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 Modern Industrial
Microbiology and Biotechnology
SECOND EDITION
 Modern Industrial
Microbiology and Biotechnology
SECOND EDITION

Nduka Okafor
Department of Biological Sciences
Clemson University, Clemson
South Carolina, USA

Benedict C. Okeke
Bioprocessing and Biofuel Research Lab
Department of Biology
Auburn University at Montgomery
Alabama, USA

p,
p,
A SCIENCE PUBLISHERS BOOK
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Cover Credit
CRC
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Taylor &
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 Dedication
This book is dedicated to all those who contributed to developments and
discoveries in microbiology and biotechnology.
 Preface

The field of industrial microbiology has been undergoing rapid changes in recent years.
First, what has been described as the ‘cook book’ approach has been largely abandoned for
the rational manipulation of microorganisms on account of our increased knowledge of their
physiology. Second, powerful new tools and technologies, especially genetic engineering,
genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and similar new areas promise exciting horizons for
man’s continued exploitation of microorganisms. Third, new approaches have become
available for the utilization of some traditional microbial products such as immobilized
enzymes and cells, site-directed mutation, and metabolic engineering. Simultaneously,
microbiology has addressed itself to some current problems such as the fight against
cancer by the production of anti-tumor antibiotics; it has changed the traditional practice
in a number of areas: for example, the deep sea has now joined the soil as the medium for
the search for new bioactive chemicals such as antibiotics. Even the search for organisms
producing new products has now been broadened to include unculturable organisms
which are isolated mainly on genes isolated from the environment. Finally, greater
consciousness of the effect of fossil fuels on the environment has increased the call in
some quarters for the use of more environmentally friendly and renewable sources of
energy, has led to a search for alternate fermentation substrates, exemplified in cellulose,
and a return to fermentation production of ethanol and other bulk chemicals. Due to our
increased knowledge and changed approach, even our definitions of familiar words, such
as antibiotic and species seem to be changing. This book was written to reflect these changes
within the context of current practice.
This book is directed towards undergraduates and beginning graduate students
in microbiology, biotechnology, food science, biosystems engineering and chemical
engineering. Those studying pharmacy, biochemistry, and general biology will find it of
interest. The section on waste disposal will be of interest to civil engineering and public
health students and practitioners. For the benefit of those students who may be unfamiliar
with the basic biological assumptions underlying industrial microbiology, such as students
of chemical and civil engineering, elements of biology and microbiology are introduced. The
new elements which have necessitated the shift in paradigm in industrial microbiology
such as bioinformatics, genomics, proteomics, site-directed mutation, metabolic engineering,
the human genome project, and others are also introduced and their relevance to industrial
microbiology and biotechnology indicated. As many references as space will permit are
included.
viii Modern Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

The various applications of industrial microbiology are covered broadly, and the
chapters are grouped to reflect these applications. The emphasis throughout, however, is on
the physiological and genomic principles behind these applications.
We would like to thank Professors Tom Hughes and Hap Wheeler of the Department of
Biological Sciences at Clemson University for their help and encouragement, and Prof. Jeremy
Tzeng of Clemson University who read portions of the script. The authors are grateful to their
families for their patience during the preparation of the manuscript. Thanks to Chinyelu
Okafor for her constant and great support.
Clemson, South Carolina Nduka Okafor
Montgomery, Alabama Benedict C. Okeke
 Contents

Dedication v
Preface vii

Section A Introduction
1. Introduction to Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology 3
1.1 Definition of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology 3
1.2 Characteristics of Industrial Microbiology 3
1.2.1 Industrial vs. Medical Microbiology 4
1.2.2 Multi-disciplinary Nature of Industrial Microbiology 4
1.2.3 Obsolescence in Industrial Microbiology 4
1.2.4 Communication of Procedures in Industrial Microbiology 5
1.3 Patents and Intellectual Property Rights in Industrial Microbiology 5
and Biotechnology
1.4 The Word ‘Fermentation’ in Industrial Microbiology 8
1.5 Organizational Set-up in an Industrial Microbiology Establishment 8
End of Chapter Questions 11
Suggested Readings 11

Section B Biological Basis Of Productivity In

Industrial Microbiology And Biotechnology
2. Microorganisms in Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology 15
2.1 Nature of Cells of Living Systems 15
2.2 Classification of Living Organisms into three Domains 16
2.3 Taxonomic Grouping of Industrial Microorganisms 17
2.3.1 Bacteria 19
2.3.2 Eukarya: Fungi 23
2.4 Important Characteristics of Industrial Microbes 24
End of Chapter Questions 25
Suggested Readings 25
x Modern Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

3. Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics in Industrial Microbiology 27

and Biotechnology
3.1 Protein Synthesis 27
3.2 The Polymerase Chain Reaction 31
3.2.1 PCR in Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology 32
3.3 Microarrays 33
3.3.1 Applications of Microarray Technology 35
3.4 Sequencing of DNA 35
3.4.1 Sequencing of Short DNA Fragments 35
3.4.2 Sequencing of Genomes or Large DNA Fragments 36
3.5 Identification of Genes in DNA Sequences 37
3.6 Metagenomics 39
3.7 Nature of Bioinformatics 39
3.7.1 Contributions of Bioinformatics to Biotechnology 40
End of Chapter Questions 41
Suggested Readings 42

4. Nutrient Media for Cultivation of Industrial Microorganisms 43

and Generation of Microbial Products
4.1 The Basic Nutrient Requirements of Industrial Media 43
4.2 Criteria for Raw Materials in Industrial Media 45
4.3 Raw Materials Used in Compounding Industrial Media 46
4.4 Growth Factors 50
4.5 Water 50
4.6 Sources of Components of Industrial Media 50
4.6.1 Carbohydrate Sources 50
4.6.2 Protein Sources 52
4.7 Plant Waste Materials in Industrial Microbiology Media: 53
Saccharification of Polysaccharides
4.7.1 Starch 53
4.7.2 Cellulose, Hemi-celluloses and Lignin in Plant Materials 57
End of Chapter Questions 59
Suggested Readings 60

5. Biosynthetic Pathways for Metabolic Products of Microorganisms 61

5.1 The Nature of Metabolic Pathways 61
5.2 Industrial Microbiological Products as Primary and Secondary 62
Metabolites
5.2.1 Products of Primary Metabolism 62
5.2.2 Products of Secondary Metabolism 63
5.3 Trophophase-Idiophase Relationships in the Production 64
of Secondary Products
5.4 Role of Secondary Metabolites in the Physiology of 65
Organisms Producing Them
 Contents xi

5.5 Pathways for the Synthesis of Primary and Secondary 66

Metabolites of Industrial Importance
5.5.1 Catabolism of Carbohydrates 66
5.5.2 The Catabolism of Hydrocarbons 69
5.6 Carbon Pathways for the Formation of Industrial Products 70
Derived from Primary Metabolism
5.6.1 Catabolic Products 70
5.6.2 Anabolic Products 70
5.7 Carbon Pathways for the Formation of Products of 70
Microbial Secondary Metabolism of Industrial Importance
End of Chapter Questions 72
Suggested Readings 73

6. Processes for Overproduction of Microbial Metabolites 74

for Industrial Applications
6.1 Mechanisms Enabling Microorganisms to Avoid Overproduction 75
of Primary Metabolic Products Through Enzyme Regulation
6.1.1 Substrate Induction 75
6.1.2 Catabolite Regulation 77
6.1.3 Feedback Regulation 79
6.1.4 Amino Acid Regulation of RNA Synthesis 81
6.1.5 Energy Charge Regulation 81
6.1.6 Permeability Control 82
6.2 Derangement or Bypassing of Regulatory Mechanisms for the 83
Overproduction of Primary Metabolites
6.2.1 Metabolic Control 83
6.2.2 Permeability 87
6.3 Regulation of Overproduction in Secondary Metabolites 88
6.3.1 Induction 88
6.3.2 Catabolite Regulation 89
6.3.3 Feedback Regulation 90
6.3.4 ATP or Energy Charge Regulation of Secondary Metabolites 90
6.4 Empirical Methods Employed to Disorganize Regulatory Mechanisms 93
in Secondary Metabolite Production
End of Chapter Questions 93
Suggested Readings 94

7. Selection and Improvement of Industrial Organisms for 95

Biotechnological Applications
7.1 Sources of Microorganisms Used in Biotechnology 95
7.1.1 Literature Search and Culture Collection Supply 95
7.1.2 Isolation de novo of Organisms Producing Metabolites of 95
Economic Importance
7.2 Strain Improvement 98
7.2.1 Selection from Naturally Occurring Variants 98
7.2.2 Manipulation of the Genome of Industrial Organisms in 99
Strain Improvement
xii Modern Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

End of Chapter Questions 135

Suggested Readings 135

8. Culture Collections and Methods of Preservation of the 137

Gene Pool of Industrial Organisms
8.1 The Importance of Culture Collections in 137
Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology
8.2 Types of Culture Collections 138
8.3 Handling Culture Collections 139
8.4 Methods of Preserving Microorganisms 139
8.4.1 Microbial Preservation Methods Based on the 140
Reduction of the Growth Temperature
8.4.2 Microbial Preservation Methods Based on Dehydration 142
8.4.3 Microbial Preservation Methods Based on the Reduction 144
of Nutrients
8.4.4 Determination of the Most Appropriate Method of 144
Preserving an Organism
End of Chapter Questions 144
Suggested Readings 144

Section C  Basic Operations In Industrial Fermentations

9. Fermentors and Operation of Fermentation Equipment 149
9.1 Definition of a Fermentor 149
9.2 The Aerated Stirred-Tank Batch Fermentor 149
9.2.1 Construction Materials for Fermentors 151
9.2.2 Aeration and Agitation in a Fermentor 151
9.2.3 Temperature Control in a Fermentor 153
9.2.4 Foam Production and Control 154
9.2.5 Process Control in a Fermentor 157
9.3 Anaerobic Batch Fermentors 159
9.4 Fermentor Configurations 160
9.4.1 Continuous Fermentations 162
9.5 Fed-batch Cultivation 166
9.6 Design of New Fermentors Based on the Physiology 166
of the Organisms: Air Lift Fermentors
9.7 Microbial Experimentation in the Fermentation Industry: 167
The Place of the Pilot Plant
9.8 Inoculum Preparation 168
9.9 Surface or Solid State (Substrate) Fermentors 169
End of Chapter Questions 170
Suggested Readings 170
 Contents xiii

10. Downstream Processing: Extraction of Fermentation Products 171

10.1 Solids (Insolubles) Removal 172
10.1.1 Filtration 172
10.1.2 Centrifugation 173
10.1.3 Coagulation and Flocculation 173
10.1.4 Foam Fractionation 174
10.1.5 Whole Broth Treatment 174
10.2 Primary Product Isolation 174
10.2.1 Cell Disruption 175
10.2.2 Liquid Extraction 176
10.2.3 Dissociation Extraction 178
10.2.4 Ion-Exchange Adsorption 178
10.2.5 Precipitation 179
10.3 Purification 179
10.3.1 Chromatography 179
10.3.2 Carbon Decolorization 180
10.3.3 Crystallization 180
10.4 Product Isolation 180
10.4.1 Crystalline Processing 181
10.4.2 Drying 181
End of Chapter Questions 182
Suggested Readings 182

