Revolution, the Valdenaires, and My Great-Great Grandparents

Kunoturm Dwelling of Nikolaus Valdenaire

Estate Buildings Once Owed by the Valdenaires

Question 1: Would the owners of great manors fight for the right of peasant farmers to have a voice in creating a Prussian Constitution that would give them a voice in government?  Answer: At least two of the well-to-do manor owners did exactly that during the German Revolution of 1848.  They were Nikolaus and Victor Valdenaire, the owners of a "Hof" near Konz and a mansion in Saarburg.

Question 2: Was my great-great grandfather, Johann Meier, one of those peasant farmers taking part in the German Revolution?  Answer: While I can't prove that Johann fought to gain more rights for peasants under Prussian rule,  I have an indication that he did.  There must be some reason political wrongs make my blood boil.

THE STORY

Nikolaus Valdenaire was a French soldier in Napoleon's army who bought the estate which had originally belonged to the land and estate holdings of St. Mathias Catholic Church in Trier.  Valdenaire came from the Vosges in France.  At the age of 17 he served as a soldier of the French revolutionary army, and after Napoleon conquered the Catholic-Church-ruled territory in the Rhineland, he chose to live in the area of Trier, which at this time had been declared a part of France.  In 1801 Nikolaus married into the Schmitt family from Trier and fathered four children, three girls and one son, Viktor.  He became prosperous and attained an expropriated monastery and its lands. He also purchased, along with the Schmitt family, the Roscheider Hof at Konz.  However Nikolaus himself chose to live in the Kunoturm property which was attached to the remains of the city wall in Saarburg.

Trier and all the Rhineland were added to the Prussian empire after Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo.  Nicholas Valdenaire had been shaped as a teenager by the ideals of the French Revolution. Under the Prussian rule, he led the registry office for the cantons Merzig, Saarburg and Konz even though he was often in conflict with the authoritarian structures of the Prussian state. In 1833 he was elected to the fourth Rhenish Provincial Parliament.  It was merely advisory to the Crown and had no decision-making powers.  There was no room for liberty or equality in the rules set down by the Prussian Emperor and his ministers.

In his role as a member of this Provincial Parliament, Nikolaus Valdenaire made a bold move on the occasion of the visit of the Prussian Crown Prince to Saarburg in 1836.  He presented the Crown Prince with a signed petition for the Emperor.  It had treasonous requests as Valdenaire knew.  The petition asked that when wine makers and farmers could not sell their crops, their taxes be prorated accordingly.  There was a request that municipal officials be elected directly by the municipalities as before, and that the customs declaration offices should not spend several hours closed during the day, but remain open every hour of the peasants' working day. Farmers should be allowed to plow all their land to the edge of the ditch along the road and plant there rather than being kept two feet away so that the Prussian warders could take that land as their own.

In order to increase the number of signatories to the petition and to give it more weight, Valdenaire sent a messenger to the surrounding farmers with the petition, thus reaching about 160 farmers and winemakers who signed it.  Since peasant farmers were not allowed the right of petition, this was perhaps more daring than the petition itself.

This petition was personally delivered by Nikolaus Valdenaire on July 10, 1836 to the Crown Prince, who was staying with the Baron von Warsberg who lived in Saarburg. It was accepted by the Crown Prince but not answered.  Instead, one year later Nikolaus  was charged with seditious activities.  At his trial he was sentenced to six months in prison.   He appealed the sentence and was allowed a new trial.  A year later he was completely acquitted but had to bear the investigation costs of both court decisions.

Viktor, the son of Nikolaus, attended the Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium in Trier, and received his diploma there as did his friend, Karl Marx.   He studied law at the University in Bonn for awhile, but did not finish his degree.  Instead he went back to take over the running of the Roscheider Hof estate, which also became a refuge for other like-minded liberals.

While most owners of large estates objected to giving rights to peasants, the  Valdenaires attempted to change the way laws were created in the Prussian empire.  They wanted to see all the  citizens of Prussia, including the peasant farmers and craftsmen, governed by a constitution created with the input of elected representatives of all the citizenry.

