,” the new generation sport broad-cloth and beaver.

Such hamlets are, therefore, only like the passengers left behind by their own coach, and waiting for the next conveyance that passes to carry them on their journey.

In the Tyrol, however, such evidences of progress – as it is the fashion to call it – are rare. The peasantry seem content to live as their fathers have done, and truly he must be sanguine who could hope to better a condition, which, with so few prorations, comprises so many of life’s best and dearest blessings. If the mountain peaks be snow-clad, even in midsummer, the valleys (at least all in South Tyrol) are rich in vineyards and olive groves; and although wheat is seldom seen, the maize grows every where; the rivers swarm with trout; and he must be a poor marksman who cannot have venison for his dinner. The villages are large and well built; the great wooden houses, with their wide projecting roofs and endless galleries, are the very types of comfort. Vast piles of fire-wood, for winter use, large granaries of forage for the cattle – the cattle themselves with great silver bells hanging to their necks – all bespeak an ease, if not an actual affluence, among the peasantry. The Tyrolers are, in a word, all that poets and tourists say the Swiss are, and of which they are exactly the reverse.

It would be difficult to find two nations so precisely alike in all external circumstances, and so perfectly dissimilar in every feature of character. Even in their religious feelings, Romanism, generally so levelling, has not been able to make them of the same measure here. The Swiss Catholic – bigotted, overbearing, and plotting – has nothing in common with the simple-minded Tyroler, whose faith enters into all the little incidents of his daily life, cheering, exalting, and sustaining, but never suggesting a thought save of charity and good will to all.

That they have interwoven, so to say, their religious belief into all their little worldly concerns, if not making their faith the rule, at least establishing it as the companion of their conduct, is easily seen. You never overtake a group, returning from fair or market, that all are not engaged in prayer, repeating together some litany of the Church; and as each new arrival joins the party, his voice chimes in, and swells the solemn hum as naturally as if prearranged or practised.

If you pass a village, or a solitary farmhouse, at sunset, the same accents meet your ears, or else you hear them singing some hymn in concert. Few “Bauer” houses, of any pretension, are without the effigy of a patron saint above the door, and even the humblest will have a verse of a psalm, or a pious sentence, carved in the oaken beam. Their names are taken from the saintly calendar, and every thing, to the minutest particular, shews that their faith is an active working principle, fashioning all their actions, and mingling with all their thoughts. Their superstitions, like all simple-minded and secluded people’s, are many; their ignorance is not to be denied; mayhap the Church has fostered the one, and done little to enlighten the other: still, if Romanism had no heavier sin to account for, no darker score to clear up, than her dealings in these mountains, there would be much to forgive in a creed that has conferred so many good gifts, and sowed the seeds of so few bad ones.

These pious emblems find their way, too, into places where one would scarce look for them – over the doors of village inns, and as signs to little wine and beer-houses: and frequently the Holy personages are associated with secular usages, strangely at variance with the saintly character. Thus I have seen, in the village beside me, a venerable St. Martin engaged in the extraordinary operation of shoeing a horse; though what veterinary tastes the saint ever evinced, or why he is so represented, I can find no one to inform me. On the summit of steep passes, where it is usual, by a police regulation, to prescribe the use of a drag to all wheel carriages, the board which sets forth the direction is commonly ornamented by a St. Michael, very busily applying the drag to a heavy waggon, while the driver thereof is on his knees hard by, worshipping the saint, in evident delight at his dexterity. In the same way many venerable and holy men are to be seen presiding over savoury hams and goblets of foaming beer, and beaming with angelic beatitude at a party of hard-drinking villagers in the distance. Our present business is, however, less with the practice in general, than a particular instance, which is to be met with in the Bavarian Tyrol, mid-way between the villages of Murnou and Steingaden, where over the door of a solitary little way-side inn hangs a representation of the Virgin, with a starling perched upon her wrist. One has only to remark the expression of unnatural intelligence in the bird’s look, to be certain that it was not a mere fancy of the artist to have placed her thus, but that some event of village tradition, or history, is interwoven with her presence.

The motto contributes nothing to the explanation. It is merely a line from the Church Litany, “Maria, Mutter Grottes, hülf uns, – Mary, Mother of God, help us!”

There is then a story connected with the painting, and we shall, with your leave, tell it; calling our tale by the name of the little inn,

“MARIA HULF!”

Has our reader ever heard, or read, of those strange gatherings, which take place at the early spring in the greater number of southern German cities and are called, “Year Markets?” The object is simply to assemble the youth of the mountain districts in Tyrol and Vorarlbreg, that they may be hired, by the farmers of the rich pasture countries, as herds. Thither they go – many a mile – some children of ten or eleven years old, and seeming even still younger, away from home and friends, little adventurers on the bleak wide ocean of life, to sojourn among strangers in far-off lands; to pass days long in lonely valleys or deep glens, without a sight or sound of human life around them; watching the bright sun and counting the weary minutes over, that night and rest may come, per* chance with dreams of that far-off home, which, in all its poverty, is still cheered by the fond familiar faces! Some, ruddy and stout-looking, seem to relish the enterprise, and actually enjoy the career so promising in its vicissitudes; others, sad and care-worn, bear with them the sorrows of their last leave-taking, and are only comforted by the thought that autumn will come at last, and then the cattle must be housed for the winter: and then they shall be free to wend their way over mountain and plain, far, far away beyond Maltz – high in the wild peaks of the Stelvio, or deep in the lovely glens below Meran.

It was in one of these “Markets” at Inspruck that a little boy was seen, not standing with the groups which usually gather together under a single leader, but alone and apart, seemingly without one that knew him. His appearance bespoke great poverty; his clothes, originally poor, were now in rags; his little cap, of squirrel skin, hung in fragments on either side of his pallid cheeks; his feet – a rare circumstance – were bare, and bloodstained from travel; want and privation were stamped in every feature: and his eyes, which at that moment were raised with eager anxiety as some Bauer drew nigh, grew wan, and filling at each new disappointment to his hopes, for this was his third day to stand in the market, and not one had even asked his name. And yet he heard that name; ever and anon it met his ears in sounds which stirred his feeble heart, and made it throb faster. “Fritzerl! ah, Fritzerl, good fellow!” were the words; and poor Fritzerl would stoop down when he heard them and peep into a little cage where a Starling was perched – a poor, emaciated little thing it was, as way-worn and poverty struck, to all seeming, as himself: but he did not think so: he deemed it the very paragon of the feathered tribe, for it had a little toppin of brown feathers on its head, and a little ring of white around its neck, and would come when he called it; and, better than all, could sing, “Good Fritzerl – nice Fritzerl!” when it was pleased, and “Potztausend!” when angry. This was all its education; his master, poor little fellow, had not much more. How could he? Fritzerl’s mother died when he was a baby; his father was killed by a fall from a cliff in the Tyrol Alps, for he was by trade a bird-catcher, and came from the Engadine, where every one loves birds, and in the pursuit of this passion met his fate.

Fritzerl was left an orphan at eleven years old, and all his worldly wealth was this little Starling; for although his father had left a little cabin in the high Alps, and a rifle, and some two or three articles of house gear, they all were sold to pay the expenses of his funeral, and feast the neighbours who were kind enough to follow him to the grave: so that poor Fritz kept open house for two days; and when he walked out the third, after the coffin, he never turned his steps back again, but wandered away – far, far away – to seek in the year-market of Inspruck some kind peasant who would take him home to herd his cattle, and be a father to him now.