Letter LII.Europe under the Bayonet.Paris,September13, 1849.Whoever should visit the principal countries of Europe at the present moment, might take them for conquered provinces, held in subjection by their victorious masters, at the point of the sword. Such was the aspect which France presented when I came to Paris a few weeks since. The city was then in what is called, by a convenient fiction, a state of siege; soldiers filled the streets, were posted in every public square and at every corner, were seen marching before the churches, the cornices of which bore the inscription of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, keeping their brethren quiet by the bayonet. I have since made a journey to Bavaria and Switzerland, and on returning I find the siege raised, and these demonstrations of fraternity less formal, but the show and the menace of military force are scarcely less apparent. Those who maintain that France is not fit for liberty, need not afflict themseves with the idea that there is at present more liberty in France than her people know how to enjoy. On my journey, I found the cities along the Rhine crowded with soldiers; the sound of the drum was heard among the hills covered with vines; women were trundling loaded wheel-barrows, and carrying panniers like asses, to earn the taxes which are extorted to support the men who stalk about in uniform. I entered Heidelberg with anticipations of pleasure; they were dashed in a moment; the city was in a state of siege, occupied by Prussian troops which had been sent to take the part of the Grand Duke of Baden against his people. I could hardly believe that this was the same peaceful and friendly city which I had known in better times. Every other man in the streets was a soldier; the beautiful walks about the old castle were full of soldiers; in the evening they were reeling through the streets. "This invention," said a German who had been a member of the Diet of the Confederation lately broken up, "this invention of declaring a city, which has unconditionally submitted, to be still in a state of siege, is but a device to practice the most unbounded oppression. Any man who is suspected, or feared, or disliked, or supposed not to approve of the proceedings of the victorious party, is arrested and imprisoned at pleasure. He may be guiltless of any offense which could be made a pretext for condemning him, but his trial is arbitrarily postponed, and when at last he is released, he has suffered the penalty of a long confinement, and is taught how dangerous it is to become obnoxious to the government."From Heidelberg, thus transformed, I was glad to take my departure as soon as possible. Our way from that city to Heilbronn, was through a most charming country along the valley of the Neckar. Here were low hills and valleys rich with harvests, a road embowered in fruit-trees, the branches of which were propped with stakes to prevent them from breaking with their load, and groves lying pleasantly in the morning sunshine, where ravens were croaking. Birds of worse omen than these were abroad, straggling groups, and sometimes entire companies of soldiers, on their way from one part of the duchy to another; while in the fields, women, prematurely old with labor, were wielding the hoe and the mattock, and the younger and stronger of their sex were swinging the scythe. In all the villages through which we passed, in the very smallest, troops were posted, and men in military uniform were standing at the doors, or looking from the windows of every inn and beer-house.At Heilbronn we took the railway for Stuttgart, the capital of Wurtemberg. There was a considerable proportion of men in military trappings among the passengers, but at one of the stations they came upon us like a cloud, and we entered Stuttgart with a little army. That city, too, looked as if in a state of siege, so numerous were the soldiery, though the vine-covered hills, among which it is situated, could have given them a better occupation. The railway, beyond Stuttgart, wound through a deep valley and ended at Geisslingen, an ancient Swabian town, in a gorge of the mountains, with tall old houses, not one of which, I might safely affirm, has been built within the last two hundred years. From this place to Ulm, on the Danube, the road was fairly lined with soldiers, walking or resting by the wayside, or closely packed in the peasants' wagons, which they had hired to carry them short distances. At Ulm we were obliged to content ourselves with straitened accommodations, the hotels being occupied by the gentry in epaulettes.I hoped to see fewer of this class at the capital of Bavaria, but it was not so; they were everywhere placed in sight as if to keep the people in awe. "These fellows," said a German to me, "are always too numerous, but in ordinary times they are kept in the capitals and barracks, and the nuisance is out of sight. Now, however, the occasion is supposed to make their presence necessary in the midst of the people, and they swarm everywhere." Another, it was our host of the Goldener Hirsch, said to my friend, "I think I shall emigrate to America, I am tired of living under the bayonet."I was in Munich when the news arrived of the surrender of the Hungarian troops under Görgey, and the fall of the Hungarian republic. All along my journey I had observed tokens of the intense interest which the German people took in the result of the struggle between Austria and the Magyars, and of the warmth of their hopes in favor of the latter. The