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Historicizing Life-Writing

and Egodocuments
in Early Modern Europe

Edited by

James R. Farr

Guido Ruggiero

Historicizing Life-Writing and Egodocuments

in Early Modern Europe

James R. Farr · Guido Ruggiero

Editors

Historicizing

Life-Writing

and Egodocuments

in Early Modern

Europe

Editors

James R. Farr

Guido Ruggiero

Purdue University

University of Miami

West Lafayette, IN, USA

Coral Gables, FL, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-82482-2

ISBN 978-3-030-82483-9

(eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82483-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively
licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names,

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in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific

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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that
the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and
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Cover illustration: Yogi Black/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered
company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham,

Switzerland

Contents

Introduction: Historicizing Life-Writing

and Egodocuments in Early Modern Europe

James R. Farr and Guido Ruggiero

Part I

The Self Theorized from a Historical Perspective

Montaigne’s Elusive Self: An Essay

19

John Jeffries Martin

The Life-Enhancing Value of Life-Writing: On

the Uses and Disadvantages of History in Vasari’s

Lives of the Artists

39
Douglas Biow

Benvenuto Cellini Magnanimously Corrects

the Irritating Ignorance of Life Writers in General

and in Regard to My Vita in This Letter from Hell

65

As Written by Benvenuto Cellini to Guido Ruggiero

Part II

Historical Approaches to Egodocuments:

Strengths and Doubts

Conversion and Crossing Frontiers: The Lives

of the Spanish Monks

89

James S. Amelang

vi

CONTENTS

Everard Nithard’s Memorias: The Jesuits Confessor’s

Quest for Re-Fashioning the Self, People, and Events

107

Silvia Z. Mitchell

Egodocuments and The Diary of Constantijn

Huygens Jr.

137

Rudolf Dekker

Writing About the “Other” in One’s Life: Life-Writing

and Egodocuments of King Frederick William I

of Prussia (1713–1740) as Historical Problem

153

Benjamin Marschke

Dimensions of the Self in Autobiographical

Life-Writing: James Boswell’s Journals and William

Hickey’s Memoirs

187

James R. Farr
Part III

Pushing the Limits of Life-Writing with a Wider

Range of Historical Sources

10

Lives in Letters: Italian Renaissance Correspondence

as Life-Writing

209

Deanna Shemek

11

A Dutch Notary and His Clients

243

Mary Lindemann

12

Genres and Modes of Women’s Life-Writing: Anne

Clifford and Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans

269

Mihoko Suzuki

Index

313

Notes on Contributors
James S. Amelang (b. Louisville KY 1952) has recently retired from

his position as Professor of Early Modern History at the Universidad

Autónoma of Madrid, where he began teaching in 1989. He has

published a wide range of works on the urban, social, and cultural

history

of early modern Spain and is perhaps best known for his studies on
the

life writing of artisans in the early modern period, notably The Flight
of Icarus: Artisan Autobiography in Early Modern Europe (Stanford
University Press, 1998). His other books include Honored Citizens of
Barcelona: Patrician Culture and Class Relations, 1490– 1714)
(Princeton University Press, 1986), Parallel Histories: Muslims and
Jews in Inquisitorial Spain (Louisiana University Press, 2013), and
most recently, Writing Cities:

Exploring Early Modern Urban Discourse (Central European

University, 2019).

Douglas Biow is the Superior Oil Company-Linward Shivers Centen-

nial Professor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies and Director of

the Center for European Studies and the France-UT Institute at the

University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of a number of arti-

cles and six books: Mirabile Dictu: Representations of the Marvelous

in Medieval and Renaissance Italy (University of Michigan Press,

1996); Doctors, Ambassadors, Secretaries: Humanism and

Professions in
Renaissance Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2002), the recipient
of a Robert W. Hamilton Book Award; The Culture of Cleanliness in
Renaissance Italy (Cornell University Press, 2006); In Your Face:
Professional vii

viii

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Improprieties and the Art of Being Conspicuous

(Stanford University

Press, 2010); On the Importance of Being an Individual: Men, Their

Professions, and Their Beards (University of Pennsylvania Press,

2015); and his most recent book, Vasari’s Words: The “Lives of the
Artists” as a History of Ideas in the Italian Renaissance (Cambridge
University Press, 2018).

He has been the recipient of a number of scholarly awards,

including NEH, Delmas, and Guggenheim Fellowships.

Rudolf Dekker studied history at the University of Amsterdam and

wrote a dissertation on riots and revolts in the 17th century. He

taught history at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (1981–2010)

and

now directs a research group on autobiographical writing and history

at the Huizinga Institute—Research School for Cultural History. His

books include Family, Culture and Society in the Diary of Constan-

tijn Huygens Jr (Brill, 2013) and translated a selection in The Diary
of Constantijn Huygens Jr, Secretary to Stadholder-King William of
Orange

(Panchaud, 2016). Other books are Humour in Dutch Culture of the

Golden Age (Palgrave, 2001), with Lotte van de Pol The Tradition of
Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe (Macmillan, 1989), and
with Arianne Baggerman Child of the Enlightenment, Revolutionary
Europe

Reflected in a Boyhood Diary (Brill, 2009). Recently he published

Plagiarism, Fraud and Whitewashing: the Grey Turn in the History of
the

German Occupation of the Netherlands, 1940–1945 (Panchaud,

2020).

At the moment he is preparing a book about autobiographies written

by

criminals in the Netherlands from the 16th to the 21st century.

James R. Farr is the Germaine Seelye Oesterle Professor of History

at Purdue University. He is the author of several books and articles

on French and European history, including Hands of Honor: Artisans

and Their World in Dijon, 1550– 1650 (Cornell University Press,

1988); Authority and Sexuality in Early Modern Burgundy, 1550–
1730 (Oxford University Press, 1995); Artisans in Europe, 1300–
1914 (Cambridge University Press, 2000); A Tale of Two Murders:
Passion and Power in

Seventeenth-Century France (Duke University Press, 2005); The

Work of France: Labor and Culture in Early Modern Times (Rowman
and Little-field, 2008); and Who Was William Hickey? A Crafted Life
in Georgian

England and Imperial India (Routledge, 2020). He served as editor

of French Historical Studies from 1991 to 2000. He has been the
recipient of several awards and fellowships during his career, among
them a John

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

ix

Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Council of Learned

Soci-

eties Fellowship, and a residency fellowship at the Shelby Cullom

Davis

Center at Princeton University.

Mary Lindemann is Past President of both the American Historical

Association and the German Studies Association and Professor of
History at

the University of Miami. She is the author of numerous articles and

books

on early modern European history and the history of medicine. Her

most recent publication is The Merchant Republics: Amsterdam,

Antwerp,

and Hamburg, 1648– 1790 (Cambridge University Press, 2015). She

has received many major scholarly awards including: two NEH
Fellowships (1997–1998; 2017–2018), a John Simon Guggenheim
Fellowship
(1998–1999), a Fellowship-in-Residence at the Netherlands Institute
for

Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2002–2003),

a Fellowship-In-Residence at the Flemish Academic Centre for

Science

and the Arts in Brussels (2011), a Senior Research Fellowship of the

State of Lower Saxony (at the Herzog August Bibliothek in

Wolfenbüttel,

Germany 2014–2016), and a Humboldt Research Prize and the

Reimar-

Lüst grant jointly awarded by the Humboldt Foundation and the Fritz

Thyssen Foundation (2017–2018).

Benjamin Marschke (Ph.D. UCLA) is Professor of History at

Humboldt

State University. He has held fellowships from the German Academic

Exchange Program, the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, the Max Planck

Institut

für Geschichte, and the Interdisciplinary Centre for European Enlight-

enment Studies, among others. He is the author of Absolutely

Pietist:

Patronage, Factionalism, and State-Building in the Early Eighteenth-

Century Prussian Army Chaplaincy (Max Niemyer Verlag, 2005), co-

author of Experiencing the Thirty Years War, with Hans Medick (St.
Martins, 2013), and co-editor of The Holy Roman Empire,
Reconsidered

(Berghan Books, 2010), Kinship, Community, and Self: Essays in

Honor of

David Warren Sabean (Berghan Books, 2015), Hallesches

Waisenhaus und Berliner Hof: Beiträge zum Verhältnis von Pietismus
und Preußen (2017), Pietismus und Ökonomie (2021), and
Enlightenment at Court (coming 2022). His research has focused on
Halle Pietists at the Prussian court and

the relationship of Halle Pietism and the Prussian monarchy in the

eigh-

teenth century. He is currently working on changes in political

ceremony,

gender/sexuality, luxury/money, and intellectual/academic culture in

the

early eighteenth century, focusing on King Frederick William I of

Prussia

(1713–1740).

