Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/23

 Upon his discharge from military service my father entered, as a pupil, a teachers' seminary at Brühl, and was soon appointed schoolmaster at Liblar. He had received a little instruction in music at the seminary and had learned to play the flute. This enabled him to teach simple songs to the school children and to form a glee club, composed of the youths and maidens of the village. In this glee club he made the acquaintance of my mother, Marianna Jüssen, whom he married in 1827. My mother was the daughter of a tenant-farmer, Heribert Jüssen, who occupied part of a seignorial castle called “Die Gracht,” near Liblar. My father and mother lived, for several years after their marriage, with my grandparents; and so it happened that I, their firstborn, came into the world on March 2, 1829, in a castle.

This castle, the ancestral seat of Count Wolf Metternich, was not very old—if I remember rightly it was built between 1650 and 1700—a large compound of buildings under one roof; surrounding on three sides a spacious courtyard; tall towers with pointed roofs, and large iron weather vanes at the corners, that squeaked when moved by the wind; a broad moat, always filled with water, encircling the whole; spanned by a drawbridge, which led through a narrow arched gateway into the court. In the wall above the massive gate, which was studded with big-headed nails, there was a shield bearing the count's coat-of-arms, and an inscription, which I puzzled out as soon as I could read, and which has remained in my memory through all the vicissitudes of my life. It read: