Read Ebook: Pictures of German Life in the XVth XVIth and XVIIth Centuries Vol. II. by Freytag Gustav Malcolm Mrs Georgina Translator

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Part the First. THE CHILD.

As in a theatre, after the overture is played, the first thing shown to the audience is the scene in which the action of the drama commences, so let our first words be devoted to the locality in which the story opens.

I doubt whether the pretty shrub from which Rosemary Lane derived its name was ever seen in the locality, or whether, being seen, it would have been recognised as a familiar sign. Rosemary has a peculiarly sweet odour; Rosemary Lane had not. In one sense there was fitness in the name; for as the flower of rosemary has frequently been used as an emblem of constancy and fidelity, so in Rosemary Lane, poor and humble as it was, might be found living proofs of the existence of those qualities.

It was in this locality that our heroine was reared.

Where she came from, whether she had a relative in the world, and what was her real name, were sealed mysteries to the inhabitants of Rosemary Lane.

As to where she came from, the hazard of a kind gossip, who said that the child dropped as it might be from heaven among them, was accepted, in lieu of a hazard more reasonable.

She must have had at some time, a mother, but whether that mother was alive or dead, was not known, and there were no means of ascertaining. Her father, we will, for the present, leave out of the question--as fathers are frequently willing, and occasionally grateful, to be left.

As to her real name, it mattered little. One was found for her in Rosemary Lane.

What little else was known concerning her shall be briefly told.

In the year 1848, Europe was convulsed with civil war. Firebrands were abundant, but not more abundant than the hands ready to use them. Red was the favourite colour, and blood and fire supplied it freely. The gutters ran with the stream of the one, and the heavens reflected the glare of the other.

It was a time of solemn awful tragedies. And because the gutters were not purified when the blood was cleared away, men despaired who had grasped at shadows. And because the heavens were bright and fair when the dreadful glare had died out of them, milder theorists still hoped that the day would come when their dreams should be realised.

There was to be a monster meeting at Bonner's Fields, and the inhabitants of Rosemary Lane and the surrounding neighbourhood flocked to the spot made historically famous by the bishop who played his ruthless part in the reign of bloody Mary.

Troops were massed to meet the mob, but happily there was little need for them. Copious and beneficent showers of rain spoilt the bad promise of the day. Back to their homes went the idlers; for, indeed, there was little of serious purpose in ninety-nine out of every hundred who assembled; and the arm of the law came down lightly, comparatively few persons being arrested.

In the evening Rosemary Lane was exceedingly animated. There was more light in the Royal George than in all the private houses within a radius of five hundred yards. This particular gin palace was a grand stone building, abounding in bright glass and gilt cornices, and it was situated within a short distance of the residence of Mr. Richard Chester, who for a sufficient reason, was not at the present moment one of the throng there assembled. He was at home, beating his wife, who happened to be possessed of fifteen pence.

He employed all his arts to wheedle the money out of his wife; but she was firm and would not be wheedled. He even rehearsed a speech on liberty, which he was burning to deliver at the Royal George. It had no more effect upon her than if she had been a dummy woman. Mr. Chester took a strap into his hand and drew it between his palms. Mrs. Chester held her breath, and bit her lips.

"Gin!" interrupted Mrs. Chester, with scornful emphasis.

He flourished his strap, and brought it down upon her shoulders. The stroke was neither savage nor vindictive, and seemed to be administered more in sorrow than in anger. Yet she cried,

"O Dick!"

"Come," he said, persuasively, "the money."

"You may beat me black and blue," she replied "but you'll get no money out of me to-night."

"Won't I!" exclaimed the tipsy humourist, as he flourished his strap, and brought it down again. "Take that, and that, and that!"

His wife took that, and that, and that, meekly, so far as her outward manner denoted. She was really not hurt much, for his blows were light; but the tears gathered in her eyes, as she asked:

"Do you know why, if you killed me I would not give you the money?"

"Because you're an obstinate woman," he replied, with hand upraised.

