There is something narrow and diminished about the German idyll, as is suggested by the etymology of the word “idyll”, the small image or dainty little picture of rustic life in Greek poetry. German history, which every so often reaches towards universal empires of vast duration, is often born in a provincial context, from horizons no broader than a municipality. For example, one historian gives us the secret plan prepared for the capture of Ulm, in 1701, by Bavarian troops allied to Louis XIV. Some of these had succeeded in infiltrating the city dressed as peasant men and women, with the task (in which they succeeded) of opening the gates of the fortress to their own troops: “Lieutenant Baertelmann will carry a lamb in his arms, Sergeant Kerbler some chickens, while Lieutenant Habbach, dressed as a woman, will carry a basket of eggs …”
The Bavarian troops who thanks to this coup de main became masters of Ulm – the city today is on the border between Baden – Württemberg and Bavaria – were allies of Louis XIV, but the Sun-King’s policy, with its centralistic and imperialistic modernization breaking down local feudal powers, is part of quite another history: it belongs to a chapter which includes Robespierre, Napoleon and Stalin, while the German allies of that French autocrat belong to the medieval, narrow, “idyllic” particularism which modern history, and especially that of France, simply sweeps away.