Excursions along the Banks of the Rhine

Preface

. The tardy justice ofthe Quarterly Review has at length directed public attention towards the following interesting and important work, by an an nouncement that "it has created a great sensation in Germany." In justice let us add that it has attracted considerable notice in France, where eight large editions have been already exhausted ; and we doubt whether any living writer, with the exception of Victor Hugo, could have ex tracted all this interest out of a subject so effete, and ground so over-travelled, as the banks of the Rhine. " His descriptions," says the Quarterly Review, " are wonderfully spirited ; full of verve in their language, and picturesque truth in detail; and the species of grotesque romance with which he invests the middle ages gives an interest to his scenes, persuading even the most plodding antiquary to pardon the occasionally fantastic heightening received by the picture from the warm fancy of the artist." The reader will find this favourable verdict more than borne out by the collection of letters now placed before him in an English form. a

PREFACE.

. IV That the author of " Hernani," " Notre Dame de Paris," and the striking and vivid " Letters from the Rhine," is really a man of genius, no one, we apprehend, will deny. The Quarterly Review has, however, somewhat sweepingly denounced his "works, as not to be perused without leaving a taint upon the mind, and producing an excitement which, without being evil, decidedly prepares the way for all evil;" against which sentence of condemnation we object, that, however exceptionable the morality of his great work (an historical novel, secondary in truth and vigour only to those of Scott), and one or two of his dramas, the whole range of French poetrydoes not contain effusions of a purer or holier strain of feeling than may be found in the volumes entitled '• Les Voix Interieures," " Les Rayons et les Ombres," " Les Chants du Crepuscule," and " Les Feuilles d'Automne ;" many of the lyrics in which are comparable in grace and tenderness with those of Mrs. Hemans.

In his own country, on the other hand, Victor Hugo labours, as unfairly, under the disrepute of having founded the romantic school, which had clearly its origin, twenty years before his time, in the "Atala" and "Rene' of Chateaubriand. In these two remarkable productions of the author of "Le Genie du Christianisme " and "Les Martyrs," we find all the offences against taste resented by the classicists of France, combined with the moral slagrmicies pointed out by the Quarterly Review, FREFACE. V Nevertheless, as the ostensible head and front of the offending of l'Ecole Romantique, from the moment the publication of his " Dernier Jour d'un Condamne," and splendid " Ode a la Colonne," raised him to pre-eminence, every successive work of Victor Hugo has been made a point of contest for the struggle of contending literary factions.

On the first nights of performance of his dramas, the audience usually presents as curious a dramatic spectacle as the stage itself; not alone from the singular dramatis persona, of the mystery of La Jeune France, collected to witness a further expo sition of the doctrines of its apostle, but from the malignity with which the unaccountable bursts of fatuity (which, for want of a better name, we must call Flugo-isms), that disfigure even his most im pressive scenes, are caught up and hailed with roars of laughter by his antagonists ; soon, however, to be overpowered by the genuine enthusiasm of the mass, on hailing those pure aud noble verses, of truly poetical inspiration, which have assigned his name a permanent inscription in the literature of his native country. The Quarterly Review has roundly asserted that " his delineations of passion are false.'' It would have been wiser perhaps to say that they were French — essentially French.

The delineations of human passion bequeathed to us by Corneille and Racine are such as few English persons admit to be true to nature ; and scarcely an English scholar

PREFACE.

. VI but is better inclined to sympathize with the imme morial heroes of Euripides and Æschylus, than with Bajazet or the Cid. It would be unfair, however, to ;;ssert that delineations of passion which have com manded and still command the sympathy of millions, are untrue to nature. We must nevertheless confess that, hearing with English ears, and judging with an English mind, we have been too often disgusted by the gratuitous violations of historical truth, and distorted concep tions of the human character, exhibited by Victor Hugo on the stage, not to have opened with certain misgivings thc book which the present observations purport to introduce to the reader. We expected to find the author of " Marie Tudor" and "Hans dTslande " contemplating men, things, and scenery on thc banks of the Rhine, as he appears to survey them in his fictions — from the aerial elevation of a balloon, looking down contemptuously upon the thrones and dominions of the earth, confounding distances, mistaking proportions, elevating an ant hill to the height of the Pyramids, because affording a rare instance of instinctive wisdom; and depress ing the Pyramids to the insignificance of an anthill, because the place of sepulture of a line of kings ; till natural and social order becomes subverted, and all is lost in a chaos of confusion, whose assumed sublimity is the mere result of a certain shadowy in distinctness of outline. In this expectation, we were agreeably disap-

PREFACE.