"Because I want it for medicine, for Sally."

At this point the door of the room opened, and two persons appeared--a man, certainly wide awake and a very little girl, certainly almost fast asleep, holding on to the skirts of his coat. No sooner did the man pause on the right side of the door, than the child converted "almost" into "quite." With a bit of his coat tightly clasped in her little hand, she closed her eyes and went to sleep, using his leg as a resting place for her head. The one candle which lighted the room showed dimly the form of the man but the child, being exceedingly small, was hidden from the Chesters in the shadows which lay upon the floor.

The intruder, at a glance, recognised the position of affairs.

"Don't mind me," he said with a coarse laugh, "this is a free country."

"What do you want here?" demanded Mr. Chester angrily.

"All right, just you wait a bit." He turned to his wife.

"What's the matter with Sally?"

"She's took ill again. She fainted dead away again this afternoon, all of a sudden, and Dr. Lyons says she must have strengthening things."

Utterly forgetting her declaration that if her husband killed her she would not give him the money, Mrs. Chester dragged the fifteen pence out of her pocket, and flinging it upon the table, cried passionately:

"Take it! and drink the child's life away!"

"Not quite so bad as that, old woman," he said, in a shame-faced tone, "I've enough to reproach myself with one. Is Sal asleep?"

His question was answered by the pattering of two little bare feet, and Sally herself appeared from an inner room, which, with the parlour in which thd the women. In the Swedish army military schools were established by Gustavus Adolphus, in which the children were instructed even in the camp. In these migratory schools strict military discipline prevailed, and a story, which cannot be warranted, is told of a cannon-ball having passed through a school in the Swedish camp, and having killed many of the children, but the survivors continued their sum in arithmetic.

Some soldiers maintained one or more lads, a crafty, stubborn set of good-for-nothings, who waited upon their masters, cleaned their horses, sometimes bore their armour, and fed their shaggy dogs; nimble spies who prowled about far and near on the traces of opulent people, and on the look-out for concealed money.

The plundering by the baggage-train was almost worse in a friendly country. When the soldiers with the women and children came to a farmhouse, they pounced like hawks upon the poultry in the yard, then broke open the doors, seized upon the trunks and chests, and with abusive language, threatened, importuned and destroyed, what they could not consume or take away. On decamping they compelled the owner to horse his waggons and take them to their next quarters. Then they filled the waggons with the clothes, beds, and household goods of the farmers, binding round their bodies what could not otherwise be carried away.

"Frequently," says the indignant narrator Wallhausen, "the women did not choose to be drawn by oxen, and it was necessary to procure horses, sometimes from a distance of six miles, to the great cost of the country people, and when they came with the waggons to the nearest quarters, they would not allow the poor people to return home; but dragged them with them to another territory, and at last stole the horses and made off."

In the beginning of the war, a German infantry regiment had to march for some days through the country of their own sovereign; there were as many women and children with the baggage-train, as soldiers, and they stole in eight days from the subjects of their sovereign almost sufficient horses for each soldier to ride. The colonel, a just and determined man, frequently dragged the soldiers himself from the horses, and at last enforced their restoration by extreme severity. But it was impossible to prevent the women from riding; there was not one who had not a stolen horse, and if they did not ride them they harnessed them three or four together to the peasants' carts.

Only a few of the otherwise copious writers of that time make mention of this despised portion of the army; yet there are sufficient accounts, from which we may conclude that great influence was produced by the baggage-train on the fate of the army and the country. Especially by the enormous extent of it. At the end of the sixteenth century Adam Junghans reckons, that in a besieged fortress where the camp-followers were reduced to the smallest possible number, to three hundred infantry soldiers, there were fifty women and forty children, besides sutlers, horseboys, &c., &c., somewhat more than a third of the soldiers. But in the field the proportion was quite different even in the beginning of the war. Wallhausen reckons as indispensable to a German regiment of infantry, four thousand women, children, and other followers. A regiment of three thousand men had at least three hundred waggons, and every waggon was full to repletion of women, children, and plundered goods; when a company broke up from its quarters, it was considered an act of self-denial if it did not carry away with it thirty or more waggons. At the beginning of the war a regiment of north German soldiers, three thousand strong, started from the muster-place where it had remained some time, followed by two thousand women and children.