Because of their liberal views, the Valdenaires displayed great daring in the German revolution of 1848.  By the year 1848 the discontent over the poor conditions of the German citizens and peasants, along with the desire for justice and human rights reform for all, was at the flash point in the Rhineland.  Demonstrations against the current Prussian system of governance broke out in Cologne, Trier, and even Saarburg as a result not only of the many dissatisfactions with Prussian laws and taxation, but also at the news in February that in neighboring France, people had begun a revolt against the current king and his reactionary prime minister in order to force Louise Phillipe from his throne.  This was the match that set the revolutionary fire blazing along Germany's western border, and it spread like wildfire right up to the doors of the palace in Berlin.

When demonstrations and fighting spread to Austria and forced the Austrian Emperor to rid the country of the hated minister Metternich, Berlin's ministers saw danger ahead.  The Prussian emperor, Frederick Wilhelm, feared the uprisings against him that had now come to the northern cities and his own Berlin. He made the decision to grant his subjects the right to elect representatives to a National Assembly that would create a new constitution.  He assured the rebels that this would give them a chance to have the constitutional parliament which would bring more liberty and equality to all Prussian citizens, even the peasants.  An election for the representatives to the new National Assembly created great excitement.  Voting took place on May 1, 1848 and all tax-paying citizens, including peasants, were eligible to vote.

Both Valdenaires were selected as electors for this Prussian National Assembly in Berlin.  But from May 2 to 3, 1848, both became involved in the uprising in Trier where barricades were erected and fighting against the military took place. Nicholas Valdenaire, who was chosen by popular vote as an elector for the Prussian National Assembly could not perform his offices.  As of 8 May when the electors came together to elect the deputies to the Prussian National Assembly, he was already wanted by the police and had fled across the border.

Viktor Valdenaire had also fled across the Prussian border to escape prosecution.  Unlike his father, Viktor assumed it would be safe to return when the Prussian National Assembly had its first meeting.  His status as a deputy would give him what we might call "diplomatic immunity."  However, he was arrested on May 10 and charged with trying to overthrow the lawful government; a crime which might bring the death penalty for treason.  He was jailed in Trier for two months; but during the indictment process, his crime was reduced to rebellion. The arrest process was only a pretext of the powerful to keep the lead revolutionaries from participating in the National Assembly, and many other electors were treated in the same manner.

While Viktor Valdenaire was shut up in prison, the National Assembly went into session.  Members were enraged, especially after reading a newspaper article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung by Karl Marx about the actual reason for Viktor Valdenaire's arrest.  The National Assembly deputies insisted that detainees must attend Assembly meetings as a member of the Assembly and went even one step further. They introduced and voted on the immunity law still in effect in Germany today. It ensured every deputy's protection from prosecution as long as he holds that office.

Victor Valdenaire was released from the Trier jail late on the evening of July 23, 1848, and he returned to Roscheider Hof. Three days later, the citizens of Trier organized a folk festival for him. In his speech he stressed that he considered it his duty to travel to Berlin, because even though some of his fellow sufferers were languishing in prison, he wanted to stand up for their freedom and fight for the principle of popular sovereignty.  He was present when the National Assembly met again on August 8 and 9, 1848 but he soon grew frustrated at the lack of progress being made.  As the meetings of the Assembly went on with ever greater amounts of time between each one, he turned over his position as deputy to the man who had been elected to serve as his alternate.

The Prussian Emperor and his ministers used many delaying tactics over and over, and they also schemed to divide the moderates and liberals of the National Assembly. The revolutionary groups could not hold together.  By late in 1849, the German Revolution, begun with much promise, had changed from a raging battle to a flickering spark which could not catch fire again.

The bad end of the Revolution and all hope of a change of circumstances took away Viktor Valdenaire's enthusiastic interest in politics. With the death of his father from the terrible cholera epidemic that overtook the Saarburg area in July of 1849, he sought to sell the increasingly dilapidated Roscheider Hof.  He finally succeeded in 1864 and spent the rest of his life in Trier where he ran the family factory.

As you see, the years 1848 and 1849 were filled with turbulence.  Many of the people who lived in Kreis Saarburg  were caught up in the chaotic times.  As the revolution played out in 1848 and 1849, my ancestor Johann Meier was in his early twenties, and very likely he was at the barricades in Trier or with the farmers who showed their daring by wrecking government toll stations and cutting trees in the imperial forest.  At the same time, he was seeking my great-great grandmother's hand in marriage.   It was an inopportune time for courtship by a young rebel and their marriage was forbidden by his beloved Magdalena's father (or so the family story goes).   The two young people did marry when Magdalena ran away from home to do it, and 12 years later Johann and Magdalena had the daring to emigrate to a new land where they could find the civil freedoms that eluded them when the German Revolution of 1848 failed.  I believe they were both, in their own way, as much revolutionaries as the Valdenaires.

