Odd Bits of History Part 4

Less than five weeks later the marriage was formally celebrated in a characteristic hole-and-corner fas.h.i.+on. On the evening of April 2, 1637, the duke's physician, Forget, brought the _vicaire_ (curate) of the parish of S. Pierre in Besancon a written authority from his _cure_ (rector) to celebrate Sacraments wherever he might be called upon to do so. That done, the _vicaire_ is led by Forget on a roundabout way into Charles's house, where he finds a sumptuous supper awaiting him. The food and liquor despatched, the unsuspecting curate is, in a temper which disposes him to comply with almost any demand, taken into Charles's own chamber, where the duke bluntly informs him: "Tu es ici pour benir notre mariage." Even in spite of the supper, the curate hesitates. But the duke will stand no parleying. The ceremony is gone through. The young couple, to place themselves entirely in order, comply with the custom of the diocese to the very t.i.ttle: embrace, break a loaf of bread between them, drink out of the same gla.s.s, and the thing is done. The curate receives twenty doubloons for his pains, and is, like everybody else present, pledged to silence.

Secrecy was, however, under the circ.u.mstances, absolutely out of the question, probably not even seriously desired. Soon after we find the duke publicly owning Beatrix as his wife, and giving orders that she shall be treated as d.u.c.h.ess and styled "Altesse." She lives with Charles, rides with him, shows herself by his side to his soldiers, who conceive a violent fancy for her. Nicole and the Lorrain princes and princesses protest. But they are far away, and can do no hurt. The old countess is brought to acquiesce in the marriage, and all seems to go as merrily as could be wished. Beatrix's sister, the nun of Gray, confesses to pious scruples, and implores her sister not to do what is wicked, but is silenced with a simple "Vous n'etes qu'une enfant." To make all things sure, Mazarin, anxious to obtain from Charles an advantageous peace, promises his all-powerful interest with the Curia. The peace duly signed, Beatrix and her husband religiously undertake, side by side, a pilgrimage to Bonsecours, where they pray for Heaven's blessing upon their union, and afterwards hold their formal entry into Nancy, to the bewilderment of her husband's loyal subjects, who, not knowing what to make of the double wedlock, cry out l.u.s.tily: "Que Dieu protege et benisse le bon Duc Charles et ses deux femmes!"

But there was mischief brewing. Nicole and her belongings would have been less than human if they had not set heaven and earth in motion to upset the new irregular union. When Cheminot and Le Moleur arrived at Rome to bespeak the Pope's approval, they found the Prince Nicolas-Francois already there, actively counterworking their game, on which even without such opposing influence the Vatican could scarcely have been expected to smile. In the place of approval, they received nothing but black looks, coupled with a strict injunction to the Lady Beatrix not on any account to pretend to the t.i.tle of "d.u.c.h.ess."

Of course Charles's "Pet.i.te Paix" lasted only a few weeks. Instead of leading his troops into the French camp as supports, as he had agreed, he took them straight to the Spanish headquarters, with the inevitable result of being once more turned out of his country, and finding himself an exile at large. These misfortunes, however, sat lightly upon the gay-hearted monarch, while he had the lovely Beatrix by his side, starring it with her at the Courts of Worms, Luxemburg, and Brussels, and insisting everywhere upon Beatrix being treated as d.u.c.h.ess. He had given her her own body-guard, her own establishment of maids of honour, allowed her to hold her courts and drawing-rooms, just like a reigning princess.

Meanwhile, concurrently with the Pope's judgment, another matter was slowly ripening. All this marrying and re-marrying had, as a matter of course, led to litigation. Prince Cantecroix had left a goodly fortune, for the possession of which his mother, the Marquise d'Autriche, and his cousin, M. de Saint Amour, were then fighting fiercely.

While Charles and Beatrix were attending at Malines, as important witnesses in this case, what should unexpectedly arrive but a brief from the Pope, directing the archbishop to proclaim the judgment p.r.o.nounced on that half-forgotten application of Le Moleur's and Cheminot's! It had taken His Holiness some years to come to a decision even on the preliminary point, that of the marriage with Beatrix; on the main question, the validity of Charles's marriage with Nicole, the judgment was still silent. But Charles's marriage with Beatrix the doc.u.ment declared entirely illegal and invalid, formally threatening both parties concerned with major excommunication if they did not at once separate and thereafter continue apart, and, moreover, within a given time, purge themselves by a public and humiliating penance. To Beatrix this judgment came as a crus.h.i.+ng blow. However, she yielded prompt obedience, removing at once to the distant Hombourg Haut, near Saint-Avold.

Charles evidently cared very much less about the separation, however little he might relish the idea of a penance. It looks very much as if he had already grown a little tired of the lovely Beatrix. She was still very beautiful, and had any amount of love-making left in her. Her little amour with Charles II. was still to come; and that portrait to be seen at Windsor, which so much enamoured Flecknoe, actually shows her as she was a little later. However, the _toujours perdrix_ of one particular beauty had evidently begun to pall upon Charles's exacting taste. He managed very soon to find some cheering consolation for his loss, to the infinite entertainment of the gay Court of Brussels--which delighted in scandal, and was constantly on the look out for some fresh amus.e.m.e.nt. Charles provided such, very opportunely, by a quite unexpected new amour, which was certainly not wanting in originality. Charles suddenly fell over head and ears in love with the very _bourgeoise_ daughter of the Burgomaster of Brussels. He pressed his heart and hand upon her again and again. No effort was too great for him to make in prosecution of his suit, no expense too lavish. The girl found herself serenaded, _feted_, asked to all sorts of festivities--tournaments, concerts, b.a.l.l.s--all arranged specifically in her honour. She found jewellery showered upon her. And, to secure her good will, the proud Carlovingian Duke even condescended to compete with the humble burghers at the popular _kermesse_, in the cross-bow shooting at the "papegay," which, crack marksman that he was, he brought down in brilliant style, thereby const.i.tuting himself "papegay-king" for the year. That dignity imposed upon him the obligation of treating all the burghers and their young women to a flow of liquor--which liquor he did not stint--and, moreover, of holding a triumphal progress through the town--which he magnified into a sort of Lord Mayor's procession, himself appearing in the character of his own ancestor, G.o.dfrey de Bouillon, encased in costly armour, with all his rich jewellery hung upon his person, and seated, high and lofty, upon a magnificent car. The buxom Flamande found all this mightily pretty, but scarcely knew what to make of it so long as her mother strictly forbade her to give the devoted Charles any encouragement, nor dare so much as to meet him in private. Once only was the mother prevailed upon to permit a _tete-a-tete_ for just as long as Charles could manage to hold a live coal in his palm. To extend the time, Charles extinguished the fire by heroically crus.h.i.+ng the coal with his fingers. All this tomfoolery amused the Court intensely. But people were just a little astounded when Charles carried his devotion so far as to refuse to treat with the Spanish plenipotentiaries for a renewal of his treaty, unless their Excellencies would first secure the approval and advocacy of his Flemish Dulcinea. The Spaniards needed the Lorrain troops badly, and so submitted for the time--but they had their revenge.

