JACOB BERNAYS AND THE ROMANIAN QUEEN: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS.

This is another passage from the memoir of Carmen Sylva (pseudonym of Elisabeth, Queen of Romania), in which she reminisces about the distinguished scholar Jacob Bernays (1824-1881).

The great scholar Bernays was a trusted friend of our family. He spent many hours in the company of my mother who hung on his lips and always learned from him. I was a child then and wondered why he never had dinner with us. He said he was a Jew and wished to comply with his traditions. But he had more knowledge of the New Testament than we, and his thoughts were exceptionally profound.

Bernays always said that the Jewish religion was the only religion free of fetishism. He was right, for the Christian religion was obliged to adapt to all the fetishisms it encountered in diverse countries. That is the disadvantage of a religion that wants to spread its faith. It is forced to make concessions and loses depth. If the Christian religion was still the way it came out of Christ’s mouth, it would be a different faith from the one we call Christian now. If we compare our deeds and thought with the Sermon of the Mount, we can only shut our mouths and blush.

…

The Jews have maintained a purer religion, and that’s a fact, but they never adapted it for the purpose of introducing it elsewhere. They suffered persecution for hundreds of years, and did not diverge from their religion and never tried to impose it on others. Thus the persecution of Jews is not based on religion but on race. A nation does not want to see another nation in their midst gaining more power than they have themselves. That’s the simple truth.

(Source: Carmen Sylva, Mein Penatenwinkel; my trans.)

CLARA SCHUMANN’S LOVE AFFAIR --CONFESSED TO THE QUEEN OF ROMANIA.

Clara Schumann (1819-1896) was a child prodigy. She went on her first concert tour at the age of eleven, and soon played to sell-out crowds. She got to know her husband, Robert Schumann, when he took music lessons from her father and became a lodger at their house. The following (somewhat inaccurate) account appeared in the memoirs of “Carmen Sylva” , the pen name of Elisabeth, Queen of Romania.

My father and mother were divorced. From childhood on I was a little hard of hearing, but my father decided that I should become a musician. At the age of 12 I was already able to give a public performance. At one time he took me to visit my mother in Berlin. He merely pulled open the door and said: Madame, I bring you your daughter. It was very difficult for me because I adored my mother, but my father had remarried, and my stepmother was not good for me.

When I was fourteen, Schumann came to our house. We fell in love and became secretly engaged. He was eighteen, I was fourteen! We kept my strict father in the dark. He had other plans for me.

When my husband was twenty-two and I was eighteen, I stood before a judge between him and my father. Schumann proved that he was of age and fully capable of supporting a family. My father had written a letter to my bridegroom which contained eighteen injurious remarks, which is why he took him to court. And there I was, standing between them, but the judge awarded me to my bridegroom. My father foamed at the mouth, for he had always said: My daughter will not marry a common musician. She is too good even for a duke or a prince.

He threw me out, without allowing me to take my clothes or linen. My stepmother even ripped a small ring from my finger, which I had from my mother, and gave it to her daughter. Thus I was cast out and walked away with my husband, but it was heaven! Ten years of Heaven!

(Source: Carmen Sylva, Mein Penatenwinkel, my trans.)

AFTER THE BATTLE OF JENA, 1806 – THROUGH THE EYES OF A WOMAN.

Luise Seidler

Twenty-year old Luise Seidler reports on the aftermath of the Battle of Jena:

After the victorious French troops occupied Jena, the castle was turned into a hospital. Every morning at nine o’clock, with terrible punctuality, the funeral carriage rattled into the courtyard. Shortly afterward it left with its gruesome freight, which was covered only lightly with straw, from which heads, arms, and legs stuck out. The carriage passed through the gate, which shut with a creak of its hinges.

Pans filled with tar were set on fire, to prevent epidemics and cleanse the air polluted with the exhalations of the sick and dead. For many days after the battle, badly wounded soldiers were brought in. They were in terrible condition and had survived on grass and dew. Most of them died almost immediately after being taken in.

The water supply in the city had been interrupted.

The cannons being transported through the city had shaken up the ground and ruptured water mains. People had to make do with water from the Saale river, in which dead horses, human remains, and bloody rags floated around.

Trade came to a standstill.

The victors confiscated all food. We could only satisfy the most urgent hunger by begging of the enemy tickets called “bons”, which entitled us to have meat and bread delivered by the superintendent of the military...It was only at the beginning of the new year 1807 that conditions in the hard-hit city normalized to some extent.

