Twenty Years in Europe

Together we made excursions, notably to “The Little Land of Appenzell,” described so beautifully by Bayard Taylor. We went to the meeting of the people’s parliament-a strange spectacle. All the peasants came, wearing swords as signs of their right to vote. It was a mass meeting in the open air. Ten to fifteen thousand voters stood and voted on the laws of the canton. These laws, proposed by the outgoing officials, had been printed and distributed in the farmhouses weeks before. These officials in old-time garb now stood before the people on a raised platform. There was no discussion at the mass meeting. “Do you want this law-yes or no?” said the President, and that was all there was to it. In two hours’ time new laws had been adopted. The canton officials went through the ceremony of transferring their state mantles to the shoulders of the newly elected officers. Then the vast crowd were asked to bare their heads, hold up their right hands and swear new allegiance to the Republic. When that packed mass of humanity turned their faces to the sun, and held up ten thousand brown hands, it was the most impressive scene one can imagine. They meant it. The vast mountains stood around and looked on in silence. Far below we could see the broad lake shining like a sea of silver. When the oath was over, the bands played, and the peasant lawmakers returned in silence to their homes. There had not been a single disturbance, not a rude, loud word.

For hundreds of years this simple people of Appenzell have met and made their laws in this way, and, as a historian said of the old Republic of St. Gall, “They guard their state from disorder and revolution by the simple grace of homely virtues.”

*****

September, 1891.-The six hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Swiss Republic has now been celebrated-the most unique celebration possibly the world ever saw. Three million people took part in it. Every man, woman and child in Switzerland understood the significance of the festival, and contributed to its glory. On every mountain top joy fires burned, in every valley the bells rang paeans of liberty. On top of the mighty peak of the Mythen, in sight of the spot where independence was declared, stood a flaming cross of fire, fifty feet across and a hundred feet high. It shone like a beacon light to a million witnesses, who saw it from the heights near and far, over all the Alps. Illuminations shone in every hamlet, even to the edges of the snow fields and glaciers. For days Te Deums sounded, masses were said, and a whole people gave thanks for five hundred years of liberty. The usual vocations of men in the Republic came to a standstill, so that employer and employed, high and low, rich and poor, could participate in the dramatic rehearsal of the country’s history. Near the town of Schwyz, where Swiss liberty was born, a vast stage and amphitheater were erected, where amid the applause of multitudes the whole panorama of Swiss history was reenacted with all the splendor of costume and scenic effect of past ages. Once more William Tell, Arnold Winkelried and Stauffacher with all the old Swiss heroes, walked among the people, in sight of the very lakes and mountains that had witnessed their heroic deeds. The great museums were emptied of their historic arms and banners, and Morgarten and Sempach were fought over again with the same hellebards, morgensterns and battle axes that had been used in the dreadful encounters of centuries ago. The blood stains of the ancient heroes were still upon their blades, and the descendants of the Swiss martyrs for liberty, counting the cost, stood as ready to die for their country as did ever the men who founded freedom among the Alps.

*****

The river Rhine is close by us here, flowing through Lake Constance. Every day in summer sees crowds of the St. Gallese rushing down to the lake by train, to bathe in its waters. The ride down there, with its glimpses of mountain valleys, blooming orchards, and shining waterfalls, is one of the most picturesque in Europe. Down by the water side are villages and walls old as the time of the Romans.

The little valleys and the plains between St. Gall and the lake, are planted with hundreds of pear orchards. In the spring, when this ocean of pear trees is in full white blossom, the ride down to the lake is truly wonderful.

*****

Spelterini is here with his big balloon, to take people traveling above the mountain tops. Some of our friends went up for a few hours, repeatedly, and pronounce the view of the lake, mountain and valley as seen from the sky, something wonderful. He charges 200 francs for a few hours’ ride among the mist and clouds. He passed close above our house yesterday morning at a great rate. He has made a thousand ascents and never had an accident. Riding with his balloon at a height of 15,000 feet, and at an express speed is safer than riding on American railroads.