. VII pointed. Victor Hugo's impressions of the Rhine are conceived by the mind, and conveyed to thc reader by the hand, of a man of genius — vivid, graphic, and original. He has viewed the venerable stream in a new and striking light. Nothing can be more picturesque than his landscapes — nothing more startling than his antiquarian hypotheses. After perusing descriptions, such as could have been produced only by a man of highly cultivated mind and highly poetical temperament, we learn to prize his new pictures of a familiar scene, as " Nature to advantage dress' d ; What oft was seen, but ne'er so well express'd.' On the other hand, the truly Parisian prejudices of our traveller afford a most amusing appendix to his loftier aspirings. On turning from one of his gor geous historical sketches — such for instance as that of Charlemagne and Aix-la-Chapelle, (though sa vouring somewhat too much of the scene-shifter and call-boy,) or from one of his graceful pictures, such as the interpretation of the bas-relief of the Stadt-haus at Cologne, — to sarcastic diatribes against English travellers, or the Congress of Vienna, we could fancy Pausanias or Virgil travestied for the carnival, by the assumption ofthe full-bottomed wig, velvet coat, and withering sneers of Voltaire. The pretended cosmopolitanism of Hugo is, in fact, as ill assorted to the nature of his work as the disproportionate portico of the Chambre des De-

PREFACE.

. VIII putes to the narrow structure of which it stands forth as the faqade. While affecting, for instance, to give an accurate account of the banks of thc Rhine, he has not strength of mind to enter the town of Coblentz, replete with associations and monuments mortifying to the vanity of the French ; and in a work professing to describe the Rhenish provinces, scrupulously avoids such scenes as the beautiful lake and ruined monastery of Laach*, or those where the name of France remains branded in letters of blood and flame upon the still defeatured bosom of the unfortunate Palatinate. Clever, more over, as are the anecdotes of his personal adventures, and the legend of Le Beau Pecopin (which almost rivals the fantastic creations of Beckford), we should have preferred, in a work upon the Rhine from the vigorous pen of Victor Hugo, life-like sketches of the rocky heights of the Sieben Gebiirge, or the striking scenery of Nassau and the Murgthal, to the egotism of the one or the inappropriateness of the other. * What does the critic in the Quarterly mean by describing this noble church as " first discovered by the Master of Trinity?"

" Honour to whom honour is due ! " sings the Chorus of the Walpurgis Nacht. In all the German and English guide books published on the opening of the Continent in 1814, the Abbey Church of Laach was described in glowing colours ■ and when we visited the spot in 1818, it was frequented by all English travellers, desecrated by perpetual pic-nics, and the scene of various English sketches and works of fiction.

PREFACE.

. IX Let us, however, be thankful for the many novel pictures of familiar objects with which he has en riched us ; and in consideration of thc pleasantness and vitality of his descriptions, the earnestness of his nationality, ancl above all the manly and fervent spirit in which he embraces the calling of a man of letters, and upholds its dignity of independence, we hail him in the present work with feelings of cor diality, inclining us to overlook with a smile thc rabid indications of his jealous Anglophobia. To such of our readers as are making in the following pages their first acquaintance with Victor Hugo, it may be interesting to learn that how beit, while apparently vacillating between the em broidered uniform and the ambition of reigning as thc demigod of the cabinet de lecture, he is, in private life, a man of high integrity and domestic worth.

Though the son of a general of Napoleon, and pensioned by Louis XVIII., Victor Hugo is supposed to be on the eve of elevation to the peer age — a distinction to which the success of his work upon the Rhine has not a little contributed. Though of an age to have united his daughter with an eminent merchant of Havre, Hugo is still in the full force and vigour of manhood ; and while we recognise the tribute he has paid to English excellence, by borrowing largely in "Notre Dame de Paris" from the " Quentin Durward" of Scott, and in the letters before us from the Journal and " Sardanapalus " of Byron, it is easy to forgive his X

PREFACE.

