History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 13Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 13
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
At Landshut, a pleasant little Mountain Town, in the Principality of
Schweidnitz, high up, on the infant River Bober, near the Bohemian
Frontier--(English readers may see QUINCY ADAMS'S description of it, and
of the long wooden spouts which throw cataracts on you, if walking the
streets in rain [John Quincy Adams (afterwards President of the United
States), _Letters on Silesia_ (London, 1804). "The wooden spouts are
now gone" (_Tourist's Note, of_ 1858).]): at Landshut, as in some other
Towns, it had been found good to remodel the Town Magistracy a little;
to make it partly Protestant, for one thing, instead of Catholic
(and Austrian), which it had formerly been. Details about the "high
controversies and discrepancies" which had risen there, we have
absolutely none; nor have the special functions of the Magistracy, what
powers they had, what work they did, in the least become distinct to us:
we gather only that a certain nameless Burgermeister (probably Austrian
and Catholic) had, by "Most gracious Royal Special-Order," been
at length relieved from his labors, and therewith "the much by him
persecuted and afflicted Herr Theodorus Spener" been named Burgermeister
instead. Which respectable Herr Theodorus Spener, and along with him
Herr Johann David Fischer as RATHS-SENIOR, and Herr Johann Caspar
Ruffer, and also Herr Johann Jacob Umminger, as new Raths (how many
of the old being left I cannot say), were accordingly, on the 4th of
December, 1741, publicly installed, and with proper solemnity took
their places; all Landshut looking on, with the conceivable interest
and astonishment, almost as at a change in the obliquity of the
ecliptic,--change probably for the better.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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