Chapter 17: The other Dalberg

 

 

Good news from France

 

Schiller has finished moving in Rudolstadt itself by August after a couple of months in Volkstadt where he has quite enjoyed the anonymity. Now, with his friendship with the local gentry, in particular with the Lengefeld sisters, he was more attentive in his behaviors and manners. He wanted to avoid another scandal or even the slightest rumors during his stay in Rudolstadt, or at least, until his purpose in this city has been fulfilled.

 

He visited the Lengefeld sisters as much as he could, but above all, he spent also long hours in his rented room, fulfilling his publishing engagements as soon as possible. Hence, he spent the rest of the summer between palatial visits by the Lengefelds where his courtship were now a public matter, and his small rented room, where he worked relentlessly, often forgetting to take appropriate meals, eating mostly bread and fruits.

 

October was always a month that reminded the people in Thuringia, as in the rest of the northern cities in Germany, of the definite end of the warm and long days. In Thuringia also, October would see the rapid change of the leaves color from a dark green to intense yellow or red before finally falling down. People were still profiting from this rather clement weather to make the last long promenades in the woods, picking whatever were still left in the vicinity of the Rudolstadt forests, by the hordes of children and hunters that have raided most of them in all secrecy these otherwise private forests.

 

Schiller would still have another of his pamphlet „The government of the Jesuits in Paraguay“ published in the „German Mercury“. Indeed, the fate of Jesuits in the German nations hat interested him for quite some time and this was the occasion for him to point out at the supposed efficiency of this kind of government: the concept of total obedience and ultimate sacrifice, the promise of a life in paradise.

 

He was now enjoying a greater freedom for publishing such a type of writing as the overall reticence against anything catholic was still prevailing in the northern German nations and as Wieland, the publisher of the „German Mercury“, enjoyed, at least in Saxony, an authority before which any censure would be coming from a much higher power to have any chance of success against the will of such a prominent man in Weimar. Indeed, Wieland hat simply asked Schiller to merge his „Thalia“ with his own literary journal in order to become the most important national title in its genre.

 

Exhausted by his long hours working on his historical writings, Schiller wanted to celebrate this very small but meaningful step in his life, as someone the caliber of Wieland would dare ask his collaboration on an equal basis. Earlier in October, Crusius, his new editor in Leipzig has also published the first part of the „History of the secession of the Netherlands from Spanish ruling“, in quite promising terms. Now, he wanted to have company around him just to still feel alive among other human beings. In the nearby Inn were he used to take his meals whenever possible, Schiller had joined other guests at a table where a passionate discussion has already started.

 

The elaborate debate of these otherwise very humble people were about the news in France where the King Louis XVI, pressed by the popular discontent, has recognized the French Protestants as his subjects and have allowed them to be inscribed in the official register. The object of the debate, however, was the abolition of the practice of torture in France.

 

-        „At least their movement has produced some results! When will our authorities abolish torture in Thuringia?“, would someone on the table utter quite with indignation to the others. „Tell me when would such a thing happen in this country?“

 

-        „Yeah! I have also heard that in France, even the aristocrats are against the land possession and people even say that maybe, the peasants will be able to own some land!”

 

The aristocrats would only incite the peasants against the centralized authority of the French King.