13.—BAVARIANS.
“Everything here contributes to heighten the dignity of woman. From her girlhood, and during the years in which her beauty is blossoming, she feels herself an object of devotion—she is mistress. Whatever she grants, however slight the favour may be, acquires a high value. The offering sanctified by her kiss is far more costly than gold; the riband she has worn becomes equal to a decoration.”
This picture of German customs has special reference to the inhabitants of Central Germany, the Austrians.
14.—BADENERS.
It is in the central portion of Germany that we meet with this patient activity, and the gentle manners described by Dr. Clavel. But these qualities are far from being the attributes of the inhabitants of the North and West. The Germans of the North and West appeared in their true character during the war of 1870, when a series of deplorable fatalities and mournful inconsistencies had delivered up unhappy France to the mercy of the invader. We then learnt how to appreciate this reputation for good-nature, simplicity, and gentleness, which was commonly attached to the inhabitants of the Ultra-Rhenic countries. The good-nature developed itself into an undisguised ferocity, the simplicity into dark duplicity, and the gentleness into haughty and brutal violence. The hated and jealous fury of the Prussians, who rushed upon France with the avowed intention of reducing her to impotence, and erasing her, if possible, from the rôle of nations; their cold-blooded cruelties and shameless rapine, are so impressed upon the minds of all Frenchmen, that we need not recall them. Prussian barbarity attained the level of that practised by the Vandals in the second century.
Our scholars have found some difficulty in explaining the anomaly which existed between the ferocious conduct of the German armies, and the very opposite reputation enjoyed by our neighbours beyond the Rhine. Accustomed to regard the Germans as peaceful and gentle, sentimental and dreamy, we, in France, were painfully surprised to find facts contrast so cruelly with an opinion so generally entertained. An ethnological work, published in 1871 by M. de Quatrefages in the “Revue des Deux Mondes,”[4] has afforded a scientific explanation of this anomaly.
[4] Issue of Feb. 15th.
M. de Quatrefages has shown, by considerations at once linguistic, geological, ethnological, and historical, that the Prussians, properly so called, that is, the inhabitants of Pomerania, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, and Silesia, have but little in common with the German race—that they are not, in fact, Germans, but result from a mixture of Slavonians and Finns with the primitive inhabitants of those countries. The Finns overran, at a very early period, Pomerania and Eastern-Prussia; later on, the Slavonians conquered the same territory, as well as Brandenburg and Silesia. Certain Germanic tribes—to which add the results of a French immigration into Prussia, which took place under Louis XIV., after the revocation of the edict of Nantes—must be joined to the stock of Slavonians and Finns, in order to make up the Prussian race as it at present exists. The northern Slavonians possessed a well-known coarseness of manner, and were of large stature and powerful constitution. The Finns, or primitive inhabitants of the shores of the Baltic, were characterized by cunning and violence, united to an extraordinary tenacity. The modern Prussians revive all these ancestral defects.
M. Godron, a naturalist of Nancy, who has very successfully studied the German race, says, “The Prussians are neither Germans nor Slavonians: they are Prussians!” This fact is now clearly shown by the investigations of M. de Quatrefages. From an ethnological point of view, the Prussians are very different from the German populations, who are now subjected to the rule of the Emperor William under the pretext of German unity.
Two different written languages exist among the German people; that of the Netherlands and German.
The Netherland language has given birth to three dialects—Dutch, Flemish, and Frieslandic.
The Dutch, in the seventeenth century, were the greatest maritime commercial people in the world, and founded at that period a certain number of colonies.
The Dutchman is by nature reserved and silent. Simplicity is the marked feature of his character. He possesses patriotic feeling in a high degree, and is capable of enthusiasm and devotion in the defence of his strange and curious territory, preserved from the sea by dykes and formidable constructions, and irrigated by innumerable canals, which form the ordinary means of communication, and which link together the seas and the rivers, as well as the towns.
English.—The English may be considered as resulting from a mixture of the Saxons and Angles with the people who inhabited the British Isles before the Saxon invasion.
Whence came and who were the Angles and Saxons?
According to Tacitus, the Angles were a small nation inhabiting the regions next the ocean. The Saxons, according to Ptolemy, dwelt between the mouths of the Elbe and Schleswig. About the fifth century after Christ, the Angles and Saxons invaded the British Isles, and mingled with the inhabitants, who then comprised Celts, Latins, and Arameans. During the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, fresh invasions of Great Britain, by the Normans and Danes, added to this blood, already so mixed, another foreign infusion.
From this medley of different peoples has sprung the English nation, in whom are found at the same time, the patient and persevering character, the serious disposition, and the love of family life, introduced by the Saxons, and which is the peculiarity of the German nature, combined with the lightness and impressionability of the Celt.
The physical type which is the result of this mixture, that is, the English type, corresponds with the combination of races we have specified. The head is in shape long and high, and is in this respect to be distinguished from the square heads of the Germans, particularly those of Suabia and Thuringia. The English generally possess a clear and transparent skin, chestnut hair, tall and slender figures, a stiff gait, and a cold physiognomy. Their women do not offer the noble appearance and luxurious figure of the Greek and Roman women; but their skins surpass in transparency and brilliancy those of the female inhabitants of all other European countries.
We borrow a few pages from the work of Dr. Clavel upon “Les Races Humaines et leur Part dans la Civilisation,” in order to convey an exact knowledge of the nature and customs of our neighbours across the Channel:—
“When he examines,” says Dr. Clavel, “the geographical position of England, a land possessing a humid rather than a cold climate, the observer pictures to himself beforehand that he is about to meet a people of imperious appetite, of a vigorous circulation, of a powerfully organized locomotive system, and a sanguineo-lymphatic temperament. The power of the digestive functions shows that the nervous system is unable to obtain dominion, and that there is a lack of sensibility: the frequent fogs, which destroy the perfumes of the earth, the stormy winds of the ocean, and the absence of wine, announce a poverty of sentiment and inspiration, and of the arts founded upon them.
“The level plains, which are as a rule met with in England, are not favourable to the development of the lower extremities, and it is a fact that the power of the English lies, not so much in the legs, as in the arms, shoulders, and loins. The fist is an Englishman’s natural weapon, either for attack or defence; his popular form of duel is boxing, while the foot plays an important part in the form of duel which, in France, bears the characteristic name of Savate.
“This power in the upper regions of the body gives to an Englishman a peculiar appearance. In view of his brawny shoulders, his thick and muscular neck, and broad chest, we rightly divine the ready workman, the daring seaman, the indefatigable mechanic, the soldier who is ready to die at his post but who bears up with difficulty against forced marches and hunger. His blond or reddish hair, his white skin and grey eyes, bespeak the mists