which awaits one when viewing the interior. There are no flying
buttresses, the walls seemingly supporting themselves, and yet they are
not clumsy. The piers of the chapel somewhat perform the functions of
buttresses, and that perhaps makes possible the unusual arrangement.
The church of St. Gangolphe, on the market-place, has a singularly
beautiful and very lofty tower, which gives to whoever has the courage
to make its rather perilous ascent one of the most charming prospects of
the valley of the Moselle possible to imagine.
The chief of Trèves's other churches are: the church of the Jesuits,
since ceded to the Protestants; St. Gervais, which has a tomb to Bishop
Hontheim, a most learned man and a great benefactor of Trèves in days
gone by; St. Antoine; and St. Paul.
The country around Trèves, on the Moselle,--the famous Trèves
Circle,--ranks high as a wine-growing region, though your true German
wine-drinker calls all Moselle wine "_Unnosel Wein_."
These wines of the Moselle are, to be sure, secondary to those of the
vineyards of the Rhine and the Main, but the varieties are very
numerous.
A Dutch burgomaster once bought of the Abbey of Maximinus--a famous
wine-growing establishment as well as a religious community--a variety
known as Gruenhaüser, in 1793, for eleven hundred and forty-four florins
a vat of something less than three hundred gallons. It was known as the
nectar of Moselle, and "made men cheerful, and did good the next day,
leaving the bosom and head without disorder." Such was the old-time
monkish estimate and endorsement of its virtues.
[Illustration]
XXIII
BONN
Bonn in the popular mind is noteworthy chiefly for its famous
university, and for being the birthplace of Beethoven.
The city was one of the fifty fortresses built by Drusus on the Rhine,
and the only Rhenish city, with the exception of Cologne, which has kept
its Roman appellation. It is mentioned by Tacitus both as _Bonna_ and
_Bonensia castra_.
The cathedral is as famous as the university. It was funded by the
mother of Constantine the Great, who, according to tradition,
consecrated the primitive church here in 319.
Really, it is not a very stupendous pile, the present cathedral, but it
looks far more imposing than it really is by reason of its massive
central tower and steeple.
It is one of the most ancient and most remarkable of the cathedrals on
the banks of the Rhine.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW _of BONN_]
The effect of its five towers is that of a great pyramid rising skyward
from a broad base.
In the main, it is a construction of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, but it is known beyond doubt that the choir and the crypt
were built in 1157. To-day there are visible no traces of even the
foundations of the primitive church.
[Illustration]
There are two polygonal apsides, more noticeable from without than
within.
The main portal, or the most elaborate at least, is that of the north
façade.
The interior is not as sombre and sad as is often the case with a very
early church. To enter, one ascends eight steps to the pavement, when
the rather shallow vista of the nave and choir opens out broadly.
There are a series of white marble statues representing the birth and
baptism of Christ, and some paintings of notable merit, including an
"Adoration."
In the crypt, already mentioned, are the bones of the martyrs, Cassius,
Florentinus, and Malusius.
The chief interest of the interior, outside of the constructive elements
of the fabric, centres in a great statue of St. Hélène in bronze, which
is placed in the middle of the grand nave. It is a fine monument, and
was cast in the seventeenth century as a somewhat tardy recognition of
the founder of the church at Bonn.
At the western extremity of the nave is the Gothic tomb of Archbishop
Englebert, and another of Archbishop Robert.
The choir is somewhat raised above the pavement of the nave, being
placed upon the vaulting of the crypt. The walls of the choir are hung
with gilded Cordovan leather, which is certainly rich and beautiful,
though it has been criticized as being more suitable to a boudoir than a
great church.
At the foot of the choir, to the right, is a tabernacle, a feature
frequently met with in German churches. It is of Renaissance design and
workmanship, and is ungainly and not in the best of taste.
Behind the great pillars of the choir are found, back to back, two
imposing altars, to which access is had by mounting a dozen more steps,
far above the pavement of the nave. They are most peculiarly disposed,
and are again a Renaissance interpolation which might well have been
omitted.