From that time the baggage-train continued increasing to the end of the war. It was only for a brief space of time that great commanders, like Tilly, Wallenstein, and Gustavus Adolphus were able to diminish this great plague of the army. In 1648, at the end of the great war, the Bavarian General, Gronsfeld, reports that in the Imperial and Bavarian armies there were forty thousand soldiers who drew war rations, and a hundred and forty thousand who did not; on what were these to subsist if they did not obtain their food by plunder, especially as in the whole country where the army encamped, there was not a single place where a soldier could buy a bit of bread. In the year 1648 the camp-followers were more than three times the number of the fighting-men. These numbers tell more significantly than any deductions, what a dreadful amass of misery surrounded these armies.

Before we proceed to describe the influence which armies thus composed exercised upon the life of the German people, we must once more remind the reader, that this monstrous evil was not created by the Thirty years' war, but for the most part already in existence. Some observations will therefore be here introduced from the above-quoted and now rare little book, written by Adam Junghans von der Olnitz, at that period when the worth and capacity of the old Landsknecht army passed away into the wild dissolute life of mercenaries. It appears here as the prologue to the monstrous tragedy which began twenty years later.

"Each and every officer, captain of horse, or other captain, knows well that no doctors, magisters, or any other God-fearing people, follow in his train, but only a heap of ill-disposed lads, out of all kinds of nations; strange folks, who leave wives and children, abandon their duties, and follow the army; all that will not follow the pursuits of their fathers and mothers, must follow the calf-skin which is spread over the drum, till they come to a battle or assault, where thousands lie on the field of battle, shot or cut to pieces; for a Landsknecht's life hangs by a hair, and his soul flutters on his cap or his sleeve. Besides, three kinds of herbs always grow with war; these are, sharp rule, fifty forbidden articles, and severe judgment with speedy sentence, which fits many a neck with a hempen collar.

