Darmstadt

And the man he's talking about? Johann Conrad Dippel.

Born in 1673 right inside the damp stone walls of a fortress perched on a wooded ridge just south of Darmstadt, Germany.

It was a fortress that looked across a sweeping Rhine plain, wrapped in the dark fairytale forests of the Oldenwald.

And it had borne a very specific, very heavy name for over four centuries before an 18-year-old Mary Shelley ever picked up a pen.

Well, remember, too, all of this entire area, like the patchwork when we did the train disaster, there's less than a mile away is another baron who's like staring at you over his castle keep, waving a flag and flexing his drip and like rings flashing in the sun like, I can see you over here.

So there's a bunch of these like very, very wealthy families that are either born nobility or they became nobility, and they just all built, like, these big-ass houses to stare at each other over whatever creek, you know? Over the centuries, the Frankenstein family expanded the stronghold, adding a chapel, defensive towers, and outer barracks.

These were warlords, essentially, and generations of them waged bitter, bloody political and religious wars against the local land grieves of Hess-Darmstadt.

Okay, so Hess Dumpshot is the big guy in town.

Äh, das, äh, da hab ich durchaus auch meine Erfahrungen gemacht.

Dann Studium der Elektrotechnik an der TU, nee, an der TH, äh, Darmstadt, äh, lange als Softwareentwickler und ITler gearbeitet, angestellt und freiberuflich und dann kam die Photovoltaik.

Und darüber wollen wir heute vor allen Dingen reden, über Elektrifizierung, äh, des Heims.

Ähm, und ich bin 'n bisschen traurig, dass wir erst jetzt sprechen, äh, weil ich hätte das vor paar Monaten, hätt ich's, glaub ich, besser gebrauchen können, weil wir sind jetzt hier elektrifiziert, haben wahrscheinlich alles falsch gemacht, aber das werd ich jetzt hören.

Among these he notes especially Prince Anton Esterhazy, the principal ambassador of the Emperor, and the Princess Louisa of Mecklenburg, afterwards Queen of Prussia.

This illustrious lady, mother of the late Emperor of Germany, was two years younger than Metternich, but he had known her from childhood, for her grandmother, by whom she had been brought up at Darmstadt, had been on intimate terms with his mother.

from the university of mayence metternich proceeded first to coblentz and then to brussels in the university of which city he became a student but his occupations at this period would seem to have been of a very desultory character the french armies were invading the low countries and metternich relates that his studies were interrupted by having to pass to and fro between brussels and the austrian army sometimes with commissions from his father sometimes to see his friends in this manner visiting also the scenes of military operations he passed the winter of seventeen ninety three and four in the beginning of the latter year he accompanied the chief treasurer of the netherlands government on a mission to london there not only was he received by the king with unusual kindness and appability but he came to know personally william pitt fox burke sheridan grey and other leading men he frequented the sittings of parliament and followed with the deepest interest the trial of warren hastings he adds i endeavoured to acquaint myself thoroughly with the mechanism of the parliament and this was not without use in my subsequent career Amongst those with whom he became intimate was the Prince of Wales, one of the handsomest men I ever saw, and of whose abilities he formed a high opinion.

Whilst in London, the young diplomatist received from his court his nomination to the post of Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at The Hague.

with far greater indignation did he view the movements in those germanic states which had been as he thought completely brought under his influence by the decrees of carlsbad and the conferences of teplitz and twice had he crushed the national aspirations in baden once very decisively in bavaria and wurtemberg but in eighteen forty five there had arisen in baden a movement which though he imprisoned its author he could not suppress in the beginning of eighteen forty eight the liberals of that grand duchy were ready to place themselves at the head of a movement for the unity of germany in wurtemberg the progress had been made more gradual but even there it had far passed beyond the limits allowed by metternich for in eighteen forty seven the king had placed a liberal ministry in power and that ministry had summoned a representative chamber In Bavaria, at the same time, the liberals had forced the king, the lover of Lola Montez, to abdicate.

His son Maximilian confirmed the decree wrung from his father to summon a parliament.

In Hesse-Kassel, in Hesse-Darmstadt, and in Nassau, liberal decrees were wrung from hap-willing, often unwilling rulers, and the system of Metternich seemed everywhere tottering to its fall.

Contemporaneous with these events came the shock, the electric shock, of the revolution in Paris.