The Autobiography of Goethe. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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rest. The riding-masters, the led horses, the equipages, the shabracks and caparisons, attracted every eye, and the sixteen six-horse gala-wagons of the Imperial Chamberlains, Privy Councillors, High Chamberlain, High Stewards, and High Equerry, closed, with great pomp, this division of the procession, which, in spite of its magnificence and extent, was still only to be the van-guard.
But now the line concentrated itself more and more, while the dignity and parade kept on increasing. For, in the midst of a chosen escort of their own domestic attendants, the most of them on foot, and a few on horseback, appeared the Electoral ambassadors as well as the Electors in person, in ascending order, each one in a magnificent state-carriage. Immediately behind the Elector of Mentz, ten imperial footmen, one and forty lackeys, and eight Heyducks,17 announced their Majesties. The most magnificent state-carriage, furnished even at the back part with an entire window of plate-glass, ornamented with paintings, lacker, carved work, and gilding, covered with red embroidered velvet on the top and inside, allowed us very conveniently to behold the Emperor and King, the long-desired heads, in all their glory. The procession was led a long circuitous route, partly from necessity, that it might be able to unfold itself, and partly to render it visible to the great multitude of people. It had passed through Sachsenhausen, over the bridge, up the Fahrgasse, then down the Zeile, and turned towards the inner city through the Katharinenpforte, formerly a gate, and since the enlargement of the city, an open thoroughfare. Here it had been fortunately considered that, for a series of years, the external grandeur of the world had gone on expanding both in height and breadth. Measure had been taken, and it was found that the present imperial state-carriage could not, without striking its carved work and other outward decorations, get through this gateway, through which so many princes and emperors had gone backwards and forwards. The matter was debated, and to avoid an inconvenient circuit, it was resolved to take up the pavements, and to contrive a gentle descent and ascent. With the same new they had also removed all the projecting eaves from the shops and booths in the street, that neither crown, nor eagle, nor the genii should receive any shock or injury.
Eagerly as we directed our eyes to the high personages when this precious vessel with such precious contents approached us, we could not avoid turning our looks upon the noble horses, their harness, and its embroidery; but the strange coachmen and outriders, both sitting on the horses, particularly struck us. They looked as if they had come from some other nation, or even worn another world, with their long black and yellow velvet coats, and their caps with large plumes of feathers, after the imperial court fashion. Now the crowd became so dense that it was impossible to distinguish much more. The Swiss guard on both sides of the carriage, the Hereditary Marshal holding the Saxon sword upwards in his right hand, the Field-Marshals, as leaders of the Imperial Guard, riding behind the carriage, the imperial pages in a body, and finally, the Imperial Horse-guard (Hatschiergarde) itself, in black velvet frocks (Flügelröck), with all the seams edged with gold, under which were red coats and leather-coloured camisoles, likewise richly decked with gold! One scarcely recovered oneself from sheer seeing, pointing, and showing, so that the scarcely less splendidly clad body-guards of the Electors were barely looked at, and we should perhaps have withdrawn from the windows, if we had not wished to take a view of our own magistracy, who closed the procession in their fifteen two-horse coaches, and particularly the clerk of the council, with the city keys on red velvet cushions. That our company of city grenadiers should cover the rear, seemed to us honourable enough, and we felt doubly and highly edified as Germans and as Frankfurters by this great day.
Maria Theresa.
We had taken our place in a house which the procession had to pass again when it returned from the cathedral. Of religious services, of music, of rites and solemnities, of addresses and answers, of propositions and readings aloud, there was so much in church, choir, and conclave, before it came to the swearing of the electoral capitulation, that we had time enough to partake of an excellent collation, and to empty many bottles to the health of our old and young ruler. The conversation, in the meanwhile, as is usual on such occasions, reverted to the time past, and there were not wanting aged persons who preferred that to the present, at least with respect to a certain human interest and impassioned sympathy which then prevailed. At the coronation of Francis the First all had not been so settled as now; peace had not yet been concluded; France and the Electors of Brandenburg and the Palatinate were opposed to the election; the troops of the future emperor were stationed at Heidelberg, where he had his head-quarters, and the insignia of the Empire coming from Aix, were almost carried off by the inhabitants of the Palatinate. Meanwhile negotiations went on, and on neither side was the affair conducted in the strictest manner. Maria Theresa, though then pregnant, comes in person to see the coronation of her husband, which is at last carried into effect. She arrived at Aschaffenburg, and went on board a yacht in order to repair to Frankfort. Francis, from Heidelberg, thinks to meet his wife, but comes too late; she has already departed. Unknown, he throws himself into a little boat, hastens after her, reaches her ship, and the loving pair is delighted at this surprising meeting. The story spreads immediately, and all the world sympathizes with this tender pair, so richly blessed with their children, who have been so inseparable since their union, that once on a journey from Vienna to Florence they are forced to keep quarantine together on the Venetian border. Maria Theresa is welcomed in the city with rejoicings, she enters the Roman Emperor inn, while the great tent for the reception of her husband is erected on the Bornheim heath. There of the spiritual Electors is found only Mentz, and of the ambassadors of the temporal Electors, only Saxony, Bohemia, and Hanover. The entrance begins, and what it may lack of completeness and splendour is richly compensated by the presence of a beautiful lady. She stands upon the balcony of the well-situated house, and greets her husband with cries of Vivat and clapping of hands; the people joined, excited to the highest enthusiasm. As the great are, after all, men, the citizen thinks them his equals when he wishes to love them, and that he can best do when he can picture them to himself as loving husbands, tender parents, devoted brothers, and true friends. At that time all happiness had been wished and prophesied, and to-day it was seen fulfilled in the first-born son; to whom everybody was well inclined on account of his handsome youthful form, and upon whom the world set the greatest hopes, on account of the great qualities that he showed.
We had become quite absorbed in the past and future, when some friends who came in recalled us to the present. They were of those who know the value of novelty, and therefore hasten to announce it first. They were even able to tell of a fine humane trait in those exalted personages whom we had seen go by with the greatest pomp. It had been concerted that on the way, between Heusenstamm and the great tent, the Emperor and King should find the Landgrave of Darmstadt in the forest. This old prince, now approaching the grave, wished to see once more the master to whom he had been devoted in former times. Both might remember the day when the Landgrave brought over to Heidelberg the decree of the Electors choosing Francis as Emperor, and replied to the valuable presents he received with protestations of unalterable devotion. These eminent persons stood in a grove of firs, and the Landgrave, weak with old age, supported himself against a pine, to continue the conversation, which was not without emotion on both sides. The place was afterwards marked in an innocent way, and we young people sometimes wandered to it.
Thus several hours had passed in remembrance of the old and consideration of the new, when the procession, though curtailed and more compact, again passed before our eyes, and we were enabled to observe and mark the detail more closely, and imprint it on our minds for the future.
From that moment the city was in uninterrupted motion; for until each and every one whom it behoved, and of whom it was required, had paid their respects to the highest dignities, and exhibited themselves one by one, there was no end to the marching to and fro, and the court of each one of the high persons present could be very conveniently repeated in detail.
Now, too, the insignia of the Empire arrived. But that no ancient usage might be omitted even in this respect, they had to remain half a day till late at night in the open field, on recount of a dispute about territory and escort between the Elector of Mentz and the city. The latter yielded, the people of Mentz escorted the insignia as far as the barricade, and so the affair terminated for this time.
At Evening with Gretchen.
In these days I did not come to myself. At home I had to
A class of attendants dressed in Hungarian costume. —