WILEY AND PUTNAM'S FOREIGN LIBRARY. THE RHINE. THE RHINE: VICTOR HUGO, AUTHOR OF THE "HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME," » " THE LEAVES OF AUTUMN, ' ETC. NEW-YORK: WILEY & PUTNAM, 161 BROADWAY. 1845. R, Cbaiohbad'b Power Preaa, T. B. Smith, Stereotyper 112 Fulton Street. 316 "WilUam Street. PUBLISHER'S ADVERTISEMENT, The publication of Victor Hugo's " Rhine " in Paris cre ated a great sensation, which was immediately shared in England, where two translations of the work appeared in the same year. The best and most complete of these has been followed in the present, the first American edition of the vFork. The quaintness, point and brilliancy of the author it will be seen have not been lost sight of. In the original the " Tour " was accompanied by a long historical dissertation, an elaborate argument on the Affairs of Eu rope, which may find a more appropriate place hereafter in a volume of the Author's Miscellanies. Oct., 1845. CONTENTS LETTER I. LA FERTE-SOUS-JOUARRE. Paris to Meaux — Ferte-sous-Jouarre -Beautiful Valley— Cnanging Horses — The Hunchback and the Gendarme — Meaux 1 LETTER II. MONTMIRAIL — MONTMORT EPERNAY. Peasants emigrating — Chateau of Montmort — Epernay 8 LETTER III. CHALONS — SAINTE MENEHOULD VARENNES. Arrest of Louis XVI. — Varennes — Royal Disasters — The Cathedral- Lady Chapel — Chalons — Miraculous Bell — Sainte Menehould— An Inn Kitchen— The Hostess of an Inn — Beautiful Valley— Clermont — Champagne 12 LETTER IV. FROM VILLERS-COTTERETS TO THE FRONTIERS. Soissons — Stellar Influence — The Mail — A Night Scene — Morning— Rheims to Mezieres — Mezieres — Birth-place of Turenne — Travelling Companions — Rocroy — Givet 24 LETTER V. Givet— Inscription — Entrance into Belgium — An extensive Prospect. . 36 LETTER VI. THE BANKS OF THE MEUSE — DINANT — NAMUR. Banks of the Meuse— Dinant— The Valley of the Meuse — Flemish Scene — Namur — Names 40 LETTER VII. BANKS OF THE MEUSE — HUY — LIEGE. Road to Huy — Huy— Liege 45 viii CONTENTS. LETTER VIII. BANKS OF THE VESDRES— VERVIERS. Chaudfontaines and Verviers — Aix-la-Chapelle 52 LETTER IX. ATX-LA-CHAPELLE THE TOMB OF CHARLEMAGNE. Aix-la-Chapelle — Singular Legend — Satan outwitted — The Cathedral — Remains of Charlemagne — Relics — Silver Pulpit — Napoleon at Aix — Curious Bas-Relief — The Throne of Charlemagne — The Tomb of Charlemagne — Character of Charlemagne — The Allied Sovereigns at Aix — An Old Soldier — Square of the Cathedral — Birth-place of Charlemagne — A Vision 55 LETTER X. COLOGNE BANKS OF THE RHINE. Cologne — The Cathedral — Road from Aix — German Inns — Second Visit to the Cathedral of Cologne — Marie de Medicis — Cologne. ... 71 LETTER XI. Mysteries of History — The Two Queens — Era of Louis XIV SS LETTER XII. MUSEE WALRAF. Something to drink 93 LETTER XIII. Andernach — Tomb of Hoche 0$ LETTER XIV. Andernach 103 LETTER XV. THE RHINE. History of the Rhine jgg LETTER XVI. LA SOURIS. Steaming — A Legend — The Giant of Velmich 12i LETTER XVII. BY THE WAYSIDE. The Silver Bell— The Giant— Night Scene— St. Goar 128 CONTENTS. ix LETTER XVIII. ST. GOAR. Whirlpool and Echo— -The Swiss Valley — Pastoral Scene— A Fairy Legend — The Rheinfels — Oberwesel — A German Supper — Extraor dinary Echo 131 LETTER XIX. Bacharach 139. LETTER XX. FIRE ! FIRE ! ^^ Lorch 144 LETTER XXI. Lorch to Bingen — An Adventure — The Seven Sages— A Poet— A Vil lage Festival — A Mountebank — Extremes meet— Tower of Fiirsten- berg — Parties of Three— Ruins and Wild Flowers — A lonely Spot — Huss and Luther— Man and Nature — Singular Ruins— Singular Scene — Curious Inscription— Rencontre— French-English— Girlhood and Womanhood— Female Curiosity— Oblivion— Legend — The Mause- thurm — Bishop Hatto— Evening— The Bishop and the Rats— Night Scene 150 LETTER XXII. legend of the handsome pecopln and the beautiful bauldour — a legend of the rhine. Part 1 183 Part II.— The Bird f hcenix, and the Planet Venus 185 Part HI. — The Difference betwixt the Ear of an Old Man and the Ear of a Young one 187 Part IV.— Of the divers Qualities essential to divers Embassies. . 190 Part V. — Fidelity rewarded , 1 93 Part VI.— The Devil himself may sin in being a Glutton 194 Part VIZ.- A pleasing Proposition from an old Scholar living in a Hut of Leaves 200 Part VIII— The Wandering Christian. 202r Part IX. — How a Dwarf manages to amuse himself in a Forest. . 205- Part X.— Equis Canibusque 207 Part XI.— What one may risk by mounting a strange Horse ....'. 211 Part XII.— Description of an unpleasant Lodging 215- Part XIII.— Such as the Inn is, so is the Dinner 218 Part XIV. — A new Mode of falling from a Horse 221 Pabt XV. — The Figure of Rhetoric most in favor among the pow ers that be 224 CONTENTS. Part XVI. — Debating whether a Man can recognize a Man he hath never seen 226 Part XVII 228 Part XVIII. — Where serious Minds may find out which is the most important of Metaphors 231 Part XIX.— Divine Philosophy of Four Sages on Two Legs 233 LETTER XXIII. Bingen to Mayence 235 LETTER XXIV. Mayence 245 LETTER XXV. Frankfort-on-the-Main 237 LETTER XXVI. THE RHINE. Sources of the Rhine — The Swiss Republic — Course of the Rhine — Monster Rafts — Steamers of the Rhine — Traditions of the Rhine — Ecclesiastical Power — Seat of Royalty — The seven Electors — The Konigstiihl— The Imperial Eagle— Caub— The Pfalz — Castles of the Rhine 2i59 THE RHINE. LETTER I. La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. Jidy, 1839. The day before yesterday, at about eleven o'clock, I quitted Paris, and took the road to Meaux, leaving to my left St. Denis, Mont- morenc)'-, and the chain of hills at the extremity of which lies St. Pierre ; where, my dear friend, in contemplating that distant speck, I recalled you to my affectionate remembrance, till a sud den turn of the road concealed from my view the spot so dear to us both. You know my taste for long journeys in easy stages, unencum bered with baggage, but accompanied by my friends Virgil and Tacitus ; and will, therefore, readily understand my projects on the present occasion. I took the Chalons road (being well acquainted with that of Soissons, which I travelled some years ago) and found that, thanks to the progress and activity of modern demolition, my new route retains little to interest the tourist. Nanteuil le Haudoin no longer boa.sts its castle, built under Francis I. Villers-Cotterets. has converted the magnificent manor-house of the Dukes of Valois- into a House of Industry ; from whence, as froin other interesting spots, the sculptures and paintings characteristic of the middle ages, as well as the curious ornaments of the sixteenth century, have disappeared under the innovations of bricklayers and plasterers. The grand tower of Dammartin, from the top of which Montmartre, though nine leagues off, was distinctly visible, has been pulled down. A fissure in the side of this turret gave THE RHINE. rise to the well-known proverb (which I never exactly compre hended), " Such-a-one resembles the tower of Danimartin, which split its sides with laughing !" Deprived of its ancient bastille, in which the Bishops of Meaux, when at variance with the Counts of Champagne, had a right to take refuge with seven of their dependants, Dammartin has ceased to be the origin of proverbs ;'but it gives rise to literary notices, such as the following, which I copy, word for word, from a little book I found on the table at the inn : — " Dammartin (Seine et Oise), a small town situated on a hill, contains a manufacture of lace. Principal hotel, the Ste. Anne. Curiosities, the parish church, market-place, and a population of 1600 souls." The quarter of an hour conceded for dinner by that despot of the road, the conductor of the diligence, did not enable me to ascertain how far the sixteen hundred inhabitants were entitled to be called " curiosities ;" and in journeying on to Meaux, before I reached Claye, my vehicle broke down. You are aware that I am fond of pushing forwards on my road ; and, as the cabriolet chose to be stationary, I hastened to ensconce myself in a diligence which luckily came up at the moment with a place vacant. I resumed py journey, perched upon the roof, betwixt a little hunchback and a gendarme. Here I am, therefore, al La Ferte-sous-Jouarre ; a charming little town, which I hailed with pleasure, with its three bridges, its pleasant islands, and an old mill placed midway in the river, and connected with the bank by an arched way. The beautiful pavilion of La Ferte, of the time of Louis XIII., said to have formerly belonged lo the Duke of St. Simon, though defaced by the bad taste of a grocer, its present proprietor, is deserving attention. If the Duke of St. Simon ever did possess this ancient structure. I doubt whether his paternal manor-house of La Ferte-Yidame exhibited a more severely feudal aspect, or offered a fitter frame for the setting off of his aristocratically ducal face, than the charming and secluded little Ch&teau of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. ..This is the very moment for travelling ! The fields are alive with, the business of the harvest-home. Hero and there are risinc immense stacks, resembling in construction the lialf-ruincd pyra- BEAUTIFUL VALLEY. mids so often found in Syria ; while the ridges of cut corn lying on the sides of the hills resemble the back of a zebra. I need not remind you, my dear friend, that renovation of ideas and sensation is the object of my journey, rather than mere adventure : for which purpose a succession of new objects suffices me. I am easily contented. Provided I have vegetation around me, and air above, — a road in view, and a road in my rearf — I have nothing to complain of If the country be flat, the broad horizon delights me ; if mountainous, I rejoice in the unexpected openings of landscape ; and at the summit of every hill I am sure to find an extent of prospect truly delightful. A moment ago we traversed a beautiful valley, having to the right and left a thou sand pleasing features : high hills, intersected by patches of cultivated ground, affording a pleasing prospect : while groups of cottages were interspersed here and there, their roofs almost level with the ground. Farther in the valley was a watercourse, defined by a long line of verdure, and crossed by a little stone moss-grown bridge, at a point meeting the high road. At the moment we arrived a waggon was crossing the bridge, so swollen with merchandize, and so tightly girded, that it resembled the bulky and cinctured body of Gargantua, dragged on four wheels by eight horses. Before us, following the undulation of the opposite hill, the high road was perceptible, under the rays of a brilliant sunshine ; but varied by the dark shadows of its avenues of trees, falling at intervals athwart the road. This little landscape, composed of trees, waggon, the white road, the old bridge, the humble cottages, suflnced to delight my heart. Laugh, if you will ; but such a valley, with the blue sky above, is an object of real enjoyment. Yet I was the only person present who enjoyed the beautiful sight. The other travellers were yawning with weariness the whole time.it was in view. In changing horses, I am sure fo be amused by the operations at the door of the inn. The horses clutter up to the door like a charge of cavalry. Poultry of every color is pecking about the yard and among the bushes; with an old broken wheel in a corner ; and a tribe of dirty children playing merrily on a hgap of sand above my head. Swinging from an iron gallows over our head, hangs Charles V., Joseph II., or Napoleon, mighty emperors THE RHINE. in their day, now reduced to the ignoble duty of serving as signs to obscure inns. The house is distracted by voices giving con tradictory orders ; while the stable-boys and kitchen-maids are acting idylliums and pastorals at the door. The loves of the washtubs and the pitchfork are the only food for eclogues now- extant. Meanwhile I profit by my elevated position upon the roof, to listen to the conversation between the hunchback and the gendarme, as well as to admire the little oasis of dwarf-poppies in full bloom upon the roof of the house. The gendarme and hunchback, by the way, are philosophers in their way, who give themselves no airs, but converse humanely with each other. The hunchback, it seems, contributes six hundred francs of taxes at Jouarre (the Jovis ara of the ancients, as he was kind enough to inform his companion) ; while his father, a resident in Paris, pays nine hundred ; which does not prevent him from blas pheming against government every time he pays a half-penny toll in crossingthe bridge over the Marne, betwixt Meaux and La Ferte. The gendarme, on the other hand, has no taxes to boast of; but he gives us, instead, his autobiography. In the action of ^lont- mirail, in 1814, he fought like a lion, though a mere recruit. In the Revolution of 1830, he ran away, merely because he was a gendarme. To him this appears more unaccountable than it does to me. As a recruit of twenty, unencumbered and without domestic cares, he fought without a drawback ; as a gendarme, he possessed a wife, a child, and (as he himself added) a horse : and, with these cares on his mind, he became a coward. It was the same man under circumstances totally different. Life is a dish that owes its charm to its sauce. There does not exist a braver man than a galley-slave, ^^'e do not estimate our selves by our skin, but by our garments. The man stripped to the skin may be said to care for nothing. The two periods in question were, moreover, of wholly opposite interest. The soldier, like all other men, is aifected by external influences ; and ener gies are diminished or increased by circumstances. In 1830 the storm of a Revolution was blowing ; and he found himself bowed down and overwhelmed by that force of ideas which constitutes the soul of events. And then, what could be more discouraging THE CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX. than his duty ? To fight in defence of inexplicable Orders in Council — mere shadows issuing from a disordered brain — for a dream, a fantasy ; — brother against brother — soldiers against mechanics — Frenchman against Frenchman ! In 1814, on the contrary, the recruit stood up to repel the invader, from evident and simple motives : for himself, his hearth, his family ; for the plough he quitted — for the thatched cottage smoking in the distance — for the ground under his feet — the dear bleeding country of his affections. In 1830 the soldier scarcely knew for whom he fought. In 1814 there was more than know. ledge — there was feeling ; there was the best of lessons — • experience. At Meaux my attention was taken by three objects : first, a delicious little porch against a dismantled church, to the right. in entering the town ; secondly, the cathedral ; and thirdly, in its rear, an old half-fortified mansion, flanked by turrets, and a qua drangular court-yard, into which I boldly entered, undismayed by a woman who sat knitting at the entrance, but who did not in terrupt me. I was much struck with an external staircase, having stone steps, and some curious wood-work, resting upon arches, and covered in with an arcaded roof. I had not time to sketch it ; which I regret, it being the only one of the kind I ever saw. I suppose it to be of the fifteenth century. The Cathedral, begun in the fourteenth century and continued in the fifteenth, is a noble structure, but deteriorated by injudi cious restoration, and still incomplete. Of the two towers pro jected by the architect, one only is built ; the other, which was newly commenced, remains covered in with a roof of slating. The centre door, as well as that to the right, are that of the fourteenth century : and that to the left, of the fifteenth. All three are beautiful, though composed of a stone honey-combed by the influence of the weather. I tried to decipher the bas-reliefs. The key-stone of the porch on the left represents the history of St. John the Baptist ; but the sun falling with dazzling force upon the front, prevented my examining it further. The interior of the church is superb. In the choir are some tri-Iobed groinings of exquisite beauty. They are restoring, at the entrance of the choir, two altars of the most THE RHINE. admirable wood-work of the fifteenth century, but they are injur ing them by smearing them with a vile coat of painting in imita tion of oak. Such is the taste of the natives of Meaux. To the left of the choir, close by the beautiful door, I came upon a kneel ing statue of marble, a warrior of the sixteenth century ; but without either escutcheon or inscription. Of the name and origin of the figure I am ignorant ; though you, who know everything, would perhaps have made it out. On the oppo-site side is another, which fortunately bears an inscription ; for you would otherwise never guess that the worn, severe face, was that of the immortal Bcnigne Bossuet ; to whom I fear I must attribute the destruction of the painted windows. I saw his episcopal throne, superbly carved in the style of Louis XIV.; but had not time to visit his well-known study at the palace. It is a curious fact that Meaux possessed a theatre before Paris could boast of one; a neat theatre, built about 1.547. A manuscript contained in the town library asserts that it was a circus in the style of the ancients, covered with a velarium ; and so far resembling the modern theatre, that there were private boxes, of which certain of the inhabitants of Meaux possessed the keys. Mysteries were there performed, and a man named Pasca- lus acted the part of the devil, and retained the nickname. In 1562 he made over the town to the Huguenots ; the year following the Catholics hung him — partly for having surrendered the town, partly because of his appellation. Now-a-davs, Paris has twenty theatres ; Meaux boasts of having but one : which is much as if she were to exult in being a country-town instead of a metropolis. This country abounds in remains of the age of Louis XIY. At La Fert6 we find the Duke de St. Simon ; at Meaux, Bossuet • at La Ferte-Milon, Racine ; at Chateau Thierry, La Fontaine : the whole in a radius of twelve leagues. The haughty aristocrat elbows the puissant bishop : while Tragedy takes her place by the side of Fable. On leaving the Cathedral, tlie sun being less powerful, I was able to contemplate the faqade, of which the relief upon the cen tral portal is the most curious. The lower compartment 'repre sents Joan, the wife of Philippe-le-Bel, to whose will this church THE CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX. owes its erection. The Queen of France, holding her cathedral in her hand, is represented standing at the gates of Paradise, which St. Peter throws open. Behind the queen stands the hand some monarch Philippe, in the most abject attitude. The queen, who is gracefully represented, points over her shoulder towards the poor devil of a king — as much as to say to St. Peter, " Give him admission into the bargain : I have paid the entrance for two." THE RHINE. LETTER II. Montmirail — Montmort — Epemay. At La Fert6-sous-Jouarre I hired the first vehicle I could procure, making only two inquiries — " Does it ride steady ?" — and " Are the wheels good ?" — which being satisfactorily answered, away I went to Montmirail. There is nothing remarkable about this little town, but a fresh landscape at the entrance, and two fine avenues. With the exception of the Castle, it consists of a col lection of hovels. At five in the afternoon I quitted Montmirail, taking the road from Sezanne to Epernay. In an hour I reached Vaux-Champs, traversing the field of battle. A moment before, I came up with a cart drawn by a horse and an ass, and laden with saucepans, coppers, old boxes, straw chairs, and other dilapidated furniture ; on the fore part of the vehicle was a basket containing three half- naked children, and in the rear another basket full of poultry. The carter, dressed in a smock-frock, carried an infant on his back ; while a woman, trudging by his side, seemed likely to furnish another. They were proceeding towards Montmirail. "Just such objects must this spot have presented five and twenty years ago," was my reflection. On inquiry I found it was not an ordinary move, but an expatriation, the family being on their way to Ameri- ca ; not flying from a field of battle, but from the pursuit of want : or, in plain words, a poor family of Alsatian peasants, to whom a grant of land has been accorded in Ohio ; and ^\ho quit their native country, little thinking that Virgil wrote beautiful verses about them two thousand years ao-o. These poor people seemed little concerned as to their fate. The man was quietly attaching a thong to his whip, the woman hum ming a tune, while the children were amusing themselves with play. The furniture was painful to look at. The fowls alone appeared depressed by their journey. CHATEAU OF MONTMORT. This indifference astonished me, for I believed the love of country to be more deeply rooted in the heart of man. After all, these people abandon with indifference the trees under which they grew to maturity. I followed them some time with my eyes, wondering which road the wretched group would take ; but, by the winding of the road, they suddenly disappeared. For some time afterwards I heard the smack of the man's whip and the hum of the woman's song, and all was over. Soon afterwards I found myself upon the plains rendered glori ous by Napoleon. The sun was sinking, the trees shot forth their shadows, so that the furrows were slightly defined here and there. A grey mist was rising from the ravines, and the fields were de serted, so that nothing was to be seen but an occasional plough. To my left was a stone-quarry, where the newly rounded mill stones were strewed upon the ground, like the men upon an im mense draught-board, of which giants had been playing the game. As I much wished to see the Chateau of Montmort, about four leagues from Montmirail, at Armentieres, I turned abruptly to the left, and took the road to Epernay, at the point where sixteen huge elms, bending over the road, exhibit their wild profiles and dishevelled wigs. I delight in the elm. All other trees are monotonous and unmeaning. The elm seems imbued with a ma licious spirit, and disposed to make game of its neighbors, and assume fantastic shapes to puzzle the evening traveller. The foliage of young elms expands in all directions, like the explosion of a firework. From La Fert6 to the spot where stand the six teen elms the road is lined only with poplars, interspersed with a few aspens and walnut-trees, which had disturbed my peace of mind. The country is flat, and apparently boundless. But on sudden ly emerging from a clump of trees, the traveller detects to the right, as if starting from the earth, a confused multitude of turrets, weathercocks, chimneys, and skylights, belonging to the Castle of Montmort. I quitted the carriage at the entrance of the castle, which is a beautiful specimen of the castellated style of the sixteenth centu ry, built of brick, and having a slated roof with ornamental weathercocks. It is moated and flanked with a double wall. 10 THE RHINE. besides three arched bridges communicating with the drawbridge. All this is situated in a beautiful landscape, commanding seven leagues, of horizon ; and, on the whole, the edifice is in good pre servation. The principal tower contains a winding staircase, as well as a slope for horses. There is a curious old iron door from the staircase, and in the embrasures are four little iron implements of the fifteenth century. The garrison of the castle consisted of an old housekeeper, named Mademoiselle Jeanette, who received me graciously. Of the old apartments, there remains only the kitchen, which is spacious and vaulted ; the old drawing-room, turned into a billiard- room ; and a charming little boudoir, with gilt mouldings, and a beautifully designed rosette on the centre-piece of the ceiling. The old drawing-room is unique ; the cross-beams of the ceiling painted, gilt, and carved, still existing in a perfect state. The spacious chimney-piece, adorned with two noble statues, is in the grand style of Henri III. The walls were formerly hung with tapestry, representing family portraits ; but during the Revolu tion the people of the village tore them down and burnt them — a worthy war to wage against feudality. The present proprietor has pasted up in their stead some old engravings of views in Rome and the wars of Conde, in honor of which magnificence I bestowed a sum of thirty sous on Mademoiselle Jeanette. After a glance at the ducks swimming in the fosse, I went my way. Having quitted Montmort by an execrable road, I met the mail which was to convey you my former letter, and I forwarded by it a thousand good wishes to my dearest friend. The road now lay through a wood. Night was coming on, and nothing was to be seen but the huts of the charcoal-burners, smoking through the trees. The flames from an occasional furnace were at times visible through the dusk ; the wind agitat ed the trees ; and in the heavens the splendid chariot proceeded majestically above, escorted by myriads of stars, while my hum ble vehicle was jolting along solitarily below. Epernay is the City of sparkling Champagne, and neither more nor less. It has three churches : the first, of Roman architecture, built in 1037, by Thibaut, first Count of Champagne, son of Eudes EPERNAY. 11 II ; the second, a church of the middle ages, was built in 1540, by Pierre Strozzi, Field-Marshal of France, and Lord of Epernay, who was killed at the siege of Thionville, in 1558 ; the third, the church for divine service, appears to me to have been con structed upon the designs of the estimable grocer whose shop seems to form part of the building. The three names annexed to their history may suffice to describe them, viz. : Thibaut, Count of Champagne ; Pierre Strozzi, Marshal of France ; Poterlet Galichet, grocer ; — and I need scarcely inform you that this last is a disgraceful heap of lath and plaster. Of the first little remains ; and of the second, a beautiful porch, and some stained glass, part of which represents the history of Noah, depicted in the most diverting manner. Both the porch and windows are half buried in this disgusting plaster, which reminded me of Odry, the actor, with his blue stockings and high shirt-collar, attired in the helmet and cuirass of Francis I. I was advised to visit a cellar ¦ containina; fifteen hundred thou- sand bottles of wine ; but on my road I chanced upon a field so beautifully bespangled with wild flowers, and so bright with sun shine, that I could not tear myself away to proceed to a cellar. The pomatum for regenerating the hair, which at La Ferte is called Pilogene, is called at Epernay Phyothrix, being a Greek importation. At the hotel of Montmirail, I had to pay forty sous for four fresh eggs ; which, for the country, struck me as some what high. I forgot to mention that Thibaut lies buried in his own church, and Strozzi in his ; and I am inclined to exact a sepulture in the other for my friend the grocer. Strozzi was a fine fellow. Bris- guet, the court jester of Henri II., affected one day to amuse the court by smearing his new velvet mantle with grease. The Countess laughed, but Strozzi exacted bitter tears by his vengeance on the unfortunate fool. For my part I should neither have laughed nor revenged myself; and I have always been inclined to hold cheap this sorry jest of the Renaissance. 