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

John Jeffries Martin is a Professor of History at Duke University.

He is the author of many articles and essays as well as books on
Venetian

and European history, including Venice’s Hidden Enemies: Italian

Heretics in a Renaissance City (University of California Press, 1993),
winner of the Herbert Baxter Adams Prize of the American Historical
Association, Myths of Renaissance Individualism (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2004), and A Beautiful Ending: The Apocalyptic
Imagination and the Making

of the Modern World, forthcoming from Yale University Press. He is

the recipient of several awards and fellowships, among them from
the John

Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the

Humanities.

Silvia Z. Mitchell is Associate Professor of History at Purdue

University.

She is the author of Queen, Mother, and Stateswoman: Mariana of

Austria

and the Government of Spain (The Pennsylvania State University

Press, 2019) and guest editor of a Special Journal Issue “The
Spanish Habsburg

Court during the Reign of Carlos II,” published in The Court

Historian:

The International Journal of Court Studies (2018).

Guido Ruggiero is College of Arts and Sciences Cooper Fellow and

Professor of History at the University of Miami. He has published

numerous articles and books on Italian Renaissance history and

culture

including most recently the prize winning The Renaissance in Italy: A

Social and Cultural History of the Rinascimento (Cambridge

University Press, 2014) and Love and Sex in the Time of Plague: A
Decameron

Renaissance (Harvard University Press, 2021). An elected member of

the Ateneo Veneto, he has been a fellow, member, and/or visitor at
the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; Harvard’s Villa I Tatti;
the American

Academy in Rome; and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance

Studies

at UCLA among others and held a number of fellowships including a

Guggenheim in 1993.

Deanna Shemek is Professor of Italian and European Studies at

the

University of California, Irvine. She is Author of Ladies Errant:

Wayward Women and Social Order in Early Modern Italy

(Duke University

Press, 1998) and In Continuous Expectation: Isabella d’Este’s Reign

of

Letters

(CRRS, 2021). Her editorial collaborations include Phaethon’s

Children: The Este Court and its Culture in Early Modern Ferrara

(MRTS, 2005), Writing Relations: American Scholars in Italian

Archives

(Silvana, 2008), and Itinera chartarum: 150 anni dell’Archivio di

Stato di

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
xi

Mantova (2019). She edited and co-translated Adriana Cavarero’s

Stately Bodies: Literature, Philosophy, and the Question of Gender

(University

of Michigan Press, 1995). Her Selected Letters of Isabella d’Este (Iter

Press, 2017) won the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women’s

2018 prize for the best translation of a woman’s work. She co-directs

IDEA: Isabella d’Este Archive, an online project for study of the

Italian Renaissance.

Mihoko Suzuki is Professor of English and Cooper Fellow in the

Humanities, Emerita, at the University of Miami. She has written

exten-

sively on early modern women’s political writings, in Subordinate

Subjects: Gender, the Political Nation, and Literary Form in England,
1588–1688

(Ashgate, 2003) and in Antigone’s Example: Early Modern Women’s

Polit-

ical Writing in Times of Civil War, from Christine de Pizan to Helen

Maria Williams (Palgrave, 2022) as well as in numerous essays,

including, most recently, “Women’s Political Writing: Civil War
Memoirs,” in Routledge History of Women in Early Modern Europe,
ed. Amanda Capern

(Routledge, 2019); and “Political Theory across Borders,” in Oxford

Handbook on Early Modern Women’s Writing in England,

ed. Sarah

C. E. Ross, et al (Oxford, 2021). She is the editor of The History of

British Women’s Writing, vol. 3, 1610–1690 (2011); and the coeditor

of Debating Gender in Early Modern England, 1500–1700 (2002);
The Rule of Women in Early Modern Europe (2009); Women’s
Political Writings, 1610–1725

(4 vols., 2007); and Early Modern Women: An Interdisci-

plinary Journal

(2011–2018). Her current projects include women’s

manuscript writings as political discourse in early modern England

and

women as authors of epic in early modern Europe.

List of Figures

Fig. 6.1

Alonso del Arco, (1635–1704), Cardinal Juan

Everardo Nithard, 1674, oil on canvas. Museo del

Prado, Madrid, Spain. Inventory P003341 (Photo

credit, Museo Nacional del Prado/Art Resource, NY)

119

Fig. 6.2

Juan Carreño de Miranda (1614–1685), Queen

Mariana of Austria as Governor, c. 1675, oil on canvas.

Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San

Fernando. Inventory 640 (Photo credit, Real Academia

de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid/Art

Resource, NY)

120

Fig. 11.1

Flute ship on a rough sea

259

Fig. 12.1

The Great Picture Triptych (1646) attributed to Jan

van Belcamp (1610–1653). Oil on canvas. Center

panel: 254 × 254 cm; side panels: 254 × 119.38 cm.

AH 2310/81 (Reproduced by courtesy of Abbot Hall

Gallery, Lakeland Arts Trust, England)

277

Fig. 12.2

Lady Anne Clifford, countess of Dorset, Pembroke,

and Montgomery. Circle of Paul van Somer

(1577–1621). c.1618. Oil on canvas. 99 × 79 cm

(Reproduced by courtesy of Titan Fine Art, London)

278

Fig. 12.3

John Bracken (fl. 1660–1721), after Sir Peter Lely

(1618–1680). Anne, countess of Pembroke (Lady

Anne Clifford). 1670. Oil on canvas. 74.8 × 62.7 cm.

AH 730/69 (Reproduced by courtesy of Abbot Hall

Gallery, Lakeland Arts Trust, England)

279

xiii

xiv

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 12.4

Charles Beaubrun (1604–1692) and Henri Beaubrun

(1603–1677). Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, “La

Grande Mademoiselle.” c.1650. Oil on canvas. P

2198. CCØ Paris Musées / Musée Carnavalet, Paris

280

Fig. 12.5

School of Pierre Mignard (1612–1695). Anne Marie

Louise d’Orléans, Mademoiselle de Montpensier,

called “La Grande Mademoiselle.” Oil on canvas. 140

cm × 110 cm. MV3476. Châteaux de Versailles et de

Trianon (Photo: Daniel Arnaudet / Gérard Blot. ©

RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY)

280

Fig. 12.6

Pierre Bourguignon (1630–1698). Anne Marie Louise

d’Orléans, duchess of Montpensier, “La Grande

Mademoiselle” as Minerva, Protectrix of the Arts,

posed with a medallion portrait of Gaston de France,

duke of Orléans. c.1672. Oil on canvas. 175 cm × 148

cm. MV 3504. Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon

(Photo: Gérard Blot / Christian Jean. © RMN-Grand

Palais / Art Resource, NY)

282

Fig. 12.7

a Appleby Castle. b Appleby Castle (detail) “AP 1671”

( Source Author photo)

284
Fig. 12.8

Skypton Castle. “DESORMAIS” ( Source Author

photo)

285

Fig. 12.9

The Countess’ Pillar (detail). The commemorative

inscription can be found below the sundial ( Source

Author photo)

286

Fig. 12.10

Memorial to Samuel Daniel. c. 1654. St. George’s

Church, Beckington (Photo: Michael Peverett)

287

Fig. 12.11

a Château de Saint-Fargeau, cour d’honneur. b

Château de Saint-Fargeau. Montpensier’s coat

of arms with the initials AMLO (Anne Marie

Louise d’Orléans); the crown above was destroyed

during the French Revolution ( Source Author photo)

288
Fig. 12.12

Portrait of the Grande Mademoiselle displaying

the architectural plan of Château de Saint-Fargeau.

