Aachen

“ We heard to-day that the Duke of Burgundy, [4] with the Duke of Brabant, had left the field, and that King Sigismund in three days ought to be at Aachen and be crowned, and that the Pope and the Council should be on the lookout for him. But as Aachen is seventy [German] miles from here, I imagine that the King will scarcely arrive before Christmas. I think therefore that the Council, if not dissolved, will perhaps end about Easter. The living here is dear, a bed costing half a florin a week. Horses are cheap: one bought in Bohemia for six guineas is given away here for seven florins. ”

“ Aachen's old cornhouse, the bridge gate and the many houses full of unobtrusive beauties of carving and metal-work lead us by hook and by crook—for the streets are very winding—out on the road to Burtschied, the hot-water town, whose every house has a spring of its own, besides the very gutters running mineral water, and the cooking spring in the open street boiling eggs almost faster than they can be got out again in eatable condition. ”

“ FRIEDRICH TAKES THE WATERS AT AACHEN, WHERE VOLTAIRE COMES TO SEE HIM.
Months before that of the Opera-House or those Silesian settlements, Friedrich, in the end of August, what is the first thing visible in his Domestic History, makes a visit, for health's sake, to Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle so called) , with a view to the waters there. Intends to try for a little improvement in health, as the basis of ulterior things. Health has naturally suffered a little in these War-hardships; and the Doctors recommend Aix. ”

“ The following day the garrison surrendered, making Aachen the first German city to fall to the Allies. The First U. S. Army then began preparations for a drive to the Rhine as soon as supplies and reinforcements should become available.
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GERMANY
A PORTION OF THE CITY OF AACHEN. During the bitter fighting the Allies found it necessary to use all types of artillery weapons, from the 155-mm. gun to the smaller guns of tank destroyers, at point blank range to reduce the heavily fortified buildings occupied by enemy troops. ”

“ They are exposed every seven years, and venerated by thousands of pilgrims (139,628 in 1874, and 158,968 in 1881) . Among the other Catholic churches of Aachen, the following may be mentioned: the Church of Our Lady, a Gothic church in brick, built by Friederich Statz in 1859; the Church of St. Foillan, the oldest parish church in the city, which dates, in its present form, from the Gothic period, and was renovated between 1883 and 1888; and the Romanesque Church of St. ”

“ In Aachen there are foundations established by the Franciscans, Capuchins, and Redemptorists. The Alexians have one institution, a sanatorium and hospital for insane men and epileptics. The Franciscan Brothers conduct an apprentices' home and an asylum for boys. A number of female orders also have establishments. The Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo have charge of an eye hospital, a city asylum for orphans and the aged, with a wing for insane women, and Our Lady's Hospital, a working-women's home, and a protectory for girls. ”

“ In the summer of 936 the leading men of the secular and clerical ranks assembled at Aachen to elect a king. Times had changed decidedly since the year 619, when Henry I received the crown. At his election only the Frankish duke Eberhard with his vassals and the archbishop Heriger of Mainz had appeared, besides the Saxon nobility. The whole kingdom took part in Otto’s election; all the German dukes, the archbishops, and probably a great many other high clerical and secular dignitaries proceeded to Aachen. The Saxon lords who had already decided in favour of Otto accompanied him thither ”

“ In a couple of hours from the Hôtel de Hollande we reached Aachen, as the fond natives call the burgh so dear to Charlemagne. Deprived of that [pg 10] magnificent mirror, the Rhine, the pretty towns throughout this part of Germany seem but like country belles. We should hardly have paused at Aix but for the sake of affording a rest to Charles, who grew worse whenever lunch-time competed with railway-time. As for the dull little city, for us it was a wilderness, with the blank cleanliness of the desert, except in so far as it was informed and populated by the memory of Charlemagne. ”

“ He first went to Aachen, where an assembly of the nobles of Lorraine had been convened. The king’s most formidable enemies were the seigneurs of the higher nobility; and in order to counterbalance them Conrad was obliged to rely on the middle classes, represented at this time by the lesser nobles, the commons not having yet attained a sufficient degree of power.
German Woman of Quality of the Tenth Century
During his stay in Aachen, the king won the favour of the lesser nobility by a very well calculated political measure. ”

“ For the bulk of it is not primitive or mediaeval or renaissance art, but German art. At any rate it is a manifestation of national character rather than of aesthetic inspiration. Most aesthetic creation bears the mark of nationality; very few manifestations of German nationality bear a trace of aesthetic creation. The differences between the treasures of Aachen, early German architecture, fifteenth-century German sculpture, and the work produced to-day at Munich are superficial. Almost all is profoundly German, and nothing else. ”

“ The next morning the tourists took the train for Dusseldorf, where they spent the forenoon in examining the pictures of the School of Art, which has its headquarters in this place, and in a walk through the beautiful Hofgarten. From this place a ride of two hours brought the party to Aix-la-Chapelle, where they dined at the Hôtel Grand Monarque.
"Aix-la-Chapelle was the birth-place of Charlemagne, who also died here," said Professor Mapps, after dinner. "The German name of the city is Aachen, which is derived from Aachs, meaning a spring. ”

“ In this as in many other respects the German psychology is a riddle to which no answer seems forthcoming, and it is a riddle the perplexity of which will be found to deepen with every hour spent in the occupied territory.
Between Aachen and Cologne the train runs through a district rich in natural resources, both mineral and agricultural. We pass many large factories of modern construction [17] in which, thanks to smoke-saving apparatus, the dirt of our own industrial districts has been avoided. Those factories are not idle. ”

“ Jeumalōy, whose tomb is still to be seen not far from the principal mosque of Acheh, is universally revered as a saint by the Achehnese. Pòteu Uëʾ, for whose sake his younger brother drove out the sayyid, and that too with the help of subjects turned from their allegiance, is the founder of the present Achehnese dynasty. No wonder then that the scions of the royal house of Acheh will brook no mention of the Hikayat Pòchut Muhamat and regard it as a forbidden thing for anyone of their family to order or listen to its recitation. ”

“ All eyes were turned upon Eric as if to inquire what he had to say, and he remarked in an easy tone,—"What here possesses the soul as a raging storm is down there, on the lower Rhine, and above there, in Alsace, a distant heat lightning which cools off the excessive heat of the daytime. People sit there enjoying themselves in gardens and balconies, breathing in the pure air in quiet contemplation. ”

“ The place was mentioned in the guide-books, because for a hundred yards one could look down on the course of a swift stream which lower down the plain flowed through the village of Alsheim; and especially because in an opening of the ravine in the angle formed by two slopes of the mountains, one could see, in daylight, a corner of Alsace—villages, fields, meadows—and very far away a vague streak of silver, which was the Rhine, and beyond that the mountains of the Black Forest—blue as flax and rounded as the loops of a garland. ”

“ There thou wouldst like to dwell, many a one thinks, and to pass away thy days in the regular and constant enjoyment of nature, and in voluntary labor, solitary, or in the society of congenial persons.
The banks of the Rhine have the appearance of being charming seats of repose, while they also furnish enough of stirring life. The high-road of intercourse with the world lies before the very threshold of the house; and from the midst of solitude, every hour can unite itself with the great world's varied and bustling activity. ”

“ We staid a day at Manheim, and, on the fifth from our departure from Strasburgh, arrived at Mayence. The course of the Rhine below Mayence becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly, and winds between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed, presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with the dark Rhine rushing beneath ”

“ And far below him fleets the mighty Rhine, rich with the memories of two thousand stormy years; and on its further bank the grey-walled Coblentz town, and the long arches of the Moselle-bridge, and the rich flats of Kaiser Franz, and the long poplar-crested uplands, which look so gay, and are so stern; for everywhere between the poplar-stems the saw-toothed outline of the western forts cuts the blue sky.
And far beyond it all sleeps, high in air, the Eifel with its hundred crater peaks ”

“ A mile or more below the Hohenzollern bridge, where four kings of Prussia on their bronze horses survey a world fashioned now on other lines than those contemplated by Prussian arrogance, the Rhine flows along a ribbon of green strand which serves as a recreation ground for the children of the district. Here on a summer evening we sometimes walk and watch young Germany at play: children of all ages bathing, paddling, shouting, laughing, amusing themselves in a hundred different ways, while their parents sit in little groups, the women sewing or knitting, the men with their pipes. ”

“ From the platform where we stood, the eye (overlooking the city, bridge, and the deep vale, to the point where the Neckar is concealed from view by its winding to the left) is carried across the plain to the dim stream of the Rhine, perceived under the distant hills. The pleasure-grounds are the most delightful I ever beheld; the happiest mixture of wildness, which no art could overcome, and formality, often necessary to conduct you along the ledge of a precipice—whence you may look down upon the river, enlivened by boats, and on the rich vale, or to the more distant scenes before mentioned. ”

“ Our travellers had now passed through all that portion of the Rhine which contains the castles and the romantic scenery. Above Bingen the valley of the Rhine widens; that is, the mountains, instead of crowding in close to the river, recede from it many miles, enclosing a broad and level, but very fertile plain, through the midst of which the river flows between low banks, and with endless meanderings. The level country through which the river thus flows is inexpressibly beautiful, being divided into magnificent fields, and cultivated every where like a garden. ”

“ No court, no nobility, no barracks there!—nothing but church, school, and hospital, things that are of no account to me. I didn't want to remain in Switzerland, with inaccessible heights before my eyes; it's oppressive, and for that reason, here on the Rhine it's cozy and homelike. Germany is and will be the only land for free men. Here one pays his tax, and is let alone. No one has any claim, and in his position the nobleman is liable to no interference. ”

“ Many chiefs of Achehnese coast-dependencies formally gave in their submission in order to protect their commerce from injury, but the number who withheld their allegiance was greater; and many chiefs in the interior did not consider themselves bound by the promises of the raja of the coast. Furthermore the state of war—as may be learnt from our first chapter—added to the many chiefs who already disputed authority in Acheh a countless number of others: adventurers, religious leaders, military chiefs of every type. ”

“ The winding Ahr, coming from the tufa-plateau of the Eifel and watering a pretty valley full of old castles and churches, rolls its waters into the Rhine in this neighborhood, and in summer no trip is so pleasant to the citizens of Bonn and Cologne, and indeed to many tourists if they have time to breathe. But in winter the scenery is worthy of the New World. ”

“ I cannot review my Munich life without deep gratitude. The city teemed with resources for the student in arts, letters, philosophy, and science. It was distinguished at that time for activity in public as well as in academic life. The king seemed liberal; he was the friend of poets and artists, and aimed at concentrating all the glories of Germany in his new university. I thus enjoyed for a few years the example of the most brilliant intellects, and that stimulus which is given by competition between men equally eminent in different spheres of human knowledge. ”

“ There it was that all the pilgrims to Sainte Odile met to see Alsace when the weather was clear. A wall, high enough to lean on, runs along the top of an enormous block of rock, advancing like a spur above the forest. It overlooks the pines which cover the slopes everywhere. From the extreme point shut in, like the lantern of a lighthouse, one can see to the right quite a group of mountains, and in front and to the left the plain of Alsace. At this moment the fog was divided into two parts, for the sun was shining on the peaks of the Vosges. ”