Above these the tree-trunk had an interval or gap, a smooth section without branches and greased with all the lotions and soaps that malice could devise, so that no man, however good he was at climbing, could scale it, neither by courage, skill or knowledge, unless he came from the nobility. It was more smoothly polished than a marble column or a steel mirror.
Above this part sat those with the banners, some of them young, some quite well on in years. The young ones had been hauled up by their cousins, but the older ones had climbed up under their own steam, either by a silver ladder known as the Bribery Backstairs, or by some other bridge that Fortune had made for them, no one else being available. Above them were even higher ones, who had better seats but still had toil, worries and opposition. However, they enjoyed the advantage that they could lard their purses with slices of the fat which they cut – with a knife called War Levy – out of the root. Their greatest skills they showed when a commissary came with a tub full of money and poured it over the tree to refresh them. Then they caught the best of what was raining down on them and let through as good as nothing to the lowest branches. That was why more of the lower ones died of hunger than by the hand of the enemy, a danger to which those above seemed immune. Thus there was a continual scrabbling and climbing on the tree because everyone wanted to sit in the highest, happiest places.
There were some lazy good-for-nothings, however, not worth the army bread they were given. These made no effort at all to reach a higher position and just did what their duty required. The lower ones who were ambitious hoped the higher ones would fall so they could take their place. But when one out of ten thousand succeeded, their success only came at that disgruntled age when they would be better employed sitting in the ingle-nook roasting apples than facing the enemy in the field. And if there was a man who was in a good position and did his duty honestly, he was envied by the others, or lost both his rank and his life through some unforeseen, unlucky bullet. Nowhere was it harder than at that smooth part of the trunk I mentioned before, for any officer who had a good sergeant was unwilling to lose him, which would be the case if he were made an ensign. So instead of the experienced soldiers it was scribblers, footmen, overgrown pages, poor nobles, vagabonds and parasites, or someone’s cousin, who became ensigns and thus stole the bread out of the mouths of those who deserved it.
Chapter 17
Although, as is right and proper, the nobles are preferred to common men in war, many from the despised classes still achieve high honours
This annoyed one sergeant so much that he began to complain loudly, but a lordling said, ‘Do you not know that the high ranks in the army have always been filled with nobles, they being most suited to those offices? Grey beards alone do not defeat the enemy, otherwise one could hire a herd of billy-goats. People say,
Choose a bull that’s young and strong
To make the herd obey.
Despite the claims of older beasts,
He’ll see they do not stray.
The herdsman can rely on him
Although he’s in his youth.
That wisdom comes with age alone
Is prejudice, not truth.
Tell me, thou old cripple, are not nobly born officers better respected by the troops than those who have been common soldiers? And how can you keep discipline in war when there is no respect? Cannot the general trust a nobleman better than a peasant lad who has run away from the plough and has no thought of doing good by his own parents? A true nobleman would rather die with honour than bring dishonour on his family through treason, desertion or behaviour of that kind. It is laid down that the nobility should be given precedence in all things and John of Platea expressly states that the nobility should have preference in filling offices and that it is proper that they should be preferred to commoners. This is usual in all legal systems and is confirmed by the Bible, for it says in Ecclesiastes 10, 17, ‘Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles’, a magnificent testimony to the precedence due to the nobility. And even if one of your kind is a good soldier, inured to the smell of gunpowder and able to give a good account of himself in every action, yet that does not mean he is equally capable of giving orders to others. This quality, on the other hand, is innate to the nobility, or acquired in earliest youth. Seneca says, ‘A heroic soul has this quality, that it is urged on towards honour; no noble spirit takes pleasure in small and worthless things.’ Publio Fausto Andrelini expressed this in a distich:
If you are low-born of rustic stock,
Nobility of soul will never be yours.
Moreover the nobility has greater means to aid their subordinates with money and find recruits for weak companies than a peasant. As the saying has it, setting the peasant above the nobleman is a recipe for disorder. Also the peasants would become much too arrogant if they were made lords straight away, for it is said,
You’ll never find a sharper sword
Than a peasant who’s been made a lord.
If the peasants, by reason of ancient and acknowledged custom, had military and other offices in their possession, as the nobility does, they would certainly do all they could to stop a nobleman acquiring them. In addition, although people are often keen to help you soldiers of fortune (as you are called) to rise to high honours, you are generally so old by the time you have been tested out and found worthy of higher things that one must have misgivings about promoting you. By then the fire of youth has gone out and your only thought is how best to pamper and protect your sick bodies, worn out by all the hardships you have been through and of little use for warfare, caring not who fights and gains honour. A young hound is much more willing in the chase than an old lion.’
The sergeant answered, ‘Who would be foolish enough to serve in the army if he had no hope of being promoted for his good conduct and thus rewarded for his loyal service? The Devil take such wars. The way things are at present, it makes no difference whether one does one’s duty properly or not. I have often heard our old colonel say he wanted no one under his command who did not firmly believe he could rise to be a general through performing his duty well. The whole world must acknowledge that those nations which promote common but honest soldiers and reward their courage most often triumph in battle. One can see this in the Persians and Turks. It is said,
A lamp gives light, but must be primed
With oil or else its flame soon dies.