Of course the news of all this love-making brought Beatrix back pretty promptly to the Low Countries. As an excuse she alleged a burning desire to be reconciled to the Church, whose censure her sensitive conscience could no longer endure. Charles was by no means equally impatient.

However, late in 1645, he too at length consented, and, accordingly, the two attended together to hear the Church's commination, prostrate themselves at full length before the altar, play the abject penitents throughout, confess their guilt, and receive episcopal absolution--all in the presence of a very large a.s.semblage, which made the proceeding none the more pleasant for the princ.i.p.al actors.

That done, Beatrix settled down again, perhaps all the better pleased at finding that by his new treaty obligations Charles had bound himself to proceed immediately to the battle-fields in France. Whether she had a right to be severe upon Charles's little amatory escapades may appear a trifle doubtful by the light of her own conduct now that he was away. At Ghent she took a leaf out of his own book. The duke soon heard of her being in a close _liaison_ with a Polish magnate, Prince Radzivill, _jeune et bien fait, poli et galant_. And not long after arrived the further intelligence that one of her most conspicuous and most successful admirers was our own "gay monarch," Charles Stuart, subsequently Charles II., who was then a refugee in the Netherlands. There is no reason to believe that these misfeasances were in any way belittled to Charles's ear, seeing that it was Princess Marguerite, the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, his sister, who played the princ.i.p.al tale-bearer, a lady who, like all the Lorrain princesses, had a direct interest in bringing Charles's connection with Beatrix to a close. Charles took the bait. He was furious with the Princess de Cantecroix. He would repudiate her for good. He would be reconciled on the spot with Nicole. All seemed to herald a happy and creditable ending to the misunderstanding of years, when, all of a sudden, Beatrix announced herself _enceinte_, and by that announcement upset the whole carefully reared-up house of cards. Nicole had borne the duke no son. Here was the prospect of one. Throwing the Pope's warning to the winds, forgetting and forgiving all about Beatrix's wrong-doings, Charles rushed to join her, and was overjoyed to be able to be present at the birth of what was destined to be his only son, Charles, subsequently the gifted and distinguished Prince de Vaudemont, our William III.'s confidant and adviser, and the elder Pretender's potent patron and ally. The Papal Nuncio and the Archbishop of Malines were horrorstruck at this barefaced breaking of a solemn oath. But no serious harm came of it after all. Only, it was a little provoking to find that when the confinement was over, and Charles's back was once more turned, Beatrix calmly resumed her illicit flirtations, of which the Lorrain princesses, more particularly the Princess Marguerite, were not slow to advise the duke.

Charles's patience was now completely worn out. As soon as he could manage it, he posted back to the Low Countries, resolved, as he declared, to "mettre deux folles a la raison." One _folle_, of course, was Beatrix--whom Charles protested that nothing would induce him ever to take into favour again; and the other was his sister Henriette, who had distinguished herself by a very unconventional match indeed, her third, between herself, aged fifty, and the youthful Italian banker, Grimaldi, aged twenty-seven. There were some utilitarian arguments to plead in excuse of the marriage. Henriette had spent her last _ecu_, had sold every bit of property of hers that was at all saleable, and was deep in debt to boot; and Grimaldi had money. But nothing would justify the extraordinary proceeding which these two lovers, driven into a corner, resorted to, of, so to speak, "springing themselves" upon the unsuspecting Archbishop of Malines, and simultaneously declaring their intention to be man and wife, before he could so much as utter a word of protest. That const.i.tuted, the archbishop had himself previously explained, a legal marriage according to canon law.

Charles found Beatrix at Antwerp. He at once seized her house in all legal form, fretting and fuming with rage, and refusing to listen to a word which she might say in explanation. He had everything put under lock and key, sentries placed before the door, and, overhauling all the furniture with his own hands, he claimed back all the property which the lady held from him; above all, that very valuable collection of jewellery for which the Lorrain Court was noted. To his dismay he found that a portion of it was gone. That made matters ten times worse. The missing pieces must necessarily have been given to Beatrix's _galants_.

The Lorrain princes and princesses were delighted to observe a fresh rupture, and spared no pains to fan the flame. As it happened, at this very time, in 1654, the Papal Tribunal of the "Rota" had at last made up its mind how to adjudicate upon that old plea first raised in 1637, and formally laid before the Pope in 1642--the question of the validity of Charles's marriage with Nicole. The "Rota" ruled the whole suit to be frivolous. The marriage had been "freely contracted," was therefore binding, and, not to be troubled again with anything of the sort, the Court imposed upon Beatrix "perpetual silence." Charles accepted the judgment readily; indeed, he was so earnestly bent upon reconciliation with Nicole, that he seriously talked of having her excommunicated, should she withhold her consent. All seemed once more coming right, in spite of itself, when Europe was surprised by a gross outrage against law and good faith, namely, the high-handed seizure by the Spanish governor, Fuensaldana, of the Duke of Lorraine, and his removal, as a prisoner, to the distant Castle of Toledo. Six long years was the duke destined to pine in that unwholesome, dark, barred tower, a prey to vermin and to all discomforts, and a victim to ever freshly-raised, ever sorely-disappointed hopes. The very Spaniards around him pitied him. The ladies of Toledo conspired to liberate the interesting captive, who, in spite of his fifty years, was still handsome, nimble, full of courtesy and full of life. His own subjects braved tortures, galleys, death--everything, to effect his rescue. Never was ruler more beloved; rarely did he less deserve it.

Nicole loyally forgot all past grievances, appealed to Mazarin, appealed to King Louis, appealed to the Pope. Beatrix likewise did her best--more especially after Nicole's death, in 1657--though roughly rated all the time by her wrathful and impatient late lover, who never for a day together knew his own mind. At one time he asked indignantly: Why did she not come to share his prison? At another he bade her stay where she was, since there she could be of greater use. A third time he would have nothing whatever to say to her. When she sent her _intendant_, Pelletier, to Spain, to exert himself in the cause of the duke's liberation, Charles brought up the old charges of infidelity and misappropriation of his jewellery. But he was delighted to receive at Pelletier's hands the newly-painted portraits of his two children, Anne and Charles, to whom, as a partially redeeming feature in his character, he continued devoted to his dying day.

