in its entire glory. At the most, there is herein a hint that wealth may result in damage, and that all material splendor is threatened with the danger of annihilation.”
It is possible that the scene may be a phantasmagoric picture of the consequences of the new financial scheme, which the Emperor has just (unconsciously) authorized. Most of the German commentators, however, accept the theory of “Revolution.” There is nothing, indeed, to prevent us from applying both solutions at the same time.
Some have supposed that the burning of the Emperor and the surrounding masks was suggested by the terrible conflagration which occurred at the ball given by Prince Schwarzenberg to Napoleon, at Paris, in 1810. But it is much more likely that Goethe remembered the following passage from Gottfried’s Chronik, which he must have read as a boy: “About two years afterwards (1394), when things were a little better for the King (Charles VI. of France), divers lords sought to do him a pleasure, to which end, on Caroli day in January, they arranged a masque and disguised six of themselves in the likeness of Satyrs or wild men. The garment which they had on was tight, lying close upon the body, thereto smeared with pitch or tar, whereon tow hung like as hair, that so they appeared rough and savage. This pleased the King so well that he was fain to be the seventh, and in like form. Now it was at night, and they must use torches, because this dance was begun in the presence of the ladies. The King came thus disguised to the Duchesse de Berry, and, to her thinking, made himself all too silly and rude, wherefore she held him fast and let him not go till she should find who he was. But as he did not disclose himself, the Duc d’Orleans, who was beholding the dance, took a torch from the hand of a servant, and lighted under the King’s face, whence caught the pitch on the fool’s-garment, and the King began to burn. Now when the others saw such, forgot they their garments, ran thither, and would quench the King’s blaze; but they were in like guise caught by the flame, and because every one hurried to the King, four of those French gentlemen were burned so miserably that they thereupon
