The Poor Man of Toggenburg - Autobiography of Ulrich Bräker

Rorschach and in the corn-markets severe orders have been proclaimed. Already the price of bread has risen somewhat. People say that the French will have these corn-dealers handed over to them. For that reason they have sent envoys to Z. What will become of this, time will tell. At the moment the Imperial troops are said to be shut up in Feldkirch and going very short.

Such scenes in our neighbourhood have neither I nor any now living person experienced. If Heaven in kindness did not trouble to replace what human beings let go to rack and ruin, we should all once more have to pay so dearly for all the most indispensable victuals that I and many others would hardly be able to stand it. But this year Heaven has granted its blessing to earth and let so much of all kinds of crops grow that many farmers can hardly gather it all under a roof. [...] The cherry harvest has been particularly good, contrary to all our forebodings. Everyone who has trees received almost half as much again as he expected. Not since 1760 can I remember such a profitable year. It did not come far short that it was nowhere to be compared with 1760. And yet at that time cherries and cherry-brandy were at two-thirds of the value they are now. Thousands of quarters of them have been dried, and far more made into jam, or sealed into barrels for distilling. Everyone had plenty of cherries, common people, farmers, beggars, everyone who had trees and some who had not.

But the price of the products of the same is nevertheless still very high, in comparison with 1760. At that time one could buy a measure of jam for 9 or 10 batzen. Nowadays the measure costs 20 to 23 batzen. And other stoned fruit too has done extremely well. Plums, damsons, etc hang in heavy loads from their trees. And yet it is not to be expected that anything, not even a few articles of victual, will become cheap. Now indeed everyone has as much cherries as they can want, for as long as they last, and so it will go with other crops as well. As long as the plenty lasts, everyone gets something, gentleman, farmer and beggar, bought, gifted or stolen. But the farmers guard themselves well against selling anything cheap. They would sooner throw everything into barrels, if they cannot dry them, make cider or brandy, they are acquiring pigs so that what they cannot keep, dry or distil will fatten the pigs. And as commonly happens, each one blames his neighbour for what he too has on his conscience. The farmers abuse the corn-dealers, millers and bakers, and above all the merchants, saying that they are all profiteers [...] It is true that the merchant is everywhere taking so much profit as he can get. But the farmers know no check nor bounds. For example, a pound of butter would fetch as much as a guilder if they had their way." - [Voellmy, v 2 pp 281-286] There was fighting between Austrian and retreating French troops on the shores of the Bodensee after the French offensive against Bavaria in the summer. The Swiss had garrisoned their frontiers but had not been able to prevent some French troops crossing them on their way back to France. [Chronik, p 436]

"But there are still new acquaintances here and there. In St. Gallen I enjoyed the good fortune to make acquaintance in person of a noble friend of humanity. I met by chance with H. Professor Müller

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of Luzern at the home of my never to be forgotten H[err] Girtanner. For a long time since I have wished to make the acquaintance of this noble man, of whom I have already heard so much that is fine and good. And so this was granted me by chance. And I was not deceived in my expectation. A eulogy in praise of him, that is something that he would not be inclined to thank me for. The approval of good people, the approval of his own heart, to men of his stamp that is praise and reward enough. Not an hour, not a minute is lost to me that I spend in the company of such a man, noble yet naturally good. Every time I profit by it in this manner or that. Although I know for certain that we do not think the same on this or that question, in those points which one believes to be matters of religion, yet nevertheless we can think the same about most

Thaddaeus Müller (1763-1826) was the son of a boat-builder and had been a teacher in a grammar school before becoming a Catholic priest at Luzern. Bräker was probably recommended to him by Sulzer, and had already made more than one unsuccessful attempt to meet him. He was also a friend of Girtanner and a collaborator with Füssli in the "Schweizer-Musaeum", known as a poet and theologian and a member of the Helvetic Society.