12 THE RHINE. LETTER III. Chalons — Sainte Menehould — Varennes. July^. Yesterday, towards the evening, I was journeying on beyond Ste. Menehould, having just read those admirable lines — " Mugitusque boum mollesque sub arbore somni. ^ ***** Speluncse vivique lacus " — and was leaning upon the eternal pages of the old poet, rumpling them with my elbow — my soul full of the vague ideas, at once sad and welcome, which sunset often awakens in the mind — w hen I was roused by a jolt upon the pavement. We were enter ing a town. " What is the name of this town ?" I inquired. To which the coachman replied, " Varennes." The carriage proceeded down a street of gloomy aspect, in which the grass is growing, and the shutters of the houses are closed. After passing a gateway of the time of Louis XIII., of blackened stones, beside which was an antiquated well, we reached a triangular space hemmed in with white stuccoed dwelling-houses, in an angle of which was a door guarded by two stunted trees. On one side of this triangle stands an old belfry ; close to which Louis -WI. and Marie An toinette were arrested in their flight, the '^Ist of June, 1791, by Di-ouet, the postmaster of Ste. Menehould (there being no postino-- house at Varennes in those days). The king's carriage followed the hypotheniise of the triangle forming the Place ; which I now took in my turn. Lea.vin£T my vehicle, I stood and gazed upon this insignificant space, which in so short a space of time was fated to become the fountain-head of the Revolution. ARREST OF LOUIS XVI. 13 The version of the arrest related by the inhabitants is, that the king stoutly denied his identity (which, by the way, Charles I. would never have done\ and they were on the point of liberating him, when suddenly there came up a M. d'Elhe, who had some feeling of malice against the court. This M. d'Eth6 — I know not whether I write his name correctly (but I am not particular about the orthography of the names of traitors) — this man, I say, advanced towards the king, with Judas-like cunning, accosting him with " Good day. Sire." This was enough ! The king was denounced and arrested. There were five royal personages in the carriage, all lost by this single word. And " Good day, Sire," was the death-warrant of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, and Madame Elizabeth, besides a dungeon and early death to the Dauphin, and to Madame Royale long exile and the extinction of her race. To the observant man, Varennes has a mysterious aspect ; to the reflective man, a sinister one ! I have already noticed to yqu, I think, that material nature often exhibits singular portraits. Louis was darting, at the mo ment of his arrest, down a rapid and dangerous descent, where my own horse was nearly falling. The quarry-'ground strewed with huge millstones, which the other day appeared to me like a draught-board, was the site of the action of Montmirail ! — while the triangular Place of Varennes exactly represents the shape of the knife of the guillotine ! The man who aided Drouet in the capture of the king was named Billaud : why not Billot ? Varennes is only fifteen leagues from Rheims, the coronation city of the ancient kings of France. But then, the Place de la Revolution, on which was acted the fatal tragedy of the 21st of January, is close to the palace of the Tuileries. How these ap proximations must have tortured the poor fallen king ! Between Rheims and Varennes, between the coronation and the forfeiture of the throne, my coachman finds only fifteen leagues distance ; but for the mind, there is the vast abyss produced by the Revo lution. ^Pl I put up at an old establishe* inlf, the Grand Monarque, having for its sign the head of Louis-Philippe, which has probably suc ceeded to those of Louis XV., Bonaparte, and Charles X. It is 14 THE RHL^E. exactly ibrty-eight years ago since the progress of the royal car riage was intercepted in this town, at which period the head sus pended from that old twisted branch of iron was doubtless that of Louis XVI., who may have possibly put up at the Grand Mo- narque, and seen his own effigies suspended over the door. So goes the world ! This morning I strolled about the town of Varennes, which is charmingly situated on the banks of the river, the antiquated houses of the high town forming a picturesque amphitheatre on the right bank. The church, in the low town, is insignificant. The steeple bears the date 1776 ; it was consequently two years older than Madame Royale. The royal disaster has left ineffable traces here — a rare in- stance in France. The innkeeper informed me that a gentleman of the town had written a comedy upon the subject ; which re minds me that when they were disguising the Dauphin as a girl, in order to aid his escape, he inquired of Madame Royale if it '•' were to act a play ?" I have just visited the church, to which I owe an apology ; for the portal to the right was pretty enough. If my architectural descriptions do not weary you, allow me to confess that I was disappointed with the Cathedral of Chalons. Neither is the road so interesting as I expected. One obtains an occasional glimpse of the Marne, on the banks of which there are two or three pointed Steeples, in the style of Fecamp ; but the country consists of a succession of plains alive with flocks and shepherds ; excellent features in a landscape — but one may have too much of a food thing. The cathedral is an imposing structure, and possesses some beautiful stained glass. In a beautiful liule chapel I detected the F and salamander of Francis I. Externally there is a Roman tower in the severest style, and an exquisite portal of the four- teenth century. But all is dreadfully dilapidated. The church is dirty ; and th^tatue of Francis I. and the groinings of the roof are daubed \9ih paiiit. .Jhiportal is a vile'imitation of St. Gervais in Paris; and" as to the ftpen worked steeples I was pro mised, there is nothing of the kind. Those I saw had heavy LADY-CHAPEL. 15 pointed caps of stone, with volutes intermingled with the spires. I was greatly disappointed. In compensation for not seeing all I expected, I met with what I did not expect at Chalons, viz., a splendid Lady-chapel. What have the antiquarians been about ? They talk of St. Stephen's, but do not mention the Lady-chapel, which, with its lofty steeple, constructed of wood and covered with lead, is of the fourteenth century. This lofty shaft, the lead of which has a scale-like sur face, resembling a serpent's skin, has an ornamental skylight, with diminutive gables half-way up, into which I ascended. The view of the city and the river, seen from thence, delighted me. The traveller has also to admire the rich windows and front en trance, built in the thirteenth century. In 1793 the people of the country demolished the statues and broke down the various ornamental sculptures throughout the edifice. Previous to this there were also four minarets, of which three were destroyed. Nowhere has the idiotic frenzy of the Revolution left more disa greeable traces than here. The revolution of Paris was terrible ; that of Champagne simply ridiculous. On the lead of the little lantern, to which I ascended, I found an inscription in the hand-writing of the sixteenth century, to the following effect : " The 28th of August, 1580, Peace was pro claimed at Chalons." This inscription, half effaced, is all that remains to record that important political event, the peace concluded between Henri III. and the Huguenots, through the influence of the Duke of Anjou, formerly Duke of Alen^on ; which duke, brother of the king, had views upon the Low Countries, and even aspired to the hand of Elizabeth of England. The religious feuds of France interfered with his projects ; and hence the origin of that great event, the peace proclaimed at Chalons in 1580, and all but forgotten in 1839. The man who helped me to scale the lantern is called the watchman of the tower ; and from this eminence, exposed to all the winds of heaven, he surveys his universe, and constitutes the eye of the town, bedless and eyef wide awake. To make sure of not being overtaken by sleep, he is compelled to repeat the hour every time it is struck by the clock, and make a pause be- 16 THE RHINE. tween the last and preceding stroke. To be always awake would be impossible ; and the assistance of his wife is accordingly per mitted. At midnight she takes her post, and her husband goes to bed, returning at mid-day, when she retires again. These two human beings are devoted to this strange diurnal rotation, meeting only for a minute, once at mid-day, and once at midnight ; and an imp, which they are pleased to consider a child, is the result of their strangely disunited union. Chalons possesses three churches — St. Alpin, St. John, and St. Loup. The first has some beautiful stained windows. As to the town-hall, it possesses nothing remarkable, but four enormous dogs in granite, squatted before the faqade. About two leagues from Chalons upon the road to Ste. Mene- hould, where the eye encounters little besides boundless stubble- fields and lines of dusty trees, a magnificent object suddenly strikes you — the abbey of " Our Lady of the Thorn." It has a steeple of the fifteenth century, as light and open as lace ; though coupled with a telegraph, which, like a fine lady, it seems to look down upon with supreme contempt. It is startling to come upon such a magnificent structure in such a wilderness. I passed two hours in this church, and wandered around it, in spite of a hurri cane which shook the bells to vibration. From time to time a stone fell from the steeple, close at my feet. The water-spouts are most fantastically contrived : chiefly of a monster bearing another upon its shoulders. Those of the apsis seem to represent the Seven Deadly Sins. A voluptuous figure of Wantonness must have rather scandalized the monks. So few are the dwellings in the neighborhood, that it seems dif ficult to account for the origin of a cathedral without town or even village, [n the chapel, however, carefully padlocked, there is a miraculous well, plain and simple, as all miraculous objects ought to be. It is doubtless from this supernatural origin that the church sprang up, like a tulip from its bulb. I journeyed on, till I reached a village which was celebratmc its annual festival with most discordant music ; on leaving which, I discovered a mean-looking building upon an eminence, crowned by an object resembling some monstrous insect. It turned out to STE. MENEHOULD. 17 be a telegraph, conversing in signs with its corresponding neigh bor at N6tre Dame de I'Epine. Evening approached, and 'the sunset was magnificent. I con templated the distant hills from a plain or heath, purple with bloom as a bishop's robing. On a sudden I saw a road-mender raise his barrow, as if to shelter himself under the side, and in ferred that rain was about to fall. A heavy black cloud had overspread us ; the wind was im petuous, and the hemlock, in full bloom, drooped its head. The trees seemed trembling with horror, while thistledown flew along the road swifter than the carriage. Threatening clouds rolled over our heads, till suddenly the storm burst forth with singular beauty ; for a vast arch of light still occupied the western sky, so that the dark shadows of the storm were intermingled with the golden hues of sunset. Neither man nor brute was visible. The thunder roared, and vivid flames of lightning served to reveal the features of the surrounding plains. The branches of the trees writhed under the tyranny of the whirlwind. All this lasted a quarter of an h(*ir, when an awful gust of windi dispersing the concentrated clouds, the summits of the eastern hills peeped out, and the heavens became restored to peace andi serenity. Meanwhile twilight had come on ; and the sun was dissolv ing in the west into streaks of red, which the approaching night- gradually extinguished in the horizon. It was starlight when I reached Ste. Men6hould, which is rather a picturesque town, lying upon the declivity of a green" hill, crested by a line of lofty trees. The kitchen of the H6tel de Metz is a kitchen worth speaking of; being an immense hall, one side of which is decorated with rows of saucepans, the other with crockery. In the centre, opposite the windows, is the fire place, a vast cavern, containing a splendid iwe. The ceiling is traversed by blackened beams, from which are suspended the different household implements ; while in the centre is an ample rack, stored with hams and huge flitches of bacon. Un der the chimney is a bright profusion of fire-irons and other household • utensils ; and the flaming hearth ¦ seemed to shoot its rays into every corner, and defining broad shadows on the 3 18 THE RHINE. ceiling, cast a roseate hue upon the crockery, and metamor phosed the display of copper into a brazen wall. Were I a Homer or a Rabelais, I should say that such a kitchen was a world, of which the fire was the sun ; but if not a world, it is decidedly a republic of men, women, and animals. Sta ble-boys, chamber-maids, scullions, stoves, spits, the bubbling of saucepans, the hissing of frying-pans, pipes, cards, dogs and cats ; all inspected by the vigilant eye of the host : " Mens agitat molem." A grave-looking clock, placed in a remote comer, authorita tively warns the busy hive of the passing hour. Among the endless articles hanging from the ceiling, a bird cage especially attracted my attention. This diminutive creature appeared to me the very type of domestic confidence. This den, this laboratory of indigestions, is full of discordant sounds both day and night, and yet the little creature sleeps quietly as in its nest. Vainly do the men swear, the women brawl, the children cry, the dogs bark, the cats mew, the clocks strike, the choppers clatter, the frying-pans sputter. The fountain may run, the jack may squeak, the wind howl, tha diligences thunder under the archway ; — yet still this little ball of feathers sleeps with its head under its wing. God is great ; inspiring even a bird with faith. I must here remark that the world in general is unjust with re gard to inns. I, for one, have often spoken harshly of them. An inn is an indispensable thing, which we should consider ourselves only too lucky to find when wanted ; and \\hich, generally speak ing, contains a most meritorious woman in the shape of the host ess ! Of the landlord let travellers say their worst. Mine host is generally as great a brute as the hostess is good-humored. Poor woman ! often old and infirm, or young and a mother, or thereanent, she goes, comes, sees to everything, completes every thing, scolds where scolding is wanted, wipes the children's noses, whip^the dogs, curries favor with the travellers, cajoles the head cook, smiles at one person, frowns at another, keeps an eye upon the stores, welcomes the newly-arrived guests, and bids farewell to the departing ones : her whole soul and senses ever on the alert! The hostess is the soul of that huge body called an inn ; the host a mere cypher — a pot-companion for carters. Thanks to BEAUTIFUL VALLEY. 19 the hostess, we overlook the penalty of inn-hospitality. Her well- timed assiduities serve as a veil to the impositions of her bill and the venality of her welcome. The hostess of the " City of Metz," at Ste. Menehould, is a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, who manages the establishment to perfection, though a performer on the piano. Her father, the host, appears to be a worthy man, and the inn is excellent. Yesterday I quitted Ste. Menehould for Clermont; the road to which is beautiful, being a continuous orchard. The villages have an aspect partly Swiss, partly German ; the houses being built in the style of chalets. Already you foresee your approach to the mountains. The Ardennes are in fact at hand. Before arriving at Clermont you pass through a beautiful val ley, uniting the boundaries of the Marne and Meuse. The de scent into this valley is enchanting. The road precipitates itself between two high hills ; while above is a dense mass of foliage, overhanging the winding road, till, on a sudden turn, the valley presents itself. A vast circle of hills, in the midst of which is an Italian-look ing flat-roofed village, and to the right and left hamlets perched upon the wooded heights, distant steeples rising here and there, immense pastures with numerous herds, and finally a lively stream, form the features of the spot. I was a full hour pass ing through this valley. A telegraph placed at the extremity was actively employed during my transit ; while the trees rustled, the stream murmured, and the cattle lowed in the sunshine ; and I occupied myself in comparing the goodness of the Creator with that of the created. Clermont is a beautiful village, overlooking a sea of verdure, just as Treport appears to control the waves. Through a pleas- inof country of hills, plains, and streams, to the left, in two hours you reach Varennes. The unfortunate Louis XVI. followed this beautiful road to his ruin ! I must not close this letter without mention of the illustrious names belonging to Champagne : Amyot ; La Fontaine ; Thibaut IV., the poet prince, all but a king, who desired no better than to have been the father of St. Louis ; Robert de Sorbon, the founder of the Sorbonne ; Charlier de Gerson, who was Chancellor of the 20 THE RHINE. University of Paris ; the Commander of Villegagnon, who nearly assigned Algiers to France in the sixteenth century ; Amadis Ja- myn ; Colbert ; Diderot ; two painters, Dantara and le Valentin ; two sculptors, Girardon and Bouchardon ; two historians, Flodo- ard and Mabillon ; two illustrious cardinals, Henri de Lorraine and Paul de Gondi ; two eminent popes, Martin IV. and Urban IV. ; to crown all, a king no less important than Philip- Augustus. Those who hold to fitness of things, and translate Sezanne by sexdecim asini — as they used formerly to translate Fontanes by faciunt asinos — will rejoice to find that in the province of spark ling Champagne was born the author of the " Dictionary of Rhymes," Richelet, and Poincinet, the most mystified of an age in which Voltaire mystified the whole world. You believe in sym pathies, and that the mind and works of individuals assimilate with the nature of their parent soil ; regarding as inevitable that Bonaparte should have been a Corsican, Mazarin an Italian, and Henri IV. a Gascon ; you will be surprised to hear that Mirabeau is almost a native of Champagne ; Danton really so. What have you to say in defence of your theory ? After all, why should not Danton be a Champagnese 1 Is not Vaugelas a native of Savoy ? The great Fabert was also of Champagnese origin ; that fa mous marshal was the son of a bookseller, and chose never to rise too high or fall too low ; a pure and meditative spirit, which kept studiously within the extreme limits of his singular fortune. Tried by the successive ordeals of prosperity and adversity, he was unchanged by the humiliations as well as by the vanities of life ; neither rejecting the one from pride, nor the other from ab- jectness, but both from the same unflinching self-possession. He refused to be the spy of Mazarin, and to accept the blue riband from Louis XIV. : replying to the latter, " I am a soldier, not a gentleman ;" to Mazarin, " I am the arm of the state, but not its eye." In the olden time Champagne was a powerful and important province. The Count of Champagne was Lord of Brie (which Brie itself is a little Champagne, just as Belgium is a minor France). The Count of Champagne was an hereditary prince, and bore the banner of the Lilies of Bourbon, at the coronation CHAMPAGNE. 21 of the kings of Rome. He convened his own states, composed of seven peers, called the Peers of Champagne ; viz. the Counts of Joigny, Rdthel, Braine, Roucy, Brienne, Grand Pre, and Bar-sur- Seine. Scarcely a town in this province but has an interesting origin, or a district but is the scene of some adventure. In the cathedral of Rheims Clovis received the rites of baptism. Troyes was saved from Attila by St. Loup in 878, and was the scene of the same ceremony solemnized in Paris in 1804 — a pope crowning an emperor in France, in the coronation of Louis-le-Begue by John VIII. It was at Attigny that Pepin, Mayor of the Palace, held his high court of justice, from whence he held at bay Gaiffer, Duke of Aquitaine. At Andelot the interview took place betwixt Gontran, king of Burgundy, and Childebert, king of Austrasia. Hincmar found refuge at Epernay ; Abeilard, at Provins ; He- loise, at Paraclete ; and a Council was held at Fismes. During the Lower Empire, Langres witnessed the triumphs of the two Gordians ; and in the middle ages its inhabitants over threw the seven formidable Castles of Changey, St. Broing, Neuil- ly-Coton, Cobons, Bourg, Humes, and Pailly. At Joinville, in 1584, was concluded the War of the League. Chalons aflbrded a refuge to Henri IV. in 1591 ; and at St. Dizier the Prince of Orange met with his fate. In Doulevant the Count of Moret sought refuge. Bourmont is the ancient stronghold of the Lin- gons ; Sezanne, the military head-quarters of the Dukes of Bur- o-undy. The Abbey of Ligny was founded by St. Bernard, in the patrimony of the Lords of Chatillon, to whom the saint pro mised, by an authentic deed, as many acres of land in Paradise as they granted him on earth ! Manzon is the fief of the Abbey St. Hubert, bound to send an annual tribute to the Kings of France of six hounds and six hawks. Chaumont is the place where they pray to the devil on the festival of St. John, that they may be enabled to pay their debts ; Chateau-Poroien is the town given by the Connetable de Chatillon to the Duke of Orleans. Bar-sur- Aube is the town which the king could neither sell nor alienate. Clairvaux, like Heidelburg, is famous for its tun. Anconville still possesses the cairn of the Huguenots, which every peasant pass ing bv increases by adding a stone. The signals of Mont-aigu 22 THE RHINE. corresponded with those of Mont-aime, twenty leagues off. Vassy was twice burnt — once by the Romans in 211, and in 1544 by the Imperialists ; and in like manner, Langres, by the Huns in 351, and by the Vandals in 407. Vitry, too, was burnt by Louis VII. in the twelfth, and by Charles V. in the sixteenth century. Ste. Menehould is that noble capital of Argonne which, sold by a traitor to Charles II., Duke of Lorraine, refused to surren der. Carignan is the Ivoi of the olden time ; and Attila erected an altar at Pont-le-Roi. At Romilly a cenotaph was erected to Voltaire. The local history of these places constitutes a portion of the history of France — small, it is true, but highly important. Champagne teems with reminiscences of the sovereigns of our ancient kingdom. Their coronations took place at Rheims. It was at Attigny that Charles the Simple founded the royal fief of Bourbon'. St. Louis and Louis XIV., the great saint and great mo narch of the race, first trod the field of glory in Champagne ; the first in 1228, at Troyes, of which he raised the siege ; the second at Ste. Menehould, into which he entered by the breach, in 1652. By a singular coincidence, both of these sovereigns were fourteen years of age at the time of the exploit. Champagne has also some traces of Napoleon ; for, alas ! many towns of this province figure in the last fatal pages of his prodi gious epic. Arcis-sur-Aube, Chalons, Rheims, Champaubert, Se zanne, Vertus, Mery, La Fere, Montmirail : as many triumphs as fields of action. Fismes, Vitry, and Doulevant had each the honor of being his head-quarters ; Piney Luxembourg twice, and Troyes three times. Nogent-sur-Seine beheld five victories gained by the emperor in five days, manoeuvring on the banks of the Marne with a handful of heroes. St. Dizier saw two victo ries in eight and forty hours. At Brienne, where he had been educated by a Benedictine, he was nearly slain by a Cossack ! The ancient annals of this portion of Belgic Gaul, which be came Champagne, are not less poetical than those of more modern times. Her plains teem with memories of the past : of Meroveus and the Franks : Aetius and the Romans ; Theodoric and the Visigoths. Mount Julius, the tomb of Jovinus ; the Camp of CHAMPAGNE. Attila, near La Cheppe ; the military roads of CiiMons, Gruy^res, and Warcq ; Voromarus, Caracalla, Eponinus, and Sabinus ; the Arch of the two Gordians at Langres ; the gate of Mars at Rheims ; all these are so many attestations of history. Antiquity still lives and breathes, and from the dust of ages cries aloud, " Sta, viator .'" Even Celtic antiquity sends forth her confused luurmurs from the darkest night. Osiris was worshipped at Troyes ; the idol Borvo Tomona has left its name at Bourbonne- les Bains ; and near Vassy, under the deep shades of the forest of Der, where the Haute Borne grimly rises like the spectre of a Druid ; and in the strange ruins of Noviomagus Vadicassium, Champagne exhibits its surviving link to the mysteries of the youth of time. From the period of the Romans till the present, besieged in turns by the Alains, the Suevi, the Vandals, the Burgundians, and the Germans, the cities of Champagne have submitted to all extremities rather than surrender. The device of their rock-built cities is " Donee moveantur .'" The blood of the ancient Gallia Comata, of the Catti, the Lingons, the Tricassii, the Catalaunians (who defeated the Vandals), and the Nervians (who conquered Siagrius), still flows in the veins of the Champagne peasantry. It was a soldier of Champagne, named Berteche, who, single-handed, killed seven Austrian dragoons at the battle of Jemappes. In 451 the plains of Champagne were saturated with the blood of the Huns ; and had it pleased Gt)d, might have equally imbibed that of the Russians in 1814. Let us speak, therefore, with due respect of this devoted pro vince, which, in the last invasion of France, sacrificed half its children to the defence of our native country. The population of the department of the Marne alone, in 1813, was 311,000 souls ; in 1830, it had not yet re-accomplished 309,000 ! Fifteen years of peace had not sufficed to repair the sacrifices' of the people. 24 ' THE RHINE. LETTER IV. From Villers-Cotterets to the Frontiers. GivKT, July 29. [ HAVE been travelling more rapidly, my dear friend, and write to you from the little town in which Louis XVIII. gave his last order of the day, in his flight from France, and made his last pun : " St. Denis, Givet " (J'y vais). I arrived here at four o'clock, pummelled to death by the ingenious machine which the people persist in calling a diligence. Having slept in my clothes for a couple of hours, and the day having broken, I rise to write to you. On opening my window to enjoy the view, I discerned the angle of a whitewashed wall, a moss-choked gutter, and an old cart wheel reclining against the wall. As to my room, it is a vast ward, furnished with four huge beds. The yawning chimney is surmounted with a wretched glass ; while on the hearth lies a fagot, equally diminutive, a hearth broom, and a ferocious-looking bootjack, the aperture of which rivals the sinuosities of the Meuse, and wo betide the wretch who puts his foot into it — for once inserted, let him extricate it if he' can. Others, like myself, have probably limped about the house with the bootjack affixed to their heel, crying aloud for help. To do justice to the view I just now maligned, let me admit that on leaning from nsy window I dis covered a beautiful mallow in full bloom, standing on a plank, supported by two pipkins, and giving itself all the airs of a choice rose-tree. Since my last letter a trifling incident, not worth relating, forced me to retrace my steps from Varennes to Villers-Cotterets; and the day before yesterday, dismissing my vehicle, I took the diligence to Soissons, which being empty, I was able to unfold my Cassini maps on the opposite seat. SOISSONS. 