11. Significance and Processes of Sterility in Industrial Microbiology 184

11.1 The Basis of Loss by Contaminants 184
11.2 Methods of Achieving Sterility 185
11.2.1 Physical Methods 185
11.2.2 Chemical Methods 189
11.3 Aspects of Sterilization in Industry 191
11.3.1 The Sterilization of the Fermenter and its Accessories 191
11.3.2 Media Sterilization 191
11.4 Viruses (Phages) in Industrial Microbiology 192
11.4.1 Morphological Grouping of Bacteriophages 192
11.4.2 Lysis of Hosts by Phages 192
11.4.3 Prevention of Phage Contamination 193
11.4.4 Use of Phage-Resistant Mutants 194
11.4.5 Chemical Inhibition of Phage Multiplication 194
11.4.6 Use of Adequate Media Conditions and Other Practices 194
End of Chapter Questions 194
Suggested Readings 195
xiv Modern Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

Section D Production Of Metabolites As Bulk Chemicals

Or As Inputs In Other Processes
12. Biocatalysts, Immobilized Enzymes and Immobilized Cells 199
12.1 Enzymes Produced by Microorganisms 199
12.2 Classification of Enzymes 200
12.3 Uses of Enzymes in Industry 201
12.4 Production of Enzymes 205
12.4.1 Fermentation for Enzyme Production 205
12.4.2 Enzyme Extraction 207
12.4.3 Packaging and Finishing 207
12.4.4 Toxicity Testing and Standardization 207
12.5 Immobilized Biocatalysts: Enzymes and Cells 207
12.5.1 General Advantages of Immobilized Biocatalysts 208
12.5.2 Methods of Immobilizing Enzymes 208
12.5.3 Methods for the Immobilization of Cells 211
12.6 Bioreactor Designs Used in Biocatalysis 213
12.7 Practical Application of Immobilized Biological Catalyst Systems 213
12.8 Manipulation of Microorganisms for Higher Yield of Enzymes 213
12.8.1 Biological Aspects of Extracellular Enzyme Production 215
End of Chapter Questions 217
Suggested Readings 217

13. Production of Biofuel and Industrial Alcohol 219

13.1 Biofuel 219
13.1.1 Types of Biofuel and Feedstocks for Production of Biofuel 219
13.1.2 Thermochemical Biofuel Processes 221
13.2 Industrial Alcohol Production 221
13.2.1 Properties of Ethanol 221
13.2.2 Uses of Ethanol 222
13.2.3 Denatured Alcohol 222
13.2.4 Manufacture of Ethanol 223
13.2.5 Developments in Alcohol Production 225
End of Chapter Questions 226
Suggested Readings 226

14. Production of Organic Acids 228

14.1 Organic Acids 228
14.1.1 Production of Citric Acid 228
14.1.2 Uses of Citric Acid 228
14.1.3 Biochemical Basis of the Production of Citric Acid 229
14.1.4 Fermentation for Citric Acid Production 231
14.1.5 Extraction 231
14.1.6 Lactic Acid 232
 Contents xv

End of Chapter Questions 235

Suggested Readings 235

15. Production of Amino Acids by Fermentation 236

15.1 Uses of Amino Acids 236
15.2 Methods for Amino Acid Production 239
15.2.1 Semi-Fermentation 240
15.2.2 Enzymatic Process 240
15.2.3 Production of Amino Acids by Direct Fermentation 240
15.3 Production of Glutamic Acid by Wild Type Bacteria 241
15.4 Production of Amino Acids by Mutants 243
15.4.1 Production of Amino Acids by Auxotrophic Mutants 244
15.4.2 Production of Amino Acids by Regulatory Mutants 244
15.5 Improvements in the Production of Amino Acids Using 244
Metabolically Engineered Organisms
15.5.1 Strategies to Modify the Terminal Pathways 245
15.5.2 Strategies for Increasing Precursor Availability 247
15.5.3 Metabolic Engineering to Improve Transport of Amino Acids 247
Outside the Cell
15.6 Fermentor Production of Amino Acid 247
15.6.1 Fermentor Procedure 247
15.6.2 Raw Materials 248
15.6.3 Production Strains 248
15.6.4 Downstream Processing 249
End of Chapter Questions 249
Suggested Readings 250

16. Mining Microbiology: Bioleaching by Microorganisms 251

16.1 Bioleaching 251
16.2 Commercial Leaching Methods 252
16.2.1 Irrigation-Type Processes 252
16.2.2 Stirred Tank Processes 253
16.3 Microbiology of the Leaching Process 253
16.4 Leaching of Some Metal Sulfides 254
16.5 Environmental Conditions Affecting Bacterial Leaching 255
End of Chapter Questions 255
Suggested Readings 255

Section E  Use Of Whole Cells For Food Related Purposes

17. Single Cell Protein Production 259
17.1 Substrates for Single Cell Protein Production 260
17.1.1 Hydrocarbons 260
xvi Modern Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

17.1.2 Alcohols 261

17.1.3 Waste Products 262
17.2 Microorganisms Used in SCP Production 264
17.3 Use of Autotrophic Microorganisms in SCP Production 264
17.4 Safety of Single Cell Protein 266
17.4.1 Nucleic Acids and their Removal from SCP 267
17.5 Nutritional Value of Single Cell Protein 268
End of Chapter Questions 268
Suggested Readings 268

18. Yeast Production 269

18.1 Production of Baker’s Yeast 270
18.1.1 Yeast Strain Used 270
18.1.2 Culture Maintenance 271
18.1.3 Factory Production 271
18.2 Food Yeasts 273
18.2.1 Production of Food Yeast 274
18.3 Feed Yeasts 275
18.4 Alcohol Yeasts 275
18.5 Yeast Products 276
End of Chapter Questions 276
Suggested Readings 276

19. Production of Microbial Insecticides 277

19.1 Alternatives to Chemical Insecticides 277
19.2 Biological Control of Insects 277
19.2.1 Desirable Properties in Organisms to be Used for 278
Biological Control
19.2.2 Candidates Considered as Biological Control Agents 278
19.2.3 Bacillus thuringiensis—Insecticidal Toxin 281
19.3 Production of Biological Insecticides 282
19.3.1 Submerged Fermentations 282
19.3.2 Surface Culture 283
19.3.3 In vivo Culture 283
19.4 Bioassay of Biological Insecticides 283
19.5 Formulation and Use of Bioinsecticides 284
19.5.1 Dusts 284
19.5.2 Liquid Formulation 284
19.6 Safety Testing of Bioinsecticides 285
19.7 Search and Development of New Bioinsecticides 285
End of Chapter Questions 285
Suggested Readings 286
 Contents xvii

20. Production of Rhizobium Biofertilizer 287

20.1 Biology of Rhizobium 288
20.1.1 General Properties 288
20.1.2 Cross-Inoculation with Groups of Rhizobia 288
20.1.3 Desirable Properties in Strains to be Selected for Use as Rhizobium 289
Inoculants
20.1.4 Selection of Strains for Use as Rhizobial Inoculants 289
20.2 Fermentation for Rhizobia 290
20.3 Inoculant Packaging for Use 291
20.3.1 Seed Inoculants 291
20.3.2 Soil Inoculants 292
20.4 Quality Control 292
End of Chapter Questions 293
Suggested Readings 293

21. Production of Fermented Foods 294

21.1 Introduction 294
21.2 Fermented Food from Wheat: Bread 295
21.2.1 Ingredients for Modern Bread-making 295
21.2.2 Systems of Bread-making 298
21.2.3 Role of Yeasts in Bread-making 300
21.3 Fermented Foods Made from Milk 302
21.3.1 Composition of Milk 302
21.3.2 Cheese 303
21.3.3 Yogurt (Yoghurt) and Fermented Milk Foods 306
21.4 Fermented Foods from Corn 306
21.4.1 Ogi, Koko, Mahewu 307
21.5 Fermented Foods from Cassava: Garri, Foo-Foo, Chikwuange, 308
Kokonte, Bikedi, and Cinguada
21.5.1 Garri 308
21.5.2 Foo-foo, Chikwuangue, Lafun, Kokonte, Bikedi, and Cinguada 310
21.6 Fermented Vegetables 310
21.6.1 Sauerkraut 310
21.6.2 Cucumbers (pickling) 311
21.7 Fermentations for the Production of the Stimulant Beverages: 311
Coffee, and Cocoa
21.7.1 Coffee Fermentation 311
21.7.2 Cocoa Fermentation 312
21.8 Fermented Foods Derived from Legumes and Oil Seeds 312
21.8.1 Fermented Foods from Soybeans 312
21.8.2 Fermented Foods from Beans: Idli 315
21.8.3 Fermented Foods from Protein-rich Oil-seeds 315
21.8.4 Food Condiments Made from Fish 315
End of Chapter Questions 316
Suggested Readings 316
xviii Modern Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

Section F Alcohol-Based Fermentation Industries

22. Production of Beer: Raw Materials and Brewing Processes 321
22.1 Barley Beers 321
22.1.1 Types of Barley Beers 321
22.1.2 Raw Materials for Brewing 323
22.1.3 Brewery Processes 326
22.1.4 Beer Defects 335
22.1.5 Developments in Beer Brewing 337
22.2 Sorghum Beers 338
22.2.1 Kaffir and Other Traditional Sorghum Beers 338
End of Chapter Questions 340
Suggested Readings 340

23. Production of Wines and Spirits 342

23.1 Grape Wines 342
23.1.1 Processes in Wine Making 342
23.1.2 Fermentation 343
23.1.3 Ageing and Storage 343
23.1.4 Clarification 344
23.1.5 Packaging 345
23.1.6 Wine Defects 345
23.1.7 Wine Preservation 345
23.1.8 Classification of Wines 345
23.2 Palm Wine 349
23.3 The Distilled Alcoholic (or Spirit) Beverages 352
23.3.1 Measurement of the Alcoholic Strength of Distilled Beverages 352
23.3.2 General Principles in the Production of Spirit Beverages 353
23.3.3 The Spirit Beverages 354
End of Chapter Questions 356
Suggested Readings 357

24. Production of Vinegar 358

24.1 Uses 358
24.2 Measurement of Acetic Acid in Vinegar 359
24.3 Types of Vinegar 359
24.4 Organisms Involved 360
24.5 Manufacture of Vinegar 361
24.5.1 The Orleans (or Slow) Method 361
24.5.2 The Trickling Generators (Quick) Method 362
24.5.3 Submerged Generators 363
24.6 Processing of Vinegar 365
End of Chapter Questions 365
Suggested Readings 366
 Contents xix

Section G Production Of Commodities Of Medical Importance

25. Production of Antibiotics and Anti-Tumor Agents 369
25.1 Classification and Nomenclature of Antibiotics 369
25.2 Beta-Lactam Antibiotics 370
25.2.1 Penicillins 371
25.2.2 Cephalosporins 375
25.2.3 Other Beta-Lactam Antibiotics 376
25.3 The Search for New Antibiotics 377
25.3.1 The Need for New Antibiotics 378
25.3.2 The Classical Method for Searching for Antibiotics: Random 379
Search in the Soil
25.4 Combating Resistance and Expanding the Effectiveness of 382
Existing Antibiotics
25.4.1 Refinements in the Procedures for 382
the Random Search for New Antibiotics in the Soil
25.4.2 Newer Approaches to the Search for Antibiotics 383
25.4.3 Chemically Modifying Existing Antibiotic: The Production 384
of Semi-synthetic Antibiotics
25.4.4 Modifying an Existing Antibiotic Through Synthesis 385
by Mutant Organisms: Mutasynthesis
25.5 Antitumor Antibiotics 385
25.5.1 Nature of Tumors 385
25.5.2 Mode of Action of Antitumor Antibiotics 386
25.5.3 Search for New Antitumor Antibiotics 386
25.6 Newer Methods for the Search for Antibiotic and Antitumor Drugs 389
End of Chapter Questions 389
Suggested Readings 390