Château de Saint-Fargeau (Photo: Michel Guyot)

289

Fig. 12.13a

John Selden, Titles of Honor (1631), title page. STC

22178 copy 3 (Photography by Mihoko Suzuki

from the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library)

290

Fig. 12.13b

John Selden, Titles of Honor (1631), p. 876. STC

22178 copy 3 (Photography by Mihoko Suzuki

from the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library)

291

LIST OF FIGURES

xv

Fig. 12.13c

John Selden, Titles of Honor (1631), p. 412. STC

22178 copy 3 (Photography by Mihoko Suzuki

from the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library)

291

Fig. 12.14

a St. Anne’s Hospital, Appleby. b St. Anne’s

Hospital, Appleby. Plaque in the hospital’s chapel

with a quotation from the Psalms: “Blessed is he

that considereth the Poor and needy … cast me

not away in the time of old age” ( Source Author photo)

297

Map 11.1

Map of Europe, c. 1730 (Created by Isabelle Lewis)

255

Map 11.2

Map of Baltic, Scandinavian, and Russian Trade Routes

(Created by Isabelle Lewis)

256

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Historicizing Life-Writing

and Egodocuments in Early Modern Europe

James R. Farr and Guido Ruggiero

In The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), Jacob

Burckhardt famously proclaimed that the Renaissance individual was
the “first-born

among the sons of modern Europe.” From Burckhardt, the notion of

the autonomous self that exists prior to experience took hold and
has

run deep in the modern notion of identity as it has developed over

the

past 150 years or so. Few scholars today accept the teleological
implica-

tions of Burckhardt’s assertion, but in recent decades significant

critical

approaches to ideas of the individual, the self, and identity have

been

expressed in a wide range of disciplines, including history.

J. R. Farr (B)

Purdue University West Lafayette, West Lafayette, IN, USA

e-mail: jrfarr@purdue.edu

G. Ruggiero

University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA

e-mail: gruggiero@miami.edu
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature

Switzerland AG 2022

J. R. Farr and G. Ruggiero (eds.), Historicizing Life-Writing

and Egodocuments in Early Modern Europe,

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82483-9_1

J. R. FARR AND G. RUGGIERO

Scholars in pursuit of the self have found personal narratives, usually

of an autobiographical turn, to be especially useful. This is certainly

true in the field of Life-Writing, which emerged in the 1980s and has
enjoyed

enormous popularity in a wide range of disciplines, including

cognitive,

social, clinical, and counseling psychology, sociology, ethnography,

film

studies, literature, literary criticism, and many more. Life-Writing

focuses on texts that record memories and experiences found in
many genres,

notably autobiography, memoir, diaries, letters, testimonies, and

biog-

raphy.1 Recently, Life-Writing has established itself in institutions like

the Oxford Center for Life-Writing Research at the University of
Oxford
and the International Auto/Biography Association. Curiously,
however,

the discipline of history has been under-represented in Life-Writing

scholarship.

While the field of Life-Writing was expanding, over the same years

many historians turned their attention to the importance of personal

narratives as historical sources, frequently referred to as

“egodocuments.”

Such sources provide an account of privileged information that

brings

insight into the historical meanings of the individual, the self, and
identity.

Initially, according to Jacques Presser who coined the term in the

1950s,

egodocuments were those historical sources in which “the writing

and

describing subject…has a continuous presence in the text” and in

which

“an ego deliberately or accidentally discloses or hides itself.”

However, as the range of egodocuments was broadened to texts
with no clear authorial

personality, those meanings became, and remain, more difficult to

discern.

The overall objective of this volume is to further historicize the

field of Life-Writing by bringing a historical analysis of egodocuments

into it. Both fields—Life-Writing and egodocument history—have

been

following parallel trajectories rather than integrated, and this volume

attempts to highlight their commonalities and advance a scholarly

conver-

sation between them. The individual as a purposive social actor is a

common denominator that both fields share and provides a vehicle

both

theoretical and practical for building a profitable synthesis of two

rather

independent traditions of scholarship.

The scholarly analysis of the self was complicated by an

epistemolog-

ical challenge in the 1960s and 1970s, when Roland Barthes, Michel

Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and others displaced the author of any

text

from his or her central place in the determination of its meaning.2

Still, the value of personal narratives as records of subjective experi-

ence and revealing of individual agency continues to be recognized,

INTRODUCTION: HISTORICIZING LIFE-WRITING …

3

and historians have refined their approaches to these kinds of

sources.

As the renowned historian Lynn Hunt recently cautioned, the histori-

an’s attention to cultural and social contexts should not result in our

losing sight of the importance of the individual actor in history, and

the

popular new field of microhistory confirms this.3 Indeed, the

challenge for historians is to explain the ways in which historical
subjectivities are shaped and transformed by the contexts within
which people make their

lives. Egodocuments, like all historical sources, are embedded in

socially

constructed norms and expectations. They highlight the importance

of

the individual in history and the value of analyzing personal

narratives to

reveal the individual as a purposive social actor without losing sight

of

constitutive cultural and social contexts.

Each of the essays in this volume is based on one or several egodoc-

uments. The analysis of personal narratives like these opens up

avenues

for a deeper understanding of human agency, and when placed in

specific
historical contexts, suggestive of the construction of selfhood and
iden-

tity.4 Usually, but not always, personal narratives are

autobiographical in nature, as is the case with the egodocuments
that Martin, Biow,

Ruggiero, Amelang, Mitchell, Dekker, Marschke, and Farr analyze.

But

letters, which are the source of Shemek’s essay, or the images of

Suzuki’s,

or even the notarial records of Lindemann’s, also can be understood

as

personal narratives. Although personal narratives as egodocuments

are

by definition subjective told from the perspective of a unique

individual,

human agency studied in contexts demonstrates that individual lives

and

the narratives through which their meaning becomes manifest in

texts

and/or images are never simply individual, for lives and the
narratives

about them draw upon rules, models, and expectations available in

partic-

ular times and places that determine a narrative logic and as such
can
become meaningful to author and audience alike. Personal
narratives,

indeed, all egodocuments, are fashioned in and through available

literary

conventions and rhetorical strategies, and always have an eye

toward an

imagined reader or audience. The conditions of production and the

antic-

ipated audience dictate what is included in the narrative, and what is

not. Personal narratives, then, are never simple reflections or reports

of

experience, but are always mediated by the narrator. This points to

the

conclusion that these narratives embody not just a discoverable

past, but

an anticipated future as well.

The noted literary theorist Paul John Eakin and others concur

and perceive a direct connection between personal narratives and

the

J. R. FARR AND G. RUGGIERO

construction of selfhood and identity.5 Eakin suggests, in fact, that

the self is a product of narrative constructions, that identity
formation
is fundamentally, socially, and discursively transacted. This means
that

despite our proclivity to imagine that identity somehow emerges

from

some mysterious interiority or is the consistent product of the

developing

individual over the life course (both of which are fictions of the
histor-

ically specific modern self, as Farr suggests in his essay on Boswell

and

Hickey), selfhood and identity are socially constructed (their source

is

other people) and, as Martin demonstrates in his analysis of

Montaigne,

are temporally discontinuous—we are not now who we were.

Modern studies of identity in the early modern period tend to shy

away

from Burckhardt’s formulation that the Italian Renaissance was a

critical

period when an innate sense of self that had been buried by the
powerful

traditional forces of collective identity fostered by family, religion,

and

culture was finally freed up when those forces were cleared away by
the
literally revolutionary changes of that revolutionary age. These
changes,

for Burckhardt, finally allowed the full expression of an innate sense

of the individual self to emerge resulting in the discovery of the
modern individual. Virtually, every essay in this volume asks the
question of whether

or not there is an ahistorical core sense of self that stands at the

heart of that individual’s deepest virtual ontological reality.

A fundamental challenge of this formulation was advanced in the

late

twentieth century by literary scholar Stephen Greenblatt, first

proposed

in his seminal Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to

Shakespeare.6

Greenblatt, in contrast to Burckhardt, argued that the idea of an

inner

sense of an individual self was a modern artifact, an attractive myth

that

obfuscated the reality that there was no transcendent inner core of

self.

Rather, this modern sense of self was in reality a historical construct

formed by the webs of the culture in which one lives, generated by

the

economic, social, and religious realities that actually mold and limit
how
we think of ourselves, even as we feel that we are freely self-
fashioning

individuals. This understanding of the self in many ways was shaped

in

the context of a twentieth-century vision that saw ideas of the

individual

as essentially modern, and a modern fiction at that, perhaps most

recently

pressed by Michael Foucault and his followers with their emphasis on

the role of the disciplinary discourses of the nineteenth and

twentieth

centuries, disciplinary discourses that drive and form the way people
think

of themselves as individuals.