In this dimly lighted cathedral, as well as in many other churches of
Germany, you may at times hear that hymn known as "Ratisbon," the words
of which begin:
"_Jesus meine Zuversicht
Lebt, und ich soll mit ihm leben._"
There is a legend--or it may be a true tale--connecting these verses
with a German soldier who died at the fateful battle of Jena.
Fleeing from the French, he had fallen into the waters of the Saale.
Recovering himself, he crawled out, only to find his pursuers on the
bank, their firearms levelled at his head. His first thought was to
thank God for his safety from the flood, and, kneeling, he played upon
his bugle the familiar air to which the hymn, "_Jesus meine
Zuversicht_," is sung. Deeply moved, his pursuers dropped their guns,
but, just as the last notes of the tune were dying away, another
detachment came up, and one of its members fired a shot which ended the
life of the devout Prussian.
There is heard here also a legend, of the time of the Crusades,
concerning the Siebengebergen,--the Seven Mountains,--which lie just
back of Bonn.
Stimulated by religious fervour, the overlord of a castle perched upon
one of the Seven Mountains, enlisted in the army of the Crusaders, and
fought gallantly in the very forefront of those who sought to plant the
Cross upon the walls of the Holy City. After a prolonged absence, he
returned to find that a rival had won the love of his lady, who, to
escape his wrath, had fled to a convent.
The usurper of affections escaped, but the injured husband met near
Godesberg, in his old age, a youth in whom he thought he recognized the
likeness of his wife. Questioning the boy, he visited the sin of the
mother upon the child, and slew him on the highroad, on the spot where
the Hoch Kreuz now stands,--a monument which tradition says was erected
to warn weak wives and faithless friends.
Drachenfels, whose fame to English ears has mostly been made by Byron's
verses, lies not far south of Bonn. Byron's "peasant girls with deep
blue eyes" are mostly engaged in husbandry to-day, instead of poetically
and leisurely gathering "early flowers."
"The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,"
and is still one of the tourist sights of the Rhine, and as such it must
be accorded its place.
Bonn was formerly the residence of the Electors of Cologne, after their
removal from that city in 1268, at which time it was also the shelter of
Archbishop Englebert, who had fled from Cologne.
XXIV
GODESBERG AND ROLANDSECK
_Godesberg_
Within full view of the Seven Mountains, on the opposite bank of the
Rhine, is Godesberg,--"a cheerful village with a castle which is a
splendid ruin," say the guide-books.
They might go a bit further and recount something of its political and
religious history, although usually they do not, but rush the tourist
up-river to Coblenz, giving him only a sort of panoramic view of this
portion of the Rhine.
Originally a _castellum romain_, the "cheerful village," known to the
ancients as Ara Ubiorum, came under the control, in 1210, of the
Archbishop Theodoric of Cologne, who built a chapel to St. Michael on
the ancient ruins, which, according to tradition, had endured from the
times of Julian the Apostate.
For many centuries there was a château here which served as the
country-house of many of the archbishop-electors of the Empire, until
destroyed by a thunderbolt. In 1593 it was pillaged by the troops of the
Archbishop Ernest, and to-day only a great, lone, round tower remains
intact.
For the rest it is a fine ruin and a picturesque one.
_Rolandseck_
But a short distance above Godesberg is Rolandseck; opposite which is
the island of Nonnenwerth, with which it is associated in a famous
legend.
The chivalrous Roland sought the love of some fair being, whose beauty
and whose virtues should deserve and retain the heart of so brave and
gallant a young knight. Nor did he look about in vain, for Hilda, the
daughter of the lord of the Drachenfels, was all that dreams had
pictured to his youthful fancy as worthy of an ardent soul's devotion,
and soon he was made happy by a confession from the maiden that his
passion was returned. Lost in a dream of first love, the knight forgot
the world and its struggles, and, in the expectation of an early day for
his wedding with his mistress, he lived a life of perfect joy,--now
gazing with Hilda upon the windings of the Rhine; now watching her as
she stooped gracefully to tend the flowers which peace allowed to
flourish under the walls of her father's stronghold.
