Social life in Munich

Front matter

SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH.

BY

EDWARD WILBERFORCE.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. — Munich from the Outside .1

II. — Manners and Customs . . . . . . =10

Chapter I. Munich From The Outside

In forming an idea of a town, a great deal depends on the first impression. And the first impression depends almost entirely on circumstances over which you can have no control ; on the weather, on your own state of health, on your companions, or on your reception. Few cities present a more attractive front than Paris, to one entering on a fine afternoon, and seeing the Boulevards crowded with people ; but to drive in on a November day, with a thick yellow fog hanging down all the streets, would entirely destroy the best illusions. A certain gloom cannot fail to oppress the man coming on London from the East, and the universal verdict of foreigners shows that this first impression has never been overcome. Yet Alfieri was disgusted with his first sight of Paris, and enraptured with his first sight of England. I cannot, myself, hear the name of Paris mentioned without remembering the evening on which I entered, the whole range of the Boulevards glowing golden in the setting sun, the trees and the gailydressed passers, the colour and the glory. And it was long before the beauties of Venice could make me forget the winter night of my arrival, the Styx-like canaletti through which we glided, like spies coming to see the nakedness of the land ; the silent, ghost-like passers muffled in their cloaks, flitting noiselessly across the bridges, and through the mysterious lanes, down the mouths of which one peered with a half dread ; the blank hotel, with a rat walking down its steps, as if lord of the manor; the falling snow that hid St. Mark's.

I think Munich is much favoured in the matter of first impressions. The majority of travellers come to it in summer, when it is certainly looking its best, and the judgments generally passed on it are very much influenced by its bright cheerful look from the outside. My first impression of Munich was decidedly favourable, and to that I probably owe my residence. Besides being bright and cheerful, Munich has an advantage which cannot be over-estimated. All the well-known towns that you visit are associated with some idea. You have had a floating picture of them in your mind since childhood, without well knowing the details, and it is almost a necessary consequence of indefinite pictures that the reality should prove a disappointment. Mr. Dicey has expressed the inevitable disappointment that every one must feel in visiting Rome, and probably few but have formed a very different idea of V enice

REAL verSUS IDEAL.

from that which is presented to them on their arrival. The more you have read and thought of a place before visiting it, the less chance of your vision being realised, and the advice given to travellers to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the history of a country before going to it, is the surest guide to disappointment. A lady who was presented to a great man whom she knew from his works, said that she was much disappointed in Mr. , but was surprised to find

Mrs. — — so agreeable a woman. Was not this to say

that she had expected great things from Mr. , but

had not expected anything from his wife? Sir Joshua Reynolds' first feeling on seeing Raphael's pictures, Correggio's exclamation, " anch* io son pittore," meaning that he had formed an idea of the greatest painter far beyond anything that the greatest painter could achieve, are familiar examples of this law of the imagination. Who has not been disappointed with the figure of our Lord in the Transfiguration ? asks Mr. Ruskin, endeavouring to make "that a reproach to Raphael which only proves that he was bound by the laws of our nature. For the meanest mind can conceive what the greatest mind cannot execute, and it is impossible for human work to come up to the standard that is set by the human mind.

Now in this respect Munich is doubly fortunate. Few people have an exalted idea of it before their first visit, and they are agreeably surprised to light on so pleasant a place. Everything around looks so clean and fresh, all the houses are neat and gay from without, and the many public buildings, with their diversity

SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH.

of form and colour, produce an agreeable sense of variety. Most show -towns are apt to be tiring from their sameness. After yon have seen one church or one palace, all the others are mere copies or reproductions, and unless you are a student of architecture you do not value the gradations through which each style ascends to perfection. You would like to have everything together so as to compare different merits, and to feast your eye on different schools at the same moment. In Venice, with the grand works of Titian and Bonifazio before you, you want the pictures of Raphael to check your enthusiasm, and would rather like to have the bell tower of Giotto placed beside the Campanile of St. Mark's, that you may know which is most worthy of admiration. And in this, too, Munich gives you just what you want. Instead of a puzzling national style, the considerate builder has collected copies of all the best known buildings of other countries. After seeing the Pitti palace copied in the front of the Royal Palace of Munich, you may go to the back, and find the inside of the court chapel built on the plan of St. Mark's. From the Loggie of Orcagna you can get in ten minutes to St. Paul's without the walls. " A poet himself of no mean pretensions/' King Ludwig has followed the precepts of Horace, and succeeds in answering the requirements of the Art of Poetry. " Modo me Thebis, modo ponit Athenis." But on this subject I cannot enlarge as eloquently as a French writer, whom I shall more than once have occasion to quote, and from whom I must translate this passage. " In Munich you are led from one surprise to another ;

