Kelenburg, the 29th Day of January, in the Year Two Hundred and Five
To His Excellency the Count von Marzelschteff,
Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Legitimate Royal Guntrelandish Government at Schwentzstadt,
From the Viscount von Ester-Klausen,
National Gentleman[1] of the Kingdom of Guntreland.
Your Lordship,
I take up my pen to address to you my first letter since I have been entrusted with the charge of National Gentleman here in Kelenburg; and in these lines I shall set forth my earliest observations concerning Her Majesty the Archqueen Karolina-Louise and the atmosphere which prevails at her court, the Erzkoenighaus. But before I venture upon these particulars, permit me a few words of admiration for the present appearance of Kelenburg itself, to which its inhabitants remain indebted to the late Archking of blessed memory, and to his architect Frezesen, now Chief Archroyal Overseer. Knowing that Your Lordship has not yet been granted the good fortune of beholding this magnificent city, I am compelled to describe it.
The Archroyal Palace, Erzkoenighaus, is situated at the very heart of the city, upon the great Harbein Island of the River Wedl. In its center lies a quadrangular garden adorned with four fountains, enclosed by pavilions, galleries, and dependencies of the court, which stretch one into another and are joined by bridges to the two principal squares of the city. From these radiate four broad boulevards each, reaching to the ramparts of the Star-shaped fortress that girds the city, the walls draped with countless purple standards bearing crown and torches. Nine domes of varying form and dimension, evenly distributed between the Erzkoenighaus and the outer walls, crown the principal edifices of the Archkingdom; the greatest of these is the dome of the Archroyal Diet, rising above two ornate belfries whose chimes, together with the great bell of the palace itself, mark every solemn occasion of Sigisland. Yet even this dome is lower than that of the Erzkoenighaus, thereby expressing with architectural propriety the principle of absolute monarchy, which despite the so-called “reform” remains the ruling principle of the Archkingdom of Sigisland. Beyond the fortifications lie wooded mountains, which both render the city the more impregnable and afford to its people, on holy-days and holidays, the blessing of pure air and delightful landscapes without the fatigue of distant travel.
As to the Sovereign herself: holding the opinion that a state is best governed amidst the freshness of nature, Her Archroyal Majesty spends her days almost entirely within the palace gardens, encompassed by her ministers and councillors. Much of the day the twenty-two-year-old, golden-haired Archqueen reclines upon a swing between the four fountains, and through her round spectacles (without which her vision is somewhat clouded, a circumstance waggishly attributed by courtiers to the reason for the great clocks set upon the four ornate towers of the carriage-gates), she diligently studies Ferdinand’s Encyclopaedia. She believes that only when she has acquired complete knowledge of all things within her realm, and indeed within the world entire, shall she be fitted to answer with success the challenges of government, which she regards as a noble game of Ferdinanding. Meanwhile her ministers bring reports of daily business, which she resolves upon in passing, affixing her signature to acts as she listens. Thus, in the space of a quarter-hour, she may address the concerns of textile manufacturers in the capital, of the labourers of the Evenlon foundries, of seamen at Gerlava, of violin-makers at Ferdinandshafen, of apothecaries in Eugenstadt, and of the Academy in its labours upon the collection of Ferdinandic epic and its botanical and zoological enquiries.
Her Majesty is likewise accomplished in the mathematical sciences, and cherishes a particular passion for the fabrication of fine objects, which she supports from her private purse; convinced that such things augment the prestige of the Archkingdom and the satisfaction of its subjects (and, what is of no lesser import, her own popularity). This inclination has been much quickened of late by Zarbel, the clockmaker of Ferdinandshafen, who devised a mechanism able to render melodies with metallic notes. Last month she commissioned from him a considerable number of musical boxes, each to play but a single tune from the vast treasury of Sigislandish airs, whose memorisation is in this country esteemed a condition of perfect culture and true Sigislandishness. Remarkably, unlike our own ungrateful populace—whose narrowness of view I hesitate not to call vampiric in its inhumanity—no voice here dares to cavil at the royal expense, but all with one accord laud this princely command as worthy, since it shall preserve the strains of good Sigislandish music in a novel and pleasing form.
It may also be known to Your Lordship that the Archqueen has established a manufactory of porcelain within Erzkoenighaus itself, whither she has gathered the finest masters of the craft. With them she works for hours, fashioning vases richly adorned, porcelain animals, and other works of art to embellish her palace or to bestow, with gracious intent, upon institutions and subjects. Thus the Sovereign of the “most cultivated nation” is herself an artist, and while she labours at the wheel she receives reports from her councillors, whose counsel she almost invariably meets with her own contrary opinions.
It is evident that Karolina-Louise entertains ambitious designs for her reign, and approaches them with great enthusiasm. Rumour has it, not without probability, that in her earlier youth she considered it a great injustice that her cousin, the Crown Prince Ferdinand, son of the Archking the Restorer, should be destined for sovereignty, while she, as a princess of a collateral branch, must look forward only to a life of comfort and tedium.