But Roland lived in times when love was but the bright, transient
episode of a life of war. The laws of chivalry forbade a true knight's
neglect of duty, and, in the very week in which he was to be wedded, the
summons came for him to take the field.
The war was long, and it was three years before Roland left the camp.
When he reached the home of his mistress, he received a frightful
welcome. The castle was in ruins; its lord was slain; and Hilda,
deceived by reports of Roland's death, had taken the veil in the
neighbouring convent of Nonnenwerth!
Over the bright path of the young knight a dark and lasting shadow was
cast. His early hopes were shattered; the joy of his existence had fled;
his spirit bent beneath the weight of his evil fortune. But his faith
and constancy were beyond the control of Fate. Retiring to his castle of
Rolandseck, he made himself a seat within a window, from which he could
look down upon the island of Nonnenwerth and the convent that held
his beloved Hilda. Whether she heard of his return tradition does not
say; but the rumour of such constancy was perhaps wafted through the
nunnery walls. Be that as it may, it is chronicled that, after Roland's
watch had been for three years prolonged, he heard one evening the tones
of the bell that tolled for a passing soul, and next day the white
figures of the nuns were seen bearing a sister to her last home. It was
the funeral of Hilda.
[Illustration]
The isle of Nonnenwerth and its convent are still there opposite the
grim, gaunt, ruined gateway of Rolandseck, a brilliant jewel in an
antique setting; and, while neither the conventual buildings nor the
ruined château show any unusual architectural features, they are
characteristic of the feudal and religious architecture of the middle
ages.
Architects of to-day do not build with the same simplicity and grace
that they did of old, and these little out-of-the-way gems of
architecture are far more satisfying than are similar erections of
to-day.
XXV
COLOGNE AND ITS CATHEDRAL
No stranger ever yet entered Cologne without going straight to see its
mighty Gothic cathedral. Three things come to him forcibly,--the fact
that it was only completed in recent years, the great and undecided
question as to who may have been its architect, and the "Legend of the
Builder," as the story is known.
There are two legends of the cathedral and its builders which no visitor
will ever forget.
_The Architect of Cologne_
Mighty was Archbishop Conrad de Hochsteden, for he was lord over the
chief city of the Rhine, the city of Cologne; but his thoughts were
troubled, and his heart was heavy, for, though his churches were rich
beyond compare in relics, yet other towns not half so large or powerful
as his had cathedrals whose fame extended over Europe, and whose
beauty brought pilgrims to their shrines, profit to the ecclesiastics,
and business to the townspeople. After many sleepless nights, therefore,
he determined to add to his city the only thing wanting to complete it,
and, sending for the most famous architect of the time, he commissioned
him to draw the plans for a cathedral of Cologne.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW _of COLOGNE_]
Now the architect was a clever man, but he was more vain than clever. He
had a vague idea of the magnificence which he desired to achieve without
a clear conception of how he was to do it, or without the will to make
the necessary sacrifices of labour, care, and perseverance. He received
the commission with great gladness, and gloated for some days upon the
fame which would be his as the builder of the structure which the
archbishop desired; but when, after this vision of glory, he took his
crayons to sketch out the design, he was thrown into the deepest
despondency. He drew and drew, and added, and erased, and corrected, and
began again, but still did not succeed. Not a plan could he complete.
Some were too mean, others too extravagant, and others, when done and
examined, were found to be good, but not original. Efforts of memory
instead of imagination, their points of excellence were but copies of
other cathedrals,--a tower from one, a spire from another, an aisle from
a third, and an altar from a fourth; and one after another they were
cast aside as imperfect and useless, until the draughtsman, more than
half-crazed, felt inclined to end his troubles and perplexities by a
plunge into the Rhine.
In this mood of more than half-despair, he wandered down to the river's
edge, and, seating himself upon a stone, began to draw in the sand with
a measuring rod, which served as a walking-stick, the outlines of
various parts of a church. Ground-plans, towers, finials, brackets,
windows, columns, appeared one after another, traced by the point of his
wand; but all, one after another, were erased as unequal and
insufficient for the purpose, and unworthy to form a part of the design
for a cathedral of Cologne. Turning around, the architect was aware that
another person was beside him, and, with surprise, the disappointed
draughtsman saw that the stranger also was busily making a design.
