Page - 198 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 4198 that no one sleeps in the room at night. Dispensation from canonical hours and abstinence from meat was not granted, no doubt because the pontiff was not well informed. If he had perceived the circumstances of the journey, the nature of the roads, the way of life, and the sheer amount of fatigue involved, he would definitely have been affected often enough not only by compassion but even horror, and on his own initiative grant- ed even more dispensations than those he had been asked for. However, he obviously thought this excursion of ours was undertaken as any other holiday for pleasure’s sake, with the aim of reaching the idyllic Italian gardens, having been told so by those whose job it was to inform him about the application.82 It is easy to agree with Sajnovics: neither the destination nor the travel route promised the pleasures of “idyllic Italian gardens.” If one is to believe Sajno- vics’s slightly anecdotal account of the audiences the two Jesuits had with the imperial couple before their departure, the empress had a clearer notion of the circumstances awaiting them: “But my dears, she interjected, shall you not be harmed by the heavy cold—do you have good fur coats?”83 The two Jesuits rolled out of Vienna on April 28, 1768, carrying letters of in- struction by Kaunitz, addressed to Austrian envoys at the main stations of their journey, requiring these to render the travelers all necessary help. The trip overland took them through Prague, Dresden, Leipzig, Hamburg, Altona, and Lübeck. As we learn from Sajnovics’s travel diary, even on this apparently com- fortable stretch, accidents might occur: opening their suitcase upon arrival in Prague on May 2, they found their barometer and thermometer broken, and their clothes covered with quicksilver.84 They also commented on the facilities and the collections of the Jesuit colleges where they stayed. Sajnovics thought that those in Prague were inferior even to what he had experienced in Trnava, but in Dresden he was quite impressed—all the more remarkable as in Protes- tant Saxony the Catholic Church could not hold property, so these were rented premises. General hatred of Catholics there is taken note of, as well as the widespread and seemingly limitless consumption of beer in place of wine.85 (Indeed, the poor quality and meager quantity of the food and drink they were offered at most places in the German-speaking lands is a recurrent theme in the diary, somewhat defying von Bachoff’s notions of monkish austerity.) 82 Sajnovics’s diary, proofread version (wus), entry on May 31, 1768. 83 Cited in Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 1:71. 84 Sajnovics, travel diary, proofread version (wus), on May 2, 1768. 85 Sajnovics, travel diary, proofread version (wus), on May 3, 1768.