intelligence was received with the deepest sorrow. "So perishes," said a Bavarian, "the last hope of European liberty."Our journey to Switzerland led us through the southern part of Bavaria, among the old towns which formed a part of ancient Swabia. The country here, in some respects, resembles New England; here are broad woods, large orchards of the apple and pear, and scattered farm-houses—of a different architecture, it is true, from that of the Yankees, and somewhat resembling, with their far-projecting eaves, those of Switzerland. Yet there was a further difference—everywhere, men were seen under arms, and women at the plough.So weary had I grown of the perpetual sight of the military uniform, that I longed to escape into Switzerland, where I hoped to see less of it, and it was with great delight that I found myself at Lindau, a border town of Bavaria, on the Bodensee, or Lake of Constance, on the shores of which the boundaries of four sovereignties meet. A steamer took us across the lake, from a wharf covered with soldiers, to Roorschach, in Switzerland, where not a soldier was to be seen. Nobody asked for our passports, nobody required us to submit our baggage to search. I could almost have kneeled and kissed the shore of the hospitable republic; and really it was beautiful enough for such a demonstration of affection, for nothing could be lovelier than the declivities of that shore with its woods and orchards, and grassy meadows, and green hollows running upward to the mountain-tops, all fresh with a shower which had just passed and now glittering in the sunshine, and interspersed with large Swiss houses, bearing quaintly-carved galleries, and broad overhanging roofs, while to the east rose the glorious summits of the Alps, mingling with the clouds.In three or four hours we had climbed up to St. Gall—St. Gallen, the Germans call it—situated in a high valley, among steep green hills, which send down spurs of woodland to the meadows below. In walking out to look at the town, we heard a brisk and continued discharge of musketry, and, proceeding in the direction of the sound, came to a large field, evidently set apart as a parade-ground, on which several hundred youths were practicing the art of war in a sham fight, and keeping up a spirited fire at each other with blank cartridges. On inquiry, we were told that these were the boys of the schools of St. Gall, from twelve to sixteen years of age, with whom military exercises were a part of their education. I was still, therefore, among soldiers, but of a different class from those of whom I had seen so much. Here, it was the people who were armed for self-protection; there, it was a body of mercenaries armed to keep the people in subjection.Another day's journey brought us to the picturesque town of Zurich, and the next morning about four o'clock I was awakened by the roll of drums under my window. Looking out, I saw a regiment of boys of a tender age, in a uniform of brown linen, with little light muskets on their shoulders, and miniature knapsacks on their backs, completely equipped and furnished for war, led on by their little officers in regular military order, marching and wheeling to the sound of martial music with all the precision of veterans. In Switzerland arms are in every man's hands; he is educated to be a soldier, and taught that the liberties of his country depend on his skill and valor. The worst effect, perhaps of this military education is, that the Swiss, when other means of subsistence are not easily found, become military adventurers and sell their services to the first purchaser. Meantime, nobody is regarded as properly fitted for his duties as a member of the state, who is not skilled in the use of arms. Target-shooting,Freischiessen, is the national amusement of Switzerland, and has been so ever since the days of Tell; occasions of target-shooting are prescribed and superintended by the public authorities. They were practicing it at the stately city of Berne when we visited it; they were practicing it at various other places as we passed. Every town is provided with a public shooting-ground near its gates.It was at one of the most remarkable of these towns; it was at Freiburg, Catholic Freiburg, full of Catholic seminaries and convents, in the churches of which you may hear the shrill voices of the nuns chanting matins, themselves unseen; it was at Freiburg, grandly seated on the craggy banks of her rivers, flowing in deep gulfs, spanned by the loftiest and longest chain-bridges in the world, that I saw another evidence of the fact that Switzerland is the only place on the continent where freedom is understood, or allowed to have an existence. A proclamation of the authorities of the canton was pasted on the walls and gates, ordaining the 16th of September as a day of religious thanksgiving. After recounting the motives of gratitude to Providence; after speaking of the abundance of the harvests, the health enjoyed throughout Switzerland, at the threshold of which the cholera had a second time been stayed; the subsidence of political animosities, and the quiet enjoyment of the benefits of the new constitution upon which the country had entered, the proclamation mentioned, as a special reason of gratitude to Almighty God, that Switzerland, in this day of revolutions, had been enabled to offer, among her mountains, a safe and unmolested asylum to the thousands of fugitives who had suffered defeat in the battles of freedom.I could not help contrasting this with the cruel treatment shown