Letter from William Henry Seward to Frances Miller Seward, October 22, 1859

  • Posted on: 10 December 2021
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Letter from William Henry Seward to Frances Miller Seward, October 22, 1859
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transcriber

Transcriber:spp:msf

student editor

Transcriber:spp:vxa

Distributor:Seward Family Digital Archive

Institution:University of Rochester

Repository:Rare Books and Special Collections

Date:1859-10-22

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Letter from William Henry Seward to Frances Miller Seward, October 22, 1859

action: sent

sender: William Seward
Birth: 1801-05-16  Death: 1872-10-10

location: Vienna, Austria

receiver: Frances Seward
Birth: 1805-09-24  Death: 1865-06-21

location: Auburn, NY

transcription: msf 

revision: zz 2021-02-20

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Editorial Note

William Henry Seward’s series of travel letters in 1859 are organized and listed by the date of each entry.
October 22. 1859 Saturday
Still no situation ^solution^ of the question which detains me here
I shall not fatigue you with the story of my
visits yesterday to the Gentlemen
Unknown
whose acquaintance
I have made. Although they are men of politic-
al work you are unlikely to have any future
interest in their history.
Dr Steinhauser
Birth: 1814-05-29 Death: 1866-07-29
who has been my
traveling companion so many weeks left me
alone this evening. He goes to America next
Spring. I have ju
I have just come from seeing the
Church of the Capuchins – which has no particular
interest except that it contains the vault
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Imperial family. It is about enough to stifle all
ambition to see this cemetery of the this
basement of a church, in great part an underground
basement, imperfectly lighted from above and
so resembling the front basement of the Capitol,
constitutes the vault. Here ^the remains^ each member of
the great house at death in pl are de-
posited in a sarcophagus of iron, or
bronze ^or silver^ elaborately wrought with bas reliefs
statues and other artistic decorations, a
burying ground rather than a vault. All
that genius when commanded or stimulated
by rewards can do to embellish the
metallic coffins, is done lavishly, and
too boldly. There is nothing but ^are only^ scepters, swords
cannons, flags, sieges, marches & the like
in these illustrations, and even these are
seen studied only by torch light in open day. Two
faded art wreaths of artificial flowers
rested on coffins of the most recently interred,
and that was all that I found to speak of
kindly or gentle affections there. Maria
Theresa
Birth: 1717-05-13 Death: 1780-11-29
reclines in marble ^silver^ over her own
perishing ashes, ^even^ more martial in death than
in life. She has the proudest tomb of
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the whole dynasty as indeed she deserved
it. But it is the tomb of an Amazonian of
a Semiramis, rather than of a Christian woman.
Maria Louisas
Birth: 1791-12-12 Death: 1847-12-17
tomb is all that she
deserved — and the epitaph tells all that
there was is to be told. She was a daughter
of the Emperor
Birth: 1768-02-12 Death: 1835-03-02
and Empress of Austria
Birth: 1772-06-06 Death: 1807-04-13
wife of
the Duke of Parma
Birth: 1784-11-06 Death: 1856-05-30
and had been before th
married to Napoleon
Birth: 1769-08-15 Death: 1821-05-05
then Emperor of France.
The tomb of Napoleon 2d
Birth: 1811-03-20 Death: 1832-07-22
is as common
Its inscription describes him as the Duke of
Reichstadt, son of Napoleon Napoleon
then Emperor of France and Maria Louisa Arch
Duchess of Austria, and it describes him
as singularly gifted, highly cultivated
and states that he died of consumption.
Austria has not yet found out that he was
in fact Emperor of France — a title prouder
than his derivation ^through his mother^ from the House of Hapsburg.
What have you and I in common with kings
queens, and emperors. Yet custom makes
all their fates interesting subjects of interest
most to those who have least of concern with
them. Strange Human Nature.