by A. N. Wilson
—Such rumours are rubbish, said George. Ludwig and Marie-Antoinette accept their destiny. They have accepted the Revolution. They will stay now and eventually – you’ll see – they’ll become constitutional monarchs, like George III in England. Trust me – we saw it, Alexander von Humboldt and I with our own eyes – we saw Lafayette and the King in the Field of Mars – accepting the sovereignty of the people: accepting that the King only exercises power with the consent of the people. He is their tenant, not the other way about.
—That is precisely the view of politics which Burke rejects, said Huber rather abruptly. Then adding —Excuse me if I go to look at the child.
Only about a year later did Caroline, who overheard this, consider it odd that Huber, not the child-obsessed George, went to look at the baby.
The hum of voices, fuelled by schnapps or wine, filled that room, continued to fuel it, making a murmurous music in which none of the conversations, from the corridor, could be distinguished or understood. Karin and Inge were outside the nursery.
—O mein Herr, said the elder woman.
—To hide it from the little ones – Karin was saying through her tears – the little ones are asleep – O Rosechen, O Clara—
—She was breathing, said Inge. Half an hour ago when Karin lifted her to change her, she was breathing.
—Inge, said Huber desperately. What are you saying?
Returning to the music-murmur of voices in the fuggy room, his ears could now, technically speaking, make out the words spoken. Here, a declaration that a war was imminent. There, praising a felicitous mot of Beaumarchais. But none of the sounds any longer connoted meaning. Therese’s gaunt, sleep-deprived, fevered face turned to him, as he said,
—It is the baby.
And George, catching at once what had happened, cried,
—Oh God, oh God!
And all the room became silent.
She gave birth to another baby five months later. They called it Georg. That one also died.
—Huber’s babies don’t have a very good survival rate, George remarked bitterly to Caroline. It was the first time she saw the truth of the whole situation.
In April ’92, the month of baby Georg’s birth, the French National Assembly declared war on Austria; not long afterwards, Prussia came into the war on the Austrian side. The Austrian and Prussian courts were open in their hatred of the Revolution and in their support of the émigrés, priests and aristocrats, who called upon their fellow Europeans to save France from what they feared would be bloody anarchy. For the revolutionaries, with whom George now fervently sympathized, a metaphysical conflict was in evidence. As one of the more messianic of the Deputés had declared in Paris,
—Here is the crisis of the universe. God disentangled the primitive chaos: the French will unravel the feudal chaos . . . for free men are God’s representatives on earth. Kings will make impious war on us with slave soldiers and exhorted money; we will make a holy war with free soldiers and patriotic contributions.
French troops invaded Brabant.
Mainz was put on alert. The city’s battlements were strengthened. Ditches around the city were filled with water. Two years’ supply of corn were bought up and stored by the Archbishop Elector for public consumption in the event of siege. The Prussian army, marching down through Koblenz, needed to be fed – they consumed fourteen thousand pounds of meat a day. The price of food become prohibitively high. In Paris, the mob seemed poised to topple the established order, and in German lands, despite the fervour of intellectuals like George, there seemed a dogged determination to hold anarchy at bay, and to maintain the status quo. Nothing could demonstrate this with more ritual insistence than the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor at Frankfurt in July. Brand, the indefatigable young English sightseer, insisted on going to the ceremony, and – ignorant of the tensions all around him in the Forsters’ apartment – upon taking George and Huber as his companions. There was actually something very comforting about Brand’s friendly, breezy presence. With Brand around, they all had to act a part, and there was no possibility of explicit discussion of the fact that Therese and Huber were lovers.
During the Imperial coronation, Brand kept up continuous conversation. The coronation of his King had taken place years before his own birth, but this did not prevent him saying,
—I say, d’you think they did that in Westminster Abbey, to old Farmer George? What d’ye think they’re up to now – rubbing oil on him, what?
