Part 9 (2/2)
”_Sunt isti ex tua parte?_” he asked. ”_Senior, si_,” I quickly answered. ”Ah, landsknecht, landsknecht,” he said, replacing his weapon, and followed by his companion, making off as fast as he could.
The adventures of that evening were, however, not at an end. I found the gates of the town shut, and a trumpeter galloping along the walls and blowing with all his might. I had not the faintest idea of what it all meant, when the captain of husards appeared upon the spot, recognizes, and hails me. ”What are you doing here, and what has happened?” he asked. ”Why are the gates shut, and why is the alarm being sounded?” While confessing my total ignorance, I began to ask about the amba.s.sadors; thereupon great surprise of the captain at their being waited for. The matter seemed all the more strange to him in that he on the road fell in with some Spanish hors.e.m.e.n, who told him that they had been sent to meet a mission. What if our counsellors should have been attacked by these people, decoyed into the wood, and plundered? Of course, I felt very anxious to inform the Brunswicker captain, so that he might send a reconnoitring party in the direction of Bitterfeld. Finally, the noise ceased in the town, and the gates were reopened. I immediately reported matters to W. Hahn, who in the early morning sent out his hors.e.m.e.n. An hour afterwards there appeared upon the scene Abraham Gatzkow, the same gentleman from Lower Pomerania who had been instructed to keep a fresh horse for me for the last stage from Brandenburg-the-Old to the camp at Wittenberg. The envoys had sent him on in front, impatient to know why the escort had failed to appear at the appointed spot, a mishap which prejudiced them against me.
Odd to relate, neither Sleidan nor Beuter mentions the alarm to which I referred just now; hence, some further particulars will not be deemed superfluous. Nothing is more frequent in the army and less easy to prevent than the stealing of horses. If an animal takes your fancy, some scoundrel is ready to get it for you for a matter of six or eight crowns. If you keep it six or eight weeks elsewhere, so as to change its habits, and change its tail, its mane and other peculiarities, you may safely bring it back to the camp. A certain German gentleman proceeded in that way with the stallion of a Spaniard; he sent it away to his estates. When the affair had been forgotten the animal reappeared. It so happened that the German hors.e.m.e.n (eight squadrons at the lowest computation) encamped in the middle of a delightful plain, watered by the Saale, while the whole of the infantry of their nation was quartered in the town; a providential circ.u.mstance, for if the foot had come to the aid of the horse, there would have been nothing short of a ma.s.sacre. The emperor, therefore, was well inspired in ordering at once the closing of all the gates.
The Spaniards occupied the height around the castle. At dusk, when taking the horses to be watered, a Spanish lad recognizes the stallion, cries out that it belongs to his master and wants to lead it away. The young German groom resists, and is supported by three or four of his countrymen. The Spaniard rallies a dozen, and the German immediately finds himself at the head of a score. The two parties increase every minute, and the first shots are fired. Posted on the heights, the Spaniards have the advantage of the position, their b.a.l.l.s going through the walls of the tents, kill several gentlemen who are seated at table; the Germans give as good as they get. A Spanish lord issues from the town with words of peace from the emperor; he has magnificent golden chains round his neck and is riding a superb animal. At the sight of him there is a general cry: ”Fire on the dog of a Spaniard.” He advances, nevertheless, on the bridge, but a projectile brings down his mount, which rolls into the Saale, and is drowned there with his master, the wearer of the beautiful collar. Nine days before this, at Wittenberg, a rotten strap had, with the help of G.o.d, saved my life.
The gentleman covered with gold and dressed in velvet, on the other hand, miserably perished.
The emperor, while all this was going on, sent the son of King Ferdinand, the Archduke Maximilian (afterwards emperor). He felt convinced that it would suffice to restore order, but the moment the archduke opened his lips the Germans repeated the cry: ”Down with the Spaniard.” The archduke was wounded in the right arm, which he wore during several weeks in a black sling. The emperor himself had to come forth. ”Dear Germans,” he said, ”I know you to be without reproach. I therefore ask you to be calm. You shall be indemnified fully and in every respect, and on my Imperial word, to-morrow you shall see the Spaniards strung up on the highest gibbets.” This promise had the effect of quieting the riot, and the gates were opened. The inquiry having shown that the loss of the Germans amounted to eighteen grooms or stablemen besides seven horses, and that of the opposing party to not less than seventy men, the emperor, though professing to be ready to make good the value of the horse and even to punish the Spaniards according to his promise, expressed the hope that the Germans would consider themselves sufficiently avenged, inasmuch as their adversaries had suffered four times more than they had.
During the evening of June 19, the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg made their entry into Halle with the Landgrave Philip of Hesse in their midst. At six in the afternoon of the next day the landgrave ”made honourable amends” in the great hall of the Imperial quarters in the presence of the electors, princes, foreign potentates, amba.s.sadors, counts, colonels, captains, and in one word, of everybody who could find room inside or catch a glimpse of the scene through the windows.
But while his chancellor, on his knees, close against him, humbly craved pardon, Philip, ever inclined to raillery, smiled with an air of bravado, and to such a degree as to make the emperor exclaim, while threatening him with his outstretched index: ”Go on; I'll teach you to laugh.” Alas, he kept his word.
Our counsellors decided to leave me behind incognito at the Imperial camp with a gentleman of Lower Pomerania named George von Wedel, who having murdered his cousin and having been exiled by Duke Barnim, had entered the emperor's service with nine-and-twenty horse troopers. His goodwill towards our mission and my instances finally got him his pardon. That was how the horse on which I had left Wolgast was to carry me as far as Augsburg.