. uneasy discontents at the preponderance of British influence in the scale of modern Europe, and to part from him with feelings of sincere gratitude for having repoeticized, by force of genius, a tour which was becoming, by force of steam, prosaic and vulgar as a trip to Margate or Gravesend. The translation here given to the public is from the pen of a gentleman, who, familiar alike with thc scenes described and the language of the tourist, has accomplished his task with accuracy and spirit ; and, but that Hugo is an indifferent English scholar, and little apt to discern, or rather to acknowledge, merit in any production of the country to which was intrusted the guardianship of his great and captive Emperor, he would admit that he has found an able interpreter. \I CONTENTS.

Letter I

La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. Page Paris to Meaux — Ferte-sous-Jouarrc — Beautiful Valley — Changing Horses — The Hunchback and the Gendarme — Meaux 1

Letter II. Montmirail

— MoNTMORT — ErERNAY. Peasants emigrating — Chateau of Montmort — Epemay ... 1 1

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 18

Letter IX

Aix-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 84

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 110

LETTER XL

Mysteries of History— The Two Queens — Era of Louis XIV. . 134

Letter XXI

\ Lorch to Bingen — An Adventure — The Seven Sages — A Poet — A Village Festival — A Mountebank — Extremes meet — Tower of Furstenberg — 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 Maiisethurm — Bishop Hatto — Evening — The Bishop and the Rats —Night Scene 222

Letter XXII

Legend of the handsome Pecopin and the beautiful Bauldour — a Legend of the Rhine. Part 1 269 Part II The Bird Phœnix, and the Planet Venus . . CONTENTS. XIV Page Part III.— The Difference betwixt the Ear of an Old Man and the Ear of a Young one • 274 Part IV* — Of the divers Qualities essential to divers Embassies .........•■• 278 Part V. — Fidelity rewarded 2S2 Part VI. — The Devil himself may sin in being a Glutton . 283 Part VII.— A pleasing Proposition from an old Scholar living in a Hut of Leaves 292 Part VIII.— The Wandering Christian 1295 Part IX. — How a Dwarf manages to amuse himself in a Forest .......••••• -9a Part X. — Equis Canibusque 301 Part XI. — What one may risk by mounting a strange Horse 307 Part XII. — Description of an unpleasant Lodging . . . 313 Part XIII. — Such as the Inn is, so is the Dinner .... 317 Part XIV. — A new Mode of falling from a Horse . . . . 321 Part XV. — The Figure of Rhetoric most in favour among the Powers that be ......... 325 Part XVI. — Debating whether a Man can recognise a Man he hath never seen 327 Part XVII 330 Part XVIII. — Where serious Minds may find out which is the most impertinent of Metaphors 3,4 Part XIX. — Divine Philosophy of Four Sages on Two Legs 330

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 Konigstuhl — The Imperial Eagle — Caub— The Pfalz— Castles of the Rhine A STEAM VOYAGE.

Letter I

La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. July, 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, Montmo rency, 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 sudden 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, unencumbered with baggage, but accom panied 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 pro gress and activity of modern demolition, my new route retains little to interest the tourist.

