In 1819, being no longer
fit for active service, he retired on a pension, and was appointed King's
steward of the Chateau of Augustenburg at Bruehl--a sort of military
curatorship to which few duties and certain contingent emoluments were
attached. Of these last, a suite of rooms in the Chateau, a couple of acres
of private garden, and the revenue accruing from a small local impost,
formed the most important part. It was towards the latter half of this year
(1819) that, having now for the first time in his life a settled home in
which to receive me, my father fetched me from Nuremberg where I was living
with my aunt, Martha Baur, and took me to reside with him at Bruehl.
Now my aunt, Martha Baur, was an exemplary person in her way; a rigid
Lutheran, a strict disciplinarian, and the widow of a wealthy wool-stapler.
She lived in a gloomy old house near the Frauen-Kirche, where she received
no society, and led a life as varied and lively on the whole as that of a
Trappist. Every Wednesday afternoon we paid a visit to the grave of her
"blessed man" in the Protestant cemetery outside the walls, and on Sundays
we went three times to church. These were the only breaks in the long
monotony of our daily life.
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