Part 9

Leaving the palace, we passed through the garden, on the right, to a fine avenue of turf, nearly a mile long, bordered by alleys of tall trees, and so wide, that the late Elector had designed to form a canal in the middle of it, for an opportunity of passing between his palaces, by land, or water, as he might wish. The palace of Poppelsdorff terminates the perspective of this avenue. It is a small building, surrounded by its gardens, in a taste not very good, and remarkable chiefly for the pleasantness of its situation. An arcade, encompassing a court in the interior, communicates with all the apartments on the ground floor, which is the principal, and with the gardens, on the eastern side of the chateau. The entrance is through a small hall, decorated with the ensigns of hunting, and round nearly the whole arcade stags' heads are placed, at equal distances. These have remained here, since the reign of Clement Augustus, the founder of the palace, who died in 1761; and they exhibit some part of the history of his life; for, under each, is an inscription, relating the events and date of the hunt, by which he killed it. There are twenty-three such ornaments.

The greatest part of the furniture had been removed, during the approach of the French, in 1792; and the Archduchess Maria Christina, to whom the Elector, her brother, had lent the chateau, was now very far from sumptuously accommodated. On this account, she passed much of her time, at Goodesberg, a small watering place in the neighbourhood. After her retreat from Brussels, in consequence of the advances of the French in the same year, she had accompanied her husband, the Duke of Saxe Teschen, into Saxony; but, since his appointment to the command of the Emperor's army of the Upper Rhine, her residence had been established in the dominions of her brother.

We were shewn through her apartments, which she had left for Goodesberg, a few hours before. On the table of her sitting room lay the fragments of a painted cross, composed of small pieces, like our dissected maps, the putting of which together exercises ingenuity and passes, perhaps, for a sort of piety. The attendant said, that it served to pass the time; but it cannot be supposed, that rank and fortune have so little power to bestow happiness, as that their possessors should have recourse to such means of lightening the hours of life.

On another table, was spread a map of all the countries, then included in the Theatre of War, and on it a box, filled with small pieces of various coloured wax, intended to mark the positions of the different armies. These were of many shades; for the Archduchess, who is said to be conversant with military affairs and to have descended to the firing of bombs at the siege of Lisle, was able to distinguish the several corps of the allied armies, that were acting separately from each other. The positions were marked up to the latest accounts then public. The course of her thoughts was visible from this chart, and they were interesting to curiosity, being those of the sister of the late unfortunate Queen of France.

The walls of an adjoining cabinet were ornamented with drawings from the antique by the Archduchess, disposed upon a light ground and serving instead of tapestry.

The chapel is a rotunda, rising into a dome, and, though small, is splendid with painting and gilding. In the centre are four altars, formed on the four sides of a square pedestal, that supports a figure of our Saviour; but the beauty of this design is marred by the vanity of placing near each altar the statue of a founder of the Teutonic order. The furniture of the Elector's gallery is of crimson velvet and gold.

On another side of the chateau, we were shewn an apartment entirely covered with grotto work, and called the hall of shells; a curious instance of patient industry, having been completed by one man, during a labour of many years. Its situation in the middle of an inhabited mansion is unsuitable to the character of a grotto: but its coolness must render it a very convenient retreat; and the likenesses of animals, as well as the other forms, into which the shells are thrown, though not very elegant, are fanciful enough, especially as the ornaments of fountains, which play into several parts of the room.

Leaving the palace by the bridge of a moat, that nearly surrounds it, we passed through the pleasant village of Poppelsdorff, and ascended the hill SANCTÆ CRUCIS, called so from the convent of the same name, which occupies its summit. The road wound between thick woods; but we soon left it for a path, that led more immediately to the summit, among shrubs and plantations of larch and fir, and which opened into easy avenues of turf, that sometimes allowed momentary views of other woody points and of the plains around. The turf was uncommonly fragrant and fine, abounding with plants, which made us regret the want of a Botanist's knowledge and pleasures. During the ascent, the peaked tops of the mountains of the Rhine, so often admired below, began to appear above a ridge of dark woods, very near us, in a contrast of hues, which was exquisitely fine. It was now near evening; the mistiness of heat was gone from the surface of these mountains, and they had assumed a blue tint so peculiar and clear, that they appeared upon the sky, like supernatural transparencies.