In 1660 Spain found that she could carry on war no longer. The result was the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which was rather dictated by Mazarin than negotiated between France and Spain, and which, among other things, provided that Charles should be set free. Purchasing the glory of a princely escort from the needy n.o.blemen of Spain by a distribution of the full sum of compensation just received at Madrid, the duke hurried to Saint Jean de Luz in state, and there, with his habitual impetuosity, nearly got himself back into prison. The Spanish Amba.s.sador, Don Louis de Haro, badgered beyond endurance by Charles, full of his complaints, seriously threatened to have the duke carried back to Toledo. This brought our rather romantic Stuart exile to the front, whom n.o.body then supposed to be so near becoming Charles II. of England. Indeed, Mazarin held him in such small estimation, that he would not even admit him to his presence.

But on Don Louis, if he ever seriously intended fresh violence, this bold manoeuvre had the desired effect. He promptly desisted from further threats. The Lorrain Charles, touched by the chivalrous conduct of his namesake, in a burst of grat.i.tude generously offered the latter the free use of his purse--an offer which must have been peculiarly welcome to the ever-impecunious Stuart--and frankly forgave him his rivalry in the matter of Beatrix, which looks, indeed, as if between him and her he now intended all to be over.

In truth, he did not leave the lady very long in doubt upon that point; for, finding her at Bar-le-Duc, when, on his way home from Paris, he pa.s.sed through that town, he flatly declined to see her. She was staying with her daughter, whom in Paris Charles had got married to the Prince de Lillebonne, the governor of the Barrois. He was quite willing that Beatrix should be treated _en d.u.c.h.esse_, but at this time of day it surely was not to be expected that he would once more embroil himself with the Pope by breaking his oath! Just only for a few minutes did he at length consent to meet her, at the urgent supplication of both his children--outside Bar, in a little village; and then he was chillingly cold.

Otherwise, he had still fire enough left in him, when occasion required--as he showed not long after, when at Paris, while engaged on that hare-brained errand of concluding the "Treaty of Montmartre," he became madly enamoured of Marianne Pajot, the daughter of his brother-in-law's (the Duke of Orleans') apothecary. The marriage very nearly became a fact. Everything was ready, in spite of protests from all sides. The priest was waiting, the wedding-guests were in attendance, actually eating the wedding supper, and drinking the young couple's health--for precisely at midnight the ceremony was to be performed--when Du Tellier marched into the room with a guard, and at Louis XIV.'s order carried off Marianne to the convent of Ville l'Eveque. "You would have had to take a syringe for your armorial device if you had married her,"

said Louis XIV. mockingly. "Yes," replied Charles, alluding to the treaty just concluded, "with the royal _fleur-de-lys_ at the nozzle."

This was by no means Charles's last amour. Indeed, after various wildish escapades nearly leading to matrimony he, four years later, when arrived at the ripe age of sixty, actually took to wife a girl of thirteen, and settled down a tolerably staid and respectable husband at last. But this adventure with Marianne Pajot warned Beatrix, whose health was beginning seriously to fail, that if she wanted to become Charles's wife at all, she must be quick about it. Accordingly, when the two once more found themselves in close proximity, unwilling neighbours at Bar-le-Duc--she up in the castle, he in the lower town, to be out of her way--she took the liberty of reminding him of his repeated promises to obtain a dispensation from the Pope and get the marriage renewed. Charles was not at all prepared for such an appeal, which accordingly made him not a little cross. "Not yet," he pleaded, "il n'est pas encore temps de songer a notre mariage"--not when he was fifty-six and she nearly forty-six! Would he not consent at any rate to see her? G.o.d forbid; how could he, a devout "Catholic," presume to infringe the Pope's explicit command? Indeed, these repeated appearances of Beatrix, when she was not wanted, were becoming wearisome to him. She must keep out of the way. Let her go back to Besancon! He was duke and could command. But Beatrix, loth to fly from that which alone could cure her heartache, pleaded, like Lot, for a shorter journey. Might she not stay at Remiremont? Charles acquiesced. In small Lorrain towns she spent the next year or so. Life was getting hard for her, in view of progressively failing health--harder under the painful sense of injustice and unfaithfulness. She gave herself up to religious devotions. At Mattaincourt it was, while she was burning candles and offering prayers to the Lorrain saint, P. Fourier, that the startling news reached her of a fresh amour into which Charles had thrown himself with all the ardour of a young man of twenty, an amour with the beautiful Isabelle de Ludres ("Matame te Lutre," as Madame de Sevigne called her, ridiculing the rough Lorrain accent), a most delicately-formed, symmetrically-shaped _brunette_, a very t.i.t-bit of womanhood, destined to s.h.i.+ne in after-time for a brief period in the changing firmament of _Le Roi Soleil_ at Versailles, as an ephemeral favourite star. She was a canoness of Poussay--_Lavandieres_ they were called in the popular slang--looking probably all the prettier in her semi-religious garb, because its wear involved no religious obligations of any kind. The abbess had obligingly allowed Charles free access to the "nun," and there they were, acknowledged _fiance_ and _fiancee_, talking of the time when the marriage was to take place. To be near Isabella, Charles had moved his court to Mirecourt, which is just about halfway between Poussay and Mattaincourt, utterly unconscious probably of the proximity of Beatrix.

There were daily _fetes_, dances, tourneys, the whole bit of country seemed transformed into a "Garden of Love." It was like a ghost rising from the earth when Beatrix--pale, worn, haggard, but still erect and dignified in bearing--appeared on the scene, her marriage contract in her hand, to bid the young canoness beware, and remind her lover of his promises and broken vows. What right had she to be there? asked Charles in a pet. Had he not bidden her go back to Besancon? Let her be off at once and not trouble him any more! Alas! in her state of health, travelling to Besancon was out of the question. She got as far as Mattaincourt, sending fresh precatory letters to faithless Charles. He would give them no heed.

But she left him no peace. By a severe effort she got to Besancon at last.