by France to the political refugees from Baden and other parts of Germany. A few days before, it had been announced that the French government required of these poor fellows that they should either enlist at once in the regiments destined for service in Algiers, or immediately leave the country—offering them the alternative of military slavery, or banishment from the country in which they had hoped to find a shelter.I have spoken of the practice of Switzerland in regard to passports, an example which it does not suit the purpose the French politicians to follow. Here, and all over the continent, the passport system is as strictly and vexatiously enforced as ever. It is remarkable that none of the reformers occupied in the late remodelling of European institutions, seems to have thought of abolishing this invention of despotism—this restraint upon the liberty of passing from place to place, which makes Europe one great prison. If the people had been accustomed to perfect freedom in this respect, though but a short time, it might have been found difficult, at least in France, to reimpose the old restraints. The truth is, however, that France is not quite so free at present as she was under Louis Philippe. The only advantage of her present condition is, that the constitution places in the hands of the people the means of peaceably perfecting their liberties, whenever they are enlightened enough to claim them.On my way from Geneva to Lyons I sat inbanquetteof the diligence among the plebeians. The conversation happened to turn on politics, and the expressions of hatred against the present government of France, which broke from the conductor, the coachman, and the two passengers by my side, were probably significant of the feeling which prevails among the people. "The only law now," said one, "is the law of the sabre." "The soldiers and thegens d'armeshave every thing their own way now," said another, "but by and by they will be glad to, hide in the sewers." The others were no less emphatic in their expressions of anger and detestation.The expedition to Rome is unpopular throughout France, more especially so in the southern part of the republic, where the intercourse with Rome has been more frequent, and the sympathy with her people is stronger. "I have never," said an American friend, who has resided some time in Paris, "heard a single Frenchman defend it." It is unpopular, even among the troops sent on the expedition, as is acknowledged by the government journals themselves. To propitiate public opinion, the government has changed its course, and after making war upon the Romans to establish the pontifical throne, now tells the Pope that he must submit to place the government in the hands of the laity. This change of policy has occasioned a good deal of surprise and an infinite deal of discussion. Whatever may be its consequences, there is one consequence which it can not have, that of recovering to the President and his ministry the popularity they have lost.
Whoever should visit the principal countries of Europe at the present moment, might take them for conquered provinces, held in subjection by their victorious masters, at the point of the sword. Such was the aspect which France presented when I came to Paris a few weeks since. The city was then in what is called, by a convenient fiction, a state of siege; soldiers filled the streets, were posted in every public square and at every corner, were seen marching before the churches, the cornices of which bore the inscription of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, keeping their brethren quiet by the bayonet. I have since made a journey to Bavaria and Switzerland, and on returning I find the siege raised, and these demonstrations of fraternity less formal, but the show and the menace of military force are scarcely less apparent. Those who maintain that France is not fit for liberty, need not afflict themseves with the idea that there is at present more liberty in France than her people know how to enjoy. On my journey, I found the cities along the Rhine crowded with soldiers; the sound of the drum was heard among the hills covered with vines; women were trundling loaded wheel-barrows, and carrying panniers like asses, to earn the taxes which are extorted to support the men who stalk about in uniform. I entered Heidelberg with anticipations of pleasure; they were dashed in a moment; the city was in a state of siege, occupied by Prussian troops which had been sent to take the part of the Grand Duke of Baden against his people. I could hardly believe that this was the same peaceful and friendly city which I had known in better times. Every other man in the streets was a soldier; the beautiful walks about the old castle were full of soldiers; in the evening they were reeling through the streets. "This invention," said a German who had been a member of the Diet of the Confederation lately broken up, "this invention of declaring a city, which has unconditionally submitted, to be still in a state of siege, is but a device to practice the most unbounded oppression. Any man who is suspected, or feared, or disliked, or supposed not to approve of the proceedings of the victorious party, is arrested and imprisoned at pleasure. He may be guiltless of any offense which could be made a pretext for condemning him, but his trial is arbitrarily postponed, and when at last he is released, he has suffered the penalty of a long confinement, and is taught how dangerous it is to become obnoxious to the government."