25 Evening was closing as I approached Sfeissons ; aud the smoke- dispensing hand of night nearly concealed the beautiful valley in which is sunk the village of La Folic. The tower of the cathe dral and the double spire of St. John of the Vineyards were also nearly effaced. Through the vapors pervading the country, however, the mass of walls, roofs, and edifices, called Soissons, half surrounded by the steel crescent of the Aisne, like a sheaf to which the sickle is applied, was partly visible. I paused on the summit of the hill, to enjoy this beautiful scene. Crickets were chirping in the adjoining field ; the trees murmured softly, and were trembling with the parting sighs of the evening breeze, as I gazed atten tively, with the eyes of my mind, upon the profound calm of the mighty plain, which had witnessed a victory of Csesar, the rule of Clovis, and the wavering of Napoleon. Mankind — even Csesar, Clovis, and Napoleon — are but passing shadows. Even war is a shade that passes in their train ; while the Almighty and the works of his hand, and the peace of nature by which they are overspread, abide in Unchanged sublimity foir ever and ever. Intending to take the mail to Sedan, which arrives at Soissons at midnight, I allowed the diligence to proceed without me to the town — the distance being a pleasant walk. When near my journey's close, I rested myself beside a neat-looking house, upon which was reflected the glare of a blacksmith's shop from the opposite side of the way : and there religiously contemplated the serenity of the heavens. The only three planets visible were in the south-east, in a confined space, as if in the same quarter of the heavens. The ever-resplendent Jupiter, whose movements of late have formed a somewhat complicated knot, appeared on a right line with tvi% radiant stars. More to the east, the red and fiery Mars scintillated with a ferocious kind of light ; while a little above, calmly shone, like a pale and peaceful influence, that monster planet, the mysterious and awful world which we call Saturn. On the other side, in the far part of the landscape, what appeared to be a magnificent revolving beacon of scarlet, white, and blue, seemed to shed its brilliant hues upon the gloomy hills that separate Noyon from the Soissonais. Just as I was consider ing what could be the origin of this beacon presiding over solitary 26 THE RHINE. plains, it appeared to d'esert the hills, and ascend slowly from the violet haze of the horizon towards the zenith ; for this supposed beacon was neither more nor less than Aldebaran, that tri -colored sun, that enormous star of purple, silver, and turquoise, rising majestically through the vague and sinister mysteries of twilight. Explain to me, my dear friend, what unaccountable influence is attached to these orbs of night, which every poet since the first creation of poets, every profound thinker, and every vague dreamer of dreams, has by turns contemplated, studied, worship. ped ; some, like Zoroaster, with confiding wonder ; others, like Pythagoras, with trembling awe. Seth assigned names to the stars as Adam did to the animals of the earth. The Chaldeans, and the Genethliacans, Esdras and Zorobabel, Orpheus, Homer and Hesiod, Cadmus, Pherecydes, Xenophon, Hecataeus, Herodo tus and Thucydides — those venerated eyes of the ancient world, long closed in extinction — have gazed from age to age upon the more immortal eyes of the heavens, still bright and sparkling as ever. The very planets and stars which we gaze upon were watched by all the sages of antiquity. Job speaks of Orion and the Pleiades. Plato affects to have heard distinctly the vague music of the spheres. Pliny conceived the sun to be God himself; and attributed the spots of the moon to the vapors of the earth. The Tartar poets call the North Pole Seneslicol, which means an iron nail. Men have been found presumptuous enough to be pleasant at the expense of the constellations. " The lion," said Rocoles, " might just as well have been called a monkey." Pacu- vius, though with flattering self possession, pretended to arraign the authority of astrologers ; protesting that, if real, it would rival that of Jupiter : f " Nam SI qui, quie eventura sunt praevideant, .^Equiparent Jovi." Favorinus proposes this startling question : " Are not all human events the work of the stars?— Si vita mortisque Iwminum rerum- que, humanarum omnium ct ratio et causa in ccclo el apud Stellas fork ?" He supposes the flies and worms, " mtiscis out vcrmicu- lis," to be submitted to sidereal influence, — even to the very hedgehogs, " out echinis." STELLAR INFLUENCE. 27 Aulus Gellius, on setting sail from Egina to the Piraeus, upon a calm sea, sat during the night on the poop of the vessel, contem plating the stars. " Nox fuit, et clemens mare, et anni cestas, ccelumqne liquide serenum ; sedebamiis ergo in pvppi simul universi, et lucentia sidera considerahamus." Horace, that practical philo sopher, the Voltaire of the Augustan age, though a far greater poet, it is true, than the Voltaire of Louis XV. — Horace himself trembled while gazing at the stars. A strange anxiety overcame his heart, as he indited the following all but terrible verses : — " Hunc solera, et stellas, etdecedentia certis Tempora mDmentis, sunt qui formidine nulla, Imbuti spectant." For myself, I do not fear the stars, because I love them. Still, I never reflect without a certain depression of spirits, that the nor mal state of the heavens is night. What we call day, is the mere result of our vicinity to a star ! It is painful to dwell too long upon infinite space. The immensity of the universe is overwhelm ing ! Ecstasy is as much a portion of religion as prayer ; but the one solaces, while the other fatigues the soul. From the firmament, my eyes now descended to the cottage wall, against which I rested. Here again was food for reflection. In this wall, the peasant had inserted an ancient stone, upon which were carved two indistinct letters, which the vibration of the forge did not permit me precisely to distinguish. I could make out only J. C. ; the rest seemed defaced by the lapse of centuries. Now, was this inscription of ancient or modern Rome ? — of Rome cer tainly ; but was it the sacred or profane — the city of arts and arms, or the city of faith ? I know not whether it was the contemplation of the stars which had begotten my mood of philosophy, but these mysterious letters appeared to stand out in supernatural splendor. '' J. C. :" initials, which in one instance depressed mankind to the earth ; in the other, raised him to the skies. " Julius Ceesar :" " Jesus Christ." What greater names have been bequeathed us ? Under an inspi ration similar to the idea which now engrossed me, did Dante unite together in the lowest abyss of hell, to be devoured by the 23 THE RHINE. fearful gorge of Satan, the greatest traitor of mankind, and the greatest assassin — Judas and Brutus. Three cities preceded Soissons on the same site : the Novio dunum of the Gauls ; the Avgusta Suessonum of the Romans ; the old Soissons of Clovis, Charles the Simple, and the Duke of Mayenne. There remains nothing of the Noviodunum which checked the progress of Caesar. " Suessones," says the Cora- mentaries, " celeritate Romanorum permoii legatos ad CcBsarem de deditione mittunt." A few fragments only are left of Suessonium ; among which is the ancient temple, converted during the middle ages into the chapel of St. Peter. Old Soissons is far better worthy of notice, possessing the church of St. John of the Vines, besides its ancient castle, and the cathedral in which Pepin was crowned, in 752. I could trace no vestige of the fortifications of the Duke de Mayenne, nor ascertain whether those which remained produced the remark of the emperor in 1814 (upon certain fossil remains in the wall), that those of St. Jean d'Acre were built of exactly the same materials : a curious observation, considering how it was made, by whom, and at what a moment. The night was too dark when I entered Soissons to admit of searching after Noviodunum or Suessonium ; so I supped, while waiting for the mail, after passing some time before the vast front of St. John of the Vines, whose outlines were sharply defined against the sky, like a scene on the stage. While wandering up and down, I turned to see the stars flitting to and fro through the crevices of the gloomy edifice, as if it contained spirits, running, rising, and descending in all directions, with tapers in their hands. As I was returning to the inn, midnight struck ; and the whole town was dark as a cavern. Suddenly, a furious rushing from the farther extremity of a narrow street, little likely to be a scene of nocturnal disorder, proved to be the arrival of the mail, which drew up close to my inn : luckily there was a place vacant. Our new mail-coaches are certainly excellent vehicles ; well cushioned, with the windows aptly placed both for air and sight. Just as I was about to install myself upon the voluptuous cushion, a strange confusion of shrieks, ^\ heels, and neighing of horses was audible, and from another point of the dismal little street, in defiance of the conductor, who only gave me five min- A NIGHT SCENE. 29 utes' respite, I rushed to the scene of disorder ; where, at the foot of a massive wall, which possessed the repulsive, odious charac ter peculiar to prisons, a low barred door with enormous bolts stood open. Close to this door was stationed an odd-looking vehicle, escorted by two gendarmes, and between this carriage and the entrance were four or five ill-looking fellows struggling with a woman, and dragging her towards the carriage waiting at hand. A dark-lantern shed its uncertain light upon this heart rending scene. The woman, a hale peasant of about thirty years of age, vainly shrieked, fought, and attempted to bite her ruffianly guardians. The glimpse I caught of her face and disordered hair exhibited the very picture of despair. As I approached, the men were unclasping her hand from an iron bar of the prison-door ; and by a sudden jerk they forced her into the carriage. By the vivid light of the lantern, I perceived that it was made with two lateral windows, strongly barred, and the door at the back as strongly secured with powerful bolts. The man with the lantern having opened this door, the interior proved to be a kind of box without light or air, divided into two compart ments by a thick transverse panel. The door was so contrived, that, when shut, it transformed the interior of the carriage into distinct chambers. No communication was possible between the two cells, only one of which was now occupied, by a being cowering like a wild beast ; a kind of square-faced spectre, flat-headed, with large temples, and bristles for hair ; his clothing composed of filthy rags. The legs of this wretch were firmly secured ; one foot being inserted in a wooden shoe, while the other was partly enveloped with bloody linen, his toes apparently about to drop off from disease. He appeared insensible to all that was passing around him, even to the wretched woman who was being dragged towards him. She still, however, resisted the strength of her in exorable keepers, shrieking aloud, " Never, never : I would rather die on the spot." She had not yet seen her companion in crime. Suddenly, in one of her convulsions, she cast her eye upon the hideous-looking prisoner, and her shrieks instantly ceased. Hei knees gave way under her ; her strength failed ; and in a faint voice she murmured, with accents of anguish and despair that I can never forget, " Oh ! that man." 30 THE RHINE. At that moment the man glanced towards her with a fierce and sullen air, like a tiger, and clod of the earth, as he was. I could no longer contain myself. It was clear the woman was a thief, perhaps worse, whom the gendarmes were removing from one place to another, in one of those odious vehicles styled by the populace of Paris salad-baskets, from its having but one opening. Resolved to interfere, I ventured to address the turnkeys, who paid no regard to my apostrophe. A worthy gendarme, however, who would certainly have accosted Don Quixote to ask him for his passport, instantly begged me to exhibit mine, which I had made over to the conductor of the mail. During my explanation with the gendarme, the gaolers, with a violent efibrt, had thrust the wretched woman into the vehicle, slammed and bolted up the door ; and, when I turned round, there was nothing more to be heard but the echoes of revolving wheels and the departing trot of the escort. Immediately afterwards I was on the road to Rheims, in a com fortable carriage, drawn by four vigorous horses ; and I thought of that miserable woman till my heart was sick in comparing her position with mine. In the midst of these reflections I fell asleep ; and, on waking again at day-dawn, witnessed the gradual reanimation of the trees, meadows, and hills ; and all the sleeping things, to the repose of which the progress of night-mails is so sternly inimical. We were traversing the beautiful valley of Braine-sur-Vesle. A fragrant breeze swept athwart the hills, and towards the east, at the northern extremity of the twilight, near the horizon, in the midst of a limpid pearly haze, and with a kind of sapphire-like hue, shone the planet Venus. Her rays, falling upon the fields and woods, as yet imperfectly defined, seemed to diffuse inex- pressible grace and melancholy over the spot. It was like an eye of heaven benignly watching over the sleeping landscape. The mail traverses Rheims, full gallop, regardless of the cathe dral : one is scarcely able to perceive, above the gable-ends of a narrow street, a few of the minarets, the escutcheon of Charles VIL, and the slender spire shooting upward from the apsis. From Rheims to Rethel there is nothing worth notice. Cham- pagne Pouilleuse, the golden locks of whose yellow corn-fields RHEIMS TO MEZIERES. 31 have just been cropped by the harvest of July, now exhibits a succession of earthy undulations, the summits of which are crested with spare-looking briars. Here and there stands a sluggish windmill ; while by the roadside a potter is drying his ware upon a plank, having at his door a few dozen flower-pots lately turned i'rom the mould. Rethel lies upon a hill declining towards the Aisne, whose windings intersect the town in several places. Little remains to attest that this was once the princely residence of the Counts of Champagne ; the streets being mean, and the church below mediocrity. From Rethel to Mezieres, the road gradually ascends to the plain of Argonne, which thus becomes connected with the higher plain of Rocroy. The high slated roofs, whitewashed fronts, and abutting planks which preserve the houses from rain towards the north, gave a peculiar character to the villages. The first sum mits of the Faucilles are now occasionally apparent along the horizon. There is scarcely any woodland, but a few scattered clumps of trees on the distant hills. The clearings hereabouts, a first symptom of civilisation, have left little shelter for the wild boars of the Ardennes. On arriving at Mezieres, I looked vainly for the ruined towers of the Saxon castle of Hallebarde ; and found, instead, only the hard zigzags of the celebrated Vauban : but in the passes are some remains of the walls attacked by Charles V. and defended by Bayard. The church of Mezieres was once renowned for its stained glass, and I profited by the half-hour accorded for break. fast, to visit it. The window must have been fine, to judge by the fragments that remain inserted in the vast windows of com mon glass. The church itself is interesting, of the fifteenth cen tury, having a charming porch at the southern side. Two bas- reliefs of the time of Charles VIII. have been affixed to pillars, right and left of the choir ; but they are unfortunately mutilated, and most injudiciously whitewashed. The whole church has been washed with yellow, while the groinings and keystones of the roof are picked out in colors, frightful to behold. In strolling down the aisle, I was reminded, by an inscription, that Mezieres was bombarded by the Prussians in 1815 ; to which 32 THE RHINE. is added in Latin, " Lector, leva ocwlos ad fornicem et vide quasi quoddam divines manus indicium." I raised my eyes accordingly, and saw a large rent in the roof, in which is fixed a well-sized bomb, thrown by the Prussians: penetrated through the roof and timbers, it has remained ever since in its original position. The bomb and the perforation produce a strange effect on the behold ers, more particularly upon remembering that it was at Mezieres that, in 1521, the first shells ever used in war were tried. On another side is inscribed the event of the marriage of Charles IX. with Elizabeth of Austria, happily solemnized, "feliciter celebrata fuere," in the church of Mezieres, the 17th of November, 1570, i. e., two years before the slaughter of the St. Bartholomew. The principal entrance of the church is of that very period, and consequently in good taste. But the front was unfortunately not finished till the seventeenth century. The steeple, terminated in 1626, is heavy and awkward ; exceeded only by those now con structing at Paris to several of the new churches. The ramparts of Mfezieres are adorned with fine rows of trees. The streets are clean, but gloomy. Even on Sundays they must be cheerless ; and nothing recals to mind Hallebarde or Garinus, the founders of the city ; or Count Balthazar, who sacked it ; or Count Hugo, who ennobled it ; or the two bishops, Fulk and Adalberon, who besieged it. The god Macer, with whom origi nated the name of the town, became St. Masert in the Christian chapels of the church. I found neither monuments nor public edifices at S6dan, where I arrived at noon. Pretty women, showy dragoons, trees and meadows along the Meuse, cannon, drawbridges, and bastions, con stitute the delights of the town. It is one of the places where the austere look of the fortified town is fantastically combined with the joyous life of a garrison. I had wished to find traces of Turenne ; but, alas ! I was disappointed. The house of his fathers is demolished, and there remains in its place a black marble tab let, inscribed in gilt letters — " Ici naquit Turenne, Le 11 September, 1611." BIRTH-PLACE OF TURENNE. 33 This date, shining upon the black surface, attracted my attention, and called up around me the events with which it is connected. In 1611 Sully retired from public life ; Henri IV. having been assassinated the previous year. Louis XIII., fated, like his father, to die on the 14th of May, was then ten years old ; Anne of Austria, his wife, was nearly of the same age, being five days younger ; Richelieu, in his twenty-si.xth year. A certain burgher of Rouen, called Petit Pierre, destined to become the great Cor- neille : Shakspeare and CervEintes were then alive, as also Bran- t6me and Pierre Mathieu. The virgin queen of England had been dead about eight years ; and seven years had elapsed since the death of Clement VIII., that peaceful pope and excellent Frenchman. In 1611 died Papirien Masson and Jean Bus6e ; the Emperor Rodolph was declining ; Gustavus Adolphus had succeeded to Charles IX. of Sweden, the dreamer ; Philip III. was expelling the Moors from Spain, in spite of the advice of the Duke d'Ossuna ; and the Dutch astronomer, John Fabricius, was discovering spots in the sun. All this occurred about the time Turenne was born. Sedan has not been the faithful guardian of his memory. Not a trace of liis house is now visible. I had not the courage to go to Bazeilles and ascertain whether the avenue of trees he planted still exists. There is, however, a mean bronze statue of Turenne in the square. The statue is a mere tribute to his glory. The room in which he was born, the castle where he lived, the trees he planted, would have been tri butes to his memory. For still better reasons there exist no traces of Guillaume de la Marck, the undaunted predecessor of Turenne in the annals of Sedan. It may be remarked as an evidence of the natural pro gress of things and ideas, that when the boar of the Ardennes disappeared, Sedan produced a Turenne. Having enjoyed an excellent breakfast at the Hotel of the Croix d'Or, I decided to return to Mezieres, to make sure of a convey ance to Givet, lying at five leagues' distance, and strikingly pic turesque. I proceeded on foot, followed by a young and swarthy fellow, who trudged on merrily with my carpet-bag. The road 4 34 THE RHINE. lies nearly parallel with the Meuse, and about a league from Se. dan stands Doncherry, with its old bridge and stately trees. ^ Lively villages, pleasant country-houses peeping out of thick masses of verdure, meadows grouped with thriving herds, the Meuse vanishing and then reappearing the next second, and the weather as beautiful as the scenery. Half way on my road, I became hot and thirsty, and looked out for some habitation ; and lo ! the first I met with had inscribed over the door, " Bernier Hannas, pork-butcher and corn-chandler." Upon a bench closely adjoining sat two persons afflicted with the goitre, a disease pre valent in the country. I nevertheless boldly entered the house, and drank the cup of water I had asked for. At six o'clock I reached Mezieres, and at seven I started for Givet, squeezed into the coupe betwixt a fat gentleman and fatter lady,, who kept saying tender things to each other across me. In going through Charleville, which is about a gun-shot distance from Mezieres, I observed the central square, built in 1605, in noble style, by Charles de Gonzagues, Duke of Nevers and ^lan- tua, the counterpart of our Place Royale at Paris, the same arcades, brick fronts, and high roofs. Night came on, and I soon slept profoundly, though often inter rupted by the yawnings and snorings of my fat companions. At last, aroused partly by the ejaculations of the postboys, partly by the unceasing endearments of my fellow-travellers, I opened my eyes : when soldiers suddenly flocked round the diligence, a gen darme imperiously demanding our passports. The rattling of chains in lowering a drawbridge, and the light of the street lamp, which exhibited mounds of shot, and pieces of ordnance yawn ing at us, announced that we had reached Rocroy. The sight of two such memorable spots as S6dan and Rocroy is an interesting event ; for if Sedan be the birthplace of Turenne, Rocroy may be said to be the birthplace of Conde. While trying to turn a deaf ear to the vulgar commonplace of the fat lady and gentleman, whose incessant loquacity almost drove me out of my senses, the merry, fantastic, silvery sound of chimes suddenly assured me that we were in Belgium, the genu ine land of chimes. Their light and cheering harmony oflfered GIVET. 35 some compensation after the fatiguing gossip of my fellow-travel lers. The chimes which enlivened me sent them to sleep. I pre-^ sume we were at Fumay, but the night was too dark to distin guish anything ; so that I passed the fine ruins of the castle of Hierches, and the two well-known rocks called the Ladies of the Meuse, without being aware of it. Every now and then, I per ceived in the hollows a whitish vapor, like smoke rising from a furnace ; and this was the Meuse. At length, the dawn of day became apparent. A drawbridge was lowered, a gate opened, and the diligence trotted through a defile, formed on the left by a black, perpendicular rock, and to the right by a long, strange-looking edifice, having a multitude of doors and windows, which all seemed open, and in a dilapi dated state ; so that I saw through it, and witnessed the twilight aildinff the horizon on the other side of the Meuse. At the extremity of this mysterious edifice there was a high, closed window, feebly lighted ; the diligence passed rapidly at that moment past an imposing-looking tower ; we turned into a yard, where a host of chambermaids and other auxiliaries made their appearance, and I found that we were arrived at Givet. 36 THE RHINE. * LETTER V. Givet, August 1. GiVET is a clean, hospitable, pretty little town, situated on the banks of the Meuse, which divides it into Great and Little Givet, and at the foot of a lofty precipice of rock, of which the geome trical lines of the fortress of Charlemoht somewhat disfigure the brow. The inn, called the Mont d'Or, is pretty good ; though, being the only one, it can compel its customers to swallow whatever it pleases. The steeple of Little Givet is covered with slate ; but that of the Great Givet is of a more complicated order of archi tecture. The architect must certainly be indebted to the square- crowned cap of some priest or lawyer, with a reversed salad-bowl placed upon it ; to which is added a sugar-basin ; and, over all, a bottle, in the neck of which is stuck the image of a sun, over topped by the figure of chanticleer, pertly perched on one leg, upon the highest vertical ray. Supposing him to have devoted one day a-piece to each of these bright inventions, he may fairly have rested on the seventh, satisfied with his work. It must have been a Fleming. For two centuries the architects of that nation were infatuated by outlines of crockery and kitchen uten sils, piled up in Titanic proportions. Even in the construction of the steeples they have taken ample care to adorn their cities with these colossal conglomerations of pipkins. The view of Givet is delightful, when standing, as I did, about evening, upon the bridge looking towards the south. Night, which is the best veil for the follies of mankind, began to conceal the absurd composition of the steeple, and smoke in spiral clouds floated from every roof To my left, I heard the gentle tremor of some fine elms, above which, in the clear evening light, rose a huge tower dominating over the lesser Givet. On my right stood another with a conical roof, half brick, half stone ; the whole INSCRIPTION. 37 reflected in the metallic mirror of the Meuse, which was seen traversing this darkened landscape. Farther on I distinguished, at the foot of the fearful rock of Charlemont, the strange-looking, lengthy edifice I had remarked on arriving. Above the town, the towers, and the steeples, the eye discovered a range of lofty rocks, prolonged till they disap peared in the horizon, enclosing the view as in a circle. Towards the extreme boundary of a sky of delicate green, the crescent moon was gradually sinking towards the earth, so clear, defined, and pure, that it seemed as if the Almighty were displaying the moiety of his ring of gold. In the course of the day I had decided to visit the old tower which once dominated the lesser Givet. The path ascending to it is rugged enough, providing work for the hands as well as for the feet. It is necessary to scale the rock, which is hard and sharp. Having with difficulty reached the tower, I found it bar ricaded and padlocked. I called, knocked, but nobody answered. My efforts, however, were not unrewarded, for on walking round the decaying wall I remarked, amongst fragments which daily fall into the ravine, a stone of some size, upon which there was still a vestige of an inscription. On a closer inspection, I found it to run as follows : — LOQVE....SA. OMBRE PARAS.... MODI. S. L. ACAV. P....SOTROS. The letters, deeply cut, seemed executed with a nail, and above them was likewise a signature, still perfect — Jose Chitierez, 1643. I have always had a passion for inscriptions. I confess that the one in question puzzled me. What did it mean ? In what tongue was it written ? Making allowances for orthography, you might have thought it French, and purporting sonjething absurd. Loque sale — Ombre parasol — Modis (maudis) la cave — Sot Rosse. But taking into account the effaced characters, these words were out of the question ; besides, the signature of Jose Gutierez protested against it. Comparing the signature, therefore, with the words para and otros, which are Spanish, I conclude that the 38 THE RHINE. inscription must be in the Castilian, and I have accordingly adjusted it as follows : — LO QUE EMPESA EL HOMBRE PARA SIMISMO, DIGS LE ACAVA PARA LOS OTROS. i.e., "That which man begins for himself, God completes for others ;" which strikes me as being a very fine sentence, both Catholic and Castilian. But who was Gutierez ? The stone was evidently taken from the interior of the tower. The battle of Rocroy took place in 1643 ; was Jose Gutierez one of the prisoners made on the field 1 Was it in his dungeon he found leisure to inscribe this melancholy summary of his existence ? A probable surmise, for it is evident that the letters are the work of a nail ; and so long a phrase, in scribed in hard granite, could scarcely result but from the pa tience peculiar to prisoners. And who mutilated it thus ? — time and chance ? or some idler of the human race ? I am inclined to favor the last hypothesis. Some barber, become a soldier through the compulsion of the conscription, had suffered the pen alty of a breach of discipline, and indulged his wit by turning the grave lamentation of the Hidalgo into idle ridicule ; a face into a grimace. Now, alas ! both barber and noble, the groan and the laugh, the tragedy and the parody, are alike dust and ashes, trodden by the passer-by into the same ravine, and the same oblivion. The following day, at five in the morning, I found myself com fortably seated on the imperial of Van Gend's diligence ; and having quitted France by the road leading to Namur, ascended the first eminence of the only chain of hills that exists in Bel gium. For the Meuse, flowing in an inverse sense to the decline of the plain of the Ardennes, has succeeded in forming a valley in that immense plain called Flanders ; where man has construct ed fortresses, in place of the mountains devised by nature as a more permanent defence. After an ascent of half an hour, the horses being out of breath, and the Belgian conductor athirst, they agreed with one accord to pause and refresh themselves ; and halted before a small inn, at a village clothing the two sides of a AN EXTENSIVE PROSPECT. 