Memorials and Other Papers, vol 2

Memorials and Other Papers, vol
2

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Title: Memorials and Other Papers V2
Author: Thomas de Quincey
Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6170] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on November 21,
2002]
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MEMORIALS, AND OTHER PAPERS, VOL. II.
BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY

CONTENTS.
KLOSTERHEIM THE SPHINX'S RIDDLE THE TEMPLARS'
DIALOGUES

KLOSTERHEIM [1832.]

CHAPTER I.
The winter of 1633 had set in with unusual severity throughout Suabia
and Bavaria, though as yet scarcely advanced beyond the first week of
November. It was, in fact, at the point when our tale commences, the
eighth of that month, or, in our modern computation, the eighteenth;
long after which date it had been customary of late years, under any
ordinary state of the weather, to extend the course of military
operations, and without much decline of vigor. Latterly, indeed, it had
become apparent that entire winter campaigns, without either formal
suspensions of hostilities, or even partial relaxations, had entered
professedly as a point of policy into the system of warfare which now
swept over Germany in full career, threatening soon to convert its vast
central provinces--so recently blooming Edens of peace and expanding
prosperity--into a howling wilderness; and which had already converted
immense tracts into one universal aceldama, or human shambles,

reviving to the recollection at every step the extent of past happiness in
the endless memorials of its destruction. This innovation upon the old
practice of war had been introduced by the Swedish armies, whose
northern habits and training had fortunately prepared them to receive a
German winter as a very beneficial exchange; whilst upon the less
hardy soldiers from Italy, Spain, and the Southern France, to whom the
harsh transition from their own sunny skies had made the very same
climate a severe trial of constitution, this change of policy pressed with
a hardship that sometimes [Footnote: Of which there is more than one
remarkable instance, to the great dishonor of the French arms, in the
records of her share in the Thirty Years' War.] crippled their exertions.
It was a change, however, not so long settled as to resist the
extraordinary circumstances of the weather. So fierce had been the cold
for the last fortnight, and so premature, that a pretty confident
anticipation had arisen, in all quarters throughout the poor exhausted
land, of a general armistice. And as this, once established, would offer
a ready opening to some measure of permanent pacification, it could
not be surprising that the natural hopefulness of the human heart, long
oppressed by gloomy prospects, should open with unusual readiness to
the first colorable dawn of happier times. In fact, the reaction in the
public spirits was sudden and universal. It happened also that the
particular occasion of this change of prospect brought with it a separate
pleasure on its own account. Winter, which by its peculiar severity had
created the apparent necessity for an armistice, brought many
household pleasures in its train--associated immemorially with that
season in all northern climates. The cold, which had casually opened a
path to more distant hopes, was also for the present moment a screen
between themselves and the enemy's sword. And thus it happened that
the same season, which held out a not improbable picture of final
restoration, however remote, to public happiness, promised them a
certain foretaste of this blessing in the immediate security of their
homes.
But in the ancient city of Klosterheim it might have been imagined that
nobody participated in these feelings. A stir and agitation amongst the
citizens had been conspicuous for some days; and on the morning of

the eighth, spite