26. Production of Ergot Alkaloids 391

26.1 Nature of Ergot Alkaloids 391
26.2 Uses of Ergot Alkaloids and their Derivatives 394
26.3 Production of Ergot Alkaloids 394
26.4 Physiology of Alkaloid Production 396
End of Chapter Questions 397
Suggested Readings 398

27. Microbial Transformation of Steroids and Sterols 399

27.1 Nature and Use of Steroids and Sterols 399
27.2 Uses of Steroids and Sterols 401
27.2.1 Sex Hormones 401
27.2.2 Corticosteroids 401
27.2.3 Saponins 402
27.2.4 Heterocyclic Steroids 402
xx Modern Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology

27.3 Manufacture of Steroids 402

27.3.1 Types of Microbial Transformations in Steroids and Sterols 404
27.3.2 Fermentation Conditions Used in Steroid Transformation 405
27.4 Screening for Microorganisms 405
End of Chapter Questions 406
Suggested Readings 406

28. Vaccines 407

28.1 Nature and Importance of Vaccines 407
28.2 Body Defenses against Communicable Diseases 407
28.2.1 Innate or Non-specific Immunity 410
28.2.2 Acquired or Specific Immunity 410
28.3 Traditional and Modern Methods of Vaccine Production 413
28.3.1 Traditional Vaccines 413
28.3.2 Newer Approaches in Vaccinology 414
28.4 Production of Vaccines 417
28.4.1 Production of Virus Vaccines 417
28.4.2 Production of Bacterial Toxoids 419
28.4.3 Production of Killed Bacterial Vaccines 420
28.5 Control of Vaccines 420
28.6 Vaccine Production versus Other Aspects of Industrial Microbiology 421
End of Chapter Questions 421
Suggested Readings 422

29. Drug Discovery in Microbial Metabolites: The Search for Microbial 423
Products with Bioactive Properties
29.1 Conventional Processes of Drug Discovery 423
29.1.1 Cell-based Assays 423
29.1.2 Receptor Binding Assays 425
29.1.3 Enzyme Assays 426
29.2 Newer Methods of Drug Discovery 427
29.2.1 Computer Aided Drug Design 427
29.2.2 Combinatorial Chemistry 427
29.2.3 Genomic Methods in the Search for New Drugs, Including Antibiotics 428
29.2.4 Search for Drugs among Unculturable Microorganisms 429
29.3 Approval of New Antibiotic and Other Drugs by the Regulating 431
Agency
29.3.1 Pre-Submission Work by the Pharmaceutical Firm 431
29.3.2 Submission of the New Drug to the FDA 432
29.3.3 Approval 434
29.3.4 Post Approval Research 434
End of Chapter Questions 434
Suggested Readings 435
 Contents xxi

Section H Waste Disposal

30. Treatment of Wastes in Industry 439
30.1 Methods for the Determination of Organic Matter Content in 439
Wastewaters
30.1.1 Dissolved Oxygen 440
30.1.2 The Biological or Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) Tests 440
30.1.3 Permanganate Value (PV) Test 440
30.1.4 Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) 440
30.1.5 Total Organic Carbon (TOC) 441
30.1.6 Total Suspended Solids (TSS) 441
30.1.7 Volatile Suspended Solids (VSS) 441
30.2 Wastes from Major Industries 441
30.3 Systems for the Treatment of Wastes 443
30.3.1 Aerobic Breakdown of Raw Wastewaters 443
30.4 Treatment of the Sludge: Anaerobic Breakdown of Sludge 448
30.5 Wastewater Disposal in the Pharmaceutical Industry 449
End of Chapter Questions 450
Suggested Readings 451
Glossary 453
Index 457
About the Authors 465
 Section A
Introduction
 C H A PT E R 1
Introduction to Industrial
Microbiology and
Biotechnology

1.1 DEFINITION OF INDUSTRIAL MICROBIOLOGY AND

BIOTECHNOLOGY

Industrial microbiology may be defined as the study of the large-scale and profit-
motivated production of microorganisms or their products for direct use or as inputs in the
manufacture of other goods. Thus, yeasts may be produced for direct consumption as food
for humans, as animal feed, or for use in bread-making; their product ethanol may also
be consumed in the form of alcoholic beverages or used in the manufacture of perfumes,
pharmaceuticals, etc. Industrial microbiology is clearly a branch of biotechnology and
includes the traditional and nucleic acid aspects.
The 1992 United Nations Conference on Biological Diversity (the Earth Summit) in Brazil
defined biotechnology as “any technological application that uses biological systems, living
organisms, or derivatives thereof, to make or modify products or processes for specific
use.” The use of microorganisms to produce the antibiotic penicillin, the dairy product
yogurt, amino acids and enzymes are examples of biotechnology.
Developments in molecular biology in the last two decades or so have vastly increased
our understanding of nucleic acids in genetic processes. This has led to applications of
biological manipulation at the molecular level in such technologies as genetic engineering.
All aspects of biological manipulations now have molecular biology dimensions and it
appears convenient to divide biotechnology into traditional biotechnology which does not
directly involve nucleic acid or molecular manipulations and nucleic acid biotechnology
which involves manipulation of nucleic acids and its products.

1.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF INDUSTRIAL MICROBIOLOGY

The discipline of microbiology is often divided into sub-disciplines such as medical

microbiology, environmental microbiology, food microbiology, and industrial microbiology.
The boundaries between these subdivisions are often blurred and are made only for
convenience.
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stalwart Auvergnats, who came from their mountains to do a work more
severe than the Parisians could do for themselves.
But another specialty, which very forcibly struck me, and which cannot
be said to have been any survival of ways and habits obsolete on the other
side of the Channel, was the remarkable manner in which the political life
of the hour, with its emotions, opinions, and passions, was enacted, so to
speak, on the stage of the streets, as a drama is presented on the boards of a
theatre. Truly he who ran through the streets of Paris in those days might
read, and indeed could not help reading, the reflection and the manifestation
of the political divisions and passions which animated the reign of the
bourgeois king, and ended by destroying it.
And in this respect the time of my first visit to Paris was a very
interesting one. The Parisian world was, of course, divided into Monarchists
and Republicans, the latter of whom laboured under the imputation, in some
cases probably unjust, but in more entirely merited (as in certain other more
modern instances), of being willing and ready to bring their theories into
practice by perpetrating or conniving at any odious monstrosity of crime,
violence and bloodshed. The Fieschi incident had recently enlightened the
world on the justice of such accusations.
But the Monarchists were more amusingly divided into “Parceque
Bourbon,” supporters of the existing régime, and “Quoique Bourbon,”
tolerators of it. The former, of course, would have preferred the white flag
and Charles Dix; but failing the possibility of such a return to the old ways,
were content to live under the rule of a sovereign, who, though not the
legitimate monarch by right divine, was at least a scion of the old legitimate
race. The “Quoique Bourbon” partisans were the men who, denying all
right to the throne save that which emanated from the will of the people,
were yet Monarchists from their well-rooted dread of the intolerable evils
which Republicanism had brought, and, as they were convinced, would
bring again upon France, and were therefore contented to support the
bourgeois monarchy “although” the man on the throne was an undeniable
Bourbon.
But what made the streets, the boulevards, the Champs Elysées, and
especially the Tuileries garden peculiarly amusing to a stranger, was the
circumstance that the Parisians all got themselves up with strict attention to
the recognised costume proper to their political party. The Legitimist, the
“Quoique Bourbon” bourgeois, (very probably in the uniform of the then
immensely popular National Guard) and the Republican in his appropriate
bandit-shaped hat and coat with exaggeratedly large lappels, or draped
picturesquely in the folds of a cloak, after a fashion borrowed from the
other side of the Alps, were all distinguishable at a glance. It was then that
deliciously graphic line (I forget who wrote it) “Feignons à feindre à fin de
mieux dissimuler” was applied to characterise the conspirator-like attitudes
it pleased these gentlemen to assume.
The truth was that Paris was still very much afraid of them. I remember
the infinite glee, and the outpouring of ridicule, which hailed the dispersion
of a Republican “demonstration” (the reader will forgive the anachronism
of the phrase), at the Porte St. Martin, by the judicious use of a powerful
fire-engine. The heroes of the drapeau rouge had boasted they would stand
their ground against any charge of soldiery. Perhaps they would have done
so. But the helter-skelter that ensued on the first well-directed jet of cold
water from the pipe of a fire-engine furnished Paris with laughter for days
afterwards.
But, as I have said, Paris, not unreasonably, feared them. Secret
conspiracy is always an ugly enemy to deal with. And no violence of mere
speculative opinion would have sufficed, had fear been absent, to cause the
very marked repulsion with which all the Parisians, who had anything to
lose, in that day regarded their Republican fellow citizens.
Assuredly the Conservatives of the Parisian world of 1835 were not “the
stupid party.” Both in their newspapers, and other ephemeral literature, and
in the never-ending succession of current mots and jokes which circulated
in the Parisian salons, they had the pull very decidedly. I remember some
words of a parody on one of the Republican songs of the day, which had an
immense vogue at that time. “On devrait planter le chêne,” it ran, “pour
l’arbre de la liberté” (it will be remembered that planting “trees of liberty”
was one of the common and more harmless “demonstrations” of the
Republican party). “Ses glands nouriraient sans peine les cochons qui l’ont
planté.” And the burthen of the original which ran, “Mourir pour la patrie,
C’est le sort le plus beau le plus digne d’envie,” was sufficiently and very
appositely caricatured by the slight change of “Mourir pour la patrie” into
“Nourris par la patrie,” &c.
 To a stranger seeing Paris as I saw it, and frequenting the houses which I
frequented, it seemed strange that such a community should have
considered itself in serious danger from men who seemed to me, looking
from such a stand-point, a mere handful of skulking melodramatic
enthusiasts, playing at conspiracy and rebellion rather than really
meditating it. But I was not at that time fully aware how entirely the real
danger was to be found in regions of Paris, and strata of its population
which were as entirely hidden from my observation, as if they had been a
thousand miles away. But though I could not see the danger, I saw
unmistakably enough the fear it inspired in all classes of those who, as I
said before, had anything to lose.
It was this fear that made the National Guard the heroes of the hour. It
was impossible but that such a body of men—Parisian shopkeepers put into
uniform (those of them who would condescend to wear it; for many used to
be seen, who contented themselves with girding on a sabre and assuming a
firelock, while others would go to the extent of surmounting the ordinary
black coat with the regulation military shako)—should afford a target for
many shafts of ridicule. The capon-lined paunches of a considerable
contingent of these well-to-do warriors were an inexhaustible source of not
very pungent jokes. But Paris would have been frightened out of its wits at
the bare suggestion of suppressing these citizen saviours of society. Of
course they were petted at the Tuileries. No reception or fête of any kind
was complete without a large sprinkling of these shopkeeping guardsmen,
and their presence on such occasions was the subject of an unfailing series
of historiettes.
I remember an anecdote excellently illustrative of the time, which was
current in the salons of the “Parceque Bourbon” society of the day. A
certain elderly duchess of the vieille roche, a dainty little woman, very
mignonne, whose exquisite parure and still more exquisite manners scented
the air at a league’s distance, to use the common French phrase, with the
odour of the most aristocratic salons of the Quartier St. Germain, was, at
one of Louis Philippe’s Tuileries receptions, about to take from the tray
handed round by a servant the last of the ices which it had contained, when
a huge outstretched hand, with its five wide-spread fingers, was protruded
from behind over her shoulder, and the refreshment of which she was about
to avail herself was seized by a big National Guard with the exclamation,
“Enfoncèe la petite mère!”
 Nevertheless, it may be safely asserted that the little duchess, and all the
world she moved in, would have been infinitely more dismayed had they
gone to the Tuileries and seen no National Guards there.
Among the many persons of note with whom I became more or less well
acquainted during that month, no one perhaps stands out more vividly in my
recollection than Chateaubriand. He also, though standing much aloof from
the noise and movement of the political passions of the time, was an
aristocrat jusqu’au bout des ongles, in appearance, in manners, in opinions,
and general tone of mind. The impression to this effect immediately
produced on one’s first presentation was in no degree due to any personal
advantages. He was not, when I knew him, nor do I think he ever could
have been, a good looking man. He stooped a good deal, and his head and
shoulders gave me the impression of being somewhat too large for the rest
of his person. The lower part of his face too, was, I thought, rather heavy.
But his every word and movement were characterised by that exquisite
courtesy which was the inalienable, and it would seem incommunicable,
specialty of the seigneurs of the ancien régime. And in his case the
dignified bearing of the grand seigneur was tempered by a bonhomie which
produced a manner truly charming.
And having said all this, it may seem to argue want of taste or want of
sense in myself, to own, as truthfulness compels me to do, that I did not
altogether like him. I had a good deal of talk with him, and that to a
youngster of my years and standing was in itself very flattering, and I felt as
if I were ungrateful for not liking him. But the truth in one word is, that he
appeared to me to be a “tinkling cymbal.” I don’t mean that he was
specially insincere as regarded the person he was talking to at the moment.
What I do mean is, that the man did not seem to me to have a mind capable
of genuine sincerity in the conduct of its operations. He seemed to me a
theatrically-minded man. Immediately after making his acquaintance I read
the Génie du Chrétienisme, and the book confirmed my impression of the
man. He honestly intends to play a very good and virtuous part, but he is
playing a part.
He was much petted in those days by the men, and more especially by
the women of the ancien régime and the Quartier St. Germain. But I suspect
that he was a good deal quizzed, and considered an object of more or less
good-natured ridicule by the rest of the Parisian world. I fancy that he was
in straitened circumstances. And the story went that he and his wife put all
they possessed into a box, of which each of them had a key, and took from
day to day what they needed, till one fine day they met over the empty box
with no little surprise and dismay.
Chateaubriand thought he understood English well, and rather piqued
himself upon the accomplishment. But I well remember his one day asking
me to explain to him the construction of the sentence, “Let but the cheat
endure, I ask not aught beside.” My efforts to do so during the best part of
half an hour ended in entire failure.
He was in those days reading in Madame Récamier’s salon at the
Abbaye-aux-Bois (in which building my mother’s friend, Miss Clarke, also
had her residence), those celebrated Mémoires d’Outretombe, of which all
Paris, or at least all literary and political Paris, was talking. Immense efforts
were made by all kinds of notabilities to obtain an admission to these
readings. But the favoured ones had been very few. And my mother was
proportionably delighted at the arrangement that a reading should be given
expressly for her benefit. M. de Chateaubriand had ceased these séances for
the nonce, and the gentleman who had been in the habit of reading for him
had left Paris. But by the kindness of Miss Clarke and Madame Récamier,
he was induced to give a sitting at the Abbaye expressly for my mother.
This arrangement had been made before I reached Paris, and I consequently
to my great regret was not one of the very select party. My mother was
accompanied by my sisters only. I benefited however in my turn by the
acquaintance thus formed, and subsequently passed more than one evening
in Madame Récamier’s salon at the Abbaye-aux-Bois in the Rue du Bac.
My mother, in her book on Paris and the Parisians, writes of that
reading as follows:—“The party assembled at Madame Récamier’s on this
occasion did not, I think, exceed seventeen, including Madame Récamier
and M. de Chateaubriand. Most of these had been present at former
readings. The Duchesses de Larochefoucauld and de Noailles, and one or
two other noble ladies, were among them. And I felt it was a proof that
genius is of no party, when I saw a grand-daughter of General Lafayette
enter among us. She is married to a gentleman who is said to be of the
extreme coté gauche.” The passage of the Mémoires selected for the
evening’s reading was the account of the author’s memorable visit to
Prague to visit the royal exiles. “Many passages,” writes my mother, “made
a profound impression on my fancy and on my memory, and I think I could
give a better account of some of the scenes described than I should feel
justified in doing, as long as the noble author chooses to keep them from the
public eye. There were touches that made us weep abundantly; and then he
changed the key, and gave us the prettiest, the most gracious, the most
smiling picture of the young princess and her brother that it was possible for
pen to trace. And I could have said, as one does in seeing a clever portrait,
‘That is a likeness, I’ll be sworn for it.’ ”
It may be seen from the above passage, and from some others in my
mother’s book on Paris and the Parisians, that her estimate of the man
Chateaubriand was a somewhat higher one, than that which I have
expressed in the preceding pages. She was under the influence of the
exceeding charm of his exquisite manner. But in the following passage,
which I am tempted to transcribe by the curious light it throws on the
genesis of the present literary history of France, I can more entirely
subscribe to the opinions expressed:—
“The active, busy, bustling politicians of the hour have succeeded in
thrusting everything else out of place, and themselves into it. One dynasty
has been overthrown, and another established; old laws have been
abrogated, and hundreds of new ones formed; hereditary nobles have been
disinherited, and little men made great. But amidst this plenitude of
destructiveness, they have not yet contrived to make any one of the puny
literary reputations of the day weigh down the renown of those who have
never lent their voices to the cause of treason, regicide, rebellion, or
obscenity. The literary reputations both of Chateaubriand and Lamartine
stand higher beyond all comparison than those of any other living French
authors. Yet the first, with all his genius, has often suffered his imagination
to run riot; and the last has only given to the public the leisure of his literary
life. But both of them are men of honour and principle, as well as men of
genius; and it comforts one’s human nature to see that these qualities will
keep themselves aloft, despite whatever squally winds may blow, or
blustering floods assail them. That both Chateaubriand and Lamartine
belong rather to the imaginative than to the positif class cannot be denied;
but they are renowned throughout the world, and France is proud of them.
The most curious literary speculations, however, suggested by the present
state of letters in this country, are not respecting authors such as these. They
speak for themselves, and all the world knows them and their position. The
circumstance decidedly the most worthy of remark in the literature of
France at the present time is the effect which the last revolution appears to
have produced. With the exception of history, to which both Thiers (?)[B]