Rapidly on the sand he sketched the details of a most magnificent
building, its towers rising to the clouds, its long aisles and lofty
choir stretching away before the eye of the startled architect, who
mentally confessed that it was indeed a temple worthy of the Most High.
The windows were enriched by tracery such as artist never had before
conceived, and the lofty columns reared their tall length toward a roof
which seemed to claim kindred with the clouds, and to equal the
firmament in expanse and beauty. But each section of this long-sought
plan vanished the moment it was seen, and, with a complete conviction of
its excellence, the architect was unable to remember a single line.
"Your sketch is excellent," said he to the unknown; "it is what I have
thought and dreamed of,--what I have sought for and wished for, and have
not been able to find. Give it to me on paper, and I will pay you twenty
gold pieces."
"Twenty pieces! ha! ha! twenty gold pieces!" laughed the stranger. "Look
here!" and from a doublet that did not seem big enough to hold half the
money, he drew forth a purse that certainly held a thousand.
The night had closed in, and the architect was desperate. "If money
cannot tempt you, fear shall force you;" and, springing toward the
stranger, he plucked a dagger from his girdle, and held its point close
to the breast of the mysterious draughtsman. In a moment his wrists
were pinioned, as with the grasp of a vise, and squeezed until he
dropped his weapon and shrieked in agony. Falling on the sands, he
writhed like an eel upon the fisherman's hook; but plunged and struggled
in vain. When nearly fainting, he felt himself thrown helpless upon the
very brink of the stream.
"There! revive, and be reasonable. Learn that gold and steel have no
power over me. You want my cathedral, for it would bring you honour,
fame, and profit; and you can have it if you choose."
"How?--tell me how?"
"By signing this parchment with your blood."
"Avaunt, fiend!" shrieked the architect; "in the name of the Saviour I
bid thee begone." And so saying, he made the sign of the cross; and the
Evil One (for it was he) was forced to vanish before the holy symbol. He
had time, however, to mutter: "You'll come for the plan at midnight
to-morrow."
The architect staggered home, half-dead with contending passions, and
muttering: "Sell my soul," "To-morrow at midnight," "Honour and fame,"
and other words which told the struggle going on within his soul. When
he reached his lodgings, he met the only servant he had going out
wrapped in her cloak.
"And where are you going so late?" said her surprised master.
"To a mass for a soul in purgatory," was the reply.
"Oh, horror! horror! no mass will avail me. To everlasting torments
shall I be doomed;" and, hurrying to his room, he cast himself down with
tears of remorse, irresolution, and despair. In this state his old
housekeeper discovered him on her return from her holy errand, and, her
soul being full of charity and kindly religion, she begged to know what
had caused such grief; and spoke of patience in suffering, and pardon by
repentance. Her words fell upon the disordered ear of the architect with
a heavenly comfort; and he told her what had passed.
"Mercy me!" was her exclamation. "Tempted by the fiend himself!--so
strongly, too!" and, so saying, she left the chamber without another
word, and hurried off to her confessor.
Now the confessor of Dame Elfrida was the friend of the abbot, and the
abbot was the constant counsellor of the archbishop, and so soon as the
housekeeper spoke of the wonderful plan, he told her he would soon see
her master, and went at once to his superior. This dignitary immediately
pictured to himself the host of pilgrims that would seek a cathedral
built with skill from such wonderful sketches, and (hoping himself one
day to be archbishop) he hurried off to the bewildered architect.
He found him still in bed, and listened with surprise to the glowing
account of the demon's plan.
"And would it be equal to all this?"
"It would."
"Could you build it?"
"I could."
"Would not pilgrims come to worship in such a cathedral?"
"By thousands."
"Listen, my son! Go at midnight to the appointed spot; take this relic
with you;" and, so saying, the abbot gave him a bone of one of the
Eleven Thousand Virgins. "Agree to the terms for the design you have so
long desired, and when you have got it, and the Evil One presents the
parchment for your signature, show this sacred bone."