From Heidelberg, thus transformed, I was glad to take my departure as soon as possible. Our way from that city to Heilbronn, was through a most charming country along the valley of the Neckar. Here were low hills and valleys rich with harvests, a road embowered in fruit-trees, the branches of which were propped with stakes to prevent them from breaking with their load, and groves lying pleasantly in the morning sunshine, where ravens were croaking. Birds of worse omen than these were abroad, straggling groups, and sometimes entire companies of soldiers, on their way from one part of the duchy to another; while in the fields, women, prematurely old with labor, were wielding the hoe and the mattock, and the younger and stronger of their sex were swinging the scythe. In all the villages through which we passed, in the very smallest, troops were posted, and men in military uniform were standing at the doors, or looking from the windows of every inn and beer-house.
At Heilbronn we took the railway for Stuttgart, the capital of Wurtemberg. There was a considerable proportion of men in military trappings among the passengers, but at one of the stations they came upon us like a cloud, and we entered Stuttgart with a little army. That city, too, looked as if in a state of siege, so numerous were the soldiery, though the vine-covered hills, among which it is situated, could have given them a better occupation. The railway, beyond Stuttgart, wound through a deep valley and ended at Geisslingen, an ancient Swabian town, in a gorge of the mountains, with tall old houses, not one of which, I might safely affirm, has been built within the last two hundred years. From this place to Ulm, on the Danube, the road was fairly lined with soldiers, walking or resting by the wayside, or closely packed in the peasants' wagons, which they had hired to carry them short distances. At Ulm we were obliged to content ourselves with straitened accommodations, the hotels being occupied by the gentry in epaulettes.
I hoped to see fewer of this class at the capital of Bavaria, but it was not so; they were everywhere placed in sight as if to keep the people in awe. "These fellows," said a German to me, "are always too numerous, but in ordinary times they are kept in the capitals and barracks, and the nuisance is out of sight. Now, however, the occasion is supposed to make their presence necessary in the midst of the people, and they swarm everywhere." Another, it was our host of the Goldener Hirsch, said to my friend, "I think I shall emigrate to America, I am tired of living under the bayonet."
I was in Munich when the news arrived of the surrender of the Hungarian troops under Görgey, and the fall of the Hungarian republic. All along my journey I had observed tokens of the intense interest which the German people took in the result of the struggle between Austria and the Magyars, and of the warmth of their hopes in favor of the latter. The intelligence was received with the deepest sorrow. "So perishes," said a Bavarian, "the last hope of European liberty."
Our journey to Switzerland led us through the southern part of Bavaria, among the old towns which formed a part of ancient Swabia. The country here, in some respects, resembles New England; here are broad woods, large orchards of the apple and pear, and scattered farm-houses—of a different architecture, it is true, from that of the Yankees, and somewhat resembling, with their far-projecting eaves, those of Switzerland. Yet there was a further difference—everywhere, men were seen under arms, and women at the plough.
So weary had I grown of the perpetual sight of the military uniform, that I longed to escape into Switzerland, where I hoped to see less of it, and it was with great delight that I found myself at Lindau, a border town of Bavaria, on the Bodensee, or Lake of Constance, on the shores of which the boundaries of four sovereignties meet. A steamer took us across the lake, from a wharf covered with soldiers, to Roorschach, in Switzerland, where not a soldier was to be seen. Nobody asked for our passports, nobody required us to submit our baggage to search. I could almost have kneeled and kissed the shore of the hospitable republic; and really it was beautiful enough for such a demonstration of affection, for nothing could be lovelier than the declivities of that shore with its woods and orchards, and grassy meadows, and green hollows running upward to the mountain-tops, all fresh with a shower which had just passed and now glittering in the sunshine, and interspersed with large Swiss houses, bearing quaintly-carved galleries, and broad overhanging roofs, while to the east rose the glorious summits of the Alps, mingling with the clouds.
In three or four hours we had climbed up to St. Gall—St. Gallen, the Germans call it—situated in a high valley, among steep green hills, which send down spurs of woodland to the meadows below. In walking out to look at the town, we heard a brisk and continued discharge of musketry, and, proceeding in the direction of the sound, came to a large field, evidently set apart as a parade-ground, on which several hundred youths were practicing the art of war in a sham fight, and keeping up a spirited fire at each other with blank cartridges. On inquiry, we were told that these were the boys of the schools of St. Gall, from twelve to sixteen years of age, with whom military exercises were a part of their education. I was still, therefore, among soldiers, but of a different class from those of whom I had seen so much. Here, it was the people who were armed for self-protection; there, it was a body of mercenaries armed to keep the people in subjection.