39 wide ravine, which has made its rugged way through the mount ain. This ravine, which is at once the bed of a torrent and the main street of the village, is naturally paved with indigenous granite. At the moment we were passing, a waggon dragged by six horses was clambering along this steep and dangerous ravine. It was luckily empty ; for had it been otherwise, it would have re quired at least twenty horses or mules. Such a waggon seems quite unfit for such a purpose, and only serves to furnish improba ble sketches to the young Dutch artists one meets on the road, with a staff in hand and a knapsack on their back. How is one to occupy oneself on the roof of a diligence, unless by looking out at everything that comes in one's way ? I was admirably placed for the purpose ; having beneath me a great extent of the valley of the Meuse, and to the south the two Givets, prettily connected by a bridge ; to the west, the old ruined tower of Agimont, apparently forming part of the hill on which it stands, and casting a huge pyramidal shadow : to the north, the dark de file into which rushes the Meuse, throwing up a luminous blue vapor. In the attic of the inn, about two strides from my seat, and on the same level, sits a pretty peasant girl, dressing herself, with the window wide open, which allows the rays of the morn ing sun, as well as the indiscreet eyes of the travellers, to pene trate into the chamber. Above this cottage, in the distance, as if to crown the frontiers of France, is extended the immense line of the formidable batteries of Charlemont. While I was absorbed in these contemplations, the peasant girl suddenly raised her eyes, smiled and made me a gracious bow. But instead of closing her window as I expected, she was obliging enough to resume her toilet. 40 THE RHINE. LETTER VI. The Banks of the Meuse.— Dinant. — Namur. LlEQE, August 3. I am just arrived at Liege by a most charming road, having fol lowed the course of the Meuse from Givet hither. The banks of the Meuse are indeed beautiful : I wonder they are so little cited. A few words may serve to describe their lead ing features. After the village in which iriyself and the morning sun had the satisfaction of presiding at the toilet of the pretty peasant girl, you ascend a hill which reminded me of the Val-Suzon, near Dijon, and where the road winds upon itself snakewise during three-quarters of an hour, in the midst of a forest, through deep ravines, the channels of torrents. Then follows an extensive landscape of plains resembling those of Beance ; when suddenly the ground breaks to the left ; and the road commands an awful precipice, accessible only to vegetation. It is at least three hun dred feet high, and at the bottom, as if sailing among trees, one perceives the boats peacefully gliding along the Meuse ; while on the bank stands a pretty villa, somewhat resembling the orna ments of a clock-case of the time of Louis XV., with a Lilipu- tian basin, and a whimsical miniature Pompadour garden, in which at a glance you may discern every detail of the place. Nothing is more disgusting than this Chinese buriesque of nature ; a protest made by the vulgar taste of man against the poetry of nature. On losing sight of the gulf, the plain recommences, for the ravine made by the Meuse cuts asunder the plain as a furrow a field. A quarter of a league farther, they lock the carriage-wheel ; and the road gradually declines towards the river. This time the abyss is delightfully ornamented by multitudes of flowers, and fine trees, brightened by the clear light of the morning sky. DINANT. 41 Orchards, fenced by high hedges, enliven either side of the road, and the green Meuse flows along between precipitous banks. Another river less considerable, but still more beautifuly here joins the Meuse — the Lesse. Three leagues farther is the vl'ell-known grotto of Han-sur-Lesse, from which the road rapidly recedes. The noise of the numerous water-mills of the Lesse produces a curious echo from the mountains. The left banS ib the Meuse hereabouts presents an uninter rupted series of farms and villages, gradually declining, while the right bank as gradually increases in elevation. A buttress of rocks encroaches even on the road, while the briars on their jag ged brows are seen to tremble two hundred feet above our heads. A high pyramidal rock, pointed and bold, like the spire of a cathedral, suddenly shows itself at the turn of the road. " Yonder is Bayard's rock," exclaimed the conductor, as we pursued the road leading between the mountain and this colossal stone, and then turning sharply at the foot of an enormous mass of granite, crested with a citadel. The eye now traces a lengthy street of antiquated houses, connected with the left bank by a fine bridge, and terminated at the extremity by the sharp roofs and broad windows- of a church of the fifteenth century. This is Dinant, where you halt for a quarter of an hour, just long enough to remark a pretty little garden, so cultivated as to convince you that you are in Flanders ; the flowers being exquisite, but inter. spersed with the inevitable statues of pottery-ware. Qne of them represented a woman dressed in a gingham gown and straw hat. But on a closer investigation, and thanks to the indications afford- 1 ed by a little trickling sound, I discovered that she was intended for the water-nymph of a fountain. The spire of the church of Dinant is, as usual, a huge pipkin. Nevertheless, viewed from the bridge, the front is imposing ; and altogether the town has an interesting appearance. At Dinant you quit the right bank of the Meuse. The suburb of the left bank, through which you pass, is admirably disposed round an old stronghold, now crumbling to pieces, which formed part of the old fortress. At the foot of this tower, I detected, amid a block of houses, an interesting specimen of architecture of the fifteenth 42 THE RHINE. century, with the usual turrets, stone windows, and fantastical weather-cocks. On leaving Dinant, the valley widens ; and the Meuse becomes broader. To the right, upon distant heights, are seen two castles in ruins. The valley still widening, the rocks disappear, and pastures, of a velvet green, embroidered with flowers, are every where visible, interspersed with hop-grounds, orchards, and trees, covered with more fruit than foliage ; the purple )plum, the rosy apple, and the scarlet clusters of the service-tree, looking like vegetable coral. The road appears to swarm with cackling poul try ; and the boatmen send forth their merry carols from the river for the amusement of the smart young maidens, with bare arms, and heavy baskets of grass upon their heads, who are seen trudg ing along the road. Then comes the village cemetery, as if to rebuke this lightness and joyousness of the scene. In one of these village churchyards, I read the following inscription : — " 0 pie, defunctis miseris succurre, viator !" No memento can, in my opinion, be more touching. Generally the dead warn the living; here they supplicate them. Further on, having passed a hill where the rocks are worn and fluted by the rain, like our old time-worn fountain of the Luxembourg (which, by the way, is now submitted to such ill-advised restora tion), the vicinity of Namur becomes apparent. Villas begin to obtrude themselves on the peasants' hovels ; statues are to be seen among the rocks ; the hop-grounds blend \vith parks. Nor is the '*J^eflrect of this admixture by any means disagreeable. Our diligence changed horses in one of these composite vil lages ; where, on one side, I perceived a magnificent garden, embellished with colonnades and Ionic temples ; and on the oppo site one, a beer-house with a group of Flemish ca rouse rs, shaded by a splendid rose-tree in full bloom. Within the gold-pointed spears, forming the palisade of the villa, stood a pcdesltal support ing a statue of Venus, half concealing herself amid the surround ing verdure, as if indignant at being^ontemplated by the coarse eyes of a horde of Flemish boors. Further on stood a well laden plum-tree, submitting to the ravages of some laughing giris ; one NAMUR. 43 of whom, poised with one foot upon a branch, seemed like a fairy about to take her flight. An hour afterwards, I was at Namur. The two valleys of the Sambre and Meuse unite at Namur, which is situated at the confluence of the streams. The women here are peculiarly prepossessing, while the men exhibit grave, good, and hospitable countenances. As to the city itself, it has nothing remarkable, with the exception of the view from the two bridges of the Sambre and Meuse. The history of the city is effaced from its configuration ; and it possesses neither architec ture, monuments, edifices, nor old houses. Four or five mean looking churches,* some bad specimens of fountains, in the style of Louis XV., are all it has to exhibit. Namur never inspired but two odes ; that of Boileau and another, the subjects of which are an old woman and the Prince of Orange. To say the truth, this is as much as she merits. The citadel predominates coldly over the town ; still 1 could not view, without feelings of respect, those lines which were attacked by Vauban, and defended by Cohorn. Where there are no churches to interest my attention, I study the signs of the shops, which, to the curious eye, afford much information. Independent of the various callings and local trades, there is also as much physiognomy in the phraseology and names of thg inhabitants, as in the more highly sounding titles of the nobility. I send you three names taken at hazard from the shop-fronts of Namur ; each possessing a peculiarity. "L'epouse Deharsy, negocianle ;" in reading which, one knows one-self to be in a country French one day, and the day following, belonging to some other nation, where the language has altered and degene rated. A clumsy German idiom is sure to ensue. The next name is " Crucifix Piret, mercier." Here one perceives the in fluence of Catholic Flanders. Whether as name or surname. Crucifix could not exist in Voltairianized France. — " Menendez Wodon, horloger." What a strange jumble of Spanish, Flemish, and French ; — the whole history of the low countries included * Victor Hugo seems to have neglected the superb interior of the Church of the Jesuits. 44 THE RHINE. in three words ! By the interpretation of these three shop-fronts, I am enabled to trace three national peculiarities ; the one as regards the language, the other as regards the religion, the last, as regards the history of Flanders. Let me also remark that, in Dinant, Namur, and Liege, the name of Demeuse is of common occurrence ; just as in the neighborhood of Paris or Rouen you see Desenne and Deseine. I must not forget the name of " Janus," a baker ; which re minds me that, in the faubourg St. Denis, at Paris, there is also one Nero, a confectioner ; while at Aries, upon the entablature of a Roman temple in ruins, you read the name of " Marius, hair-cutter and perruquier." THE MEUSE. 45 LETTER VII. Banks of the Meuse. — Huy. — Liege. Lisas, August 4. The road from Namur to Liege commences with a noble avenue of trees. The luxuriant foliage does its best to conceal the tasteless steeples of the city, which at a distance resemble nine pins, intermingled with cups and balls. On quitting the shade of these lofty trees, the fresh, breeze from the Meuse salutes you agreeably, and the road follows the cheerful banks of the river. The Meuse, swollen by the Sam bre, becomes much wider, but the double rampart of rock soon. reappears, representing at every step some giant fortress, dun geons in ruins, or groups of Titanic towers. The rocks on the Meuse are ferruginous, and afford an agreeable variety of tint to the landscape. The elements impart to them a fine rusty coat ing ; but when broken up, produce the odious blue granite with which Belgium is infested, which creates such ugly edifices, and such magnificent mountains. The rock was created by the Almighty. It was man who con verted it to the purpose of a building-stone. We passed rapidly through Sanson, a village, above which stand, decaying amid the brushwood, the remains of a castle, built, it is supposed, under Clodion. There is a rock here, pointed out by the conductor, which ex hibits a grim human physiognomy. We next reached Andennes, where I remarked a most inestimable treasure for the antiquarian, in a pure rustic church of the tenth century, in a perfect condi tion. In another village, Sclayn, I believe there is the following inscription over the principal entrance of the church. " Let no dog enter the house of God." Were I a curate of Sclayn, I j should think it more important to invite Christians to enter than to interfere with the expulsion of dogs. 46 THE RHINE. After passing Andennes, the mountains recede ; a plain suc ceeds to the valley, and the Meuse disappears among the mea dows. The landscape is still fine ; but the eye is now and then offended by factory chimneys, the hideous obelisks of modern civilisation. The hills advance once more, the river and the road reunite, and vast bastions are perceptible on the summit of a rock. A handsome church, by the side of a high square tower, with a tower-gate flanked by a decaying watch-tower, are now percepti ble. Several modern habitations, the creation of men of opu lence, in the old-fashioned Flemish fantastical taste, now succeed, having flowery terraces on either side of an old bridge, reflected in the waters of the Meuse. We are now at Huy, next to Dinant, the prettiest town on the Meuse, and just midway between Namur and Liege, as Dinant is between Naniur and Givet. Huy, which now possesses a formidable citadel, was also of a warlike character in times of yore ; having stood sieges against the people of Liege, as often as Dinant against those of Namur, in the times when cities waged war against each other as kingdoms in our own, as Frois sart informs us, — « " La grande ville de Bar-sur-Seigne, A fait trembler Troye en Champaigne." After Huy, we have one of those pleasing contrasts which constitute the charm of the Meuse ; severe-looking rocks being opposed to cheerful meadows. Vineyards begin to be apparent on the hills ; the first, I should think, in Belgium. From time to time one sees a manufacture of zinc close by the river, in some ravine, whose rent and creviced roof, with the escaping smoke, gives one the idea of a half-extinguished fire ; or some alum pit, with its heap of red earth. Here is a hop garden adjoining a bean-field, there a basking garden, whose fragrant flowers diffuse perfume around. While fretting against the overpowering gabble of innumerable geese, ducks, and poultry, one detects a red brick house, with slated turrets, stone-framed windows, latticed with lead; dull, COKERELL'S FORGES. 47 clean, and calm ; shaded by a luxuriant vine, with pigeons on the roof, bird-cages at the windows, a beautiful child, and a sun beam on the threshold, — the whole presenting a subject for Teniers or Mieris. Evening approaches : the wind sinks ; the meadows and the woods become hushed ; and nothing is heard but the murmur of the mighty streams. Vague lights glitter in the houses ; all objects become indistinct ; and my fellow travellers outvie each other in snoring. Presently some person remarks that we shall soon be at Liege. The scene now becomes truly curious. At the foot of the dark and wooded hills, towards the west, two balls of fire glare and glitter, like the eyes of tigers ; while from an orifice, eighty yards above your head, issues a fierce flame, which glances over the neighboring rocks and forests. A little further on, pt the entrance of the valley, is a yawning furnace, which, when occa sionally opened, sends forth volumes of flames. These are the forges rendered famous by the engineer Cockerell. After pass ing the spot called the Little Flemalle, the scene becomes un speakably grand ; the whole valley being filled with what appear to be the craters of volcanos in eruption. Some emit immense clouds of red vapor, glittering with sparks. Others define upon their reddening glow the dark circumference of an adjoining vil lage ; in other places the flames are distinguished through the aperture of some mis-shapely edifice. One might figure to one's-self that a hostile army was march ing through the country, sacking and burning the different towns ; some blazing, some smoking, some half extinct. This warlike spectacle, seen in time of peace, like a frightful copy of devas tation, is illustrative of the progress of industry, and the vast enterprises of Cockerell. A discordant and violent noise proceeds from this chaos ; and, being curious to visit one of these fiery dens, I got down from the carriage. The spectacle is indeed striking, particulariy at night ; partaking almost of the supernatural. Wheels, saws, cauldrons, rollers, cylinders, regulators, every portion of those copper giants which we call engines, and to which steam imparts strength and vitality to roar, hiss, grind, groan, to rend asunder 43 THE RHINE. brass, to twist iron, to pound granite, are scattered about. The scorched and smoky workmen howl like hydras and dragons at their terrible occupation, as if tormented in that heated atmo sphere by the demons of hell. Liege is one of the cities in process of transition from old to new, in which, at every step, the rich old carved and painted fronts of ancient mansions are effaced by modern stucco and plaster casts ; the good old-fashioned slated roofs with their fanciful skylights and weather-cocks being daily destroyed by the vile taste of the vulgar burghers of the town, who read the Constitutionnel upon a terrace paved with zinc or asphalte. A Grecian temple, with a custom-house officer for its high priest, constitutes the entrance, in place of some fine old tower bristling with partizans ; and the high brick chimneys of steam factories take the place of ancient spires and modern steeples. Liege no longer possesses the ancient cathedral of the prince- bishops, built by the illustrious prelate, Notger, a.d. 1000, and demolished in 1795, by I know not whom ; but, in its place, she is rich in the forges of Monsieur Cockerell. Nor can she now exhibit the cloister of the Dominicans, once so famous, and in so noble a style of architecture ; for upon the site there stands a theatre, with its cast-iron columns and capitals, of which the first stone was laid by Mademoiselle Mars. In the nineteenth, as in the sixteenth century, Liege is celebrated for the manufacture of arms ; competing with France for weapons of war, and with Versailles, in particular, for those of the sportsman. But the ancient city of St. Hubert, formeriy uniting the dig nities of a cathedral and a fortress, and exhibiting pictures both ecclesiastical and military, prays and fights no longer. At pre sent her province is to buy and sell ; and Liege may be re garded as an immense hive of industry, the mainspring of an extensive national commerce. The Meuse connects this city with France and Holland ; and with these two arms at her dis posal, both receives and despatches on either side. Even the etymological derivation of the name has been extinguished, the ancient rivulet Legia being now called Ri-de-Coq-Fotitaine. Meanwhile Liege lies grouped in a picturesque manner upon LIEGE. 40 the green ridge of St. Walburge, divided by the Meuse into the high and low town, which are connected by thirteem bridges, some of them possessjng architectural merit. As far as the eye can reach, it is surrounded by trees and verdure, and still retains a sufficient number of turrets, gabled mansions, Roman towers, and dreary dungeons, such as those of St. Martin and d'Amercoeur, to furnish matter of interest to the poet and antiquarian, in spite of the deterioration of factories and forges. As it rained torrents, I had only time to visit four churches. St. Paul, the present cathedral, a noble specimen of the fifteenth century, having a Gothic cloister, with a curious old portal stu pidly spoiled by modern stucco, and a fine tower, which must have been truly beautiful before some ill-judged architect reformed all the angles — the same disgraceful operation now in progress upon the old roofs of our Hotel de Ville in Paris. St. John, built in the severe style of the tenth century, having a fine square tower, with a slated steeple, on either side of which are two lower towers, also square. Behind this faqade is the dome or rather the hump of some nondescript church, the door of which opens upon a cloister disfigured, scraped, white- washed, and over-grown with weeds. St. Hubert, whose Roman apsis, with its arched galleries, is magnificent ; and St. Denis, a curious church of the tenth century, having a tower of the ninth, which leaves evident traces of devastation by fire towards the base, perhaps during the irruption of the Normans, in 882. The Roman architects repaired and continued the tower in the very state in which it was left by the fire ; so that the newly-built part is carried up on the impaired walls. Thus the outline of the ruin remains perfectly visible upon the tower, even to the present day. As I was proceeding from the church of St. Denis to that of St. Hubert, through a labyrinth of low narrow streets, in the wake of which were ensconced madonnas surrounded with strips of tin inscribed with religious devices, I found myself under a high and gloomy wall, ornamented in a manner which announced it to have pertained to some palace of the middle ages. A low door having presented itself, I entered a spacious court, and found myself within the precincts of the palace of the ecclesiastical princes of Li^o-e. Never did I behold an order of architecture more strange 5 50 THE RHINE. or more gorgeous. Four granite fronts, over which tower four prodigious high slated roofs, supported by four low-arched galleries, seemingly ready to yield under the pressure, of the enormous weight, confine the view on all sides. Two of the facades exhibit the most complete specimens of the elliptical arches which cha racterize the architecture of the end of the fifteenth, and the be ginning of the sixteenth, century. The windows of this clerical palace are much in the style of those usual in churches. Unfor tunately two other fronts, destroyed in the conflagration of 1734, have been rebuilt in the mean fashion of that period, and tend to detract from the general effect ; though luckily they are not abso lutely at variance with the austere style of the old palace. The prince-bishop who was in power a hundred and five years ago appears to'have allowed of no departure from the original simplicity of plan ; and two plain fronts were constructed, such as befitted the architecture of the eighteenth century, which allowed no medium between the frippery of exaggerated ornament, and absolute nakedness. The quadruple gallery enclosing the court is in admirable pre servation. Nothing can be more curiously interesting than the pillars supporting these broad elliptic arches, which are of grey granite like all the others about the palace. In either of the four sides you will find that one-half of the shaft of the pillar disap pears, under the embellishment of arabesques — a Flemish fancy of the sixteenth century ; and to the confusion of the archeologist, that these arabesques, as well as the curiously executed capitals of the columns, abounding with chimerical figures, leaves unknown in botany, apocalyptical animals, winged dragons, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, apparently belong to the eleventh century. In order not to attribute these short gibbous columns to the Byzan tine architecture, it is necessary to remark that the episcopal palace of Liege was only begun in 1508, by Prince Emrd de la Mark, who reigned thirty-two years. This edifice is now occupied by the courts of law, by booksel lers, and various tradesmen, and who are installed beneath the arches, besides a vegetable market in the midst ; and the men of the law are to be seen passing to and fro among baskets of cab bages and flowers. Fat-cheeked Flemings stand chattering and LIEGE. 51 quarrelling before every pillar, and warm arguments are heard through the windows of this gloomy court, in which the silence of the cloister once prevailed. The gossip and the pettifogger have succeeded to the arrogant prelates of old. Above the high roofs is a lofty and massive brick tower, formerly the belfry of the prince-bishop, and now used as a penitentiary for women ; a sorry and cold antithesis, such as the disciples of Voltaire might have devised as a jest thirty years ago, but which the prosy utili tarian of to-day has executed as a matter of fact. On leaving the palace by the principal door, I examined the present faqade, the work of the disastrous architect of 1734, resem bling a tragedy by Lagrange Chancel, in stone and marble. There was a wretched man lounging before this frightful build ing, who insisted upon extorting from me a tribute to its merits ; but I would not listen to him, though he taught me that LiSge was called by the Dutch, Luik, by the Germans, Lutlich, and in Latin, Leodium. The room in which I lodged at Liege was hung with muslin curtains, upon which were embroidered, not nosegays, but melons. It was also adorned with engravings, doing justice to our defeats of 1814, but some little injustice to our language. The following is the exact text which figures at the bottom of one of thete prints : — " Bataille d'Arcis-sur-Auie, le 21 Mars, 1814. La plus part de la garnison de cette place, composee de la garde ancienne (pro- lablement la vielle garde) fut fait prisonniers, et les allies entrerent vainquereuse a Paris, le 2 Avril!" 52 THE RHINE. LETTER VIII. Banks of the Vesdre— Verviers. Aii-la-Chapellk, August 4. Yesterday, at nine in the morning, as the diligence for Aix-la- Chapelle was about to start, a worthy Walloon chose to refuse a place on the imperial ; reminding me of the Auvergnat peasant, who declared he had paid to be in the box, and not in the opera. I offered to change places with him, and mounted to the roof, which pacified hira, and the diligence started. Luckily for me, the road was gay and interesting. We are no longer upon the Meuse, but the Vesdre, the former striking off by Maestricht and Ruremsinde, towards Rotterdam and the sea. The Vesdre is a torrent which descends from St. Cornelis- Munster, between Aix-la-Chapelle and Duren, flowing through Verviers* and Chaudfontaines to Liege, along a most beautiful valley. The road runs parallel with the river, and they journey on happily together through thriving villages, among the trees, where there is a rustic bridge before every door ; or in a lonely bend of the valley, they creep together under the shade of some old manor, with its square towers, high pointed roof, and front containing curiously-contrived windows, at once proud and unas suming ; an edifice that is something between the residence of a farmer and a lord. Suddenly the scene becomes more gay and noisy ; and on the turn of a hill, the eye falls into a mass of wil lows and alders, through which the rays of tlie sun bring to light a low built house, with an immense black wheel glittering \Wtli showers of jewels, which, in vulgar pariance, is called a water- mill. Betwixt Chaudfontaines and Verviers, the valley is almost Vir- gilian. The weather was divine ; charming children were gam bolling about the gardens ; while groups of cattle were pictur- VERVIERS. 