Nan teuil le Haudoin no longer boasts its castle, built B PARIS TO MEAUX. under Francis I. Villers-Cotterets has converted the magnificent manor-house of the Dukes of Valois into a House of Industry ; from whence, as from 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 rise to the well-known proverb (which I never exactly comprehended), " Such-a one resembles the tower of Dammartin, 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 I FERTE-SOUS-JOIIARRE. 3 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 esconce myself in a diligence which luckily came up at the moment with a place vacant. I resumed my journey, perched upon the roof, betwixt a little hunchback and a gendarme. Here I am, therefore, at 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 be longed to the Duke of St. Simon, though defaced by the bad taste of a grocer, its present pro prietor, is deserving attention. If the Duke of St. Simon ever did possess this ancient structure, I doubt whether his paternal manor-house of La Ferce-Vidame exhibited a more severely feudal aspect, or offered a fitter frame for the setting oft' of his aristocratically ducal face, than the charming and secluded little Chateau of La Ferte-sous-Jouarre. This is the very moment for travelling ! The fields are alive with the business of the harvest home. Here and there are rising immense e BEAUTIFUL VALLEY. stacks, resembling in construction the half-ruined pyramids 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 rear, — 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 thousand 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 mectinothe high road. At the moment we arrived a waggon was crossing the bridge, so swollen with mer chandize, 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, CHAXGIXG HORSES. 5 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 inter vals athwart the road. This little landscape, composed of trees, waggon, the white road, the old bridge, the humble cottages, sufficed 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 to 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 colour 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 heap of sand above my head. Swinging from an iron gallows over our head, hangs Charles V., Joseph II., or Napoleon, mighty emperors in their day, now reduced to the ignoble duty of serving as signs to obscure inns. The house is distracted by voices giving contradictory 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, THE HUNCHBACK AND 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 hun dred 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, payTs nine hundred ; which does not pre vent him from blaspheming against government every time he pays a halfpenny toll in crossing the 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 Montmirail, in 1814, he fought like a lion, though a mere re cruit. 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 draw back; 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. We do not estimate THE GENDARME. 7 ourselves by our skin, but by our garments. The man stripped to the skin may be said to care for nothing.

The two periods in ques tion were, moreover, of wholly opposite in terest. The soldier, like all other men, is affected by external influences; and energies are diminished or increased by circumstances. In 1830 the storm of a Revolution was blowing; and he found himself bowed down and over whelmed by that force of ideas which constitutes the soul of events. And then, what could be more discouraging than his duty ? To fight in defence of inexplicable Orders in Council — mere shadows issuing from a disordered brain — for 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 affec tions.

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 MEAUX, rear, an old halffortified mansion, flanked by turrets, and a quadrangular court-yard, into which I boldly entered, undismayed by an old woman who sat knitting at the entrance, but who did not interrupt 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 struc ture, but deteriorated by injudicious restoration, and still incomplete. Ofthe two towers projected 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 of the fourteenth century ; and that to the left, of the fifteenth. All three are beautiful, though composed ofa stone honey combed by the influence ofthe weather. I tried to decipher the bas-reliefs. The key stone of the porch on the left represents the his tory 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 trilobed groin ings of exquisite beauty. They are restoring, at the entrance of the choir, two altars of the most admirable wood-work, of the fifteenth century, MEAUX. 9 but they are injuring them by smearing them with a vile coat of painting in imitation of oak. Such is the taste of the natives of Meaux. To the left of the choir, close by a beautiful door, I came upon a kneeling statue of marble, a warrior of the sixteenth century ; but without either escut cheon or inscription. Of the name and origin of this figure I am ignorant ; though vou, who know everything, would perhaps have made it out. On the opposite side is another, which fortunately bears an inscription ; for you would otherwise never guess that the worn, severe face, was that of the immortal Benigne 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 1547. A manuscript con tained 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 whicli certain ofthe inhabitants of Meaux possessed the keys. Mysteries were there performed, and a man named Pascalus acted the part of the devil, and retained the nickname. In 1562 he made over the town to the Hugue nots; the year following the Catholics hung him MEAUX. — partly for having surrendered the town, partly because of his appellation.

Now-a-days Paris has twenty theatres ; Meaux boasts of having but one : which is much as if she were to exult in being a countryMown instead of a metropolis. This country abounds in remains of the age of Louis XIV. At La Ferte we find the Duke de St. Simon; at Meaux, Bossuet; atLaFerte-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, the sun being less powerful, I was able to contemplate the facade, of wliich the relief upon the central portal is the most curious. The lower compartment represents Joan, the wife of Philippe-le-Bel, to whose will this church owes its erection. The Queen of France, holding her cathedral in her hand, is re presented standing at the gates of Paradise, which St. Peter throws open.

Behind the queen stands the handsome monarch Philippe, in the most abject attitude. The queen, who is gracefully represented, points over her shoulder to wards the poor devil of a king — as much as to say so St. Peter, " Give him admission into the bargain ; I have paid the entrance for two." MONTMIRAIL. 11

Letter II

Montmirail — Montfort — Epernay. At La Ferte-sous-Jouarre I hired the first ve hicle 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 collection 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.