Where were your German ancestors in 1848?

Sources:

Rudolf Müller, Geschichte der Stadt Saarburg im 19. and 20. Jahrhunder" in "Saarburg; Geschichte einer Stadt," 1991
The Revolution of 1848. 
"Popular Culture and the Public Sphere in the Rhineland 1800-1850."  James M. Brophy
"Valdenaire" in German version of Wikipedia
Serrig; "Landschaft,  Geschichte & Geschichten." Klaus Hammächer, 2002
Sheehan, James, "German History 1770-1866: The Oxford History of Modern Europe," 1994

Pictures:
Saar-Obermosel Touristik E. V.
http://www.saar-obermosel.de/fileadmin/templates/tv/logo.jpg

Life in a Wine Village

Irsch fountain with murals honoring its wine heritage


In 1984, with hardly any knowledge of German beyond "Der Bleistift ist auf dem Tisch" ("The pencil is on the table"; a phrase that doesn't come up very often), I wandered into a bookstore in Saarburg. I was looking, as always, for a book that might tell me how people in Irsch, Zerf, and Serrig had lived in the 19th century. I figured that if I found something written in German, I would somehow work out a way to have it read to me. But without being able to read titles, it was almost impossible to find what I wanted. I asked a clerk who spoke a little English for help. At first she shook her head, indicating the store had nothing. Then she consulted with another clerk, and they went to a shelf where the children's books were kept. She came back with a children's book translated from French into German. In addition to the text, it had wonderfully descriptive line drawings of farm life in a village in Lorraine. I was doubtful. "Would life in this French village be similar to village life here?" I asked. Both clerks gave me an "I can't believe she said that" look, and one of them replied with a smile, "Well it's just right over there across the border." I bought the little volume and, to use an overused but apt cliche, it really is worth its weight in gold.

The book, "Landleben im Jahreslauf" by Jean Morette takes the young reader through the four seasons of the year, with the corresponding work on the farm during those seasons. The time period is the second part of the 19th century. There was a description of the wine harvest, and I have decided to make such an important part of life in the region the topic for this post.

Along with the clear and concise description from the children's book I've described, I've also included material from the guidebook which is published by the staff of the Roscheider Hof Museum in Konz, to try to formulate a good picture of the importance of viticulture in the villages along the Saar, and in the Lorraine region of France as well.

A translation from the children's book, "Landleben in Jahreslauf" by Jean Morette

At one time, wine was one of the biggest sources of income of Lothringen (Lorraine). The Romans had brought the grape vines from Italy and planted them along the Lothringen slopes. In the Middle Ages wine accounted for the affluence of the Lothringen settlements; it was sold to Flanders and Germany.

The grapevines grew along all the slopes of the Mosel, the Meurthe, the Seille, the Saar and the Maas Rivers. They thrived on the sunny side of the slopes, protected from the north wind, and the fog from the river also protected those vines that grew in and near the towns. Wine growing was rather difficult, because the grapevines were tender and affected by weather conditions and by a great number of diseases. The frost in the winter and also in the spring, the rain when the vines were in bloom and hail during any part of the growing season could spoil the harvest.

During the entire year, the wine hills required a great deal of work and care: shortly before the beginning of winter, the hills had to be plowed. They had to be hoed many times in summer. Stakes for the vines had to be set in and then, in off season, pulled out again and piled up in bunches. In winter and summer the vines had to be cut; in spring the branches bound to the stakes.

In October the time came for the wine harvest. The wine farmer sent messages to friends and relatives, in order to recruit hands to pick the grapes and carry the containers filled with them.

When the village clock rang in the morning, the workers started out with baskets and panniers . Each person started in one of the rows and with much skill cut the grapes from the vine and filled one basket after another. The full baskets were emptied into the pannier. The panniers were emptied again into the tubs on the wagons that were parked at the wayside.


A closeup of one of the Irsch murals. A worker wears a yoked pannier

After days of hard work, the harvest, which the wine farmer and his family had worried about the entire year, was about to end. The grapes could be brought to press and one batch after another could be crushed. The press was gigantic; like a overgrown nutcracker...