53 esquely basking in the green meadows. Further on, in the midst of a luxuriant enclosure, stood a solitary cow, of such remarkable beauty as would have entitled her to be watched by Argus — a second lo. A shepherd's pipe was audible from the mountains : — " Mercurius septem mulcet arundinibus," but every now and then a factory chimney, or pieces of cloth dry ing in the sun, afforded a sad interruption to these eclogues. The railroad which traverses Belgium, from Ostend and Ant werp to Liege, and which will shortly reach Verviers, .will pene trate these fine hills, and invade these tranquil valleys. According to this colossal project, the railroad will pierce the mountain twelve or fifteen times. At every step one perceives terraces, mounds of rubbish, foundations of viaducts, and bridges ; or at the base of a block of granite, a busy multitude of human ants, busily engaged in their arduous toil. These little black insects are achieving the work of giants. Occasionally, when the holes they have perforated are large and deep, thick vapors and a roaring sound are emitted, as if the mountain were giving vent to its sufferings. This is some mine on the point of exploding. The diligence stops, the workmen on the adjoining terrace fly in all directions, and the thunder of an explosion is echoed from hill to hill, while fragments of rock are showered on every side. I heard of a man having been killed, and a tree cut in two, by a mass weighing twenty tons, and that a workman's wife, carrying food to her husband, had shared the same fate. More interruptions to my pastoral ! Verviers, an insignificant town, is divided into three quarters, named the Chick Chack, the Basse Crotte, and the Dardanelle. I saw a little boy sedately smoking his pipe, who was not more than six years old ; and on witnessing my surprise, the young smoker laughed immoderately, by which, I conclude, that I ap peared as ridiculous to him as he to me. From Verviers the road runs along the bank of the Vesdre as far as Limbourg, that pasty of which Louis XIV. found the crust so hard to digest ; but which is now only a dismantled fortress, prettUy situated on the brow of a hill. 54 THE RHINE. We are now once more upon the plain, and entering through a wide gate-way, discover by the ceremonial of a custom-house, and a sentry-box striped with black and yellow, that we have entered the dominions of the King of Prussia. AIX-LA-CHAPELLE. 55 £ LETTER IX. Aix-la-Chapelle — The Tomb of Charlemagne. As regards invalids, Aix-la-Chapelle is a hot, cold, mineral, fer ruginous, sulphurous, bathing place ; as regards the pleasure- seeker, it is a region of balls and concerts. For the pilgrim it is the shrine of those precious relics which are exhibited once in seven years (the gown of the virgin, the blood of Jesus, and the cloth into which fell the head of St. John the Baptist). For the old chronicler, it is an abbey for maidens of high descent, suc ceeding to the monastery built by St. Gregory, son of Nicephorus, Emperor of the East. For the sportsman, it is no less attractive, as the ancient valley of the wild boar (Porcetum, having become Borceite). The manufacturer views it as containing water suit able for the preparation of wool ; the shopkeeper as a depot of pins, needles, and cloth. But for him who is neither imaaufac- turer, sportsman, antiquarian, pilgrim, invalid, or tourist, iris simply the City of Charlemagne. Here that great emperor was born and died, in the old half- Roman palace of the Frank Kings, of which all that remains is the tower of Granus, forming part of the town-hall. He is buried in the church he founded two years after the death of his wife Fastrada, in 796 ; consecrated by Leo III., in 804 : the dedication of which two bishops of Tongres, buried at Maestricht, came out of their tombs to complete. The ceremony was performed by three hundred and sixty-five archbishops and bishops, to represent the days of the year. This historical and yet fabulous church, which gave its name to the town, has, during the last thousand years, undergone many transformations. On my arrival at " Aix," I proceeded at once to " La Chapelle," which presents itself to the reader in the fol lowing manner. A portal of the time of Louis XV., of greyish blue granite. 56 THE RHINE. having fine bronze gates of the eighth century, backed by a Car- lovingian wall, surmounted by a row of Saxon arches. Above these there is a fine Gothic story, superbly carved, in which you recognize the elliptic arch of the fourteenth century, but degraded by a superstructure of brick, and a slated rocif, added not more than twenty years ago. To the right of the porch there is an immense pine-apple, of the pinus syheslris, used as an ornament by the ancients, in Roman bronze, placed upon a granite column. On the opposite side is another column, surmounted by a bronze wolf, also Roman, the body half turned, the teeth clenched, and the jaws open. Allow me to relate, in a parenthesis, the history of this wolf and pine-apple, according to the version of the old women of the country. Ages and ages ago a wish was entertained in Aix-la- Chapelle to found a church; and the foundations being laid, and the walls raised, for six months nothing was heard on the spot but the sound of the adze and hammer. But the funds of the pious having suddenly failed, the pilgrims passing through the city were appealed to, by a tin basin placed before the church door. Scarce ly a dernier, however, was dropped into the vessel. What was to be done ? The senate assembled and consulted. The workmen refused fO; labor, and weeds and moss already took possession of the newly laid stones, as if they were predestined to ruin ! M'as the design then to be abandoned ? The town senate knew not what to answer ! One day, as they were sitting in deliberation, a mysterious stranger, of high and imposing aspect, made his appearance before them. " Good morrow, gentlemen," quoth he. " What is the subject of debate ? — Is it the stoppage of your church which causes your anxiety 1 — You know not how to complete it, eh .' — You want money for the endowment ?" " Stranger !'' replied one of the senators with indignation, " You talk too flippantly ; we want half a million of gold pieces." "Here they are," re plied the stranger, opening a window, and pointing to a heavy laden cart stationed in the square before the town hall, to which were yoked ten pairs of oxen, attended by twenty Moors, armed to the teeth. One of the senators, having accompanied flie mysterious stran- SINGULAR LEGEND. 57 ger down stairs, took one of the sacks from the cart, and returned to empty it before the senate, when it proved to be really full of gold ! All present opened their eyes with amazement ; and turning towards the stranger, with growing respect, demanded his name. " I am the owner of yonder gold. What would you have more ?" replied he. " My residence is in the Black Forest, near the lake of Wildsee, not far from the ruins of Heidenstadt, the city of the pagans. 1 possess a gold mine and a silver mine, and (luring the night amuse myself with counting over heaps of car buncles. My tastes are simple, but being of a melancholy dis position, I pass my days, watching in the deep and transparent waters of the lake, the gambols of the tritons, and the growth of the polygonum amphihium. Thus much in answer to your ques tions. I have unbosomed myself as much as I intend ; make the most of it ! Yonder is your million of gold pieces ; take them or let them alone." " We accept them," replied the senate, " and will hasten to finish our church." " There is one condition to the bargain," observed the stranger. " Take the gold and finish your church. But I demand in ex change the soul of the first individual who crosses its threshold on the day of dedication." ' " You are the devil then ?" shouted the horrified senators. " And you — asses !" was the rejoinder of Satan. The burgomasters of the senate now began to quake and trem ble, and make the sign of the cross. But Satan, who was in a jocular mood, laughed outright at their panic, as he gaily chinked his gold ; so they took courage and began to negotiate. " Satan must know what he is about," said they, " or he would not retain his situation as devil." " After all, it is a bad bargain for me," retorted his Satanic majesty in his turn. " You will have your milliori, or your church to show for it ; I only a wretched soul ! — And whose,- pray ? — The first that comes to hand — the soul of a chance customer- some canting hypocrite probably, who in his dissembled zeal is the first to enter, and who would, therefore, under any circumstances, have fallen to my share ! I must observe, by the way, gentlemen, that the plan of your church is admirable ! Who has been your 58 THE RHINE. architect ? Tell him, with my compliments, that I perfectly ap prove his groined aisles ; and that the pointed arches are in good taste. The shaping of the door is not altogether to my fancy, but it may be modified. The staircase leading to the vaults will be a fine thing in its way ; and 'twould be a thousand pities that what is so well begun should stop short for want of funds. What say you, gentlemen ? Is it a deal ? My million of money for a sin gle soul — ay, or no 1" So spake the tempter. " After all," observed the senators, " we may think ourselves lucky to be let off so easily. He might have taken a fancy to half-a-dozen souls of ours, — which, let us hope, are at present safe from his clutches. Nay, he might have levied a tax of souls upon the whole population !" The bargain, therefore, was finally struck, and the million of gold paid into their treasury. Satan vanished from their view through an aperture, which emitted the sulphurous blue flame usual on such occasions; and two years afterwards the church was completed. Meanwhile, though the senators had of course sworn to observe the profoundest secresy concerning all that had happened, every man of them, the very first evening, divulged the whole story to his wife — according to a law ex-sena torial, indeed, but not the less binding. The secret, therefore, being generally known, thanks to the wives of the senators, prior to the completion of the church, no one dared to set foot in it ! Here, therefore, was a new dilemma : the church of Aix was built ; and now, no one would enter. It was not a church, but a desert ; and, consequently, of no mortal use to mortal soul. Again the senate assembles, but to little purpose. They appeal to the Bishop of Tongres, to no result ; then to the canons of tlie chapter, but equally without avail. " What you require is a mere trifle, my lords," observed a monk belonging to the order whom they next took into consulta tion. " You have undertaken to surrender the first soul that enters the new church. But it was not definitively stipulated what sort of a soul it was to be. Satan is a fool to allow himself to be so overreached. This morning, my lord, after a hard chase, a fine wolf was taken in the valley of^orcette. Drive this ferocious THE CATHEDRAL. 59 beast into the church, and Satan must needs be satisfied. It is his own fault if he chooses to make so loose a bargain." " Bravo !" exclaimed his auditors ; " the monk has more brains in his head than the whole collective wisdom of the senate !" Next day at dawn, the bells of the new church rang cheerfully for the angelus. " How is this ?" said the burghers of the city ; " is this the day of dedication ? and pray who do they expect will be fool-hardy enough to hazard the adventure ?" " Not I," — " Nor I," — " Nor I," was heard on all sides ; as the Senate and Chap ter advanced gravely towards the chief entrance. The wolf was now produced ; and at a given signal, its cage door and the church gates flew open at the same moment. On discerning the empty aisles, in he rushed. Satan was already on the spot, his jaws distended, and his eyes voluptuously iplosed with expectation of a feast. Imagine his rage on discovering his prey to be of the brute creation. With a hideous howl, he spread his harpy wings, flapping about the arches of the edifice with the roar of a tempest ; and finally, on making his exit from the building, bestowed a kick of his hoof upon the brazen gate, by which it was rent in twain from top to bottom, as seen to the present day. " It is in memory of this event," say the old women of Aix, " that the brazen effigy of a wolf was placed on the left of the entrance ; while the pine-apple to the right is intended to represent the soul so mercilessly gobbled up by the evil one !" Such is the local legend. Let us now return to the church, premising that I could not discover the rent in the door described by the tradition. On entering the cathedral by the principal portal, the Roman, Gothic, and rococo styles are confusedly inter mixed, without regard to affinity, fitness, or order, and conse quently without effect. But if you approach from the choir, the effect is wholly different. The lofty apsis of the fourteenth cen tury shines Jbrth in all its boldness of design, and displays the beauty and'feience of the angle of its roof, the rich carved work of the balustrades, its diversified and fantastic spouts, the gloomy color of the stone, and the transparency of its lofty lancet win dows, seen through which, houses two stories high appear to sink into insignificance. Even from thence, however, the view of the church, imposing as it, is hard and discordant. Between the apsis 60 • THE RHINE. and the portal, in a kind of hollow, where all the lines of the edi. fice appear to break, is concealed, barely connected with the facade by a charming bridge of the fourteenth century, the Byzantine dome, with its triangular frontal, built by Otho III., in the tenth century, exactly above the tomb of Charlemagne. This fictitious facade, this buried dome, this broken apsis, con stitute the blemishes of La Chapelle of Aix. The architect of 1353 chose to unite, in his prodigious design, the old church of Charlemagne, devastated by the Normans iii 882, and the dome of Otho, burnt in 1236. A series of minor chapels, connected with the basis of the grand central chapel, was intended to sur round the whole edifice, with the exception of the portal. Two of the chapels which now exist were already built when the fire of 1306 to^k place. This rapid progress was then checked ; and, strange to say, the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries did nothing for the fine old church, which the eighteenth and nineteenth cen turies continued to spoil. It must be confessed, however, that upon the whole, the Cathe dral of Aix exhibits considerable grandeur ; after some minutes' contemplation, a sort of majesty seems engendered by the edifice, which, lil^e the empire of Charlemagne, was never completed ; and represents various styles and periods, just as the latter was composed of many nations speaking many tongues. To him who contemplates it from without, there is a deep and mysterious harmony between the great sovereign of old and the great tomb which he provided for himself I was all impatience to see more of itV- Having entered through the finely arched portal, and the ancient^gates of bronze, embellished in the centre with a lion's head, anS^haped to fit the architraves, the first object that struck me was a wltite rotunda of two stories, lit from above, profusely embellished in the florid rustic style ; and on looking down in the centre of the pavement I perceived, by jht^pale light diffused from above, a large slab of black marble!^ orn by the feet of many visitors, on which is inscribed, in brazen characters, CAROLO MAGNO. Nothing can be in worse taste tMan the rococo style of the chapel ; insulting with its meretricious graces so great a name. Cherubs REMAINS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 61 with the air of Cupids ; palms, that look like courtly feathers ; garlands, flowers, and knots of ribbons, and other frivolous devices ; have been inflicted upon the dome of Otho III., and the tomb of Charlemagne ! The only object worthy of the precious remains contained in this chapel, is an immense circular lamp of forty- eight burners, about twelve feet in diameter, offered in the twelfth century by Frederick Barbarossa to the tomb of Charlemagne. This lamp, which is of copper and gilt silver, is in the form of an Imperial crown, suspended above the marble slab by a massive iron chain ninety feet in length. The black slab covering the frame is nine feet long, by seven feet wide. It is evident that there must have been an early monument to Charlemagne in this very spot ; for the antiquity of the marble slab is doubtful ; and the inscription of " Carlo Magno " is of the last century. The remains of Charlemagne no longer lie under the stone ; in 1166 Frederick Barbarossa, whose lamp, however magnificent, does not redeem the act of sacrilege, caused the Emperor to be disinterred. The Holy Catholic Church laying violent hands on the skeleton, broke it up into relics : and in the vestry of the Cathedral, the vicar exhibits to the curious the arm of Charlemagne, which I saw at the cost of a few francs — that arm, the awe of the world, upon which is pitifully inscribed, by some Latinist of the twelfth century, " Brachium sancti Caroli magni." His skull was next exhibited, between the finger and thumb of a beadle ; the skull from which issued the regeneration of Europe, and on which a sacristan now beats the tattoo with his thumb-nail !* All these objects are kept in a closet of painted wainscot, picked out with gold, surmounted with those Cupid-like angels which constitute the real tomb of him whose fame, at the expiration of ten centuries, still astonishes the human mind ; whose name remains stamped upon the world with the double title, " sanctus " and " magnus ;" the two most august epithets derivable from services rendered to heaven and earth ! * The translator of this work, being at Rouen in 1837, shortly after the discovery of the grave of Richard Coeur de Lion, and the exhumation of his remains, was offered by the sacristan of the church, for a few francs, a por tion of the heart of the English hero, which the man produced in a pill box, and warranted genuine. It had the appearance of a piece of mouldy leather. 62 THE RHINE. The dimensions of the skull and arm are extraordinary. Char- lemagne was one of the few men whose physical strength equal their moral power. The son of Philip the Bref was a Colossus alike in frame and intelligence. His height was seven times the length of his foot ; whiqh measure assigned a law to the king. dom ! This royal foot, the foot of Charlemagne, originated the common foot of long measure, which we have recently sacrificed to the more prosaic admeasurement of the metre ; to the extinc tion of a world of poetry and history in favor of the decimal sys tem, without which the world contrived to get on so well during six thousand years. The cupboard in question is rich in treasures. The doors are painted within in admirable oil paintings upon golden grounds, some of the panels being unquestionably the work of Albert Durer. Besides the arm and skull, there is the horn of Charlemagne, an enormous elephant's tooth most curiously carved ; the cross of Charlemagne, in which is inserted a piece of the true cross of our Saviour, which the Emperor wore round his neck when so audaciously disinterred ; a beautiful censer given by Charies V., and spoilt by a tasteless addition of modem ornament; the fourteen golden medallions, embellished with Byzantine sculptures, which figured upon the marble throne of the great Emperor ; a shrine given by Philip XL, representing the Duomo of Milan ; the cord which bound the limbs of Jesus Christ during his flagellation; a piece of the sponge which absorbed the gall with which they moistened his lips when on the cross ; and, lastly, the girdle of the Holy Virgin, in worsted, and that of our Saviour in leather. This little knotted thong, resem bling a child's whip, had occupied the attention of three Empe rors. From Constantine, who stamped its authenticity with the seal or Sigillum, which it still bears, it descended to Haroun-Al- Raschid, by whom it was presented to Charlemagne. All these venerable and venerated objects are enclosed in Gothic or Byzantine cases, adorned with jewellery, like so many shrines or microscopic cathedrals in massive gold, sparkling with eme ralds, sapphires, and diamonds, by ^^-ay of windows. Amidst these precious jewels, piled upon the twin" shelves of the cupboard, are two immense golden shrines, of the most admirable workman ship and considerable value. The first and most ancient is RELICS. 63 Byzantine, surrounded with niches in which are seated, with their crowns ori their heads, sixteen emperors. In this are kept the remaining bones of Charlemagne; and it is never opened. The second, which is of the twelfth century, and was given by Barba rossa, contains the famous relics to which I alluded at the begin ning of my letter, and is opened every seventh year. The open ing of this celebrated shrine in 1496, attracted one hundred and forty-two thousand pilgrims to Aix-la-Chapelle ; producing a profit to the city in fifteen days, of eighty thousand golden florins. The last shrine has but a single key, which is broken in two pieces, one of which remains in the custody of the Chapter, the other in that of the first civil authority. It has been opened upon extraordinary occasions for crowned heads. The present King of Prussia, when Prince-Royal, was refused the favor.* In a lesser press, close by the other, is a fac simile, in silver gilt, of the Germanic crown of Charlemagne. The Carlovingian crown, surmounted by a cross, and loaded with precious stones and cameos, is formed of a simple circle, dfleurons, which surrounds the head, having a semicirclet superadded from the brows, near the nape of the neck, which resembles, viewed in profile, the ducal horn of Venice. Of the three crowns worn by Charle magne, as emperor of Germany, king of the Lombards, and king of France, the Imperial crown is at Vienna, that of France at Rheims, and the third, the iron crown of Lombardy, at Milan. On leaving the vestry, I was made over by the beadle to a verger, who conducted me about the church, opening every now and then certain gloomy -looking recesses, which within glittered with magnificence. The pulpit, for instance, which at first appears shabby enough, by the sudden removal of its exterior covering becomes a splendid lower of silver gilt. It is a beautiful specimen of the goldsmiths' craft of the eleventh century, given by the emperor Henri II. to the Cathedral. Byzantine ivories richly carved, a crystal ewer with its dish, a huge onyx nine inches long, adorn the suit of golden armor which surrounds, as it were, the priest of the temple * This collection of relics was opened in the month of September, 1842, in presence of the King of Prussia and several royal visitors assembled on occasion of the reviews at Cologne. THE RHINE. deputed to expound the word of God. The breast- plate repre sents Charlemagne carrying the Chapelle of Aix upon his arm. This pulpit is placed at the angle of the choir, occupying the marvellous apsis of 1353. All the stained glass has disappeared, and the lancet-windows are plain from top to bottom. The rich tomb of Otho III., founder of the dome, destroyed in 1794, is replaced by a flat stone marking the spot, at the entrance of the choir. An organ given by the Empress Josephine places the ignoble style of 1804 in juxtaposition with the exquisite arched roof of the fourteenth century. Roof, pillars, capitals, statues, in fact the whole choir is covered with stucco. In the midst of this degraded choir stands the eagle given by Otho III., with wings outspread and fiery eyes, transformed into a reading-desk ; appa rently scorning the use to which he is devoted, for he retains the globe itself in his talons. This ancient emblem of Caesarean sway ought to have been respected. Yet when Napoleon visited Aix-la-Chapelle, the eagle of Otho had a thunderbolt added to the globe grasped in his talons, which still figures on either side the imperial orb. The verger gratifies the curiosity of strangers by unscrewing the moveable thunderbolt. Upon the back of the eagle, as if by ironical and sad anticipation, the sculptor of the tenth century executed an outspread bat, mimicking a human face, upon which the reading-desk is now stationed. To the right of the altar is deposited the heart of Mons. -An toine Berdolet, first and last Bishop of Aix-la-Chapelle, appointed by Napoleon, and, as he is qualified by his epitaph, "primus Aquis- granensis episcopus." At present, the chapel is served by a chapter, presided over by a dean with the title of provost. In another gloomy recess of tlie chapel, the verger opened a closet containing the coffin of Chariemagne, being a superb sai- cophagus of white marble, and Roman origin, exhibiting in bas- relief the profane abduction of Proserpine. I examined with much interest this work of art, which passed for a fine antiquity a thousand years ago. At the extremity of the composition are four plunging horses, of a mingled divine and infernal race, led by Mercury, and drag- ging towards a half open abyss the car, in 'which Proserpine Is writhing with despair, struggling in the arms of Pluto. The THE THRONE OF CH.4RLEMAGNE. 