Twenty Years in Europe
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Title: Twenty Years in Europe
Author: S. H. M. Byers
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWENTY YEARS IN EUROPE ***
TWENTY YEARS IN EUROPE.
[Illustration: Heidelberg Castle.]
Twenty Years in Europe
A CONSUL-GENERAL’S MEMORIES
OF NOTED PEOPLE, WITH LETTERS
FROM GENERAL W. T. SHERMAN
BY
S. H. M. BYERS,
_U. S. Consul-General to Switzerland and Italy_,
AUTHOR OF
“SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEA,” “THE HAPPY ISLES,”
“SWITZERLAND AND THE SWISS,” ETC.
_PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED._
[Illustration]
CHICAGO AND NEW YORK:
RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS.
Copyright, 1900, by Rand, McNally & Co.
INSCRIBED
TO
MARGARET GILMOUR BYERS.
Time robs us all of some things we would keep,
And favoring winds to-morrow may forsake;
But, joyous thought--O! Future! Smile or weep,
The happy years behind us none can take!
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR.
While staying in Switzerland and Italy as a consular officer, during a
period of well on to twenty years, I kept a diary of my life. Without
being a copy of the diary, this book is made up from its pages and
from my own recollections of men, scenes, and events. It was during an
interesting period, too. There were stirring times in Europe. Two great
wars took place; one great empire was born; another became a republic;
and the country of Victor Emmanuel changed from a lot of petty dukedoms
to a free Italy. It seemed a great period everywhere, and everything of
men and events jotted down at such a time would of necessity have its
interest. This book is not a history--only some recollections and some
letters.
Among the letters are some fifty from General Sherman, whose intimate
friendship I enjoyed from the war times till the day of his death. They
are printed with permission of those now interested, and they may be
regarded as in a way supplementary to the series of more public letters
of General Sherman printed by me in the North American Review during
his lifetime. They possess the added interest that must attach to the
intimate letters of friendship coming from a brilliant mind. Their
publication can only help to lift the veil a little from a life that
was as true and good in private as it was noble in public.
S. H. M. BYERS.
ST. HELENS, DES MOINES.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
1869. PAGE.
A Little White Card with President Grant’s Name on It--A
Voyage to Europe--An English Inn--Hear Gladstone Speak--
John Bright and Disraeli. 15
CHAPTER II.
1869.
In Switzerland--The Alps--Embarrassment in Not Knowing
the Language--Celebrated Exiles Meet in a Certain Café--
Brentano--Wagner--Kinkel--Scherr--Keller and Others. 20
CHAPTER III.
1870.
In the Orsini Café--Great News from France--What the Exiles
Think--Letter from General Sherman--I Get Permission to Go
and Look at the War--In the Snow of the Juras--Arrested--
The Surrender of the 80,000--Zurich in the Hands of a Mob--
Friendly Hint. 27
CHAPTER IV.
1871.
The Paris Horrors--Some Excursions with Literary People--Beer
Gardens--A Characteristic Funeral--Funeral of a Poet’s
Child--Caroline Bauer, the Actress--A Polish Patriot--
Celebrating the Fourth of July at Castle Rapperschwyl--The
St. Bernard--The Mules and Dogs--On a Swiss Farm--For
Burning Chicago. 34
CHAPTER V.
1872.
Louis Blanc, the Statesman--His Novel Courtship--His
Appearance--Invites Us to Paris--Just Miss Victor Hugo--
His Speech at Madame Blanc’s Grave--Letter from Louis
Blanc--Alabama Arbitrators--See Gambetta and Jules Favre. 42
CHAPTER VI.
1872.
William Tell--The Rigi in the Good Old Times--Pilatus--Rose
Bushes for Fuel. 48
CHAPTER VII.
1872.
General Sherman Visits Us at Zurich--Letters from Him--Swiss
Officers Entertain Him--His Lake Excursion--He Explains His
Greatest Campaign to Them--He is Entertained at the Swiss
Capital--Letter from General Dufour. 52
CHAPTER VIII.
1872.
Letter from General Sherman--Visit America--Sands of Bremen--
Storms at Sea--Elihu Washburne--Banquet to Him on Ship--
I am a Guest at the Sherman Home--Mrs. Sherman--Arrange
to Take Miss Sherman to Europe--Meet Mr. Blaine--My Song
Sung in the Sherman Home--Conversations with Sherman--Meet
President Grant--How I Happened to Be in the Rebel Army
Once--Letters from General Sherman. 61
CHAPTER IX.
1873.
Letter from General Sherman--Loss of the “Atlantic”--The
Boyhood Home of Napoleon III and of His Mother, Queen
Hortense--A Companion Tells of the Prince’s Pranks and
Studies--Josephine’s Harp--Arenaberg Full of Napoleon
Relics--We Have a Long Interview with the Ex-Empress
Eugenie--Letter from Sherman--Speaks of Thiers. 77
CHAPTER X.
1873.
The Source of the Rhine--Strange Villages There--A Republic
Four Hundred Years Old--The “Gray League”--“The League of
the House of God”--Louis Philippe’s Hiding Place--A Tour in
the Valley of the Inn--Letter from General Sherman--Regrets
His Career Seems Over. 86
CHAPTER XI.
1874.
Sherman on Cuba--Visit Italy--Garibaldi’s Wonderful Reception
at Rome--The Artist Freeman--First American Painter to
Live in Rome--Rome in 1840--See Victor Emmanuel--Joaquin
Miller--His Conversation and Appearance--New Swiss
Constitution--More Letters from General Sherman--Too Many
Commanders in Washington for Him--Will Go to St. Louis--His
Views of War Histories. 95
CHAPTER XII.
1875.
Letters from Mrs. Sherman and the General--He Tells Me He
is Writing His Life--The Negro Question--A Chateau by
Lake Zurich--I Write a Book on Switzerland--Also Write a
Play--A City of Dead Kings--Go to London--Meet Colonel
Forney--Dinner at George W. Smalley’s--Kate Field--Visit
Boucicault--Conversations with the Newer Shakespeare--The
Beautiful Minnie Walton--Breakfast at Her Home--Professor
Fick--His Home Built in the Old Roman Wall--Lectures--
Holidays at the Consulate--Mrs. Congressman Kelley--A
Student Commerz--Beer Drinking--Dukes of the Republic--
Duels--Letter from General Sherman--Prussian Army
Maneuvers. 104
CHAPTER XIII.
1876.
Storm in the Alps--Mr. Benjamin--Kate Sherwood Bonner--
Icebergs--A Scotch Poet--Horatio King’s Literary Evenings--
Colonel Forney--Mr. Robert--A New York Millionaire’s Home--
A Christmas Night Hurricane at Sea--The Tilden-Hayes Fight--
Civil War Feared in Washington--Dennison, the Inventor--A
Strange Murder--The Wreck of the Schiller and Loss of Miss
Dimmick. 119
CHAPTER XIV.
1877.
General Grant Visits Lake Luzern--Conversations with Him--
How I Brought the Good News of Sherman’s Successes in the
Carolinas to General Grant at Richmond--Grant’s Simplicity
in His Travels--A Strange Experience on the Rigi--London
Papers Amazed at the Population of the United States--First
Telephone. 128
CHAPTER XV.
1877.
General Grant and the Swiss President--Banquet to Grant at
Bern--Good Roads--Am Chargé d’Affaires for Switzerland--
Writing for the Magazines. 134
CHAPTER XVI.
1877.
Franz Liszt at Zurich--Swiss Great Lovers of Music--Wagner
Once Lived Here--His Singular Ways--Dr. Willi--Madame
Lucca’s Villa--Liszt’s Kissing Bees--Jefferson Davis’
Daughter--A Laughable Mistake. 140
CHAPTER XVII.
1878.
Some Recollections of Mine about General Grant in the War--
Grant at Champion Hills--Sherman’s Letter on Confiscation by
Taxation in America--Grant at Ragatz--I Give a Banquet in
His Honor at Zurich. 145
CHAPTER XVIII.
1878.
The St. Gothard Tunnel--I Describe It for Harper’s Magazine--
Its Cost--A Great Scare in the Tunnel. 153
CHAPTER XIX.
1879.
American Artists at Munich--I Meet Mark Twain--Take Him to
an Artists’ Club--Conversations with Him--Beer Drinking--
He Reads the Original of “What I Know about the German
Language”--We Entertain the Americans at Zurich--A Letter
from General Sherman--Confederates More Popular than Union
Men--Sherman Ready to Surrender 157
CHAPTER XX.
1879.
A Trip Through the Black Forest--Stein on the Rhine--A Famous
Castle--“All Blown Up”--Good Roads--Fox Hunting. 165
CHAPTER XXI.
1879.
Bret Harte--Letters from Him--Visits Us--Stay at Bocken--
Conversations--Mrs. Senator Sherman--Evenings at Bocken--
We All Go to the Rigi--How We Got the “Prince’s” Rooms--
Harte Goes with Us to Obstalden in the Alps--Very Simple
Life--A Strange Funeral--Harte Finds His Stories in a
Village Inn--More Letters--We Visit the Moselle River--
Finer than the Rhine--A Wonderful Castle of the Middle
Ages--All Furnished and Fresh as When New--The French Did
Not Find It When They Were Demolishing German Castles--An
Exquisite Gothic Church Five Hundred Years Old--Wonderful
Roman Ruins at Treves--More Letters from Bret Harte--A
Happy Man. 170
CHAPTER XXII.
1880-1881.
A Little Stay by the Mediterranean--Am Offered a Position
in China--An Article on the Swiss Rhine--Also One on My
Experiences in the Rebel Army--Two Letters from General
Sherman--Grant and the Presidency--Says the Bare Narrative
of My Escape from Prison Would Be an Epic--Banquet at
the Legation--I Write for the New York Tribune an Exposé
of How Certain European Communities Sent Paupers to the
United States--Am Violently Attacked for It by Many
American Journals and Reprimanded by State Department--
Swiss Government Complains--Investigation Follows--I Am
Justified--Letter from Sherman as to His Son Tom--Visit
America--Secretary Blaine Compliments Me--The Press Changes
Its Tone and New Laws Are Adopted as to Immigration in United
States and Switzerland--Tribune Says Editorially, “Mr. Byers
Deserves the Thanks of the American People”--A Little Visit
to the Poet Longfellow, and the Alcotts; also to the Author
of “America.” 189
CHAPTER XXIII.
1881.
Elm and All Its People Destroyed by an Avalanche--A Foot
Trip in Ireland--Fenians--Red Coats--Poverty--The
Queen Hooted--Out of Jail and a Hero--Muckross Abbey by
Moonlight--An Irish Funeral--A Duplicate Blarney Stone--
Letters from General Sherman--The Duke of Wellington--The
Assassination of President Garfield. 205
CHAPTER XXIV.
1882-1883.
Visit Northern Italy--American Indians in Zurich--Death of
the Poet Kinkel--Letters from Carl Schurz and the Poet’s
Wife--Letter from Sherman as to the Bounteous Mississippi
Valley--A Second Letter from Sherman--The Presidency--
Conversations with Scherr, the Writer--The Poet Kinkel’s
Son--His Powerful Memory--We Visit Berlin--Minister
Sargent’s Trouble with Prince Bismarck over American Pork--
Sargent Is Appointed to St. Petersburg--Indians Again--Baby
Lions--Visit America Again--Funeral of the Author of “Home,
Sweet Home”--Swiss National Exhibition--The Swiss War
Minister Visits Me--We Had Been Comrades in Libby Prison--
Trouble with Fraudulent Invoices--Origin of Expert System
at Consulate--I Succeed in Stopping the Frauds--My Action
is Reported at Washington as Saving a Million Dollars to the
Government--Another Letter from General Sherman--His Coming
Retirement from the Army. 216
CHAPTER XXV.
1884.
Some Interesting Letters from General Sherman--Requests for
Souvenirs--His “Flaming Sword”--One on the Presidency--
I Am Appointed Consul General for Italy--An American
Fourth of July Picnic on Lake Zurich--Lord Byron’s Home in
Switzerland--Some Old Letters about His Life There--The
Lake Dwellings of Switzerland--Keller, the Antiquarian--
Power of Swiss Torrents. 225
CHAPTER XXVI.
1884.
Start for Italy--The Cholera--Ten Days in Quarantine on
Lake Maggiore--A Heroic King--We Are Presented to Queen
Margaret--American Artists in Rome--The Royal Balls--
Receptions and Parties--Meet Many People of Note--The
Hills of Rome--Minister Astor and His Home--Hugh Conway--
Ibsen--Marion Crawford--One of the Bonapartes--Keats’
Room--The Cardinals--Ischia Destroyed--Christmas in Rome--
Letter from General Sherman--His Views of Rome--Cleveland’s
Election--Franz Liszt Again. 244
CHAPTER XXVII.
1885.
Still in Rome--Presented to Pope Leo XIII--Story, the Poet
Sculptor--Randolph Rogers--Tilton--Elihu Vedder--Astor
Resigns--Secretary of Legation Dies with Roman Fever--I
Am Put in Charge of Legation--Capri--Governor Pierpont--
Things Supernatural--Talk against Gladstone--Shakespeare
Wood--Senator Moleschott, a Remarkable Man--Interesting
Letters from General Sherman--Party Stronger than
Patriotism; My Recall--Money Lending and Taxes--Keep Out of
Debt. 261
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1886.
The North American Review Engages Me to Edit Several Chapters
of the Sherman Correspondence--Sherman Writes as to
Magazines and His Book--The General Invites Me to Come and
Stay at His Home in St. Louis--He Offers Me the Use of All
His Papers--I Publish Also in the Review a Prose Narrative
of the March to the Sea--Mrs. Sherman Reads It to the
General--Buffalo Bill--General Gives Me His Army Badge--
Nights in Sherman’s Office--Conversations with Him--Life
in the Sherman Home--The General’s Complete Reconciliation
with His Son Tom--Interesting Letters from Sherman as to
Magazines--His Forthcoming Book--Farms and Taxes--War
Histories--Grant’s Book--Newspapers--Christmas Letter. 274
CHAPTER XXIX.
1887-1890.
An Interesting Letter from General Grant--Sherman Living
in New York--His Immense Popularity with All Americans--
Letters from Him--Exhibited Like a Circus--No Union Man
Left in Foreign Service by Cleveland--He Writes for the
Magazines--Magazines Again--Approves My Article in the
North American Review on the March to the Sea--Humblest
Union Man Better Patriot than the Proudest South Carolina
Rebel--Sheridan Dying--Congress Should Make Rank of
Lieutenant General Permanent--His Reception at Columbus--
Death of Mrs. Sherman--About His Memoirs--No Profit--The
Army of the Tennessee at Cincinnati--My Poem There--An Odd
Interview at the White House--Conversations with Secretary
Blaine--Death of the Great General--Speeches About Him in
the Senate--I Am Again Appointed to Switzerland. 287
CHAPTER XXX.
1891.
Go to Switzerland as Consul General--An Ocean Voyage Then and
Now--A Glimpse of Burns’ Home--The Highest City in Europe--
A Novel Republic--Life in the Higher Alps--Headquarters for
Embroidery--Princess Salm-Salm--An Open Air Parliament--
The Upper Rhine--At Hamburg--A Summer on the Baltic--
Interview with Prince Bismarck. 304
TWENTY YEARS IN EUROPE
CHAPTER I
1869
A LITTLE WHITE CARD WITH PRESIDENT GRANT’S NAME ON IT--A VOYAGE
TO EUROPE--AN ENGLISH INN--HEAR GLADSTONE SPEAK--JOHN BRIGHT
AND DISRAELI.
In the State Department at Washington, there is on file a plain little
visiting card, signed by President U. S. Grant. That card was the
Secretary’s authority for commissioning me Consul to Zurich. “I would
much like to have that little card,” I said to an Assistant Secretary,
long years afterward. “Most anybody would,” replied the official,
smiling. “You may copy it, but it can not be taken from the files.”
That card, in its time, had been of consequence to me. It took me from
a quiet little Western town to a beautiful Swiss city, where I was to
spend many years of my life, and where I was to meet people, look on
scenes and experience incidents worth telling about. And now it has led
to my writing down the recollections of them in a book.
I had served four years, that were full of incident, in the Civil War.
At its close the opportunity was mine to enter the regular army with
a promotion; but many months in Southern prisons had nearly ruined my
health and I declined the proffered commission.
“You did well,” wrote General Sherman to me, “to prefer civil to
military pursuits; and I hope you will prosper in whatever you
undertake. You now know that all things resulted quite as well as we
had reason to expect” (referring to the Carolina campaign), “and now,
all prisoners are free--the war over.”
The years immediately following the war were spent in efforts to get
well, and now when this offer to go to Switzerland, with its glorious
scenery and salubrious climate, came, I was overjoyed.
On the 23d of July, 1869, my newly wedded wife and I were standing on
the deck of an ocean steamer in the harbor of New York. It was the
“City of London.”
As the sun went down in the sea that night, many stood on the deck
there with us, straining their eyes at a long, low strip of land
bordering the horizon, now far behind them. It was America. Some were
looking at it for the last time. My wife and I were not to see it
again, except on flying visits, for sixteen years. The gentle breeze,
the summer twilight, the vast and quiet ocean, the limitless expanse,
the silence, save the panting of the engines, the white sails and
the evening light of distant ships passing, gave us a feeling of
far-offness from all that belonged to home.
Shortly the great broad moon, apparently twice its usual size, quietly
slipped up out of the sea. At first we scarcely realized what it was,
it was so great, so splendid, so unexpected. Moonlight everywhere is
calming and impressive to the senses, but at sea, spread out over the
limitless deep--with the great starlit tent of the heavens reaching
all around and down to the waters, it touches the heart to its very
depths. We scarcely slept that night--the sea and the moonlight were
too beautiful. We walked the deck and built air castles.
_August 3, 1869._--Yesterday our ship entered the Mersey and turned
in among a wilderness of masts in front of Liverpool. We walked
about some in the city of Gladstone’s birth, and that night had our
first experience of the quiet comforts of a little English inn.
The gentility, the welcome, the home snugness, the open fireplace,
the teakettle, the high-posted, curtained beds, all contrasted
strongly with a noisy, American tavern, with its loud talk and dirty
tobacco-spitting accompaniments. The enormous feet of the Liverpool
cart-horses also impressed us.
This morning we called at the American Consulate. The clerk said the
Consul was away at the bank. Possibly like Hawthorne, one of his
predecessors, he found nothing to do here but look after his salary.
Anyway this Consulate is one of the best things in the gift of the
President. In Hawthorne’s time, the pay was four times that of a
Cabinet officer. Some years, the fees equaled the President’s own
salary.
_August 10._--The sights we had most wanted to see in London were the
Tower, the Abbey, the Fish Market, the docks, and the fogs; these and
Mr. Gladstone. The fogs we did not need to see; we could _feel_ them
in our very bones. It was fog everywhere. Three people were reported
killed the very day we got here--run over by wagons and omnibuses,
plowing through the murky thickness. Street lamps are burning in the
middle of the afternoon.
Billingsgate Fish Market was not half so wicked as I had heard. It is
said to be two hundred years old. It smells as if it were a thousand.
There is possibly nothing so interesting to an American elsewhere on
English earth, as the “Poets’ Corner” in Westminster Abbey, and, next
to that, the Tower of London.
The opulence of the London docks also simply amazed us. Imagine an
underground wine vault, seven acres in extent. The total vaults of the
Eastern Dock Co. measure 890,000 square feet. The St. Catherine Docks
cost nine millions of pounds.
John Lothrop Motley, the historian, is American Minister at London.
We called. Found him a tall, aristocratic, consumptive-looking man,
apparently not over glad to see traveling Americans. He had in his
youth been a fellow student of Bismarck. Later, his daughters married
Englishmen. Mr. Motley, like some other Americans sent to high office
in London, is not extremely popular among his own countrymen. Neither
did Grant approve him; but removed him later, spite of his backing by
Charles Sumner.
The Secretary of Legation kindly got me a ticket to the gallery of
the House of Parliament. It seemed extraordinary good luck, for whom
else should I hear speak, that very afternoon, but John Bright, Mr.
Gladstone and the future Lord Disraeli. I looked for oratory in Mr.
Gladstone and saw none, either of voice, manner or word. The subject
possibly required none. It was the Scotch Education Bill. The tall,
grave, spare-looking man stood there with papers in his hand, talking
in the most commonplace manner. Often he turned to some colleague
and looked and waited as if expecting an explanation. At last he sat
down suddenly, as if he had got up out of time. Mr. Disraeli had been
sitting there, writing something on the top of his hat, which he had
just taken off for the purpose. There seemed to be no desks. When I
first noticed numbers of the members with their hats on, I wondered
if the session had begun. What I noticed about Mr. Disraeli was the
long legs he stretched out before him, the dark, intellectual face,
the large features, the yellow skin, the long black hair, the Jewish
expression. He followed Mr. Gladstone, but in a voice so subdued that
I, in the gallery, did not understand a word he said. Burly John
Bright, with his noble face and sturdy mien, followed. He looked like
the typical Englishman. He spoke to the bill in an earnest voice and
loud enough, but said nothing that I remember. A Scotch member then
rose in confusion, mumbled a few words, got scared, mixed up, turned
red and sat down. And this is English oratory, I meditated, and called
to mind the names of Douglas and Webster and Lincoln and Blaine. I
suppose I was simply there on the wrong day.
