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CAROLINE PICHLER. 229
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
¦» The Suburban Solitude Of The Pichlers...
The next morning * they were surprised "by the announcement that the capital had already surrendered , and that therefore clanger was over
for the present ; but _though they had known before what it was to have a foe in possession of their city , the evils on the former occasion
had been but light compared with what now befel them . The Court having * fled into Hungary , they -were now cut off from
communication with that country , whence the main supply of provisions for the metropolis was _xisually derived . Food consequently became
very scarce , while at the same time every household was burdened with a number of uninvited military guests , the Pichlers having as
many as seventeen quartered upon them at once . As a rule , these visitors were not personally disagreeableand if it had been possible
, to forget the relation in which they stood , their society would not have been unwelcome .
In the suite of the Emperor were two famous travellers , Denon and the Count de la Borde , with whom an acquaintance was formed
which proved both agreeable and profitable , the narrations of the former , furnishing Madame P . with materials for some fresh novels .
And though her patriotic feelings were wounded at the sight of the foreign soldiers swarming everywhere , her eye could not but be
gratified by the appearance they presented , for on attending a review held by Napoleon at Schonbrunn , she remarked that she had
never seen so many handsome men together before , and that the corps of imperial guards looked as if they had been selected for
their manly beauty , by the critical taste of a Winkelmann . But wheneither here or elsewherethe " little man in grey " met her
, , yiew , but one thought filled her mind : " "Would that some Tell shot might strike this more than Gessler , and at once end all ! "
At last peace was once more concluded , and on going one day into a friend's house , she saw lying on the sofa a sword and military
scarf displaying the long banished black and gold , the national colours of Austria ; the owner soon appeared , it was Varnhagen ,
then a young man unknown to fame , he having as yet only gained a sort of little social celebrity from his skill in cutting out
characteristic figures in paper , a trifling exercise of the eminent faculty of delineating characterafterwards more fully shown in his writings .
, The calamitous year 1809 was now over , but effects by no means transitory were left behind . The aristocracy had become so
impoverished that they could no longer maintain a position superior to that of the trading part of the community ; the stately dwellings of
counts and barons where Madame P . had visited in her youth , had nowpassedinto the possession of retired butchers and cabinet-makers ;
the castles formerly owned by the highest nobles were bought by rich merchants or turned into manufactoriesand calicoes were laid out
, to bleach on the lawns of their once grand gardens . Everything was turned to some useful purpose , but it seemed to her saddened eyes
friends that the too beautiful had been lost vani during shed t hi s w ar , and earth al l wore Many a person melau -
Caroline Pichler. 229
_CAROLINE _PICHLER . 229
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1862, page 229, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121862/page/13/
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