And the end of it all was that the twenty-four-year-old Francis, a brocaded doll in white tights and buckled shoes and a bejewelled medieval crown, was led by mitred bishops and coroneted electors, to the chancel steps to be shown to his people, to the fanfare of trumpets and the chorus of Vivat Imperator Romanorum!
While Huber tried to point out the names of famous princes, and while Brand said —Beats a night at the opera, eh? – Forster, the only committed republican of the three, felt tears flowing at the passing of things.
The Duke of Weimar, Karl August, rallied to the cry of the Duke of Braunschweig and the King of Prussia to rescue France from the sacrilegious hands of sans-cullotism. Loyal to his Duke, his young friend, the Geheimrat (Privy Councillor) of Weimar, marched with the ducal armies, and let it be known that he would be passing through Mainz in August. It was just a month after the death of baby Georg. Therese was in no state to host two conversazioni with Geheimrat Goethe, so he was entertained at Sömmerring’s apartment. They all – the intelligentsia of Mainz – were there – even Therese; Caroline Böhmer, who had moved to Mainz to be near the Forsters, Zimmerman, Sömmerring provided beer, not wine, which perhaps accounted for the rather stiff conversation.
In after months, George remembered Goethe’s range, his self-confidence, his sheer spiritual energy, even though he was plainly exhausted by a week of marching with a hungry army. Sömmerring, the foremost anatomist of his day, was plainly thunderstruck by Goethe’s momentous anatomical discovery. Hitherto, it had always been maintained that the human race was distinct from the other mammals because it lacked an intermaxillary bone. Until this very decade, even anatomists of Sömmerring’s calibre had accepted this as a doctrine, handed down from Aristotle and Galen. This is the bone which contains the incisor teeth. Man has incisor teeth. In 1784 Goethe had demonstrated the existence of the bone in a human skull.
—Our sense that the ape is almost human! Goethe’s face gleamed – and George remembered Nally saying almost the same thing on board the Resolution, the day he painted the monkey.
—My theory of plants, declaimed the Geheimrat, is that they all derive and stem from a single source. What if it could be shown that all Nature, all living beings, are kindred?
He was thin, sallow and, though not as pock-marked as George, his skin bore the marks of smallpox suffered in youth. The celebrated features, the bright brown eyes, darting from person to person, the asymmetrical and enormous forehead, were all there on display, but Therese and Caroline felt crushing disappointment. They had hoped for fervour and passion in his talk, and they found the polite courtier, who praised the neo-classical splendours of the Deanery, which had just been finished, and where the pagan poet had evidently enjoyed being feted by the Catholic clergy. Although his figure was lean, Goethe’s face, according to Huber, was flaccid, inclining towards the double chin. Therese wanted him to talk of Werther and the novelist said he had left it all behind him. Caroline asked —Was it really true that the book had inspired copy-cat Werthers, young men in blue coats who had killed themselves for love? – and someone else had tried to start a conversation which Goethe quite evidently did not wish to have – about suicide – and George, who even more evidently did not wish to have it, asked the poet-scientist to explain his refutation of Newton’s colour theory – and this did not go well because Sömmerring, with no intention of impoliteness but simply with the instinctive reaction of a scientist, interrupted Goethe’s flow by saying,
—But sir, you have misunderstood what Newton
’s colour theory is. You are refuting something Newton never wrote.
And to cover the awkwardness someone asked Goethe about the campaign and the Revolution, and they heard of hardship on the road, mud-spattered, hungry troops, a collective fear. He appeared to have small sympathy with the Royalists . . .
—A revolution must be the fault of the Government, not of the revolutionaries . . .
Which made George tap the table in excited agreement; but he was aghast then to hear Goethe denouncing the Revolution’s core principles: questioned what it even meant to say that all men were equal when it was so clear that in every capacity – bodily strength, intellect, wealth – they were not. He ridiculed the idea of government by the people – said it was a contradiction in terms, and deplored the violence of the Paris mob. Who but a strong Government – a King – could protect the Many from the Many?