INTRODUCTION: HISTORICIZING LIFE-WRITING …

Greenblatt, taking his analysis back to the Tudor period in

Renaissance

Self-Fashioning in a typically self-referential confession, admitted:

“When I first conceived this book… [i]t seemed to me that the very
hallmark

of the Renaissance [turned on the fact] that middle-class and

aristocratic
males began to feel that they possessed… shaping power over their
lives,

and I saw this power and the freedom it implied as an important

element

in my own sense of myself.”7 In sum, he began his study with a

vision very close to Burckhardt’s. “But as my work progressed,” he
admitted,

“I perceived that fashioning oneself and being fashioned by cultural

insti-

tutions – family, religion, state – were inseparably intertwined. In all

my

texts and documents, there were, so far as I could tell, no moments

of

pure unfettered subjectivity. Indeed, the human subject itself began

to be

remarkably unfree, the ideological product of the relations of power

in

a particular society.”8 The self that life-writing, egodocuments, or

biography attempt to discover, then, Greenblatt realized, was a
fiction and a

“remarkably unfree” one at that.

Indeed, the contributors to this volume, echoing scholars from a

range

of disciplines within Life-Writing (including neuroscience, psychiatry,

and
psychology), recognize the uncertainty of the nature of the self, and
they

fundamentally question the notion of the autonomous self and the

atten-

dant idea of continuous identity unfolding in a unified developmental

self.

Instead, they suggest that the self is variable and unstable in its
historical meanings, and can only be grasped by exploring selves
situated in historical contexts and revealed through a variety of
historical documents. The

very meaning of the self is irrevocably socially and historically

specific, as Eakin has observed. The self is, in Eakin’s words,
“mediated by available cultural models of identity and the discourses
in which they are

expressed.”9

In the opening essay of the first part of this volume—“The Self

Theo-

rized from a Historical Perspective”—John Martin proposes a

“relational

model” of pre-modern identity that opens up to a degree

Greenblatt’s

self, trapped in the webs of power beyond its control by essentially

shifting the frame of reference. Rather than the inner-outer division
that has

typified modern discussions and left the outer dominant for

Greenblatt,
Martin suggests seeing identity in the Renaissance as not about one
or the

other but rather about how the two actually exist in a relationship
that

turns on the problem of the relation of one’s inner experience to

one’s

living and experiencing in the world.10 Neither then is dominant.

And significantly this relational building of self creates a complex
polyvalent

J. R. FARR AND G. RUGGIERO

self that in its interactions with the world is not trapped in the webs
of

culture and institutions, but rather is in a constant process of

reformu-

lating that relationship, as Martin suggests was the case with

Montagne.

What Martin found missing in both Burckhardt and Greenblatt was

the

multi-layered nature of interiority creating a tendency to overlook

the

significance of things such as “experience, meaning, will and the

body”

in the actual historical process of living and interacting with the

world.
Thus, tellingly for Martin, Montaigne’s very provisional nature of self

and continuous re-evaluation of all things including the self offer a

model

for a more humane, kind, and gentle relationship with society,

others,

and one’s sense of self even in today’s troubled times. His essay
offers a

point of departure for the discussions to follow in this book that

make his

observations even more relevant.

Most of the other essays in the volume develop aspects of this

hypoth-

esis of the unstable, constructed self or aspects of it in ways that

complicate and enrich Greenblatt’s original formulation of self-

fashioning.

Douglas Biow, for example, in the very next essay underlines this
vision

with its analysis of the way Giorgio Vasari in his famous Lives
progressively emerged as a biographical subject between the first
and second

editions of the work as Vasari becomes more comfortable with his

role as

an historian and writer of the lives of artists and his success in doing
so. In this, much as suggested by Martin, Biow demonstrates how
an evolving
sense of a relational self emerges in Vasari’s interaction with his
world,

his writing, and his reflections on himself. Biow tackles the complex
rela-

tionship between history and biography with a close examination of

how

the two inter-relate. Using Nietzsche’s reflections on history as a

point

of reference, he analyzes how Vasari’s Lives live up to Nietzsche’s

more positive vision of history (against his more negative concerns)
as a critical tool for forming new modern übermenschen, much
influenced in this again by Burckhardt’s vision of the Renaissance
individual. Nietzsche’s

critical analysis of history, then, provides the frame for an

examination

of Vasari’s Lives, first as history and then as biography. Thus,

crucially for Biow in that attempt to make the past personal via
biography, we see

the progressive emergence of the author, Vasari himself, as a

biograph-

ical subject between the first and second editions of the work. In
this,

much as suggested in Martin’s essay on Montaigne, an evolving

sense of

self emerges in Vasari’s interaction with his world, his writing, and
his
reflections on himself.

INTRODUCTION: HISTORICIZING LIFE-WRITING …

But perhaps the most radical reformulation of the ideas surrounding

a

constructed self and the issues of agency and individual action and
free

will are to be found in the essay written from Hell by Benvenuto

Cellini

and transcribed by Guido Ruggiero. This essay introduces the idea of

“consensus realities” that Ruggiero in his recent books and articles

has

offered specifically to add some room for agency in Greenblatt’s

vision.11

Indeed, this formulation was stimulated by a conversation that

Green-

blatt had with Ruggiero and his students at the University of Miami
early

in this century where he lamented the lack of agency and freedom in

his vision that he saw as the negative heart of self-fashioning.

Essentially, Ruggiero’s suggestion is that pre-modern identity was
actually largely an
imagined reality, but no less real for that: a series of consensus
realities, then, that individuals negotiated with the various groups
that surrounded

one and judged who one really was in the small intimate world of
the

day. In those negotiations that a Renaissance individual conducted

with

the groups that surrounded him, or significantly her as well, in

society, a

person played a meaningful role in fashioning their “consensus

realities”

and their individual often polyvalent selves, through interaction with

the

different groups of friends, family, peers, fellow workers, neighbors,

and

so forth who populated their world. In these ongoing negotiations,

one

had a certain agency in creating selves, albeit limited by cultural and

institutional constraints and the limits of imagination in a particular
historical moment, and perhaps more significantly by the groups
with whom one

interacted, but with considerable room for play and agency within
those

limits. Significantly, in this more complex vision, there is more space

for
the role that non-elites, women, and less visible institutions and
everyday

culture play in the process of negotiating a self, and a wider social

context that is largely lacking in Greenblatt’s more “top down” vision
of society.

The concept of “consensus realities” often figures explicitly or

implicitly

in subsequent essays in this volume, notably when women and non-

elites

are considered.

Cellini ends his essay/tirade, arguing more radically that modern

biog-

raphers often err in trying to construct a unified vision of the self for
their subjects, because, especially in the early modern period, a
person was, in

fact, a multiplicity of selfs negotiated in different forms with different

groups. In that world of multi-layered negotiated selfs, a unified self

was

simply not possible, in this way adding to Martin’s and Biow’s vision
of

an evolving sense of self, a polyvalent self, that reappears in most of

the

essays of this volume.

J. R. FARR AND G. RUGGIERO

Part Two of this volume—“Historical Approaches to Egodocuments:

Strengths and Doubts”—continues the exploration of the historical

mean-

ings of the self through analysis of biographical and autobiographical

texts with studies by James Amelang, Silvia Mitchell, Rudolf Dekker,
Benjamin

Marschke, and James Farr.

Amelang introduces his essay with a brief analysis of the impact of

the trajectory of the careers of many of the contributors to this

volume

from quantitative social history to cultural history, suggesting the

weight

of the personal biography even on the writing by historians on biog-

raphy. In that vein, he describes his own developing fascination with

autobiographies by non-elite figures which has characterized his own

scholarship.12 In this essay, he discusses two fascinating purported

autobiographies printed in England in the 1620s by the Spanish ex-
friars, Juan

Nicolás y Sacharles and Fernando Tejeda. Both rejected their

Catholic

upbringing to embrace Protestantism and published books to justify

their conversions, The Reformed Spaniard (1621) and Textus

Retextus (1629). Examining these texts, then, as examples of
autobiography deeply
colored by confessional issues, Amelang raises deeper questions
about the

sincerity and truthfulness of autobiography. But moving beyond

those

well-discussed concerns, what chiefly interests Amelang is how life-

writing

was used in these works to support and reflect on the individual and

mobility (both geographical and confessional) and, in turn, once

again

on an evolving self from both perspectives in the early modern

period.