After long pondering, the priest's advice was taken; and, in the gloom
of night, the architect hurried tremblingly to the place of meeting.
True to his time, the fiend was there, and, with a smile, complimented
the architect on his punctuality. Drawing from his doublet two
parchments, he opened one, on which was traced the outline of the
cathedral, and then another written in some mysterious character, and
having a space left for a signature.
"Let me examine what I am to pay so dearly for."
"Most certainly," said the demon, with a smile, and a bow that would
have done honour to the court of the emperor.
Pressing it with one hand to his breast, the architect with the other
held up the holy bone, and exclaimed: "Avaunt, fiend! In the name of the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Virgins of Cologne, I hold thee,
Satan, in defiance;" and he described the sign of the cross directly
against the devil's face.
In an instant the smile and the graceful civility were gone. With a
hideous grin, Satan approached the sacred miracle as though he would
have strangled the possessor; and, yelling with a sound that woke half
the sleepers in Cologne, he skipped round and round the architect.
Still, however, the plan was held tightly with one hand, and the relic
held forward like a swordsman's rapier with the other. As the fiend
turned, so turned the architect; until, bethinking himself that another
prayer would help him, he called loudly on St. Ursula. The demon could
keep up the fight no longer; the leader of the Eleven Thousand Virgins
was too much for him.
"None but a confessor could have told you how to cheat me," he shrieked
in a most terrible voice; "but I will be revenged. You have a more
wonderful and perfect design than ever entered the brain of man. You
want fame,--the priest wants a church and pilgrims. Listen! _That
cathedral shall never be finished, and your name shall be forgotten!_"
As the dreadful words broke upon the architect's ear, the cloak of the
Tempter stretched out into huge black wings, which flapped over the spot
like two dark thunderclouds, and with such violence that the winds were
raised from their slumber, and a storm rose upon the waters of the
Rhine. Hurrying homewards, the relic raised at arm's length over his
head, the frightened man reached the abbot's house in safety. But the
ominous sentence still rang in his ears,--"_Unfinished and forgotten_."
Days, months, years passed by, and the cathedral, commenced with vigour,
was growing into form. The architect had long before determined that an
inscription should be engraved upon a plate of brass shaped like a
cross, and be fastened upon the front of the first tower that reached a
good elevation. His vanity already anticipated a triumph over the Fiend
whom he had defrauded. He was author of a building which the world could
not equal, and, in the pride of his heart, defied all evil chances to
deprive him of fame. Going to the top of the building to see where his
name should be placed, he looked over the edge of the building to decide
if it was lofty enough to deserve the honour of the inscription, when
the workmen were aware of a black cloud which suddenly enveloped them,
and burst in thunder and hail. Looking around, when the cloud had passed
away, _their master was gone!_ and one of them declared that amidst the
noise of the explosion he heard a wail of agony which seemed to say,
"_Unfinished and forgotten_."
When they descended the tower, the body of the architect lay crushed
upon the pavement. The traveller who beholds the building knows of the
difficulties which beset its completion, and thousands have since then
sought in vain to learn the name of "The Architect of Cologne," although
of late years--though with some doubt it is stated--his name and fame
appear to have been established.
_The Pfaffen Thor_
When Archbishop Conrad of Hochsteden, the founder of the cathedral, had
been gathered to his fathers, Engelbrecht of Falkenberg reigned over
Cologne in his stead; and a fearful tyrant he became.
As in the case of the spiritual lords who ruled over Liège, the crozier
of the archbishop became a rod of iron to the citizens, until at length
they were goaded to open rebellion. In their contests for liberty, they
were led by Hermann Grynn, a townsman who had put aside the peaceful
pursuit of his trade to do battle in the good cause of his native city,
and to maintain the privileges which his fathers had purchased, not only
with their gold, but with their blood.
After numerous contests between the burghers and their oppressors, the
cause of the many was triumphant, and the archbishop was glad to agree
to terms which he before had spurned. But the truce he sought was hollow
and unfaithful, and he was heard to say that, if Hermann Grynn were
removed, he would be able to take away the privileges he had surrendered
to the townsmen.