Society as I Have Found It
from floor almost to ceiling, was covered with shelves, on which every
imaginable dish was placed, hot and cold. The table in front of these
shelves was lined with servants in livery, and simply loaded with empty
plates and napkins to serve the supper on. The favorite and most prized
dishes at all these suppers was cold sturgeon (a fish we never eat), and
the most prized fruit the hot-house pineapple, with all its leaves, and
to the eye seemingly growing. Opposite the supper table, in another part
of the room, the wines were served, all by themselves, and there was, it
appears to me, every wine grown in any quarter of the globe. Everything
was abundant and lavish, and the whole affair was most imposing.
That winter the Archduke of Tuscany married one of the princesses of
Bavaria, and the Austrian Minister gave them a ball, which I attended.
The effect produced in approaching his palace, all the streets
illuminated by immense flaring torches attached to the house, was grand.
The ball-room was superb. From the ceiling hung, not one or two, but
literally fifty or more chandeliers of glass, with long prisms dangling
from them. The women were not handsome, but what most struck me was the
freshness of their toilets. They all looked new, as if made for the
occasion; not so elaborate, but so fresh and light and delicate. I
noticed that the royal party supped in a room by themselves, always
attended by their host.
As I was strolling through the rooms, my host, the Austrian Minister,
approached me and said, “I see I have another American as a guest
to-night, and he is decorated. Will you kindly tell me what his
decoration is?” “I really do not know,” I replied; “I will present
myself to him and ask.”
We approached my countryman together, and, after a few words, the
minister most courteously put the question to him. He drew himself up
and said, “Sir, my country is a Republic; if it had been a Monarchy, I
would have been the Duke of Pennsylvania. The Order I wear is that of
The Cincinnati.” The minister, deeply impressed, withdrew, and I
intensely enjoyed the little scene.
After the great works of art, what most impressed me in Florence were
the immense, orderly crowds seen on all public occasions, a living mass
of humanity, as far as the eye could see. No jostling or shoving, but
human beings filling up every inch of space between the carriage wheels,
as our horses, on a walk, dragged our carriage through them.
The most charming spot on earth for the last of winter and the spring
months is the city of Rome. We went there under most favorable
circumstances. A kind friend had leased an apartment for us in the Via
Gregoriana, and we found Rome full of the _crême de la crême_ of New
York society. In Nazzari we had another Delmonico, and we kept dining
and wining each other daily. Here I made intimacies that have lasted me
through life. I followed the hounds on the Campagna, and was amused at
the nonchalance of the young Italian swells as they would attempt a high
Campagna fence, tumble off invariably, remount, and go at it again. They
were a handsome set of men, as plucky as they were handsome. I myself
found “discretion the better part of valor,” and would quietly take to
the road when I met a formidable jump, but I lived on horseback and
enjoyed every hour. Though carrying letters to our American Minister,
then resident at Rome, I gave his legation a wide berth, as I had heard
that our distinguished Representative was in the habit of inviting
Italians to meet Italians and Americans to meet only Americans at his
house; when asked his reason for this, he replied: “I have the greatest
admiration for my countrymen: they are enterprising, money getting, in
fact, a wonderful nation, but there is not a gentleman among them.”
Hearing this, I resolved he should get no chance to meet me and pass on
my merits.
Several of our handsomest New York women were then having their busts
sculptured in marble; as you saw them first in the clay you found them
more attractive. Gibson for the first time colored his Venus; it added
warmth to it, and I thought improved it.
The blessing of the multitude by the Pope from the balcony of St.
Peter’s, under a canopy, with the emblematic peacock feathers held on
either side of him, the illumination of St. Peter’s, and the fireworks
at Easter were most impressive. But I shall attempt no description of
Rome. Nowhere in the world can you see such a display.
GERMANY AND THE ALPS.
CHAPTER V.
_Summer in Baden-Baden--The Late Emperor William no Judge of
Wine--My Irish Doctor--His Horror of Water--How an American Girl
Tried to Captivate Him--The Louisiana Judge--I Win the Toss and Get
the Mule--The Judge “fixes” his Pony--The “Pike Ballet.”_
We passed our summer at Baden-Baden and literally lived there in the
open air. Opposite to my apartment, Prince Furstenburg of Vienna had his
hotel: from him and his suite I learned how to spend the summer months.
At early dawn they were out in the saddle for a canter; at ten they went
for a drive down the Allée Lichtenthal and through shady woods, nowhere
seen as at Baden-Baden. They would stop and breakfast in the open air at
twelve noon, again drive in the afternoon, and dine at the Kursaal at
six. They kept at least twenty-five horses. We dined daily within a
table or two of the then Prince of Prussia, afterwards the Emperor
William, whom I soon discovered was no judge of wine, as I drank the
best and he was evidently indifferent to it. When you see a man sip his
wine and linger over it, that evidences his appreciation of it; but when
you see him gulp it down, as the Prince did his, you see that he is no
connoisseur. But I must say here, I had an intense admiration for him.
His habit of walking two hours under the trees of the Allée Lichtenthal
was also mine, and it was with pleasure I bowed most respectfully to him
day by day.