Suggestively, in light of the earlier essays in this volume, Amelang’s

focus on mobility of place and belief offers another example of an
evolving sense

of self that was layered, complex, and not particularly unified (at
least

over time), even in these works that claim a more traditional

Augustinian

autobiographical narrative toward grace and salvation. And, he

concludes

that the focus of biography and autobiography on the individual and

the

particular (much like microhistory) allows a scholar to move beyond

the

necessary suspicion of half-truths and fictions to consider the more

impor-
tant and ultimately perhaps more knowable historical question, why:
why

were these lives told and what did that telling mean for
understanding

their time and their subjects.

Silvia Mitchell considers how the Jesuit Everard Nithard’s Memorias

can be seen as a revealing form of historical egodocument. For

although

it was a hybrid work, in over 8000 pages and twenty-one volumes

that

mixed documents and a historical/biographical personal narrative

that

claimed to be based upon those documents, it served as a self-

justifying

INTRODUCTION: HISTORICIZING LIFE-WRITING …

work that reveals much about his sense of self and his time. In it,
Don

Juan, the illegitimate son of the late Philip IV of Spain, became the

villain who maneuvered to break up Nithard’s close relationship with

Mariana of Austria, widow of Philip IV and queen regent for her

minor
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
“I know the risk I run,” returned the Princess, smiling, and shaking
her head in an almost playful manner. “I know how difficult it is for a
young man to pass much time in your society and come off heart-
whole.” She watched the flush of vanity animate the girl before her,
and added thoughtfully, as if speaking to herself: “After all, the age
when royal alliances were of importance to the welfare of kingdoms
has passed. Why should we attach so much importance to
marriages with foreign royalty? Too often such affairs turn out
disastrously for those concerned, while a marriage within the circle of
the national nobility would have brought happiness and content.”
Gertrude listened greedily, hardly venturing to believe her ears. Was
it possible that the royal Hermengarde, the haughtiest princess in all
Germany, in whose eyes the Hohenzollerns were parvenus, and who
was accustomed to speak of the Guelphs as bourgeois, was now
actually contemplating with indifference the possibility of her son
marrying a mere private noblewoman, and was even hinting that she
should feel no great displeasure if she, Gertrude von Sigismark,
turned out to be the lucky bride!
Before she could reduce her thoughts to clearness, the door was
opened by a tall, slim lad of fifteen or sixteen, who stood awkwardly
on the threshold, looking into the room, his figure slightly stooped,
and his dark eyes fixed with an inscrutable expression, from which
dread was not entirely absent, upon the Princess Hermengarde.
The Princess caught sight of him, and a smile of fondness softened
the asperity of her features.
“Well, Ernest, come in and pay your respects to this young lady,” she
exclaimed encouragingly. “You surely know the Lady Gertrude von
Sigismark well enough?”
The lad moved forward, shuffling his feet rather nervously as he
walked. Gertrude went half-way to meet him, and made as if she
would have carried the young Prince’s extended hand to her lips. But
this Hermengarde would not permit.
“For shame, Ernest! Where is your gallantry? If any hand is to be
kissed, it should be the Lady Gertrude’s. Come, my boy, look into her
face. You are old enough to say whether it is worth looking at.”
The Prince lifted his eyes reluctantly as high as the girl’s chin, and
responded ungraciously—
“I don’t know—yes, I suppose so.”
“Fie!” exclaimed Hermengarde, laughing at the boy’s seriousness. “Is
that the way you pay compliments to ladies? It is time we took him in
hand, Gertrude, and trained him to be more polite.”
But if Gertrude had experienced any momentary chagrin, she was
quick to cover it.
“I think you are unjust to the Prince, Madam,” she responded. “A
compliment paid after some consideration is all the more valuable.”
“Mother,” broke in the boy, “can I go for my ride in the park now?”
“I dare say you can; but why are you in such a hurry to leave us?
Perhaps Lady Gertrude is interested in horses. Ask her.”
Ernest turned to the girl as if his own interest in her had been
quickened by the suggestion, and put the question in his own words
—
“Are you? Do you ever ride?”
“I am very fond of horses,” answered Gertrude, with her most
ingratiating smile; “and I ride whenever I can get a cavalier to escort
me.”
“There is a chance for you!” cried Hermengarde to her son, pleased
to see how quickly Gertrude had fallen into her new part. “You are in
luck this afternoon. Quick, ask her if she will share your ride.”
Thus prompted, the Prince had no option but to comply, though he
did not throw much heartiness into his invitation. But Gertrude
showed enough alacrity for both.
“I shall be delighted with the honour, Prince, if you do not mind
waiting while I put on my habit.”
“Don’t be long, then,” was the boy’s response.
Gertrude, with a swift reverence to the Princess, darted away to get
ready, and surprised and annoyed Von Stahlen, who had returned to
the ante-room to wait for her, by sweeping past him with the bare
announcement that she was going to ride with Prince Ernest.
The Count sat silent and motionless in his chair for fully twenty
minutes after this snub, and then turned to the patiently expectant
Von Hardenburg and launched this withering remark—
“I thought it was time for the Princess Hermengarde to engage a
nurse for her baby.”
In the mean time, as soon as the door closed upon Gertrude, the
Princess Hermengarde had called Ernest to her side, and lovingly
laid her hand upon his forehead.
“When shall I live to see that curly head wearing a crown?” she
murmured fondly.
The boy drew back and frowned.
“I do not want to be king,” he said in a decided voice. “Besides, I love
Cousin Maximilian, and I do not want him to die. Don’t you love
him?”
“Of course I do,” responded Hermengarde, soothingly, regarding her
son nevertheless with an anxious look. “But you should not say that
you do not want to be king, my boy. Above all, be careful not to talk
like that with any one but me; you cannot tell what harm it might do.
Your cousin Maximilian is not strong, and a thousand things might
happen to bring you to the throne.”
The boy pouted sullenly.
“Why doesn’t Maximilian marry?” he grumbled. “Am I the only heir?”
“You are the only near one. You have a distant cousin, Count von
Eisenheim, but he is hardly to be reckoned among the Franconian
royal family. Do not speak as if you shrank from your destiny, Ernest.
Maximilian will never marry—I tell you as a secret—never. It is for
you to marry, and one of these days, when you are a little older, I will
talk to you about your beautiful cousin, Louisa of Schwerin-Strelitz.
In the mean time, the less you speak about these things the better.
Only be careful to show yourself gracious to Lady Gertrude, and also
to her father, the Chancellor.”
“But I do not like him,” remonstrated Prince Ernest. “He is
disagreeable; he stares at me when he meets me, in a way I do not
like.”
“Nonsense, child, that is your fancy. Besides, if it were true, that
would be all the more reason you should be civil and pleasant to
him. Mark my words, before long you will find him very friendly. Now
run away, and see that the horses are ready for your ride.”
The boy needed no second bidding. He sprang to the door, and
Hermengarde, left to her own thoughts, settled down into her
favourite attitude beside the window, with a pondering look upon her
brow.
While these shadowy intrigues were taking shape in one corner of
the palace, in another quarter of the same building a very different
plot was making headway.
The connecting link between the two was Karl. When the young
forester returned to his room in the royal corridor, to his
astonishment, he found a visitor awaiting him. A tall, dark man, a few
years older than himself, was seated on a chair, with his arms folded,
in an attitude of quiet resolution.
He looked up at Karl’s entrance, but made no other movement.
“Who are you?” demanded the favourite. “How did you come here?”
“I came here easily enough,” replied the stranger, coolly. “I told the
people below that I was your brother. Perhaps you have forgotten
the brotherhood between us.”
Karl’s face fell, and he gazed uneasily at the bronzed features of his
visitor, who returned his stare with calm unconcern.
“I do not recognise you,” he faltered. “What is your name, and what
do you want here?”
“My name is Johann Mark!” Karl uttered a sharp cry. “And I want
your aid to gain me a private interview with King Maximilian.”
The young courtier began to change colour, and his limbs trembled.
Dropping all further question as to his visitor’s right to be there, he
asked anxiously—
“What is it you want with the King?”
Johann gave him a warning look.
“Everything. Be wise, ask no more questions.”
“I dare not do what you ask. You have no right to expect it of me. I
am a loyal servant of the King.”
“Loyal?” He pronounced the word with an intense scorn. “Karl Fink
loyal! Come, speak out; how much must I give you to conceal me in
some place where Maximilian will be likely to pass alone?”
“Nothing. It is no use to tempt me. I will not. I dare not,” he protested,
with a tremor in his voice.
Johann’s look became threatening.
“Sit down,” he said. “I see that I must talk to you. I must remind you
of some things that you have forgotten—things that happened before
you turned a courtier. You lie under the misfortune of having had a
moment of courage in your past, Karl—a fit of manly independence.
You were whipped into it, I think, by old King Leopold; and in that fit
you fled to Stuttgart.”
Karl interrupted. He had grown very pale, and his teeth were almost
chattering.
“Don’t speak of that,” he implored. “Don’t remind me of that.”
“I must remind you,” was the deliberate answer. “I must remind you
of a certain meeting-place behind the Arsenal.”
“Hush! Not so loud, for God’s sake!”
Johann returned a contemptuous smile, and continued in the same
tone—
“I must remind you of a certain brotherhood composed of other
Franconians who had felt the weight of Leopold’s hand, and of a
night when a certain youth was initiated and swore—do you recollect
the oath?”
“I recollect too much. In mercy do not keep dwelling on that.”
“Well, since you recollect it, I will pass on. Your comrades have been
dispersed since then, Karl, but they have not forgotten you. We have
watched your career with interest. We have seen you return to your
old pursuits, and escape this time without a whipping. We have even
watched you entering the palace, and becoming the favourite—valet,
is it, or groom?—of the young King. We gave you credit for good
motives. We said to ourselves—‘He has gone in there to be in a
position to serve us when the time comes.’ For that reason we
spared you, Karl. We have left you alone all this time because we
had no need of your services. Now we have need of them. What do
you say? Are you prepared to serve us?”
The unfortunate forester had listened to this biting speech in stony
silence. But at its close he roused himself for a last effort, and angrily
replied—
“By what right do you make these demands on me? Oh, I know; I
have felt this coming all along. All these years the remembrance of
that wretched act of folly has overhung me like a storm-cloud, and I
have never risen in the morning without wondering whether it would
burst before night. You call yourselves the friends of freedom, you
extol the name of liberty, and all the time you are coercing others,
using the hasty words extorted from a boy to bind the grown man
and compel him to commit crimes at your dictation. I tell you that you
are worse tyrants yourselves than any of those you conspire against.
Look at me. I am happy here; King Maximilian has done me no
harm, he has shown me every favour; I have lost all the inclinations
that made me join you ten years ago, I have forgotten you, and only
desire to be left in peace. And yet you track me down like
bloodhounds, and order me to risk my neck at your bidding. What
could be worse tyranny than that?”
Johann had listened perfectly unmoved to the other’s passionate
protests. He hardly deigned to answer them.
“It is a case of tyranny against tyranny. There is no such thing as free
will in this world, Karl. Kings use their weapons, and we use ours.
They have their troops, their judges, their spies. We have our oaths
and our daggers. If we are dealing with men of ignoble minds that
can only be swayed by selfish considerations we have to employ the
arguments that appeal to them. If kings use bribes, we must use
threats.”
He paused, and for some moments nothing more was said. Then
Johann spoke again—
“After all, we do not really ask very much of you. In enterprises of
this kind a faint-hearted ally is more dangerous than an enemy. All I
want of you is to place me somewhere where I may meet the King.
You can go where you like, and no one need know that you were
concerned in the affair.”
“What is it that you mean to do?” demanded Karl sullenly.
For answer Johann thrust his hand into an inner pocket of his coat,
and produced a pistol, at the sight of which the other man recoiled,
with a fresh cry.
“I think you know this pistol. I think the last time it was loaded you
held it in your hand. You had been chosen by the lot to fire it then: I
have been chosen now.”
“But then it was loaded for Leopold, and he is dead,” urged the
trembling Karl.
“True, and therefore this time it has been loaded for Maximilian.
What is there in that to surprise you?”
“But what has he done? His fancies are harmless; he is not bad and
cruel; if he does no good he does no evil; he goes on his own way
and leaves the people alone.”
“The fancies of kings are never harmless,” replied Johann sternly.
And rising to his feet, to give more emphasis to his language, he
went on in the tone of a man who feels deeply every word he says:
“Not to do good is in itself a crime on the part of the ruler. How many
men in Maximilian’s position, with his power to bless mankind, would
make a paradise of Franconia! It is not only the active ill-doer that we
have to war against; we must cut down the barren fig-tree as well.
No; let a king be kingly, let him be a father to his people, let him
comfort them in their sorrows, teach them in their ignorance; let him
protect the poor from the spoliations of the rich, provide openings for
labour in public works for the benefit of the whole nation, feed the
hungry, build hospitals for the infirm, give homes to the aged; let him
come down into the arena and fight his people’s battle; let him be our
example, and our guide to lead us on, or let him cease to reign!”
Another silence followed, broken only by the uneasy fidgeting of Karl
upon his seat, as he tried to think of some way of escape from his
position. At last Johann put a stop to his hesitation.
“Come,” he said sternly, “no more delay. It is your life or his. Take me
to the place where I can carry out my errand or—”
The wretched minion rose up shuddering, and led the way out of the
room.
 CHAPTER V
JOHANN’S MISSION

