EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CARRIAGES
most travelers almost like going from civilization to barbarism. Even Italy sustained without much difficulty a comparison with Germany in this particular.
The reasons for the backward condition of Germany we have considered in some detail elsewhere, but they are worth bearing in mind. "Germany," says Cogan at the end of the eighteenth century, "is but thinly inhabited in proportion to its great extent; excepting on the borders of the Rhine, the large towns are comparatively few, and at a great distance from each other;"[1] and by Germany he meant not only what we now call Germany, but also the Teutonic regions of Austria. Communication at a distance was extremely difficult, and in winter practically impossible. The natural results of isolation followed. Particularism held sway in every part of the Empire. Moreover, almost every detail that we learn about German life in the eighteenth century strengthens the conviction that for the average burgher it was the day of small things. Trade was limited, and manufacturing enterprises were few. Incentives to travel for business or for pleasure were, in comparison with our time, strangely lacking. The country in various parts impressed strangers as being old-fashioned and very backward in its ways. Mariana Starke, in going from Italy to Vienna in 1798, observed that "The passing through this part of Germany seems like living some hundred years ago in England; as the dresses, customs, and manners of the people precisely resemble those of our ancestors."[2]
Great cities there were, like Berlin and Hamburg and Leipsic and Vienna, where wealth and luxury abounded, and petty courts like Anspach and Cassel and Karlsruhe at least suggested the lavish display of Versailles, but the task of going from one city to another was the reverse of inviting. In some parts of Germany where one might reasonably have expected adequate means of transportation, there was a very painful lack.[3] As we have already seen, the roads in general were very inferior, making "it downright misery to travel in bad weather."[4]
69
- ↑ Cogan, The Rhine, ii, 258.
- ↑ Letters from Italy, ii, 211.
- ↑ As late as 1756 Nugent cites two striking instances: "There is no post-waggon from Leipsic to Prague, but a sort of heavy coach by the way of Chemnitz, which sets out on Wednesday towards eleven in the morning and comes back on Sunday noon." Grand Tour, ii, 249. "From Dresden to Prague there is no post-waggon, so that you must either hire a coach or chaise for the whole journey, or travel with post-horses." Ibid., ii, 257.
- ↑ Ibid., ii, 68.
