Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-01-21

Bavarian city, with its population o
twenty thousand, has frequently occu
pied conspicuous place in the moderl
history of Germany; but it will nov
attract more attention than ever before
by the great operatic festival which
Richard Wagner, the eminent composer
will soon hold here, and for which ht
has been erecting an opera house o.
larger dimensions than any of the thea
tres now in existence. The tens OF
thousands who will flock to this tran
quill and delightfully-situated place on
that looked-for occasion will find numer-
ous other subjects of interest in Bal
reuth. They will find in the old city
church the grave of the Margarine OF
Baireuth, the favorite and gifted sister
of Frederick the Great they will be
shown the humble house in which Jean
Paul Friedrich Richter wrote his Titan,
and where he received the great of this
world they will see at the royal palace
the weird picture of the White Lady,
and hear from the lips of the aged cas-
tellan the story of the wicked woman
who killed her two children in order to
marry her princely lover. and who,
according to the legend, still haunts all
the palaces of Ler family, the Hohen-
zollerns, and shows her white, ethereal
form whenever an event of extraordinary
importance is about to take place they
will, finally, be conducted to the sump-
tuously furnished bedroom where Napo-
leon /. reposed in 1908, and where the
castellan told him, before he retired for
the night, all about the White Lady.
in consequence of which the mighty
inperdtOr passed restless night, and
wrote in the morning to the Empress
Josephine: "Baireuth is q very pretty
place, and 1 ate there good supper !:
but the people at the 'Palais' dinned a
curious story into my ears about a
spectre that is said to walk of nights
about this old house; and / dreamt of
the ghost, being very restless all night.
Baireuth was village well known for
its wealthy inhabitants as early as the
time of the Emperor Henry l., but its
growth was slow, its situation making
1t the ground for the hostile collisions
between the contending hosts of South
and North Germany. The ancient
chroniclers relate that Baireuth was
devastated six times in brief succession
by the plague, and that, in 14l0, it con-
tanned but one hundred inhabitants.
But ten years later it had already five
thousand people within its walls; and,
in 1438, when the fierce and cruel Iroco-
plus laid siege to it, and threatened to
put the whole population to the sword
unless the gates of the place were imme-
diately opened, the valiant burghers of
Baireuth not only bade defiance to the
presumptuous captain, but, by sue
cessful series of bold sorties, compelled
him to raise the siege.
The Hohenzollerns, to whom Baireuth
was ceded, introduced such excellent
institutions in the place, and afforded
commerce and industry such satisfac-
tory protection, that many skilled arti-
sans left the famous Nuremberg, and
opened new shops at Baireuth. The
Jews, too, found an asylum under the
liberal princes of the margravate, and,
an unheard-of event in the German his
tory of that period, in 1862, Christian
was burnt at the stake IN Baireuth for
the assassination of Jewish merchant.
At the same time, the physicians of
Baireuth obtained O worldwide repu-
tation, and, during the next century,
the new hospitals that were founded in
the Old World were called Baireuth
hospitals.
The Emperor Churles V was cured of
Inflammation of the bowels in 1888, by
Andreas Flammer, a learned doctor
from Baireuth, and, in commemoration
of that cure, decreed, during the war of
Schmalkalden, when Baireuth had sided
with the Reformed cause, that the city
should not be sacked and burnt, as
befell less fortunate places.
During the ensuing years, Baireuth
had enlightened or luxuriant margraves.
The former endowed the town with
excellent educational institutions, while
the latter enriched it with superb struc-
lures. One of them, the Margrave
George William, transformed the city
pond into large, navigable lake, cover
ing an area of upward of one thousand
acres, and upon which he constructed a
large gun-boat.
But the most prosperous and splendid
period of Baireuth was during the reign
of the Margraye Frederick, from 1T35
to 1765. Frederick was married to the
Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, the
famous sister of Frederick the Great
The two declared they would make
Baireuth the Paris of Germany; and,
if they did not succeed in attaining SO
difficult an object, they certainly en-
dowed the place with many noble struc-
lures, and made it, in their time, for
Germany, what Weimar became, q few
years afterwards, for German art and
literature. the seat and rendezvous of
the noblest spirits of the Fatherland,
SO that Frederick the Great wrote, in
1857, to his sister: "Your Baireuth puts
Berlin to the blush. But 1 have not
near as much money as you"
In German literature, Baireuth is
known as the city of Jean Paul. 1t is
true this great German thinker and
poet of the heart was not born here
but with special prediiectionto to Baireuth
he wended his way in his earliest youth,
and it remained, with its lovely sur
roundings, the object of his longings,
even when he had become famous, and
was favored guest at royal courts.
And, finally, he returned to his be-
loved Baireuth, and lived there to his
last day, immortslizing the place by his
moss Sio"ibS ahi impressive oSoSAip
tions of its beautiful scenery. Three
monuments have been erected to him
in Baireuth. One is q small pyramid
of dark-gray marble, covering his much
frequented grave. Another is a beauti-
full marble tablet on the front of the
house, in Frederick Street, where he
lived and wrote his noblest works. The
poet stands, on a pedestal of granite,
as he was often seen in the market-place
of Baireuth, in his long coat, with
flower in his button-hole. In his right
hand he holds a pencil, in his left
sketch book. Unfortunately his faith
full dog, without whom he never ap-
peared in public, was omitted. His
study in his house on Frederick Street
is still preserved in the condition in
which it was left on his last day. Chips
without number have been cut from
the table on which he wrote Titan"
"Levana," "The Comet" and "The