Having started from Halle on June 20, the emperor stopped three days at Naumberg. On the 24th, very early in the morning, he was at the general headquarters at some distance beyond the wall. He wore a violet cap and a black cloak trimmed with velvet several inches wide. Suddenly there was a shower, and immediately the emperor sent for a hat and a grey felt cloak to the town; but meanwhile he turned the cloak he wore and kept his headdress under it. Poor man, who spent untold gold on the war, and who stood bareheaded in the rain rather than spoil his clothes.
The Spanish escort of the landgrave preceded his Imperial Majesty by a day's march, and committed unheard-of excesses. Next morning the corpses were strewn where the emperor pa.s.sed. Women and girls suffered the most terrible outrages; as for the men, after having suspended them by their genital parts, the barbarians tortured them to make them reveal the places where they had hidden their money, after which, with one stroke of their swords, flush with the abdomen, they detached the victim.
The emperor slept at Coburg, in Franconia. The German hors.e.m.e.n took up their quarters in the adjacent villages. Every house was deserted, the dwellings of the n.o.bility as well as the peasant's farms; nowhere was there a soul to be seen, for, having been sorely tried the previous day by the pa.s.sage of the Spaniards, the population dreaded renewed scenes of horror. In one house we found a _membrum virile_; elsewhere, stretched on a bed a bloodstained body, exactly in the condition in which those abominable miscreants had put them one after the other. The servants of Von Wedel dug a grave by my orders for the corpse and the _membrum virile_.
Our first encampment after that was a village amidst fertile plains. I unsaddled my horse in order to let it graze in peace until the morning.
In the same spot there was a handsome gentleman's dwelling, in its open courtyard a wagon with four strong horses; on the wagon two barrels of exquisite wine. Capons, poultry and pheasants were running about in all directions. I leave people to imagine the ma.s.sacre, and how, on our return to our tent, we quickly plucked, boiled and roasted the game. We were the absolute masters. There was nothing to fear; the granary was full to overflowing, and we replenished our sacks to the very edge. In short, horses, vehicle and wine, and everything else was carried away.
The barrels were emptied on our way; the team was sold at Nuremberg for what it would bring, for we ourselves had had it very cheaply.
The sight of our plenty attracted the notice of Duke Frederick von Liegnitz,[47] so we invited him to share it. Two joyous damsels in gorgeous silk attire were of the party and performed their duty well.
The servants also shared in the feast which was prolonged till dawn.
The nights, however, were very short.
It was full daylight when, wis.h.i.+ng to saddle my horse, I discovered it had been stolen. Immediately, according to 'the usages and customs of war, I chose the best nag at hand, currycombed, bridled and mounted it in the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes.
On July 1, towards midday, the emperor made his entry into Bamberg with a numerous suite. The Elector of Saxony occupied a house on the outside of the town on the right, just at the turn of the road, so that he could watch the city and the country. The captive was at the window just as his Imperial Majesty pa.s.sed, mounted on a small Spanish horse.
He made a profound bow; thereupon the emperor burst out laughing sarcastically, and stared at him as long as he could.
The Spaniards took with them from Bamberg four hundred women, girls and female servants, and did not let them go until they reached Nuremberg.
The fathers, husbands and brothers followed in their wake; the father looking for his daughter, the husband for his better half, the brother for his sister; at Nuremberg each found his own again. Oh, those Spaniards! What a nation, to dare do such things after the cessation of hostilities, in a friendly country and under the very eyes of the sovereign. The latter, however, displayed a relentless severity. Each evening they put up a gibbet as well as his tent, and the former did not remain long untenanted, but it was all in vain.
I suddenly came across my horse in a meadow near the Nuremberg gates. I put my saddle on its back, and left the animal I had taken at Coburg.
His Majesty journeyed by small stages in consequence of the excessive heat. The diet, in fact, was summoned only for September 1. This slowness gave me the leisure to ride with George von Wedel on the flank of the army, from its head to its tail. It was an interesting spectacle, this ma.s.s of men under arms and in battle order; here Germans, farther on Spaniards. In the evening we returned to our own.
Far from keeping to the highway, the soldiers marched straight in front of them, making a roadway four times wider than the ordinary one, upsetting all obstacles, knocking down enclosures and filling in moats and ditches. One day the restive horse of George von Wedel insisted on getting into the ranks of the Spanish, who could not or would not get out of the way, and as the rider cried angrily: ”Very well, let the French kill thee, then,” a half-drunken soldier, mistaking the words, retorted: ”_Senor mio, no soy Frances, mas soy un Espanol_.” The Spaniards, in fact, think themselves much superior to the French.
As we were getting near Nuremberg there was no longer any need for me to hide myself. I took up my quarters at the hotel selected by Duke Frederick von Liegnitz, at that period trying to interest the emperor in his paternal affairs. That prince was never sober, and at the refusal of his counsellors, he caroused with the suite of Margrave Johannes.
One day the duke and six servitors of the margrave cut the right sleeves out of their doublets and their s.h.i.+rts. With bare arms, their hose undone so as to show their s.h.i.+rts, their heads uncovered, and list slippers on their feet, the seven persons marched in single file behind the town musicians, playing with all their might, and went after dinner to the Duke Henry of Brunswick's. Prince Frederick held in one hand a set of dice, and in the other a quant.i.ty of gold pieces; naturally the crowd ran with them, the foreigners foremost, Italians and Spaniards delighted to see ”these sots of Germans” go by. The wine produced such a strong effect that Liegnitz, on entering the apartment of the duke, stumbled across the table, both hands foremost. There was only one dice left, and not a trace of the gold. He was unable to utter a syllable, and dropped on the floor. Four Brunswick gentlemen carried him to a bed on the story above. The emperor, it is said, was very angry at the Germans making such a show of themselves.
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