So loyalty needs its reward,
A soldier’s courage needs its prize.’
The lordling replied, ‘If an honest man has genuine qualities which come to the notice of his superiors, then he will certainly not be overlooked. Nowadays you can find many men who have abandoned the plough, the needle, the cobbler’s last and the shepherd’s crook for the sword, who have acquitted themselves well and through their bravery been raised high above the gentry to the rank of count and baron. What was the imperial general, Johann von Werd? A farmer. The Swede Stallhans? A tailor. The Hessian colonel, Jacob Mercier, had been a shoemaker and Daniel de St. Andree, the commandant of Lippstadt, a shepherd. There are many other examples which, to save time, I will not mention here. This is not something which is new to the present, nor will there in the future be any lack of low-born but honest men who rise to high honour through war; it even happened in the past. Tamburlaine was a swineherd who became a powerful king, the terror of the whole world; Agathocles, King of Sicily, was a potter’s son; Telephas, a wheelwright, became King of Lydia; the father of Emperor Valentinian was a rope-maker; Maurice the Cappadocian, a bondslave, became emperor after the second Tiberius; John of Tzimisces was a scholar who became emperor. Flavius Vobiscus records that Emperor Bonosus was the son of a poor schoolmaster; Hyperbolus, the son of Chermidi, was first a lamp-maker then Prince of Athens; Justinus, who ruled before Justinian, was a swineherd before becoming emperor. Hugh Capet, a butcher’s son, was King of France; Pizarro, likewise a swineherd, was later Governor of Peru and weighed out gold by the hundredweight.’
T
he sergeant answered, ‘All this sounds well enough, but I can still see that the doors to some positions of dignity are kept closed to us by the nobility. Scarcely have they crawled out of the shell, than nobles are immediately given places which we cannot think of attaining, even if we have done more than many a nobleman who is now appointed colonel. And just as among the peasantry many a noble mind wastes away because a man lacks the means to study, so many a brave soldier grows old still bearing his musket who deserves command of a regiment and could have rendered his general great services.’
Chapter 18
Simplicius takes his first steps into the world and fares badly
I had had enough of listening to the old ass. Indeed, I felt he deserved the treatment he complained of because he often thrashed his soldiers like dogs. I turned again to the trees, with which the whole countryside was filled, and watched how they moved and knocked against each other. The men in them rained down by the score; a crack, and there was one on the ground already, dead in a second. In the same second one lost an arm, another a leg, a third his head. As I watched I thought that all the trees I could see were just one tree with Mars, the God of War, on the top, and covering the whole of Europe with its branches. It seemed to me that this tree could have overshadowed the whole world, but since it was blasted, as if by a cold north wind, by envy and hatred, suspicion and malice, arrogance, pride, avarice and other such fine virtues, it appeared thin and sparse, which was why someone had carved the following rhyme on its trunk:
The holm-oak, scarred and blasted by the wind’s chill breath,
Breaks its own branches off, condemns itself to death.
When brother fights with brother, civil war will start,
Bring pain and grief to all and tear the land apart.
The mighty roar of the destructive wind and the crash of the falling tree woke me from my sleep. I was alone in my hut. I began to consider again what I should do. It was impossible for me to stay in the forest because everything had been taken away, leaving me with no means of survival. All that was left were a few books, scattered in a jumble on the ground. As I gathered them together, the tears streaming from my eyes, at the same time begging God to guide me and show me where I should go, I chanced upon a letter the hermit had written before his death:
‘Dear Simplicius, when you find this letter, leave the forest straight away and save yourself and the pastor, who has been very good to me, from the present troubles. God, whom you should ever keep before you and pray to at all times, will bring you to a place best suited to you. But keep Him always in mind and be diligent in His service, as if I were still with you in the forest. Remember and follow my last instructions and you will come through. Farewell.’
I showered thousands of kisses on the letter and on the hermit’s grave, then set out to look for people, walking in a straight line for two days and finding a hollow tree to sleep in when night overtook me; my only food was the beech nuts I picked up as I went along. On the third day, however, I came to a flat field not far from Gelnhausen where I enjoyed a true feast, for it was covered in sheaves of wheat. It was my good fortune that the peasants had been driven off after the Battle of Nördlingen and had not been able to gather them in. As it was bitterly cold, I made a shelter in one of them and filled my belly with ears of corn from which I rubbed off the husks. It had been a long time since I enjoyed such a meal.
Chapter 19
How Hanau was taken by Simplicius and Simplicius by Hanau
When day broke I ate some more wheat then went straight to Gelnhausen. There I found the gates open. They were partly burnt, but still half barricaded with piles of dung. I went in but could see no living person. On the other hand the streets were strewn with dead, some of whom had been stripped naked, others down to their undershirt or petticoat. This pitiful sight was a terrifying spectacle for me, as anyone might imagine. In my simplicity I could not conceive what calamity had overtaken the town to leave it in such a state. Not long afterwards, however, I learnt that imperial troops had surprised a company of Weimar dragoons there. I had not gone two stones’ throw into the town when I had seen enough and turned back and went round it through the meadows until I came to a good road which took me to the splendid fortress of Hanau. When I came upon the first sentries I tried to pass through, but two musketeers immediately came out, seized me and took me into their guard room.