During the Napoleonic occupation, Luise made the acquaintance of the French physician in charge of the hospitals, Dr. Geoffroy. He became a frequent visitor to her house.

He read to me his favourite poets, Corneille and Racine, and we made music together, he playing the cello, and I accompanying him on the piano. Our mutual interest grew…at last he asked for my hand in marriage, and my parents agreed.

Their romance ended in tragedy, however. Dr. Geoffroy was transferred to Spain and died there before the wedding could take place.

(Source: Luise Seidler. Erinnerungen und Leben; my trans.)

THE BATTLE OF JENA, 1806 -- THROUGH THE EYES OF A WOMAN.

Luise Seidler was twenty years old when French troops passed through her native town to fight the Prussian army.

The road was so narrow that the cannons couldn’t be pulled by horses. The soldiers had to carry them. A handful of Prussians could have stopped and destroyed them.

But the Prussians confronted Napoleon’s troops on the plain of Apolda. 

A few hours into the day -- 14 October 1806 -- a large number of wounded men and refugees poured into the city and were put up in houses, churches, and public buildings. They spilled over into the streets and plazas and told the story: the Prussians had been trounced. Soon afterwards, the victorious French army marched into the city and occupied the castle. They began looting stores and houses. The Seidler family was spared only because their quarters were occupied  by Field Marshal Jean Lannes. Luise's father was sent out with a driver to requisition food and wine for Lannes and his men.

 Half an hour later, the driver came into my room, out of breath and pale as a corpse. “For Heaven’s sake, come quickly,” he said. “They are killing your father because he can’t make himself understood.” I rushed down to the lower floor, which had been occupied by French soldiers of all kinds. I looked them over and grabbed the arm of one whose noble face gave me confidence, and dragged him off. “Mademoiselle, que voulez vous?” he cried out, surprised. I explained the situation to him. He went with me and found a hussar with his sword drawn and threatening my father. My protector explained what was doing on. My father was requisitioning wine for the French troops. The Hussar thought he was looting on his own behalf.

            

The next day Napoleon arrived. Through the anteroom, I could see him standing at the window for a long time, deep in thought. In his hands he held a watch, allowing the chain to slide slowly through his fingers. Later he walked up and down, dictating a message to his secretary who was busy writing it down.

            It was a wet and cold day. A Saxon regiment, which had been captured, was waiting in the courtyard…They were waiting for the order to swear an oath that they would not fight France during the remainder of the campaign. At the end of that ceremony, Napoleon, dressed in his signature grey coat, climbed into an open carriage and drove off.

CONT. in next post on Sunday.

(Source: Luise Seidler. Erinnerungen und Leben; my trans.)

A BOARDING SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, GERMANY 1800.

From the memoir of the Weimar court painter Luise Seidler (1786-1866):

At the age of fourteen, Luise enrolled in Stieler’s boarding school, where she made the acquaintance of a fellow pupil, Fanny Caspers.

Fanny Caspers

Her rich fiancé had entrusted Fanny to the school to accustom her to a regulated life and to teach her the economics of housekeeping.  At the end of that term he was going to marry her.

Luise and Fanny soon became close friends.

Fanny had lived the preceding years with her sister, a singer and actress at the court theatre in Weimar. Life there had been free of constraints. The bubbly young woman found the severe house rules burdensome and soon tried to reform them. When we put on our grey overshoes to go on the regulation walk, Fanny cried with mock indignation: What? Are you bear-ladies that you want lumpish feet? Her words fell on fertile ground, and thereafter we strenuously resisted putting on those overshoes that made our feet look clumsy.

Fanny treated her fiancé badly. She asked Luise to answer his letters on her behalf and to tell him:

She couldn’t think of any reply to his boring declarations of love except that he should send her sufficient pink taffeta for two dresses…The weak fool fulfilled the senseless and wasteful request of his bride to win her heart, which he clearly did not possess. A few months later he appeared at the school with his arm bandaged. He said he had fought a duel for Fanny’s sake.

But apparently it was an act he put on to gain her love. The headmistress interfered, and Fanny confessed in tears that she couldn’t stand the man and accepted him only because she was desperately poor. Thereupon the headmistress offered her free instruction and board for one year to train her as a teacher. She also assumed the delicate task of informing the man that his fiancée wished to be released from their arrangement, and he departed with a heavy heart. That was the end of the affair, and Fanny began to blossom.

More on Luise’s adventures in my next post on Thursday.

(Source: Luise Seidler. Erinnerungen und Leben; my trans.)