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Page 103 Mulhouse
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Page 105 Although Mulhouse is a very old town, excepting the restored, quaintly gabled, be-statued and gilded Hotel de Ville. there is little to attract the antiquary. Mulhouse is to-day an intensely modern town—at least in the estimation of the Mulhousians. There was formerly in the center of the town an old church, the temple of Saint Etienne, built in the twelfth century, with a choir and steeple of the fourteenth century, but this was demolished in 1858, and a vast construction in doubtful taste was erected upon the site. However, a fine tower called the “Bollwerk,” which formed part of the ancient fortifications of Mulhouse, yet stands. and is kept in excellent repair. ‘The Mullhousians exhibit it with some pride, too, but one can well see that the inhabitants are not busied with, or interested in. the past. There are indeed some rather pathetic imitations of what they call modernity. But the people are modest to a fault, and kindly to the last degree. The little river, the Doller, is the fortune of the town. Evil smelling as it is, its quality is valued highly in the bleacheries. and more especially as applied to colors and 1Mulhouse: The French form of the name.
Page 106 dyes, and of this river they are very proud. If you ask them leading questions concerning art and architecture they exhibit some surprise mingled with annoyance, and again point to the Town Hall. So one returns to it for a second examination.
The building is the sole survival of the ancient type which occupied the square when this whole district was destroyed by a conflagration in the sixteenth century. In the detail of its lines, and in spite of its many restorations it has very well preserved its ancient character, and its ogival portal with baldaquin and columns marks the period between the end of the Gothic and beginning of the Renaissance. Montaigne, who visited Mulhouse in the year 1580, made the following enthusiastic entry in his diary: “The Hôtel de Ville at Mulhouse; a magnificent palace, all statues, painting and gilding.” The paintings on the outside walls, frequently restored, are still to be seen, and represent Mercy, Truth, Prudence, Temperance, Faith, Hope and Charity. These figures decorate the whole front of the edifice, and furnish all the art that Mulhouse needs or can stand, apparently, at least since the Prussians seized the province.
On one of the lateral facades a curiosity is pointed out to the stranger with various explanations. It represents a human head suspended by a chain before a tablet containing an inscription setting forth that all “Bavards” (prattlers) and “Médisants” (slanderers) were
Page 107 condemned to carry this mask suspended about their necks.1 and thus expose themselves in the market place on market days according to their sentences. This object is called the “Klapperstein.” And the people gravely explain to the stranger that “Of course it is not used nowadays !“
The life of Mulhouse. which might perhaps get upon one’s nerves had one to dwell there for a length of time, is for a short sojourn sufficiently amusing. The café life is modeled upon that of Paris, although the signs are all in German, and the ‘‘consommation” is the same as that in France. The beer served is very good, and the places where it is sold are quite crowded by prosperous looking men with their wives and daughters. The town is one of the most ancient in Europe, but aims to be most modern. It is famous for the construction in 1839 of a railway line by Nicolas Koechhin, a citizen of Mulhouse, from this city to Thann, at. a time when such enterprises were looked upon as sheer lunacy. The inhabitants are vastly proud of the “new quarter,” as it is called, where there are wide avenues constructed upon a uniform plan, with large and imposing-looking houses built with
1On the plaque is the following:
“Zum Klapperstein bin ich genannt Den böken Mautern wohf bekannt Mer Lust zu zant und hader hat Der mus mich tragen durch die Stadt.”
Page 108 arcades about a space shaped like a fan. It would seem as if the whole population of ninety-one thousand passes through this quarter daily, especially along the resplendent Rue du Sauvage (The Wildmangasse, as the Prussians have insisted upon naming it). This Street is famed all over Alsace as at once the great business street and promenade, and here one can study the manners and customs, as well as the dialects, so difficult for the tourist to understand.
Mulhouse is a great center for Societies, and these are subdivided into innumerable “Comités.” At the head is the great “Société Industrielle,” formed in 1825 by a group of twenty-two citizens of Mulhouse. This now comprises the “Comités” of Chemistry, Machinery, Commerce, History and Statistics, Natural History, Fine Arts, and Public Utility. These bring forth practical ideas for the public welfare, which most enthusiastically have been adopted by the authorities. As, for instance, the Artisans’ Colony (Arbeiter Stadt), a large tract in the northwestern part of the town, purchased in 1853 by Mayor Jean Dollfus, and presented by wealthy citizens to the town. This was one of the earliest attempts to provide good and cheap houses for the working classes. It is said to have been successful for a number of years, but is now occupied by a somewhat higher class of tenants than formerly.