"She may disinherit your children," urged Charles's lawyers. "She may stop your marriage," chimed in the Churchmen. "Remember, she has but at longest a few weeks to live," added the doctors. "Really?" asked Charles with visible relief. "She cannot possibly live longer." Not a moment did he cease from his amatory merry-making preparatory to a contemplated new marriage. But, as there was time for celebrating a preliminary one in the interval, for his children's sake he consented to despatch a messenger to the Pope to demand a dispensation, which arrived just in time for the marriage with Beatrix to be solemnised while there was still breath in her. "Me voila, bien honore," whispered the dying woman, "a la fin de mes jours!" Scarcely had the priest left her bedside, when he was called in once more to celebrate another sacrament. "Ah! quelle union," gasped Beatrix, "du sacrement de mariage et de l'extreme onction!"

Thus ended, on June 5, 1663, the changeful life of that "excellents peace as Nature ever made," as wrote Richard Flecknoe in contemplation of her portrait at Windsor, full of "colour" and "freshness," and with eyes whose very lids were "than other eyes more admirably fair," the lady who on the canvas in our royal castle looks so happy and serene, but who in real life tasted far more of the bitterness than of the sweet of man's fleeting love--not, certainly, without much fault on her own part, yet, in respect of her relations with Charles, surely more sinned against than sinning.

The news of her death found the feasting at Mirecourt at its merriest.

Trumpets were sounding, flags were flying, drums were beating, all the jingle of the masquerade of court life was at its noisiest. The widower scarcely stopped in his amus.e.m.e.nts to order a brief formal mourning, which altered but the hue, not the spirit of the feast. For all that his labour was thrown away. Beatrix had, in self-defence, despatched a protest against the marriage to the Vicar-general of Toul, who, as a French bishop, stood in no sort of dependence upon the Duke of Lorraine--rather delighted in crossing him. Besides, Isabelle's mother, shocked at what she saw and heard, peremptorily forbade the marriage, and packed her daughter off in haste to the solitude of Richardmenil.

When Beatrix's will was opened, it was found that she had not forgotten "her very dear husband." "As a token of respect and submission," she had "taken the liberty" of bequeathing to him--that very diamond ring with which he had wedded her, then the wors.h.i.+p of all, twenty-six years before, when his own affection was still fresh and young, and his whole being seemed bound up in the life and possession of the fervently-loved young widow. At her death, certainly, she had this to boast of, that of all the beauties who had riveted Charles's affection, none had for so long a time and with equal power held sway over his fickle heart. If she was neglected, it is some satisfaction to think that her children were honoured and cherished. On the Prince de Vaudemont Charles heaped what benefits he had to bestow. But the stain of his birth clung to him to his death. At one time Charles had hoped to seat him on the proud throne of the Carlovingians. When in 1723 he died, the Lorrain Courts found that no princely honours could be paid to his body. Quietly, without pomp and show, were his bones laid beside the bones of his father, in the Chartreuse of Bosserville, sad memorial that it remains of the duke's faithlessness to his first wife. Neither of Charles nor of Beatrix has any offspring survived. Of Charles even later Dukes of Lorraine have scarcely ever spoken without a protest. Beatrix lies buried at Besancon, and, after all, considering what evil she unwittingly brought upon her adopted country, the portrait which alone remains to recall what she was finds, perhaps, a more fitting place on the walls of Royal Windsor than could have been given to it in the historic hall of the more than half-destroyed palace of Nancy, or among the Lorrain portraits preserved, as a memorial of Lorrain-Hapsburg rule, in the museum of Florence.

V.--THE REMNANT OF A GREAT RACE.[8]

Modern History is, in its rapid march onward, making sad havoc of old races. New nations are rising up; but only like new banks and headlands on our coast, by the acc.u.mulation of drifted s.h.i.+ngle, which the very same tide is was.h.i.+ng away from wasting older rocks. A generation or two hence, in the making of a new German people, the last remnant will have finally disappeared of an interesting race, which historians and archaeologists alike, to whom it is known, will be loth to miss.

There are probably few Englishmen who have any very clear idea as to what and who the "Wends" or "Sorbs" are. Early in the last century, we read--I think it was in the year 1702--our Amba.s.sador at Vienna, one Hales, travelling home by way of Bautzen, to his utter surprise found himself in that city in the midst of a crowd of people, strange of form, strange of speech, strange of garb--but unquestionably picturesque--such as he had never before seen or heard of. They are there still, wearing the same dress, using the same speech, looking as odd and outlandish as ever. We need not go back to the records of Alfred the Great, of Wulfstan and Other, to learn what a powerful nation the Wends, one of the princ.i.p.al branches of the great Slav family, were in times gone by. In the days when Wendish warriors, like King Niklot, were feared in battle, their s.h.i.+ps went forth across the sea, side by side with those of the Vikings, planting colonies on the Danish Isles, in Holland, in Spain--aye, very ambitious Slav historians will even have it that our own _Sorbiodunum_ (Salisbury) is "the town of the Sorbs," founded by Sorb settlers in 449, and that to the same settlers--also styled _Weleti_ (Alfred the Great calls them _Vylte_)--do our "Wilton" and "Wilts.h.i.+re" owe their names. On the Continent they once overspread nearly all Germany. Hanover has its "Wendland," Brunswick its "Wendish Gate." Franconia, when ruinously devastated by intestinal wars of German races, was, at Boniface's instance, recultivated by immigrant Wends, famous in his days, and after, for their husbandry. The entire North German population, from the Elbe eastward, and north of the Bavarian and Bohemian mountains, is in descent far more Wendish than German. Wendish names, Wendish customs, Wendish fragments of speech, bits of Wendish inst.i.tutions, survive everywhere, to tell of past Slav occupation. Altenburg is Wendish to a man, the Mecklenburgs are to the present day ruled even by Wendish grand dukes.

Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden, Lubeck, Leipzig, Schwerin, and many more German towns, still bear Wendish names.

There are now but a poor 150,000 or 160,000 left of this once powerful people. And that handful is dwindling fast. Every year sees the tide of spreading Germanism making further inroad on the minute domain which the Germanised Wends have left to their parent race in that much disputed territory, the Lusatias. Prussian administration, Prussian education, Prussian pedantic suppression of everything which is not neo-German, are rapidly quenching the still smoking flax. It boots little that the Saxon Government, kinder in its own smaller country, has, very late in the day, changed its policy, and is now striving to preserve what is, at its lowest valuation, a most interesting little piece of ethnographic archaeology. It is much too late now to stop the march of Germanisation, which has pushed on so rapidly that even in the same family you may at the present day find parents still thoroughly Wendish, and _priding_ themselves on their Wendish patronymics, and children wholly German, styling themselves by newly coined German names. Evidently the race is dying fast.