We had heard, at Bonn, of the Capuchins' courtesy, and had no hesitation to knock at their gate, after taking some rest in the portico of the church, from whence we looked down another side of the mountain, over the long plains between Bonn and Cologne. Having waited some time at the gate, during which many steps fled along the passage and the head of a monk appeared peeping through a window above, a servant admitted us into a parlour, adjoining the refectory, which appeared to have been just left. This was the first convent we had entered, and we could not help expecting to see more than others had described; an involuntary habit, from which few are free, and which need not be imputed to vanity, so long as the love of surprise shall be so visible in human pursuits. When the lay-brother had quitted us, to inform the superior of our request, not a footstep, or a voice approached, for near a quarter of an hour, and the place seemed as if uninhabited. Our curiosity had no indulgence within the room, which was of the utmost plainness, and that plainness free from any thing, that the most tractable imagination could suppose peculiar to a convent. At length, a monk appeared, who received us with infinite good humour, and with the ease which must have been acquired in more general society. His shaven head and black garments formed a whimsical contrast to the character of his person and countenance, which bore no symptoms of sorrow, or penance, and were, indeed, animated by an air of cheerfulness and intelligence, that would have become the happiest inhabitant of the gayest city.

Through some silent passages, in which he did not shew us a cell and we did not perceive another monk, we passed to the church, where the favour of several Electors has assisted the display of paintings, marble, sculpture, gold and silver, mingled and arranged with magnificent effect. Among these was the marble statue, brought from England, at a great expence, and here called a representation of St. Anne, who is said to have found the Cross. Our conductor seemed to be a man of good understanding and desirous of being thought so; a disposition, which gave an awkwardness to his manner, when, in noticing a relic, he was obliged to touch upon some unproved and unimportant tradition, peculiar to his church and not essential to the least article of our faith. His sense of decorum as a member of the convent seemed then to be struggling with his vanity, as a man.

But there are relics here, pretending to a connection with some parts of christian history, which it is shocking to see introduced to consideration by any means so trivial and so liable to ridicule. It is, indeed, wonderful, that the absurd exhibitions, made in Romish churches, should so often be minutely described, and dwelt upon in terms of ludicrous exultation by those, who do not intend that most malignant of offences against human nature, the endeavour to excite a wretched vanity by sarcasm and jest, and to employ it in eradicating the comforts of religion. To such writers, the probable mischief of uniting with the mention of the most important divine doctrines the most ridiculous of human impositions ought to be apparent; and, as the risk is unnecessary in a Protestant country, why is it encountered? That persons otherwise inclined should adopt these topics is not surprising; the easiest pretences to wit are found to be made by means of familiar allusions to sacred subjects, because their necessary incongruity accomplishes the greatest part of what, in other cases, must be done by wit itself; there will, therefore, never be an end of such allusions, till it is generally seen, that they are the resources and symptoms of mean understandings, urged by the feverish desire of an eminence, to which they feel themselves inadequate.

From the chapel we ascended to a tower of the convent, whence all the scattered scenes, of whose beauty, or sublimity, we had caught partial glimpses between the woods below, were collected into one vast landscape, and exhibited almost to a single glance. The point, on which the convent stands, commands the whole horizon. To the north, spread the wide plains, before seen, covered with corn, then just embrowned, and with vines and gardens, whose alternate colours formed a gay checker work with villages, convents and castles. The grandeur of this level was unbroken by any inclosures, that could seem to diminish its vastness. The range of woody heights, that bound it on the west, extend to the southward, many leagues beyond the hill _Sanctæ Crucis_; but the uniform and unbroken ridges of distant mountains, on the east, cease before the Seven Mountains rise above the Rhine in all their awful majesty. The bases of the latter were yet concealed by the woody ridge near the convent, which gives such enchanting effect to their aërial points. The sky above them was clear and glowing, unstained by the lightest vapour; and these mountains still appeared upon it, like unsubstantial visions. On the two highest pinnacles we could just distinguish the ruins of castles, and, on a lower precipice, a building, which our reverend guide pointed out as a convent, dedicated to St. Bernard, giving us new occasion to admire the fine taste of the monks in their choice of situations.

Opposite to the Seven Mountains, the plains of Goodesberg are screened by the chain of hills already mentioned, which begin in the neighbourhood of Cologne, and whose woods, spreading into France, there assume the name of the Forest of Ardennes. Within the recesses of these woods the Elector has a hunting-seat, almost every window of which opens upon a different alley, and not a stag can cross these without being seen from the chateau. It is melancholy to consider, that the most frequent motives of man's retirement among the beautiful recesses of nature, are only those of destroying the innocent animals that inhabit her shades. Strange! that her lovely scenes cannot soften his heart to milder pleasures, or elevate his fancy to nobler pursuits, and that he must still seek his amusement in scattering death among the harmless and the happy.