The wide canal of the Rhone and the Rhine bordered
Page 109 by spacious quays, and lined with modern château-like buildings, is very attractive and impressive, and there is a new Post Office at the draw-bridge, over which the people are genuinely enthusiastic. In the face of all this newness and splendor the voice of the antiquary is bushed, and either the heavy smoke of the manufactories or the fine, clean promenade of the Tannenwald, from which all the old towers and walls have been torn down and carted a way, have driven him hence. In truth, one must admit that Mulhouse came late to France, and only remained French for less than seventy-five years, but certainly she gave to France all her heart as well as all of her economic interests. When the separation of 1871 came, there seemed an end of all hope for Mulhouse, and many of the merchants and millers left the province and reestablished themselves and their mills across the frontier, for example, at Epinal and at Belfort. Perhaps more than any other Alsatian town, Mulhouse has preserved its attachment for France, and especially for Paris, which it so comically imitates. If they think that you are a trustworthy confidant, Mulhousians will tell you many interesting things about the Prussians, some of which will shock you more or less, depending upon just how familiar you may be with Prussian customs throughout Alsace: but these details can have no place in this chronicle. But one fact may be stated here which is surprising.
Page 110 The Prussians do not feel comfortable in Mulhouse, for there are less than ten thousand of them there, not ten per cent of the population, and this in spite of the fact that Mulhouse is one of the richest in natural resources of all the towns of Alsace-Lorraine. Then, too, it is to be remarked that the Kaiser, in all his visits to the Province, has never once visited Mulhouse. There must be a very potent reason for this omission.
Wandering about the old part of the town, one came upon a section of ancient wall at an angle of which was a most delightful and satisfying tall tower of slender proportions, surmounted by a steep pent roof, all gayly “flèched,” and furnished with a pointed window of charming character. The upper part of the tower was white-washed, and below this section was a large and very well executed mural decoration, representing a knight “cap-a-pie” on horseback before a background of walled town, all set forth with blue, orange, and crimson and gold in most artistic fashion. The tower joined two sections of wall pierced by wide arched gates, and here the narrow street was lined with closed and shuttered small two and three storied houses, the doors of which had large brass knobs and handles. I loitered about this gateway tower for nearly twenty minutes. and during this time not a soul passed save an old woman with a basket of eels, who either would not, for could not, understand my questions. All she would say was
Page 111 “Bollwerk—Bollwerk—M’sieur”—So I had to give it up, but I made a sketch of the tower and the gateway. From a little book published in Mulhouse I gathered the following facts: “The town of Mulhouse owes its birth to a mill built upon the banks of the river Ill, at the entrance of the great plain of Alsace, and almost at equal distance from the Rhine and the Vosges. During the Middle Ages it formed a part of the League of the Ten Imperial Cities of Alsace, but in the sixteenth century it joined the Helvetian Cantons and adopted, like Berne, the Protestant religion. Its independence was maintained in 1648, and Mulhouse became part of French territory. In the eighteenth century the town, hitherto agricultural, became industrial. Great merchants such as Schmalzer, Koechlin, and Dollfus built mills to carry on the manufacture of cotton and dyes, which attracted an army of workmen. Thus the products of Mulhouse became celebrated in all the markets of the world, and the towns were enriched. At the time of the Revolution France established custom houses on the banks of the Rhine, so Mulhouse could not send any of her products over into Germany or Switzerland, in consequence of which and partly from an attraction of sentiment—”raisons de la coeuur”—she resolved to join with France. So on the 3rd of January, 1798, those at the head of the little Republic voted for reunion with the Republic of France by 97 votes against 15. The treaty of reunion was
Page 112 Signed and the fete of celebration was fixed for March 15th, with Metzer, duputy of the Upper Rhine, at the head of the delegates. On the appointed day and amid salvos of artillery the event was solemnized. A great number of trumphad arches of liberty were erected in various quarters of the town, which was decked with flags. A fine procession composed of the ancient magistrates paraded the principal streets. There were also corteges of Mulhousians in ancient costume, and young girls bearing a large banner of white satin upon which was a patriotic inscription, followed by a lady in rich costume carrying a white satin cushion on which lay a scroll manuscript of the French constitution. These corteges proceeded to the “Grande Place,” where tribunes had been prepared; one by the magistrates of Mulhouse, the other by the French authorities. Metzger, addressing his allocution to the Ancient Council of Mulhouse, demanded to know if there was any act of sovereignty which he was desired to accomplish. In response, the magistrates delivered to the Council of Illzach all their duties against Mulhouse, and then handed over the letters of enfranchisement. The magistrate then read the treaty of reunion aloud, and amid salvos from the cannon in the “Grande Place,” the French municipality was installed. From this day on Mulhouse was a French town, but also, it must be said, she maintained a certain individuality. The children of the citizens were educated to become
Page 113 merchants. millers and dyers. Mulhouse remained a city of free initiatives. Its inhabitants, without demanding any help from the State, created great schools, in which were taught spinning, weaving, chemistry, including courses for young girls. A great industrial and social community was built and endowed, and Mulhouse prospered.—Then came the Franco-Prussian War.
