The Count and Countess and their guests usually dined in the dining hall on the "Belétage" (primary floor) of the New Palace in Tettnang. The inventory of the movable property prepared on the occasion of the auction of 1780 provides information on the dishes kept there: 109 glasses, mostly with gilded rims, two boxes with 321 drinking glasses and goblets, in the wooden "oven" 26 small goblets. In addition, a common "medical glass" with a lid and two sugar and salt boxes "of faience" are also listed
An anonymous Montfort manuscript from the late 18th to early 19th century also contains a mouthwatering description even for today's gourmets. A cookbook covering around 525 pages has been assembled that leaves nothing to be desired and provides an impression of the dining conventions of rich masters and mistresses:
"Three handfuls of breadcrumbs are scalded with a half "schoppen" (1 schoppen = approx. 13 oz.) of boiling milk. Should the crumbs not be completely moistened, then a little more milk is added. When this has cooled, it is mixed with 3 to 4 eggs, a little sugar, lemon peal and cinnamon are added together with 4 "loth" (1 loth = approx. 1/2 oz.) of washed, small raisins. The mass is placed on a board, long "little sausages" (Würstlein) are laid into hot grease with a knife and any desired sweet sauce is poured over it."
On 11 November 1753 the nearly completed New Palace (Neues Schloss) was almost completely gutted by fire. Count Ernst of Montfort wrote of this to the Count of Waldburg-Wolfegg, "In this most distressing calamity only the archives and the records, in addition to the cellar, have remained undamaged due to the particular care exercised here, as attempts to rescue all else failed." The damage to clothing and furnishings alone is said to have been 100,000 florins.
"We changed horses in Tettnang, an Austrian dominion in an area which served to accommodate Angelica Kaufmann for some time. (...)From Tettnang we traveled through woodlands and meadows. Suddenly the view opened up. (...) This sight was further heightened by the curtain of beams with which the morning sun covered the areas, a curtain of light no one can imagine who has not seen large inland lakes, surrounded by mountains, who has not seen Switzerland." Friedrich Leopold Graf zu Stolberg, 1791
"From Tettnang, which has a pleasant location, the country spreads out ever further and slopes gradually downward toward Lake Constance, planted with gardens, fields and vineyards. Soon the smooth mirror surface, this Swabian Sea, shines forth surrounded by the lovely shores of the hills of Rheineck and Rorschach, behind which the immeasurable amphitheater of Swiss and Tyrolian mountains and of the Grisons rises up into the sky." Karl Urban Keller, 1807
and cover with it the place you want to paint. Then rub the paints to be applied with linseed oil vigorously and paint them on very thinly with the brush and allow it to dry", recommends Theophilus Presbyter around 1200 in his textbook on artistic techniques.
In the Prince's Room (Fürstenzimmer) in the New Palace in Tettnang the restorers found the remains of an original "Lüsterung" (application of a transparent layer of paint on tin, silver or gold) produced in this way. They reconstructed the original painted ornamentation which now give the former guest room of the Count of Montfort a "royal splendor".
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The Minnesinger and Politician Count Hugo of Montfort-Bregenz (1357-1423) descended from a different line of the Montfort dynasty than the later counts who built the New Palace in Tettnang, however is probably the most famous person of his dynasty. The poet describes how he set out into the world at the age of fourteen:
"ich sprach. 'ja herr, ich sag ü für war
ich hatt der tag mint viertzehn jar
sid hân ich wunders vil gesehen.
was plâgen der welt ist beschehen,
(Lied 5, 135-138)