and Mignet have added something that may live, notwithstanding their very
defective philosophy, no single work has appeared since the revolution of
1830 which has obtained a substantial, elevated, and generally
acknowledged reputation for any author unknown before that period—not
even among all the unbridled ebullitions of imagination, though restrained
neither by decorum, principle, nor taste. Not even here, except from one
female pen, which might become, were it the pleasure of the hand that
wields it, the first now extant in the world of fiction,” (of course, Georges
Sand is alluded to,) “has anything appeared likely to survive its author. Nor
is there any writer, who during the same period has raised himself to that
station in society by means of his literary productions, which is so
universally accorded to all who have acquired high literary celebrity in any
country.
“The name of Guizot was too well known before the revolution for these
observations to have any reference to him.” (Cousin should not have been
forgotten.) “And however much he may have distinguished himself since
July, 1830, his reputation was made before. There are, however, little
writers in prodigious abundance.... Never, I believe, was there any period in
which the printing presses of France worked so hard as at present. The
revolution of 1830 seems to have set all the minor spirits in motion. There
is scarcely a boy so insignificant, or a workman so unlearned, as to doubt
his having the power and the right to instruct the world.... To me, I confess,
it is perfectly astonishing that any one can be found to class the writers of
this restless clique as ‘the literary men of France.’... Do not, however,
believe me guilty of such presumption as to give you my own unsupported
judgment as to the position which this ‘new school,’ as the décousu folks
always call themselves, hold in the public esteem. My opinion on this
subject is the result of careful inquiry among those who are most competent
to give information respecting it. When the names of such as are best
known among this class of authors are mentioned in society, let the politics
of the circle be what they may, they are constantly spoken of as a pariah
caste that must be kept apart.
“ ‘Do you know ——?’ has been a question I have repeatedly asked
respecting a person whose name is cited in England as the most esteemed
French writer of the age—and so cited, moreover, to prove the low standard
of French taste and principle.
“ ‘No, madame,’ has been invariably the cold answer.
“ ‘Or——?’
“ ‘No; he is not in society.’
“ ‘Or——?’
“ ‘Oh, no! His works live an hour—too long—and are forgotten.’ ”
Now, are the writers of French literature of the present day, whose names
will at once present themselves to every reader’s mind, to be deemed
superior to those of Louis Philippe, who “lent their voices to the cause of
treason, regicide, rebellion, or obscenity,” and were unrestrained by either
“decorum, principle, or taste”? For it is most assuredly no longer true that
the writers in question are held to be a “pariah caste,” or that they are not
known and sought by “society.” The facilis decensus progress of the half
century that has elapsed since the cited passages were written, is certainly
remarkable.
There is one name, however, which cannot be simply classed as one of
the décousus. Victor Hugo had already at that day made an European
reputation. But the following passage about him from my mother’s book on
Paris and the Parisians is so curious, and to the present generation must
appear so, one may almost say, monstrous, that it is well worth while to
reproduce it.
“I have before stated,” she writes, “that I have uniformly heard the
whole of the décousu school of authors spoken of with unmitigated
contempt, and that not only by the venerable advocates for the bon vieux
temps, but also, and equally, by the distinguished men of the present day—
distinguished both by position and ability. Respecting Victor Hugo, the only
one of the tribe to which I allude who has been sufficiently read in England
to justify his being classed by us as a person of general celebrity, the feeling
is more remarkable still. I have never mentioned him or his works to any
person of good moral feeling or cultivated mind who did not appear to
shrink from according him even the degree of reputation that those who are
received as authority among our own cities have been disposed to allow
him. I might say that of him France seems to be ashamed.” (My italics.)
“ ‘Permit me to assure you,’ said one gentleman gravely and earnestly, ‘that
no idea was ever more entirely and altogether erroneous than that of
supposing that Victor Hugo and his productions can be looked on as a sort
of type or specimen of the literature of France at the present hour. He is the
head of a sect, the high priest of a congregation who have abolished every
law, moral and intellectual, by which the efforts of the human mind have
hitherto been regulated. He has attained this pre-eminence, and I trust that
no other will arise to dispute it with him. But Victor Hugo is NOT a popular
French author.’ ”
My recollections of all that I heard in Paris, and my knowledge of the
circles (more than one) in which my mother used to live, enable me to
testify to the absolute truth of the above representation of the prevalent
Parisian feeling at that day respecting Victor Hugo. Yet he had then
published his Lyrics, Notre Dame de Paris, and the most notable of his
dramas; and I think no such wonderful change of national opinion and
sentiment as the change from the above estimate to that now universally
recognised in France, can be met with in the records of European literary
history. Is it not passing strange that whole regions of Paris should have
been but the other day turned, so to speak, into a vast mausoleum to this
same “pariah,” and that I myself should have seen, as I did, the Pantheon
not yet cleared from the wreck of garlands and inscriptions and scaffoldings
for spectators, all of which had been prepared to do honour to his
obsequies?
But it must be observed that the violent repulsion and reprobation with
which he was in those days regarded by all his countrymen, save the
extreme and restless spirits of the Republican party, cannot fairly be taken
as the result and outcome of genuine literary criticism. All literary
judgments in France were then subordinated to political party feeling, and
that was intensified by the most fatal of all disqualifications for the
formation of sound and equable estimates—by fear. All those well-to-do
detesters of Victor Hugo and all his works, the “Quoique Bourbons” as well
as the “Parceque Bourbons,” the prosperous supporters of the new régime
as well as the regretful adherents of the old, lived in perpetual fear of the
men whose corypheus and hierophant was Victor Hugo, and felt, not
without reason, that the admittedly ricketty throne of the citizen king and
those sleek and paunchy National Guardsmen alone stood between them
and the loss of all they held dearest in the world. Nevertheless, the contrast
between the judgments and the feeling of 1835 and those of fifty years later
is sufficiently remarkable.
 Much has been said, especially in England, of the great writer’s
historical inaccuracy in treating of English matters. But an anecdote which
my mother gives in her book is worth reproducing for the sake of the
evidence it gives that in truth Victor Hugo was equally ignorantly and
carelessly inaccurate when speaking of home matters, on which, at least, it
might have been thought that he would have been better informed.
“An able lawyer, and most accomplished gentleman and scholar, who
holds a distinguished station in the cour royale” (in all probability Berryer),
“took us to see the Palais de Justice. Having shown us the chamber where
criminal trials are carried on, he observed that this was the room described
by Victor Hugo in his romance, adding, ‘He was, however, mistaken here,
as in most places where he affects a knowledge of the times of which he
writes. In the reign of Louis XI. no criminal trials ever took place within the
walls of this building, and all the ceremonies as described by him resemble
much more a trial of yesterday than of the age at which he dates his tale.’ ”
Georges Sand, certainly upon the whole the most remarkable literary
figure in the French world at the time of my visit to Paris, vidi tantum. That
I had an opportunity of doing on various occasions. She was a person on
whom, quite apart from her literary celebrity, the eye of any observer would
have dwelt with some speculative curiosity. She was hardly to be called
handsome, or even pretty, but was still decidedly attractive. The large eyes à
fleur de tête, and the mobile and remarkably expressive mouth rendered the
face both attractive and stimulative of interest. The features were
unmistakably refined in character and expression, and the mouth—the most
trustworthy evidence-giving feature upon that point—was decidedly that of
a high-bred woman.
She was at that period of her varied career acting as well as writing in a
manner which attracted the attention of Louis Philippe’s very vigilant and
abnormally suspicious police. She had recently left Paris for an excursion in
the tête-à-tête company of the well known Abbé de Lamenais, who was at
that time giving much trouble and disquietude to the official guardians of
the altar and the throne. His comings and goings were the object of vigilant
supervision on the part of the police authorities; and it so happened by a
strange chance that the report of the official observers of this little
excursion, which reached the official head-quarters, reached me also. And
all the watchers had to tell was that the abbé and the lady his companion
shared the same bedchamber at the end of their first day’s journey. Now the
Abbé de Lamenais was an old, little, wizened, dried-up, dirty—very dirty—
priest. It is possible, but I have reason to think highly improbable, that
economy was the motive of this strange chamber comradeship. But I was
then, and am still, very strongly convinced that the sole purpose of it was to
outrage the lady’s (and the priest’s) censors, to act differently from
everybody else, and to give evidence of superiority to conventionality and
“prejudice.”
I wrote very carefully and conscientiously some few years subsequently
a long article on Georges Sand in the Foreign Quarterly which attracted
some attention at the time. I should write in many respects differently now.
The lady in subsequent years put a considerable quantity of “water into her
wine”—and though not altogether in the same sense,—I have done so too.
To both Guizot and Thiers I had the honour of being introduced. If I
were to say that neither of them seemed to me to have entirely the manners
and bearing of a gentleman, I should probably be thought to be talking
affected and offensive nonsense. And I do not mean to say so in the
ordinary English every-day use of the term. What I mean is that they were
both of them very far from possessing that grand seigneur manner, which as
I have said so markedly distinguished Chateaubriand, and many another
Frenchman whom I knew in those days; by no means all of them belonging
to the aristocratic caste, party, or class. Guizot looked for all the world like
a village schoolmaster, and seemed to me to have much the manner of one.
He stooped a good deal, and poked his head forwards. I remember thinking
that he was, in manner, more like an Englishman than a Frenchman; and
that it was a matter of curious speculation to me at the time, whether this
effect might have been produced by the fact that he was a Protestant, and an
earnest one, instead of being a Roman Catholic. Possibly my impression of
his schoolmaster-like deportment may have been the result of his manner to
me. I was but a boy, with no claim at all to the honour of being noticed by
him in any way. But I remember being struck by the difference of the
manner of Thiers in this respect.
All my prejudices and all that I knew of the two men disposed me to feel
far the higher respect for Guizot. And my opinion still is that I judged
rightly, whether in respect to character or intellectual capacity. Not but that I
thought and think that Thiers was the brighter and in the ordinary sense of
the term the cleverer man of the two. There was no brightness about the
premier abord of Guizot, though doubtless a longer and more intimate
acquaintance than was granted to me would have corrected this impression.
But Thiers was, from the bow with which he first received you to the latest
word you heard from him, all brightness. Of dignity he had nothing at all. If
Guizot might have been taken for a schoolmaster, Thiers might have been
mistaken for a stockbroker, say, a prosperous, busy, bustling, cheery
stockbroker, or any such man of business. And if Guizot gave one the
impression of being more English than French, his great rival was
unmistakeably and intensely French. I have no recollection of having much
enjoyed my interview with M. Guizot. But I was happy during more than
one evening spent in Thiers’s house in Paris.
Of Madame Récamier I should have said the few words I have to say
about the impression so celebrated a woman produced upon me, when I was
speaking of her salon in a previous page. But they may be just as well said
here. Of the beauty for which she was famed throughout Europe, of course
little remained, when I saw her in 1835. But the grace, which was in a far
greater degree unique, remained in its entirety. I think she was the most
gracefully moving woman I ever saw. The expression of her face had
become perhaps a little sad, but it was sweet, attractive, full of the promise
of all good things of heart and mind. If I were to say that her management
of her salon might be compared in the perfection of its tactical success with
that of a successful general on the field, it might give the idea that
management and discipline were visible, which would be a very erroneous
one. That the perfection of art lies in the concealment of it, was never more
admirably evidenced than in her “administration” as a reine de salon. A
close observer might perceive, or perhaps rather divine only, that all was
marshalled, ordered, and designed. Yet all was, on the part at least of the
guests, unconstrained ease and enjoyment. That much native talent, much
knowledge of men and women, and exquisite tact must have been needed
for this perfection in the art of tenir salon cannot be denied. Finally it may
be said that a great variety of historiettes, old and new, left me with the
unhesitating conviction that despite the unfailing tribute to an éclat such as
hers, of malicious insinuations (all already ancient history at the time of
which I am writing), Madame Récamier was and had always been a truly
good and virtuous Christian woman.
Miss Clarke, also, as has been said an inmate of the Abbaye-aux-Bois,
and a close friend of her celebrated neighbour, I became intimate with. She
was an eccentric little lady, very plain, brimfull of talent, who had achieved
the wonderful triumph of living, in the midst of the choicest society of
Paris, her own life after her own fashion, which was often in many respects
a very different fashion from that of those around her, without incurring any
of the ridicule or anathemas with which such society is wont to visit
eccentricity. I remember a good-naturedly recounted legend to the effect,
that she used to have her chemises, which were constructed after the
manner of those worn by the grandmothers of the present generation,