A FRENCH JUDGMENT.

each step gives you something new. No local convention governs the architecture, but all the riches due to human genius, from the remotest times, are laid under contribution. It may be said that art lives there in its entirety, breathing in byzantine, gothic, Italian monuments; that science has form and colour. And the painting and statuary have this good fortune, that they have not been painfully produced, are not due to a school founded slowly by generations of artists, but have sprung up suddenly, admirable in boldness and beauty, at the call of a king, from the depths of thought, as a volcano sometimes opens a new crater, like that of Iceland, which, sacred fire in the midst of snows, is the image of the arts in Munich, Thus, no remains of mesquin ideas, no affectation, no compromise exacted tyranically by convention, necessity, recollection of this or that epoch, but as volcanoes vomit a primitive fire, so the productions of Munich are brilliant by the effect of an ardent and religious imitation of the ancients. Thus, the man who has not the leisure to visit Egypt, Greece, and the East, to run over the various countries of Europe, has but to come to this town, where all the wonders of the world have been gathered with the most praiseworthy perseverance, with a love for all that is great and beautiful, and in the happiest manner. Let the English too, after admiring Indian and Moresque constructions in their Crystal Palace, take the road to Munich, for not only has Munich its Crystal Palace, but is itself an enormous Palace of Industry, which is to Sydenham what Balbec is to a cottage, and the Coliseum of Rome to a Marionette Theatre."

SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH.

The reader who carefully follows M. le Baron Thiebault's eloquence, and compares it with my humble arguments, will find many points in this passage which seem contradictory. But while I enter a slight protest against the art of Munich being considered free from convention and tradition, which are the guiding stars of its inspiration, from affectation and mesquin ideas, which only recur too often, and cannot fail to recur in works based on mere imitation of older models, I will leave the other matters to be answered by the course of this volume. As I shall have occasion to touch on most of the buildings, and on the claims of King Ludwig to occupy the same eminence as Leo the Tenth and Lorenzo de' Medici, I need not; go out of my way to reply to M. Thiebault. I am at present occupied with the outward aspect of Munich alone, and desire to explain the secret of the fascination it exercises.

Few German cities have the same advantage in point of newness. Visitors to Munich generally come from some places remarkable as monuments of antiquity, from Nuremberg, Cologne, or the Belgian towns. And 1 fancy that much as people are impressed with old thing s, as a rule they generally prefer what is new. The old is curious and instructive, but there is a gap between it and your habits which you do not care to leap, and you like to live in the present. I asked a travelling American what he thought of Venice, and his answer was, " Well, I can't say that I care very much for them old towns." The feeling is perfectly natural, and it is perhaps more often expressed in Munich than elsewhere. Besides the nineteenth cen-

AN ENGLISH JUDGMENT.

tury is rather self-sufficient, and is proud of what has been produced during its own life. When we see Nuremberg, we say, " What splendid things these old fellows did ! " But in Munich it is, " one might really live here \" The effect is pleasant throughout; in the new part from the cheerfulness, in the old part from the contrast. " Munich/' says a recent traveller,* " surprised me more pleasantly than almost any city I ever remember to have entered. One had a sort of vague notion that the late king had a taste for the fine arts, and spent a good deal of his own, and his subjects^ money, in indulging the taste aforesaid in his capital. But one also knew that he had been tyrannized over by Lola Montes, and had made a countess of her, and had not succeeded in weathering 1848; so that, on the whole, we had no great belief in any good work from such a ruler. Munich gives one a higher notion of him ; as long as the city stands, he will have left his mark on it. On every side there are magnificent new streets, and public buildings and statues ; the railway terminus is the finest I have ever seen ; every church, from the cathedral downwards, is in beautiful order, and highly decorated; and it is not in the public buildings only that one meets with evidences of care and taste. The hotel in which we stayed, for instance, is built of brick, covered with some sort of cement, which gives it the appearance of terra cotta, and is for colour the most wonderfully fascinating building material. The ceilings and cornices of the rooms are all carefully and tastefully

SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH.

painted and all about the town one sees frescoes and ornamentation of all kinds, which show that the people delight in seeing their city look bright and gay ; and every one admits that all this is due to the ex-king."