Being anxious to cross every Alpine pass, I found a distinguished
physician who lived at Pau, France, on account of his health, and had
there the practice of the place during the winter months, and who was,
necessarily, idle in summer, as Pau was then deserted. Still believing
in doctors, I engaged him to travel with me for two months as my
physician. I agreed to give him a bottle of 1848 Latour for his dinner
daily, pay his expenses, and to give him a medical fee such as I saw fit
at the end of our trip. He was indeed a man among men. All I can say is
that when we parted and I handed him his fee, the tears came into his
eyes; he grasped my hands, swearing eternal friendship. This doctor made
a new man of me. “Throw physic to the dogs,” was his motto; “you will
never die: you will in the end have to be shot to get you out of the
world; air and exercise is all you want: eat slowly and do not deluge
yourself with water at dinner.” Of water he had a holy horror. “Drink
what good wine you wish and let water alone.” As I had the luxury of a
private physician, a friend from Louisiana suggested joining my party
with his two young daughters. My Irish doctor was the most sensitive of
men. One day I found he could eat no breakfast. I sympathized with him
and asked him the cause. He replied, “My dear boy, the habits of your
American women. I came down to the breakfast room this morning and
there I found the oldest of the Judge’s daughters with her back hair
down and the younger one combing it. This settled me.” I assured him
this was not the national custom with American women. The young woman
was simply trying to captivate him by her lovely, long, flowing tresses.
The doctor was a character. On another occasion a Frenchman lighted a
cigar in our railway compartment. The Doctor detested cigar smoke, and
as there was a large sign in the car, in French, forbidding smoking, he
touched the Frenchman and pointed to the sign. The Frenchman simply
smiled blandly. The train stopping, the conductor opened our door, when
the Frenchman quietly slipped two francs into his hands, saying in
French, “Of course I can smoke here, that sign is obsolete, is it not?”
The conductor replied, “Oh, yes,” and on we went. My Irishman got up and
commenced taking his coat off. “What are you going to do?” exclaimed the
Frenchman. “Why, throw you out of that window if you do not at once
throw that cigar away.” There was no mistaking the Doctor’s meaning, so
the cigar went out and the Frenchman staid in.
My traveling Louisiana friend had a charming way of suggesting each
morning, as we paid our hotel bills, that we should toss up a five-franc
piece and decide, by heads and tails, who was to pay the bill. I did
this once or twice, when I found, as he always won and I lost, it was a
losing business for me; but on another occasion was forced into the
plan. To ascend the mountain at Lugano, three wretched beasts were
brought us by the Italian boys to mount for the ascent. The Judge
insisted on tossing up a five-franc piece for choice of animals. I was
compelled to give in and accede to his suggestion, and by great good
luck won first choice. My friend, the Judge, forbade the Doctor advising
me as to the animal I should take, as he knew him to be a good judge of
horses. There was a feeble, worthless horse that literally could carry
no one; his back all raw; a vicious mule who bit and kicked, and a stone
blind pony that would not go. With my experience of mules in the South,
knowing what sure-footed creatures they were, I chose the mule, had him
blindfolded, mounted him, and off I went. After waiting an hour on the
summit, the Judge appeared, coat and hat gone, and swearing terribly
that he would prosecute the canton for his treatment, and horsewhip the
Italian boys. He had let the horse go, and footed it. I soon slipped
away on my mule, letting the irate Louisianian and the Irishman settle
it, on top of the mountain, how they were to have satisfaction out of
the government for permitting such beasts to be imposed upon travelers.
I was two-thirds down the mountain when I looked behind me and heard the
most terrible shouts, and saw the Irishman clinging to the pony, over
whom he had lost all control, and the Judge hanging on by the pony’s
tail, all coming down at a terrific pace. The pony was at first gentle,
but it appears would not go beyond a walk. The Judge hung on to his tail
to guide himself down the mountain, and finding he would not go fast
enough to suit them, he assured the Irishman he would fix him, and
immediately stuck his penknife into the beast’s tail. “Fix him,” he did,
for the creature was so terrified he dashed off at a break-neck pace,
and the Judge, not wishing to be left alone on the mountain, had to hang
on by the tail and be dragged along at lightning speed. These beasts
alone knew the way down; once parted from them, they were lost, for the
Italian boys who had furnished them had long since fled from the Judge’s
wrath. The Judge and the Doctor forbade my paying the hotel bill, and I
had to do it surreptitiously.
My doctor (who was a victim to rheumatism) called my attention to the
fact that on the summit of every Alpine pass we crossed, after all other
vegetation ceased, the aconite plant grew, showing nature had provided
there a remedy for the disease which the severity of the climate
developed in man. My Irish friend, living far from the sea, had a
passion for all fish but pike, which he detested, and which was daily
served to us wherever we went; finally, reaching Berlin, he insisted on
having sea fish. It was promised us, but, lo and behold! when dinner was
served, in came the pike, with the apology that no other fish could then
be had in the city. After dinner we went to the opera, and there, in the
ballet (superbly done as it was), were at least one hundred pike dancing