Its death was in truth prepared a long time ago. Once the Saxons had obtained the mastery, the poor Slavs were oppressed and persecuted in every way. They were forbidden to wear their own peculiar dress. They were forbidden to trade. The gates of their own towns were closed against them, or else opened only to admit them into a despised "ghetto." No man of culture dared to own himself a Wend. Accordingly, though they possess a language unique for its plasticity and pliancy, up to the time of the Reformation written literature they had none. For centuries their race has been identified with the lowest walks in life. They must have their own parsons, of course; but that was all. Otherwise, hewers of wood and drawers of water, toiling cultivators of the soil, they were doomed to remain--very "serfs," lending, as we know, in the north, a peculiar name to that servile station ("serfs," from "serbs"), just as in the south "Slav" became the distinctive term for "slave."

To the eye of the archaeologist, all this hards.h.i.+p has secured one compensating advantage. It has left the Wends--in dress, in customs, in habits of mind, in songs and traditions--most interestingly primitive.

Everything specifically Wendish bears the unmistakable stamp of national childhood, early thought, old-world life. There has been no development within the race, as among other Slavs. There have been modern overlayings, no doubt; but they are all foreign additions. The Wendish kernel has remained untouched, displaying with remarkable distinctness that peculiarly characteristic feature which runs through all the Slav kindred, at once uniting and separating various tribes, combining a curious unity of substructure with a striking variety of surface. Among the "Serbs,"

or--"Sorbs"--really "Srbs"--of Germany, occur names which reveal a close kins.h.i.+p with Russians, Bohemians, and Croats. By the strange survival--among two tribes alone in all the world--of a complete dual, and the retention of a distinct preterite tense (without the use of an auxiliary verb) their language links them plainly with the Old Bulgarians.

Their national melodies exhibit a marked resemblance to those melancholy airs which charm English visitors in Russia. Yet a Pole, one of their nearest neighbours, is totally at sea among the Wends. His language is to them almost as unintelligible as that of their "dumb" neighbours on the opposite side, the _Njemski_--that is, the Germans. Even among themselves the Lusatians are divided in speech. In Lower Lusatia, for instance, where the population are descended from the ancient Lusitschani, if you want to ask a girl for a kiss, you must say: _gulitza, daj mi murki_. In Upper Lusatia, where dwell the Miltschani, the same request takes the shape of: _holitza, daj mi hupkuh_. My German friends would have it that to their ears Wendish sounded very like English--which simply meant, that they understood neither the one nor the other. In truth, there is no resemblance whatever between the two tongues, except it be this, that like some of our own people, the Wends are incorrigibly given to putting their H's in the wrong place. The explanation, in respect of the Wends, is, that in their language no word is known to begin with a vowel. Hence, to make German at all p.r.o.nounceable to their lips, they often have to add an H as initial letter, the impropriety of which addition they happen generally to remember at the wrong time. It will terrify linguists among ourselves to be told that this Slav language--which the Germans despise as barbarous, which has scarcely any literature, and which is spoken by very few men of high education--possesses, in addition to our ordinary verbs, also verbs "neutropa.s.sive," "inchoative," "durative," "momentaneous," and "iterative"; an aorist, like Greek, and a preterite aorist of its own; a subjunctive pluperfect, and in declension seven cases, including a "sociative" case, and a "locative." The most remarkable characteristics of the language, however, are the richness of its vocalisation, and its peculiar flexibility and pliancy, which enable those who speak it to coin new and very expressive words for distinct ideas almost at pleasure, yet open to no misconstruction.

In outward appearance the Wends are throughout a powerful, healthy, and muscular race, whose men are coveted for the conscription. The first Napoleon's famous "Bouchers Saxons"--the Saxon dragoons--were Wends almost to a man. And in the present day, it is the Wends who contribute the lion's share of recruits to the Saxon household regiments. Their women are prized throughout Germany as nurses. They are all well-built, well-shaped, strong of muscle, and nimble in motion, like the Lacedaemonian women of old. All surrounding Germany recruits its nurses from Wendland. Next to stature, the most distinctive external feature of the race is its national dress, which, as in most similar cases, survives longest, and in its most characteristic form, among women. As between different districts, such dress varies very markedly, but throughout it has some common features.

Short bright-coloured skirts, with the hips preternaturally enlarged by artificial padding, and an unconscionable amount of starch put into the petticoats on Sundays; close-fitting bodices, under which, in some districts, by an atrocious perversion of taste, are placed bits of stout cardboard, designed to compress a strongly developed bust to hideous flatness; small tight-fitting caps, into which is gathered all the hair, and which are often concealed under some bright-coloured outer head-gear, with an abundance of ribbons dependent; and a goodly allowance of scrupulously clean collar, frill, and neckerchiefs, at any rate on Sundays; and, on festive occasions, stockings of the same irreproachable whiteness put upon ma.s.sive calves which on other occasions are worn all bare--these are, briefly put, the main characteristics of the women's dress. Oddly, the Roman Catholics, who elsewhere--in the Black Forest, for instance--affect the gayest colours, among the Wends show a partiality for the soberest of hues, more specifically brown and black. The men delight in big b.u.t.tons, bright waistcoats, and high boots, long coats which pa.s.s on from father to son through generations, and either preternaturally stout hats of prehistoric mould, or else large blue caps with monster shades. Their peculiar customs are simply legion, and so are their traditions and superst.i.tions. Their fairs are a thing to see.

Old-fas.h.i.+oned as the Wends are, ordinary shopping has no attraction for them. But the merry fair, with its life and society, its exchange of gossip, its display of finery, its haggling and bargaining, its music and its dancing, is irresistibly alluring. At the great fair at Vetzschau in olden days you might see as many as a thousand Wendish girls, all dressed in their best, formally but merrily going through their Wendish dances in the market-place. In matters of faith the Wends are all great believers in little superst.i.tious formulas and observances, such as not turning a knife or a harrow edge or tine upward, lest the devil should sit down upon it.

Their favourite devices for attracting a man's or a maiden's love are a little too artlessly natural to be fit for recital here. One great prevailing superst.i.tion is the belief in lucky stones--_kamushkis_.