In fair weather the courtly meal takes the form of a picnic in the palace garden upon Hemet[2]’s Isle, linked by bridge to Harbein and housing the Archroyal stables and menagerie. By her command this menagerie is thrown open to the public during the phases of the moon, so that the populace may admire animals collected from every clime. Once each week at the least, Her Majesty rides forth with her councillors to the forested lakes in the environs of Kelenburg for a day’s diversion. At night, the household of Erzkoenighaus assembles in the sumptuous Ferdinanding[3] salon, where to the sound of violins and flutes they dance the minuet, or conduct intricate campaigns upon a marble board spread with a tapestry map of the world, upon which stand pieces of amethyst. In such diversions, when the National Gentlemen of Bautia are present, the Archqueen never fails to declare that it were far better if the false Bautian war were waged with figurines on a board, and not with men of flesh and blood. Yet, contrariwise, she rebukes as ill-tasted the habit of Baron von Austenberg, commander of the Archroyal aerial fleet, who will liken the moves of the game to actual intervention in Guntreland.
From the National Gentlemen of Neuland Her Majesty received an exotic animal, a spotted serval cat, which, rather than being lodged with the rest of the menagerie, has been admitted to the palace itself, and has chosen its favourite resting-place upon a sofa of Ferdinand the First’s time—much to the delight of the animal, though to the detriment of that piece of furniture. Far less generous proved the National Gentleman of Hederven, who instead conveyed the proposal of one Senator Hernandsen, that the Archroyal government should bribe him in order to secure his zeal for Hederven’s participation in the economic blockade of the Guntrelandish rebels. He alleged that the royal governments of Guntreland and Tildeland had already bought a majority of Hederven’s senators, deeming it sufficient, and were unwilling to provide for the remainder. Thus Hernandsen might at any time declare for withdrawal from the blockade and for the recognition of the “Republic of Guntreland”— blood-soaked and human-eating, founded upon treachery—unless his supposed devotion to the Congress be underpinned by gold. The Archqueen rejected this demand outright, declaring that no treasure destined for her people should be diverted to the coffers of over-wealthy Hederven senators; she expressed her open disapprobation of the laws of that petty northern continent, which enshrine corruption as a desirable source of revenue.
Concerning the question of counter-revolutionary intervention in Guntreland, Her Majesty speaks but rarely, affirming that her primary devotion is due to her direct subjects and her own country. It may be freely said that she is not persuaded of the righteousness of the Congress system, and at times, alas, she even betrays a certain sympathy for the rebels. Toward her ministers she shows herself imperious, expecting them to translate her often singular ideas into reality. Not four days past she was heard to cry loudly at her Minister of Works, accusing him of delay in constructing schools and hospitals, declaring him at once dismissed; yet two days later restored him to his post. Touching the matter of southern separatism, which has long troubled the four southern provinces, she is resolved to maintain in her council and her government an equal number of men of north and of south, holding firmly that if all provinces are ruled with equal justice, all will first and foremost esteem themselves Sigislandish—an identity which in Kelenburg is held above all others that man may bear in this world.
The influences at court divide into two factions. The first is the ancient nobility, led by Austenberg, advocating resistance to reform and favouring intervention in Guntreland. Though they hold no offices in the government, they command the principal posts of the army; for the first and second estates, when compelled to be classed[4], largely embraced the military category. Here we find old General Hafke, former chief of staff under Ferdinand II, who by fortune of smallpox was absent from the Armada and so escaped its doom; and with him other noble names, remembered in chronicles of the Twenty-Four Years’ War[5] as our adversaries, and restored from a century and a half of vampire eclipse by Ferdinand the Restorer, under whom they drove out the vampiric usurpers.
Opposed to them stand the reformists, chiefly sprung from the former third and fourth estates, or from even humbler stock, who under the late Archking served as clerks and technocrats, executors of his will. Chief among them is Arch-Chancellor Dr. Reber, together with all his ministers; with them also stand the President of the Over-Royal Academy, the biologist Varsing, and the President of the Archroyal Mastership, the novelist Nembach. These men are wont to declaim against war, reminding all that Sigisland has fulfilled her obligations to the Congress at the cost of her King, her Crown Prince, and thousands of her subjects; they insist she has every right to persist in isolation. Such views are seconded by the inclinations of the Archqueen herself, who will not endure discourse of vengeance against the republicans for the Armada, ever declaring that “we must not forget, the Armada was not brought down by the republicans, but rather that it exploded of itself in its attempt to subdue their land.”
At the extremity of the reformist party stand those who dream that the Archkingdom should impose reform upon other nations, after the pattern of Karolina-Louise. Such is Professor Greb, Keeper of the Archroyal Library. They delight in the music of Zerlich, a youthful composer whose works celebrate the reform and the Archroyal tradition, but who is suspected of secret Henscherism. His works are seldom performed in public, and beyond this narrow circle gathered in the Library, he enjoys neither fame nor favour.