65 robust arm of the god encircles the form of the young maiden, who is thrown back, till her dishevelled hair waves against the firm and inflexible face of the helmeted Goddess of Wisdom. The allegory exhibits Pluto carrying off Proserpine, to whom Minerva is whispering words of advice ; while a smiling Cupid is seated at the bottom of the car, betwixt the colossal legs of Pluto. Be hind Proserpine, in fierce attitudes of defiance, stand a group of nymphs and furies. The companions of Proserpine are strug gling to detain a car, which is stationed behind as if by way of relay, and to which are yoked two winged and flaming dragons ; one of the youthful goddesses having boldly seized a dragon by the wing, so as apparently to cause him to send forth shrieks of pain. This curious relievo is in itself a poem, belonging to a vigorous and noble order of sculpture, somewhat emphatic, worthy of pagan Rome, and such as Rubens might have conceived in modern art. Previous to serving as the sarcophagus of Charle magne, this coffin contained the remains of Augustus. Ascending a flight of steps, trodden during the last six centu ries by innumerable emperors, kings, and illustrious visitors, my guide conducted me to the gallery which forms the first story of the rotunda, called the Hochmiinster. Here, under a half-open wooden covering, which is never oompletely removed except for visitors of royal rank, I beheld the marble chair or throne of Charlemagne. It is formed of .four slabs of white marble, plain and unsculptured ; the seat being of oak, with a cushion of red velvet. It is elevated on a platform, of the height of six steps ;; of which two are of granite, and four of white marble. Upon this same arm-chair, formerly embellished with the fourteen By zantine medallions before alluded to, upon a stone floor raised by four steps of white marble, with the globe and sceptre and Ger manic sword in his hands, a mantle of state upon his shoulders, the relique of the Cross of Jesus Christ suspended round his neck,. and his feet trampling upon the sarcophagus of Augustus, sat Charlemagne in his tomb ! During the space of three hundred and fifty-two years, or from 814 to 1166, did he retain this digni fied attitude in the grave.' But in 1166, Frederick Barbarossa^ desirous of having the arm-chair for his coronation, entered the tomb, the precise form and nature of which no tradition has 6 THE RHINE. handed down, but to which unquestionably belonged the two noble gates of bronze which constitute the principal door of the cathedral. Barbarossa was himself an illustrious prince and valiant knight ; and it must have been a strange and fearful moment when he, a crowned head, stood face to face with the imperial corpse, no less majestic than himself; — the one attired in all the pomps of sovereignty ; the other in the still more awful majesty of death : the soldier defying a shadow ; the living struggling for power with the dead. The chapel retained the skeleton, and Barbarossa took the marble seat, which he converted into a throne. The chair occupied by the remains of Charlemagne literally be came the foundation of four centuries of imperial sway. Thirty-six emperors, including Barbarossa himself, were crowned and consecrated in the chair still deposited in the Hoch miinster of Aix-la-Chapelle. Ferdinand I. was the last ; Charles V. the last but one. In later years, the coronations of the Empe rors of Germany were solemnized at Frankfort. I could with difficulty tear myself away from this chair, .so simple, yet so grand. I contemplated the four steps of marble, worn by the heels of the thirty-six Caesars, and having beheld the brightness of their pomps and glories successively extin guished, a confusion of startling ideas overwhelmed my mind. I remembered that the violator g^the Imperial sepulchre, Frede rick Barbarossa, in his old age proceeded for the second or third time to the Holy Wars. Finding himself one day on the banks of the Cydnus, and suffering from the heat, he was tempted to bathe ; he who had dared to profane the manes of Charlemagne, presumed to forget the history of Alexander. The chill of the river benumbed his limbs to a degree nearly fatal to Alexander, even in his youth, and wholly so to Frederick Barbarossa, who was old and infirm. At some future day, perhaps, a holy and pious inspiration will induce some king or emperor to replace the reliques of Chariemagne in his tomb. The imperial remains will be religiously collected ; the gates of bronze be restored ; and the Roman sarcophagus, placed at the foot of the chair, which will be raised anew upon tlie stone platform, and once more adorned with the fourteen medallions of "old. THE TOMB OF -CHARLEMAGNE. ,-,7 Let the Carlovingian diadem be replaced upon the skull ; tlie orb of empire upon the arm ; the golden mantle 'fepon tfee bones, while the brazen eagle shall nobly resume its place beside the master of the ancient world. The various shrines of gold and jewels, and the different coffers now in the Cathedral, should be deposited around this royal chamber of death ; and since the Catholic church is disposed that we should contemplate the re mains of saints in the form which death assigns them, let there be a grated aperture in the wall, and a light suspended from the vault of the sepulchre, so that the kneeling pilgrim may hail, upon the platform which human feet will defile no longer, seated upon the chair incrusted with gold, his crown upon his head, and his sceptre in his hand, the imperial phantom which once was Charlemagne. Striking, indeed, would be the apparition to any one whose eye was bold enoiagh to penetrate this tomb, and all who had courage for the contemplation, would quit the spot with ennobled thoughts. To such a spectacle people would flock from the furthermost parts of the earth ; and no profound thinker would neglect so startling a pilgrimage. Charles, the son of Pepin, Js one of those complete beings, whom mankind contemplates ¦ under four different aspects. To the eye of history, he is great as Sesostris or Augustus. As re gards romance, he is at once the rival of Rolando as a paladin and Merlin as a magician. With respect to the Church, his sanctity is as that of St. Jerome or St. Peter. But in point of philosophy, he may be regarded as the personified genius of civi lisation, which every thousand years or so takes a giant stride across some dark abyss, surmounting civil war, barbarism, or revolution, under such names as Julius Cassar, Charlemagne, or Napoleon. In 1804, just when Bonaparte had progressed into Napoleon, he visited Aix-la-Chapelle. Josephine, who accompanied him, in dulged in the caprice of sitting upon this marble throne. But the Emperor, though he did not control this indecorous whim of his Creole wife, had attired himself for the occasion, from a deep sense of deference to that mighty name, in full regimentals, and stood silent, motionless, and bareheaded, before the chair of 63 THE RHINE. Charlemagne. Charlemagne died in 814. In 1814, one thou sand years at\erwards, almost to an hour, occurred the fall or moral death of Napoleon. In the course of the same fatal year the allied sovereigns visited the grave of Charles the Great ; when Alexander of Russia mounted his gala-uniform in imitation of Napoleon, while Frederick William of Prussia appeared in an undress, and the Emperor of Austria in a great coat and round hat. The King of Prussia entered into all the details of the coro nations of the German emperors, with the provost of the Chap ter ; but the two emperors observed a profound silence. All these are now as silent as Charlemagne ! Napoleon, Josephine, Alexander, Frederick William, and Francis II. , are cold in their graves ! My guide, who was an old veteran of Austerlitz and Jena, living at Aix, having become a Prussian by the grace of the Con gress of 1814, now wears the baldric, and carries the halberd of the Cathedral, in the ceremonies and processions of the Chapter. One cannot but admire the providence which disposes of even the trifling incidents of this world : this man, who has Charle magne perpetually upon the tongue, adores the memory of Napo leon. From that circumstance alone, and unknown to himself, his words obtain a certain dignity. ¦ Tears rushed into his eyes, when referring to the great battles he had seen, to his old compa nions, or his colonel. In such a vein did he talk to me of Mar shal Soult, of Colonel Graindorge, and, ignorant how dear to me was the name, of General Hugo. He soon recognized me as a Frenchman ; and never shall I forget the solemn simplicity with which he observed at parting — " You may say. Sir, how you beheld, at Aix-la-Chapelle, a pioneer of the 36th of the line turned into a verger of the Cathedral." He had previously said, " Such as you see me, Sir, I belong to three nations. I am by chance a Prussian, a Swiss by profes sion, but in heart a true Frenchman." I confess that his ignorantly military vie^^¦ of ecclesiastical affairs amused me exceedingly ; and on quitting the Cathedral, I was so pre-occupied, that I scarcely noticed a very handsome faqade of the fourteenth century, ornamented with seven noble statues of emperors, and backed by an obscure street. Besides, BIRTH-PLACE OF CHARLEMAGNE. 69 I experienced some interruption from two travellers who, like myself, were quitting the church, and had probably been piloted by my old soldier. As they were shouting with laughter, I turned round, and discovered two gentlemen, one of whom had inscribed his name that morning, in my presence, in the register of the Hotel de I'Empereur, as " Count d'A ," belonging to one of the most illustrious families in Artois. They were talk ing aloud, so that I could not but overhear them. " What names !" said they : " It required a revolution to bring them to one's ears. Captain Lasoupe I Colonel Graindorge ! Where the devil do such people come from ?" These were the colonel and captain of my poor old soldier, nor could I refrain from informing them that Colonel Graindorge was connected with Field- Marshal de Lorge, father-in-law to the Duke of St. Simon. As to Cap tain Lasoupe, I conclude that he may have been cousin to the Duke de Bouillon, uncle of the Elector Palatine of the Rhine. Soon afterwards, I found myself in the square before the town- hall, which, like the Cathedral, is composed of several other edi fices. From two gloomy facades, with high narrow windows, of the date of Charles V., rise two towers, the one low and broad, the other high, taper, and quadrangular, being a handsome eleva tion of the fourteenth century. The first is the famous tower of Granus, scarcely recognizable under its present fantastical mask. This steeple, of which the other is a miniature, looks like a pyra mid of turbans placed one upon the other, and diminishing to the top. Before the facade is a noble staircase, constructed like that of the court of the White Horse, at Fontainbleau. In the centre of the square is a marble fountain, repaired and somewhat remo delled in the eighteenth century, surmounted by a bronze statue of Charlemagne, armed and crowned. To the right and left are two minor fountains, columns bearing on their summits two black and fierce-looking eagles, half-turned towards the grave-looking emperor. It is on that site, perhaps in that Roman tower, that Charlemagne was born. The ensemble of the fountains, the facade, and the towers, is royal, mournful, and severe. The whole speaks powerfully to the 70 THE RHINE. mind, of Charlemagne ; effacing by means of this ^ll-powerful unity, the disparities of the edifice : " All are but parts of that stupendous whole." The tower of Granus recalls the greatness of Rome, his pro totype ; the facade and fountains, Charles V., the most powerful of his successors. The Oriental design of the belfry reminds one of that magnificent Caliph, Haroun-Al-Raschid, his contem porary and friend. Evening was approaching : I had passed my whole day in pre sence of stern but grand reminiscences, and the dust of ten cen turies. I felt athirst to breathe the fresh air of the country, to look on fields, trees, and birds, and having quitted the town, wan dered amid verdure and vegetation till nightfall. Aix still possesses its ancient wall and towers, not having passed under the hands of Vauban. The subterranean passages, said to have communicated between the town-hall, the Cathedral, and the Abbey of Borcette, nay, even to Limbourg, are filled up and forgotten. At dusk I seated myself upon a green bank, to contemplate Aix-la-Chapelle, which lay beneath me in the valley, as if float ing in a vacuum. By degrees the evening fog, eflacing the fringed roofs of the ancient houses, blotted out even the sharp outlines of the two towers, which, with the other belfries of the own, reminded me vaguely of the Mu scovite or Asiatic profile of the Kremlin. Only two masses, of all the city, remained distinctly defined ; the town-hall and the Cathedral. All my thoughts and" visions of the day now rushed anew upon my mind. The town itself, the illustrious and symbolical town, seemed to metamorphose itself under my very eyes. The first of the two black masses, which I still distinguished, beqame to me an infant's cradle ; the second, a shroud ; and, in the complete absorption of ray soul, I seemed to expect that the shadow of that giant \\ hom we call Charie magne, would gently ascend upon the pale horizon of night, ho vering between the august cradle of his infancy, and the sepul chre of his eternal greatness ! COLOGNE. 71 LETTER X. Cologne. — Banks of the Rhine. Andernach, August 11. I AM indignant at myself, my dear friend, for having passed through Cologne like a Goth. I was there only eight and forty hours, though intending to remain there a fortnight. But after the increasing fog and rain of a whole previous week, the sun shed its magnificent rays so brilliantly on the Rhine, that I was fain to take advantage of it ; desiring to see the river-landscape in all its rich and joyous perfection. I quitted Cologne, therefore, this morning by the steam-boat, The CockeriU, and having left behind me the city of Agrippa ; having visited neither the old paintings of Ste. Marie of the Ca pitol ; nor the crypt paved with mosaic of St. G6reon ; nor the Crucifixion of St. Peter, painted by Rubens for the half-Gothic church in which he was baptized ; nor the bones of the eleven thousand virgins in the cloisters of the Ursulines ; nor the inde composable body of the martyr Albinus ; nor the silver sarcopha gus of St. Cunibert ; nor the tomb of Duns Scotus in the church of the Minorites ; nor the sepulchre of the Empress Theophania, wife of Otho II., in the Church of St. Pantaleon; nor the Maler- nus Gruft, in the Church of Lisolphus ; nor the two GJolden cham bers and the dome in the Convent of Ste. Ursula ; nor the hall of the Imperial Diet (now a commercial dep6t) ; nor the old Ar senal, now a corn-warehouse. This is a long list of negations to prove that I have seen nothing of Cologne ; a fact as provoking as it is undeniable. What, then, you "will say, engaged my at tention during the day I spent at Cologne, ? The Cathedral and the town-hall : nothing more ! It could only be in.^speaking of a city so interesting as Cologne, that one presumed to allude to such magnificent edifices with apparent indifference. I arrived there soon after sunset, and immediately directed my steps towards the 72 THE RHIME. Cathedral ; having made over my carpet-bag to one of those most worthy porters, in blue and orange uniforms, who are literally in the service of the King of Prussia (an excellent and profitable employment, let me tell you ; for the traveller is handsomely mulcted, that the king and the porter may share the spoil between them) ! Before I dismiss the subject of the said porte'r, let me add, that I desired him, much to his surprise, to carry my bag gage, not to any hotel in Cologne, but to one at Deutz, a small town on the opposite bank of the Rhine, connected with the city by a bridge of boats. I decided on this, because, when I am to spend some days in a town, I select my window with regard to the view ; and the windows of Cologne look towards Deutz, just as those of the latter look towards Cologne. I consequently took up my quarters where I was able to contemplate the nobler object of the two. Once alone, I wandered about in search of the dome ; expect ing it at each corner of the street. But not being acquainted with this inextricable, intricate city, night came on, and darkened the narrow streets ; and, as I seldom inquire my way, I felt that I had wandered enough. At length, having ventured through a kind of archway, I suddenly found myself in an open space, both dark and solitary, but commanding a sublime spectacle. Before me, in the fantastic twilight, towered a multitude of gabled old- fashioned houses, which, to my surprise, v/ere loaded with mina rets and other architectural ornaments. Farther on, about an arrow's flight, stood another mass, not so vast as the first, but loft ier ; a kind of square fortress, flanked at the angles by four im mured towers, upon the summit of which something like a gigantic feather defined itself, as if waving on a helmet upon the brow of the old dungeon. These mysterious and incongruous objects proved to be the famous Cathedral of Cologne. That which at first appeared to me a black feather drooping from the crest of the gloomy monument, was an immense crane" which I next day saw, and which from its lofty throne announces to passengers that the unfinished temple is one day to be contin ued ; that this trunk of a steeple, and body of the church, now so wide apart, will one day be united ; that the dream of Engel- bert de Berg, realized into a building under Conrad de Hochstet- THE CATHEDRAL. 73 ten, will become in the course of two or three centuries more, the finest Cathedral in the world. This imperfect Iliad still hopes that Homers may be born for its completion. The church was closed. I approached the steeple, the dimen sions of which are prodigious. What I had taken for toy^ers at the four angles, are merely the projection of the buttresses. Nothing is complete but the first story, composed of a colossal ogee, and yet the part finished reaches the height of the towers of Notre Dame at Paris ! If ever the projected steeple be raised upon this huge mass of stone, Strasbourg must sink into insignifi cance. I doubt whether the beautiful steeple of Mechlin, which is also unfinished, arises from the soil in such solid and fair pro- portions. , I have already observed that nothing resembles a ruin more than an incompleted plan. Already the briars, stonecrops, and parasite plants which delight in mortar, and luxuriate in the cre vices of stone, have begun to clothe the venerable portal. The work of man is no sooner perfected than nature attempts its de struction I There was a deep silence in the place. I advanced as near the portal of the front as a rich iron railing of the fifteenth century would allow, till I distinctly heard the peaceful murmur of those diminutive forests which overrun the salient parts of old buildings. A light proceeding from a neighboring window afford ed me a glimpse, under the vaultings of the arches, of a crowd of exquisite figures of angels and saints, seated for the perusal of a volume spread upon their knees, some listening while others preached with uplifted finger : an admirable prologue to a church which is only the Word substantialised into stone and marble. Every " buttress and coigne of vantage " of this fine archi tecture is defaced by the swallows' nests — an edifying contrast to the work of human hands, which they so boldly and foully encrust. The light was now extinguished, and I saw nothing but the vast span of the Gothic arch, eighty feet wide, completely open, without any kind of covering, exposing the tower friSm'top to bot tom, so that my eye was able to penetrate the dark recesses of the steeple. Through this window that of the opposite side appeared diminished in perspective, also unglazed ; while the stone frame- 74 THE RHINE. work of the compartments and oriel seemed traced as if with ink upon the clear and metallic sky of twilight. Nothing could be more melancholy and unique than the contrast between the two arched windows, as diversified by the effect of light and shade. Such was my first visit to the Cathedral at Cologne. I forgot to describe the road from Aix-la-Chapelle to Cologne, but there is not much to relate. It resembles Picardy or Touraine : a suc cession of green or yellow plains, with here and there a distorted old elm, or pale rows of poplars in the bottom. I do not dislike such peaceful scenery, but it does not serve to excite enthusiasm. In the villages the old peasant.women appear like spectres, enve loped in long grey or pale pink cotton cloaks, with hoods that nearly cover their eyes. The young wear very short petticoats; their head being covered with a tight-fitting coif bedizened with spangles or glass beads, which almost conceals their beautiful hair, fastened just above the nape of the neck with a large sil ver arrow. When washing the steps of the houses, the calf of the leg, in kneeling,, is seen as in the old Dutch paintings. As for the men, they wear blue smock-frocks and high-crowned hats, as becomes the citizens of a constitutional monarchy. The road had been inundated with rain. I met no one except a young musician, pale and spare, proceeding to the exercise of his talents at the balls of Aix or Spa, with a knapsack on his back, and his violoncello in a ragged green-baize bag, his staff in one hand and his key-bugle in the other ; dressed in a blue sur tout, and embroidered waistcoat, a white cravat, and scanty trowsers tucked up at the boot fo avoid the mud. Poor wretch !— half dressed for a ball and half for a journey. I detected also in a. field near the road an indigenous sportsman, having a hiMi- crowned apple-green hat, with a lilac satin faded cockade, a grey smock-frock, a large nose, and a fowlino-.piece. In a pretty little square town, flanked with brick walls and ruined towers, about halfway, but its name I forget,* I saw four pompous-looking travellers, seated in the ground!floor of an inn, the windoflfl being open. Before them was a table well furnished with meat, fish, w ines, pies, and fruit, which they were carving, • Probably Juliers, the capital of the Duchy of Cleves. GERMAN INNS. eating, drinking, twisting, picking, and devouring ; the first red, the second crimson, another violet, the fourth purple — living im personations of voracity and gluttony. I seemed to behold the god Goulu, the god Glouton, the god Goinfre, and the god Gouliaf, seated round their inexhaustible repast. The inns are really excellent in this country : excepting the one where I lodged in Aix, which is only tolerable (The Empereur), and where I had, to comfort my feet, a splendid carpet — painted upon the floor : by way of excuse, I suppose, for the exorbitance of the charges. To end at once with Aix-la-Chapelle, I must inform you that literary piracy flourishes there muph as in Belgium. In a street leading from the square of the town hjill, 1 found my face exposed in a shop window by the side of my illustrious friend Lamartine. Executed by the Prussian re-impression, it is rather less ugly than the horrible caricatures sold by the stall -keepers" and booksellers of Paris as my exact resemblance ; an abominable calumny, against which I formally protest. " Ccelum hoc et conscia sidera testor." I live in the true German fashion ; dining with napkins the size of pocket-handkerchiefs, and sleeping in sheets of similar dimen sions. I eat cherries with my roast mutton — prunes with my bare ; and drink excellent Rhenish and Moselle, which an inge nious Frenchman next to me at dinner pronounced to be fit only for young ladies. After emptying his water-bottle, he deigned, however, to pronounce the Rhenish wines to be superior to Rhenish water. In the hotels the waiters usually speak German ; but there is always one who speaks French, partaking, of course, a little of the Tedescan. But variety has its charm. A Frenchman ignorant of German, like myself, loses his time by addressing the head-waiter, except upon questions better ex plained in the Guide-books. He is only varnished with French. 1 Dig a little, and you will find the German soil of his nature an inch below the surface.! Let me now relate my second visit to the Cathedral of Cologne. I returned the following morning. This magnificent church is npproached by a walled court-yard, where you are assailed by 76 THE RHINE. beggars of every description. In relieving them, I recalled to mind that, previous to the occupation by the French, there were twelve thousand hereditary beggars in Cologne, who transmitted their particular stations from generation to generation. This strange community has disappeared. If aristocracies perish, pau- l)erisms cease to be respected. Paupers no longer make bequests of their infirmities to their families. Having rid myself of the beggars, I entered the church. A forest of various-sized columns, protected at their bases by wooden palisades, presented themselves ; the capitals concealed by a scaffolding of surbased vaultings, constructed in planks, and of various curving and elevation. The church is dark, these low arches not allowing the eye| to reach more than forty feet high. To the left there are four or five windows, admitting a brilliant light, which reaches from the wooden arch to the pavement ; to the right are' ladders, pulleys, ropes, windlasses, trowels, and squares. At the farther extremity, the chanting, grave voices of the choristers and prebends, the beautiful Latin of the Psalms floating through the church, the clouds of incense, the organ weeping with expressive suavity, and, from the works above, the biting of saws, the meanings of cranes, and deadened blows of the hammer upon wood, — completed my impressions of the Dom- Kirch or Cathedral of Cologne. The spectacle of this fine Gothic edifice, united with the car penter's shop, this stately abbess wedded to a stonemason, and compelled to control her peaceful habits, her august and dignified life, her chants and prayers, her chaste seclusion being sacrificed to the riot and coarse dialogues of a noisy horde of \\orkmen, pro duces at first a painful impression. The crane of the steeple was placed there on resuming the works, in 1499 ; which works are still in sluggish progress, and, if it please Heaven, the Cathedral of Cologne shall one day or other be completed. Nothing will be finer than the completion, if they only know how to acconiplish the feat. The columns supporting the wooden arches mark out the plan of the nave, which is to connect the choir with the tower. I examined the stained windows, which are of the time of Maxi milian, and executed in the bold exaggerated style of the German restoration of the art. They exhibit kings and knights with fierce- CATHEDRAL OF COLOGNE. 77 looking faces, haughty mien, waving plumes, and gigantic swords, armed like headsmen, and caparisoned like war-horses. Their formidable spouses kneel close beside them, with the profiles of wolves or lionesses ; and the sun passing through the stained glass imparts a vivid glare to their eyes. < One of these windows represents a beautiful idea, which I have before met with ; — the Genealogy of the Virgin. At the foot of the picture lies prostrate the giant Adam, in imperial costume. From his loins issues a tree, whose branches spread over the win dow, showing forth all the royal ancestors of the Holy Virgin. David is playing the harp ; Solomon is deep in thought ; and at the top of the tree, in a dark blue ground, expands a flower exhibiting the Virgin bearing the Child. Some steps farther oflT, I perused the following sorrowful epitaph : — INCLITVS ANTE FVI, COMES EMVNDVS VOCITATVS, HIC NECE PROSTRATVS, SVB TEGOR VT VOLVI, FRISHEIM, SANCTE MEVM FERO, PETRE, TIBI COMITATVM ET MIHI REDDE STATVM, TE PRECOR, iETHEREVM H^C LAPIDVM MASSA COMITIS COMPLECTITVR OSSA. I transcribe this epitaph just as I saw it, upon a vertical slab of stone, inscribed as prose, without any indication of the barbarous hexameters and pentameters forming the distich. The closing rhyming verses contain a false quantity, mass-d, which surprised me, as in the middle ages people knew at least how to write Latin verses. The aisle to the right of the transept is only marked out, termi nating in a vast oratory, cold, ugly, and ill-furnished, with the exception of a few confessionals. I hastened to return to the church. On leaving the oratory, three things simultaneously struck me : to my left, a beautiful little pulpit of the sixteenth century, cleverly designed and miraculously carved in black oak ; farther on, the iron railing of the choir, an exquisite specimen of the iron-work of the fifteenth century ; and before me was a beautiful gallery or tribune, with low arches and thick pilasters, much in the style of 7S THE RHINE. our precursive restoration, and which I suppose to have been intended for our unfortunate fugitive queen, Marie de Medicis. At the entrance of the choir, in an elegant shrine, the eyes are dazzled by a genuine Italian Madpna, covered with spangles and tinsel, as well as the Child. Above this gorgeous image, proba bly as an antithesis, you perceive a massive box for the poor, fashioned after the twelfth century, festooned with chains and pad locks, and half inserted in a coarsely sculptured block of granite. On raising my eyes, I saw suspended from the vault some gilded sticks tied to a transversal rod of iron, by the side of which is the following inscription : " Quot pendere vides bacvlos, tot episcopus annos huic Agrippincz prafuil ecclesia." I approve this unerring method of counting the years, and making evident to the bishop the lapse of time he has either lost or gained. Three stripes are now appended to the roof. The choir is contained in the celebrated apsis, which at present constitutes the Cathedral of Cologne ; the steeple of the tower, roof of the nave, and the transept being deficient. The choir is splendid. Shrines of the most delicate carving in wood — chapels, rich with noble sculpture — paintings of every period — tombs of every form. Bishops in granite, reposing in a fortress ; others in touchstone, borne by a procession of weeping angels; bishops in marble, laid upon a lattice- woik of iron; bishops of brass, stretched upon the ground ; bishops in boxwood, kneeling before the altar ; lieutenant-generals of the time of Louis XV., leaning on their sepulchres ; Crusaders, each whh his dog lying affectionately against his steel-clad heel ; statues of the apostles, in cloth of gold ; confessionals, in oak, with their twisted columns ; nobly carved stalls ; baptismal fonts, in the form of sarcophagi ; altar-stones adorned with little figures; frag ments of stained glass ; Annunciation of the fifteenth century, upon a gold ground, in which the angel, whose parti-colored wings are lined with white, gazes with a some\\hat human eye on the Holy Virgin ; tapestries executed after the designs of Rubens ; Won- work one might attribute to Quentin Matsys ; and cabinets with painted doors and gilded shutters, worthy of Frank Floris. All this, however, is in a disgracefully neglected state, and if the Cathedral be in process of external improvement, sad havoc THE CATHEDRAL. 