Stones, in truth, play a leading part in their traditions. They have a belief that stones went on growing, like plants, till the time of our Saviour's temptation, in the course of which, by an improvement upon the authorised text, they a.s.sert that he hurt his foot against one by accident. In punishment for having caused that pain, their growth is understood to have been stopped. They have other stones as well--"fright-stones" and "devil-stones" for instance. But the _kamushkis_ are by far the most important and the most valuable. They are handed on as precious heirlooms from parent to child, and often put down at a high value in the inventory of an estate. The supernatural world of the Wends is as densely peopled as any mythology ever yet heard of. There is the _psches-poniza_--the noon woman, to avoid whom women in pregnancy and after their confinement dare not go out of doors in the midday hours; there is the _smerkava_, or "dusk-woman," who is fatal to children, the _wichor_, or whirlwind; the _plon_, or dragon, who terrifies, but also brings treasure; the _bud_, or Will-o'-the-Wisp; the _bubak_, or bogey; the nocturnal huntsman, _nocny hanik_; and the nocturnal carman, _nocny forman_; the _murava_, or nightmare; the _kobod_ or _koblik_; the _chodota_ (witch); the _buzawosj_, who frightens children; the _djas_, the _graby_, the _schyry zed_, the _kunkaz_, there are spirits "black" and "white." Every mill has its peculiar _nykus_ or _nyx_, who must be fed and propitiated. And then there are roguish sprites, such as _Pumpot_, who is a sort of Wendish "barguest," doing kind turns as often as he plays mischievous pranks. All this curious Slav mythology alone is worth studying. If in a family children keep dying young, the remedy certain to be applied is, to christen the next born "Adam" or "Eve," according to its s.e.x, which is thought absolutely to ensure its life. Like most much-believing races, the Wends are remarkably simple-minded, trustful, leadable, and docile, free from that peculiar cunning and malice which is often charged, rightly or wrongly, to Slav races--not without fault, but in the main a race of whom one grows fond.

To see the Wends ethnographically at their best, you should seek them in their forest homes, all through that vast stretch of more or less pine-clad plain, mostly sand, extending northwards from the last distant spurs of the "Riesengebirge" (which bounds at the same time Bohemia and Silesia), to the utmost limits of their territory in the March of Brandenburg, and much beyond that--or else in that uniquely beautiful Spreewald, some hundred of miles or so south of Berlin, a land of giant forest and water, an archipelago of turfy islets. That is the ancient headquarters of the Wendish nation, still peopled by a peculiar tribe, with peculiar, very quaint dress, with traditions and customs all their own, settled round the venerated site of their old kings' castle. It is all a land of mystic romance, sylvan silence, old-world usages, such as well become the supposed "Sacred Forest" of the ancient "Suevi." Alders and oaks--the former of a size met with nowhere else--cast a dense, black shade over the whole scene, which is in reality but one vast lake, on whose black and torpidly moving waters float wooded _kaupes_ or isles, scattered over which dwell in solitude and practical isolation the toilsome inhabitants, having no means of communication open to them except the myriads of arms of the sluggishly flowing Spree. A parish covers many square miles. Each little cottage, a picture by itself amid its bold forest surroundings, stands long distances away from its neighbours. The outskirts of the forest consist of wide tracts of wobbling meadow, a floating web of roots and herbage, over which one can scarcely move without sinking into water up to the hips. Were you to tread through, down you would go helplessly into the fathomless black swamp. On those vast meadows grow the heavy crops of sweet nutritious gra.s.s which make the Spreewald hay valued at Berlin for its quality as is the hay of the Meuse at Paris. On their little islands, as in the _Hortillonages_ of the Somme, the _kaupers_ raise magnificent crops of vegetables (more particularly cuc.u.mbers, without which Berlin would scarcely be itself), which, as on the Somme, they are constrained to carry to market by boat. Boats and skates, in fact, supply in that wooded Holland the only means of locomotion. And thanks to its ca.n.a.ls and its water, all in it is so fresh, and so luxuriant, and so remarkably silent, that, while one is there, there seems no place like the Spreewald in which to be thoroughly alone with Nature. On a mound artificially raised upon one of these islands, at Burg, once stood the castle of the great Wendish kings, whose sceptre is supposed still to descend in secret from sire to son in a particular family, known only to the best initiated of Wends. To this country more specifically, together with some scores of distinctive water sprites (each endowed with its own attribute), does Wendish mythology owe its numerous legends about snakes wearing precious crowns, which on occasion they will carelessly lay down on the gra.s.s, where, if luck should lead you that way, you may seize them and so ensure to yourself untold riches--provided that you can manage to get safely away.

In the mountainous country about Bautzen and Loebau in Saxony, where the scenery is fine, the air bracing, the soil mostly fat, nineteenth century levelling has been far too long at work for race customs to have maintained themselves altogether pure. There stand the ancient sacrificing places of the Wends, the Czorneboh, sacred to the "black G.o.d," the Bjeliboh, sacred to the "white" one--respectively, the Mounts Ebal and Gerizim of Wendland--and many more. Wendish traditions and Wendish speech are still very rife in those parts. And most of the brains of the race are to be found in that well-cultivated district--the "Wendish Mozart,"

Immisch, Hornigk, Pfuhl--all the literary coryphaei of the race. From Bautzen, certainly, with its bipart.i.te cathedral, in which Roman Catholics and Protestants wors.h.i.+p peaceably side by side, divided only by a grating, it is quite impossible to dissociate Wendish traditions. That is to the Upper Lusatians what Cottbus is to the lower--_mjesto_, "the town" _par excellence_. There are very true Wends in those regions still. In a village near Hochkirch the community managed for a long time successfully to keep out Germans, refusing to sell any property otherwise than to a Wend. But under the influence of advancing civilisation so many things externally peculiar to the race have disappeared--their forests, and their wooden buildings, much of their ancient dress; they live so much in the great world, that they can scarcely be said to have kept up their peculiar race-life in absolute purity.

In the forest, on the other hand, where, in fact, dwell the bulk of the not yet denationalised race, you still see Wends as they were many centuries ago. It is a curious country, that easternmost stretch of what once was the great forest of Miriquidi, almost touching Bautzen and Gorlitz with its southernmost fringe, and extending northward far into the March of Brandenburg. At first glance you would take it to be intolerably prosaic. It spreads out at a dead level, flat as a rink, for miles and miles away, far as the eye can see, with nothing to break the straight sky-line--except it be clouds of dust whirled up by the wind from the powdery surface of this German Sahara. The villages lie far apart, divided by huge stretches of dark pine forest, much of it well-grown, not a little, however, crippled and stunted. The roads are, often, mere tracks of bottomless sand, along which toils the heavy coach at a foot pace, drawn by three horses at least, and shaking the pa.s.sengers inside to bits by its rough motion across gnarled pine-roots which in the dry sand will never rot. But look at it a little more closely, and you will find a peculiar kind of wild romance resting upon it. If you take the trouble to inquire, you will find that all this forest is peopled with elves. There are stories and legends and superst.i.tions attaching to almost every point.