_Sunday._--We spent a rainy Sunday in London, walking about the
deserted streets. Every blind was down--there was silence everywhere.
We seemed the only people alive in great London town. Our melancholy
was added to by having, through misunderstanding, missed a train that
was to take us to a friend in the country, where a hot dinner and
English hospitality had awaited us.
_At the Channel._--Up to this time there had been nothing so
interesting and romantic to me in English scenery as the big castle
above the white cliffs of Dover. There was the high, sloping, green
plateau and the grey old Castle a thousand feet above us--below it was
the sea--across the Channel, only thirty miles away, lay sunny France.
CHAPTER II
1869
IN SWITZERLAND--THE ALPS--EMBARRASSMENT IN NOT KNOWING
THE LANGUAGE--CELEBRATED EXILES MEET IN A CERTAIN CAFE--
BRENTANO--WAGNER--KINKEL--SCHERR--KELLER--AND OTHERS.
We stayed in Paris for a week. Then, one night, we crossed the plains
of France, and at daylight saw with beating hearts the Jura Mountains.
They were as a high wall of cliff and forest, green, deep valleys
and running rivers, between France and the land of William Tell. The
afternoon of that day saw us at our journey’s end. We were in beautiful
Zurich. “Next to Damascus,” said Dixon, the English traveler, “I adore
Zurich.”
That day the Glarus Alps, that usually shine so gloriously in front of
the city, were obscured with clouds. But the beautiful lake was there,
and old walls, and ivy-covered towers, and all the story of a thousand
years.
[Illustration: Zurich.--_Page 20._]
Zurich was half a mediæval city in 1869. Years have since changed
it; its walls and towers have been torn down, and granite blocks
and fashionable modern streets take the place, in part, of its
picturesqueness, as we saw it at that time.
Pretty soon I was, in a way, representing my country in a republic five
times as old as our own. My predecessor recognized that he had been
“rotated” out of office. He knew American party customs and turned
over to me a few chairs, a desk, some maps, a flag, some books, some
accounts and an enormous shield that hung over the door with a
terrible-looking eagle on it, holding a handful of arrows. This was the
coat of arms.
Living was cheap in Switzerland in the seventies. For one whole year we
stayed in the “Pension Neptune,” a first-class place in every sense.
Our apartment included a finely furnished salon, a bedroom, and a large
room for the consulate. For these rooms, with board for two persons,
we paid only $3.00 per day. Just outside the pension, workmen were
laying street pavements of stone. They worked from daylight till dark,
for forty cents a day. The servants in the pension were getting ninety
cents a week and board. The clerk in the consulate was working for $300
a year, without board. Good wine, and we had it always at dinner, was a
franc a bottle. Things have changed since then. Switzerland is a dear
country to live in now.
In the “Neptune” we found the interesting family of Healy, the American
artist. He had painted half the famous men of Europe, even then. There,
too, was the family of Commander Crowninshield, distinguished of late
days as an adviser of the President in the Spanish War.
What we were to do now, was to learn the French and German languages.
Good teachers received but two francs, or forty cents, a lesson, and
the necessity of the situation impelled us to hard study.
One evening, shortly after our arrival at Zurich, we were out boating
with some friends, on the beautiful lake. There were myriads of pretty
water-craft, filled with joyous people, circling all about. On a
floating raft near by, a band of music was playing airs from Wagner.
Zurich was a Wagner town. It was nearing sunset, when suddenly I
happened to cast my eyes away from the people and the boats toward the
upper end of the lake. “Look at the beautiful clouds,” I exclaimed. My
companion smiled. “They are not clouds,” said he. “They are the Glarus
Alps.” It was the fairest sight I ever beheld in my life. Some clouds
on the horizon had suddenly floated away, and the almost horizontal
rays of a setting summer sun were shining on the white snowfields and
ice walls of the mountains, turning them into jasper and gold. “That
is what we call the ‘Alpine glow,’” continued my friend. “It is like
looking at the walls of Paradise,” I exclaimed. Pretty soon the sun
went down behind the Zurich hills, the jasper and the gold faded from
the ice and the rocks of the distant mountains, a cold gray-white,
striving to keep off the coming darkness, fell upon the scene. It was
the mountains putting on their robes of night. These were the scenes
that I was now to live among. Music, they say, takes up the train of
thought, where common words leave off. That night, by the waters of
Lake Zurich, the soft strains of well-tuned instruments expressed a
delight for me that tongue could not utter or pen describe.
Switzerland is full of scenes as glorious as this Glarus range, but
this scene here, we were to have from our dining-room window always.
_September 5._--The consul of the French Empire called to-day to
pay his respects to the consul of the great republic. My consular
experiences were about to commence. I was in a dilemma. My Swiss clerk,
who spoke six languages for twenty-five dollars a month, had stepped
out. I, a plain American, spoke no language except my own.
“Bonjour, Monsieur,” cheerily chirped the Frenchman. I advanced, and,
seizing his neatly gloved hand, said “Good morning” in the plainest
American. “What! Monsieur, you no parlez Francais? Ah! certainlee.
Monsieur he parle Allemand. Monsieur speak a leetle Dutch?” he
continued, bowing and smiling. “I am sorry,” I interrupted in
embarrassment. “No Dutch--no Francais.” “Oh! Monsieur no understand.
No, no. Ah, si, Monsieur, he speak Spanish, certainlee--Spanish
better--Spanish better--very fine--Americans all speak Spanish--veree.”
Again I shook my head, and again the consul bowed, and I bowed, and
we both bowed together; and, after a few more genuflections and
great embarrassment, he smiled and went backward out of the room.
The situation was absurd. Then the Italian consul called, and then
the Austrian consul, and similar scenes occurred. The same nonsense,
without understanding a word.
I saw at once what was necessary for me to do. Solid months, years,
day and night almost, were to be spent learning the language of the
people among whom I was to live. Of course, Americans are not born with
a knowledge of international law and an ability to speak half a dozen
foreign languages.
The routine work of legalizing invoices, attending to passports,
getting foolish fellow-countrymen out of jail, and helping others who
were “strapped” to get to the nearest seaport, went on. Then there was
the doing the polite thing generally by American travelers who called
at the office to pay their respects to the consul.
There were many Americans abroad even then. The Swiss hotels reaped
great harvests from the rich American and English nabobs who traveled
about, displaying themselves and throwing away money.
“I have special charges for all these fine fellows,” said the landlord
of the Bellevue to me. “Indeed, I have three rates, one for the Swiss,
a higher one for foreigners, and a still higher one for the Americans
and English. The rooms are the same, the dinners are the same, the
wines the same; but the bills--ah, well, I am very glad they come.”
Soon I commenced writing reports for our Government. They were asked
for on every conceivable subject, from sewer building to political
economy. Every American who has a hobby, writes to his Congressman to
know what they do about such things in Europe. The Congressman asks the
State Department and the State Department asks the consul. _He_ must
answer in some way.
In this way, and in guarding against frauds on the customs, the time
passed.
In the meantime my official position secured me the entrée into Swiss
society. It enabled me at last to know Swiss life and to meet men and
women worth the knowing. Many of them living in Zurich, or passing
there, had European reputations, for the city, like Geneva, had that
about it that attracted people of intellect. Zurich is called the Swiss
Athens. Novelists, poets, historians, statesmen and renowned professors
occupied chairs in the great University, or whiled away pleasant
summers among the glorious scenery of the Alps near by.
[Illustration: Lorenzo Brentano.--_Page 24._]
_August 10, 1870._--On this day I made the acquaintance of a remarkable
man. It was Lorenzo Brentano of Chicago. He called at the consulate,
and, after first greetings, I found out who he was. It was that
Brentano who had been condemned to death after the Revolution of 1848
in South Germany. He had been more than a leader; he had been elected
provisional president of the so-called German Republic. When the cause
failed on the battlefield, he fled to America, and there, for many
years, struggled with voice and pen for the freedom of the slaves, just
as he had struggled in Germany for the freedom of his countrymen. The
seed he helped to sow in Germany, at last bore fruit there, and he also
lived to see American slavery perish. He was a hero in two continents.
He had made a fortune in Chicago and was now educating his children
in Zurich. His son is now an honored judge of the Superior Court of
Chicago, a city Brentano’s life honored. He was also at this time
writing virile letters for European journals, moulding public opinion
in our favor as to the Alabama claims. We needed his patriotism.
Americans will never know the great help Brentano was to us, at a
time when nine-tenths of the foreign press was bitterly against us. I
once heard a judge on the bench ask Brentano officially if he wrote
the letters regarding America. “Yes,” said Brentano, who was trying a
case of his own, and was a witness, “I wrote them.” “Then that should
be reckoned against you,” said the judge, so bitter and unjust was
the feeling abroad concerning our country, especially among Englishmen
traveling or living on the Continent at this time. A kind word for
America or Americans was rare.
Through Brentano’s friendship, I secured many notable acquaintances.
The Revolution of 1848 in Germany was led by the brightest spirits
of the country. Its failure led to death or flight. Many had crossed
into the Republic of Switzerland and formed here in Zurich a circle
of intellectual exiles. They were authors, musicians, statesmen,
distinguished university professors. Brentano naturally stood high
among them all.
[Illustration: Johannes Scherr.--_Page 24._]
_The Orsini Cafe._--Around a corner, and not a block away from our
home, stood a dingy, old building, known as the Cafe Orsini. Every
afternoon at five, a certain number of exiles, and their friends,
among them men of culture and European fame, met and drank beer at an
old oak table in a dark corner of the east room. It was the room to
the right of the entrance hall. Many people frequented the Orsini,
for it was celebrated for its best Munich beer, and they could catch
there glimpses sometimes of certain famous men. Johannes Scherr, the
essayist and historian, called the “Carlyle of Germany,” came there,
and Brentano, the patriot. So did Gottfried Keller, possibly the
greatest novelist writing the German language, though a Swiss. There
was Gottfried Kinkel, the beloved German poet, whom our own Carl Schurz
had rescued from death in a German prison, now a great art lecturer at
the University. Beust, the head of the best school without text-books
in the world; Fick, the great lawyer and lecturer, and sometimes Conrad
Meyer, the first poet of Switzerland. Earlier, Richard Wagner was
also among these exiles at the Orsini, for he, too, had been driven
from his country. That was in the days when the celebrated Lubke, the
art writer, was lecturing at the Zurich University, together with
Semper, the architect. Often the guests around the little table were
noted exiles, who, even if pardoned, seldom put a foot in the German
fatherland. The lamp above the table was always lighted at just five in
the evening, and the landlord’s daughter, in a pretty costume, served
the beer. It was my good fortune, through Mr. Brentano, to join this
little German Round Table often, to listen to conversations, that,
could they be reported now, would make a volume worth the reading.
[Illustration: Gottfried Kinkel.--_Page 25._]
[Illustration: Richard Wagner.--_Page 25._]
Almost nightly, in the winter, at least, the little circle came
together, shook hands, and sat around that table. Each paid for his
own beer. To offer to “treat” would have been an offense. “How many
glasses, gentlemen?” the pretty waitress would ask. Each told what
he had drunk and how much cheese or how many hard-boiled eggs he had
added; the pretzels were free. “Gute Nacht, meine Herren, und baldiges
Wiedersehen,” called out the little waitress, as they would again shake
hands and go out into the fog and darkness. For years that little
waiting-girl lighted the lamp over the table, served us the beer, and
found a half-franc piece under one of the empty glasses. She knew what
it was for. Had she been a shorthand reporter, she could have stopped
passing beer long ago, and the Orsini Café might have been her own.
CHAPTER III
1870
IN THE ORSINI CAFE--GREAT NEWS FROM FRANCE--WHAT THE EXILES
THINK--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--I GET PERMISSION TO GO
AND LOOK AT THE WAR--IN THE SNOW OF THE JURAS--ARRESTED--
THE SURRENDER OF THE 80,000--ZURICH IN THE HANDS OF A MOB--A
FRIENDLY HINT.
_August 15, 1870._--At six in the evening of this day I was sitting
with these other friends in the little corner of the Orsini, when a boy
called out:
“Great news from France!”
Yesterday (August 14, 1870) was a day to be forever remembered in
history, the day that was to begin the foundation of the German Empire.
Louis Napoleon had declared war against Prussia. The news came into
our little corner of the Orsini like a clap of thunder--but the exiles
around that table went right on drinking beer. Pretty soon, grave
Johannes Scherr, the historian, spoke: “It is good-by to Napoleon’s
crown, that.” “They don’t know Bismarck in Paris yet,” said Beust.
Beust did not like Bismarck very much either. “And what can we do?”
said another. “Nothing,” replied Brentano. “Look on. We are exiles.”
They all loved Germany.
Twenty years they had been waiting in Switzerland, to see what would
happen. A new war tocsin was now really sounding. One empire was
dying--great, new Germany was about at its birth. Almost that very
night the strongest-souled, most dangerous man in modern times was
playing his cards for empire. Even then, in a little German town,
Bismarck was manipulating telegrams, deceiving the people, “firing the
German heart,” deceiving his own Emperor, even. That was diplomacy. A
hundred thousand men were about to die! What of it? Get ready, said
the man of blood, dig their graves. The hour for Prussian vengeance on
the name of Napoleon had arrived. “We are ready for war, to the last
shoe-buckle,” wrote the French war minister to Louis Napoleon. Bismarck
knew that to be a lie. His spies and ambassadors in Paris had not spent
their time simply sipping wine on the boulevards. They had been seeing
things, and he knew ten times more about the shoe-buckles of the French
army than the French themselves did.
The next morning (August 16) things sounded strange enough to American
ears in Zurich. A trumpeter rode through every street, blowing his
bugle blasts between his cries for every German in Zurich to go home
and fight for fatherland. But the exiles were not included and the
little meetings in the Orsini went on. Then came a note from Napoleon
to the Swiss government: “Can you defend your neutrality?” If not,
he would instantly surprise Bismarck and Von Moltke by overrunning
Switzerland and suddenly pour his armies all over South Germany. Then
the Rhine would be behind him, not in front.
Switzerland saw her own danger. Permit this once, and her name would be
wiped from the map of Europe. She knew that. A few days’ hesitancy and,
for her, all would have been lost. That night at midnight the Swiss
drums beat in every valley of the Alps. Twenty-three thousand men,
with a hundred cannon, were thrown into the fastnesses and passes of
the Jura Mountains, on the French frontier, inside of three days. That
was the answer to Napoleon’s note, and it changed the destinies of the
war. That prompt deed of the Swiss _made the German Empire_. Had the
French army got possession of the Alpine passes once, and the Rhine,
they would have taken Berlin. The backbone of the German minister at
London was what brought on the war at last. England had proposed to
join France in requesting the King of Prussia to promise that no German
prince should aspire to the Spanish throne. The German minister at St.
James indignantly declined to even report the British suggestion to
his government. Had he reported England’s wishes, Bismarck, possibly,
fearing two against him now instead of one, would have given that one
little promise, and then the war would not have taken place.
The Americans had the war news by cable almost as soon as the Swiss,
who were in sound of the guns.
Shortly I received a little note from General Sherman:
“WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 19, 1870.
“DEAR BYERS: Consul H. did not hand me your letter of May 1 st
until to-day, else it should have been answered earlier. I was
very glad to see that your health was improved by the change of
climate and country, and that you had entered on your new career
with zeal and interest. So interesting a country as Switzerland,
topographically and historically, cannot but prove of inestimable
value to you, in whatever after career you may engage, and I feel
certain that you will profit by the opportunity.
“At this moment we are all on tiptoe of expectation to hear of
the first events of the war begun between France and Prussia.
The cause assigned for this war seems to us in this distance so
trivial that we take it to be a mere pretext, and that the real
cause must lie in the deeper feelings of the two countries. You
are so near and so deeply concerned in the lines of traffic that
must cross the paths of the contending armies that you cannot
escape the consequences. Many Americans will go abroad to see
these armies, and as much of the war as will be permitted them,
and it may be that you will see at Zurich some of our soldiers.
General Sheridan proposes to start at once, and one of my aids,
Colonel Audenreid, begs to go along. If Sheridan wishes it I will
let Audenreid go, and I will remind him that you are at Zurich,
and he may drop in on you, and you can talk over events. You will
remember him as one of my aids at Columbia, S. C.
“Always wishing you honor and success, I am truly your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
With almost unbroken success for the Prussians, the dreadful war went
on all that autumn. The Swiss were neutral and their sympathies were
divided, or, if one-sided, they were with the Germans; at least, until
that terrible Sedan day, when the Emperor himself fell a prisoner. Then
Bismarck wanted more. It was Paris, and French humiliation, he wanted.
He had tasted blood, and was he never to have enough? The war went on
into the cold and storm of winter. Troops were nearly freezing to death
in both armies in the east of France, and half the Swiss people were
changing their minds. France was down, and Bismarck must not play the
monster.
_December, 1870._--I had been a soldier four years in our own great
war, and was anxious to see European armies on a battlefield. The
commander of the Swiss troops gave me a letter to the leader of the
German army next the frontier, and got me passes. It was midwinter,
and fearfully cold, and the snow was two feet to three feet deep when
I went into the camp of the Swiss, away up in the Jura Mountains. None
but well-clad, well-fed men could stand guarding the passes in such
weather. What must the French army be doing, not far away, in their
worn-out shoes and ragged overcoats? The German army lay not far from
Montbeliard, when one cold evening I passed the frontier, and on foot,
in the snow, wended my way to a deserted French hamlet. The village
just beyond was occupied by a squadron of German Uhlans. Now all was
new to me. Not far away that evening I heard the constant thundering
of the cannon at Belfort. At the place where I stayed, an attack
by the French could be expected any moment in the night. Shortly I
saw captains of Uhlans ride to every house in the village and put a
chalk-mark on the door, designating what companies were to take it for
quarters. There was no room left anywhere, and one could freeze out of
doors, unless hugging a camp-fire. An officer of Uhlans took me in and
shared his bed on the floor of a cabin. We had a cup of coffee, a glass
of brandy and some rations. Nobody knew that night what would happen
out in the snow before morning. Next day I could get no horse; but if
I could get to General Manteuffel at the next village, I would be all
right. On I trudged afoot, but the advanced pickets outside the village
could not read my French papers. They fearing me to be a French spy, I
was arrested and jogged about very unceremoniously. The General was out
somewhere with the troops, and it was hours before I was released. All
this time I was kept in a little café that was full of Uhlans carousing
and drinking, and acting as if they would like to make short work of
me. On the General’s return, I was marched up to headquarters, followed
by a number of idle soldiers, who anticipated a drumhead court-martial
and a little shooting. Of course, I was promptly released with an
apology. But there I was, on foot, in the snow, and not a horse to
be had, had the King himself wanted it; for the French army, 80,000
strong, was making for a battle, or else for the Swiss frontier. It was
the frontier. That very night, Bourbaki, the French commander, shot
himself, and the whole army, 80,000 strong, tumbled, pell-mell, into
Switzerland, and surrendered. That was January 31st.
It was a sad-looking army that gave itself up to Switzerland. Their red
trousers were worn, dirty and black, their shoes were almost gone. Some
wore wooden sabots, some had their feet wrapped in rags. Their faces
and hands were black as Africans’, from close huddling over scanty
camp-fires, to keep from freezing. All were discouraged, disgraced,
many boiling over with wrath at their incompetent leaders. And these
leaders, hundreds of them, were followed by courtesans of Paris, in
closed carriages. That was a spectacle for the gods; this host of
poor, ragged, freezing privates, wading through the snow of the Alps,
followed by a procession of gilded carriages, filled with debauched
women, drunken officers and costly wines.
The surrender there in the snow included the whole army of 80,000 men,
284 cannon, 11,000 horses and 8,000 officers’ swords.
In a week’s time the Swiss had this great army of Frenchmen quartered
at the different cities. Zurich had 11,000 of them. They were a happy
lot of men, to be out of a dreadful war, and in the hands of a people
who bestowed on them every kindness. Many never left Switzerland, but
settled among their sympathizers and benefactors for the remainder of
their lives.
The war went on. Paris, for months, lay besieged and starving. Then the
end came.
[Illustration: Tower in Old Zurich.]
At Zurich, the friends of Germany now undertook to celebrate the close
of hostilities. Speeches and a banquet were to be had one night at the
great Music Hall on the lake. Some consuls were invited to take a part,
myself among the number. I was to be asked to send a telegram to our
President. At four o’clock of the afternoon a man called at my office
and whispered in my ear, “Stay away from that banquet; something is
to happen.” I remained at home. That night, just as the toast to the
new German Emperor was being read, and at a preconcerted signal, every
window in the vast hall was smashed in. Stones and clubs were hurled
at the banqueters. A large and excited mob of French sympathizers and
French prisoners, with side-arms, surrounded the building. Many dashed
into the galleries, waved French flags, struck people down with sabers
and fired revolvers. The banqueters were in terror till, led by the
courageous among them, they broke their five hundred chairs into
clubs and drove the rioters from the hall. A few had been killed, a
number injured. All the night the mob stayed outside and howled. The
police fled for their lives. The militia, called out, stood in line,
but when the order to fire on the mob was given, threw down their arms.
Inside the hall, the banqueters stood with clubs in their hands till
the grey of morning, waiting the attack. The women, alarmed and
terrified, were hidden under the tables, or in corners.