"It is not enough that a soldier should be strong, straight, manly, tyrannical, bloody-minded, in his actions like a grim lion, and behave like a bully, as if he himself would catch and eat the devil alone, so that none of his comrades should partake of him; but these trigger-pullers wantonly bring themselves to destruction by their stupidity, and other good fellows with them. Another is a snorer, and a kicker, and stamps like a wild horse on the straw, and when he goes into battle, and the balls whistle about his head, he is a martyr and poor sinner, who would for very fear soil his hosen, and allow his weapon to fall from his hand. But when they sit at the tap, or in the cantini?res' stalls, or in public-houses, then they have seen much and can do nothing but fight, then a fly on the wall irritates them, there is no peace with them, then they are ready to fight the enemy with great curses. Such 'bear-prickers' are generally found out; one seldom finds one who is not maimed in the hands or arms, or has a scar on the cheek, and they have never really all their lives long, faced the enemy. The captain may well keep clear of such fellows, for they are generally seditious mutineers. A wise soldier avoids quarrels and public-house brawls whenever he can, that he may have his skin whole and uninjured to bring in front of the enemy. To be wounded by the enemy is an honour, but he who injures himself wantonly must expect scorn and derision, and is of no use to any army. Such a fellow must remain all his life a paltry beggar; he roves about the country, begs bread and sells it again, feeds like a wolf, and when the rats and mice are drowned in the countrywoman's milk, he maintains himself on the cheese made from it, and must submit to the rough words of the peasants, and herd with other poor beggars to the end of his life. Besides these, there are many who wish to be soldiers, mothers' sons, beardless boys, like young calves, who know nothing of suffering, who have sat beside the stove and roasted apples, and lain in warm beds. When they are brought to a foreign country, and meet with all kind of strange arrangements, food, drink, and other things, they are like soft eggs that flow through the fingers, or like paper when it lies in the water. It is thus not only with foot Landsknechte, but also with young nobles. When they are led to the field in devastated countries, where all is consumed and laid waste, and they can no longer carry their well-filled bread wallets and drinking-flasks on their necks, they first pine away, hunger and thirst, then eat and drink unusual things, from which result all kinds of maladies. These delicate vagabonds ought to remain at home, attend to the tillage, or sit in the shop by the pepper-bags, and shift for themselves, as their fathers and mothers have done, fill their stomachs at eventide, and go to bed; thus they would not be slain in war. It is truly said that soldiers must be hardy and enduring people, like unto steel and iron, and like the wild beasts that can eat all kinds of food. According to the jocose saying, the Landsknechte must be able to digest the points of their wheel-nails; nothing must come amiss to them, even if necessity required that they should eat dogs' or cats' flesh, and the flesh of horses from the meadow must be like good venison to them, with herbs unseasoned by salt or butter. Hunger teaches to eat, if one has not seen bread for three weeks. Drink one may have gratis, for if one can get no water from the brook, one can drink with the geese out of the pond or the puddle. One must sleep under a tree, or in the field; there is plenty of earth to lie on, and of sky for a canopy; such must often be the Landsknecht's sleeping-room, and from such a bed no feathers will stick to his hair. Hence arises the old quarrel between the fowls and geese and the Landsknechte, because the former can always sleep in feathers, whilst the latter must often lie in straw. There is another animal that clashes with the Landsknechte, that is the cat; as the soldiers know well how to pilfer, they are enemies to the cats, and friendly to the dogs. According to the old doggerel, a Landsknecht should always have with him a beautiful woman, a dog, and a young boy, a long spear, and a short sword; he is free to seek any master who will give him service. A Landsknecht must make three campaigns before he can become an honourable man. After the first campaign, he must return home wearing torn clothes; after the second, he should return with a scar on one cheek, and be able to tell much of alarms, battles, skirmishes and storming parties, and to show by his scars that he has got the marks of a Landsknecht; after the third, he should return well appointed, on a fine charger, bringing with him a purse full of gold, so that he may be able to distribute whole dollars as he would booty-pence.

"It is truly said, that a soldier must have to eat and drink, whether it is paid for by the sacristan or the priest; for a Landsknecht has neither house nor farm, cows nor calves, and no one to bring him food; therefore he must procure it himself wherever it is to be found, and buy without money whether the peasants look sweet or sour. Sometimes they must suffer hunger and evil days, at others they have abundance, and indeed such superfluity, that they might clean their shoes with wine or beer. Then their dogs eat roast; the women and children get good appointments, they become stewards and cellarers of other people's property. When the householder is driven away with his wife and children, the fowls, geese, fat cows, oxen, pigs, and sheep have a bad time of it. The money is portioned out in their caps, velvet and silk stuffs and cloth are measured out by long spears; a cow is slaughtered for the sake of the hide; chests and trunks are broken open, and when all has been plundered and nothing more remains, the house is set on fire. That is the true Landsknecht's fire, when fifty villages and country towns are in flames. Then they go to other quarters and do the like again; this makes soldiers jolly, and is a desirable life for those who do not pay for it. This entices to the field many a mother's child, who does not return home, and forgets his friends. For the proverb says: 'The Landsknechte have crooked fingers and maimed hands for work, but for pilfering and plundering all the maimed hands become sound.' That has been so before our days, and will remain so truly after us. The longer the Landsknechte learn this handiwork the better they do it, and become circumspect, like the three maidens who had four cradles made, the fourth as a provision in case one of them had two children. Wherever the soldiers come, they bring with them the keys of all the rooms, their axes and hatchets, and if there are not enough stalls in a place for their horses, it does not signify, they stall them in the churches, monasteries, chapels, and best rooms. If there is no dry wood for fire, it matters not, they burn chairs, benches, ploughs, and everything that is in the house; if they want green wood, no one need go far, they cut down the fruit trees in the nearest orchard; for they say, whilst we live here we keep house, to-morrow we go off again into the country, therefore, Mr. Host, be comforted; you have a few guests you would gladly be free from, therefore give freely and write it on the slate. When the house is burnt the account is burnt also. This is the Landsknechts' custom; to make a reckoning and ride off, and pay when we return.