Hid away among it are the sites of ancient Wendish villages--you may see where stood the houses, you may trace where were the ridged fields, you may feel, Wends will have it, by a creeping sensation coming over you as you pa.s.s, where were the ancient grave-yards. Here is an ancient haunted Celtic barrow. There is a cave in which are supposed to meet, at certain uncanny hours, the ghosts of cruel Swedish invaders, barbarously murdered in self-defence, or else Wendish warriors of much older time. Yonder, again, is a mound beneath which lies a treasure. Here "spooks" this spirit, there his fellow. By the Wends the forest is regarded with peculiar awe. It is to them a personality, almost a deity, exacting, as they will have it, every year at least one victim as a tribute or sacrifice. Every now and then you will come upon a heap of dry branches, on which you may observe that every pa.s.ser-by religiously lays an additional stick. That is a "dead man," a Wendish "cairn," raised up in memory of some person who on that spot lost his life. Between the forest and dry fields picturesquely stretch out sheets of water, some of them of large size. And where there is water, the scenery at once a.s.sumes a hue of freshness and verdure which is most relieving. Dull and bare as this country generally is, no Switzer loves his own beautiful mountain home more fervently, or admires it with greater appreciation, than do the Wends their native patch of sand and peat and forest; nor does he miss it, when away, with more painful home-sickness.

In this flat tract of land you may see the German Slavs still living in their traditional timber or clay-and-wattle houses, built in the orthodox Wendish style--with a little round-roofed oven in front, and a draw-well surmounted by a tall slanting beam, with a little garden, the _Ausgedinge-haus_ for the pensioned-off late proprietor, the curious barge-board, ornamented at either end with some crudely fantastical carving (which was borrowed more than a thousand years ago from the early Saxons), and with that most characteristic mark of all, the heavy arched beam overshadowing the low windows. The house would be thatched, but that the Prussian government absolutely forbids thatch for new roofing. The entire settlement is laid out on the old nomad plan, reminding one of times when for security villagers had to dwell close together. In the middle of the village is the broad street or green, planted with high trees, which, by their contrast with the surrounding pine forest, indicate the site to the traveller a long way off. The Wends are devoted lovers of trees, and in every truly Wendish village you are sure to find a large lime tree, tall or stunted, but in every case spreading out its branches a long distance sideways, and overshadowing a goodly s.p.a.ce. That tree has for generations back formed the centre of local life, and is venerated as becomes a "sacred tree" of ancient date. Here young and old are wont to a.s.semble. Here, on Sat.u.r.day afternoons in spring-time, gather the young girls to blend their tuneful voices in sacred song heralding the advent of Easter. Here used to meet the village council--which has in recent times, for reasons of practical convenience, removed to the public-house--the _gromada_, or _hromada_, summoned by means of a _kokula_ or _hejka_, that is, a "crooked stick" or a hammer, sent round from house to house. Every householder, large or small, has a right to be present and to take his full part in the proceedings; for the Wends are no respecters of persons.

In the centre sits the _solta_, as president, supported by his "sidesmen,"

the _starski_. And there are discussed the affairs of the little community, heavily and solemnly at first, but with increasing animation as the _palenza_, or _schnaps_, gets into people's heads. The most interesting by far of these periodical meetings is the _gromada hoklapnica_--the "gromada of brawls," that is--which is held in most villages on St. Thomas' Day, in some on Epiphany Day, to transact, with much pomp and circ.u.mstance, the business which has reference to the whole year. The annual accounts are there settled. New members are received into the commune, and if any have married, the Wendish marriage tax is levied upon them. If there are any paupers in the parish, they are at that meeting billeted in regular succession upon paris.h.i.+oners. Another important matter to settle is the inst.i.tution of paid parish officers, none of whom are appointed for more than a year at a time. Watchman, field-guard, blacksmith, road-mender, &c., all are expected to attend, cap in hand, making their obeisance as before a Czar, thanking the _gromada_ for past favours, which have secured them infinitesimal pay, and humbly supplicating for new, which are, as a rule, granted with a rather pompous and condescending grace.

The village homesteads line the common or street on either side, standing gable outwards, as every Wendish house ought to stand. From them radiate in long narrow strips the fields, as originally divided, when the settlers were still a semi-nomad race, when each member was scrupulously a.s.signed his own share of loam, clay, high land, low land, peat, sand, meadow--not only in order that none might be better off than his neighbour, but also that the workers in the fields might at all times make sure of fellows.h.i.+p, to lighten their toil by chat and song, and by taking their meals in company. During the whole of their history the Wends have shown themselves devoted to agriculture. Their social system was based upon agriculture; agriculture occupied their thoughts. Their legends represent their ancient kings, and the saints of their hagiology, as engaged in agriculture. And their girls, thinking of marriage, may be heard to sing:

"No, such a suitor I will not have Who writeth with a pen; The husband for me is the man Who plougheth with the plough."

By intuitive instinct the Wends prefer cultivating light land, whereas the Germans give the preference to strong. All their implements seem made for light soil. Such are their wooden spades, tastefully edged with steel which, though not perhaps as useful as our all-steel implements, look incomparably more picturesque. And from light soil the Wends know better than any race how to raise remunerative crops. They understand heavy land, too--as witness their excellent tillage in Upper Lusatia, and above all in that German "Land of Goshen," the Duchy of Altenburg. But on sand they are most at home. And in the poorest districts you may make sure that wherever you see a particularly fine patch of corn, or potatoes, or millet, or buckwheat, that patch is peasant's land.

The church, as a rule, is placed right in the middle of the village. The Wends value their church. For all their stubborn paganism in early days, against which St. Columban, and St. Emmeran, and St. Rupert and St.