Zurich seemed in the throes of a revolution. The bad elements of every
kind joined in the mob, and the Socialists and Anarchists cried out:
“This is the people, striking for their rights.”
Ten thousand troops were hurried into Zurich from other cantons. Cannon
bristled at the street corners, and placards warned the people to stay
in their houses. A battery was posted in the street in front of our
door. Climbing up on to the terrace by the minster, I saw a terrible
mob below, and watched a cavalry squadron ride through it with drawn
sabers. The mob gave way, and the alarm was at an end. Murders had
been committed, and many men were arrested and punished. The man who
had kindly whispered to me to keep away from the banquet, fled. He was
afterward condemned, and is to this day a fugitive in England.
CHAPTER IV
1871
THE PARIS HORRORS--SOME EXCURSIONS WITH LITERARY PEOPLE--BEER
GARDENS--A CHARACTERISTIC FUNERAL--FUNERAL OF A POET’S
CHILD--CAROLINE BAUER, THE ACTRESS--A POLISH PATRIOT--
CELEBRATING THE FOURTH OF JULY AT CASTLE RAPPERSCHWYL--THE ST.
BERNARD--THE MULES AND DOGS--ON A SWISS FARM--FOR BURNING
CHICAGO.
_June, 1871._--Horrible news continues to come of the atrocities of the
“Communists” in Paris. The most beautiful city of the world is half
burned up by its own children. Hundreds of innocent people have been
slaughtered. Nobody here understands wholly what it is these Paris
murderers want. It looks as if all the criminals and their ten thousand
abettors were simply avenging themselves on civilization.
Europe looks on with horror. The world did not know that it contained
a whole army of such wretches in one single city. Yet New York has
just as many, if they were let loose. There are men right here in
Switzerland, the kindliest governed state in the world, who are walking
around the streets, quietly thanking God for all the indescribable
things at Paris. There was a man in France once (Madame Roland’s
husband), who killed himself, rather than live longer in a land so
given over to dastards. The Paris anarchists will again, and soon
enough, have made suicide sweeter than living there. That is what they
want. Anarchists would rejoice if all the decent people in the world
would kill themselves and get out of it.
This summer of 1871 we made many little foot excursions with the
Brentanos, the Kinkels, or the Scherrs. The whole party was always more
or less literary. Even Mrs. Scherr had written her book, much liked by
German housewives. These afternoon walks have been to points along the
beautiful lake or to some near valley, and often to the Uetliberg or to
Rüssnacht. We always turned up at some simple country beer garden, with
its quiet tables under shady bowers, where the beer and the pretzels
were good, and the view fine of lake and mountain.
What delightful times we have had with our cheap lunches of black
bread, beer and cheese and much talking! We walked home by dusk, always
stopping at many a vantage point, to look in wonder at the sunset and
the gorgeous glow on the Alps. I never saw these sunsets in the Alps
without thinking of another world. They seemed to belong to something
more beautiful, more lasting than our mere lives. If I spoke of it,
however, Scherr would shrug his shoulders and say, “Ich glaub’ es
nicht. Wir werden es nur hoffen,” and once he added: “The whole world
is but a graveyard. Above the door is written _The End_.” Mrs. Scherr
always smiled and said, “No, it is not so, what he says. What is all
that grandeur that you see over there in the mountains for? Surely
not only for a little party like us to gaze on, of an afternoon, and
then say good-by to, forever. No, it is not true. I expect to see the
beautiful mountains, and with these friends, too, a thousand years from
now.”
Alas! sooner than we knew, she was to look beyond these Alps. A heart
trouble, aggravated by the _deeper_ heart trouble of a mother, through
a wayward son, suddenly terminated her life. Just after leaving our
home, one day, where she had been calling, she fell dead upon the steps
of St. Peter’s church.
I was present at this friend’s funeral, conducted in accordance with
German Swiss custom.
An old woman had carried the funeral notices to the friends. They were
printed on large, full sheets of paper, with black edges an inch wide.
The woman, in delivering these messages, was in full black, and carried
with her an enormous bunch of flowers, apparently a symbol of her
office. At the appointed hour I found all our male friends at the house
of mourning. It was designated by a broad, black cloth stretched across
the front of the building and running up the stairway. Here, in a room
denuded of all carpet and furniture, I found Prof. Scherr, waiting to
receive the condolence of the invited friends.
“To the left,” said the old messenger woman, who had brought the death
notices. She stood in the hall, beside an urn, into which friends
put their black-edged cards. Again she held a bunch of flowers. All,
as they entered the room, turned to “the left,” where they silently
grasped the Professor’s hand a moment, and then took their places,
standing in a line along the four walls of the room. No one spoke.
There was utter silence. All had tall hats and wore black gloves. Those
who had not been invited by card, remained in the street, to join
the procession as it left the house. There was not a woman in sight
anywhere, save the old messenger. Just as the church bells were ringing
the hour, the messenger called in at the open door: “Gentlemen, it
is three o’clock,” and the little procession of friends followed the
Professor down to the rear of the hearse. There had been no ceremony.
The body, during the waiting, lay in a plain coffin in the lower hall.
The day before, we had called to have a last look at our friend. To
us, accustomed to American ostentation over the dead, the extreme
simplicity seemed shocking. She was in a plain, white cotton robe. The
coffin, or pine box, was not even painted. But it was not indifference
nor littleness, this simplicity. It was a custom. A hundred years ago
in Switzerland, people were buried in sheets, and without any coffins.
Our friend was borne to the chapel in the graveyard, followed by many
people, all on foot. There was no carriage, save the hearse. There was
a short address in the chapel, no singing or prayers; then the body
was carried out to the grave. Each of us threw a spray of evergreen,
or a bit of earth, into the grave. When the friends had mostly gone,
the Professor looked long and sadly into the grave, lifted his hat to
her who had been his helpmeet, and silently and alone walked away. The
funeral had been characteristic of the country; plain, and simple, and
impressive. To the Swiss, the ostentation and the gorgeous casket at
American funerals are not only unbecoming, but a sacrilege and sin.
“What good can we do the poor dead bodies?” said Kinkel to me one night
at the Round Table in the Orsini. “If you have something to do for a
man, do it for him while he lives, and not to his poor, senseless dust.”
Kinkel carried out his theory when his beloved daughter died. They
came first to my wife, to have her select them a little black
crepe--that was all--and a plain board coffin, and some flowers. All
her schoolmates must be invited to come and stand by her grave. When
the coffin containing his most loved of earth was lowered, the good,
gray-haired poet bared his head, stepped to the side of the grave,
and, with eyes full of tears, made a touching speech. It was about the
child’s goodness in life, its sweetness and sunshine, and its father’s
and mother’s loss. Deep emotion filled all present. The children sang a
song, and then strewed many flowers upon the grave.
“I will never see her again,” he said to me long days afterward. “Like
all beautiful, changing things, she has become a part of the beautiful
universe. I know her breath will be in the perfume of the flowers, and
she will linger in the summer wind.” He spoke in sincerity, but the
beauty and poetry of his belief had little comfort for us, who also
had lost, but with an absolute faith that we should find our buried one
again.
In one of our little excursions, Professor Kinkel took us to see the
celebrated actress, Caroline Bauer, now the Countess Plater. She and
her husband, a rich Pole, who has good claims on the throne of Poland,
live on an estate overlooking Lake Zurich. They received us all with
great courtesy, and insisted on our having lunch with them on the
terrace. The whole estate, not large, is surrounded by a high stone
wall, and inside of that a line of trees and hedges higher still. The
Countess is seventy, white haired, good looking, genial and happy as
a girl. She played several airy things on the piano for us, and would
have danced a jig, I think, had Professor Kinkel but said the word.
In her heyday of beauty and fame she was the morganatic wife of the
King of Belgium. But little was thought of that, for she showed us
his picture hanging in the drawing-room, with pride. She and Kinkel
talked and laughed much about things that were Greek to us. When we
were leaving, the white-haired old beauty followed the white-haired old
poet out to the garden gate, and gave him a good-by kiss. It was, in
fact, a pretty and touching scene. The Count owns the great Castle of
Rapperschwyl at the end of the lake. It contains a Polish museum. One
Fourth of July, later, he invited all the Americans to celebrate the
day there, and sent a steamer, with music and flags, to carry us up to
his banquet. The flags of lost Poland were intertwined with the flags
of the United States.
_August, 1871._--Next to Westminster Abbey, in London, I have always
wanted to see the St. Bernard pass, with its hospice and its dogs. At
Martigny, the other day, my wife and I hired a man and a mule to help
us up the pass that gave Bonaparte so much trouble. The man’s name was
“Christ.” He often addressed the mule as “you diable.” We walked,
rode and climbed past the most poverty-stricken villages in the Dranse
valley I ever saw in my life. This should be called the valley of human
wretchedness. We reached the famous stone hospice on the top of the
pass late at night, in a storm of sleet, and tired to death. We had
overtaken a German student on the way, and our poor mule had to drag or
carry four of us up the worst part of the pass. The thunderstorm also
made us overdo ourselves. My wife sat on the saddle; the student hung
to the mule’s tail; I hung to one stirrup, and Christ to the other.
I am glad it was dark, for the scene was not heroic, like that of
Napoleon leading his army over the mountains.
The monks met us at the hospice entrance, and gave us places to rest
for an hour. To me, who was utterly exhausted and used up, they gave
drams of good, hot whisky.
An hour later they took us down to the Refectory, where we had a
substantial supper of hot soup, bread, potatoes, omelets, prunes, and
also wine. A fire blazed in the immense fireplace, for it is chilly and
cold up here even in August. A wind was now blowing outside, and it was
very dark. We were glad to sit around the fire with some of the monks
and tell them strange things about the country we came from. One of
them spoke English, a few of them German.
These zealous monks live up in this inhospitable pass solely to rescue
and aid lost travelers. Thousands of poor men, seeking labor in better
climates, walk over this pass to Italy every season. Many lose their
way and are hunted up by the noble St. Bernard dogs; many freeze to
death, and the monks have piled their unidentified bodies up out there
in the stone dead-house. There is not enough soil on this rocky height
for a grave. And the air is so rarefied that graves are not needed;
the dead simply dry away at last, or, in their half-frozen condition,
remain like unembalmed mummies. The high air is ruinous to health, and
the monks after a few short years go down into the Rhone valley to die,
while others for another little space take their places.
The next morning I climbed through an open window into the dead-house.
The dead found on the pass during twenty years either lay on the floor
or stood against the wall. It was a hideous spectacle, and yet numerous
of the bodies were lifelike in every feature. They were placed in there
just as they were found. All have the clothes on they wore when they
were lost. Many are in the same attitude of despair and agony they had
when the storm closed them in its icy embrace. I saw a man with form
bent and arms extended as if groping to find his way. A dead woman sat
in the corner with her frozen child in her arms. She has been there
these dozen years. Some of the faces could yet be recognized had any
friend in the world come to look at them.
After breakfast we had a play with a number of the noble dogs that have
saved human lives on this pass, time and again. They were very large,
mostly tawny colored, extremely intelligent and kind.
The devoted lives of these monks, and these dogs, is something
pathetically noble.
A pretty chapel or church is built on to the hospice, and in there one
sees a fine marble statue of Marshal Saxe, the hero of Marengo, put
there by the order of Napoleon.
* * * * *
There are few large farms in Switzerland. Yet, we stayed last week at
one that would do credit in size even to the United States--a couple
of hundred acres, mostly given up to grass and stock; every foot as
carefully looked after as if it were a gentleman’s lawn in London.
The owner is what they call a rich Bauer. He is a romantic-looking
character, the red-cheeked, burly man, as he goes about among his
hired people in the picturesque costume of other days. His wife and
daughter also dress in unique costume. They all look very striking on
the green meadows away up here on a mountain side, half as high as the
Rigi. All this peasant’s immediate ancestors were born in this old
stone house, and, though he has grown rich here, his life is unchanged
from theirs. There are many long, round-paned windows to the rooms,
through which the sun pours in and warms the bright-colored flowers
with which the window shelves are filled. An old eight-day clock of his
grandfather’s stands in the corner counting the seconds for these two
hundred years. There is not a carpet or a table cloth in the house, but
in their stead are old chests, wardrobes and chairs of rare carving,
and queer pewter mugs of another age are on the walls.
Their lives are very simple. At dinner they gather around an uncovered
pine table, and the family dip soup from the same big bowl. They have
an abundance of sour wine, black bread, and such butter, cheese and
milk as would make an epicure glad.
The high mountain air about them is bracing; they seem happy and
healthful, and, more than most peasants, enjoy the grand scene of Alps
and lakes around them.
They set a little side table for us in another room, where we had all
the good things a farm affords for two francs a day. Over on the Rigi,
just across the lake from us, the tourists and the fashionables are
paying ten to twenty francs for food not so wholesome.
_October 9, 1871._--“Chicago has burned to the ground and all your
houses are burned with it,” was the telegram that came to me for
Brentano three nights ago. I went to his house at midnight, but he was
gone to Freiburg. When he came back, he simply telegraphed, “Commence
to rebuild at once.” The Americanism of the order set all his Swiss
friends to talking. “Had Chicago burned up in Europe,” they said, “we
would have spent a year mourning over it. Over there they simply
rebuild the same day and say nothing.”
I commenced a subscription list to help the unfortunate of Chicago,
two weeks ago. I have raised 60,000 francs in sums as low as two
cents each. I think no town of its population in Europe has given so
liberally. To-morrow the cash goes on.
CHAPTER V
1872
LOUIS BLANC, THE STATESMAN--HIS NOVEL COURTSHIP--HIS
APPEARANCE--INVITES US TO PARIS--JUST MISS VICTOR HUGO--HIS
SPEECH AT MADAME BLANC’S GRAVE--LETTER FROM LOUIS BLANC--
ALABAMA ARBITRATORS--SEE GAMBETTA AND JULES FAVRE.
_May 9, 1872._--On this day Louis Blanc, the French statesman and
historian, called. It was to thank me for a favor I had done on a time
for his nephew, but the visit resulted in a friendship that lasted till
his death, ten years later.
Louis Blanc had been to the old French Republic (1848) what Brentano
had been to the revolution of South Germany. At one time he was the
most powerful member of the French Assembly. His writings, more than
all things else, brought about the revolution that for a time made him
President. In this 1872, he is again in the Assembly of a new republic.
While he stayed at Zurich, we came to know his friend, the vivacious
English writer and traveler, Hepworth Dixon. We met often. Once Louis
Blanc gave us all a dinner in the Neptun, and Dixon kept the table in
a roar, telling of his ridiculous experiences in American overland
coaches, in Texas and elsewhere. Of Texas, he had views alarmingly like
those of Sheridan. If he owned hell and Texas, he certainly would rent
out Texas and live in hell. “And do you tell us _that_ is manners down
South in the United States?” queried Mr. Louis Blanc, in the naivest
manner. “Indeed I do; surely, surely,” said the traveler, glancing
at Mrs. Blanc, “I saw it a hundred times. Pistols, bowie-knives and
swearing. Nothing else in Texas.” The kind Frenchman believed it
all, for he believed all men honest as himself; only at the close
of the dinner did Mr. Dixon let him know that part of his talk was
good-natured champagne chaff.
Louis Blanc was the smallest big man I ever saw. He was only five feet
high. His head was big enough for Alexander the Great. He was only
fifty-nine years old now, but it seemed to me his life and actions went
back to the Revolution. His hair was long and black and straight as an
Indian’s. He had no beard. His face was rosy as a girl’s. His little
hands were white as his white cravat; his feet were like a boy’s;
his eyes brown, large, and full of kindness; his voice sweet as a
woman’s. He dressed in full black broadcloth and wore a tall silk hat.
He looked, when walking in the street, like a rosy-faced boy in man’s
clothes.
His little stature and apparent innocence of half that was going on
about him, kept Madame Blanc in a constant worry for fear he would be
run over by passing wagons when we were out walking together. “Now run
over here quick,” she would say to him at a crossing. “Do, my dear,
be careful. See the horses coming.” Out of doors, or on our little
excursions to the mountains, he was perpetually and literally under her
wing. She knew the treasure she had in him.
I constantly thought of the story of his past; for was not this little,
low-voiced man, walking with us, he who had written “The Ten Years”
that had helped destroy Louis Philippe; was not this the same voice
that had enchained assemblies, and led France?
Once in a little log schoolhouse in the backwoods of the West, where,
as a young fellow, I was teaching, I had read some of his books. Poor
as I was, I would have given a month’s salary then, to have taken
Louis Blanc by the hand. How little I dreamed that some day I should
not only take him by the hand, but have his warm friendship.
Louis Blanc’s head was all there was to him--that and a great heart.
His marriage to Madame Blanc was a marvel. They met in London. She was
German and could speak no French. He was French and could speak no
German. He courted her in broken English; and he did well, for a better
woman never lived.
Victor Hugo, standing at her grave years later, pronounced one of his
noblest eulogies to womanhood. It was an outburst of remembered oratory.
[Illustration: Gambetta.--_Page 45._]
We were glad of the friendship of such a man as Louis Blanc. He wrote
me many letters and invited us to Paris, where we spent some delightful
days. His brother Charles was the director of Fine Arts and Theaters
there. We had invitations to the best operas and plays. One night I had
the pleasure of hearing Gounod lead the Grand Opera House orchestra in
his own “Faust.” Monsieur Blanc also took us out to see the National
Assembly sitting at Versailles, where he was a senator. By good luck
we saw and heard Gambetta and Jules Favre. There was no disorder that
day, at least, and the speaking was moderate in tone. It was no noisier
than our own senate. Louis Blanc also spoke a few words in a quiet way.
He wished them to move the Assembly into Paris. “It is all nonsense,”
he said to me, “this pretense of fearing a Paris mob. ‘Do right,’ I
might have said to them, ‘and the mob will let you alone. Do wrong,
and--well, it is not far from Paris to Versailles, and there was a time
when a mob could escort a king even, from the one place to the other.’”
He meant Louis XVI. and his queen, whom the mob led from this same
palace to the Paris scaffold.
That evening we went late to dinner. The Blanc’s lived on an upper
floor of house No. 96, on the Rue du Rivoli. It was rather far. “But
why didn’t you come earlier?” said Mrs. Blanc, meeting us at the door.
“You can’t guess who was here.” It was Victor Hugo. How sorry we were
to have missed the opportunity of seeing the most famous man in France.
It happened later that I was in Paris the day after Victor Hugo’s
funeral. Everybody said it was like the funeral of a great king. I went
up to the “Arc de Triomphe.” The great monument built by Napoleon, in
his own honor, was covered with wreaths in honor of Victor Hugo. Which
man, I thought, does France, in her inmost heart, revere the most--the
poet, or the conqueror?
I do not recall much that Louis Blanc said to me that first time in
Paris, but something he said in reply to some words of Mr. Dixon’s, at
the banquet, I wrote down. Dixon was chaffing, in an exaggerated way,
about the patriot’s idea of liberty. “Ah!” replied Louis Blanc, quoting
from another Frenchman, “there is but one thing only, which dreads not
comparison with Glory; that is Liberty.”
The nephew whom I had obliged, and through whom our friendship with the
statesman came about, fell ill in Paris, and Louis Blanc wrote me this:
“PARIS, 96 Rue du Rivoli, Dec. 21, 1871.
“DEAR SIR: It grieves me to the very heart to have to say that
my nephew is most dangerously ill. He has now been in bed for
about a month, and his precarious state keeps both my poor wife
and myself in a state of unspeakable anxiety. This domestic
affliction, added to the necessity I am under to spend the whole
of my time at Versailles, where the Assembly is now residing
and threatens to _settle_, has as yet prevented me from seeing
Mr. Washburne. But I have not lost sight of my promise, which I
hope I shall be able to fulfill before long. Many thanks for the
photographs. That of Mrs. Byers is very far, indeed, from doing
her justice. We wish we had a better one. I will write to you
soon. In the meantime, accept, my dear sir, our most cordial
thanks for the kindness you and your dear wife have shown to our
nephew and to ourselves. With my wife’s best regards to Mrs.
Byers and yourself, I remain, very truly yours,
LOUIS BLANC.”
The youth got well, but he did not take much to the Zurich schools
after all. He had gone home again, and the uncle decided on letting him
go to sea.
“PARIS, 96 Rue du Rivoli, July 14, 1872.
“MY DEAR SIR: Many thanks for your very kind letter. Our nephew
is quite recovered, and more than ever determined to be a sailor;
so much so, that we have made up our minds to let him go as a
midshipman. He will probably start in a month or two.
“My wife and myself speak often of you both and of the friendly
reception we met at your hands. May we indulge the hope of
returning it soon, on your visit to Paris?
“I would have been glad to make General Sherman’s acquaintance,
but, unfortunately, I found no opportunity to do so.
“Mrs. Louis Blanc and nephew unite with me in kindest regards to
Mrs. Byers and yourself. Most sincerely yours,
“LOUIS BLANC.”
_September, 1872._--All this past summer the international arbitrators
at Geneva have been trying to settle our difficulty with England over
the Alabama pirate business. Our Mr. Evarts has won great honor in his
management of our side of the matter. Still we have virtually lost the
case. A few days ago, the 14th, the treaty was signed. True, it gives
us fifteen millions, but we set out with claiming two hundred and fifty
millions. What a bagatelle to have to accept after that. The testimony
really tends to show that the Rebels never hurt the North with their
cruisers a hundredth part as much as everybody supposed they had. It
was only a little Captain Kidd sea robbery after all.