As we afterwards walked in the garden of the convent, the greater part of which was planted with vines, the monk further exhibited his good humour and liberality. He enquired concerning the events of the war, of which he appeared to know the latest; spoke of his friends in Cologne and other places; drew a ludicrous picture of the effect which would be produced by the appearance of a capuchin in London, and laughed immoderately at it. "There," said he, "it would be supposed, that some harlequin was walking in a capuchin's dress to attract spectators for a pantomime; here nobody will follow him, lest he should lead them to church. Every nation has its way, and laughs at the ways of others. Considering the effects, which differences sometimes have, there are few things more innocent than that sort of laughter."

The garden was stored with fruits and the vegetable luxuries of the table, but was laid out with no attention to beauty, its inimitable prospects having, as the good monk said, rendered the society careless of less advantages. After exchanging our thanks for his civilities against his thanks for the visit, we descended to Poppelsdorff by a steep road, bordered with firs and fragrant shrubs, which frequently opened to corn lands and vineyards, where peasants were busied in dressing the vines.

About a mile from Bonn is a garden, or rather nursery, to which they have given the name of _Vauxhall_. It is much more rural than that of London, being planted with thick and lofty groves, which, in this climate, are gratefully refreshing, during the summer-day, but are very pernicious in the evening, when the vapour, arising from the ground, cannot escape through the thick foliage. The garden is lighted up only on great festivals, or when the Elector or his courtiers give a ball in a large room built for the purpose. On some days, half the inhabitants of Bonn are to be seen in this garden, mingling in the promenade with the Elector and his nobility; but there were few visitors when we saw it. Count GIMNICH, the commander, who had surrendered Mentz to the French, was the only person pointed out to us.

The road from hence to Bonn was laid out and planted with poplars at the expence of the Elector, who has a taste for works of public advantage and ornament. His Grandmastership of the Teutonic Order renders his Court more frequented than those of the other ecclesiastical Princes, the possessions of that Order being still considerable enough to support many younger brothers of noble families. Having passed his youth in the army, or at the courts of Vienna or Brussels, he is also environed by friends, made before the vacancy of an ecclesiastical electorate induced him to change his profession; and the union of his three incomes, as Bishop of Munster, Grand Master and Elector, enables him to spend something more than two hundred thousand pounds annually. His experience and revenues are, in many respects, very usefully employed. To the nobility he affords an example of so much personal dignity, as to be able to reject many ostentatious customs, and to remove some of the ceremonial barriers, which men do not constantly place between themselves and their fellow-beings, except from some consciousness of personal weakness. All sovereigns, who have had any sense of their individual liberty and power, have shewn a readiness to remove such barriers; but not many have been able to effect so much as the Elector of Cologne against the chamberlains, pages, and other footmanry of their courts, who are always upon the _alerte_ to defend the false magnificence that makes their offices seem necessary. He now enjoys many of the blessings, usual only in private stations; among others, that of conversing with great numbers of persons, not forced into his society by their rank, and of dispensing with much of that attendance, which would render his menial servants part of his company.

His secretary, Mr. Floret, whom we had the pleasure to see, gave us some accounts of the industry and carefulness of his private life, which he judiciously thought were better than any other panegyrics upon his master. His attention to the relief, employment and education of the poor, to the state of manufactures and the encouragement of talents, appears to be continual; and his country would soon have elapsed from the general wretchedness of Germany, if the exertions of three campaigns had not destroyed what thirty years of care and improvement cannot restore.

His residence at Bonn occasions expenditure enough to keep the people busy, but he has not been able to divert to it any part of the commerce, which, though it is of so little use at Cologne, is here spoken of with some envy, and seems to be estimated above its amount. The town, which is much neater than the others in the electorate, and so pleasantly situated, that its name has been supposed to be formed from the Latin synonym for good, is ornamented by few public buildings, except the palace. What is called the University is a small brick building, used more as a school than a college, except that the masters are called professors. The principal church of four, which are within the walls, is a large building, distinguished by several spires, but not remarkable for its antiquity or beauty.

Many of the German powers retain some shew of a representative government, as to affairs of finance, and have States, by which taxes are voted. Those of the electorate of Cologne consist of four colleges, representing the clergy, nobility, knights and cities; the votes are given by colleges, so that the inhabitants of the cities, if they elect their representatives fairly, have one vote in four. These States assemble at Bonn.

One of the privileges, which it is surprising that the present Elector should retain, is that of grinding corn for the consumption of the whole town. His mill, like those of all the towns on the Rhine, is a floating one, moored in the river, which turns its wheel. Bread is bad at Bonn; but this oppressive privilege is not entirely answerable for it, there being little better throughout the whole country. It generally appears in rolls, with glazed crusts, half hollow; the crumb not brown, but a sort of dirty white.