Eckbert all contended in vain, the Wends have, since they were christianized, always been a devoutly religious people, and at present--barring a little drinking and a little stealing (which latter, however, is strictly confined to fruit and timber, in respect of which two commodities they hold communistic opinions)--they are exemplary Christians. With their parsons they do not always stand on the best of terms. But that is because some of the parsons, raised from peasant rank, are, or were--for things have altered by the introduction of fixed stipends--a little exacting in the matter of t.i.thes and offerings, and the demand that there should be many sponsors at a christening, for the sake of the fees. There are some queer characters among that forest-clergy. One that I knew was a good deal given to second-hand dealing. He attended every sale within an accessible radius, to bring home a couch, or a whip, or a pair of pole-chains, or a horse-cloth, for re-sale. His vicarage was in truth a recognised second-hand goods store, in which every piece of furniture kept continually changing. Another was greedy enough to claim a seat at the Squire's table, at the great dinners given in connection with the annual _battues_, as a matter of "prescription." A third drank so hard that on one occasion he had to be propped up against the altar to enable him to go on with the service. The most curious of all was the "chaplain"

of Muskau, who married his couples wholesale, on the Manchester "sort yourselves" principle. Sometimes, when things went a little slowly, and he grew impatient, it was _he_ who "sorted" the couples, and then occasionally it would happen that, giving the word of command like a Prussian corporal, he would "sort" them wrongly. They were far too well drilled to discipline not to obey. But when the ceremony was over they would lag sheepishly behind, scratching their heads and saying: "_Knes duchowny_, _I_ should have married _that_ girl, and this girl should have married _him_." However, the Church had spoken, and the cause was finished. Married they were and married they must remain. Even to this the patient Wends submitted; and, perhaps, they were all the happier for it.

But all this has nothing to do with the Church proper, as distinct from the parson. Their religious instinct appears born with the Wends. Religion seems to be in all their thoughts and most of their acts. The invariable greeting given is "G.o.d be with you." They talk habitually of "G.o.d's rain,"

"G.o.d's sun," "G.o.d's crops," "G.o.d's bread"--to them "every good gift and every perfect gift cometh from above." Wors.h.i.+ppers returning from church are hailed with a "Welcome from G.o.d's Word." When the sun goes down, it is to "G.o.d" that it goes to rest. Whenever a bargain is struck, the appeal to the other party is "G.o.d has seen it," or "G.o.d has heard it." And although German jurisdiction, with its partiality for oaths slily extracted _after_ a statement, has imported here and there a little false swearing, in the main that ancient confirmation of the contract is still respected. In Wendland the churches are filled as nowhere else in Germany, and however prosily the parson may preach--as he generally does--nowhere is he more attentively and devoutly listened to. In Wendland alone of all Germany have I noticed that Protestants bow at the mention of the name of "Jesus." Barring some ten thousand Roman Catholics in Saxony, the Wends are all staunch Protestants of that nondescript Lutheran-Calvinist creed, which the kings of Prussia have imposed upon their country. But not a few of their beliefs and superst.i.tions and legends hark back to older days.

They still keep _Corpus Christi_. In their religious legends, which are of very ancient origin, the Virgin plays a prominent part--leading off, among other things, a nocturnal dance, in which the angels all join, clad in silken gowns with green wreaths on their heads, meeting for the purpose, of all unsuitable places, in the church, and carefully locking the door against human intruders. The Virgin's flight into Egypt is put into strongly agricultural language, "Has a woman with a child pa.s.sed this way?" ask Herod's ruthless emissaries. "Aye," answers the truthful Wend, "while I was sowing this barley." "You fool, that must have been three months ago." In truth, by a miracle the barley has grown to maturity in one brief hour. By this expedient the Virgin escapes. The Virgin spins; the Virgin sews s.h.i.+rts; the Virgin does all that Wendish women are taught to do. In Scripture-lore the Wends have their own localised versions of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; of the fight of St. George and the Dragon; and an even more localised tale of the doings of King David. The archangel Michael is made to fight for Budyssin against the Germans. Judas Iscariot, according to their national tradition, comes to grief mainly through gambling. The Saviour gave him thirty pieces of silver to buy bread with. These he staked--tempted by Jews whom he saw gambling by the wayside--on an unlucky card; and to recover them it was that he sold his Master. To cap all this unorthodoxy, the Wends make the Creator call after Judas that he is forgiven. But remorse drives him to hang himself, notwithstanding. He tries a pine and a fir, but finds them too soft, so he selects an aspen tree--hence the perpetual agitation of its leaves. One of their peculiar legendary saints is Diter Thomas, who was so holy that he could hang his clothes when going to bed--which he appears to have done in the daytime--on a sunbeam. One day, however, at church this devout man espied the Devil seated behind the altar, engaged in taking down on a fresh cowhide the names of all whom he saw sleeping in church. There must have been an unusually large number, for the cowhide proved too small, and Satan was fain to stretch it by holding one end with his teeth and pulling at the other with his hands. As it happened, his teeth let go, and back went his head against the wall, with a bang which woke up all the sleepers. This aroused in pious Thomas so much mirth that he forgot the respect due to the holy place, and laughed aloud--in punishment for which offence his grace departed from him, and he was thenceforth reduced to the necessity of using pegs. For their regularity in attendance at church I half suspect that the peculiar fondness of the Wends for singing is, in not a small degree, accountable; and, it may be, also the attraction of a little gossip after service, and the excitement of an occasional little fair.

The Wends would indeed not be Slavs if they were not engrossingly fond of singing. Singing is, in fact, among young folk reckoned the princ.i.p.al accomplishment. And they have a rich store of songs, set to exceedingly melodious airs. They have them of all descriptions--legends and convivial songs, martial songs, sacred hymns, short _roncka_ and _reje_ for the dancing-room, and long elegies and ballads for the field, to shorten the long summer's day out at work. They have their own curious instruments, too, still in use--a three-stringed fiddle, a peculiar sort of hautboy, and bagpipes of two different sizes, the larger one invariably ornamented with a goat's head. To be a _kantorka_ (precentress) in church, or even in a spinning-room, is a thing for a Wendish girl to be proud of, and to remember to her old age. What a Wendish village would in winter time be without those social spinning meetings it is difficult to imagine. To no race do conviviality, mirth, harmless but boisterous amus.e.m.e.nt, seem so much of a necessary of life. And none appears to be so thoroughly devoted to the practice of homely household virtues. Spinning, poultry-breeding, bee-keeping, gardening, coupled with singing, and nursing children, and making model housewives--these are the things which occupy girls'

thoughts. At her very christening the baby-girl, borne back from church "as a Christian," is made to find a spindle and a broom carefully laid in the room, to act as charms in setting her infant thoughts in the right direction. Her "sponsor's letter" is sure to contain some symbolic grains of flax and millet. And a lover's princ.i.p.al gift to his sweetheart invariably consists of a carefully turned and brightly-painted "kriebatsche," an antiquated spindle and distaff that is, which is held dear as a family Bible. Spinning, indeed, is among Wends a far more important occupation than elsewhere. For men and women alike wear by preference linen clothes, made of good, stout, substantial stuff, thick enough to keep out the cold. In rural Germany a peasant girl is expected as an indispensable preparative for marriage to knit her "tally" of stockings. In Wendland the _trousseau_ consists all of spun linen.