The sweet wine "must" (juice of the grapes which have been pressed) flowed in steams into earthenware basins or wooden tubs. In time the flow became weaker. When it seemed the last drop was pressed out of the grapes, the men shoved a strong beam under the press and turned the screw with all their strength one more time. They pressed so hard that not one little drop of the grape must escaped them.

From the Guidebook, "Freilichtmuseum Roscheiderhof, Konz."

At the open-air museum at Roscheider Hof, there is a carefully constructed wine growing exhibit which explains the history of vineyards along the Moselle, Saar, and Ruhr Rivers. The following information is from the guidebook and from information printed on a signboard near the exhibit.

It was the Romans who introduced grape vines to the Belgian and German provinces. Grapes have been grown continuously on the Moselle and the Saar for about 2,000 years. The Riesling grape that is characteristic today, however, was not the dominant variety of grape cultivated there until the 18th century. Up to that point there were various varieties of grapes, including the Müller-Thurgau, the Silvaner that is called Rivaner in Luxembourg, and the Elbling, which is still grown on the German banks of the upper Moselle. The Elbling is the grape used as the basis for making Sekt, the German version of Champagne.

Due to the steep slopes of the Saar, wine growing has always been very difficult. However, thanks to the hours of intense sun and the type of soil which absorbs the heat, high quality wines could be produced. Nonetheless there was always the risk in spring that late ground frosts would damage the vines already in bloom. For this reason small heaters were placed in the vineyard, fueled with wood or coal in order to keep the cold frosty air near the ground in motion.


The tools used for working in the vineyards in earlier times are shown in one of the parts of the exhibit. From left to right the staking axe for sharpening and hammering in the vine stakes; double pronged hoes for working the soil in the vineyard; mattock for weeding; hoes for planting vines; trenching hammer with head for trenching and smashing up bigger stones; trenching hammer with "tap" for digging up roots but also for trenching; trenching hammer with large tap; small and large trenching hammers; and the "pick" for cutting furrows.

In the new vineyards, the slate ground had to be broken up with the trenching hammer. Workers used their tools for both "digging" and "moving" the soil. Digging deeply and turning the soil over was done in the spring. Moving or loosening up the surface of the soil was done in the early summer to prevent weeds from growing. Stable manure was the basis of any vineyard fertilizer. Tubs and sleds were used and are sometimes still used to take it out, mostly in the winter from January to March. The manure was spread with a pitchfork along the rows of vines and then dug in with the hoe.



Traditionally the grape harvest was woman's work. The women pinched off the ripe grapes with their bare fingers. Harvesting shears only became necessary in the 20th century with the advent of new graft stock. The grapes, once picked, were put in paniers which were sometimes like baskets worn on the back. Often they had a slanting base because of the steep slopes. Once the baskets were full they were emptied into tubs which were carried by the men. These tubs were so heavy once they were full that they sometimes were raised with a crank frame so that the bearer could get them on his shoulders. The tubs were woven from willow or bramble runners and sealed with pitch.

Once the grapes had been harvested they were crushed either on the slopes of the vineyard or at home in the grape crusher and then taken to the wine press without delay. The grape "must" (juice of the grapes which have been pressed) was separated in the press from the solid parts, known as the "marc" or "pomace." The must was taken straight to the cellar from the wine press. The Romans pressed their grapes in the vineyard. The oldest preserved wine presses date back to the Middle Ages and are similar to the Roman ones in design. They are so-called beam wine presses which worked on the principle of leverage. Because of their typically long horizontal beams, they were housed in special buildings called press houses.

Hungarian beam press reproduction www.skanzen.hu


Roscheiderhof Museum photo of a screw press

Screw presses worked with spindle pressure. They took up considerably less space, which was an advantage.
The spindles were originally made of wood and often unable to withstand the high loads they were subjected to. Turning the wood spindles required a lot of strength. This meant screw presses only began to predominate in the 19th century after the industrial revolution made more effective iron screw presses available.

The next time you have a glass of wine from the vineyards of the Rheinland, appreciate!

Morette, Jean. "Landleben im Jahreslauf", Saarbrücker Druckerei und Verlag, 1983
"Freilichtmuseum Roscheider Hof Konz Museum Guide", self-published, 2001