Treading cautiously for fear of being overheard by any chance

passer-by, Karl led his master’s enemy down the corridor giving on
to the royal apartments, and out into a spacious gallery which ran
across the whole southern side of the Castle, and connected its two
wings. This gallery was almost turned into a conservatory, by the
whole of one side being given up to a row of windows so large and
near together as to make the wall appear one expanse of glass.
Along the floor, in front of these windows, ran a series of blossoming
shrubs, bright-hued azaleas, or sweetly scented lemon and myrtle,
giving the whole place a fresh and romantic air. As soon as they had
reached this gallery Karl turned to his companion:—
“This is where the King generally walks about this hour. He may be
alone, or he may be with his friend.”
Johann glanced round. The place seemed suited for his purpose.
The foliage of the plants would afford him a hiding-place, where he
could lurk until the opportunity came for him to carry out his purpose.
“That will do,” he said briefly.
Karl glanced at his face as if meditating another appeal for mercy,
but found no encouragement to speak. He turned and hurried away,
sick at heart, while Johann selected a nook in which to conceal
himself.
It is hardly necessary to add much to the reasons given by Johann
for his presence in the Castle. He had come there as the emissary of
the society to which he referred in his conversation with Karl, a
society founded ten years before, in the reign of Leopold IX.
Originally the society had consisted of five persons. Of these one
was dead. Another had long since made a home in the United States
of America. The third was he who had taken advantage of the old
King’s death to abandon the paths of conspiracy, and who had
become the servant and confidant of Leopold’s successor. Two of
the original members still remained: one, a man remarkable for his
size and for his thick red beard, had succeeded to the post of
president; the other was Johann himself.
For some years after Maximilian’s accession the work of the society
had seemed at a standstill. But it is a truth often illustrated in history
that the spirit of revolt engendered by the oppressions of a strong
bad king breaks out under the rule of a mild but weak successor.
Maximilian’s offence towards his subjects had been simple
indifference. A dreamer and a poet, he had shown himself utterly
averse to the practical business of kingship, and, absorbed in his
æsthetic pursuits, he had left the cares of government to his
Chancellor. While the Minister was engaged in levying taxes, and
keeping a tight rein on public opinion, the young King was
withdrawing himself from the sight of his subjects, and spending his
time in some distant hunting-lodge with a few favourite companions,
or perhaps assisting at the production, on a lavish scale, of one of
those operas which were beginning to make his intimate friend
Bernal celebrated throughout Europe.
It was not long before these caprices began to take an extravagant
turn, which gave an opening for the public discontent. Once a fancy
seized Maximilian, he never stopped to count the cost, and his
Ministers found that the best way to preserve their power was to
furnish him ungrudgingly with the funds required to satisfy his whims.
It was natural that the revolutionary party should seize on this ground
of attack, and hold up the thoughtless young King as a vampire,
draining the life-blood of the people to supply his selfish luxuries.
Matters had just been brought to a head by Maximilian’s last
crowning extravagance, the celebrated palace of Seidlingen.
Seidlingen had been over three years in preparation. Riding one day
in the mountains which border the northwest of Franconia, the King
had come upon a beautiful little valley shut in on all sides by lofty
hills. In the middle of the valley lay a deep blue lake, several miles in
extent, overshadowed by the mountains, and bordered by dark pine
forests. Charmed with the romantic situation, Maximilian had
conceived the idea of erecting a palace on the very edge of the lake,
and transforming the valley into a veritable fairy kingdom, in which
he might roam undisturbed. How many millions had actually been
spent in realising this splendid dream were not accurately known. It
was supposed that the Ministers, afraid to disclose the truth, had
distributed a large part of the cost among various heads of civil and
military expenditure. All that public opinion could do was to take note
of the colossal works involved, and from them to arrive at some
estimate of the appalling cost.
It was known that thousands of men had been at work in the lovely
valley. Part of the mountain had been levelled to obtain a site for the
palace and the extensive gardens which spread away from the
border of the lake. Another part had been cut away to make room for
a magnificent road, broad and smooth as the boulevards of a capital,
and bordered with trees and waterfalls and vistas of artificially
embellished landscape. In one place an immense stretch of forest
had to be cleared; in another, huge trees, selected for their size and
beauty, had to be transplanted from distant regions. The whole of the
lake, some ten or twelve square miles of water, had first to be
drained away that its bed might be deepened and cleansed from
weeds, and then to be refilled, and kept at a constant high level by
means of immense dams of masonry, and by the construction of
artificial water-courses, and the laying of miles of underground pipes.
Its waters had to be stocked with rare fish from all the rivers of
Europe and America, and its banks to be lined here and there with
costly marble quays, to facilitate landing from the sumptuous
pleasure craft, built of priceless woods, which were transported
thither across the mountains. A net-work of canals lined with marble,
ran through the gardens, and on their smooth waters exquisite boats
inlaid with ivory, and shaped like swans and dolphins, glided past
Chinese towers, and kiosks, and crystal caves from which concealed
musicians were to pour out melodies upon the voyager’s ear. At one
time it had actually been in contemplation to connect these canals
with a larger one extending the whole way to the river Rhine, but
another kingdom had to be crossed, and the compensation
demanded by its government was so enormous that even Maximilian
stopped short, and the dream of making a seaport in the heart of the
German highlands was abandoned.
All that art could desire or science execute had been done to render
the palace itself one of the wonders of the world. In mere size it was
inferior to the state palace in Mannhausen, far inferior to such huge
piles as Versailles and the Roman Vatican. A poet does not build like
a conqueror. Maximilian’s object had not been to stupefy mankind,
but to delight himself. Almost more wealth had been lavished on the
wonderful accessories than on the main edifice—that is to say, on
the aviaries, the hothouses, and above all on the unique and
gorgeous theatre destined for the production of the grandest works
of Mozart and Beethoven and Bernal. But it was in the beauty of its
design, and the perfection of its finish, that Seidlingen rose superior
to every other palace on the globe. The barrack-like stateliness of
Potsdam, the homely majesty of Windsor, were alike put out of the
comparison. It was the complete and final fusion of the mediæval
and the classic, a Gothic castle breathed upon by the spirit of the
Renaissance, and transformed into a dazzling temple of art. Beneath
stretched broad terraces and solemn colonnades, above soared
fairy-like turrets and thin spires of delicate tracery. It was the beauty
and glory of the South, brooded over by the deep immortal spirit of
the North.
And now the rumour ran that Seidlingen was finished, and that the
King was about to go and take possession. This was the signal for
the discontent, which had long been gathering head, to break into a
ferment. The revolutionary societies redoubled their activity, recruits
came flocking to them in shoals, and already the more daring minds
spoke of open insurrection against the royal Government. It only
remained for some one man, more daring than the rest, to give the
signal of revolt.
This was the crisis for which Johann had long been waiting. He
called together the members of his own brotherhood, which had
renewed its numbers, and producing the very weapon which had
been provided ten years before for the assassination of Leopold,
boldly demanded that it should be loaded once more. His comrades
consented, and by his own desire he was entrusted with the carrying
out of the society’s sentence. The dawn of the following day saw him
set forth from Mannhausen, carrying in his breast the sealed pistol,
and bound for the place where the Court was then in residence.
Stopping on his way at Franz Gitten’s cottage, what he had learned