Permit me, Your Lordship, one closing observation upon the Sigislanders: their almost universal fascination with the catastrophe of Ferdinand’s Armada. There is in this not merely the grief proper to a nation bereaved, but a strange pride in their own national doom, as though they would present themselves as at once exalted by culture and cursed by destiny. Representations of the Armada—whether soaring in full glory, exploding in ruin, or drifting in fragments upon the ocean—furnish endless inspiration for their painters, and are found upon calendars, porcelain services, snuff-boxes, shaving vessels, and even, so I am told, upon chamber-pots. The same is true of the motif of the Cursed Balloon, which the people believe still hovers above Ferdinand’s Sea, a conceit that fascinates me profoundly, whether it be the fruit of primeval popular fancy, or the token of certain secret laws of nature yet unrevealed to us. At court, and elsewhere, I have seen ladies entwining in their elaborate coiffures miniature models of air-ships, esteeming this a fitting homage to the Restorer and his ill-starred fleet, while they display their knowledge of melancholy verses from Sigislandish authors, well-known or obscure—though all the while betraying little true sense of mourning. Would that this spirit might instead impel the whole Nation of Sigisland to complete the noble design for which her great sovereign and so many of her sons perished—and would that it might stir her Archqueen to command it so!
I must not weary Your Lordship with too prolix a report in this my first dispatch. In my next, I shall acquaint you more fully with the personal connexions I have established among the chief figures of this court, and with the weight which they may bear upon the counsels of Her Archroyal Majesty. For the present, I lay before you these first notes, and commend myself to your indulgence.
May Your Lordship persevere with honour in the service of our Sovereign Lord the King; may your labours hasten the destruction of the perfidious rebels led by the arch-traitor Hermann Henscher, together with his vampires and werewolves; may you prepare the liberation of the august Princes now in their insolent captivity; and may you restore our Monarch, without delay, to the palace of his ancestors in the royal city of Eustata.
Honour the King, gentlemen!
I remain, with all fidelity,
Your Lordship’s most obedient and devoted servant,
Viscount von Ester-Klausen
[1] In the congressional system, the term “national gentlemen” referred to prominent people, appointed by their countries' sovereigns, to represent their country's prestige abroad at their own expense, and perform various diplomatic missions. Each national gentleman was allowed to move without restriction on all sovereign continents, and the only limitation was that one country on the territory of another could have up to 50 national gentlemen at some point (although that number was usually much lower in practice).Their personality was protected by immunity from any attack, and even if they would commit a crime on the soil of the state in which they found themselves, the only way of enforcing justice against them – if they would not renounce that immunity themselves – was to be challenged to a duel by weapons and defeated by a national gentleman of another state. Silk cocard and a scarf in the color of the state they represent are symbols of their position.
[2] Hemet – Tragic heroine from Lokehes's novel, who was killed by being torn apart by wild animals, and whose name was therefore given to the island where the Royal Menagerie was traditionally located.
[3] Ferdinanding – A traditional strategic boardgame representing the wars of Ferdinand I - the founder of the Archkingdom - is considered one of the tenets of Sigisland's national identity. The roots of this game are in the legend, in which the rulers of the eight former Sigislandian states, wanting to measure their forces without actual bloodshed and to choose the strongest among them as joint chief, on the map presented their armies in an objective proportion to their actual strength and numbers, and then by the rules they jointly established, played an imaginary war between them, from which Ferdinand of Otterlon, later Ferdinand I, emerged as victor. Today's rules for Ferdinanding are shaped in the time of Eugene, the second Archking.
[4] By a major reform of the Sigisland social order she implemented upon her coronation, Archqueen Karolina-Louise replaced the traditional eight hierarchically positioned hereditary estates, with ten equal professional categories in which one’s place was determined predominantly on the basis of personal achievements, affinities and abilities.
[5] Twenty Four Years' War (-210-186 CC), was an armed conflict motivated by the scramble for colonies, rich in gold and other resources and established by the settlers from Guntreland and Sigisland, in that time still divided in numerous states. Owing to the strategic genius of General Labser, Guntreland won in nine battles and, despite the relatively balanced power relations, conquered practically all of the colonies of Sigisland. Ferdinand-Oterlon, a Sigislandian nobleman and the Prince-Magnate of the state of Oterlon, initiated the making of a strong alliance of eight Sigislandian states, which then sent an immense expeditionary party to Neuland, under General Francis's command. Francis decisively defeated Labser in the Battle of Hettin (-193 CC) and the Battle of Ransburg (-192 CC), restoring Sigislandian colonies to status quo antebellum. After six further years of war between the two continents, henceforth consolidated in solid alliances, an international peace congress had been arranged, held at the island of Eliza halfway between Sigisland and Guntreland. The Elizine Congress adopted the principle of 'one continent - one country', proclaimed the continental sovereigns who were to guarnatee their respective prerogatives, and Archking Ferdinand I of the Archkingdom of Sigisland was declared the first amongst the sovereigns. Neuland was designed as a loose federation of semi-dependent cantons and former colonies, headed by a king of its own. It was initially planned to give the crown to General Labser, however, since he refused to abide by the will of the Elizine Congress, describing it as 'an oligarchical division of the world', setting up his own state on an archiepelago which did not fall under any country's authority, General Francis was anointed the first King of Neuland, having married Beatrix, daughter of Philip-Friedhold, the sovereign of Guntreland.