Even here there are a few slight errors, and the writer has been tempted to wander off into a panegyric of King Ludwig, which is not entirely deserved. That the great improvements in Munich are due to King Ludwig must be admitted, but it is a question if the bright look of the town is owing to him. His own street, the Ludwig' s Strasse, is as nearly dismal as it can be under the brilliant sun of Munich, and with a profusion of varied colour ; in winter it is dreary in the extreme. This is owing to the predominance of public buildings over private houses, the disproportionate breadth, the want of trees, the want of any place to which the street leads. Thus the number of walkers in the street is always small, and the windows not being enlivened by lookers out are dismal and empty. Almost all the new quarters of other German towns are lively ; Stuttgart, for instance, and Dresden, though they owe nothing to panegyrised monarchs, and are consequently unhonoured and unsung. One of the charms of the new parts of Munich, especially of that quarter in which the galleries are situated, is the green of trees, and the little gardens in front of the houses. The fringe of trees surrounding the Glyptothek, and spreading out like a fan towards the entrance into the town, has a very pleasing effect, enhancing the beauty of the building. All down the Brienner Strasse are lilacs and laburnums, whose masses of flower in spring and chang-

TREES AND SQUARES.

ing leaves in autumn, are as beautiful as their tint and refreshing shade in the summer. How much of this is owing to King Ludwig ? It is known that he has that strange prejudice against trees which causes the gloom of many Italian cities, that he will not admit into the Ludwig' s Strasse the only possible means of enlivening it, that a great ugly open place runs between the inner town and the new quarters, which cannot be laid out with pleasant alleys and bosquets till his death ; that when his son began to plant trees in the square before the palace, he came up to Munich, and had the work discontinued. And yet these very trees and alleys which are obnoxious to King Ludwig are the pleasantest feature in Munich, and weigh more in its favour with travellers than King Ludwig' s own achievements.

Now that the new quarters of the town are rapidly being filled up, and large vacant spaces no longer exist as they once did between churches and galleries, the outward show is highly commendable. Houses which are allowed to spread in an open and healthy way, are apt to seem cheerful and airy, especially when they are set off with trees and garden plots, which add so much to the look of a town. Moreover, there is a more homelike air about them, being smaller and more compact than the many-storied houses of the inner city. Each house is separated from its neighbour, and stands a little apart from the rest, a little way back from the street. A succession of such houses cannot but be attractive, especially to wanderers from the dark streets of London. Moreover the profusion of external ornament gives a cheerful look to the new houses. There

b 2

SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH e is something strangely picturesque in the aspect of Parisian houses, and the newest ones in Munich are built in outward imitation of Paris. Nor are the old houses behind-hand in this particular. The scrolls and embossing about the fronts of the houses in the Schrannen Platz, might seem to have given the idea for the ornaments above the windows and below the roofs in the Maximilian's Strasse. Without the architectural interest of Nuremberg, or the grave effect of Augsburg, the old part of Munich is by no means destitute of the quaint attraction of the national style of Germany. It is a question if in modern times anything could be made out of this style, had the building of Munich been left to architects. But King Ludwig's introduction of all the styles nnder the sun, and King Maximilian's imitation of Napoleon the Third, have given Munich a mongrel character, which places it out of the pale of architectural discussion. Like those American connoisseurs who prefer having their galleries full of Correggios and Leonardos, instead of founding a native school of painting, both the kings of Bavaria have put their own memories before the interests of national art.

But though the character of the town is mongrel, no one denies its outward charm. And one very great addition to Munich is the English garden, which no visitor can fail to appreciate, and which is certainly unrivalled in Europe. The flatness of the plain round Munich, and the want of pleasant walks, only make this promenade more necessary. The situation of the town is admitted to be faulty, and it is said that King Ludwig on his accession meditated removing the seat of govern-

THE USE OF RIVERS.

ment to Ratisbon. All towns which have a claim to picturesqueness need the society of a river, and make much of its neighbourhood. Without the quays along the Seine, without the Lung, Arno, Paris and Florence would lose much of their grace. The discussions that have taken place in London about embanking the Thames show that the English people are alive to the necessity of making use of their river, and the Danube, which flows through Ratisbon, would have been a favourable stream for that use and decoration. Being navigable much higher up, and having daily steamers, the Danube is a main artery, and it is_ important that a main artery of a kingdom should be close to the capital. The Isar, on the other hand, has none of these advantages. It is merely a mountain stream, liable to fluctuations, and certain to be very much swollen with each spring melting of the mountain snows. It is not navigable save for rafts, and has to be dammed and furnished with a shoot for them. The town was never built along it, and is now gradually approaching it, though the bank on which the town is built is low and marshy, and the opposite bank is high, and save in some places unsuited for building. Up the Isar the scenery much improves, and in this direction pleasant excursions are to be made. But as a rule the country immediately round Munich is dreary and unattractive, and few facilities were given by nature for building a capital city in this situation.