there confirmed his resolution, and he had come away armed, as he
believed, with a fresh justification for the deed he was going to
commit.
He had hardly settled himself in what seemed to be a secure hiding-
place, when a door opened at the far end of the gallery, and
Maximilian and Bernal entered arm-in-arm.
The King had discarded the dress he had worn for his walk through
the forest, and was now clad in a plain suit of black velvet, trimmed
with deep lace ruffles at the throat and wrists. The only mark of his
rank was a small cap of the same stuff which he wore, while his
companion was bare-headed.
As if he had changed his mood with his clothes, the young man
came in laughing and rallying his friend.
“Why, Auguste, what nonsense you talk! Did you hear Von Stahlen’s
latest? He declares that the Steinketel has jilted me! He thinks I have
been cut out by Von Hardenburg. It is lucky that Seidlingen will be
ready for me to retire to, to hide my despair.”
Auguste did not seem quite to share his friend’s cheerfulness. His
face wore a troubled expression.
“I suppose you have no idea what your fairyland has actually cost,”
he observed. “I cannot help fearing it will make you unpopular with
the nation.”
Maximilian laughed.
“I see what it is,” he retorted lightly; “you have been reading the
newspapers. I never do, not even the Cologne Gazette. My dear
Auguste, if you are going to take life seriously, all confidence
between us must be at an end. Remember that I am the King of the
Fairies, and my politics are those of A Midsummer Night’s Dream!”
Auguste smiled rather half-heartedly.
“That is all very well, Max, but you know the inhabitants of Franconia
are not fairies, and the taxes they have to pay are not fairy gold.”
“My dear friend, I really believe that you have turned Republican. I
shall hear next that you are a candidate for the Chamber on the
Opposition side. What are the Franconians to you, or to me either?
Philistines all, my friend, Philistines all. I look upon myself as a
divinely appointed instrument of retribution. I am the avenger of the
poets they have imprisoned, and the musicians they have insulted,
and the painters they have starved. Let them pay their taxes. It is the
only homage to genius they have ever rendered. I am the only
prophet who has ever been honoured in his own country, and they
honour me because they have to. Make your mind easy; and when
we get to the Happy Valley we will lock the gates and give orders
that no newspapers are to be admitted except that one at Athens
which is published in verse!”
Auguste shook his head.
“It is lucky for you that the Chancellor takes the business of
government a little more seriously. What would you do if a
revolutionary mob invaded your Happy Valley?”
“Offer them refreshments, of course, and then make them listen to
one of your operas. If that did not subdue their fierceness, nothing
would,” added Maximilian, unable to resist the temptation to banter
his friend. “But tell me, Auguste, do you seriously suppose that any
one wants to deprive me of the throne in favour of poor Ernest?”
Bernal did not at once reply to this question. While the two had been
talking they had continued to stroll up and down the gallery, and in
letting his eyes wander from side to side, the musician had caught
sight through the gathering dusk of something which he fancied to be
unusual in the appearance of one of the shrubs before the windows.
Restraining his curiosity for the moment, he walked on, and as
Maximilian was waiting, he forced himself to return some answer.
“I am afraid that is not the question. You may have enemies whose
designs go farther than a mere change of masters. Be serious for
one moment, Max. Other kings have to take precautions to guard
themselves, and why should not you do the same?”
“Oh, that will be all right You will find that Seidlingen is well guarded,
though it has been more with the idea of keeping out impertinent
admirers than the mysterious enemies you talk about. I have had a
palisade put up all round the mountains, and at every mile or so I
shall have small pickets of troops, whose duty it will be to patrol the
boundary, and see that no one attempts to cross. There is only one
road leading into the valley, the one I have had made, and that will
be guarded at the entrance by a small fort pierced by an iron gate,
which will be kept locked, and only opened by a written order from
me or the Chancellor. So you see the Anarchists won’t have much
chance to disturb us.”
While he was speaking, they had strolled back till they again came
opposite the spot which had attracted the musician’s attention. He
contrived to gradually bring himself to a halt, Maximilian following his
example without perceiving that his companion’s movements were
governed by any special purpose. Bernal fixed his gaze upon a dark
shadow under the foliage, while Maximilian continued to speak.
“The real difficulty I shall have,” he said, “is to avoid the visits of
persons who cannot very well be turned back by a sentry. I am afraid
from what I hear that my preparations have roused the curiosity of
the Kaiser, and that his Imperial Majesty is likely to inflict his
formidable presence on me, unless I can think of some pretext for
keeping him away.”
Bernal still listened, but the King’s words fell dully on his ear. His
whole attention was absorbed by a frightful discovery. Gazing
steadfastly into the shadow, he had all at once become aware that
his look was returned. There, at a distance of a few feet from him,
was a pair of dark eyes fixed deliberately upon his own. By a
tremendous effort of will he suppressed all outward signs of
agitation, lest he should alarm the man before him, and continued to
gaze calmly back, as if unconscious of what he saw. His thoughts,
travelling with terrific rapidity, went over the dangers of the situation.
The King and himself were totally unarmed, they were alone in the
gallery, and, thanks to Maximilian’s morbid love of privacy, there
were no attendants likely to be within hail. Who could the concealed
watcher be? Only a desperate man would have dared to risk the
danger of thus invading the royal apartments in a way which
sufficiently proclaimed the threatening character of his errand. If this
man were armed, the King’s life, both their lives, were at his mercy.
The only chance of escape that presented itself to Bernal’s mind,
was to feign unconsciousness, and draw the King gradually away to
the end of the gallery. Then, by a sudden movement, he could urge
him through the doorway, and fasten it against the enemy. With a
strange feeling of dizziness creeping over him, he contrived to say a
few words in answer to his companion.
“That is what I was afraid you would say. If the Kaiser is really
anxious to come, in your own interest you ought to make him
welcome, and show him every attention. He may be a useful friend
or a dangerous foe.”
He was quite unconscious whether he was talking sense or
nonsense; as long as he could maintain the appearance of
composure it was all he cared for. Maximilian, wholly unsuspicious,
launched out into a reply.
“My dear Auguste, you are talking like old Von Sigismark. Of course,
all that is very true; but it is no reason why I should submit to the
penalty of that barbarian’s presence, if there is any reasonable way
of avoiding it. I come to you for sympathy, not for good advice.”
As the King finished speaking, Bernal felt a sudden shock. Still
gazing into the depths of those flaming eyes, he had become aware
by some subtle instinct that the man lurking in the shadow knew that
he was detected. There was only one moment’s more breathing-
time, till the assassin should learn that this knowledge in turn had
been discovered by his observer.
Trembling under the imminence of the peril, Bernal felt irritated at
having to reply to the King, as a man racked by some torturing pain
resents having to respond to the commonplace observations of
those around him.
“I never talk like Von Sigismark. I simply meant that if there were no
way of avoiding it, you should submit with as much grace as
possible.”
Maximilian smiled at the peevishness of his friend’s tone.
“You are a Job’s comforter, Auguste. If you say much more I shall
make you my Chancellor; so be careful.”
“Ah!”
The crisis had come. A flash of the eyes which he had been
watching with such feverish anxiety, convinced Bernal that the last
stage had been arrived at. The enemy had already learned that
Bernal had detected him. He now knew that Bernal was aware of
this.
The fence of eyes was over. The two were as much face to face as if
both were out in the middle of the apartment. Bernal set his teeth
together and drew back a step, while Johann sprang to his feet,
throwing down the shrub which had protected him, and levelled his
pistol, at the distance of four paces, at the King’s breast.
“If either of you moves or makes the least cry, I fire.”
 CHAPTER VI
KING AND REGICIDE