Before I go on to relate what happened to me, I must describe my strange dress, for my clothing and appearance were so outlandish, so bizarre and unkempt that the governor even had a painting done of me. Firstly my hair had not been cut at all for eighteen months, neither after the Greek, nor the German or French fashion, had not been brushed, combed or curled, but still grew in all its natural profusion with more than a year’s worth of dust on it, instead of the powder fools of both sexes scatter over their wigs, and it framed my pale face so neatly that I looked for all the world like a barn owl hunting for a mouse or about to seize its prey. And since I used to go bare-headed all the time and my hair was naturally curly, I looked as if I were wearing a turban. And my dress matched this headgear, for I was wearing the hermit’s coat, if I can still call it a coat: the original garment from which it had been made had completely disappeared, apart from the basic shape which could be discerned beneath a thousand patches of different coloured cloth, sewn together with all sorts of stitching. Over this threadbare and often repaired coat I wore, instead of a cloak, the hair shirt, from which I had cut off the sleeves to make me a pair of stockings. Looped round my body were iron chains, neatly crossed front and back, as Saint William is usually represented in paintings, so that the figure I made was almost like those who have been prisoners of the Turks and now go about the country begging for their comrades. My shoes were made of wood and the laces woven from the bark of the lime-tree; my feet inside them were the colour of boiled lobster, as if I were wearing stockings of Spanish red or had dyed my skin with Pernambuco wood. I do believe that if any travelling showman had taken me and presented me as a Samoyed or Greenlander he would have found many a fool willing to part with a copper to see me. Even though anyone with a modicum of intelligence could easily deduce from my lean, half-starved look and neglected dress that I was not a fugitive from some kitchen or lady’s chamber, even less from the household of some great lord, I was still subjected to rigorous questioning by the guard. And just as the soldiers gaped at me, so I stared at the fantastic get-up of their officer, to whom I had to give an account of myself. I did not know whether he was a he or a she, for he wore his hair and beard in the French fashion, with long tresses hanging down each side, like horses’ tails, and such havoc had been wrought on his beard that there were only a few hairs left between his nose and mouth so that you could hardly tell he had one at all. No less confusing as regards his sex were his wide breeches, which seemed to me more like a woman’s skirt than a man’s trousers. Is this a man? I asked myself. If so, then he ought to have a decent beard, for the fop is not as young as he would like to appear. If it’s a woman then why does the old whore have so much stubble round her mouth? It must be a woman, I thought, for a real man would never show himself with such a wretched apology for a beard. Even billy-goats have a sense of shame and will not venture one single step among a strange flock if their beards have been clipped. I was so uncertain what to think that, knowing nothing of the current fashions, I eventually decided he must be a woman.
This mannish woman, or womanish man, as he seemed to me, had me thoroughly searched but found nothing apart from a notebook made out of birch-bark in which I wrote my daily prayers and where I had also placed the farewell note from the hermit that I mentioned in the last chapter. He took it away from me but since I did not want to lose it I fell down before him, clasped him by the knees and said, ‘O dear hermaphrodite, please let me keep my prayer-book.’
‘You foolish boy’, he answered, ‘who in the Devil’s name told you I was called Herman?’ He then ordered two soldiers to take me to the govern
or, and he also gave them the book to carry because, as I immediately realised, the fop could neither read nor write.
So I was led into the town and everyone ran to gape at me, as if some sea monster were on show. And as they saw me, each one formed their own idea as to what I was. Some assumed I was a spy, others a madman, yet others a wild man, and some even thought I was a spectre, a ghost or some such phenomenon. There were also those who took me for a fool, and they would have been closest to the truth had it not been for the knowledge of God I had in my heart.
Chapter 20
How he was rescued from prison and torture
When I was brought before the governor, a Scot by the name of James Ramsay, he asked me where I came from. I answered that I did not know, so he asked, ‘Where are you going, then?’ Again I answered, ‘I don’t know.’ ‘What the Devil do you know, then?’ he said. ‘What is your business?’ Once more I answered that I didn’t know. He then asked, ‘Where is your home?’ and when I again replied that I didn’t know, the expression on his face changed, whether from anger or astonishment I couldn’t say. Since, however, everyone tends to suspect the worst, and especially since the enemy was close at hand and had, as already reported, taken Gelnhausen the previous night and destroyed a regiment of dragoons, he came round to the view of those who through I was a traitor or spy and ordered me to be searched. He was told by the soldiers of the watch who had brought me to him that this had already been done and that nothing had been found but a notebook, which they handed to him. He read a few lines and asked me who had given it to me. I answered that it had always belonged to me, since I had made it and written in it myself. ‘But why on birch-bark?’ he asked.
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