79 goes on within. Not a tomb but is mutilated, or an iron rail but has lost its gilding, and dust and dirt are visible in all directions. The flies are effacing the face of the venerable Archbishop of Heinsberg ; and the brazen individual who lies upon the pave ment under the name of Conrad of Hochsteden, who intended to have built this gigantic cathedral, is unable now to crush the spiders which seem to hold him down, like Gulliver, enchained by their threads. Alas ! a feeble arm of flesh is worth as many thousands cast in brass ! I rather believe that a bearded figure of an old man I noticed lying mutilated in a corner is by Michel Angelo ; — which reminds me that at Aix-la-Chapelle I saw the famous columns taken by Napoleon, and retaken by Blucher, heaped up in an angle of the old cloister burying-ground, like trunks of trees waiting the operation of the saw-pit. Napoleon intended them for the Louvre-; Blucher left them in a charnel- house. One of the questions which we are oftenest compelled to ask ourselves in this world is "Cui bono ?" There were, apparently, but two tombs cared for and respected, amidst all this degradation — the cenotaphs of the Counts of Schauenbourg, a couple who seem to have been foreseen by Vir- o-il. Both were Archbishops of Cologne ; both lie in the same place of sepulture ; having two handsome tombs of the seventeenth century, opposite each other, so that Adolphus von Schauenbourg is able to contemplate his brother Antony. I have purposely delayed to mention the most venerable part of this sacred edifice, the fkmous Shrine of the Magi, which consists of a vast chamber, embellished with marbles of all kinds, environed with thick copper gratings ; the architecture being in the mixed and fantastic styles of Louis XIII. and Louis XV. It is situated in the rear of the high altar, at the extremity of the choir. Three turbans introduced into the composition of the grating first attract the eye ; and on looking up, one perceives a bas-relief, representing the Adoration of the Magi : lower down you perceive the following lines : — % " Corpora sanctorum recubant hic terna Magorum. Ex his sublatum nihil est alibive locatum." I advanced toward the tomb ; and through this grating, scrupu- 80 THE RHINE. lously shut, beheld, through a cloudy gla.ss, the famous Byzantine shrine of massive gold, sparkling with diamonds and pearls ; just as, through the obscurity of twenty centuries, behind the gloomy and austere film of Church traditions, you hail the Oriental story of the Three Wise Men of the East. On either side the venerated grating, two hands, in gilt copper, emerge from the marble, each holding a begging-box, and under which the Chapter has engraved the following indirect solicitation : " Et apertis thesauris suis obtulerunt ei munera." Three lamps burn perpetually before the shrine, named Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, after the names of the three Magi. As I was about to withdraw, I felt a prick in the sole of my foot, and looking down, I found it to be the head of a large copper nail upon which I had trodden, which was inserted in a slab of the marble pavement. I now remembered that Marie de Medicis desired to have her heart deposited under the Chapel of the Three Kings. The pavement under my feet probably covered this royal heart. On the surface of the stone, as may be seen by traces still visible, was formerly placed a plate of gilt brass, according to the German custom of adorning graves with the name or escutcheon and epitaph of the deceased. It was the nail of this plate which had just pricked my foot. When the French were in possession of Cologne, the revolutionary ideas, or possibly some rapacious coppersmith; extirpated this plate bearing the device of the Bour bons, as well as many others which surrounded it ; for quantities of copper fastenings protruding from the pavement, announce many similar defacements. And thus this wretched queen, who found herself obliterated in the first instance from the heart of Louis XIII., her son, and afterwards from the remembrance of Richelieu, her creature, was fated in the sequel to have her very sepulchral inscription erased from the face of the earth. So strange is destiny ! This Marie de Medicis, this widow of Henri IV., exiled, forsaken, and distressed, as afterwards her (Slaughter Henrietta, the widow of Charies I., came and died at Cologne, in 1642, in a lodging belonging to one Ibach, No. 10, in the Sterngasse, in the very house where sixty-five years before, in 1577, her painter, Rubens, was born. COLOGNE. 81 The Cathedral of Cologne, viewed by day, and reduced from that imaginary proportion which the evening light confers on every object, and which I call crepuscular grandeur, loses some what of its dignity. The outline, though fine, is dry, arising probably from the perseverance of the architect in repairing and cementing the venerable apsis. Great caution is required in the reparation of ancient edifices. As they now stand, I prefer the half-finished tower to the perfect apsis. All things considered, with due deference to the prejudices of the ultra refined, who choose to consider the Cathedral of Cologne the Parthenon of Christian architecture, I know no reason for assigning the palm to this sketch of a cathedral, rather than to our own Ndtre Dame, or those of Amiens, Rheims, or Chartres. Even the Cathedral of Beauvais, also a mere apsis, scarcely known and little vaunted, does not seem to me, whether in size or details, much inferior to that of Cologne. The town-hall, situated near the Cathedral, is one of thbse charming motley edifices built at different periods and composed of every style, which are to be met with in those self established communities whose laws, habits, and customs have an equally •incongruous origin. The progress of the formation of such edifices and communities affords a curious study, being rather a work of agglomeration than of construction. All is the result of progressive increase, and encroachments upon the property of neighbors, rather than of forethought or a preconcerted plan. Growing wants have created an extension of means. The town-hall of Cologne, therefore, though probably possessing some Roman vault among its foundations, was nothing more, towards 1250, than a gloomy-looking building, such as our Maisons aux piliers. But as there was now occasion for a belfry, for the pur pose of alarms, defence, and watchfulness, the fourteenth century erected a tower for both civil and feudal purposes. Under Maximilian the cheering breath of the regeneration of the arts began to agitate the gloomy stone foliage of the cathedrals ; a taste for elegance and embellishment became universal ; and the authorities of Cologne felt the necessity of bestowing a proper exterior upon their town-hall. They accordingly sent to Italy for some disciple of the school of Michel Angelo ; or perhaps to 7 82 THE RHINE. France, for some able competitor of Jean Goujon ; and to their gloomy facade of the thirteenth century added a triumphant and magnificent porch. A few years afterwards, they felt the want of a public lounge near their registry-office, and laid out a charming plot of ground, surrounded by arcades, sumptuously embellished by escutcheons and bas-reliefs ; which I was so fortunate as to see, but which, henceforth, will be seen by few, for they are on the eve of falling into ruins. Lastly, under Charles V., having found it necessary to have a vast hall for the purpose of sales, proclamations, and assemblies of burgesses, they erected, opposite their belfry, a handsome brick and stone building, of the highest order of taste and design. At the present day, the nave of the thirteenth century, the por tico and pleasance of Maximilian, the hall of Charles V., grown old together, and alike abounding in traditions and events, fortuitously mingled and grouped together, unite to render the town-hall of Cologne as original as it is picturesque. As a production of ait, and the reflection of history, I prefer it to the cold, insipid style, with its triple front over-burthened with archivaults, and the parsimonious deficiency of embellishment visible in its stunted roofs without minarets, crest, or chimneys, with which, in the very teeth of the good city of Paris, the masons are masking our superlative specimen of the genius of Bocador. For we are singular people ! We submit to the demolition of the ancient H6tel de la Tremouille, and create public monuments of this wretched nature, permitting individuals to call themselves architects, who presume to lower two or three feet, and thus com pletely disfigure, the lofty roofs of Dominique Bocador, to adopt the flat attics of their own invention. Are we always to remain the same tasteless barbarians, who, pretending to adore Corneille, allow him to be retouched and corrected by the hand of Monsieur Andrieux ? No matter — let us return to Cologne. I ascended the tower, and beneath a dull grey sky, somewhat in harmony with my thoughts, contemplated this interesting city. Cologne on the Rhine, like Rouen on the Seine, and Antwerp on the Scheldt, that is, like all cities seated on broad and rapid rivers, COLOGNE. 83 is built in the form of a strung bow, of which the river is the chord. The roofs are slated, and crowded together, and packed like cards doubled together : the streets are narrow, the gables carved and ornamented. A red boundary of city walls, rising on all sides above the roofs, hems in the town, buckling it as in a belt to the river. From the tower of Thurmchen, to the superb tower of Bayenthurme, among the battlements of which stands the marble statue of a bishop bestowing his benediction on the Rhine — from Thurmchen to Bayenthurme, fhe city exhibits, to the length of a league, a faqade of fronts and windows. Midway, a long bridge of boats, gracefully curving with the current, crosses the river, connecting that multifarious mass of gloomy architecture, Cologne, with Deutz, which consists of a small cluster of white houses. From the centre of Cologne, and round the peaked roofs, turrets, and flower-decked attics, arise the varying altitudes of twenty-seven churches, independent of the Cathedral. Four of these are majestic Roman edifices, each of a different design, and worthy of the title of cathedral. To the north is St. Martin ; to the west, St. Gereon ; the church of the Holy Apostles to the south ; and Ste. Marie of the Capitol to the east ; — forming a forest of towers, steeples, and domes. Considered in detail, this city is all life and animation, the bridge being crowded with passengers and carriages, the river with sails, and the banks with masts. The streets swarm — the windows chatter — the roofs sing in the sunshine. Here and there groves of trees refresh the gloomy-looking houses ; while the old edifices of the fifteenth century, with their long friezes of fruits and flowers, afford a refuge to the pigeons and doves who sit cooing there to their hearts' content. Around this vast com munity — rich from industry, military from necessity, maritime from site — an extensive and fertile plain extends in all directions, depressed towards Holland, most part of which is watered by the Rhine. Towards the north-east it is bounded by that nest of romantic legends and traditions called the Seven Mountains. And thus the horizon of Cologne is circumscribed on one side by Holland and her commerce, on the other by Germany and her SI THE RHINE. _ poetry ; embodying those two grand phases of the human mind, the real and the ideal. Cologne itself is a city devoted to the delights of business, as well as the pleasures of imagination. On descending from the belfry, I paused in the court-yard be fore the magnificent porch. Just now I called it triumphant ; the word should have been " triumphal," for the second story of this admirable composition is a series of minor triumphal arches, side by side, like arcades, and dedicated with suitable inscrip tions ; the first to Ca3sar ; the second to Augustus ; the third to Agrippa, the founder of Cologne (Colonia Agrippina) ; the fourth to Constantine, the Christian Emperor ; the fifth to Justinian, the lawgiver ; the si.xth to Maximilian, the Emperor, then on the throne. Upon the faqade, the sculptor poet has carved three bas-reliefs, representing three lion tamers ; Milo of Crotona, Pepin-le-Bref, and Daniel the prophet. At fhe two extremities he has placed Milo of Crotona, who subdued his lions by manual strength : and Daniel, who employed spiritual influence. Be twixt the two, as a link naturally uniting the one with the other. he placed Pepin-le-Bref, who subdued the beasts of the forest with the exact measure of physical and moral strength requisite for a soldier. The union of moral and physical force engenders courage. A combination of the athlete and the prophet forms the hero. Pepin is represented sword in hand, and his left arm, wrapt in his cloak, is plunged into the jaws of the lion, who, snarling and showing his fangs, is rearing on his hinder legs, in the formidable attitude usually described as the lion rampant. Pepin confronts him valiantly. Daniel is represented standing with his arms motionless, and his eyes upraised to heaven, while fhe lions play at his feet ; to show that superiority of soul triumphs without effort. As to Milo of Crotona, with his arm clenched in the cloven tree, he is struggling fiercely with the lions, who devour him, the penalty of blind and unintelligent presumption confiding in muscular power. In the three contests, it is only vulgar strength which is defeated. These bas-reliefs contain a world of meaning. The effect of the last is terrible. T cannot describe the awful influence, pro bably unsuspected by the sculptor himself, exercised by this COLOGNE. 85 gloomy poem, which represents nature wreaking vengeance upon man ; the vegetable and brute creation making common cause^ against the enemy, their oak coming to the aid of the lion to ex terminate a gladiator. Unfortunately, the whole of this bas- relief, entablatures, mouldings, cornices, colonnades, all this beautiful porch, has been restored, scraped, and stuccoed, with the most deplorable nicety. As I was leaving the town-hall, a man oldened rather than old, depressed rather than infirm, of miserable exterior, but haughty deportment, traversed the court. The guide who ac companied me to the belfry pointed him out to my notice. " That man is a poet," said he, " who wastes his substance in the wine-houses, and his time in writing epics." It appears that this individual, whose name retains an honor able obscurity, has indited odes against Napoleon, — against the revolution of 1830, — against the romantic school, — against the French — to say nothing of an epopee imploring the architect to continue the cathedral of Cologne in the style of the Pantheon at Paris. Let him play the Homer if he please ; but a dirtier specimen of the sons of Apollo it never was my fate to look on. This species of epic poet is luckily unknown in France. On the other hand, as I was crossing a narrow obscure street, some min utes later, a little old man started abruptly from a barber's shop, crying aloud, " Sir, sir, sir ! the French are mad, sir ; stark mad, sir ! drum a drum drum ! ra ta plan plan ! — war with all the world, sir ! bang, bang, bang ! The Emperor, eh ? The French are brave, sir, and stuck it well into the Prussians, eh ? They got a dose and a half at Jena, sir, bang, bang, bang '. rum, bravo for the French, sir ! Brum a drum drum .'" This mad harangue delighted me. France still retains an honorable place amid the recollections and hopes of these noble nations. One bank at least of the Rhine still loves us ; I had almost said awaits us. Towards evening, when fhe stars shot forth their light, I strolled upon the shore opposite Cologne. I had before me the whole city, with its innumerable gables and sombre steeples, defined against the pallid sky of the west. To my left, like the giantess of Cologne, stood the lofty spire of St. Martin, with its two open- worked towers. Nearly fronting me was the gloomy cathedral, 86 THE RHINE. with its thousand pinnacles bristling like the back of a hedge. hog, crouched up on the brink of the river, the immense crane on the steeple forming the tail, while the lanterns alight towards the bottom of the gloomy mass glared like its eyes. Amid this pervading gloom I heard nothing but the gentle ripple far below at my feet, the deadened sounds of horses' hoofs upon the bridge, and from a forge in the distance the ringing strokes of the ham mer on the anvil ; no other noise disturbed the stillness of the Rhine. A few lights flickered in the windows from the forge ; the sparks and flakes of a raging furnace shot forth and extin guished themselves in the Rhine, leaving a long luminous trace, as if a sack of fire was shooting forth its contents into the stream. Injluenced by this gloomy aspect of things, I said to myself, — The Gaulic city has disappeared, fhe city of Agrippa vanished — Cologne is now the city of St. Engelbert, but how long will it be thus ? The temple built yonder by St. Helena fell a thousand years ago — the Church constructed by Archbishop Anno will also fall — the ruin is gradually undermining the city ; every day some old stone, some old remembrance is detached from its place by fhe wear and tear of a score of steam-boats. A city does not affix itself with impunity to the grand artery of Europe. Cologne, though more ancient than Treves and Soleure, the two most ancient communities of the Continent, has been thrice re formed and transformed by the rapid and violent current of ideas ascending and descending unceasingly, from the cities of Wil liam the Taciturn to the mountains of William Tell, and bring ing fo Cologne from Mayence the opulence of Germany, and from Strasbourg the opulence of France. A fourth climacteric epoch appears to menace Cologne. The mania of utilitarianism and positivism, so called in fhe slang of the day, pervades every quarter of the world, and innovations creep into fhe labyrinth of its antique architecture, and open streets penetrate its Gothic obscurity. What is called " the taste of the day" is beginning to invade it, with houses or front ages in the fashion of our Rue de Rivoli, to the profound amaze ment of the shopkeepers. Nay, have wc not seen that there exist drunken rhymers who would fain behold the old minister of Conrad of Hochstetten converted into the Pantheon of Souf- COLOGNE. 87 flot ? In that cathedral, still endowed and adorned, for vanity's sake rather than from devotion, the ancient tombs of fhe Arch bishops are decaying. The peasant-women, with their superb old costume of scarlet, and coifs of gold and silver, have yielded their place upon the quays to smart and flippant griseUes, attired in the Paris fashion ; and I saw the last brick dislodged from the old cloister of St. Martin, in order that a caf6 might be built on the site. Long rows of pert white houses give a cockneyfied air to the Catholic and feudal suburb of the martyrs of Thebes ; and an omnibus takes you across the historical bridge of boats, for six sols, from Agrippina to Tuitium ! — Alas, alas ! the old cities of Europe are departing. 88 THE RHINE. LETTER XI. ANDERNACH. As regards the men and things of the day, my dear friend, fhe things may know what they are about, but the men I am pretty sure would be puzzled to give an account of themselves. In contrasting the mysteries of history with those of nature ; in the midst of the eternal comparisons which I cannot choose but make between the events in which God conceals his purposes, and the works of creation in which they are clearly manifested ; I have often experienced a sudden pang, in picturing to myself that the forests, lakes, and mountains, fhe deep thunder of the clouds, or the flower which nods its little head at us as we pass, the star that twinkles in the vapors of the horizon, the ocean that groans and murmurs as for an omen of warning to some listening ear, may be imbued with terrible intelligence — endowed with know ledge and science, and^ view with pitv the ignorant son of clay who gropes his way among them, through the darkness of his in tellectual night ; that they may despise our impotent pride, and the vanity whose eyes are blindfolded by ignorance. It goes against the impulses of my self-love that the tree should be cer tain of the fruit it is destined to bear, while man is unable to surmise his own future destiny or opinions. The life and intelligence of a man lie at the mercy of a divine influence, which the Christian calls providence, the freethinker chance ; which mixes, combines, and organizes all things ; con cealing its machinery in fhe shadow of night, and setting forth its work in the light of day. While intending to do one thuig, we are often betrayed into the contrary. " Urceits exit." History teems with examples of this. When the husband of Catherine de Medicis and lover of Diane de Poitiers allowed him self to be allured by the mysterious charms of Philippe Due, the beautiful Piedmontese, he was fated to engender, not only Diane MYSTERIES OF HISTORY. 89 d' Angouleme, to become the wife of Farnese, but the reconcilia tion at a future time between his son, afterwards Henri III., with his cousin, afterwards Henri IV. When the Duke de Nemours galloped down the steps of the Holy Chapel, mounted upon his famous palfrey, " the Royal," he not only introduced the fashion of such dangerous amusements, but prepared the way for the disastrous death of fhe King of France. On the 10th of July, 1559, in the lists of St. Antoine, Montgomery, his face streaming under the red plumes of his casque, with his chivalrous exertions, fixing his lance into his rest, mshed on a royal knight, bearing the device of the fleur-de- lys, and applauded by every lady present, — little surmising the importance of the event reserved for his hands ! Never did the wand of fairy possess the power of that disastrous lance ! With a single thrust, it sealed the fate of Henri II. , demolished the palace of the Tournelles, constructed the Place Royale, and in short suppressed the leading personage of the drama on the stage, changed its whole scenery and decorations, and overturned the system of social life. When, after the battle of Worcester, Charles II. concealed him self in the oak, he intended only to secure a hiding-place ; instead of which, he conferred a name upon a constellation, " the Royal Oak," and afforded to Halley the means of thwarting the wishes of Tycho Brahe. The second husband of Madame de Maintenon in revoking the Edict of Nantes, and the parliament of 1688 in dethroning James II. , were working a way for that curious battle of Almanza, which beheld a French army commanded by an Englishman, Marshal Berwick, and an English army commanded by a Frenchman, Ruvigny, Lord Galloway. Had not Louis XIII. died on the 14th of May, 1643, the old Count Fontana would never have thought of attacking Rocroy five days afterwards ; nor an heroic prince, twenty-two years of age, have enjoyed the brilliant opportunity of the 19th of May, which raised the Duke d'Enghien into the " Great Conde !" In the midst of the crowd of historical facts with which chro nology abounds, what singular echoes, what wonderful parallels, what unexpected results ! In 1664, after the insult offered at* Rome to his ambassador the Duke de Crequy, Louis XIV. caused 90 THE RHINE. the Corsicans to be expelled from the Holy City ; and one hun dred and forty years afterwards, an obscure Corsican, grown into the Emperor Napoleon, exiles the Bourbons from France ! What mysterious shadows, and what flashes of light, then darkness .' When, about 1612, the youthful Henri de Montmorency observed at his father's, among the gentlemen attached to his establishment, a pale-faced looking page engaged in menial occupation, Laubes- pine de Ch&teauneuf by name, how was he to suppose that the youth then so submissive and respectful would progress int> the Keeper of the Seals, and eventually preside by commission at the parliament of Toulouse, and furtively procure a dispensation from the pope in order to proceed to the decapitation of his former master Henri II., Duke of Montmorency, field-marshal of France by the chances of the sword, and by the grace of God a peer of the realm ? When the President De Thou polished, retouched, and revised so minutely in his book the edict of Louis XI. of the 22d De cember, 1477, who could have foretold that this same edict, with Laubardemont for a handle of the same, would serve as an axe for Richelieu to decapitate his son ? In the midst of the chaos of events, order prevails. The con fusion exists but in appearance ; all is submitted to the laws of the Almighty. After a long lapse of time, the startling facts which astounded the senses of our fathers, return like comets, from the darkest abyss of history. The same treasons recur — the same treachery, the same disasters, the same wrecks. The names alone are changed ; the facts are identical. A few days before the fatal treaty of 1814, Napoleon could have said to his thirteen marshals, " Amen dico vobis quia unus veslriim 7ne tradi- turns est." Brutus continues to be adopted by Cassar, a Charles to prevent a Cromwell from proceeding to Jamaica, and a Louis XVI. to forbid a Mirabeau embarking for India. From age to age despo tic queens are punished by refractory sons, and ungrateful queens by ungrateful sons. An Agrippina brings forth the Nero who is to put her to death ; a Marie de Medicis, the Louis XIII. who is to drive her into exile. Admire, I beg of you, the strange com bination of ideas, by which I have arrived almost unintentionally THE TWO QUEENS. 91 at two queens, f-svo Italians, two crowned shadows of fhe past : Agrippina and Marie de Medicis ; spectres who still haunt the romantic precincts of Cologne, the names of despairing queen- mothers. At sixteen hundred years' distance of time, the daugh ter of Germanicus, who was mother of Nero, and the wife of Henri IV., who was the mother of Louis XIII., stamped their names indelibly in the annals of Cologne. Of these two widows — for an orphan is the widow of her father — rendered so, the one by poison, the second by the poniard — one of them, Marie de Medicis, there breathed her last ; the other, Agrippina, was born there, and brought prosperity to the resting- place of her cradle. At Cologne I visited the house in which Marie de France expired ; the house of one labach or Jabach ; and instead of telling you what I saw there, I shall tell you what I thought. Pardon me, my friend, if I do not give you all the minute details in which I usually indulge, and which in my opi nion serve to point and define the character of a man through that of the objects with which he surrounds himself. In the present instance I spare you. ¦ , The unfortunate Marie de Medicis died the 3 July, 1642, at the age of sixty-eight, after an exile of eleven years. She had wandered about in various directions — in Flanders — in England — unwelcome everywhere, as is usually the case with the unfor tunate. In London, Charles I. treated her nobly, and she re mained there three years, receiving from the royal bounty £100 per diem. At a later period — I say it with regret — Paris repaid to the Queen of England in a singular manner the hospitality manifested in London to a Queen of France. Henrietta Maria, the daughter of Henri IV., and widow of Charles I., was lodged in the Louvre, in I know not what wretched garret, where she was forced to remain in bed during the cold weather, for want of fire, waiting the few louis promised her by the Coadjutor, then in power. Her mother, the widow of Henri IV., ended her days at Cologne, in a similar condition and the most abject want. At the request of the cardinal minister, Charles I. sent her away from England. I am sorry to say it of the royal and melancholy author of the Eikon Basilike, and can ill understand how he who stood firm before Cromwell, trembled before Richelieu. 92 THE RHINE. To follow the train of these details fraught with ominous in- struction, Marie de Medicis was shortly followed to the grave by her persecutors ; by Richelieu, who died in the same year, and by Louis XIII., who died the year following. To what end then all these ferocious animosities between one human being and ano ther ? Of what use their intrigues, their persecutions, their quarrels, and perfidy, when all these were to sink into fhe grave too-ether ? The Almighty, whose purposes are inscrutable, alone can answer. An awful suspicion rests on the memory of Marie de Medicis. 