Files from the period from 1722 to 1768 report on the reception of a foreign envoy at Mannheim Palace. He was picked up with a 12-horse gala carriage, which drove through the gate into the palace, where he was greeted on the bottom step by courtiers. The chamberlains stood on the first landing, and at the end of the magnificent staircase the chief seneschal. This entire entourage accompanied the envoy through a lane of bodyguards and Swiss guards to the Trabant Hall (Trabantensaal). All pages, guards and footman were there, as well as the chief seneschal, who guided the guest through the electoral apartment, in the rooms of which the entire royal retinue had gathered, to an audience with the Elector.
„Drum hab ich gewünscht, es solle sich Herrmann auf Reisen
Bald begeben und sehen zum wenigsten Straßburg und Frankfurt
Und das freundliche Mannheim, das gleich und heiter gebaut ist;
Denn wer die Städte gesehen, die großen und reinlichen, ruht nicht,
Künftig die Vaterstadt selbst, so klein sie auch sei, zu verzieren.“
Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Herrmann und Dorothea, 1798
The lecture by Max Seubert on "Mannheim's first heyday under Carl Theodor" from 1890 gives us an insight into life at the Court by way of the writings of an anonymous author. "The Court consists of approximately 100 noblemen, who are the youngest of their family and have no other income than the charity of the sovereign. They do not even venture to raise their eyes in the presence of Quinsiborne (possibly the Count of Nassau) and are far humbler than the worms that crawl around on the leaves they gnaw on. These gentlemen torment the good sovereign as long as they can, regardless of the fact that they are also well paid for eating with him..."
In 1998 experts of the then State and University Building Surveyor's Office (Staatliches Hoch- und Universitätsbauamt) in Mannheim came across surprising finds in the Garden Hall (Gartensaal) of Mannheim Palace. First drainage trenches were found, then telephone cable routes from the 1950s and remains of a grease pit for motor vehicles that had been dug in the ground. A large number of historical remains, a total of 161 individual finds, from fossils from the electoral "Cabinet of natural history" to pieces of the magnificent staircase to pieces of leather that are probably from the period when a carriage passageway and dayrooms for the electoral personnel were located here.
"Praise and thank God that I am in my beloved Mannheim again. I assure that if you were here, you would say that. I have still, as long as I am here, not dined at home, for there is truly a group around me; in a word, as I love Mannheim, so Mannheim also loves me" ... writes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on 12 November 1778 to his father Leopold. However, his hopes for a position at the Court were not fulfilled.
Mannheim Palace houses sumptuous Gobelins, which are in some cases measure more than four meters (13 feet) along one edge. These precious objects with exotic scenes were produced in the royal Gobelin manufactory in France at the end of the 18th century. The tapestries had to undergo a careful restoration at the end of the last century. The process becomes a frosty one when live moths are discovered. Then the entire tapestry is frozen, as at -30 °C (-22 °F) neither the little butterflies nor their offspring survive.
The poet Johann Peter Hebel describes the 16 year old Stephanie Napoleon, who came to the Court in July 1806 as the bride of the hereditary prince Carl. "...yesterday, as we paid our respects to the new princess, she generally surprised and won over everyone. In a simple white garment, with several flowers woven into her hair, which one had roguishly passed off for red, as they were really brownish, she stood there with more youthful and virgin grace than with royal dignity, without constraint, without embarrassment... She is of average height, tending towards small, has a healthy appearance, a meaningful eye and was found by most to be pretty... Here temperament is said to be very lively and cheerful, a virtuoso on the piano...".
Elector Carl Theodor decreed that all palaces and powder towers be provided with the five-pointed lightning arrester invented by Johann Jakob Hemmer, full professor at the Mannheim Department of Experimental Physics. At Mannheim Palace there was also a small meteorological station. The daily weather situation, wind direction, wind speed, temperature and humidity were recorded. The Meteorological Society (Meteorologische Gesellschaft) founded in 1780 was concerned with weather forecasts and evaluated the data collected at fixed observation hours.