It is something, however, to make England come to time, if only a
little, for only the other day a London paper declared England will
never pay the Yankees a dollar, no matter what the arbitrators say. We
shall see.
CHAPTER VI
1872
WILLIAM TELL--THE RIGI IN THE GOOD OLD TIMES--PILATUS--ROSE
BUSHES FOR FUEL.
We spent this summer of 1872 at beautiful Bocken, an old castle-like
chateau, sitting high above the lake, ten miles out from the city. It
was once the home of the Zurich burgomasters, at the time when they
exercised the authority of petty kings. The scene from Bocken is very
grand. The chateau, with its big hall of knights, its old oak-paneled
dining-room, its brick-paved corridors and leaded, round-paned windows,
is very interesting. Paid 600 francs for the use of rooms all summer,
and reserved the right to return other summers. The days were fair,
and it seemed to me I had never seen so many clear, moonlight nights.
The lake, shining in the clear moonlight, lay 1,000 feet below us,
and, at times in the night, we could even faintly see the snow-covered
mountains of Glarus. It was a delightful summer at Bocken, and our joy
was doubled by the coming of our firstborn.
[Illustration: Bocken.--_Page 49._]
More than one of this summer’s excursions was to the scene of the
Tell legends on Lake Luzern. I knew the legends were already being
doubted, even by some of the Swiss, but I hoped, by diligent searching
among certain half-forgotten archives in the old arsenal at Altorf,
to find something new. I was not wholly disappointed; I saw a musty
document there that told of the building of the chapel to Tell on the
“Axenstrasse.” That was in 1388, only _thirty-one years after Tell’s
death_. The document gave the amount of wages paid to hands, the amount
of wine furnished the workmen, and a statement that one hundred and
fourteen persons who had known Tell were present at the dedication. On
the supposed spot of Tell’s birth, another stone chapel was erected in
1522. There is also in this museum a copy of a proclamation of four
hundred and ninety-four years ago, by the Council of Uri, ordering all
good Christians and patriots to make yearly pilgrimages to Burglen,
because it was the birthplace of William Tell. This document was
discovered in 1759, but was burned up in a fire at Altorf, about 1779.
The copy, however, is regarded as genuine. The question arises, why
did a poor little village community ever go to the expense of building
these chapels, if they had no certain knowledge of the existence of
their hero, and why were the citizens making these excursions to Tell’s
birthplace at that early time?
[Illustration: Buerglen, Tell’s Birthplace.--_Pages 50 and 191._]
In this old arsenal at Altorf are preserved the battle flags borne
by the Swiss at Morgarten in 1315, only eight years after the death
of Tell. The genuineness of these flags historians have not doubted.
Neither is the old Swiss story of that battle in dispute. If the
ancient Swiss could know of this battle, and save their flags, why
should they not also know the facts as to Tell, at the time they were
building chapels to him? If they do not, these chapels remain as
monuments to the utter foolishness of a people.
The tradition as to his shooting an apple from his boy’s head is of
no earthly consequence; true or untrue, it has no more to do with the
Swiss patriot’s having served his country than the story of the cherry
tree has to do with the patriotism of Washington. Tyrants, compelling
enemies to tests of archery under great risks, were nothing uncommon
in even other lands than Switzerland, and even this little incident
in Tell’s life may have been true. For myself, I am satisfied that a
patriot named William Tell existed, and that his hot-headed love of
freedom, and his recklessness, precipitated a revolution in the Alps.
In these later days his killing even a tyrant would probably brand him
as a common freak or an assassin. Time and history mollify many things.
The chapel at the Axenstrasse was about to fall into the lake, while
I was in Switzerland. Its restoration was decided on. Knowing that I
had interested myself in the Tell traditions, and at my request, the
authorities allowed me to take away the stone step in front of the
old altar, to place in the Washington monument. I secured official
testimony as to the block, had a proper inscription put on it, and sent
it to Washington as a souvenir of Switzerland’s greatest tradition. It
is now in the Smithsonian Institution, being regarded too valuable a
relic to hide away in the monument.
Now that we could speak the language, we made delightful excursions to
the mountains. I had determined to write a book on Switzerland,[1] and
regarded it necessary to see, not only the Alps, but Alpine village
life, and everything characteristic of the country. The result was
that we went on foot to almost every valley and village, and climbed
not a few of the famous mountains. I now became a member of the Alpine
Club. The Rigi we climbed oftenest of all. There was no such thing as
riding up, no easy railway carriages, then. People climbed mountains on
foot, and the names burned on our Alpine stocks had a meaning. Many and
many a Saturday noon we took the train at Luzern, climbed up the Rigi
through the woods alone, on the Arth side, and stayed there till Monday
morning. We usually got to the top in three hours. Daylight of Sunday
saw us out on the high plateau, looking at that great sight, the rising
of the sun in the Alps.
Living among the mountains was glorious then, and _cheap_. Many a time,
in those days, we have had lodgings and meals at four francs a day,
at the Rigi Staffell, where once the poet Wordsworth tarried. And at
Michaels Kreutz, a height near by, two and one-half francs for pension
was our usual expense. We traveled much in second-class cars. Everybody
did this, and we were in the mode. Often when I was alone in the
mountains, I went third-class even, and was as well off for sightseeing
as I would have been in a Pullman palace car.
The Alpine views from the Rigi in good weather are almost beyond
description. One must see them to realize their splendor. Chains of
snow mountains are in the distance, and thirteen blue lakes shining at
the Rigi’s foot. It is only six thousand feet high, but unsurpassed as
a point for seeing Swiss scenery.
Sometimes I went up Pilatus alone. It is higher than the Rigi, and
near by. The climb was five hours, and I always slept in the little
Senn hut, with the cowboys. The cattle, with their tinkling bells,
occupied half the stone building. Cool autumn nights I have sat there
till midnight, talking with the cowboys, before a big fire made of
dried Alpine rose bushes. There were simply acres of roses on Pilatus
then, and the Senns were glad to get rid of the shrubs by burning them.
I never felt in such perfect health in my life, as in the bracing air
on Pilatus Mountain, and the fact that tourists never knew the way up
there made life among the goats and the roses immensely enjoyable. For
years, ever since my imprisonment in the South, I had suffered horrors
with headaches and migraine. These frequent stays in the air of the
higher Alps were slowly curing them.
CHAPTER VII
1872
GENERAL SHERMAN VISITS US AT ZURICH--LETTERS FROM HIM--SWISS
OFFICERS ENTERTAIN HIM--HIS LAKE EXCURSION--HE EXPLAINS HIS
GREATEST CAMPAIGN TO THEM--HE IS ENTERTAINED AT THE SWISS
CAPITAL--LETTER FROM GENERAL DUFOUR.
_August, 1872._--General Sherman had written me late in the previous
Autumn of his intention to visit Europe. Admiral Alden was appointed to
the command of our squadron at Villa Franca, and invited the General
to sail with him in his flagship, the “Wabash.” They left on Nov. 11,
1871. In his note he had said, “I am certainly hoping to arrange my
route so as to pay you a visit.” This rejoiced us greatly. I heard
nothing more till January 16th, when he sent me another little note
from Marseilles:
“MARSEILLES, FRANCE, Jan. 14, 1872.
“DEAR BYERS: You will have seen in the public journals that I am
adrift. Of course, during my travels I intend to come to Zurich
to see you, but the time when is uncertain. Now the season is
not favorable, and I find it to my interest to stay near the
Mediterranean till spring. I left my ship at Gibraltar near a
month ago. Have been through Spain and the south of France, and
am now on my way to rejoin the ship at Nice. We expect to spend
all of February in Italy, March in Egypt and the East, April
in Prussia, and I expect to swing round by Dresden, Vienna and
Munich to Zurich in May. I hope then to find you in good health.
Should you have occasion to write me, a letter to the care of
the United States Consul at Nice will be forwarded. With great
respect, your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
In a month he wrote again, this time from Italy. On Feb. 8th I had
written him of an intended military demonstration on the part of the
authorities, in his honor, when he should come to Zurich. This he was
adverse to, as his note indicates:
“NAPLES, Feb. 28, 1872.
“DEAR BYERS: I have received yours of Feb. 8th, and avail myself
of about the last chance to write in reply. It will be some time
before we can possibly approach Zurich from the direction of
Vienna, and I suppose by that time I will be pretty well used
up; yet, if I can do anything to please you, will do my best.
Please say to the gentlemen of Zurich that when I reach Zurich,
the less display of even a volunteer or militia force, the
better; but I will leave it to your own good sense to do what is
best for them, and for me. Maybe it would be better to postpone
all preliminaries till you hear from me at Vienna. We embark
to-morrow for Malta and Alexandria, Egypt, and it will be some
time before we turn up again in the direction of Moscow and St.
Petersburg. Our aim is to cross the Caucasus to the Caspian, to
Astrachan by the Volga, to Nishni, and so on to Moscow; so, you
see, I have a good, long journey yet before me. Meantime, I hope
you will continue well. As ever, your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
Again there was a silence till spring. General Sherman did not carry
a newspaper reporter around with him, to report his journeys and his
doings. He was traveling as a private gentleman, seeing, and not being
seen. At least, this was what he wished. He had gone to the far East,
had come back to Constantinople and crossed the Caucasus Mountains. In
May he wrote again from St. Petersburg:
“ST. PETERSBURG, May 30, 1872.
“DEAR BYERS: My party is now reduced to myself and Colonel
Audenried, Fred Grant having gone to Copenhagen to see his
aunt, Mrs. Cramer, who is now on the point of going to America.
I don’t now know whether Grant will rejoin me at Vienna or go
direct to Paris, to see his sister Nellie, and await us there.
At all events, Audenried and I start at noon to-day for Warsaw,
then Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, etc., to Zurich, where we ought to
arrive between the 15th and 20th of June. I prefer much not to
be complicated with private engagements or displays of any kind,
for it takes all my time to see the country, and it is awfully
tiresome to be engaged day and night in receiving and returning
calls. I hope you will appreciate this, and have no preparations
made till we arrive, and then if I can do you any service by
seeing your friends, I will do my best. Truly your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
Early in August he and Colonel Audenried were with us in Zurich. No
public demonstration took place on his arrival. It was as he had
wished. We took him out to Bocken, our home on the lake, and had a few
delightful days with him there.
I recall that on the first day we had dinner spread underneath the
trees, out on the terrace of Bocken. The blue lake lay a thousand feet
below us, the white mountains shone in the distance, behind us were
high hills covered with evergreen forests. About the chateau were
bright meadows and rich vineyards. There is scarcely a scene more
beautiful in this world. Yet, I was surprised how little it affected
him. In the presence of such grandeur, he seemed at that moment
unimpressionable. He was a man of moods. I called his attention to the
glorious view. “Not more beautiful,” he said at last, “than the lakes
near Madison. I think of them when I see this. I like American scenery
better than any of it. It is the real, native thing in our country.
Man has done nothing there. Here, in Europe, so much is artificial.”
Yet there was nothing artificial around him here; unless it were the
much-vaunted, little, red, wooden-looking Swiss strawberries on the
table. He wondered how we could adopt the Swiss way of pouring wine on
them, instead of cream and sugar. The big cake in the center of the
table was decorated with preserved fruits. “How singular that is, isn’t
it?” he said; “real Dutch.” But he liked it for all that. He liked,
too, our simple table, though an American dish or two had been prepared
in his honor; and he had a relish for good wine, but was moderate in
its use. When we had the champagne, I proposed his health. “No,” said
he, gallantly, rising to his feet, “we drink the health of Mrs. Byers.”
“Both together then,” I said.
He was happy when I gave him a cigar. The scene began to have some
interest for him. It was finer than Madison after all. I think the
dinner increased his appreciation. The practical side of what he saw
was always in his mind. He measured the near hills with his eye and
guessed their height. “North must be right over there,” he said,
pointing, though the sun was not shining. The snow mountains were
twenty miles away--not thirty, as we had stated. He was sure he “never
missed on distances.” But he did this time. He climbed up to the
winemill in the barn loft, examined the presses below, took hold of
the queer scythes of the mowers, and undertook to describe an American
mowing machine to a peasant, who did not understand a word of English.
In an hour or so he was acquainted with everything practical about the
place.
At supper he ridiculed the American ways of traveling abroad.
“‘Tourists’ is the right word for them,” he said. “They are not
observing travelers at all. Their time and money is thrown away.”
He told of an American girl who rode one hundred miles in a railroad
car with him, through the most interesting part of Spain, and read a
yellow-backed novel all the way. “I never go to a new place, but I
know all about it,” he said; “its topography, geography, history. A
thousand times my habit of observing has afterward been of use to me.”
He told how, when he was a young lieutenant in the army, stationed
in Georgia, his comrades spent their leisure Sundays reading novels,
card playing, or sleeping, while he himself went riding or walking
everywhere, exploring every creek, valley, hill, mountain, in the
neighborhood. “_Twenty years later the thing that most helped me to
win battles in Georgia was my perfect knowledge of the country, picked
up when I was there as a boy._ I knew more of Georgia than the rebels
themselves did.” He insisted on our acquiring a habit of observing
everything, learning everything possible. “You don’t know how soon you
will have use for the seemingly useless thing that you can pick up by
mere habit.” He related how, when he captured a train and telegraph
station down South once--[It happened that I had been present on the
occasion]--he called for some one among the privates to try to take off
messages. His own operator was not at hand. A young soldier, who had
once picked up a little telegraphing as an amusement, stepped forward
and took a rebel message from the wire that turned out to contain
information of vast importance to the whole army.
_August 4._--Yesterday, to make him more comfortable, Mrs. B. had had
a bed placed for the General in our little front salon. “I won’t have
it there at all,” he said. “There shall be no trouble for me. Back it
goes into the bedroom. Give me a cot in the hall--that’s what soldiers
like.” The bed went back.
At noon, a very swell company of cadets came up from Horgen to do the
General a little honor. I happened to be away, and, as the captain
could speak no English, and the General no German, a funny scene
followed. They drew up in line and saluted, and the General saluted in
return. Then he made a good-natured, funny, little speech in English.
They all laughed, and seemed to think it good, gave him a cheer, fired
their guns and went back to the lake. The captain afterward asked me
what it was the General said. I told him that he praised their company
as being one of the nicest he ever saw, and said if they would stack
guns and come to the house, they should drink to his health in some
good champagne. “Mein Gott! and did he say _that_,” said the captain;
“and we, big fools, just walked off and missed it all.”
General Sherman’s memory for names, places and incidents was certainly
phenomenal. He had never been in Russia before, yet, in telling us of
his delightful trip over the Caucasus Mountains, he recalled all the
nearly unpronounceable names of villages and mountains along his route.
He had seen and investigated everything along his way, and talked with
half the people he met, whether they understood him or not. He was so
kindly in his ways, so sincere, no one ever took his addressing him
amiss. I could not help at times comparing him in my mind with what I
had read of the Duke of Wellington.
Colonel Audenried amused us not a little, by telling, _confidentially_,
at the supper table, of the great excursion the General and his
party had tendered them by the Sultan on the Black Sea. The Sultan’s
magnificent private yacht, manned by sailors in gilt jackets, carried
them everywhere. Wines and lunches and dinners were only to command.
It was a beautiful, oriental time; but, when they got back, a bill of
$600, I think, was presented to the General, on a silver platter. He
gracefully paid it, and said nothing.
_August 5._--To-day there was a flowing of champagne, in _fact_. The
army officers, at Zurich and in neighboring towns, chartered a steamer
and arranged for a banquet in the General’s honor at the Castle of
Rapperschwyl, at the upper end of the lake. The day was beautiful, and
it was a fair sight, as the steamer, decorated with Swiss and American
flags, filled with officers in gay uniforms, and with music playing,
turned into Horgen, the landing nearest to Bocken. The villagers
fired cannon, waved flags and cheered, as General Sherman, in full
American uniform, went down from Bocken to the landing. A naturalized
Swiss-American kept a restaurant near to the landing. He had had an
enormous American flag especially made, to hang out as the General went
past his place to the steamer. The General took off his hat to it,
called a pleasant word to the owner of the flag, and the man was happy.
Years afterward he kept that flag as the one the great General had
greeted. He hung it out only on great occasions. I doubt not it will be
wrapped about him at his grave. How easy it is for the great to make
men happy.
The excursion on the lake, and the banquet, were delightful. In the
shadow of the old castle, the talk and the toasts were about two
Republics. The name of William Tell was being spoken with the name
of Washington. The Swiss Dufour and the American Sherman were linked
together, as the Swiss officers touched glasses. It is an international
episode like this that helps, more than all the tricky diplomacy of the
world, to give peoples a kind understanding of each other.
Sherman was amazed to find out that these officers, all the preceding
winter, had (at their officers’ school) been studying his campaigns.
Every move about Kenesaw Mountain, every day of his assaults on
Atlanta, were as familiar to these men as to members of his own staff.
I never in my life saw a more interesting scene than when, under an
awning, on the deck of the steamer, these Swiss officers stood around
him, while, with a big military map before him, he traced for them
the route of the “March to the Sea.” It was a picture for an artist.
It was as if Napoleon had described to a listening group of American
officers, the campaign of Italy. All were greatly impressed with the
great simplicity of his talk, his kindness of manner, as with pencil he
marked for them each interesting spot of the campaign. It was a great
thing to have the most famous march of modern times explained to them
in so friendly a way, by the commander himself.
“I will never forget this day,” said more than one officer to me, as we
left the steamer that evening.
They drew lots for the possession of the map with the General’s pencil
marks, and it fell to Colonel Schindler, the Consul for Austria. “It
shall be an heirloom forever in my family,” said the Colonel to me one
evening at his tea table.
_August 6, 1872._--In the evening, my wife and I gave a reception to
General Sherman at the rooms of the Bellevue hotel in the city. It was
attended by our personal friends, by Americans then in the city, by a
number of officers and by many prominent people. The General was in
full uniform. Numbers spoke English with him, and with others he spoke
tolerable French, that he had learned, probably at West Point.
On the next day it rained, but he was off for the St. Gotthard pass. We
protested against his starting in bad weather. “Weather never holds me
back from a journey,” he said. “If it is raining when I am starting, it
is almost sure to clear up on the way, and when I most need it.”
We were again out at Bocken. He had changed his mind about the scene.
It was the finest view he ever saw. On leaving, he gave my wife an
affectionate kiss, and said, “May God take care of you.” It was to be
years before she would see him again.
* * * * *
_August 20._--Horace Rublee, our minister at Bern, gave a public
reception to General Sherman at the capital the other night. I was
invited to attend. It was a rather elaborate affair, in the Bernerhof.
Outside a band came and serenaded the General, playing some American
airs very poorly. The General was in full uniform. Most of the
prominent people of Bern and many public officials were present. The
General, I noticed, talked quite a little French with some of the
ladies. Nothing of note occurred at this reception, but there was a
fine time, and the General enjoyed himself.
The next day was spent in seeing the sights of the city. At noon I
saw a bit of Sherman’s well-known gallantry for women. Numbers of us,
mostly young men, were standing with him in the Bernerhof corridor. An
elderly lady, alone, passed us and started up the grand stairway. She
was half way up when Sherman’s eye caught her. Instantly he sprang up
the steps and offering his arm escorted her to her room. The rest of us
looked on a little abashed that we had not thought to do this.
* * * * *
While in Switzerland the General had met the famous old Dufour,
the Wellington of the Swiss army, who had so promptly put down the
Rebellion of 1847. With his 100,000 men and his 300 cannon he did more
in a month than most generals do in a year. General Sherman sent him,
through me, a map of his own campaigns. It gratified the old Swiss
warrior greatly and elicited the following reply to me:
“GENEVE, 23rd Janv., 1873.
“MONSIEUR LE CONSUL: J’ai reçu en parfait état le rouleau que
vous m’avez fait l’honneur de m’annoncer par votre lettre du 21.
Je vous en remercie.
“Cette carte est un précieux document pour éclairer l’histoire
des glorieux événements de la dernière guerre d’Amerique.
“Je suis bien redevable a Mons. le Général Sherman d’avoir pensé
à moi en cette circonstance et je vous prie de lui en exprimer
toute ma reconnaissance quand vous aurez l’occasion de lui écrire.
“Agréez, monsieur le Consul, l’assurance de ma considération
distinguée.
G. H. DUFOUR, Général.”
CHAPTER VIII
1872
LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--VISIT AMERICA--SANDS OF BREMEN--
STORMS AT SEA--ELIHU WASHBURNE--BANQUET TO HIM ON SHIP--I AM
A GUEST AT THE SHERMAN HOME--MRS. SHERMAN--ARRANGE TO TAKE
MISS SHERMAN TO EUROPE--MEET MR. BLAINE--MY SONG IS SUNG IN
THE SHERMAN HOME--CONVERSATIONS WITH SHERMAN--MEET PRESIDENT
GRANT--HOW I HAPPENED TO BE IN THE REBEL ARMY ONCE--LETTERS
FROM GENERAL SHERMAN.
_October, 1872._--As I had now been absent from home just three years,
I secured a few weeks’ leave to visit the United States. Dr. Terry was
to go along. I arranged to sail on the “Deutschland,” from Bremen, Oct.