'The shade ofJlavaillac appears always to lay his grisly finger on the sweeping folds of her/i-oyal robe. I was always panic-struck by the terrible words of the President Hfenault, which were per haps unintentionally written : " The queen was not sufficiently sur prised at the death of Henri IV." I confess that these mysteries greatly enhance in my estimation the pompous and unreserved epoch of Louis XIV. ~" The Shadows and obscurities which tarnish the beginning of his century serve only to impart greater lustre to the splendors of its later jj^ars. It exhibits the power of Richelieu ennobled by the majesty of the throne — the greatness of Cromwell united with the serenity of the right divine. The grandeur of Louis XIV. is reflected from the greatness of all around him, which, while it diminished the glory of the sovereign, augments a thousand-fold the glories of the reign. As for me, who like to find things in a state of fitness and com pletion, without having indulgence to show or allowances to con cede, I have ever entertained deep sympathy with that grave and magnificent prince, so well-born, so well-bred, so v/ell-surrounded ; every inch a king, fi-om the cradle to the tomb ; a monarch in the highest acceptation of the word ; the so\ereign centre of civili sation, the central point of Europe, round which revolved and disappeared eight popes, two kings of Spain, five sultans, three kings of Portugal, four kings and one queen of England, three kings of Denmark, one queen and two kings of Sweden, four kings of Poland, and four czars of Muscovy ; the polar star of a whole century, which for sevcntj-.two )cars witnessed from its supreme elevation the mysterious phenomena of the European spheres. MUSEE WALRAF. 93 LETTER XII. Musee Walraf. Andernach. At Cologne, in addition to the cathedral, the town-hall, and the Hotel Ibach, I visited at the Schleiss Kotfin, near the city, the re mains of the subterraneous aqueduct which, in the time of the Romans extended from Cologne to Treves, and of which the traces are still visible in thirty-three villages. In Cologne itself I visited the Musee Walraf, and I am tempted to favor you with its inventory. For the present, however, I spare you. Let if suffice you to know, that if I did not see there, thanks to the depredations of Baron Hubsch, the war-chariot of the ancient Germans, the famous Egyptian mummy, and the culverine four yards long, cast at Cologne in 1400, I saw at all events the beau tiful Roman sarcophagus and armor of Bishop Bernard de Galen, besides an enormous cuirass supposed to have been that of the Imperial general, Jean de Wert. I looked in vain, however, for his sword eight feet long, his famous pike, and Homeric helmet, of which it is recorded that two men could scarcely lift it from the ground. The pleasure of seeing curious objects, museums, churches, or town halls, is considerably lessened by the constant demand for fees. Upon the Rhine, as in all much-frequented countries, such demands sting you like gnats. On a journey let the traveller put faith in his purse, and without it let no man look for the tender mercies of hospitality, or the grateful smile of a kindly farewell. Allow me to set forth the state of things which the aborigines of the Rhine have created, as regards the fee or pourboire. As you enter the gates of a town you are asked to what hotel you intend to go ; they next require your passport, whioh^ they take into their keeping. The carriage pulls up in the court-yard of the post- house ; the conductor, who has not addressed a word to you dur- 94 THE RHINE. ino- the whole journey, opens the door and thrusts in his filthy hand—" Something tp drink." A moment afterwards comes the postilion, who, though prohibited by the regulations, looks hard at you, as much as to say, " Something to drink .'" They now un load the diligence, and some vagabond mounts the roof and throws down your portmanteau and carpet-bag—" Something to drink .'" Another puts your things into a barrow, and inquiring the name of your hotel, away he goes, pushing his barrow. Arrived at the hotel, the host insinuatingly inquires your wishes, and the fol lowing dialogue takes place, which ought to be written in all lan guages on all the doors of all the rooms. " Good day, Sir." " Sir, I want a room." " Good, Sir : {bawls out) No. 4 for this gentleman." " Sir, I wish to dine." " Directly, Sir," &c. You ascend to your room. No. 4, your baggage having pre ceded you, and the barrow gentleraan appears. " Your luggage. Sir — Something to drink." Another now appears, stating that he carried your baggage up stairs. " Good," say you, " I will not forget you with the other serv ants when I leave the house." " Sir," replies the man, " I do not belong to the hotel — Some thing to drink." You now set out to walk, and a fine church presents itself Eager to enter, you look around, but the doors are shut ! " Compelle intrare," says holy writ, according fo which the priests ought to keep the doors open. The beadles shut them, however, in order to gain " something to drink." An old woman, perceiving your dilemma, points to the bell-handle by the side of a low door ; you ring, the beadle appears, and on your asking to see the church, he takes up a bundle of kej's and proceeds towards the principal entrance, when, just as you are about to enter, you feel a tug at your sleeve, with a renewed demand for " something to drink." You are now in the church. " \\'hy is that picture covered with a green cloth ?" is your first exclamation. SOMETHING TO DRINK ! 95 " Because it is the finest we possess," replies the beadle. " So much the worse," is youi reflection. " In other places they exhibit their best paintings, here they conceal their chef. d'ceuvres." " By whom is the picture ?" " By Rubens." " I wish to see it." The beadle leaves you a moment, and returns with a grave- looking personage, who, pressing a spring, the picture is exposed to view ; but upon the curtain reclosing, the usual significant sign is made for "something to drink," and your hand returns to the pocket. Resuming your progress in the church, still conducted by the beadle, you approach the grating of the choir, before which stands a magnificently attired individual, no less than the Suisse, waiting your arrival. The choir is his particular department, which, after having viewed, your superb cicerone makes you a pompous bow, meaning, as plain as bow can speak, " something to drink." You now arrive at the vestry, and wonderful to say, it is open ; you enter, when lo ! there stands another verger, and the beadle respectfully withdraws, for the verger must enjoy his prej to him self. You are now shown stoles, sacramental cups, bishops' mitres, and in some glass case, lined with dirty satin, the bones of sorae saint dressed out like an opera-dancer. Having seen all this, the usual ceremony of " something to drink" is repeated, and the beadle resumes his functions. You find yourself at the foot of the belfry, and desire to see the view from the summit. The beadle gently pushes open a door, and having ascended about thirty steps, your progress is inter cepted by a closed door. The beadle having again departed, you knock, and the bell-ringer makes his appearance, who begs you to walk up — " Something to drink." It is some' relief to your feelings that this man does not attempt to follow you as you make your way upwards to the top of the steeple. Having attained the object of your wishes, you are rewarded by a superb landscape, an immense horizon, and a noble blue sky; when your enthusiasm becomes suddenly chilled by the approach of an individual who haunts you, buzzing unintelligible 96 THE RHINE. words into your ears, till at last you find out that he is especially charged to point out to strangers all that is remarkable, either with regard to the church or landscape. This personage is usually a stammerer, and often deaf: you do not listen to him, but allow him to indulge in his muttering, completely forgetting him, while you contemplate the immense pile below, where the lateral arches lie displayed like dissected ribs, and the roofs, streets, gables, and roads appear to radiate in all directions, like the spokes of wheels, of which the horizon is the felloe. Having indulged in a ' prolonged survey, you think about descending, and proceed towards the stairs ; and lo ! there^stands your friend with his hand extended. You open your purse again. " Thanks, Sir !" says the man, pocketing the money ; " I will now trouble you to remember me." "How so — have I not just given you something?" " That is not for me, Sir, but for the church ; I hope you will give me something to drink." Another pull at the purse. A trap-door now opens, leading to the belfry ; and another man shows and names you the bells. '' Something to drink" again ! At the bottom of the stairs stands the beadle, patiently waiting to reconduct you to the door ; and " something to drink" for him fol lows as a matter of course. ¦ You return to your hotel, taking good care not to inquire your way, for fear of further demands. Scarcely, however, are you arrived when a stranger accosts you by name, whose face is wholly unknown to you. This is the commissioner who brings your passport, and de mands " something to drink." Then comes dinner ; then the moment for departure — " Something to drink." Your baggage is taken to the diligence — " Something to drink." A porter places it on the roof; and you comply with his request for "something to drink," with the satisfaction of knouing that the claim is the last. Poor comfort, when your miseries are to recommence on tlie morrow To sum up, after paying fhe porter, the wheel-barrow, the man who is not of the hotel, the old ^\oman, Rubens, the Suisse, the SOMETHING TO DRINK ! 97 verger, ringer, church, under-ringer, stammerer, beadle, commis sioner, servants, stable-boy, postman, you will have undergone eighteen taxings for fees in the course of a morning. Calculating all these from the minimum of ten sols to the maxi mum of two francs, this drink-money becomes an important item in the budget of the traveller. Nothing under silver is accepted. Coppers are the mere sweepings of the street — an object of inex pressible contempt. To this ingenious class of operatives the traveller represents a mere sack of money, to be emptied in the shortest manner possible. The government sometimes comes in for its share ; takes your valise and portmanteau, shoulders them, and then holds forth its official hand. In some great cities the porters pay a certain tax to government, of so much per head on every traveller. I had not been a quarter of an hour in Aix-la-Chapelle before I had given " something to drink" to the King of Prussia. 8 THE RHINE. LETTER XIII. Andernach. I WRITE to you again from Andernach, where I returned three days ago. Andernach is an ancient Roman station, succeeded by a Gothic community still existing. The landscape from my window is enchanting : I see, at the foot of a high hill which allows me only a slight glimpse of the sky, a tower of the 13th century, at the summit of which shoots forth another, smaller, octagonal, and crowned with a conical roof. To my right lies the Rhine, and the pretty village of Leutersdorf peeping through the trees ; to my left, the four Byzantine steeples of a beautiful church of the 11th century — two at the portal, and two at the apsis. The two large towers of the portal are of a strange and irre gular outline, but produce a fine effect. They are square, sur mounted by four sharp triangular gables, with four slated inter stitial lozenges, which, joining at their summits, form the point of the pinnacle. Under my window the ducks, hens, aud children are cackling in perfect harmony ; and 3onder I see in the dis tance the peasants working in the vineyards. This noble view did not suffice to the tasteful being who embellished my room ; for suspended near my window is a glazed frame, containing the portraits of two immense candlesticks, at the bottom of which is inscribed " View of Paris." By dint of uncommon penetration, I discovered it to be intended for the Barriere du Trone — a strik ing likeness, certainly. On the day of my arrival I visited the interior of the hr.ndsome church which is spoiled by whitewashing. The Emperor Valen tinian, and a child of Frederick Barbarossa, are buried in this church. A Christ in the sepulchre, fhe figures of natural size, of the 15th century— a knight of the 16th, in semi-relief, fixed in a wall — in a loft, a number of minor figures in grey alabaster, ANDERNACH. 99 fragments of some mausoleum, but admirably executed — this is all a humpbacked ringer had to show me, for a piece of plated copper representing thirty sols. '' I must now relate to you an adventure, the impression of which un my mind is that of a painful dream. On leaving the church, which almost adjoins the fields, I walked round the town. The sun had just set behind the wooded and cultivated hill, which was a volcanic mass out of the memory of history, and is now a basaltic quarry of millstone, which formed the export of Artonacum two thousand years ago, and is that of Andernach in the present day, which has witnessed the decay of the citadel of the Roman prefect, of the palace of the kings of Austrasia (from the windows of which those ingenious princes are recorded to have fished for carp in the Rhine) ; the tomb of Valentinian, the abbey of the noble nuns of St. Thomas, now falling to decay ; to say nothing of the ancient walls of the feudal city of the Electors of Treves. I traced out the ditch along these walls, against which the pea sants pitch their huts, and find shelter for their cabbages and car rots against the northern blast. The noble city, though dismantled, still exhibits fourteen round or square towers, used at present as dvv-ellings for the poor, and the ragged children play at the doors, while the young miaidens chaffer with their lovers in fhe embra sures of the catapults. The formidable .stronghold, which de fended Andernach, to the east, is a vast ruin, dolefully opening its shattered bays and windows to the rays of the sun or moon ; while the quadrangle, overgrown with beautiful turf, is used by the old women for bleaching their linen. Leaving behind me the high Gothic gateway of Andernach, shattered by black shot-holes, I found myself on the bank of the river. The beautiful sand, with here and there patches of soft turf, allured me towards the distant hills of the Sayn. The evening was gratefully mild, and nature sinking into repose. The reed-sparrows flew to the water, then back to their haunts. Beyond some fields of tobacco I saw carts yoked with oxen, dragging loads of the basaltic tufa with which the Dutch construct their dykes. Close beside me was moored a boat from Leuters dorf, having on its prow the austere but endearing word " Pius." 100 THE RHINE. On the other side of the P«,hine, at the foot of a long hill, another vessel with sails was towed along by thirteen horses. The cadenced tread of the cattle and the tingle of their bells reached my ears. A white-looking city was visible in the dis tant haze ; while towards the east, at the extreme verge of the horizon, the full moon, red and round as the eye of a Cyclops, shone betwixt two lids of clouds, on the tranquil brow of heaven. How long I wandered thus, plunged in the mysteries of nature, I know not ; but night had set in, the country was hushed, and the moon shining at its very zenith, when I suddenly came to myself at the foot of an eminence crowned by an obscure mass, round which black lines defined themselves ; some in the form of a gallows, others like masts, with transversal spars. Having reached the eminence, by striding through sheaves of fresh-cut beans, I found the dark object to be a tomb, placed upon a circu lar foundation of stone. Why this tomb in the fields ? Why this scaffolding ? I was full of eager interest and curiosity ; and perceiving a low door constructed in the masonry, clumsily closed up with boarding, I knocked with my cane, but the inmate, if inmate there were, did not answer. By an easy ascent, on turf covered with blue flowers, which seemed to have expanded in the moonshine, I clambered up fo view the tomb, which consisted of a large truncated obelisk, placed on an immense block representing a Roman sarcophagus, the whole being in blue granite. Around the monument, and up the shaft, was a scaffolding with a long ladder placed against it ; and I perceived four spaces on the four sides of fhe block, from which bas-reliefs had been lately displaced. At m}- feet were strewed fragments of cornices and entablatures, visible by the light of the moon. With anxious eyes I sought the name of the occupant of the tomb. Three sides were blank ; but on the fourth I found in cop per letters the following dedication : " The Army of the Sambke AND Meuse to their General-in-Chief ;" and below, the moon enabled me to read the name of " HOCHE." TOMB OF HOCHE. 101 The letters had been removed, but their grooves in the granite still remained indelible. This name, in such a place at such an hour, caused a deep and inexpressible sensation in my mind. I always admired Hoche. Like Marceau, he was one of those great men by whose ministry Providence, intending that the cause of the revolution should triumph, and France prevail, prepared the way for Bonaparte ; mere precursors — incomplete ordeals — crushed into dust by Des tiny, as soon as she brought from the shade the complete and stern profile of fhe one man needful. Such was the fate of Hoche. The date of 18fh April, 1797, occurred to my mind, as bright in the annals of heroism. Not knowing where I was, I looked anxiously around me : to the north was a vast plain ; to the south, at about a gun-shot distance, the Rhine ; and at my feet, at the bottom of the hillock which served for the base of the tomb, a village having at its entrance an old square tower. At that moment a man passed, at a short distance from the monument, of whom I asked in French the name of the village. He was perhaps an old. soldier, war being as active as civilisation in conveying our language to all the nations of the earth ; for he instantly answered, " Weisse Thurm," and disappeared. These two words, signifying the " White Tower," reminded me of the " Turris Alba" of the Romans. Hoche died upon an illustrious spot ; for it was here that Csesar first passed the Rhine two thousand years ago ! What is the object of the scaffolding ? Are they degrading or repairing the monument? I could not guess! Having scaled the basement, and ascended the scaffolding, I looked info an aper ture of the base, and discerned the interior of a gloomy quadran gular chamber. The moon penetrating one of the crevices, I per ceived a white figure, upright and standing against the wall : and having entered the chamber by a narrow aperture, creeping on my knees, I found in the centre of the pavement a hole, through which they had no doubt lowered the coffin into the vault below. A cord was still suspended there, the ends of which were lost in the darkness. Having approached and looked into the vault below, I vainly 102 THE RHINE. attempted fo discern the coffin. I could scarcely distinguish the vague outline of a recess, formed in the vault. I remained there for some time, absorbed in the two-fold mys tery of death and darkness. An icy breath appeared to issue from the aperture of the vault, as if blown from the yawning mouth of the grave. I can scarcely express the excitement of my mind. This tomb in this lonely spot — fhe unexpected re cognition of so great a name — the gloomy chamber — the vauh, whether occupied or empty — fhe mysterious scaffolding — all served to overwhelm my thoughts and depress my mind. Emotions of pity filled my heart, on seeing how the illustrious dead become neglected when their graves lie in a land of exile ! This trophy, erected by a victorious army, is at the mercy of all and every one. A French general lies far from his country, in a common bean-field ; and Prussian masons appear to be in pos session of his tomb ! Methought I heard a voice issue from the disjointed stones, ex claiming " France ! take back the Rhine." Half an hour afterwards I was on the road to Andernach. ANDERNACH. 103 LETTER XIV. Andernach. I CANNOT understand these tourists! This is a charming town, and the country about it beautiful. The view from the summits of fhe hills includes a circle of giants, from the Siebengebiirge to the crests of Ehrenbreitstein. Every stone recalls an historical recollection — every step produces afresh charm; while the in habitants exhibit joyous good-humored faces, such as breathe wel come to the traveller. The inn (H6tel de I'Empereur) ranks among the best in Germany. Yet, in spite of all this, Andernach, though a charming spot, is literally deserted ! No one makes it an object ! Foreign tourists resort exclusively to Coblentz, Baden, or Mannheim ; rarely attracted by memorable scenes of history, the beauties of nature, or such poetry as abounds at Andernach.* I returned a second time to the church, the Byzantine orna ments of which are very rich, and in exquisite style. The south ern portal has some curious capitals and fine groinings, deeply carved. The pediment, forming an obtuse angle, presents a By zantine painting of the Crucifixion, still tolerably distinct. Upon the front, near the arched door, is a bas-relief of the period of the revival of the arts, in which Jesus is represented kneeling, his arms out-spread in an attitude of terror, while around him are crowded all the dreadful images and implements pertaining to his passion. The mantle of mockery, the reed sceptre, the wreath of thorns, rods, hammers, pincers, nails ; the ladder, lance, and sponge filled with gall ; the sinister profile of the bad thief; the livid effigy of Judas, with the purse about his neck ; and lastly, immediately before the eyes of the Divine Master, the cross, be twixt the arms of which, as the most supreme and most insup portable of his torments, on the summit of a small column, is a crowing cock, as the emblem of the ingratitude and desertion of a * Victor Hugo appears to have overlooked one of the most interesting objects in this neighborhood — the lake and convent of Laach. 104 THE RHINE. friend ! This last accessory is well imagined, — developing the ascendency of moral over physical^torture. The gigantic shadows of the two towers extend over this mourn ful elegy. Round the bas-relief the sculptor has engraved a legend which I copy : — " 0 vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite, et videte si est dolor similis sicut dolor meus, 1538." Before this severe facade, at a short distance from this united lamentation of Job and Jesus, some beautiful rosy-faced children were gambolling on the turf, wheeling about an unfortunate half- vvifd, half-tamed rabbit in a barrow. Such were for the moment the " passers by !" There is another church at Andernach — Gothic, and having a nave of the fourteenth century, now trans formed into a stable for Prussian cavalry. As the door stands open, one perceives within the aisles long ranks of horses. Over the door is inscribed " Sancla Maria, ora pro nobis ;" which at present seemed to apply to the horses ! I could have wished to ascend into the curious tower I see from my window, which most probably is the ancient watch-tower of the town ; but the steps are broken, and the roofs falling in. I therefore gave up the project. This magnificent ruin is, however, so embellished with flowere, so well taken care of, that it appears fo be inhabited. The tenant is at once the most capricious and mildest of inmates, being no other than the presiding genius of ruins, who, whenever she takes possession of an old pile, rips up the floors, ceilings, and stairs, so that man cannot disturb fhe peaceful nests of the birds she cherishes ; and places flowers at all the windows, in pots formed of venerable stones, hollowed out by the \\ind and rain. The old town of Andernach is literally crested with wild flowers. THE RHIJiE. 105 LETTER XV. The Rhine. 3t. Goar, August 17. I HAVE often told you how fond I am of rivers. Ideas float upon their current as well as merchandise. For everything in creation has its specific duty. Rivers, like gigantic trumpets, announce fo the ocean the beauty of the earth, the fertility of the plains, the splendor of cities, and the glory of mankind. But, above all rivers, I love the Rhine, which I beheld for the first time a year ago, in passing over the bridge of boats at Kehl. Night was set in, and as the carriage was proceeding at a walk, I remember to have experienced a profound respect in traversing the venerable river. Long had I wished to behold it. It is never without emotion that I enter into communication, I had well nigh said into communion, with those grand objects of nature, which have also played a great part in history. Moreover, objects the most discrepant present to me I know not what strange affinities and harmony. Do you remember, my dear friend, our journey from the Rhone to the Valserine, in 1825, in our agreeable tour to Switzerland — one of the pleasantest recollections of my life ? We were then but twenty years of age. Do you remember, I say, with what ferocious rage the Rhone flung itself into the gulf, while the frail brido-e trembled under our feet ? From the moment of that visit the Rhone has always been typified in my mind as a tiger, while the Rhine equally reminds me of a lion. The evening on which I saw the Rhine for the first time, this idea presented itself more strongly than ever to my mind. I con templated long and earnestly this proud and noble river, impetuous without fury, — wild, but majestic. It was swollen and magnifi cent when I crossed it, even so as to wave its yellow mane, or, as Boileau hath it, its " muddy beard," against the bridge of boats. 106 THE RHINE. The two banks had vanished in the twilight ; its roar was sub dued, yet powerful. There was something in the strength and dignity of the stream that reminded me of the ocean itself Yes, my dear friend, the Rhine is a noble river, — at once feudal, repub lican, and imperial ; a noble union of French and German. .The whole history of Europe may be, considered under two points of view, in this river of warrior and thinkers, — this throbbing artery which revivifies the proud pulses of France, — 'this ominous mur- murer which promotes fhe reveries of Almaine. The Rhine combines every quality a river can exhibit. The rapidity of the Rhone, the breadth of the Loire, the rocks of the Meuse, the sinuosity of the Seine, the translucency of the Somme, the llistorical reminiscences of the Tiber, the regal dignity of the Danube, the mysterious influence of the Nile, the golden sands of the glittering streams of the New World, the phantoms and legends of some Asiatic stream. Before history took pen in hand, perhaps before man existed to afford matter for history, where the Rhine now flows, smoked and flamed a double chain of volcanoes ; the extinction of which de posited on the soil two strata of lava and basalt in parallels, like two prolonged walls. At the same epoch, the gigantic crystal lizations, which constitute the mountains, were in process of formation ; and the alluvial formations, which constitute the secondary mountains, were in process of desiccation. The mon strous mass we call the Alps was gradually refrigerating ; the snows were accumulating on its brow, — of which, two great thaws served to inundate the earth ; the one on the northern declivity, overflowing the plains, w£Cs intercepted by the double barrier of the extinguished volcanoes, and turned towards the ocean ; the other, flowing from the western declivity, rushed from mountain to mountain, passed the basis of that other volcanic mass we call the Ardeche, and discharged itself into the Mediterranean. The first of these inundations, in short, formed the Rhine ; the second, the Rhdne. The first tribe recorded by history as gathering towards the Rhine, is that great serai-savage faraily called the Celts, and which Rome entitled the Gauls. " Qui ipsorum lingua Cell