At table, then, I heard nothing but medical conversations, just as formerly in the boarding-house of Hofrath Ludwig.  In our walks and in our pleasure-parties likewise not much else was talked about:  for my fellow-boarders, like good fellows, had also become my companions at other times; and they were always joined on all sides by persons of like minds and like studies.  The medical faculty in general shone above the others, with respect both to the celebrity of the professors and the number of the students; and I was the more easily borne along by the stream, as I had just so much knowledge of all these things that my desire for science could soon be increased and inflamed.  At the commencement of the second half-year, therefore, I attended Spielmann’s course on chemistry, another on anatomy by Lobstein, and proposed to be right industrious, because, by my singular preliminary or rather extra knowledge, I had already gained some respect and confidence in our society.

Yet this trifling and piecemeal way of study was even to be once more seriously disturbed; for a remarkable political event set every thing in motion, and procured us a tolerable succession of holidays.  Marie Antoinette, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of France, was to pass through Strasburg on her road to Paris.  The solemnities by which the people are made to take notice that there is greatness in the world were busily and abundantly prepared; and especially remarkable to me was the building which stood on an island in the Rhine between the two bridges, erected for her reception and for surrendering her into the hands of her husband’s ambassadors.  It was but slightly raised above the ground; had in the centre a grand saloon, on each side smaller ones; then followed other chambers, which extended somewhat backward.  In short, had it been more durably built, it might have answered very well as a pleasure-house for persons of rank.  But that which particularly interested me, and for which I did not grudge many a buesel (a little silver coin then current) in order to procure a repeated entrance from the porter, was the embroidered tapestry with which they had lined the whole interior.  Here, for the first time, I saw a specimen of those tapestries worked after Raffaelle’s cartoons; and this sight was for me of very decided influence, as I became acquainted with the true and the perfect on a large scale, though only in copies.  I went and came, and came and went, and could not satiate myself with looking; nay, a vain endeavor troubled me, because I would willingly have comprehended what interested me in so extraordinary a manner.  I found these side-chambers highly delightful and refreshing, but the chief saloon so much the more shocking.  This had been hung with many larger, more brilliant and richer, hangings, which were surrounded with crowded ornaments, worked after pictures by the modern French.