It is said, that King Ludwig asked some stranger which street he* preferred, the Ludwig' s or the Maximilian's Strasse. The stranger begged to be excused

SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH.

giving an answer; but the King insisted. And when the stranger very naturally replied, that he preferred the Maximilian's Strasse, the King called him a cad. But, in spite of the royal epithet, I think most will agree in the stranger's opinion. The Maximilian's Strasse is certainly the prettiest and liveliest street in Munich ; though not architecturally conspicuous, nor decked with such buildings as the Ludwig's Strasse. And though the Ludwig's Strasse is composed of copies, at least the copies have been selected from many places; whereas, the Maximilian's Strasse is merely a version of the Boulevards. As, in earlier times, all German princes were so much impressed by Louis XIV. that they copied him in his buildings ; so, in the present times, the Napoleonic seems likely to be the prevailing style. The palace of Nymphenburg, two and a-half miles out of Munich, is an evident imitation of Versailles, built on the principle Thackeray has somewhere mentioned, which impelled all German kings to have their Monbijous or Mon-plaisirs after the pattern of the Grand Monarque. In like manner they say that, when King Maximilian returned from Paris, his first impulse was to lay out the Maximilian's Strasse. In one thing at least he improved on his father, —he made his street lead somewhere. At the end of it he has built a bridge across the river to the high bank which looks down on Munich; he has laid out pleasant promenades there, with sloping plots, and larch and fir ; and built a large college to serve as ending to the street. How the public appreciate this, is seen in their choosing the street as their favourite walk, while the Ludwig's Strasse is

PAGEANTRY.

almost deserted. For the Ludwig's Strasse leads nowhere, and is at best a dismal walk, — only tolerable in wet weather for its paving.

In dealing with the pictnresque aspect of Munich, I must not omit to notice the processions which take place on feasts, such as Corpus Christi, and at inaugurations of statues and buildings. The people of Munich are celebrated for the success of their processions, for the tasteful and artistic manner in which they are organised, and for the pictorial nature of their execution. The whole town seems to throw itself, heart and soul, into the pageant ; and no better time can be found for seeing Munich most favourably, and with the greatest enjoyment. I saw the Corpus Christi procession, at least the latter part of it, from a window commanding the Odeon Platz, where the whole train sweeps round; and the effect was gorgeous. The large square was hemmed in by soldiers on horseback, whose straight line gave a regularity to the space enclosed, and a definiteness to the limits of the stage. By every house door, young, light green birch trees were planted; and their leaves, shivering in the wind, threw out tints of delicious colour. Rich draperies, red and yellow, hung down from the windows, and at each window were ladies in light spring clothing, looking at a distance like flowers arranged in masses. To the right, the broad, desolate Ludwig^s Strasse stretched away, forming a contrast, with its silence, its emptiness, and its heavy buildings of solid colour, to the animated scene before us. On the left, the gaze was bounded by the light pillars of the Hall of Marshals, which was filled with foot soldiers, — a mass

SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH.

of rich blue. Through all this space passed the procession, in a multitude of hues. Friars leading in deep brown ; then a few rich crimson uniforms ; the King, under a canopy, surrounded by lighted tapers, and followed by yellow robes ; — so that the eye wandered restlessly over a wilderness of blending colours, like a picture of Titian set in motion. And each change produced a new pictorial effect. As each colour passed, the whole picture changed, as if you had turned a kaleidoscope, or were watching a sunset. On the stage, with the even glare of the footlights, such a procession would have been robbed of half its charm. The open atmosphere, the clouds that flitted lightly across the sun, — threw a magic over the scene, that artificial means could not have supplied.

Another picture that I witnessed in Munich was the work of nature alone ; but I do not know where nature produces such pictures, except in Munich. The spring had been unusually early, and all the trees and sprays were covered with that delicious dew of young delicate green, which Leigh Hunt has discussed so rapturously in his letters. On a sudden came a heavy fall of snow, which lay on all the trees, and was crusted and crystallised on the fresh young leaves. When the sun came out and shone bright, the contrast between the tender green below and the masses of pearly, sugary white, sparkling upon them, was like the contrast I saw at a performance of the Mariage de Figaro, when Marcelline was played by a young woman. The actress put on white hair, to suit the character, but was too vain to make her face look old ; and the white hair over the blooming face nature's pageantry.

was worthy of snow on green leaves. Perhaps it is profanation of so lovely a picture, to compare it with the caprice of a French actress ; and it is a pity that some of the landscape painters of Munich did not snatch the transitory effect.