10th. Early in September General Sherman wrote me from Ireland, asking
me to bring his daughter Minnie (now Mrs. Fitch) back with me to Europe.
“DUBLIN, Sunday, Sept. 1, 1872.
“DEAR BYERS: As you can well understand, I have been kept busy
and have not had a chance to write letters, save to my home. My
trip is now drawing to a close, and by Thursday next we will
be at Queenstown ready to take the steamer Baltic for home. I
have letters from my family by which I learn that my daughter
Minnie is very anxious to spend the winter in Europe. I remember
that you proposed to come to Washington about this time, and if
you have gone this letter will not find you at Zurich, and I
shall hear of you on our side; but if this letter reaches you,
please write me at Washington, as I would prefer she should make
the trip across with you, and remain with you until she finds
General and Mrs. Graham, who are somewhere in Italy. I know you
would do this for me, and it only depends on your coming and the
conclusion Minnie arrives at after I reach home. I am perfectly
willing she should spend a winter in Europe, and only desire that
she have the personal supervision of some friend of mine. She
could easily join some party in New York, but she desires to stop
long enough in some place to perfect herself in French, and to
observe the customs and manners of strangers.
“I hope ere this Mrs. Byers has passed the first dread ordeal of
mother, and that you have now a child to think of and dream about.
“Please give her my best congratulations and wishes for her
continued health. Believe me, always your friend,
“W. T. SHERMAN.”
When I went through the flat, sandy region of North Germany, to take
the Bremen steamer, I thought I had never seen so desolate a country in
my life. It was a rainy, windy day, and the train was slow, the scene
sad; everybody looked poor. Women by hundreds, with red handkerchiefs
on their heads, were out in the fields, digging potatoes in the rain
and wind. The villages were sorry-looking places. Some day, when the
Mojave desert in America has villages scattered all over it, and a poor
American peasantry, the descendants of our children, dig potatoes from
the drifting sand, the scene will be like that long stretch of ugliness
in the rear of Bremen.
Our steamer stopped at Southampton for a day and a night. So Dr. Terry
and I took a run over to the Isle of Wight. To this hour, I think, I
never saw so lovely an island or a place where I should so like to
live. Its clean roads and pretty hedges and beautiful trees, its quiet
English villages, its rambles, interested us much. And then there
was the blue sea beating all around it, and, passing it in the near
distance, the ships of all nations. At the point was the lighthouse
and the rocks, and nearer, the noble downs. Here were the rocks and
the waves that Tennyson had looked at and walked beside for half his
life--the scenes that made his poetry. Not far away was Farringford,
the poet’s home. The whole island, that sunny day, seemed like a dream.
The next evening, at twilight, on our vessel’s deck, far out at sea, I
lingered and looked at the Isle of Wight, the lighthouse and the dim,
gray crags, with the waves beating against them.
We were twelve days reaching New York, and had storms and hurricanes
half the way over. The “Deutschland” survived them all, only to go to
the bottom, on a later voyage, with three hundred people. That was in
the Channel. One day, on this, our New York voyage, everything seemed
to be going to pieces, and for an hour or so I knew how it felt to be
very close to death. I was more alarmed than I had ever been in any
battle. In war, one expects death almost. Here it was different. Not
a human being could keep his feet a moment. There was more than one
said good-by to comrades that day, as he supposed, forever. I had but
one friend on board, Dr. C. T. Terry of New York, who lived in Zurich
for many years, and with whom I had made hundreds of foot excursions
in the mountains. He was a dentist, possibly in his calling not second
to Dr. Evans in Paris. He had come to Switzerland a poor youth, and,
by honor, skill and diligence, had amassed a fortune. He, like myself,
had left a wife and child behind in Zurich. In the midst of the
hurricane, we shook hands, and in a few words agreed what should be
done, should either survive. Had that ship gone down, I would certainly
not be writing here. No lifeboat there but was being torn to pieces;
nothing of human hands could have withstood that sea’s fury another
hour. But it was a grand sight spite of the terror. It was ten in the
morning, snowing, and the sun shining, every minute, turn about.
As the hurricane eased up, I hung on to a rope by the bridge, and miles
away could see lofty white-caps, their shining crowns lighted by the
sun, lift themselves and thunder together, or roll on toward us till
they would strike the ship. The sea was rolling in deep, green valleys,
and, as the ship would leap across these watery gorges, the view right
and left was indescribably grand. I looked at the awful ocean, and
thought of Switzerland. It was as if the valleys of the Alps had turned
to green, rushing waters, and the mountains had commenced falling. I
would almost take the risk again, to see so grand a sight.
_October, 1872._--The morning after the storm, the sea was still
running high, but passengers could keep their feet and, if well enough,
talk together.
Pretty soon, a very large, grand-looking man, with a sea cloak about
him, came on deck. “And who is he?” I said to the captain. “Why, that’s
your _greatest_ American,” he replied. “That’s the man who cared for
the Germans in the siege of Paris. That’s Minister Washburne, the
friend of Germany.” Sure enough, on a day’s notice, Mr. Washburne had
come aboard when we touched at Southampton. He had been sick in his
cabin till this moment. He guessed the storm had shaken the bile out
of him, he said, when I introduced myself to him. He had been too sick
to know the danger we had been in. Now he stayed on deck and was well.
Mr. Washburne was General Grant’s first and truest friend. Without
his tireless support, from Galena to Appomattox, the name of General
Grant had not gone farther than his father’s tannery. Genius must have
somebody to open the door for it. Washburne did it for Grant. John
Sherman, in the House and Senate, did it for his illustrious brother.
Barras did it for Napoleon. Even a cannon ball, rolling down hill, has
to be started by somebody.
* * * * *
It is the last day of the voyage. The captain gave a banquet last night
to Mr. Washburne. All Germans are deep in their gratitude to him for
his work in Paris.
Many speeches were made at the table, many toasts drunk. When Mr.
Washburne rose to speak, he looked like the picture of Daniel Webster.
The same large head, the same intellectual countenance. He looked like
a statesman, not a politician. He was of the kindest manners, and loved
to talk of the people he had known. I had the pleasure of walking for
hours daily with him, up and down the deck, sometimes far into the
night. He had been Lincoln’s friend, as well as Grant’s, and there was
no end to the incidents he could tell of the great President. I regret
now that I did not write them down. He also talked of the Commune
in Paris, whose horrors he had witnessed. He believed socialism and
mobism a disease. In Paris it was infectious. He told me much of his
youth out West. He went to Galena a poor boy, and when he studied law
in an office, making fires as pay for use of books, he had nothing
but a buffalo robe to sleep on, spread on the office floor. Later,
he was a Cabinet Minister. He was a true Republican, through and
through. Hobnobbing with the nobility of France had made no snob of
him. He asked me to make him acquainted with Terry. “I like and honor
such men,” he said; “they are the salt of the earth, these self-made
Americans. They are what makes a republic possible.”
A very rich American lady on the steamer with us was carrying in her
trunks several dozen kid gloves, and asked him to help her get “easy”
through the Custom House. He refused indignantly, adding, “And what
right have you, a rich woman, madame, more than my wife, who never
owned so many gloves in her whole life, to slip things through the
custom-house? The law expects, compels, her to pay duty on her two or
three pairs, and, trust me to see to it, you shall pay duty on your
trunk full.” She left him in high dudgeon, when he turned to me and
said: “It is just such rich, ostentatious people evading law that is
making the poorer classes mad and discontented with government.”
“Lincoln,” he said, “has been the people’s friend more than any other
man since Jesus Christ.”
On reaching New York, Mr. Arthur and others of the custom-house came
out with a tug to meet him, and take him ashore. I was asked to go
along in the tug.
Mr. Washburne went to the Fifth Avenue Hotel. “Now don’t you go because
I do,” he said to me. “It is a useless waste of money. I go because I
have to. Come and see me there to-morrow.” I went on the morrow and
was introduced to Mr. Blaine, who had, I thought, the most magnetic
personality of any man I ever saw. I thought, when he grasped my hand,
he had mistaken me for some old-time friend, but shortly I saw the same
hearty good-will toward all who entered the room. He knew how to make
friends, and to keep them. What a golden secret! I never forgot that
handshake.
_November, 1872._--For a week or so now I was in Washington, a guest in
General Sherman’s home, then on I Street, corner of 3rd. He and Mrs.
Sherman cordially insisted that whenever I came to Washington, I should
make their house my home. This I often did, not at Washington only, but
later at St. Louis and New York as well. Mrs. Sherman was always one of
my sincerest and firmest friends.
[Illustration: General Sherman.--_Page 67._]
[Illustration: Mrs. General Sherman.--_Page 67._]
“Don’t talk religion with her, though,” said the General to me one
morning in his study, after breakfast. “She is a very zealous Catholic,
and you----” “I am a zealous nothing,” I interrupted. “I like Catholics
the same as other good Christians, and have gotten over the notion that
all the salt of the earth is in the creed I accidentally was born in.”
“Then you are all right. As for myself, it’s no difference,” he went
on. “Why, I guess, I don’t believe in anything; so in this room talk
as you please.” Mrs. Sherman was a thousand times more than a good
Catholic. She was in every sense a good woman. Here, as at her other
later homes, she had a little room arranged as an office, where she
worked and studied out plans for helping the poor. Probably no woman in
the United States ever spent more time and money in doing good. Few had
more true friends. Her religious zeal was well known, and never abated.
She thoroughly believed the Catholic church the best church.
She was extremely bright and kind in her ways. The army officers all
liked her, and her house stood open to every friend.
I recall one evening how she and the General gave a supper to the
staff. All were in uniform. She had not invited them to come; she had
just _told_ them to come, and they came with their wives. Two or three
civilians were present, Mr. Church, a famous war-song singer, and
myself among them. After the supper there was some instrumental music
in the drawing-room. “And now,” said Mrs. Sherman, “Mr. Church is going
to honor us with a song.” My verses, “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” were
still popular in the country, being sung everywhere. Mr. Church stepped
to the front of the piano and sang the song in such a voice as I had
never heard it sung in before. The splendid rendering of the music,
his great, fine, patriotic tones, that sounded like the coming of an
army with banners, moved everyone in that room deeply. For a moment, I
entirely forgot that the words were my own. All applauded, so did I;
why not? So did the General. Then a guest stepped forward and made a
little speech. “I am happy,” said he; “I speak for all. What a pleasure
we have had--the first song of the war, sung by the first war-song
singer in the land, in the presence of the one who wrote it, and in the
home of the Commander who made the March.”
General Sherman, too, made a little speech, praising the music, the
words, the singer, and then he added: “Without this song, the campaign
never would have had its picturesque name. Now,” said he, “I want Mr.
Church to sing that other favorite song of mine, ‘Old Soldier, You’ve
Played Out Your Time.’”
They were rugged verses Mr. Church now sang, and striking music, but,
privately, I almost thought it a little cynical in the General to agree
with the words that declared an unknown grave in a ditch a desirable
ending for the true soldier. “But that’s it, that’s it,” said the
General. “Do your duty, have a good time and win glory, but don’t kick
when the end comes. That song is the true picture of a soldier’s life.”
It was a memorable evening, but, I fear, not half a dozen of that happy
company are on earth now. Yet it seems so few years back. The voices
of all of them still seem to sound in my ear. I write down the little
record before the last memory fades. That night at General Sherman’s
house was an echo of the war days.
When the company left that night, the General asked me up to his little
room. He was smoking constantly. The conversation turned on the origin
of the “March to the Sea.” “Yes, I know,” he said, “some of Grant’s
friends are claiming that he suggested that, but no one ever heard
Grant himself utter one word to claim it. True, he was chief commander
over all the armies, when I cut loose for the South; but it would be
just as senseless to attribute it to the President, who was over all
of us, as to attribute it to Grant. Lincoln’s letter to me, after the
event, shows how completely he knew who originated the idea of my
changing base and putting my army down by the ocean; and a letter from
Lee, written after the war, shows what _he_ thought of the importance
of my getting this water base, and of its sequence, the march north in
the Carolinas. ‘The moment he reaches the Roanoke,’ said Lee, ‘Richmond
is untenable, and I leave it.’”
One May morning (1864), away back by Chattanooga, a certain General
Warner asked General Sherman, privately, what he was going to do when
he got his army away down to Atlanta, without supplies, and with a
lot of rebels behind. General Sherman suddenly stopped his pacing the
floor, knocked the ashes from his cigar, and said, “_Salt water._” “Do
you mean Savannah or Charleston?” said the astonished staff officer.
“_Yes_,” replied Sherman, “I do.” _That_ was the origin of the “March
to the Sea.”
General Warner related the whole details of this conversation, in a
letter to General Sherman’s wife. Lincoln congratulated the great
leader, and added, “_None of us, I believe, went further than to
acquiesce._” One of the interesting autograph letters of the war is
that one to Sherman, saying: “I congratulate you on the splendid
results of your campaign, the like of which is not heard of in past
history. (Signed) U. S. Grant.”
“Well,” said the General at last, laughing, as he gave the fire a great
stir with the poker: “I suppose they won’t hardly doubt as to who
really _made_ the march.”
* * * * *
_November, 1872._--Went out to my home in Iowa and visited my
relatives. While there, received a couple of notes from General
Sherman, saying Miss Sherman was getting ready to join me on my trip
back to Europe, the 14th of December, by the “Celtic.”
“WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 5, 1872.
“DEAR BYERS: I wrote to Mr. Sparks, agent, of the White Star
Line, soon after you left us, but he had gone out on the plains.
He is just back, and writes me promptly, offering the most
liberal terms, more than I deem it prudent to accept. He offers
the best rooms in any of his ships, and ‘to accept your ticket on
the Bremen Line in exchange.’ I knew he would be glad to favor
me, but I always prefer to pay the usual price, and to accept
as a favor ‘preferable accommodations.’ Now, I have written to
Sparks that I prefer to pay full passage for Minnie, and merely
suggest for you that he charge you the usual fare to Paris, $95,
and take your ticket at its cost, $63. This would leave you $32
to pay, and this will embrace railroad tickets from Liverpool to
Paris. I also named the ‘Celtic,’ the finest ship afloat, which
sails Dec. 14, and I guarantee she will put you in Liverpool in
8-1/2 days, and in Paris Dec. 24, giving you barely time to take
Christmas dinner with Mrs. Byers at Zurich. Write me as soon as
you can that I may close the bargain. We will expect you to come
to stay with us as long as you please before starting.
“I take it for granted you vote to-day, and will then have a full
month to see your folks and come to us. Of course, I don’t like
to hurry you, but this programme seems so fair I trust it will
suit your convenience.
“My best regards to your father.
Truly yours,
“W. T. SHERMAN.”
* * * * *
“WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 22, 1872.
“DEAR BYERS: I now have a letter from Mr. Sparks, agent of the
White Star Line, saying he has all ready for your and Minnie’s
most comfortable passage in the ‘Celtic.’ Dec. 14, next. So I
shall expect you here by the 10th of December, and will accompany
you to New York and see you off.
“He also reports that the ‘Celtic’ has just made the run from
New York to Queenstown in 8 days and 12 hours, with bad coal. So
you may safely count on reaching Paris inside of ten days. Truly
yours,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
Shortly, I went back to the General’s home at Washington. He took me
to see President Grant. He seemed to have free access wherever he
pleased to go, for, although others were waiting in the reception-room,
he passed them with a bow, and conducted me into the cabinet-room.
General Grant sat quite alone at the end of the historic table. The
warmth of his reception showed very quickly how intimate the two great
leaders were.
* * * * *
The President asked me some questions about the service abroad, and my
replies seemed to gratify him. Then there was a hint that Mr. Horace
Rublee, the American Minister at Bern, was about to resign and come
home. I had known that from Mr. Rublee direct, and I had quite an
ambition to secure the place. Why not? I had performed the duties more
than once in the Minister’s absence, and the proposed promotion seemed
perfectly natural. General Grant gave me every encouragement to believe
that I should shortly have the post.
Shortly the President arose and asked General Sherman to let him know
at once when the resignation of Rublee should be sent in. He saw no
reason why I should not be promoted to the post.
“It looks like a very sure thing,” said the General to me as we left
the White House.
Alas, and alack! Mr. Rublee went home on a leave, found his affairs
different from what he had anticipated, and did not resign at all. He
simply got his leave extended and extended, and drew the pay, nearly to
the end of Grant’s term. My best good chance was gone.
_December 9, 1872._--Went with the General and Mrs. Sherman to hear
McDonald, the Scotch novelist, lecture on Burns. General Sherman
introduced the speaker, and, in a little speech, showed his own
familiarity with the Scotch bard. I knew this well enough, for I had
seen him reading Burns by the hour. McDonald commenced with great
feeling and enthusiasm. Once I had heard Charles Dickens read, but it
seemed to me here, to-night, was a man more sincere with his subject.
There was no effort at effect. I recall Dickens in his dress suit, his
enormous white shirt front, his big, red rose on his lapel, his dainty,
foppish movements on the stage, his undisguised pauses and signals for
applause, as much as to say: “That is good; now clap your hands.” With
McDonald, all was different, all sincere. Burns seemed to be there in
person that night.
After the lecture we sat up till midnight, telling reminiscences of
the war. The year before, in our home at Zurich, we had spoken of an
escape I had once made from the prison pen at Macon, and of how near I
had come to changing the whole siege of Atlanta. He asked me for some
more of the details. I had been captured from his army in the assault
on Missionary Ridge, and had endured many months of imprisonment at
Libby. When they put us in the stockade at Macon, I resolved on getting
away. The first time I tried it, the guards fired and killed another
officer, who happened to be near me, in the dark. Then, by hook and
crook, I got hold of a gray rebel uniform, and in this disguise, one
bright July morning, walked over the dead line, past the guards, and,
eventually, got off into the rebel army at Atlanta, a hundred miles
away. For ten days I walked up and down among the troops, the forts,
observing the position of the besieged army. I dared not stop, or
rest, or sleep. If spoken to, or stopped, I was forever just going to
the Ninth Alabama, where I claimed to belong. Naturally, I never went
near that regiment. My intent was to collect all information possible
concerning the rebel troops and forts, and then, in the excitement of
the first battle, escape through the lines. I well knew the value my
knowledge now could be to Sherman. I had dozens of incidents every day
that for a moment put my life in peril. Once I saw the lines of the
enemy so thinned, Sherman’s army could have entered almost without a
shot. Then came the terrible battle of the 22d of July. I followed the
Rebel troops in the attack on Sherman’s rear, but failed to make my
escape. The next morning I changed my course, and, passing their left
flank, and down close by the Chattahoochie river, there in the woods,
within sight of the Union banners, was captured as a spy. Every stitch
of my clothing was searched. I was brutally treated and sent to Hood’s
headquarters for trial. Unfortunately for me, some of the very officers
who captured me had seen me in one of the forts the preceding Sunday.
Army headquarters were fixed on the green lawn of a city mansion. The
officers’ desks were out on the grass, and the papers describing me
as a dangerous spy were put into one of the pigeonholes. These had
been shown to me on my way to headquarters by a foolish guard. All
was excitement, for fighting was still going on. As for me, I was put
into a little tent, with two deserters, who were to be shot the next
morning. During the night, one of these condemned boys got out of the
tent on some pretext, and, when morning came, and I was brought out
for a hearing, all the incriminating papers were gone. There was not
a particle of proof as to who I was. I instantly acknowledged myself
to be a Union soldier, and claimed the rights of a prisoner of war.
The astonished officials reminded me that they had a right to shoot
me, I being discovered inside their lines in their uniform; that only
a few months previous our General Rosecrans had shot two Southern
officers for doing what I was now doing. I was in great peril, when
a Colonel Hill, Chief Provost Marshal of their army, said, for the
present, anyway, I should be put back among the prisoners at Macon.
Almost the same night, I was selected, with some two hundred others, to
be taken to Charleston, to be put under the fire of the Yankee fleet,
then bombarding the city. The barbarism of the act, the excitement and
confusion soon following, led to a complete forgetfulness of me. I
never heard again of the charges against me.
General Sherman had listened to the story in perfect silence. Then
rising and giving the coals in the fire a violent stir with the poker,
he exclaimed: “By God! that was an experience. Had you gotten through
the lines that day, it might have changed everything. It might have
saved ten thousand lives.”[2]
_Christmas Eve._--The voyage on the “Celtic” is over, and to-night
finds Miss Sherman and myself in Merry England.
I soon left Miss Sherman with friends in Paris, and hurried home to
Switzerland. Later, after some rambling in Italy, she came and spent a
month with us in our home by the lake. Two or three letters from her
father at this time, though purely personal, are not without interest:
“WASHINGTON, D. C., Jan. 3, 1873.
“DEAR BYERS: We have all written to Minnie several times, but, I
fear, we have overlooked the fact that you must have separated
in Paris soon after Christmas, but I hope she was thoughtful
enough to write you our several general messages of respect and
fond wishes. I was in New York last Monday, Dec. 23d; called at
the office of the White Line, and got the agent, Mr. Sparks,
to promise to give me the first possible news of the ‘Celtic.’
That night I was at the New England dinner at Delmonico’s, and
received a note from Sparks saying the ‘Celtic’ was reported off
Queenstown that night at 10:30, and that is all I know of her,
and of the details of your passage, up to the present moment.