Thus writes an honourable officer before the year 1600.

THE THIRTY YEARS' WAR.--LIFE AND MANNERS OF THE SOLDIERS.

Each army was a sample of the different nationalities; in each there was an intermixture of many languages; and the hatred of nations seldom ceased even when fighting under the same colours. It was especially necessary in the camp to arrange the regiments according to the good understanding between them. Germans and Italians were always kept apart.

The Field-marshal or Quartermaster-general chose the site of the camp; if possible by running water, and in a position which was favourable for defence. First of all was measured out the place for the General and his staff; large ornamented tents were raised on the ground thus set apart, which was divided from the rest of the camp by barriers and by planting spears, frequently even by fortifications. An open place was left close to it for the main-guard; if the army remained long encamped, a gallows was erected there as a warning. The position of each regiment and company was marked out with branches; the troops were marched in, the ranks were opened, the colours of each regiment were planted in the ground in rows side by side; behind in parallel lines lay the encampment of the company, always fifty men in a row; near the colours was the Ensign, in the middle the Lieutenant, at the rear the Captain, and behind all the tents of the superior officers and officials; the surgeon next to the Ensign, and the chaplain near the Captain. The officers lived in tents, often in conical forms fastened with cords to the ground. The soldiers built themselves little huts of planks and straw. The pikemen planted their pikes in the ground near the huts; the pikes, short spears, halberds, partisans, and standards showed from afar the rank and weapons of the inhabitant of the tent. Two or four soldiers were generally housed in a hut, with their wives, children, and dogs. Thus they lay encamped, company by company, regiment by regiment, in great squares or circles, the whole camp surrounded by a large space which served as an alarm post. Before the Thirty years' war it was customary to set up a barricade round the camp; then the train or baggage waggons were pushed together in double or more rows, and bound by chains or fastenings to the great square or circle, leaving free the necessary openings. Then also the cavalry had their camp next the inner side of the waggons; the necessary partitions were erected for the horses near the huts and tents of the horsemen. This custom had become obsolete, and it was only occasionally that the waggons surrounded the camp, but it was protected by trenches, mounds, and field-pieces. At the openings sentinels were posted, outside the camp, troops of horse and a chain of outposts of musketeers or arquebussiers were stationed. Each Ensign planted the colours before his tent; near it was the drummer of the company, and a musketeer kept watch with a burning match in his hand and his musket supported horizontally on its rest.

In such a camp it was that the wild soldiery dwelt in unbridled licence, insupportable to the neighbourhood even in a friendly country. The provinces, cities, and villages were obliged to supply wood, straw, fodder, and provisions, the waggons rolled along every road, and droves of fat cattle were collected. The neighbouring villages quickly disappeared; as all the wood-work and thatching was torn away by the soldiers and employed in building their huts, only the shattered clay walls remained. The soldiers and their boys roved about the neighbourhood, plundering and stealing, and the cantineers drove about with their carts. In the camp the soldiers congregated in front of their huts; meanwhile the women cooked, washed, mended the clothes and squabbled together; there was constant tumult and uproar and bloody crimes, fighting with bare weapons, and combats between the different services or nations. Every morning the crier and the trumpet called to prayer, even among the Imperialists; early on the Sunday the regimental chaplain performed service in the camp, then the soldiers and their households seated themselves devoutly on the ground, and it was forbidden for any one during service to loiter and drink in the canteens. It is known how much Gustavus Adolphus inculcated pious habits and prayers; after his arrival in Pomerania he caused prayers to be read twice a day in his camp, but even in his army, it was necessary in the articles of war to admonish the chaplains against drunkenness.

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