May 13, 1893.-News has come of the appointment of a new Consul General for Switzerland. The rotating machine has been put to work. I scarcely dare to complain.

A new administration at Washington can remove me from office, but it cannot take away from me the pleasure of the past years. Still I have lived so long among the delightful scenes of Switzerland I leave them with a pang.

“Aufwiedersehen,” our friends call out as they throw us their roses, the train moves, we are looking for the last time possibly on the mountains.

Part of this summer of 1893 we spent with our friends, the Witts, at Hamburg, and then together we went to the Island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea, where many delightful weeks among novel scenes were ending our stay in Europe.

Later, our friends offered to take us to see Prince Bismarck, at his home at “Friedrichsruhe.”

A couple of hours’ ride from Hamburg through an uninteresting country of sand and pine trees, brought us to the little station not far from the ex-Chancellor’s house. It seemed like a villa stuck away in the woods of North Carolina, yet delegations find this hidden spot from every corner of Germany, and come here by trainfuls, to do homage to the man who made the empire. He is a greater man here on his farm than the Emperor is in Berlin on his throne. There is not much about the rather ill-kept looking estate to attract attention. There are a thousand handsomer estates all over Germany.

We wait, as directed, under the trees behind the castle (though it is no castle at all) for pretty soon the great man will come down the garden walk. Miss Witt, who has an enormous bouquet of flowers for him (she has given him flowers before), will approach him first, and then the rest of us. There come his two big Danish dogs down the path now. In a moment they are followed by a powerful looking old man who carries a big club of a cane, and wears a great slouch hat of felt. He knows what the young lady and the flowers mean very quickly, and his strong, marked face is soon in smiles. We are all presented. I speak to him in English, but he says, “Please speak German. There was a time when I spoke English, but that is almost gone.” I looked at him closely, when others were talking. His great, wrinkled, seamed face looked as powerful as his herculean frame. I could not help thinking to myself, here stands the man who overthrew Louis Napoleon, and here is he who once ruefully said, “The lives of eighty thousand human beings would have been saved were it not for me.”

He had a few kind words for all of us, and Madame Semper he remembered well. But he was getting old, and seemed on the point of feebleness; his great race was done. His dogs rubbed against his legs and looked at us as if they wanted us to stay away from their master. Shortly he lifted his great broad hat, saying: “My wife is waiting for me at breakfast. I bid you good-day.” Then he turned and walked back to the castle. We had seen Bismarck.

notes

1

“Switzerland and the Swiss.”

2

A detailed description of the incidents of the adventure within the lines of the enemy appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, May, 1880, and is repeated in Mr. Byers’ “Last Man of the Regiment.”

3

Note. – The second edition of this book was printed under my own name. It is the volume from which Boyd Winchester, in his “Swiss Republic,” borrowed so astoundingly, later, forgetting both my name, and the common use all but literary burglars make of quotation marks. Hepworth Dixon, though dead, and un-named, lives on in the book of Mr. Winchester in the same manner.

4

Details of this incident are related in Mr. Byers’ “Last Man of the Regiment.”

5

It was almost his last public performance.

6

This boy, Hamilton Fish, grew to manhood, and was the first American soldier killed for his country on Cuban soil.

7

The State Department also sent me a letter later, thanking me for my zeal. The publicity I gave to the outrages going on, has also led the Swiss Parliament to change its regulations as to immigration, while our own Congress has adopted severe measures against the traffic in paupers and criminals.

8

At last Mr. Sargent, tired and disgusted with the situation, resigned his post.

9

Harper’s Magazine No. 477.

10

This refers to the Century Co.’s “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War,” for which Mr. Byers was also invited to contribute his article describing Sherman’s Assault at Missionary Ridge, in which he was a participant.

11

A few evenings before, Secretary Windom had dropped dead while addressing a company of banqueters in New York.

12

A detailed sketch by me of this remarkable little Republic, appeared in Magazine of American History, December, 1891.