The next morning I telegraphed to Mrs. Sherman here, and to your
father at Oskaloosa. All the ships that came over at the same
time report heavy westerly weather, so I suspect you had a rough
passage after passing the banks of Newfoundland, though the
westerly wind rather favored your speed. My supposition is that
you did not enter Queenstown, but put the mails on some tug that
went outside, and that you put into Liverpool the 24th, too late
for London or Paris for Christmas Day, and I hope you found out
General Fairchild and spent the day with him and Mrs. Fairchild.
We will begin to look for letters from Minnie about Monday
next--this is Thursday. The weather in all North America has been
severe since you left us, except for two or three days after you
sailed. The ground is covered with heavy snow. Yesterday (New
Year’s) was, however, strictly observed, and we had a full house
of visitors all day.
“All my folks are well, and send to you and Mrs. Byers and the
baby all sorts of messages of love and respect. Yours truly,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
* * * * *
“WASHINGTON, D. C., Jan. 21, 1873.
“DEAR BYERS: I was very glad to receive your letter of Dec. 29,
from Zurich, and I see why you were unusually anxious to reach
Zurich, with a clerk deranged, and short in his accounts. I am
glad, of course, his deficiency has been so promptly covered by
his father, as I suppose you are personally liable for his act.
“We have several letters from Minnie, telling us of her voyage
and safe arrival in Paris.
“The weather all December was so bad here that we feared you had
a hard time, but, on the whole, ten days was a good trip at that
season, and you were especially fortunate in having so smooth a
passage of the straits at Dover. Minnie is beginning to figure on
her trip to Italy, and is already in communication with General
and Mrs. Graham at Florence. I suppose she will go there in
February, and I hope a month or so there will satisfy her, and
then she will turn toward Switzerland. I think she has secured
the services of a most excellent French maid, who will enable her
to travel with great ease and comfort. At this distance I cannot
well advise her, and think it best to let her shape her own
course.
“All things in Washington remain as you left them. A little more
visiting and more dinners, and this will continue till after the
inauguration of the 4th of March, when we will settle down to our
chronic state again.
“I propose to remain quietly at home till the North Pacific Road
has progressed far enough to justify me in crossing the continent
by that line.
“Give my best love to your wife, and believe me always, your
friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
* * * * *
“WASHINGTON, D. C., March 7, 1873.
“DEAR BYERS: I have your letter of Feb. 11, and can see you and
your little family settled down in your quaint home by Zurich’s
fair waters.
“We have letters from Minnie at Florence, and she is now with
our old friends, General and Mrs. Graham, and we feel absolute
confidence. She says they go to Rome about the 1st of March,
and she proposes to spend March and April there and at Naples,
and their project is to go to Vienna via Venice and Trieste. It
certainly will be a happy incident if you can go along and take
her to Zurich. I am afraid she will find less time to settle
down to her French studies and music at Zurich than she first
proposed. But let time settle that. She is now on the right
track, and will have her whole summer to put in in the Swiss
cantons. There is no good reason why she should come home till
October.
“We have just got through the ceremonies of inauguration, and, as
all the papers are filled with it, I feel certain you will get
some by telegraph, and the whole details by the New York papers.
Thus far no changes have been made in the Consular or Foreign
appointments. The senate is in extra session, and if General
Grant proposes to make any material changes he must do so within
a few days, but of this you will also learn by telegraph. He
surely keeps his council well, as his most intimate friends do
not know his purpose.
“I think the Washington bonds are good, as the debt is limited to
ten per cent of the aggregate value of taxable property.
“Master Cumpy still flourishes, and asks innumerable questions of
Europe, Asia and America. At present rate he will know geography
before he reads.
“Present my kindest regards to your good wife, and believe me
always anxious to hear from you and to serve you. Sincerely,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
CHAPTER IX
1873
LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--LOSS OF THE “ATLANTIC”--THE BOYHOOD
HOME OF NAPOLEON III. AND OF HIS MOTHER, QUEEN HORTENSE--
A COMPANION TELLS OF THE PRINCE’S PRANKS AND STUDIES--
JOSEPHINE’S HARP--ARENABERG FULL OF NAPOLEON RELICS--WE HAVE
A LONG INTERVIEW WITH THE EX-EMPRESS EUGENIE--LETTER FROM
GENERAL SHERMAN--SPEAKS OF THIERS.
_May Day, 1873._--The terrible wreck of the White Star Liner
“Atlantic,” took place two weeks since. Five hundred souls lost. I had
secured passage for our young friend, Hirzel. He writes how he clung
to the rigging that cold morning, and witnessed poor human beings
gradually freezing, letting loose their hold, and dropping from the
rigging down into the sea. He was almost the last one taken off on to
the rocks.
General Sherman speaks of this disaster, as well as of the Modoc war:
“WASHINGTON, D. C., April 24, 1873.
“DEAR BYERS: Your last letter came promptly, and I have sent it
out to Mrs. Sherman, who is on a visit to Ohio, and, of course,
demands prompt notice of everything concerning Minnie. We get
from her letters regularly and promptly, the last being dated
at Castellamare, near Naples. She seemed unusually well, and
said she would soon return to Rome, and then begin her northward
progress. The Grahams will probably move slower than she wants
to, and she will probably catch a favorable opportunity to reach
you in Switzerland. I advise her to take this course; get near
you, and then maneuver from that as her base for the summer. She
does not seem very anxious to go to Vienna, though I advise it
for no other reason than to see the Fair and the city, and also
to see the family of our Minister, Mr. Jay. I want her to come
home in September or October, and to arrange for her passage
as early as possible, for there will be a rush in the autumn
westward. Notwithstanding the loss of the ‘Atlantic,’ I have not
lost faith in the White Star Line. It was not the fault of the
ship that she was foundered on the rock at a twelve-mile speed.
No ship could stand that; still, if she is afraid, then the
Cunard Line will be preferable.
“Our spring has been very backward, indeed, but the trees are
trying now to blossom and to leaf. The grass is very green, and I
hope that winter is past. The President is away at the West and
the Secretary of War in Texas, so times here are dull, although
we find the Indians are trying their annual spring business; not
very peaceful. You will have heard of the killing of General
Canby, and the treacherous conduct of the Modocs. I hope the
last one of them will be hunted out of their rocks and killed.
I have not heard of the actual coming of Mr. Rublee, but notice
that Consul Upton of Geneva has been named as chargé during his
(Rublee’s) absence. If I hear of his resignation, I will endeavor
to remind the President of your claims, but must warn you that
against political combinations I find my influence very weak.
“Present me kindly to Mrs. Byers, and, believe me, truly your
friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
The home of Queen Hortense, Napoleon’s stepdaughter, is on the Rhine,
only a couple of hours’ ride from Zurich. One of our delightful
excursions was to go and see the falls at Schaffhausen, and then
take a little steamer up the river to “Arenaberg,” the beautiful
chateau where the Queen lived for twenty years, and where she died.
Here, too, her son, Napoleon III., lived, as a youth. In the stable
building, close to the chateau, were his sleeping-rooms and study.
Louis Napoleon once said he would rather be a fine country gentleman
than Emperor of France. He got his tastes for the beautiful in nature
in this boyhood home. The chateau sits above the Rhine, with beautiful
hills behind it, and the historic lake of Constance close by. It is
on Swiss territory, and is a spot of perfect loveliness. It is the
one spot where Napoleon’s days were all happy days, and the one spot
where Queen Hortense led a happy life. The scene is so perfectly
enchanting, any one, not burdened with a crown, should find delight
in just existing there. The Queen’s room, in the upper corner of the
villa and overlooking the river and the lake, and with ravishing vistas
beyond, is just as she left it at her death. There are her harp and her
paint-brushes and her table. In this room she wrote the famous song of
“Partant Pour la Syrie,” that moved all France. Walter Scott translated
it into exquisite English.
[Illustration: Napoleon III.--_Page 81._]
[Illustration: Empress Eugenie.--_Page 81._]
I went often to Constance, and among my acquaintances was one who had
been a boyhood friend of the Emperor. It was Dr. J. Marmor, a retired
linen merchant in the town. He still corresponded with France’s
ex-ruler, for Sedan’s day was over, as was the terrible scene in that
little farmhouse by Donghery. Dr. Marmor showed me his letters from
Napoleon, and gave me the wax impress of his private seal from one,
together with some writing of the Emperor’s.
No one in Constance will forget the day when Napoleon, at the height
of his power, came from Paris, to visit the home of his childhood.
What grand preparations there were, what decorations, banners,
bands, cannon; what a gilded equipage, for the Emperor to head the
procession in! Suddenly the train whistle shrieks. “The Emperor! The
Emperor!” cries the crowd, as he descends to the carpeted platform.
The big, gilded carriage and the flunkies wait. “Where is my friend,
Dr. Marmor?” asks the Emperor. He is sitting out there, in his old,
one-horse buggy, looking at the scene, hoping for just a glance
at Napoleon, as he will pass among the self-appointed bigwigs and
flunkies. Suddenly the Emperor sees him, grasps him by the hand, and,
springing into the old buggy, cries: “Drive on. To-day I ride with
Marmor.” Then Marmor’s one-horse chaise, with nobody in it but the
Emperor and himself, heads the procession through the city. At first,
everybody stared, and then everybody cheered. Marmor, in five minutes,
had become the first man in Constance. That incident has been his pride
ever since.
When I called on him, and told him I wanted to write for a magazine
something about Napoleon’s boyhood, he gave himself wholly to my
service, went with me everywhere, and told of a hundred frolics he and
the young prince had had in the neighborhood. Prince Napoleon would
have been a poor secretary for the Y. M. C. A. He was an awfully fast
boy, according to one who “had been there” and knew all about it. Some
other old folks whom I met in Constance, knew things also peppery to
relate, were they more than big pranks, or worth the writing down.
Hortense’s chateau is two miles or so outside the town. “Many a time,”
said Marmor, “after half a night’s frolic with a few of us here in
town, have I galloped with him out home, yelling half the way. It must
have been the beer. When we got there, I slept till morning with him
in the barn, the place where he had his study. He studied, too, spite
of his fastness,” said the doctor. “How he read books! just as people
nowadays read newspapers. He read everything, and he remembered it
all. He was a generous soul, too; everybody said that. He was a famous
youth for his kindness to the poor, just like his mother; only she
was better. What a swimmer he was, what a wrestler, what a horseman,
what a rake! As to horses,” the doctor went on, “why it was a common
habit of his to mount, not by the stirrup, but by a single bound over
the crupper and into the saddle.” It is curious now to know that Louis
Napoleon once was a captain of militia here, and also a member of the
school board. “Bismarck never hatched out more schemes in Berlin, than
the young prince did out there in the barn, over the horses. In his
mind’s eye, he was Emperor of France a dozen times out there. I guess
all men do that, who have ambition,” continued the doctor, “and he
was the most ambitious boy I ever knew. But nobody thought he had any
chance for anything.”
The attendants showed us all the rooms in the Queen’s villa. Here, in
the upper east corner, is the one she died in, in 1837. The sun comes
into it, and it has enchanting views. At the end of the room stands,
not only her harp, but, near by it, the harp of Josephine. The villa
is full of souvenirs of the great Napoleon, too; the clock that stood
still the night he died at St. Helena; swords, banners, presents from
kings, etc. In the garden, in a chapel, is a white marble figure of
Hortense, kneeling before the altar. It is one of the beautiful things
of Europe.
The Empress Eugenie comes here summers. No wonder; all is so
enchanting. All except the memories. Right over there, almost in sight,
on an island in the lake, is a castle, the summer home of the old
German Emperor, who crushed out her husband’s life. Greatness must all
be paid for.
* * * * *
What we had seen, made us now the more anxious to see the ex-Empress
herself. Sometimes she was here at the chateau; oftener, at the little
watering place of Baden, half an hour from Zurich.
Our chance came. Miss Sherman, the daughter of General Sherman, was
visiting for a month at our home by the lake (July and August, 1873).
She was a good Catholic, and her mother was the only American woman on
whom the Pope had conferred the order of the “Golden Rose.” Eugenie,
also, was a zealous Catholic. Would she receive the daughter of General
Sherman, and the Consul and his wife? The Duke Bassano arranged it all.
“Her majesty will receive you on Tuesday morning, at ten o’clock,”
said a little perfumed note in French. We were not so sure of our
Gallic verbs and pronouns; still, we could speak some French, and
would risk the visit. Tuesday morning found us in our best toilettes,
waiting in a little anteroom, at the annex of the Hotel in Baden. It
was a simple enough old stone house, half of it built by the Romans,
in the times when they, too, came to these springs for their aches
and pains. In a few minutes, the friendly old Duke Bassano came in to
announce that all was ready. Major Cunningham and his wife were with
us. “And how shall we address her,” we innocently inquired of the Duke,
remembering that the Emperor was dead, and France a republic. “Oh, as
her majesty, of course, only as her majesty.” He opened the door to a
small, simply furnished sitting-room, and we entered. Almost at the
same moment, Eugenie entered from an adjoining apartment. She walked
to the center of the room, took each of us by the hand, and bade us a
cordial welcome. She was dressed in full black, partly décolleté and
trimmed with some white lace. She motioned us to some chairs arranged
in a semi-circle, in front of a little divan. On this sofa she seated
herself, and possibly never looked more beautiful on the throne of
France.
“And now what language shall we speak in?” she smilingly asked in
the most perfect English. “Your majesty’s perfect accomplishment in
our own tongue, settles that,” one of our party answered. “Good. Oh,
yes, I learned English in school, you know, after I left Madrid as a
girl; and my master was Scotch; and then I lived a time in London,
too. I like the English, and I like the English people; but I like
the American people just as well, only I never knew why your country
kept slaves, and had no respect for black people. I am sure color
makes no difference, if it is only a good man. Would you not invite a
black man to your table? I am sure I would, and did; and once, when a
diplomat who was dining with me also, objected a little to my courtesy
to a ‘negro,’ as he called him, I gave him quickly to understand that
possibly the negro was better than he was.”
Then she talked to Miss Sherman (now Mrs. Fitch) about her mother, of
whose Catholic zeal and perpetual charity to the poor she had heard so
much.
To each one in turn she addressed some pertinent word, and then,
laughing, turned to me as a representative of my country, and exclaimed
numerous things not very complimentary to our system of high tariff.
“Why, we make the most beautiful things in the world in Paris; you
Americans all say so, and yet you won’t let your people buy them
without paying twice what they are worth, by your fearful custom-house
rules.
“Americans are so clever; they ought to know they hurt their own
people, and they hurt us in Paris, too. Our poor work for such small
wages, and would always be happy, if you would only let them sell to
you; and, after all, your rich importers just add your tariff fees on
to the price of our goods, and who has the benefit?”
I answered: “Ours is a prosperous country, with our protective tariff
system.” “Yes, I know, in _spite_ of your tariff. I have heard that, a
hundred times. Some day, you will be just like us, and get where you
can get the cheapest. You don’t think making things dear helps anybody,
do you?” Politeness prevented much discussion. It was all one way.
Besides, was it not to hear her talk, not ourselves, that we were there?
She went back to the black man, or the black woman rather. “I had a
good laugh on my dear husband, the Emperor, once. He lived in your
country awhile, you know, and he was always fancying your pretty women.
One day at New Orleans he saw a beautiful female form ahead of him in
the street. It was all grace of movement, and elegance of apparel. He
was struck by the figure. I think he was half in love. ‘I must see
her face,’ he exclaimed to his companion. ‘I must see her. She is my
divinity, running away.’ He hurried his pace, passed her, and the
moment politeness would permit, glanced back. It was a ‘mulatto.’ I
don’t think he always regarded black people quite in the light I did.”
Shortly we proposed to go, though she made no sign that the interview
was at an end. “No,” she said. “Wait; I have leisure, nothing but
leisure and rheumatism.” But she had no rheumatic look; a more
charming-looking woman of fifty, I never saw. Her bright eyes were as
blue as the sky, her complexion exceeding fair, her hair still golden,
her vivacity of manner and cleverness of speech surprising beyond
measure; and then her kindness made us feel that we were talking with a
friend. All of us were led on to say much, and the visit lasted for two
hours. Much of the talk was about Switzerland and health resorts, and
so much at random as not to be remembered or noted down.
When at last we arose to go, she again came to the middle of the room
and took us each by the hand. And then I asked her a word about her
future plans. “There are none,” she said. “All is over. I have only
my son, and he and I will spend our lives in quiet and peace.” Alas!
only a few years went by and that son was lying dead in an African
cornfield, his body pierced by Zulu lances.
* * * * *
In June General Sherman has written again about Miss S.’s travels, and
also something about the French Republic, and the Modoc War:
“WASHINGTON, D. C., June 9, 1873.
“DEAR BYERS: I am just in receipt of your letter of May 20. Mr.
Rublee was here not long since en route for Rome, and from what
he said I think he has made no business arrangements, and that he
will stay there his full term.
“We have letters from Minnie up to May 20, at Rome, at which time
she had joined the Healys, and will accompany them to Venice,
Milan, Nice and Pau, France, a route that takes her well away
from Zurich, but she begs to be allowed to remain abroad longer,
say till next spring, so as to enable her to have more time to
stay with you and to visit England and Ireland. I suppose she
ought to reach Switzerland in July or August and stay with you
a month or more. I have given her my consent, and hope before
she reaches you you will have all our letters on the subject. If
she stays beyond October, she had better not attempt a winter
passage, but wait till April or May. This will make a long visit,
but I suppose it will be the only chance she will ever have, and
she might as well profit by it.
“Mrs. Sherman did intend to take the family to Carlisle for the
summer, but the season is so pleasant here that she has almost
concluded to remain at home and make short excursions. So that we
will be here in Washington all summer.
“I rather like the change in France, and I think General McMahon
will make a better president than Thiers, for he can keep out of
the corps legislatif, which Thiers could not do. If France can
stand a republic she must endure such presidents as time offers.
It is easier to get a good president than a good dynasty.
“Our Modoc war is over, and soon the principal chiefs will be
hung by due course of law (military), and the balance of the
tribe will be dispersed among other tribes easily watched. We
always have something of this sort every spring. Give my best
love to Mrs. Byers, and believe me always your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
CHAPTER X
1873
THE SOURCE OF THE RHINE--STRANGE VILLAGES THERE--A REPUBLIC
FOUR HUNDRED YEARS OLD--THE “GRAY LEAGUE”--“THE LEAGUE OF THE
HOUSE OF GOD”--LOUIS PHILIPPE’S HIDING PLACE--A TOUR IN THE
VALLEY OF THE INN--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--REGRETS HIS
CAREER SEEMS OVER.
This summer we determined to see the source of the River Rhine. For all
that tourists seemed to know, it was only a mist among the clouds. It
was far away in the upper and unfrequented Alps. We went on foot, and
found all the upper Rhine scenery ten times as grand as anything below
Schaffhausen and the Falls. Except the classic scenery from Bingen to
Coblenz no scene there is to be at all compared with a hundred places
on the Rhine, among the Swiss Alps. What is called the German Rhine,
is far less striking. It is the Swiss Rhine, far above where it flows
through Lake Constance, that is truly picturesque. At Chur, we turned
to the right, into the mountains, and followed up the branch known as
the “Vorder Rhine.”
Every morning at the sunrise, we were trudging along the way with our
knapsacks and staffs, with the wildest mountain scenery all about
us. We passed many ruins of castles, and numerous picturesque little
villages--Reichenau, Ilianz, Trois, Disentis.
We always rested a few hours in the middle of the day, slept awhile,
and had simple dinners of trout and bread, with honey and wine.
[Illustration: Rich Peasant’s House.--_Page 89._]
Right and left the scenery is gorgeous, certainly, but this grand
nature is also man’s enemy in these higher Alps. Flood and avalanche
are forever threatening; the fields produce little, the villages are
poor and wretched, and we ask ourselves, why do people seek such places
to live in?
The answer is, they can’t get away; they are too poor. Besides, here
is where their ancestors lived always; why should they not live here,
too, they answer. Years later, a girl from one of these places came
and lived in our home as a domestic; but she was forever lamenting her
mountains and her wretched village, spite of the fact that it had been
three times overwhelmed by avalanches. That was the town of Selva.
Near to this Selva, is the hamlet of Gesten, and there eighty-four
souls were lost by an avalanche in a single night. The big grave
containing them all was shown to us, outside of the village.
Tourists who travel by coach and railway in Switzerland, have little
conception of what real, Swiss, Alpine scenery or Alpine life is like.
It is just judging the moon by looking through a telescope. Life in
these almost unknown valleys, differs from all the rest of Switzerland.
Here the commune is the government. Of national laws, or presidents and
parliaments, the people know nothing. The village mayor is the king.
Not many years ago, these mayors and their village advisers in the
Vorder Rhine countries, could hang men and women of their own accord.
The people are a species of Italian and speak an Italian dialect. Five
hundred years ago, they had petty republics up here. Here were the
“Gray League,” the “Ten Jurisdictions” and the “House of God.”
In 1396, the liberty-loving people of the high Rhine valleys fought
for liberty, and founded a little nation called Rhaetia, that lasted
four hundred years, when it became united to Switzerland. Ilanz, their
old capital, stands here still, a novel picture of past ages. The
snow-capped mountains, the fine forests, the picturesque river Rhine,
are there as they were then, and the sons and daughters of these old
liberty athletes have changed almost as little as the scene of their
fathers.
