Begin your journey



'berline'
LETTER I BATH, October 9, O. S. 1746

DEAR BOY:

Your distresses in your journey from Heidelberg to Schaffhausen, your lying upon straw, your black bread, and your broken ‘berline,’ are proper seasonings for the greater fatigues and distresses which you must expect in the course of your travels; and, if one had a mind to moralize, one might call them the samples of the accidents, rubs, and difficulties, which every man meets with in his journey through life. In this journey, the understanding is the ‘voiture’ that must carry you through; and in proportion as that is stronger or weaker, more or less in repair, your journey will be better or worse; though at best you will now and then find some bad roads, and some bad inns. Take care, therefore, to keep that necessary ‘voiture’ in perfect good repair; examine, improve, and strengthen it every day: it is in the power, and ought to be the care, of every man to do it; he that neglects it, deserves to feel, and certainly will feel, the fatal effects of that negligence.

Lord Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield addressed his letters  to his "boy", his illegitimate son, Philip Stanhope (born 2 May 1732, died 16 November 1768). We quickly learn that young Philip was a mere 14 years old at the time of his Grand Tour in Continental Europe. The broken 'berline' is the coach he was traveling in and the 'voiture' his car or more generally the driving force that will carry young Philip through life.

We join young Philip on the journey from Heidelberg to Scaffhausen in Switzerland. George the Second is King of Great Britain, Louis the XV, of France. Frederick the Great rules Prussia, while the rest of Germany is divided into minor principalities. It is a shame that we have nothing of young Philip's thoughts. Heidleberg, famous for its castle, palace, and university, found itself in the center of the religious conflict during the War of the Grand Alliance when in 1693 King Louis XIV, destroyed Heidelberg almost completely.

Letters One

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