Perhaps it was the effort of being on best behaviour for Goethe, perhaps it was the strain of the last weeks, in which neither Therese nor George had discussed their painful situation, the dead baby, his paternity, the continued presence of Huber in both their lives – but after they came home from the Goethe evening, they had one of the most painful rows of their entire marriage.
Sometimes one, sometimes the other, said an unpardonable thing. Sometimes, seeing a word thrust home, causing intense pain, awoke in the perpetrator a pity which felt like love. But on they rowed – that afternoon – that evening – through the next day.
—You could see I was in no condition to go out – but you’d rather go and lick Goethe’s—
—No, oh no. It was you who wanted to go to meet him—
—You care more about tuft-hunting than your own family. Even at a time like this—
—You think I don’t care – you think I don’t care about what it did to Rosechen – to little Rose – to see the dead . . . what it did to Clara – to see – oh God.
—You don’t care about Georg being dead – any more than you cared when Luisa—
—All right, all RIGHT. He suddenly lost control. He felt his lower lip trembling, as he shouted through tears,
—Can’t we be candid – isn’t it better they’re dead – his children? If we’re to have any hope of a future together . . . as a family . . .
But he was moving at a different pace from hers and very slowly she opened her mouth in shock and said in a broken staccato,
—What did you say?
He stared at her. He hated her very much, but the pain in her face was wrenching his heart.
—You said it was better that two of my children were . . . were—
—Yes. YOUR children – your accursed children. Not mine – not mine, Therese – can you wonder that . . .
And he had left the bedroom. She had thrown herself on the bed and sobbed. He had left the apartment and paced through Mainz. The bells of churches and monasteries clanged a meaningless carillon in his head. Pacing and pacing he had no consciousness of place, walked past Schöborner Hof and down to Stefansplatz, indifferent to their Renaissance magnificence, heaved and gulped with anger and pain – her pain, his pain, the child’s pain. At a smoky hostelry near the Carmelite church he drank schnapps – quite a lot of it, and hatred of his wife turned to pity, pity to lust, as he lurched homewards, determined to bring all this pain to an end, to be reconciled with her.
—We ate without you, she said with cold fury. Where were you? Rose was crying – the maids were asking . . .
—I needed to clear my mind.
—You smell like an alehouse.
—Please, Therese . . .
Huber, who was present, said,
—I think Therese wants to be alone.
—You think! You tell me what my wife wants. Oh, God, God . . .
And a door was slammed.
Huber had the decency to keep to his own room that night. Waking on the cold day-bed in his study in the small hours, George burst into Therese’s room.
—George, if I don’t sleep, I shall go mad.
—My darling girl—
—I’m not your darling. Please. Please, George, go away.
—What I said was unpardonable. About your babies. About your adorable lost children. But Therese. Let us make more children. Our children. Let us make – a future. Let us make—
—Go away, George. Go and put your head under a tap.
—You BITCH!
The morning was silent. No speaking at all, not at breakfast, not when Therese said she was going out to visit Caroline. Later, over Second Breakfast, Karin, bringing in a tray of warm rolls which she had lately baked, said,
—The flour is running low. There is no more to be had in the market.
And Huber, who found a newspaper, said,
—The Prussian army was checked at Valmy. They are in retreat. It is only a matter of time before the French arrive here . . .
—Isn’t it what you want? said Therese bitterly to her husband. Your Jacobin friends taking us over? Oh what are we to do?
—Sömmerring has already left town – he has gone to Vienna. He thinks we should all do the same, said Huber. We are not fighting men. There will be no virtue in remaining, to be murdered in our beds by the sans-culottes. I am going to Frankfurt tonight.
Therese half rose in shock, as if electrocuted.
—But you can’t, she said.
—Maybe I should not have stayed, said Huber. Maybe you two should—
—Don’t tell me what I should do, she flared. I don’t want to stay here. I don’t want to stay with George – you know that, Ludwig.