We walked on to Selva and spent the night. I could have thought myself
living among Roman peasants in the time of Julius Cæsar. Everything
was antique, simple, different from the nineteenth century. Corn grows
up there, but the people live mostly from their flocks. I noticed the
men wore earrings, and men and women, with their ruddy, brown faces
and black hair, look like a better class of Southern gipsies. They
have almost no books, few schools, and only a single newspaper in the
whole valley. No human being, outside of the Upper Rhine, would think
of calling that journal a newspaper. The houses are built of hewn logs,
turned brown as a Cincinnati ham, and the clapboard roofs are held on
by big stones.
Spite of their surroundings, these peasants and villagers are happy,
and sing and dance as did their ancestors on the plains of Tuscany.
They fear the avalanches every night. They call them “The White Death,”
and look on them as sent by spirits.
They know little, and care less, about what is going on in the world,
and would give more to wake up any morning, and find a new kid or lamb
born, than to hear of the discovery of a new continent. Their only
ambition is to get their cribs full for the winter, and at last to mix
their bones with the dust of their fathers, beyond the village church.
Near to one of these villages, and farther down the valley, is the tiny
lake of “Tama,” and there the river Rhine begins. The natives here
call it “_Running Water_.” The stream is dark and green, and the lake
is surrounded by dreary rocks and ice-clad mountains. It is 7,690 feet
above the sea. Tourists on the palace steamers of the Rhine, down by
the sands of Holland, should see the historic river at its cradle, if
they would have memories to last forever.
We followed another branch of the Rhine that joins this one at
Reichenau. It, too, is born among the grand mountain scenes, and sweeps
through deep gorges, among them the famous Via Mala. Here at Reichenau,
too, is the first bridge over the united Rhine. It is of wood, eighty
feet high and 238 feet long, in a single arch.
Near it, we were shown a little, old castle that has become historic.
There was a school kept there upon a time. One October evening of 1793,
a wandering pilgrim, with a pack on his back, knocked at the door and
begged the old schoolmaster to give him work. He could cipher and talk
French, and write a decent hand. For many months, the humble stranger
helped to teach the boys, and earned his daily bread. No one troubled
himself to find out who he was. He signed his name Chabourd Latour.
One evening, the boys saw the undermaster in tears. He was reading a
newspaper, wherein was the account of his father’s being beheaded on a
Paris scaffold. The secret of the poor teacher was soon out. It was not
Latour, but Louis Philippe, a coming king of France. He had wandered
everywhere in disguise, for after his escape from banishment, no nation
had dared give him a resting place.
This little Rhine valley had no more romantic story.
* * * * *
One evening after we were back at Zurich a kindly faced gentleman
called at the consulate. The fatal card hung on the door, “Office
closed till 9 to-morrow.” I was in the court below, with just ten
minutes between me and train time. I was to hurry out home to a party
by the lake. I saw the look of disappointment on the man’s face, and
something told me I ought to stop. The gentleman was a traveling
American. Some papers of importance had to be signed by him immediately
before a consul. Of course I missed the party, but I made a friend. It
was Mr. A. D. Jessup, a Philadelphia millionaire. He lingered about
Zurich a few days, and we met and talked together often. Sometimes
we had our lunch and beer together at the famous little café Orsini.
Then Mr. Jessup said good-by and left on his travels. A month from
then a telegram came from him at Paris. It was an invitation to be his
guest on a ten days’ drive in the Austrian Tyrol, with a wind-up at
the World’s Fair in Vienna. He was a friend of President Grant’s, the
message continued, and he could arrange for my leave of absence.
A few mornings later a four-horse carriage halted by the consulate
and we started for the Engadine, that lofty Alpine valley that is
coursed for a hundred miles by the river Inn. This is not a valley of
desolation. It is broad and productive, and once had many people and
a little government of its own. To-day there are pretty villages at
long distances and Insbruck is a picturesque and historic town. But
the Inn valley is sky high compared with other rich valleys of Europe.
We had bright sunshine and a delicious mountain air all the way. The
Inn is rapid and beautiful, and right and left, for twenty miles at a
stretch, rise high green hills, or else abrupt and lofty mountains,
with sometimes bold and almost perpendicular crags. If we saw a rock
that looked extraordinarily picturesque, away up toward the blue sky,
there were sure to be also there the romantic ruins of some old castle.
It seemed that we passed a hundred of these lofty ruins, with broken
towers and fallen walls, through whose tall arches we sometimes saw
patches of blue sky. Eagles soared around many of these lofty and
deserted ruins. As we two drove for miles and miles along the white
winding road by the river we constantly looked up at the romantic
heights, and in our minds re-peopled the gray old castles and thought
of the time, a thousand years ago, when all the peasantry of the rich
valley were the serfs of masters who reveled in these castles built
with the toil of the poor. A time came when the enslaved rose and all
these castles were overthrown or burned and left as they are to-day.
There are ruins high up above this Inn valley that, doubtless, have not
been visited by a human footstep in a hundred years. Most of them are
inaccessible. The former roads cut up the rocky mountain sides to them,
are gone and forgotten, and the heights with their awful ridges against
the sky look as desolate as the desert.
We closed our delightful journey with a visit to the World’s Fair
at Vienna. Barring the Swiss National Exhibition, I have never seen
anything so fine.
On my return I found this letter from General Sherman waiting me. In
it, he expresses regret that his active career seems over:
“WASHINGTON, D. C., July 14, 1873.
“DEAR BYERS: I received your letter some days ago and sent it
from my office to the house, for the perusal of Mrs. Sherman,
therefore it is not before me now. I take it for granted that
Minnie is, or must be, at Zurich or near there. Since she has
been traveling from Italy her letters have been less frequent,
and I fear some of our letters to her have miscarried, or been
delayed. It is now pretty well determined that she will remain
over the winter, so that she will have plenty of time to see
all things that can be of interest. I hope that she will give
Switzerland a good long visit, and that from there she will
make the excursions that are so convenient. We all write to her
often, so she must feel perfectly easy on our behalf. Instead of
going to Carlisle, as Mrs. S. first intended, the family have
remained here in Washington, and I see no cause to regret it,
for we have had but little oppressive weather, and our house is
so large and airy that I doubt if any change would be for the
better. Of course, all the fashionable people, including most of
the officers, have gone to the seashore or mountains, so that
Washington is comparatively dull, but the many changes here in
the streets, and abundance of flowing water have added much to
the comfort of those who remain and can’t get away.
“Elly and Rachel, the two smaller girls, who were at school
when you were here, are now at home, and are busy all day with
their companions, playing croquet in our yard. Tom is putting
in his vacation by riding horseback with two of his companions
up through Pennsylvania. At last date he was near Altoona, and
will be gone all of July and part of August. I suppose the
return of Minister Rublee to his post has disappointed you, but
you must have patience and do well that which is appointed for
you, leaving for time that advancement which all ambitious men
should aim for. I sometimes regret that I am at the end of my
rope, for it is an old saying that there is more real pleasure
in the pursuit than in reaching the goal. Although you may hear
of cholera in this country, I assure you that it is not serious.
I suppose the same is true of Europe, though it is reported the
Shah of Persia declined to visit Vienna on account of cholera. I
think Minnie ought to visit Vienna, if only for a week, to see
that really beautiful city, and to visit Mr. Jay’s family. My
best love to Mrs. Byers. Truly your friend,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
CHAPTER XI
1874
SHERMAN ON CUBA--VISIT ITALY--GARIBALDI’S WONDERFUL RECEPTION
AT ROME--THE ARTIST FREEMAN--FIRST AMERICAN PAINTER TO LIVE
IN ROME--ROME IN 1840--SEE VICTOR EMMANUEL--JOAQUIN MILLER--
HIS CONVERSATION AND APPEARANCE--NEW SWISS CONSTITUTION--
MORE LETTERS FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--TOO MANY COMMANDERS IN
WASHINGTON FOR HIM--WILL GO TO ST. LOUIS--HIS VIEWS OF WAR
HISTORIES.
A hint once that if I preferred to be in the Army instead of the
Consular service the matter could be arranged, led me to think of one
of the Paymasterships then being created by Congress. The General wrote
me as to these plans. His letter has value only because of the prophecy
as to Cuba.
“WASHINGTON, D. C., Nov. 28, 1873.
“DEAR BYERS:--I was very glad to get your letter of November 12th
this morning, as it reminds me of a duty neglected to write you,
renewing my thanks to you for your extreme kindness to Minnie.
She arrived home about the 1st of November perfectly well, and
she has been quietly at home ever since. The winter season is
about to begin, and she must do her share in society. We begin
to-night by a large reception at Mr. Fish’s, and I suppose must
keep it up through the winter. I suppose that Mr. Rublee will
remain where he is, and the Department regarding you as fixed,
will not voluntarily promote you to a larger Consulate.
“As to the Army, things are somewhat confused. There is a law
forbidding any appointments or promotions in the staff corps and
Departments, including the Paymasters. Of these there are for
duty about forty-seven, and I understand the Paymaster-General,
Alvord, says he must have fifty-three to do the necessary work.
And in his annual report to be submitted to Congress next Monday
he will ask for that number, and I believe the Secretary of War
and the President both approve, but for these six places there
are more than a hundred conspicuous applicants. Yet I will
submit your letter, or so much of it as refers to that subject,
to General Belknap, who knows you and whose recommendation will
be conclusive. Of course I, too, will endorse. But don’t build
any castles on this, for I know what a rush there will be on the
first symptom of Congress opening the subject. Everybody here is
on the qui vive for Cuba, but I don’t get excited, for I believe
the diplomatists will settle it, but sooner or later Cuba will
cause trouble in that quarter. I will give your message to Mrs.
Sherman, to Lizzie, Minnie, etc., and will always be glad to hear
such good news of the baby and Mrs. Byers. Give them my best
love, and believe me,
“Truly, etc.,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
_March, 1874._--Went to Italy for a month, via the Mont Ceni. I was
surprised at the beauty of the river boulevard in Pisa, for travelers
rarely mention it. To my mind, it is finer than the Lung Arno of
Florence. Besides, it is something to see a big bridge made wholly of
marble.
The one man of all men in Italy I hoped to see, was Garibaldi, the
Ulysses of the modern world.
He was not to be seen; but I tried to console myself by looking over to
his little island of Caprera, near the Sardinian coast. Dumas’ Life of
Garibaldi set my mind on fire with the story of this man. My inn-keeper
at Naples, too, had been with the patriot in all his campaigns.
Listening to him talk was as entertaining as reading Homer.
[Illustration: Garibaldi.--_Page 96._]
[Illustration: King Victor Emmanuel.--_Page 96._]
The scene, when Garibaldi came to Rome from the solitude of his little
island, to enter parliament the next year, was worthy the brush of
a great artist. The Italy that he had made, and presented to Victor
Emmanuel, had seemed to have forgotten the old man of Caprera. He
was feeble and poor and rheumatic. Suddenly all Italy, _his_ Italy,
remembered him. The King sent a gilded chariot drawn by six white
horses, to take him through the streets of Rome. As the old cripple,
wearing his Garibaldi mantle, limped into the Parliament house, every
member rose to do him honor. I would rather have been Garibaldi in Rome
that day, than to have been Cæsar, riding along the same streets, with
slaves and subjugated peoples in his train.
_March 5._--Looked at numbers of the historic Roman palaces. The one
that affected me most was the dingy and neglected old building in the
Ghetto, where the Cenci lived. This immense and half-empty pile, in an
obscure part of Rome, would attract nobody, save for the story of a
beautiful girl, immortalized by the pencil of Guido Reni. All the time
I was within the building, my mind was on a scene in a prison, where
this same girl hung in torments before her cruel tormentors, crying to
be let down, and she “would tell it all”--the killing of her own father.
And then came that morning before daylight, the morning of her
execution. Herself and an artist are in a cell. A little candle burns,
the executioners wait outside the door, and Guido Reni, to make her
picture striking, drapes a sheet about her head and shoulders, while
all the time she is waiting there for death. Saddest tale of Rome!
Next morning I called at the American Legation. Mr. W----, the
secretary, affected the utmost ignorance and indifference as to who I
was, or whether my card would finally reach Mr. Marsh, our Minister.
I asked him to hand the card back to me, and walked over to the
Rospigliosi palace, where Mr. Marsh promptly received me, and in the
kindest manner. I was in the presence of a statesman and a scholar--not
a snob.
Mr. Marsh had followed the Italian court all about Italy--to Turin,
Florence, Rome. He stood high in the estimation of the Italian court
and foreign diplomats. His genius and scholarship were now casting
luster on the American name.
“Don’t tell anybody at home what a palace I live in,” he said to me,
jocosely. “They will think me an aristocrat over there, whereas I am
the plainest of republicans. Here in Rome a palace is just as cheap as
anything. Everybody lives in a palace here.”
In another part of the palace, I saw Guido’s great picture of Aurora.
I noticed the mark of the French cannon ball that went through it when
Garibaldi was defending Rome.
Bought a copy of Guido’s Cenci, and then went and looked at the Angelo
bridge, where they cut off the head of Beatrice.
I went often to Mr. Freeman’s studio. He was the first American painter
to live in Rome. He was, too, the first U.S. Consul to Italy, and he it
was who protected Margaret Fuller, on a time, from the danger of a mob.
It was at the time the French forced their way into Rome. He planted
the Stars and Stripes on her balcony, and the mob fell back. That was
in 1849.
Freeman painted a picture for me that has inspired a poem by J.
Buchanan Read. It was “The Princess.” The model was a blonde, with hair
like gold. Freeman corrected my notion that there were no blondes in
Italy. There are many, just as there were in the time of the earlier
masters. Yellow was Titian’s favorite color.
Freeman told me much of Rome, as it was when he first went there, in
1840. He lived there under three popes, Gregory, Pius IX and Leo XIII.
Rome was entirely different from to-day. The houses had open entrances,
or, where there were doors, they swung outward to the street, like
American barn doors. There were almost no sidewalks, and the few seen
were only wide enough for one person. The streets were dimly lighted by
occasional oil lamps, great distances apart. Of course, assassination
in such streets was of common occurrence. The water spouts of the
houses were so projected as to empty themselves in cataracts on the
heads of passers-by.
The pavements were made of cobble stones, that had to be covered with
straw or earth when the Pope went abroad in his grandeur.
The city was full of foreign artists, along in the fifties, as now.
Among them were Crawford and Greenough, Story and _West_, whom Byron
called “_Europe’s worst painter and poor England’s best_.”
The fact is, West was a Pennsylvania Quaker, though he became King
George’s court artist, and at last got buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
I went often to the Vatican, not to see the palace itself, for that
impressed me not at all, or only as a great and miscellaneous pile,
but to see a certain picture there. The artist who made it was but
thirty-seven years old when he died. Yet, it has been said that in the
“Transfiguration” one sees “the last perfection of art.” This picture
seems to be one of those things that no one ever thinks to try to
emulate. Like the Iliad and Paradise Lost, nothing of their kind came
before them, and nothing is looked for to follow them.
One morning I was drinking my coffee in a little den in the Via
Condotti. A very singular-looking man came in and sat down at the
little table next to mine. Hearing me speak English with a friend, he
addressed me. “You are the Consul at Zurich, are you not? You were
pointed out to me the other day in the street. I am Joaquin Miller of
California. Let us get acquainted.” I moved my chair and coffee over
to his table. I was greatly gratified at meeting a poet who seemed to
me to have some of the genius of Byron. His “Songs of the Sierras”
have the ring of the master. Last summer I read them in Switzerland.
Their freshness, their flavor of the prairie and the mountain, their
passionate utterance, took me by storm. What the English said of him,
in their extravagant joy at “discovering” a live genius in the wilds of
the United States, did not affect me, it was the stirring passion of
the verse itself. The buffalo, the Indian scout, the burning prairie,
the people of the desert, the women with bronzed arms and palpitating
hearts, the men in sombreros, with brave lives, and love worth the
dying for--that was what he was writing about, and they were all alive
before me.
Sitting here at the little white marble table of an Italian café, he
seemed all out of place. There was nothing in the surroundings of which
this half-wild looking poet-scout of the prairies was a part. His
yellow locks, flashing blue eyes, stormy face, athletic form, careless
dress, and broad-brimmed hat on the floor by his feet, all told of
another kind of life.
Much of his talk was cynical in the extreme. He was ridiculing
everything, everybody, even himself, and he looked about him as if
constantly thinking to grab his hat, bound for the door, and rush over
the Tiber with a yell. He hated restraint of any kind whatever--dress,
custom, language.
Miller was now writing in some little attic in Rome, but none of his
friends knew where. He would not tell them; he wanted to be alone.
A boy brought us the morning journal, and we talked of newspapers. I
asked him what English and American papers he read. He smiled, and
answered ironically: “When I want _seriousness_, I read the London
_Punch_, and for _truth_, I take the New York _Herald_.”
There was no talk that morning with him about poetry, but he was jocose
and cynical.
He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was getting ready to try my
hand at a drama. “Don’t do it--all damned nonsense!” he cried. “Dramas
worth anything are not wanted, and if you write in blank verse, as you
say you propose, not one actor in five hundred knows how to recite the
lines. It must be _mighty plain prose_ for these wind sawyers.”
Just then a tall, fine looking young man came and sat down by our
table. Mr. Miller nudged me, and whispered, “Bingen on the Rhine.”
“That is young Norton, son of the woman who wrote ‘Bingen on the
Rhine.’” I looked at him with interest; but he was English, and I was a
stranger, so conversation at that particular table suddenly stopped.
It was on this visit to Rome that I often saw Victor Emmanuel, Italy’s
first King. Every Sunday afternoon he drove on the Pincian Hill. The
extreme Catholics of Rome, the Pope’s party, paid him little or no
attention, and scarcely greeted him when he passed; but all the rest
of Rome and all Italy nearly worshiped the “Re Galantuomo.” He was a
stout, dark looking man, with black eyes and a mustache like a horse’s
mane. He was fifty-six years old then, and had been twelve years King
of Sardinia, and sixteen years King of Italy.
At this time our Minister, Mr. Marsh, arranged to have a friend and
myself presented to Pope Pius IX, but a sudden attack of Roman fever
deprived me of the pleasure.
Two men have existed in my life-time whom I should have given much
to know,--Mr. Gladstone and Abraham Lincoln. Once I was a bearer of
dispatches to Mr. Lincoln, but illness led me to hurry away, after
giving the trust to General Grant. It has been the regret of my life
that I missed grasping the hand of, possibly, the greatest man that
ever lived.
BACK IN SWITZERLAND. Great excitement on this May Day, 1874, for on the
19th of last month, by a popular vote, the people changed the Swiss
Constitution. Instead of twenty-two little cantons, doing just as they
pleased, they will now have a centralized republic, more like the
United States.
Some interesting features of the new Swiss system are these: The
President is chosen for but a year, and can not succeed himself in
office. No military surrender is allowed. The post and telegraph and
telephone belong to the government, which also controls all railroads
and owns some. Schools are free and compulsory. Salt and gunpowder
are government monopolies, and factories are under national control
or regulation. Abuse of the freedom of the press may be punished by
the general council. Supreme Court Judges are elected, but from the
legislative body. National laws must be submitted to popular vote if
demanded by 30,000 people. The President must be chosen by the Assembly
from among its own members. Members of the Cabinet have seats and votes
in the Assembly.
_August 18, 1874._--Had a long letter some time since from General
Sherman. He says: “Don’t rely too much on my influence here in
Washington. Privately, we feel here that President Grant has somewhat
gone back on his old friends, in trying to make alliances with new
ones. Besides, I am compelled to endorse a good many on their war
record, and would not like to be found to choose among them.” He also
says that this fall he will probably move to St. Louis. “There are too
many commanding officers here in Washington.”
On the 7th he writes interestingly about the histories of the war.
“WASHINGTON, D. C., August 7, 1874.
“DEAR BYERS:--I was glad to receive your letter of the 19th of
July, and, with you, think the Centennial of Philadelphia will
prove a lamentable failure. Congress will not probably adopt it
as a national affair, and it will degenerate into a mere state or
city affair.
“Economy is now the cry here, and it may be that it is forced on
us by the vast cost of the Civil War, which was bridged over by
paper money, that now calls for interest and principal. As in
former years, the first blow falls on the Army and Navy, that are
treated as mere pensioners, and every cent is begrudged.
“No one who was an actor in the Grand Drama of the Civil War,
seems willing to risk its history. I have endeavored to interest
Members of Congress in the preliminary steps of preparing and
printing in convenient form the official dispatches, but find
great opposition, lest the task should fall on some prejudiced
person who would in the preparation and compilation favor
McClellan or Grant or some one party.
“All histories thus far, of which Draper’s is the best, are based
for facts on the newspaper reports, which were necessarily hasty
and imperfect. Till the official reports are accessible, it would
be unsafe for any one to attempt a narration of events beyond his
personal vision, and no single person saw a tenth part of the
whole. I have some notes of my own part in manuscript, and copies
of all my reports and letters, but am unwilling to have them
printed lest it should involve me in personal controversies.
“Minnie will be married Oct. 1st, and we will all remove to St.
Louis soon thereafter.
“All send you and Mrs. Byers the assurance of their affection.
Believe me always your friend,
“W. T. SHERMAN.”