marked with her name in full on the front flap of them; and that this flap
was often exhibited over the bosom of her dress in front! She too was a
reine de salon after her fashion—a somewhat different one from that of her
elegant neighbour. There was, at all events, a greater and more piquant
variety to be found in it. All those to be found there were, however, worth
seeing or hearing for one reason or another. Her method of ruling the
frequenters of her receptions might be described as simply shaking the
heterogeneous elements well together. But it answered so far as to make an
evening at her house unfailingly amusing and enjoyable. She was very, and
I think I may say, universally popular. She subsequently married M. Mohl,
the well-known Orientalist, whom I remember to have always found, when
calling upon him on various occasions, sitting in a tiny cabinet so absolutely
surrounded by books, built up into walls all round him, as to suggest almost
inevitably the idea of a mouse in a cheese, eating out the hollow it lived in.
Referring to my mother’s book on Paris and the Parisians for those
extracts from it which I have given in the preceding pages, I find the
following passage, the singular forecast of which, and its bearing on the
present state of things in France, tempts me to transcribe it. Speaking in
1835, and quoting the words of a high political authority, whom she had
met “at the house of the beautiful Princess B——” (Belgiojoso), she writes:
“ ‘You know,’ he said, ‘how devoted all France was to the Emperor, though
the police was somewhat tight, and the conscriptions heavy. But he had
saved us from a Republic, and we adored him. For a few days, or rather
hours, we were threatened again five years ago by the same terrible
apparition. The result is that four millions of armed men stand ready to
protect the prince who chased it. Were it to appear a third time, which
Heaven forbid! you may depend upon it, that the monarch who should next
ascend the throne of France might play at “le jeu de quilles” with his
subjects and no one be found to complain.’ ” (My italics.) On the margin of
the page on which this is printed, my mother has written in the copy of the
book before me, “Vu et approuvé. Dec. 10th, 1853. F. T.”
The mention of the Princess Belgiojoso in the above passage reminds me
of a memorable evening which I spent at her house, and of my witnessing
there a singular scene, which at the present day may be worth recounting.
The amusement of the evening consisted in hearing Liszt and the
princess play on two pianos the whole of the score of Mozart’s Don
Giovanni! The treat was a delightful one; but I dare say that I should have
forgotten it but for the finale of the performance. No sooner was the last
note ended than the nervous musician swooned and slid from his seat, while
the charming princess, in whom apparently matter was less under the
dominion of mind, or at least of nerve, was as fresh as at the beginning!
My month at Paris, with its poor thirty times twenty-four hours, was all
too short for half of what I strove to cram into it. And of course I could
please myself with an infinitude of recollections of things and places, and
occasions, and above all, persons, who doubtless contributed more to the
making of that month one of the pleasantest I have to look back on, than
any of the celebrities whom I had the good fortune to meet. But it may be
doubted whether any such rambling reminiscences would be equally
pleasing to my readers.
There is one anecdote, however, of a well remembered day, which I must
tell, before bringing the record of my first visit to Paris to a conclusion.
A picnic party—rather a large one, and consisting of men and women of
various nationalities—had been organised for a visit to the famous and
historic woods of Montmorenci. We had a delightful day, and my memory
is still, after half a century, crowded with very vivid remembrances of the
places and persons, and things done and things said, which rendered it such.
But as for the places, have they not been described and re-described in all
the guide books that were ever written? And as for the persons, alas! the
tongues that chattered so fast and so pleasantly are still for evermore, and
the eyes that shone so brightly are dim, if not, as in most instances, closed
in their last sleep! But it is only with an incident that formed the finale of
our day there that I mean to trouble the reader.
Thackeray, then an unknown young man, with whom I that day became
acquainted for the first time, was one of our party. Some half-dozen of us—
the boys of the party—thinking that a day at Montmorenci could not be
passed selon les prescriptions without a cavalcade on the famous donkeys,
selected a number of them, and proceeded to urge the strongly conservative
animals probably into places, and certainly into paces, for which their life-
long training had in no wise prepared them. A variety of struggles between
man and beast ensued with divers vicissitudes of victory, till at last
Thackeray’s donkey, which certainly must have been a plucky and vigorous
beast, succeeded in tossing his rider clean over his long ears, and as ill luck
would have it, depositing him on a heap of newly broken stones. The fall
was really a severe one, and at first it was feared that our picnic would have
a truly tragic conclusion. But it was soon ascertained that no serious
mischief had been done, beyond that, the mark of which the victim of the
accident bore on his face to his dying day.
I think that when I climbed to the banquette of the Lille diligence to
leave Paris, on the morning of the 7th of June, 1835, it was the first time
that the prospect of a journey failed in any way to compensate me for
quitting what I was leaving behind.
 CHAPTER XIV.
I left Paris a day or two before my father, mother, and sisters, though
bound for the same destination—Bruges. My object in doing so appears to
have been to get a sight of some of the towns of French Flanders by the
way. But I was not many days after them in reaching the Château d’Hondt,
outside the Porte St. Pierre at Bruges; and there I remained, with the
exception of sundry visits to Ostend, and two or three rambles among the
Flemish cities, till the 3rd of October.
One used to go from Bruges to Ostend in those days by “Torreborre’s”
barge, which was towed by a couple of horses. There was a lumbering but
very roomy diligence drawn by three horses abreast. But the barge, though
yet slower than the diligence, was the pleasanter mode of making the
journey. The cost of it, I well remember, was one franc ten centimes, which
included (in going by the morning barge, which started, if I remember
rightly, at six A.M.), as much bread and butter and really excellent café au
lait as the traveller chose to consume—and I chose in those days to
consume a considerable quantity. What the journey cost without any
breakfast, I forget, if I ever knew. I fancy no such contingency as any
passenger declining his bread and butter and coffee was contemplated, and
that the charge was always the same whether you took breakfast or not. It
was not an unpleasant manner of travelling, though specially adapted for
the inmates of the Castle of Indolence. The cabin was roomy and
comfortably furnished, and infinitely superior to the accommodation of any
of the Dutch trekschuyts of the present day. One took one’s book with one.
And a cigar on the well-seated cabin roof was in excellent keeping with the
lazy smoothness of the movement, and the flat sleepy monotony of the
banks.
And these visits to Ostend were very pleasant. Consul Fauche’s
hospitable door was always open to me, and there was usually sure to be
something pleasant going on within it—very generally excellent music. I
have already spoken of Mrs. Fauche’s charming voice. Any pleasant
English, who might be passing through, or spending the bathing season at
Ostend, were sure to be found at the Consul’s—especially if they brought
voices or any musical dispositions with them. But Mary Fauche herself was
in those days a sufficient attraction to make the whitest stone evening of all
that when no other visitor was found there. Noctes cœnæque Deûm!
But those pleasant Ostend days were before the summer ended
overshadowed by a tragedy, which I will not omit to record, because the
story of it carries a valuable warning with it.
We had made acquaintance at Paris with a Mrs. Mackintosh and her
daughter, very charming Scotch people. Mrs. Mackintosh was a widow, and
Margaret was her only child. She was an extremely handsome girl, nineteen
years of age, and as magnificent a specimen of young womanhood as can
be conceived. “More than common tall,” she showed in her whole person
the development of a Juno, enhanced by the vigour, elasticity and blooming
health of a Diana. She and her mother came to Ostend for the bathing
season. Margaret was a great swimmer; and her delight was to pass nearly
the whole of those hot July days in the water. Twice, or even thrice every
day she would return to her favourite element. And soon she began to
complain of lassitude, and to lose her appetite and the splendour of her
complexion. Oh! it was the heat, which really only the constant stimulus of
her bath and swim could render tolerable. She was warned that excess in
bathing, especially in salt water, may sometimes be as dangerous as any
other excess, but the young naiad, who had never in her life needed to pay
heed to any medical word or warning, would not believe, or would not
heed. And before the September was over we followed poor Margaret
Mackintosh to the little Ostend cemetery, killed by over bathing as
decidedly as if she had held her head under water!
This sad tragedy brought to a gloomy end a season which had been, if
not a very profitable, a very amusing one. There was a ci-devant Don
Quixote sort of a looking man, a Count Melfort, whose young and buxom
wife boasted some strain of I forget what noble English blood, and who
used to give the Consul good dinners such as he particularly affected, which
his wife was neither asked nor cared to share, though the ladies as well as
the gentlemen were excellent good friends. There was a wealthy Colonel
Dickson who also used to give dinners, at one of which, having been
present, I remember the host fussing in and out of the room during the
quarter of an hour before dinner, till at last he rushed into the drawing-room
with his coat sleeves drawn up to his elbows, horror and despair in his
mien, as he cried, “Great heaven! the cook has cut the fins off the turbot!” If
any who partook of that mutilated fish survive to this present year of grace
(which, I fear, is hardly likely to be the case) I am sure they will recall the
scene which ensued on the dreadful announcement. There was the very
pretty and abnormally silly little banker’s wife, who supplied my old friend,
Captain Smithett, with billets doux and fun, and who used to adapt verses
sent her by a still sillier youthful adorer of her own to the purpose of
expressing her own devotion to quite other swains.
It was a queer and not very edifying society, exceedingly strange, and
somewhat bewildering to a lad fresh from Oxford who was making his first
acquaintance with Continental ways and manners. All the married couples
seemed to be continually dancing the figure of chassée croisez, and I, who
had no wife of my own, and was not yet old enough to know better, thought
it extremely amusing.
When October came, and I had not heard anything from Birmingham of
the appointment to a mastership in the school there, for which I had been all
this time waiting, I thought it was time to look up my Birmingham friends
and see how matters stood there. At Birmingham I found that the governors
of King Edward’s School were still shilly-shallying; but I heard enough to
convince me that no new master would be appointed till the very fine new
building which now ornaments the town, but was then in course of
construction, should be completed.
Having become convinced of this, in which it eventually turned out that I
was right, it only remained to me to return to Bruges, with the assurance
from Dr. Jeune and several of the governors that I and nobody else should
have the mastership when the appointment should be made. I returned to
Bruges, passing one day with the dear Grants at Harrow, and an evening
with my brother Anthony in London by the way, and reached the Château
d’Hondt on the 15th of October, to find my father very much worse than I
had left him. He was in bed, and was attended by the Dr. Herbout of whom
I have before spoken. But he was too evidently drawing towards his end;
and after much suffering breathed his last in the afternoon of the 23rd of
October, 1835. On the 25th I followed his body to his grave, close to that of
my brother Henry, in the cemetery outside the Catherine Gate of the town.
The duty was a very specially sad one. When I followed my mother to
the grave at Florence many years afterwards my thoughts were far from
being as painfully sad, though she was, I fear, the better loved parent of the
two. She died in a ripe old age after a singularly happy, though not
untroubled, life, during many years of which it was permissible to me to
believe that I had had no small share in ministering to her happiness. It was
otherwise in the case of my father. He was, and had been, I take it, for many
years a very unhappy man. All had gone wrong with him; misfortunes fell
on him, one on the back of the other. Yet I do not think that these
misfortunes were the real and efficient causes of his unhappiness. I do not
see what concatenation of circumstances could have made him happy. He
was in many respects a singular man. Ill-health and physical suffering, of
course, are great causes of an unhappy life; but all suffering invalids are not
unhappy. My father’s mind was, I think, to a singular degree under the
dominion of his body. The terrible irritability of his temper, which
sometimes in his latter years reached a pitch that made one fear his reason
was, or would become, unhinged, was undoubtedly due to the shattering of
his nervous system, caused by the habitual use of calomel. But it is difficult
for one who has never had a similar experience to conceive the degree in
which this irritability made the misery of all who were called upon
habitually to come into contact with it. I do not think that it would be an
exaggeration to say that for many years no person came into my father’s
presence who did not forthwith desire to escape from it. Of course, this
desire was not yielded to by those of his own household, but they were none
the less conscious of it. Happiness, mirth, contentment, pleasant
conversation, seemed to fly before him as if a malevolent spirit emanated
from him. And all the time no human being was more innocent of all
malevolence towards his fellow creatures; and he was a man who would
fain have been loved, and who knew that he was not loved, but knew
neither how to manifest his desire for affection nor how to conciliate it.
I am the more convinced that bodily ailment was the causa causans of
most, if not of all, of this unhappy idiosyncrasy, that I have before me
abundant evidence that as a young man he was beloved and esteemed by his
cotemporaries and associates. I have many letters from college friends,
fellows of New College, his cotemporaries, several of them thanking him
for kindnesses of a more or less important kind, and all written in a spirit of
high regard and esteem.
What so grievously changed him? I do not believe that he was soured by