George heard himself say, almost as in a trance,
—Perhaps we all became used to it – perhaps it is what we all . . . want – Ludwig and you together – but not leaving me, not leaving the children. If we all stayed together . . . I’d allow . . . It is in order – it is all right. If you need one another . . .
—Oh, said Therese furiously, what are you TALKING ABOUT?
Huber left that afternoon for Frankfurt.
The army of General Adam-Philippe Custine reached Worms on 4th October.
The majority of the cathedral clergy, and many of the religious – nuns as well as monks – fled Mainz. Horses and carriages were in short supply.
—I don’t want to stay here and be raped – I don’t want to watch French soldiers raping our children.
—They’re an army of liberation, darling – they are not going to rape anyone.
—Don’t call me darling. Look, Huber can keep us safe, me and the girls.
—I can keep you safe. I am your husband.
When the French army finally reached Mainz, depleted by disease, unwashed, tipsy, they seemed as if they would fulfil neither Therese’s fears nor George’s hopes. The soldiers, vaguely sinister figures in huge plumed judge’s hats, their faces smudged with the moustaches which were the badges of their revolutionary seriousness, did not make the bosom thrill with political optimism. Nor did they inflict much violence on the population. Huber, writing from Frankfurt, said he’d seen the crowd set upon a French soldier and hang him from a lamp-post, an horrific event which made Huber all the more anxious to get well away from the scenes of occupation.
The plans kept changing. Some days Therese spoke of returning to live with her father. Sometimes Huber wrote that he could take her and the children to France. Sometimes George protested that he did not want her to go away with Huber.
One of the consequences of the visit of Goethe was a reawakening in George’s mind of all the areas of intellectual interest which the unhappy domestic scenes made impossible to pursue. He wanted to consult Humboldt about mineralogy. On his desk was a half-finished paper on the botany of Tahiti. He wanted to pursue more translating work. Translating Sakontala, from Sir William Jones’s English, made him want to learn Sanskrit, Hindustani, and other Indian languages: but the quarrels, and the need to earn money, had distracted him from any work which engaged his brain and his imagination. Now, the political events made it seem even
less likely that he would resume his work before Christmas.
Therese and Caroline both urged him to be careful.
—What if the Prussian army arrives next week? asked Caroline. These soldiers – this French rag-bag – won’t put up a fight. They’ll be driven back over the border.
—I believe in the Revolution. Don’t you?
—Belief, fiddlesticks, said Therese. You’ll look a fool if the Prussian troops are victorious.
—The Old Man – Caroline meant Archbishop von Erthal – will come back and he’s not going to look very kindly on his librarian wearing that ridiculous cockade.
—It isn’t ridiculous. It’s a badge of Liberty – of solidarity.
—You look like a Christmas tree.
—Therese is right, George. It is irresponsible to take risks. Think of your children.
He did think of the children. They were frightened, and came to sleep in the big bed with their mummy and daddy. George loved feeling Rosechen’s hot, even breath against his face as she slept. In the morning, when she woke, he would tell her fairy stories as she lay in the crook of his shoulder.
—You could travel with Brand. He’s going on to Athens. You could make one of your books about it, said Caroline.
—You could go back to England, said Therese.
He had been thinking of this. The Letter to Lord Sandwich had to some degree queered his pitch, but he would still find work.
—Would you join me in England?
—George. We would have to talk about it. Let us not deceive one another. My life is with Huber now.
—I can’t accept that. Go on having him as your lover if you must, but do not take my children from me – do not be as cruel as that. Therese. Please.
There was such contempt in her expression, such refusal to listen. Both seethed with anger against one another. Both, with some part of themselves, actually dreaded a separation.
George was one of the founder-members of the Mainz Jacobin Club. To his father-in-law, Heyne, he wrote —The Revolution has been brought to pass by Philosophy. The Republic of twenty-four million people will do more to change Europe than the mad English despot George III and his slave-subjects.