None of us know beforehand how we shall act in moments of stress

and fear. Bernal, when he saw embodied before him the danger to
which he had looked forward, lost his self-control, and turned round
to the King with a nervous movement, as if he would catch hold of
him to restrain him from hasty action. But Maximilian, after the first
natural start of astonishment, stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed
steadily on this man who had suddenly come forward to threaten his
life, gazing at him with more of curiosity than dread.
The intruder stepped a pace nearer, keeping his weapon pointed at
the King, while his finger rested against the trigger. Nevertheless, he
did not at once fire. To kill in cold blood is hard. And the republican,
on his part, was not free from some natural feeling of curiosity as he
looked for the first time on this scion of a race against which he had
sworn vows of hatred.
“Have you anything to say before I fire?” he asked, unconsciously
seeking to gain time to strengthen his resolve.
Maximilian drew himself up with a proud gesture. The softer side of
his character seemed to have suddenly died out. In the presence of
this enemy he was every inch a king.
“Why have you come here?” he demanded, as haughtily as if he had
been surrounded by his guards, and the man before him had been a
defenceless prisoner. “What is it that you want?”
“You see plainly enough. I am here to kill you.”
Bernal could not restrain a stifled cry. Maximilian lifted his hand
rebukingly to enjoin silence, without removing his eyes from the
enemy’s face.
“Why do you wish to take my life?” he asked, in a firm voice.
Johann had to pause and collect his thoughts before he could
answer. He felt ever so slightly disconcerted. The situation was
altogether unlike what he had anticipated. He had come there
breathing wrath against one whom he pictured as a Heliogabalus,
dissolved in vice and luxury, and he had steeled himself beforehand
against threats or bribes or prayers for mercy; and now, here he was
face to face with a pale, thoughtful-eyed young man, whose principal
feeling seemed to be wonder, tempered with indignation, at his
presence.
“Because you are a king,” he said at length, speaking slowly, and
trying to rouse his dormant anger as he went along. “You hold the
supreme power in the country. For ten years you have reigned over
Franconia; and how have you used your power? For the gratification
of your own selfish pleasures. While the poor starve in your capital,
you waste millions in luxury. You build new palaces; you lavish
favours on artists and musicians”—he glanced involuntarily at Bernal
as he spoke—“your whole time is given up to enjoyment, and you
have never given a moment’s thought to the welfare of the millions
whom you call your subjects. You value operas more than the lives
of men.”
He stopped, feeling slightly dissatisfied with the weakness of his
language. He would have liked to crush this calm, self-possessed
questioner with a few scathing words—but somehow the words had
refused to come.
During this harangue a slightly contemptuous look came on
Maximilian’s face. He answered with spirit.
“I do not believe that any one need starve in Franconia. You are
speaking unfairly. If I spend money in the ways you talk of, does it
not all come back into the pockets of the people? I never heard that
it was considered a crime to encourage art, or that a king was
forbidden to have his private friends. And when you accuse me of
not valuing the lives of men, you forget that during my reign
Franconia has been kept from war. None of my subjects have been
made to shed one drop of blood for me. I have never even signed a
death-warrant.”
“What does that matter? I am not speaking of foreign war. The
deadliest war is that which goes on from day to day between rich
and poor; and that war you have never lifted a finger to check. The
millions you have wasted on palaces—which are of no use to any
one but yourself—might have been used for great public works for
the benefit of mankind—hospitals, almshouses, bridges, aqueducts
to bring the pure water of the hills into the Mannhausen slums. A
king has higher duties than encouraging art. It is his duty to be the
shepherd of the nation he rules.”
Maximilian listened, this time with an air of interest. He replied in
milder and more friendly tones than he had yet used.
“I think I understand you. I see that there is something in what you
say. I have been too much in the habit of thinking that the best king
was the one who interfered with his subjects least. You will admit, at
all events, that I have never tried to play the tyrant. But I see that I
might have done something more—such things as you point out. Yet
the people have a constitution. Why have their elected
representatives not undertaken some of these works?”
Johann found it more and more difficult to reply harshly to this gentle
reasoning on the part of the man whom he had come to take
vengeance upon. He tried to convince himself that this was mere
acting—a mere ruse to gain time, and he spoke again more rudely
than before.
“That is right; lay the blame on others. Where is the money for such
things to come from, when every penny that can be wrung out of the
people is being squandered by you? Besides, these representatives,
as you call them, represent only the richer classes. They are as
much out of touch with the poor, they have as little sympathy with
them, as you. Their turn will come before long; in the mean time we
must begin at the head. These excuses come too late. You have had
ten years in which to show your good intentions, and now we can
wait no longer.”
Maximilian resumed his haughty air.