…If one wishes, it is possible to be free of the bondage of railway travel in Alsace, for everywhere at low rates one can obtain delightfully comfortable old carriages at low rates, and quaintly garbed drivers, who gladly entertain one with folk lore of more or less truthful quality. One may thus be restored to the romance of travel such as our posting grandparents enjoyed. There is to be had thus the delight of taking a town unawares, so to speak, “Stealing upon it by back ways and unchronicled paths, and discovering in it, perchance, an aspect hidden away by the bulk of some railway embankment or the ugly brick wall of a station.
It is a most delightful country, this Alsace-Lorraine. “land of mountain ways—dear haunted land of gorge and glen,” broken by waves of vine-clad hill, and fertile well watered valley: and dotted with the villages, and frequent, smiling, happily located villages, with well paved, quaintly shaped market places surrounded by archaic arcaded houses on which unmolested long legged storks build their ragged nests and rear their young.
Page 114 The country is green in summer, so full and close in texture, so pleasantly diversified by clumps of dark woodland in the valleys, and by those silvery, mill-embossed streams threading the fields with light; all has the added beauty of reach and amplitude. There is constant charm of detail in all these small towns thus reached in the leisurely drawn old carriage through which we thus passed with perfect content and confidence in the ability of the fat old white hollow-backed horse, which ambled along with head on one side, regarding us solemnly from one sympathetic, limpid and understanding eye, and in the stream of folk-lore, more or less gratuitously supplied by our driver. The landscape opens and closes in endless variety, and the villages, some of them perched high upon ridges, with old houses stumbling down at most picturesque angles, and others tucked away in dim, misty hollows among thick orchards, with all the pleasant country industries reaching often up to the open doors of the old towered churches. In many of the smaller villages thus come upon. deep pent roofs overhang the plastered and beamed walls of the cottages, all “espaliered” with crab apple and pear trees, and lines of quacking ducks swim in ordered rows in the ponds, so well fringed with hawthorn and laburnum. There is always some note of distinction to be met with; here the arched gateway of a sixteenth century château; there the mossy wall of a triple-arched abbey, or church, or ancient guild hall.
Page 115 Everything about this rich, juicy land is bathed in a tender, lambent light unlike any other that I have met with; it is characteristically Alsatian, even to the round, red cheeks of the strangely clad children, and the drowsy grouping of the fat sleek cattle in lush pastures. It is all cultivated and disciplined to the very last point of finish, this expanse of hill and plain and valley, and proves how nature may be utilized to the last degree without losing an iota of its naturalness and charm. In some regions of this much coveted country, where space is restricted, the endless walls and lines of fruit trees bordering the straight roads may weary one, but as a rule here in Alsace. where cultivation is hand in hand with all unconscious sentiment, one finds the higher beauty of the land developed, bespeaking long familiar intercourse between the soil and the inhabitants, where almost every field has a place in history and a name, and each guarded tree a feudal designation. And so on we jogged along the curved level road which bordered the river Lauch. tributary of the Ill and the Logelbach, toward the town of Colmar. in no hurry to reach it, be it understood, for this was a journey of leisure as well as sentiment.
We continually checked the jogging pace of the fat old white horse to enjoy the bright gardens on the banks, and the green promontories reflected on the surface of the stream. The many old castles and manors of brown or gray stone. over-topping the dense thickets of lilac and
Page 116 laburnum, and on the river reaches, where old slouch-hatted and red-vested fisherman nodded over their poles, till in the distance we saw the crests of the dim mountains, which are only two miles or so from Colmar.
[End of Section 6]
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