CHAPTER XII
1875
LETTERS FROM MRS. SHERMAN AND THE GENERAL--HE TELLS ME HE IS
WRITING HIS LIFE--THE NEGRO QUESTION--A CHATEAU BY LAKE
ZURICH--I WRITE A BOOK ON SWITZERLAND--ALSO WRITE A PLAY--
A CITY OF DEAD KINGS--GO TO LONDON--MEET COLONEL FORNEY--
DINNER AT GEO. W. SMALLEY’S--KATE FIELD--VISIT BOUCICAULT--
CONVERSATIONS WITH THE NEWER SHAKESPEARE--THE BEAUTIFUL MINNIE
WALTON--BREAKFAST AT HER HOME--PROF. FICK--HIS HOUSE BUILT
IN THE OLD ROMAN WALL--LECTURES--HOLIDAYS AT THE CONSULATE--
MRS. CONGRESSMAN KELLEY--A STUDENT COMMERS--BEER DRINKING--
DUKES OF THE REPUBLIC--DUELS--LETTER FROM GENERAL SHERMAN--
PRUSSIAN ARMY MANEUVERS.
_March 24, 1875._--Received a welcome and gossipy letter from Mrs.
General Sherman. It reads:
“ST. LOUIS, MO., March 12, 1875.
“MY DEAR MAJOR:--Your welcome letter would have been answered
immediately, but I have not been well. My general health is very
good, but the weather this Winter has been exceptionally cold.
“Minnie and her good husband, with whom she is very happy, live
a few squares from us, and we see them every day; Minnie having
learned to be a great walker, during her sojourn in Europe. We
find our circle of friends and acquaintances very large, and we
find that almost as much time has to be devoted to visiting
here as in Washington. We are delightfully situated in the home
we occupied for several years, before we removed to Washington,
and which belongs to us. We have plenty of spare room for
friends, and shall certainly claim a good, long visit from you
and Mrs. Byers and the children, when you return to your own
country. Should the next Administration be Democratic, that may
not be very long hence. Pray remember that I shall expect you.
“I have seen, and admire very much, your poem on ‘The Sea’ in the
‘Navy Journal.’
“I am very glad you were gratified to receive the pretty copy of
your grand song, ‘When Sherman Marched Down to the Sea.’ I shall
have something else to send you soon. The General’s Memoirs are
in the hands of the publishers, Appleton & Co., of N. Y., and
will be out in May. It will be in two volumes, excellent print,
and I am sure you will find it entertaining. I will see that
you get an early copy. Please write to me when you receive it,
without waiting to read it, because I shall be anxious to know
if it has gone safely. Should you not receive it by the last of
May, let me know. Do not buy a copy, for I wish to send you one.
The book begins in 1846 and extends to the close of the war. The
chapters that I have read are _highly interesting_.
“The General seems to be growing older in appearance, but his
health is good, and his spirits are the same; his vivacity has
not sensibly diminished. To-night he is off to the theater, to
see Charlotte Cushman, who makes her last appearance in St.
Louis to-morrow. We have had a great many attractive actors and
actresses here this Winter, and we have yet in store a greater
treat than all. Ristori is playing in New York and will be here
some time during the Spring. The General and Lizzie both admired
Albani exceedingly, and think her a superior actress to Nielson
and as good a singer. I did not see her, as the weather was bad
and my cold was severe during her stay here.
“St. Louis is a city of great commercial enterprise and has a
wonderful future before her. Perhaps you will select this as a
place of residence on your return home. We would be very glad to
have you here.
“I hope Mrs. Byers and the children are well and that your own
health grows stronger. Lizzie joins me in best love to all. She
and I are alone to-night. Elly and Rachel are away at school,
Minnie in a home of her own, and Cumpsy in bed.
“Believe me very truly and warmly your friend,
“ELLEN EWING SHERMAN.”
I find this in my diary. On returning from Italy, we went over to
“Wangensbach” by Kussnacht, on Lake Zurich, to live for a Summer or
two. Wangensbach is an old chateau, or half castle-place, built by the
Knights of St. John in the long, long ago. The walls are three feet
thick, in places more, and there are all sorts of vaulted wine cellars
and mysterious, walled-in places, under the building. The view from the
windows and terrace, of blue lake and snowy mountains, is superb in the
extreme. The chateau is now owned by Conrad Meyer, the Swiss poet and
novelist. It is six miles to my office in the city, and I walk in and
out daily, though I could go on the pretty steamers for a sixpence.
Here, on a May day, “Baby Hélène” came into the world, to gladden eight
sweet years for us.
[Illustration: Wangensbach.--_Page 106._]
Spite of Joaquin Miller’s prognostications at Rome about plays, I was
foolish enough to go ahead, and write a melodrama in blank verse.
Schultz-Beuthen, a friend of Liszt and follower of Wagner, wrote
delightful music for its songs. I went up to Mannheim, and attended the
plays in the old theater where Schiller was once a director, and where
some of his best plays were brought out.
Miller wrote me about this little play of mine as follows:
“N. Y. HOTEL, N. Y., U. S. A., Feb. 11, 1879.
“MY DEAR MR. BYERS:--I remember you with pleasure, remember the
compliment you paid me in preferring a visit to me before the
good Pope.
“I have read your pretty play with pleasure, and have the opinion
of able managers. And I am bound to say, my dear boy, that it is
for the leisure, not for the stage. Like all your work, it is
well done, verses _especially_, but how on earth do you expect
to present five scenes in one act in this swift modern day? All
modern plays have, as a rule, but one scene to the act. Then you
have almost altogether omitted _humor_. Try again. By the by, I
last night brought forth a play. See enclosed bill. It was most
emphatically _damned_. Write me if I can do ought for you, and
believe me
Truly yours,
J. W. MILLER.”
My libretto and the music had pleased Minnie Hauk, the singer, and she
herself thought of using it, but the objection to the Wagner kind of
music came up. Her husband, Count Wartegg, wrote me from Paris: “The
libretto is very interesting, so original, and so well written that its
success is assured.”
[Illustration: Minnie Hauk.--_Page 107._]
Minnie Hauk was just now at the height of her fame. In Scotland and
England she was very popular. At Edinburg the college students one
night, at the close of the opera, unhitched the horses from her
carriage and pulled her to the hotel themselves. I knew her quite
well in Switzerland. In fact, her secret marriage with Count Wartegg
had taken place in my office, and I had been a part of the little
adventure. She was a wife for years before the public found it out. Her
husband had an historic old castle over in the mountains of the Tyrol.
In the meantime I had prepared another little play, and Miss Kate Field
had given them both to Genevieve Ward, who sent me this about them:
“232 RUE DE RIVOLI, PARIS, 26 Dec., 1875.
“DEAR SIR:--I received the plays you confided to Miss Field, and
read them with much pleasure. Pocahontas should be very popular
in America, and I trust you will be fortunate in having it well
produced. The sympathies of the public should also be warmly
enlisted for the ‘Princess Tula,’ a charming character, which
requires delicate handling. Miss Clara Morris would personate it
most charmingly. I regret that they are both lighter than my line
of business, which is the heaviest. I feel none the less honored
that you should have sent them to me, and again thanking you, and
wishing you every success, I remain
Yours truly,
“GENEVIEVE WARD.”
The second drama was not offered to the managers at all, and the two
plays were laid away forever.
While on the Rhine I also visited Speyer, “The City of Dead Kings.” In
one crypt seven German monarchs lie side by side. Next to Westminster
Abbey in London, and the Capuchin Church in Vienna, no one spot can
show so much royal dust, and nowhere on earth can one feel so much the
fleeting littleness of man as in these three places.
* * * * *
I had spent much time in preparing my book, called “Switzerland and the
Swiss.” Now when I asked permission of our State Department to print it
they promptly telegraphed me a refusal.
A Consul, not long before, had published a book on Turkey that was not
liked by some of the satraps of the Sultan. So a veto was put on all
books by Consuls.
My book was then printed anonymously, but received most favorable
comment. “Whoever the author is,” said the “Zurcher Zeitung,” the
principal Swiss journal, “he has shown more thorough knowledge of the
Swiss people than any foreigner who has written about us.” The large
edition was sold, spite of its being published anonymously.[3]
The London papers have much to say now about the mixed condition of
party affairs in America. Yesterday I had a letter from General Sherman
bearing on the same subject. It also tells me he is writing a history
of his life. It also gives his views of negroes voting.
“ST. LOUIS, MO., Jan. 26, 1875.
“DEAR BYERS:--Your letter of Nov. 21st, sending a copy of the
London Saturday Review, has been in my pigeon hole ‘For answer’
so long that I am ashamed. I have always intended to avail myself
of the opportunity to write you a long, gossipy letter, but have
as usual put it off from day to day, so that now I hardly know
what to tell you. We are now most comfortably established in St.
Louis, a large, growing and most dirty city, but which in my
opinion is a far better place for the children than the clean and
aristocratic Washington. Minnie, also, is domiciled near us in a
comfortable home, whilst her husband seems busy on his new work
in connection with a manufactory of wire.
“I have no doubt that General Grant and the Cabinet think me less
enthusiastic in the political management than I ought to be. And
they may be right. In some respects they have been selfish and
arrogant, and are fast losing that hold on public respect they
used to enjoy, and there is now but little doubt but that they
have thrown the political power into an opposition that the old
Democratic party will utilize for itself. The mistake began in
1865 when they gave votes to the negroes, and then legislated so
as to make the negro dominant at the South where the old Rebel
whites represent eight millions to the four of the blacks, and
the first have united solidly into a dangerous opposition. In our
form of Government, when the majority rules in local Government,
it is hard for the National Government to coerce this majority to
be docile and submissive to a party outside, however respectable.
“I had seen that article in the Review, as also many others
of mine which, on the whole, are flattering. I have, after
considerable hesitation, agreed to publish the whole, of which
that one was the conclusion. The book, still in manuscript, is
estimated to make two octavo volumes of about four hundred pages
each, and I have given the manuscript of the first volume to the
Appletons of New York, and will send the balance this week. The
whole should be out in about three months, when I trust it will
afford you a couple of days of pleasant reading. Thus far the
public has no knowledge of this thing, but I suppose I can not
conceal it much longer.
“We are all well. Give our best love to Mrs. Byers, and believe
me truly your friend,
“W. T. SHERMAN.”
After a while the book appeared, and again the General wrote about it.
“ST. LOUIS, MO., Aug. 31, 1875.
“MY DEAR FRIEND:--I have received your welcome favor of July
31st. Mrs. Sherman has since got one of later date, in which you
acknowledge the receipt of the Memoirs. I am glad, of course,
that they pleased you in form and substance. Such is the general
judgment of those who embraced the whole book, whilst others,
picking out a paragraph here and there, find great fault. When
I had made up my mind to publish, I prepared myself for the
inevitable consequences of offending some. I tried to make a
truthful picture of the case, as it was left in my mind, without
fear, favor or affection, and though it may cause bad feelings
now, will in the end be vindicated. I want no friend to eulogize
or apologize, but leave the volumes to fight out their own battle.
“We are all now at home except Minnie, who has her own home not
far from us. Her baby is growing and beginning to assume the
form of humanity, recognizing objects and manifesting a will and
purpose of his own.
“Early in September all the children will resume their
schools--Tom at Yale, Elly at Manhattanville, N. Y., the rest
here in St. Louis. With the exception of some minor excursions
I will remain close at home. Our annual meeting of the Army of
the Tennessee will be at Des Moines this year--Sept. 29-30. We
don’t expect much, only to keep it alive. We look for a stormy
political Winter, and next year another of the hurricanes that
test our strength every four years.
“My best love to Mrs. B. and the children.
“Yours,
W. T. SHERMAN.”
_January, 1875._--I went to London to see about my play. Stopped at
10 Duchess Street. General Schenck was our Minister then, and he and
Colonel John W. Forney gave me letters to theatrical people. Mr. Geo.
W. Smalley was also polite to me.
It was a nice American dinner-party I participated in at Mr.
Smalley’s home, and while there was a little air of stiffness in the
white-gloved, side-whiskered waiters, it was a hospitable, jolly
occasion. Among the guests were Kate Field, Col. Forney, Secretary
McCullough, and some English literary people. Kate Field was wide
awake, and she, and Col. Forney, one of the best talkers and best
informed men I ever knew, kept things lively till midnight. Col. Forney
was one of the handsomest men I ever met, and was loyally faithful to
friends.
One of my letters was to Dion Boucicault, the actor, probably the
biggest dramatic plagiarist since Shakespeare. His name was to about
two hundred plays, of which he certainly never wrote a dozen complete.
He was of immense talent in the way of absorbing, or transposing, or
cribbing outright other people’s work, without their even knowing it.
In a sense, he did make things his own. If what he afterward said to me
about there not being an absolutely new idea in the world is true, then
he was not a stage plagiarist, as much as a first class boiler-over.
In this Winter of 1874-5 he was the most popular actor in London, and
Joe Jefferson was playing there too, as was Henry Irving. At Drury
Lane theater, there was nothing but standing room, day or night, when
Boucicault was on the boards. His wife was playing with him. Several
times I stood up among a crowd of Londoners whose hands were too
pressed in to clap, but they made it up in crying or laughing. It was
melodrama in perfection. All the immense crowd felt themselves actual
participants in the play. What a bag full of money the English-American
must have lugged home this winter.
One evening a note came for me to call on him at his house, at 9
o’clock next morning. It was foggy and almost dark on the streets when
I rang the door bell. I was shown into a drawing room dimly lighted,
where, sitting in the half dark, by a low open fire, was a man I could
have taken for William Shakespeare. The lofty brow, the intellectual
face, the partly bald head, looked like no other. He did not see me
as I entered, nor did he turn around, but went on looking into the
fireplace. I looked at him a moment sitting there, and then said good
morning. “Ah,” he said, looking up as calmly as if his whole attitude
had been affected. “Good morning, take a seat. I read your play, it
is melodrama, it is no account; that is, as it stands, you know. You
had best hire a good stage man to go over it for you. You haven’t
studied the stage, that’s clear, and that is what is the matter of
our countrymen, Mr. ---- and Mr. ----. They can write, but they know
no more about the stage plays than new-born babes.” I sat there and
listened to him in astonishment.
He talked much of himself, and related some of his methods of making
plays _play_. But the real secret, he could not translate for me
further than to say, “The way to write a play, is to _write a play_.”
I could not help thinking, as I sat there listening to the voice by the
firelight, of the time when Boucicault had to sell a play for from $200
to $300, and of that later time when a play with his name to it brought
him almost $50,000.
I took his advice as to my melodrama and had a playwright go through it
with pencil and shears.
When I got home to Zurich a telegram asked that I forward the music at
once. A London theater had accepted my play. Shortly the theatrical
hard times set in; my theater closed doors, and that was the last of
“Pocahontas,” a melodrama.
Thomas’ orchestra took some of the music later, and played it with
success at the Philadelphia Centennial.
[Illustration: Minnie Walton.--_Page 113._]
One morning when in London, I was invited to breakfast with Minnie
Walton, the actress. She was at the “Hay-market,” playing with Byron,
I think. She was noted then as the most beautiful actress in London.
At the appointed hour I was at her house, but she was still in bed.
I entertained myself in the drawing room for half an hour with her
two pretty children. Then she herself came in, and I certainly saw a
brilliantly beautiful woman. Her features were smooth and perfect,
her complexion very fair, and her manners most captivating. She wore
a white morning dress with network bodice that outlined a form as
beautiful as her face. She had no wonderful reputation as an actress,
but her beauty attracted many Londoners to the theater. Everywhere in
the shop windows, one saw pictures of “The pretty Minnie Walton.” She
had a power in London, all her own. It was “the fatal gift of beauty,”
but a gift more attractive to women than birthrights and coronets.
_November, 1875._--Upon my return from London, we went back into town
for the winter. House rent has doubled here in four years. We now
pay 2,500 francs for a centrally located apartment of seven rooms.
Everything has grown dearer. The pension where we used to live for four
francs a day now charges seven and eight and nine francs.
Zurich too is becoming a fine, modern, commercial city. The railway
station is almost the finest in the world, and big, granite business
blocks are building, that would do credit to New York or London. Where
the city moat and a graveyard used to be, is now one of the finest
short streets in Europe.
Almost the only house on this street, left of the olden time, is the
“Ringmauer,” the home of our friend, Prof. Fick. Its front is an
absolute wall of ivy, from the pavement to the gables. The whole front
wall of the house is a part of the ancient city wall itself, built
possibly by the Romans. The rooms are low, and the windows used to be
ironed like a prison. Near by, still stands one of the old wall towers.
Inside this ivy-covered old domicile, we have spent many happy hours.
Many a time, over the walnuts and the wine, with the genial Professor
and his family, we have sat far into the night and conjured up the
people who were wining and dining here in this same room, may be a
thousand years ago. Fick, a brother-in-law of Frankland, the English
scientist, was a distinguished law professor in the University. He
originated the Swiss railroad law, and knew more of American affairs
than any German I met abroad.
In late years, he suffered horribly with rheumatism, and he had a queer
habit, when severe attacks came on, of sitting down and comparing the
severity of each attack with one in some previous month. He kept his
watch lying open before him, and carefully recorded each twang and
pain in a diary.
Spite of my sympathy for his suffering, I could at times hardly refrain
from smiling, on hearing him exclaim: “Ah! that was a whacker, that
catch was--must write that down. Let me see--lasted two minutes, pulse
80; this day, last year, minute and a half, pulse 100.” So for an hour
he would sit, his feet wrapped in flannel, and his mind occupied in
measuring and timing his pains.
“What do you do that for, Professor?” I asked him once. “My God!” he
replied, “it helps busy my mind. I would die without this watch and
diary.”
In the afternoon the attack would cease, and in the evening the
students would see the loved Professor delivering his lecture as
smilingly as if he had never had a pain in his life.
_December, 1875._--Through Fick, Kinkel, Scherr and others of our
friends among the University professors, we had free entrée to lectures
when we pleased; could come or go. Scherr’s on France, and Kinkel’s on
art, we heard throughout, as also Henne’s on Swiss history. There were
numbers of American students too in the Polytechnic and University, so
that our relations with teachers and taught were very friendly. The
American students were always at our home on all American holidays,
when the Consulate and our apartment were opened up together and
decorated with our national colors. Speeches were made, toasts drunk,
and a general good American time had. We ourselves greatly enjoyed
these reunions on a foreign soil, and the students and American
residents gave many proofs that they enjoyed them too.
I recall how just before one Christmas, Mrs. Kelley, wife of
Congressman Kelley, of Philadelphia, who was then living in Zurich,
asked me to go with her to help select a picture for an American
friend. I felt honored that she should consult my taste. A very fine
and expensive engraving of Dante at Florence was selected.
What was my surprise, on Christmas evening, to see her head the
American party to our house, with this picture and a speech to the
Consul.
The treasured gift hangs in my Iowa home, but the kind words of that
Christmas evening are stored away in the depths of our hearts. It was
the sign, not the gift itself, that gratified us most.
Most of us mortals are so constituted that to have the esteem of our
fellow beings gives us a most comfortable feeling _here_, anyway,
whatever it may do for us _hereafter_.
_December 7._--Last night Prof. Kinkel invited me to attend a Students’
Commers or festival. There must have been a thousand students present
in the big skating rink. They sat at long tables; the corps students
in high boots, and wearing their corps caps, badges and ribbons. In
front of every one stood a mighty schooner of beer. All smoked, and
the narcotic cloud was so dense I could scarcely see to the stage.
There were decorations everywhere, and a band of music in the gallery.
There were sentinels outside at the door, and whenever a particularly
popular professor was about to enter, signals were waved along the
tables and to the band. Then, as he walked blushing through the aisles
to the stage, pandemonium itself was let loose in the way of clanging
glasses, band playing, pounding tables, hurrahing and singing, until
the conquering hero was seated on the platform. It was a great time
for the professors. Lunge, the chemist; Kinkel, the poet; Hermann, the
physiologist; Scherr, the historian; Meyer, the chemist; Klebs, the
bacteriologist, and other men with names that sound all over Europe,
were literally carried to the stage on the wings of noise, smoke, music
and lager beer.
These great Zurich professors are the men whom Hepworth Dixon calls
the “Dukes of the Republic.” They are the only people in Switzerland
appointed to their places for life.
Students near me got away with a dozen and more schooners of Munich’s
best. I don’t know where it went to, but they have been known to drink
twenty glasses at a sitting. For myself, to keep up appearances I did
away with three glasses and a half, and absorbed smoke enough, without
touching a cigar, to give me the headache for a week.
Here, as at the German Universities, the corps students fought duels.
The most self-important young man in the city is the one with the
little red corps cap, the big top boots, the ribbon across his breast,
and the fresh patch of muslin on his nose, showing a recent engagement.
If the duelist has attended still other universities, he will probably
have a half a dozen welts and scars across his face. He may not know
much about text-books, but these unseemly welts on the face are signs
of great honor; and as the man of danger struts down the street with a
big-mouthed bull-dog in tow, he is a spectacle to behold. His greatest
happiness in life is to have some passer-by turn and gaze on him.
And this was what Bismarck was doing at twenty; this, and shooting off
pistols in his bedroom!
These University warriors are not so dangerous as their slit-up noses
indicate. I have known of fifty duels in the past few years and not a
soul, save one, was badly hurt. He _did_ get really killed.
The offenses for which the students bleed and die are all pet
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