pecuniary misfortune, though he had more than enough. His first great
misfortune—the marriage of his old widower uncle, whose heir he was to
have been—was, I have the means of knowing, borne by him well, bravely
and with dignity. I believe that he was destroyed mind and body by calomel,
habitually used during long years.
Throughout life he was a laborious and industrious man. I have seen few
things of the kind with more of pathos in it than his persevering attempt to
render his labour of some value by compiling a dictionary of ecclesiastical
terms. He had quite sufficient learning and sufficient industry to have
produced an useful book upon the subject if he had only had the possibility
of consulting the, of course, almost innumerable necessary authorities. The
book was published in quarto by subscription, and two or three parts of it
had been delivered to the subscribers when death delivered him from his
thankless labour and his subscribers from further demands on their purses. I
do not suppose that any human being purchased the book because they
wished to possess it. And truly, as I have said, it was a pathetic thing to see
him in his room at Château d’Hondt, ill, suffering, striving with the
absolutely miserable, ridiculously insufficient means he had been able with
much difficulty to collect, to carry on his work. He was dying—he must, I
think, have known that he was; he had not got beyond D in his dictionary;
all the alphabet was before him, but he would not give up; he would labour
to the last. My mother was labouring hard, and her labour was earning all
that supplied very abundantly the needs of the whole family. And I cannot
help thinking that a painful but not ignoble feeling urged my poor father to
live at least equally laborious days, even though his labour was profitless.
Poor father! My thoughts as I followed him to the grave were that I had
not done all that I might have done to alleviate the burthen of unhappiness
that was laid upon him. Yet looking back on it all from the vantage-ground
of my own old age (some fifteen years greater than that which he attained) I
do not see or think that any conduct of mine would have made matters
better for him.
My father’s death naturally made an important change in my mother’s
plans for the future. The Château d’Hondt was given up, adieus were said,
not without many au revoirs, to many kind friends at Bruges, and more
especially at Ostend, and we left Belgium for England. After some time
spent in house-hunting, my mother hired a pleasant house with a good
garden on the common at Hadley, near Barnet, and there I remained with
her, still awaiting my Birmingham preferment, all that winter and the
following spring. The earlier part of the time was saddened by the rapid
decline and death of my younger sister, Emily. We knew before leaving
Bruges that there was but a slender hope of saving her from the same
malady which had been fatal to my brother Henry. But the medical men
hoped or professed to hope, that much might be expected from her return to
her native air. But the mark of the cruel disease was upon her, and very
rapidly after our establishment at Hadley she sank and painlessly breathed
her last.
Poor little Emily! She was a very bright espiègle child, full of fun and
high spirits. There is a picture of her exactly as I remember her. She is
represented with flowing flaxen curls and wide china-blue eyes, sitting with
a brown holland pinafore on before a writing-desk and blowing a
prismatically-coloured soap-bubble. The writing copy on the desk lying
above the half-covered and neglected page of copy-book bears the legend
“Study with determined zeal!”
Her youngest child had ever been to my mother as the apple of her eye,
and her loss was for the passing day a crushing blow. But, as usual with her,
her mind refused to remain crushed, any more than the grass is permanently
crushed by the storm wind that blows over it. She had the innate faculty and
tendency to throw sorrow off when the cause of it had passed. She owed
herself to the living, and refused to allow unavailing regret for those who
had been taken from her to incapacitate her for paying that debt to the
utmost.
And once again, as was usual with her, her new home became a centre of
social enjoyment and attraction for all, especially the young, who were
admitted to it. I do not remember that with the exception of the family of
the rector, Mr. Thackeray, we had many acquaintances at Hadley. I
remember a bit of fun, long current among us, which was furnished by the
reception my mother met with when returning the call of the wife of a
wealthy distiller resident in the neighbourhood. The lady was of abnormal
bulk, and when my mother entered the room in which she was sitting, she
said, “Excuse me, ma’am, if I keep my chair, I never raise. But I am glad to
see you—glad to see anybody,” with much emphasis on the last word. I
wish every caller was received with as truthful an expression of sentiments.
Our society consisted mainly of friends staying in the house, or of flying
visitors from London. As usual, too, my mother soon gathered around her a
knot of nice girls, who made the house bright. For herself she seemed
always ready to take part in all the fun and amusement that was going; and
was the first to plan dances, and charades, and picnics, and theatricals on a
small and unpretending scale. But five o’clock of every morning saw her at
her desk; and the production of the series of novels, which was not brought
to a conclusion till it had reached the hundred and fifteenth volume, though
it was not begun till she was past fifty, never ceased.
The Christmas was, I remember, a very merry one. We were seeing a
good deal of a young fellow-clerk of my brother’s in the secretary’s office
at the Post Office, who was then beginning to fall in love with my sister
Cecilia, whom he married not long afterwards. He was then at the
beginning of a long official life, from which he retired some years ago as
Sir John Tilley, K.C.B. Among others of our little circle, I especially
remember Joseph Henry Green, the celebrated surgeon, Coleridge’s literary
executor, who first became known to us through his brother-in-law, Mr.
Hammond, who was in practice at Hadley. Green was an immensely tall
man, with a face of no beauty, but as brightly alive with humour as any I
ever saw. He was a delightful companion in a walk; and I remember to the
present hour much of the curious and out-of-the-way information I picked
up from him, mainly on subjects more or less connected with his profession
—for he, as well as I, utterly scouted the stupid sink-the-shop rule of
conversation. I remember especially his saying of Coleridge, à propos of a
passage in his biography which speaks of the singular habit (noticed by his
amanuensis) that he had of occupying his mind with the coming passage,
which he was about to dictate, while uttering that with which the writer was
busy, that he (Green) had frequently observed the same peculiarity in his
conversation.
Some few of our guests came to us from beyond the Channel, among
them, charming Mrs. Fauche, with her lovely voice and equally lovely face,
whose Ostend hospitalities my mother was glad to have an opportunity of
returning.
Among these visitors from the other side of the Channel, I remember one
elderly lady of the Roman Catholic faith, and a strict observer of its
precepts, who was pleased to express a very strong approbation of a certain
oyster soup, which made its appearance one day at my mother’s table. She
was charmed at the idea of being able to eat such soup for a maigre dinner,
and begged that the receipt might be written out for her. “Oyster soup! Just
the thing for a Friday!” So the mode of preparing the desired dainty was
duly written out for her. But her face was a study for a physiognomist when
she read the first line of it, to the effect that she was to “Take of prime beef”
so much. Oyster soup, indeed!
It was a pleasant time—so pleasant that I am afraid that I did not regret
perhaps so much as I ought to have done the continued delay of the
Birmingham appointment for which I was all this time waiting. But pleasant
as it was, its pleasantness was not sufficient wholly to restrain me from
indulging in that propensity for rambling which has been with me the ruling
passion of a long life-time.
It was in the spring following that merry Christmas that I found time for
a little tour of about three weeks in Normandy. The reader need not fear that
I am going to tell him anything of all I did and all I saw, though every detail
of it seemed to me at the time worthy of minute record. But it has all been
written and printed some scores of times since those days—by myself once
among the rest—and may now be dismissed with a “See guide-books
passim.” The expenses of my travel accurately recorded I have also before
me. There indeed I might furnish some facts which would be new and
surprising to tourists of the present day, but they would only serve to make
him discontented with his generation.
There is one anecdote, however, connected with this little journey, which
I must relate. I was returning from southern Normandy and reached Caen
without a penny in my pocket. My funds, carefully husbanded as they had
been, had sufficed to carry me so far and no further. There were no such
things as telegrams or railways in those days; and I had nothing for it but to
go to an hotel and there remain till my application to Hadley for funds
could be answered—an affair of some ten or twelve days as things then
were. While I was waiting and kicking my heels about the old Norman city,
from which I had already extracted all the interest it could afford me, I
lounged into the shop of a bookseller, M. Mancel. I revisited him on a
subsequent occasion, and find the record of this second visit in the first of
two volumes which I wrote, and entitled A Summer in Brittany. There I find
that M. Mancel is “the publisher of numerous works on the history and
antiquities of Normandy.... M. Mancel has also an extensive collection of
old books on Norman history; but the rarest and most curious articles are
congregated into a most bibliomaniacal looking cabinet, and are not for
sale.”
 Well, this was the gentleman into whose very tempting shop I strayed
with empty pockets. He was extremely civil, showed me many interesting
things, and finding that I was not altogether an ignoramus as regarded his
specialty, observed ever and anon “That is a book which you ought to
have!” “That is a work which you will find very useful!” till at last I said
“Very true! There are two or three books here that I should like to have; but
I have no money!” He instantly begged me to take any book or books I
should like to buy, and pay for them when I got to London. “But,” rejoined
I, “I don’t know when I shall get to London, for I have no money at all. I
reached Caen with my purse empty, and am stranded here!” M. Mancel
thereupon eagerly begged me to let him be my banker for my immediate
needs, as well as for the price of any volumes I chose to purchase. And
though he had never seen my face or heard my name before, he absolutely
did furnish me with money to reach home, and gave me credit for some two
or three pounds’ worth of books, it being arranged that I should on reaching
London pay the amount to M. Dulau in Soho Square.
A few years ago on passing through Caen I went to the old book shop;
but M. Mancel had long since gone to join the majority, and his place knew
him no more. His successor, however, on my explaining to him the motive
of my visit, remarked with a truly French bow, “My predecessor seems to
have been a good physiognomist, monsieur!”
I returned to Hadley to find my mother eagerly occupied with the
scheme of a journey to Vienna, and a book as the result of it. She had had,
after the publication of her book on Paris and the Parisians, some idea of
undertaking an Italian tour, but that was now abandoned in favour of a
German journey, whether on the suggestion of her publisher, or from any
other cause of preference, I do not know. Of course I entered into such a
scheme heart and soul. My only fear now was that news of my appointment
to a mastership at Birmingham might arrive in time to destroy my hopes of
accompanying my mother. But no such tidings came; on the contrary, there
seemed every reason to suppose that no new master would be appointed till
after the following Christmas holidays. My mother was as anxious as I was
that I should be free to act as her courier, for in truth she could hardly
dispense with some such assistance; and I alone remained who could give it
to her. My sister Cecilia was to accompany my mother. She wished also to
take with her M. Hervieu, the artist who illustrated her former books; and I
obtained her permission to ask an Oxford friend to make one of the party.
We were thus a party of five, without counting my mother’s maid, an old
and trusted servant, the taking of whom, however, she subsequently
considered so great a mistake that she never fell into it on any other
occasion.
My delight at the prospect of such a journey was intense. I surrounded
myself forthwith with an amazing supply of maps and guide-books, and
was busy from morning to night with the thoroughly congenial task of
studying and preparing our proposed route.
 CHAPTER XV.
That I started on this occasion even more than on any other with the
greatest delight “goes without saying.” A longer and more varied journey
than I had ever before enjoyed was before me. All was new, even more
entirely new to the imagination than Paris; and my interest, curiosity, and
eagerness were great in proportion. We travelled by way of Metz,
Strasbourg, and Stuttgardt, and, after reaching the German frontier, by
Lohnkutscher or vetturino—incredibly slow, but of all modes of travelling
save the haquenée des Cordeliers the best for giving the traveller some
acquaintance with the country traversed and its inhabitants.
A part of the journey was performed in a yet slower fashion, and one
which was still richer in its opportunities for seeing both men and things.
For we descended the Danube on one of those barges which ply on the
river, used mainly for cargo, but also occasionally for passengers. When I
look back upon that part of our expedition I feel some astonishment at not
only the hardihood of my mother and sister in consenting to such an
enterprise, but more still at my own—it really seems to my present notions
—almost reckless audacity in counselling and undertaking to protect them
in such a scheme.
Whether any such boats still continue to navigate the Danube, I do not
know. I should think that quicker and better modes of transporting both
human beings and goods have long since driven them from their many time
secular occupation. In any case it is hardly likely that any English travellers
will ever again have such an experience. The Lohnkutscher with his thirty
or forty miles a day, and his easy-going lotus-eating-like habitudes is hardly
like to tempt the traveller who is wont to grumble at the tediousness of an
express train. But a voyage on a Danube carrier barge would be relegated to
the category of those things which might be done, “could a man be secure,
that his life should endure As of old, for a thousand long years,” but which
are quite out of the question in any other circumstances.
Here is the account which my mother gives of the boat on which we
were about to embark at Ratisbon for the voyage down the river to Vienna.
“We start to-morrow, and I can hardly tell you whether I dread it or wish
