possesses so much natural rythm and allows, like the Greek, the combination of compound words and a redundancy of epithets, and it is besides so flexible that it lends itself to all the ancient as well as the modern metres with complete success: indeed it is the only modern language that I know of which does so.
As for political opinions here, the Germans seem neither to wish nor to care about the restoration of the Bourbons; but they talk loudly of the necessity of tearing Alsace and Lorraine from France. In fact, they wish to put it out of the power of the French ever to invade Germany again; a thing however little to be hoped for. For the minor and weaker Germanic states have always hitherto (and will probably again at some future day) invoked the assistance of France against the greater and stronger. I observe that the Austrian Government is not at all popular here, and that its bad faith in financial matters is so notorious and has been so severely felt here, that a merchant told me, alluding to the bankruptcy of the Austrian Government on two occasions when there was no absolute necessity for the measure, that Frankfort had suffered more from the bad faith of the Austrian Government than from all the war contributions levied by the French.
BRUXELLES, 28th July.
On arrival at Coblentz we heard that Napoleon had surrendered himself unconditionally to Capt. Maitland of the Bellerophon. He never should have humiliated himself so far as to surrender himself to the British ministry. He owed to himself, to his brave fellow soldiers, to the French nation whose Sovereign he had been, not to take such a step, but rather die in the field like our Richard III, a glorious death which cast a lustre around his memory in spite of the darker shades of his character; or if he could not fall in the field, he should have died like Hannibal, rather than commit himself into the hands of a government in which generosity is by no means a distinguishing feature, and which on many occasions has shown a petty persecuting and vindictive spirit, and thus I have no hesitation in portraying the characteristics of our Tory party, which, unfortunately for the cause of liberty, rules with undivided sway over England. He will now end his days in captivity, for his destination appears to be already fixed, and St. Helena is named as the intended residence; he will, I say, be exposed to all the taunts and persecutions that petty malice can suggest; and this with the most uncomfortable reflections: for had he been more considerate of the spirit of the age, he might have set all the Monarchs, Ultras and Oligarchs and their ministers at defiance. But he wished to ape Charlemagne and the Caesars and to establish an universal Empire: a thing totally impossible in our days and much to be deprecated were it possible.
Consigned to St. Helena, Napoleon will furnish to posterity a proverb like that of Dionysius at Corinth. This banishment to St. Helena will be very ungenerous and unjust on the part of the English Government, but I suppose their satellites and adherents will term it an act of clemency, and some Church and Kingmen would no doubt recommend hewing him in pieces, as Samuel did to Agag.
I stopped three days at Aix-la-Chapelle to drink the waters and then came straight to this place stopping half a day in Liége. I shall start for Paris in a couple of days, as the communication is now open and the public conveyances re-established. My passport is visé in the following terms: "Bon pour aller à Paris en suivant la route des armées alliées." I am quite impatient to visit that celebrated city.
[18] Philipp Klingmann (1762–1824) was better known as an actor than as an author.—ED.
[19] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, VII, 12, 1.—ED.
[20] "What business have you? None, I travel for amusement. Strange! What is there strange in travelling to see a fine country?"
[21] Le Compère Mathieu, a satirical novel by the Abbé Henri Joseph Dulaurens, published 1765 and sometimes (though wrongly) attributed to Voltaire. One of the prominent talkers in the dialogues is Père Jean de Domfront.—ED.
[22] Horace, Epist., I, i, 15.—ED.
[23] This altar, inscribed Deae Victoriae Sacrum (Corpus inscr. lat. XIII, 8252), was erected by the Roman fleet on the Rhine at the place now called Altsburg near Cologne and, after its discovery, taken to Bonn, where it was set up on the Remigius-Platz (now called Roemer-Platz) on Dec, 3, 1809. It is now in the Provincial Museum.—ED.
[24] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, vi, 20, 3.—ED.
[25] August Lafontaine (1758–1831), born in Brunswick of a family of French protestants, was the very prolific and now quite forgotten author of many novels and novelettes.—ED.
[26] From Ernst Moritz Arndt's (1779–1860) celebrated poem, Des Deutschen Vaterland.—ED.
[27] There seems to be much truth in this opinion, though the question of the intrigues of Louis XVIII with Robespierre is still shrouded in obscurity. Some pages of General Thiébault's memoirs might have cleared it up, but they have been torn out from the manuscript (Mémoires du Général Baron Thiébault, vol. I, p. 273). Louis XVIII paid a pension to Robespierre's sister, Charlotte.—ED.
[28] Sir Charles Stewart, created Lord Stewart In 1814; he was a half-brother of Lord Castlereagh.—ED.
[29] The same story is given, with slight differences, by Lafayette himself (Mémoires, vol. V, p. 472–3; Paris and Leipzig, 1838). See also Souvenirs historiques et parlementaires du Comte de Pontécoulant, vol. III, p. 428 (Paris, 1863). Major Frye's narrative is by far the oldest and seems the most trustworthy.—ED.
[30] The house in question was built about 1780 by Nicolas de Pigage for the rich merchant, Franz von Schweizer; Pigage was the son of the architect of King Stanislas at Nancy. The Schweizer palace became later on the Hôtel de Russie and was demolished about 1890, the Imperial Post Office having been erected in its place. The Schweizer family is now extinct.—ED.
[31] A Casinogesellschaft, still in existence (1908), was founded at Frankfort in 1805, with the object of uniting the aristocratic elements of the city, admittance being freely allowed to distinguished strangers, in particular to the envoys of the Bundestag. The Gesellschaft or club occupied spacious rooms in the house of the once famous tapissier and decorator Major Rumpf, grandfather of the German sculptor of the same name. That building, situated at the corner of the Rossmarkt, was demolished about 1880.—ED.
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