Another day's journey brought us to the picturesque town of Zurich, and the next morning about four o'clock I was awakened by the roll of drums under my window. Looking out, I saw a regiment of boys of a tender age, in a uniform of brown linen, with little light muskets on their shoulders, and miniature knapsacks on their backs, completely equipped and furnished for war, led on by their little officers in regular military order, marching and wheeling to the sound of martial music with all the precision of veterans. In Switzerland arms are in every man's hands; he is educated to be a soldier, and taught that the liberties of his country depend on his skill and valor. The worst effect, perhaps of this military education is, that the Swiss, when other means of subsistence are not easily found, become military adventurers and sell their services to the first purchaser. Meantime, nobody is regarded as properly fitted for his duties as a member of the state, who is not skilled in the use of arms. Target-shooting,Freischiessen, is the national amusement of Switzerland, and has been so ever since the days of Tell; occasions of target-shooting are prescribed and superintended by the public authorities. They were practicing it at the stately city of Berne when we visited it; they were practicing it at various other places as we passed. Every town is provided with a public shooting-ground near its gates.
It was at one of the most remarkable of these towns; it was at Freiburg, Catholic Freiburg, full of Catholic seminaries and convents, in the churches of which you may hear the shrill voices of the nuns chanting matins, themselves unseen; it was at Freiburg, grandly seated on the craggy banks of her rivers, flowing in deep gulfs, spanned by the loftiest and longest chain-bridges in the world, that I saw another evidence of the fact that Switzerland is the only place on the continent where freedom is understood, or allowed to have an existence. A proclamation of the authorities of the canton was pasted on the walls and gates, ordaining the 16th of September as a day of religious thanksgiving. After recounting the motives of gratitude to Providence; after speaking of the abundance of the harvests, the health enjoyed throughout Switzerland, at the threshold of which the cholera had a second time been stayed; the subsidence of political animosities, and the quiet enjoyment of the benefits of the new constitution upon which the country had entered, the proclamation mentioned, as a special reason of gratitude to Almighty God, that Switzerland, in this day of revolutions, had been enabled to offer, among her mountains, a safe and unmolested asylum to the thousands of fugitives who had suffered defeat in the battles of freedom.
I could not help contrasting this with the cruel treatment shown by France to the political refugees from Baden and other parts of Germany. A few days before, it had been announced that the French government required of these poor fellows that they should either enlist at once in the regiments destined for service in Algiers, or immediately leave the country—offering them the alternative of military slavery, or banishment from the country in which they had hoped to find a shelter.
I have spoken of the practice of Switzerland in regard to passports, an example which it does not suit the purpose the French politicians to follow. Here, and all over the continent, the passport system is as strictly and vexatiously enforced as ever. It is remarkable that none of the reformers occupied in the late remodelling of European institutions, seems to have thought of abolishing this invention of despotism—this restraint upon the liberty of passing from place to place, which makes Europe one great prison. If the people had been accustomed to perfect freedom in this respect, though but a short time, it might have been found difficult, at least in France, to reimpose the old restraints. The truth is, however, that France is not quite so free at present as she was under Louis Philippe. The only advantage of her present condition is, that the constitution places in the hands of the people the means of peaceably perfecting their liberties, whenever they are enlightened enough to claim them.
On my way from Geneva to Lyons I sat inbanquetteof the diligence among the plebeians. The conversation happened to turn on politics, and the expressions of hatred against the present government of France, which broke from the conductor, the coachman, and the two passengers by my side, were probably significant of the feeling which prevails among the people. "The only law now," said one, "is the law of the sabre." "The soldiers and thegens d'armeshave every thing their own way now," said another, "but by and by they will be glad to, hide in the sewers." The others were no less emphatic in their expressions of anger and detestation.
The expedition to Rome is unpopular throughout France, more especially so in the southern part of the republic, where the intercourse with Rome has been more frequent, and the sympathy with her people is stronger. "I have never," said an American friend, who has resided some time in Paris, "heard a single Frenchman defend it." It is unpopular, even among the troops sent on the expedition, as is acknowledged by the government journals themselves. To propitiate public opinion, the government has changed its course, and after making war upon the Romans to establish the pontifical throne, now tells the Pope that he must submit to place the government in the hands of the laity. This change of policy has occasioned a good deal of surprise and an infinite deal of discussion. Whatever may be its consequences, there is one consequence which it can not have, that of recovering to the President and his ministry the popularity they have lost.