for it most. We have been down to the river’s bank to see the boat, and it
certainly does not look very promising of comfort. But there is nothing
better to be had. It is a large structure of unpainted deal boards, almost the
whole of which is occupied by a sort of ark-like cabin erected in the middle.
This is very nearly filled by boxes, casks, and bales; the small portion not
so occupied being provided with planks for benches, and a species of rough
dresser placed between them for a table. This we are given to understand is
fitted up for the express accommodation of the cabin passengers.”
In point of fact, we had, as I remember, no fellow passengers in any part
of our voyage. I take it that nobody, save perhaps the peasants of the
villages on the banks of the stream, for short passages from one of them to
the other, ever thought of travelling by these barges even in those days.
They were in fact merely transports for merchandise of the heavier and
rougher sort. The extreme rudeness of their construction, merely rough
planks roughly nailed together, is explained by the fact that they are not
intended ever to make the return voyage against the stream, but on arriving
at Vienna are knocked to pieces and sold for boarding.
“But the worst thing I saw,” continues my mother, “is the ladder which,
in case of rain, is to take us down to this place of little ease. It consists of a
plank with sticks nailed across it to sustain the toes of the crawler who
would wish to avoid jumping down seven or eight feet. The sloping roof of
the ark is furnished with one bench of about six feet long, from which the
legs of the brave souls who sit on it dangle down over the river. There is not
the slightest protection whatever at the edge of this abruptly sloping roof,
which forms the only deck; and nothing but the rough unslippery surface of
the deal planks, of which it is formed, with the occasional aid of a bit of
stick about three inches long nailed here and there, can prevent those who
stand or walk upon it from gently sliding down into the stream.... Well! we
have determined, one and all of us, to navigate the Danube between
Ratisbon and Vienna; and I will neither disappoint myself nor my party
from the fear of a fit of vertigo, or a scramble down a ladder.”
But if the courage of the ladies did not fail them, mine, as that of the
person most responsible for the adventure, did! And I find that, on the day
following that on which the last extract was written, my mother writes:
“At a very early hour this morning T. [Tom] was up and on board, and
perceiving by a final examination of the deck, its one giddy little bench, and
all things appertaining thereto, that we should inevitably be extremely
uncomfortable there, he set about considering the ways and means by which
such martyrdom might be avoided. He at last got hold of the Schiffmeister,
which he had found impossible yesterday, and by a little persuasion and a
little bribery, induced him to have a plank fixed for us at the extreme bow
of the boat, which we can not only reach without difficulty, but have a space
of some nine or ten feet square for our sole use, on condition of leaving it
free for the captain about five minutes before each landing. This perch is
perfectly delightful in all respects. Our fruit, cold meat, wine, bread, and so
forth are stowed near us. Desks and drawing books can all find place; and in
short, if the sun will but continue to shine as it does now, all will be well....
Our crew are a very motley set, and as we look at them from our dignified
retirement, they seem likely to afford us a variety of very picturesque
groups. On the platforms, which project at each end of the ark, stand the
men—and the women too—who work the vessel. This is performed by
means of four immense oars protruding lengthwise [i.e. in a fore and aft
direction], two in front and two towards the stern, by which the boat is
steered. Besides these, there are two others to row with. These latter are
always in action, and are each worked by six or eight men and women, the
others being only used occasionally, when the boat requires steering. It
appears that there are many passengers who work for their passage [but this
I take to have been inference only], as the seats at the oars are frequently
changed, and as soon as their allotted task is done, they dip down into the
unknown region beyond the ark and are no more seen till their turn for
rowing comes round again. I presume the labour, thus divided, is not very
severe, for they appear to work with much gaiety and good humour,
sometimes singing, sometimes chatting, and often bursting into shouts of
light-hearted laughter.”
It was a strange voyage; curious, novel, and full of never-failing interest;
luxurious even in its way, in many respects; which may now be considered
an old world experience; which probably has never been tried since, and
certainly will never be tried again, however many wandering young
Englishmen (of whom there are a hundred now for every one to be met with
in those days) might fancy trying it. No danger whatever of the kind which
my mother appears to have anticipated threatened any of the party. But the
adventure was not without danger of another kind, as the sequel showed.
Of course all the people with whom we were brought into contact—the
captain and crew of the boat, the riverside loungers at the landing-places,
the hosts and households of the little inns in the small places at which the
boat stopped every night (it never travelled save by daylight)—were all
mystified, and had all their ideas of the proprieties and the eternal fitness of
things outraged by the phenomenon of a party of English ladies and
gentlemen—supposed by virtue of ancient and well recognised reputation to
be all as rich as Crœsus, and who were at all events manifestly able to pay
for a carriage—choosing such a method of travelling. Nor had English
wanderers at that time earned the privilege since accorded to their
numerousness, of doing all sorts of strange things unquestioned on the score
of the well-known prevalent insanity of the race. All who came within sight
of us were utterly puzzled at the unaccountableness of the phenomenon.
And one does not mystify the whole of a somewhat rude population without
risking disagreeables of various sorts.
On looking back on the circumstances from my present lofty and calm
observatory, I am disposed to wonder that nothing worse betided us than the
one adventure of which I am about to speak. But, as I remember, the people
generally were, if somewhat ruder and rougher than an English population
of similar status, upon the whole very kindly and good-natured.
But at one place—a village called Pleintling—we did get into trouble,
which very nearly ended tragically. The terms upon which we were to be
housed for the night, and the price to be paid for our accommodation of all
sorts had been settled overnight, and the consciousness that we were giving
unusual trouble induced us to pay without grumbling such a price for our
beds and supper and breakfast as the host had assuredly never received for
his food and lodging in all his previous experience. But it was doubtless this
very absence of bargaining which led our landlord to imagine that he had
made a mistake in not demanding far more, and that any amount might be
had for asking it from so mysterious a party who parted, too, so easily with
their money. So as we were stepping on board the next morning he came
down to the water’s edge, and with loud vociferation demanded a sum more
than the double of that which we had already paid him. The ladies, and
indeed all the party save myself, who was the paymaster, had already gone
on board, and I was about to follow, unheeding his demands and his threats,
when he seized me by the throat, and dragging me backwards, declared in
stentorian tones that he had not been paid. I sturdily refused to disburse
another kreutzer. The other men, who had gone on board, jumped back to
my assistance. But suddenly, as if they had risen from the earth, several
other fellows surrounded us and dragged down my friends. The old
landlord, beside himself with rage, lifted an axe which he had in his hand,
and was about to deal me a blow which would probably have relieved the
reading world of this and many another page! But my mother, shrieking
with alarm, had meantime besought the captain of the boat to settle the
matter by paying whatever was demanded. He also jumped on shore just in
time, and released us from our foes, and himself from further delay, by
doing so.
At the next place at which we could go on shore we made a complaint to
the police officials; and it is not without satisfaction even after the lapse of
half a century that I am able to say that a communication from the police in
an Austrian town some days subsequently, and after we had crossed the
Bavarian frontier, informed us that the old scoundrel at Pleintling had not
only been made to disgorge the sum he had robbed us of, but had been
trounced as he deserved. I suspect that he had imagined from the
strangeness of our party, and our mode of travelling, that there were reasons
why we should not be inclined to seek any interview with the officers of the
police.
With that sole exception our voyage from Ratisbon to Vienna was a
prosperous, and on the whole, pleasant one, varied only by not unfrequently
recurring difficulties occasioned by shoals and sandbanks, when all hands,
save the non-working party in the bow, would take to the water in a truly
amphibious fashion to drag the boat off.
But I must not be led by these moving accidents by flood and field to
forget a visit paid to the sculptor Dannecker in his studio at Stuttgardt.
There is in my mother’s book an etching by M. Hervieu of the man and
place. I remember well the affectionate reverence with which he uncovered
for us his colossal bust of Schiller, as described by my mother, and the
reasons which he assigned (mistaken as they appeared to me, but it is
presumptuous in me to say so) for making it colossal. Schiller had been his
life-long friend, and these reasons, whether artistically good or not, were at
all events morally admirable and pathetically touching as given by the old
man, while looking up at his work with tears in his octogenarian eyes. I do
not think the reproduction of the bust in M. Hervieu’s etching is a very
happy one, but I can testify to the full-length portrait of the aged sculptor
being a thoroughly life-like one. It is the old man himself. He died a year or
two after the date of our visit.
 Uhland too we visited, and Gustav Schwab. Of the former I may say
literally vidi tantum, for I could speak then no German, and very few words
now, and Uhland could speak no other language. And our interview is worth
recording mainly for the case of the noticeable fact that such a man, holding
the position he did and does in the literature of his country, should at that
day have been unable to converse in French.
Gustav Schwab, though talking French fluently, and, as I remember, a
little English also, impressed me as quintessentially German in manner, in
appearance, and ways of thinking. He was one of the kindliest of men,
contented with you only on condition of being permitted to be of service to
you, and at the end of half an hour making you somehow or other feel as if
he must have been an old friend, if not in your present, at least in some
former state of existence.
My journey among these southern Germans left me with the impression
that they are generally a kindly and good-natured people. A little incident
occurred at Tübingen which I thought notably illustrated this. The
university library there is a very fine one; and while the rest of our party
were busied with some other sight-seeing, I went thither and applied to the
librarian for some information respecting the departments in which it was
strong, its rules, &c. He immediately set about complying with my wishes
in the most obliging manner, going through the magnificent suite of rooms
with me himself, and pausing before the shelves wherever he had any
special treasure to show. All of a sudden, without any warning, just as we
were passing through the marble jambs of a doorway from one room to
another, my head began to swim; I lost consciousness, and fell, cutting my
head against the marble sufficiently to cause much bloodshed. When I
recovered my senses I found the librarian standing in consternation over
me, and his pretty young wife on her knees with a basin of water bathing
my head. She had been summoned from her dwelling to attend me, and
there was no end to their kindness. I never experienced such a queer attack
before or since. I suppose it must have been occasioned by too much
erudition on an empty stomach!
Our route to Vienna was a very devious one, including southern Bavaria,
Salzburg, and great part of the Tyrol. But I must not indulge in any
journalising reminiscences of it. Were I to do so in the case of all the
interesting journeys I have made since that day how many volumes would
suffice for the purpose! When calling the other day, only two or three
months ago, on Cardinal Massaia at the Propaganda in Rome in order to
have some conversation with him respecting his thirty-five years’
missionary work in Africa, on returning from which he received the purple
from Leo XIII., he obligingly showed me the MS. which he had prepared
from his recollection of the contents of the original notes, unfortunately
destroyed during his imprisonment by hostile tribes in Africa, and which is
now being printed at the Propaganda Press in ten volumes quarto. His
Eminence was desirous that it should be translated into English, and
published in London with the interesting illustrations he brought home with
him, and which adorn the Roman edition. But as the wish of his Eminence
was that it should be published unabridged (!) I was obliged to tell him that
I feared he would not find a London publisher. We parted very good friends,
and on taking my leave of him he said, pressing my hand kindly, that we
should shortly meet again in heaven—which, considering that he knew he
was talking to a heretic, I felt to be a manifestation of liberal feeling worthy
of note in a cardinal of the Church of Rome.
Will the kind reader, bearing in mind the recognised and almost
privileged garrulity of old age, pardon the chronology-defying introduction
of this anecdote here, which was suggested to me solely by the vision of
what my reminiscences would extend to if I were to treat of all my
wanderings up and down this globe in extenso?
The latter part of our voyage was especially interesting and beautiful, but
tantalising from the impossibility of landing on every lovely spot which
enticed us. Nevertheless, we at last found ourselves at Vienna with much
delight, and our first glimpses of the city disposed us to acquiesce heartily
in the burthen of the favourite Viennese folk-song, “Es ist nur ein
Kaiserstadt, es ist nur ein Wien!”
I remember well an incident which my mother does not mention, but
which seemed likely to make our first début in the Kaiserstadt an
embarrassing one. There was in some hand-bag belonging to some one of
the party an old forgotten pack of playing cards, which the examining
officer of the customs pounced on with an expression of almost
consternation on his face.
“Oh, well, throw them away,” said the spokesman of our party airily, “or,
if the regulations require it, we will pay the duty, though we have not the
least desire to retain possession of them.”
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