Such is Munich from the outside ; and I am the more glad to dwell on the pictures it presents to me, as I shall have few occasions to revert to it. The inside of Munich is more my subject in this volume ; and I am sure the outside is the pleasant er of the two.

Chapter II. Manners And Customs

In the celebrated story of the camel, the Frenchman writes a brief and brilliant feuilleton, the Englishman studies the habits of the animal for two years, and produces a mass of facts undigested and scarcely understood, while the German retires to construct the camel out of his moral consciousness. This chapter must be the Englishman's chapter, though not without attempts on the part of the author to digest his facts, and refer them to principles. He is of opinion that national definitions have mostly proved unsatisfactory, by reason of rashness in forming conclusions, and wideness of generalisation. The following facts are put forward as those which have come under his own observation, checked by the remarks of friends. He does not wish to destroy the ideal figure of a German as painted in so many sketch books, or to set down the whole nation, north and south, as possessing those characteristics that he has seen in Munich. His experience goes to prove that the German nation is very far from resembling its fancy portraits. When he reads that " society is very pleasant, the Germans being frank and sociable/' he

OF THE GERMANS.

cannot but ask which society, and what Germans ? He has met with the utmost sociability and frankness at one house, and with the utmost stiffness and reserve in others. He knows pleasant people who have lived twenty years in German towns, without making one friend among the natives ; yet he has friends himself of whose kindness he has often made proof. These are apparent contradictions, and yet they are easily explained. The first explanation lies on the surface; men differ from one another. You may find a man stiff and rude, to whatever nation he belongs. Englishmen are generally considered cold in France, and an Englishman who unbends even in the slightest degree, may be complimented by being called half a Frenchman. And yet it is scarcely necessary to observe that there are Englishmen of social habits, even cheery men who will speak to their companions in the railway. The French are always polite and talkative, you say ; but I have met some who were neither. And so when the whole German nation is set down as simple and modest, remarkable for bravery, good nature, good faith, and chastity, erring, perhaps, in their too great neglect of externals, the traveller can but shrug his shoulders, and produce thousands of instances to the contrary.

There is another explanation, which applies to the case as in Munich, and this is the separation of classes, the division of society into layers, that are kept independent of each other. A person moving in high society may find it stiff and reserved, while another associating with the literary and scientific classes may find them frank and sociable. It is certain that the high society

SOCIAL LIFE IN MUNICH.

in Munich has a reputation for stiffness ; I can myself speak only favourably of the professional society. But besides these two there are many other divisions of which I am ignorant, and I do not profess myself competent to judge the conduct of the crime de la crime. The few occasions on which I have been permitted to take part in its rejoicings, have impressed me very deeply. I never found anything to reprehend in the young ladies' dresses, in the light and sparkling conversation that passed between the two sexes, in the courtesy of the entertainers, in the refinement that checked all excess of conviviality. To my humble notions everything seemed perfect. But a noble of Rome, whose taste had been educated in the ball-rooms of the gay cities which own Rome as their capital, passed a very different verdict. " You think that gay and pleasant/' he said, with extreme contempt, twirling his moustache. " Why, you never noticed what went on at the ball, or you have forgotten it. Shall I tell you what I saw ? I went up and asked a lady to dance ; she called for a sheet of foolscap paper which contained her engagements for the winter, and told me she could give me the third valse at the next ball but one. She asked me if I went to the pic-nic balls, and I found that was the name given to the gayest balls of the town, because they were held at an hotel."

" I don't see the derivation," I remarked.

" Evidently not. But it would be wrong to give the same name to a ball that takes place in an hotel, and a ball that takes place at court. So I accepted the dance offered me without a remark, and made my bow."

OF DANCES.

" And no further conversation ?"

" There you are again. Don't you know it is not the custom in Munich for ladies and gentlemen to talk together? Everybody would think you were engaged if you talked together. When a dance is over every gentleman drops his partner exactly where they happen to stop, in the middle of the room, or in one of the corners, and she finds her way across by herself. You see all the young ladies in one group between the dances, and all the young gentlemen in another group; the ladies by themselves, and the gentlemen by themselves, and the elderly people by themselves/'

" Besides, you have the quadrilles and lancers expressly for talking."