There are few cities in Germany without walls, which, when the dreadful science of war was less advanced than at present, frequently protected them against large armies. These are now so useless, that such cannon as are employed against batteries could probably not be fired from them without shaking their foundations. The fortifications of Bonn are of this sort; and, though they were doubtless better, when the Duke of Marlborough arrived before them, it is wonderful that they should have sustained a regular siege, during which great part of the town was demolished. The electorate of Cologne is, indeed, so ill prepared for war, that it has not one town, which could resist ten thousand men for three days.

The inhabitants of Bonn, whenever they regret the loss of their fortifications, should be reminded of the three sieges, which, in the course of thirty years, nearly destroyed their city. Of these the first was in 1673, when the Elector had received a French garrison into it; but the resistance did not then continue many days. It was in this siege that the Prince of Orange, afterwards our honoured William the Third, had one of his few military successes. In 1689, the French, who had lately defended it, returned to attack it; and, before they could subdue the strong garrison left in it by the Elector of Brandenburg, the palace and several public buildings were destroyed. The third siege was commanded by the Duke of Marlborough, and continued from the 24th of April to the 16th of May, the French being then the defenders, and the celebrated Cohorn one of the assailants. It was not till fifteen years afterwards, that all the houses, demolished in this siege, could be restored by the efforts of the Elector Joseph.

The present Elector maintains, in time of peace, about eight hundred soldiers, which is the number of his contingent to the army of the Empire: in the present war he has supplied somewhat more than this allotment; and, when we were at Bonn, two thousand recruits were in training. His troops wear the general uniform of the Empire, blue faced with red, which many of the Germanic sovereigns give only to their contingent troops, while those of their separate establishments are distinguished by other colours. The Austrian regiments are chiefly in white; faced with light blue, grey, or red; but the artillery are dressed, with very little shew, in a cloak speckled with light brown.

Bonn was one of the very few places in Germany, which we left with regret. It is endeared to the votaries of landscape by its situation in the midst of fruitful plains, in the presence of stupendous mountains, and on the bank of a river, that, in summer, is impelled by the dissolved snows of Switzerland, and, in winter, rolls with the accumulation of a thousand torrents from the rocks on its shores. It contained many inhabitants, who had the independence to aim at a just taste in morals and letters, in spite of the ill examples with which such countries supply them; and, having the vices of the form of government, established in it, corrected by the moderation and immediate attention of the governor, it might be considered as a happy region in the midst of ignorance, injustice and misery, and remembered like the green spot, that, in an Arabian desert, cheers the senses and sustains the hopes of the weary traveller.

GOODESBERG.

The ride from Bonn to this delightful village is only one league over a narrow plain, covered with corn and vineyards. On our right was the range of hills, before seen from the mountain SANCTÆ CRUCIS, sweeping into frequent recesses, and starting forward into promontories, with inequalities, which gave exquisite richness to the forest, that mantled from their bases to their utmost summits. Many a lurking village, with its slender grey steeple, peeped from among the woody skirts of these hills. On our left, the tremendous mountains, that bind the eastern shore of the Rhine, gradually lost their aërial complexion, as we approached them, and displayed new features and new enchantments; an ever-varying illusion, to which the transient circumstance of thunder clouds contributed. The sun-beams, streaming among these clouds, threw partial gleams upon the precipices, and, followed by dark shadows, gave surprising and inimitable effect to the natural colouring of the mountains, whose pointed tops we now discerned to be covered with dark heath, extended down their rocky sides, and mingled with the reddish and light yellow tints of other vegetation and the soil. It was delightful to watch the shadows sweeping over these steeps, now involving them in deep obscurity, and then leaving them to the sun's rays, which brought out all their hues into vivid contrast.

Near Goodesberg, a small mountain, insulated, abrupt and pyramidal, rises from the plain, which it seems to terminate, and conceals the village, that lies along its southern skirt. This mountain, covered with vineyards and thick dwarf wood to its summit, where one high tower and some shattered walls appear, is a very interesting object.

At the entrance of the village, the road was obstructed by a great number of small carts, filled with soldiers apparently wounded. The line of their procession had been broken by some carriages, hastening with company to the ridotto at Goodesberg, and was not easily restored. Misery and festivity could scarcely be brought into closer contrast. We thought of Johnson's "many-coloured life," and of his picture, in the preface to Shakespeare, of cotemporary wretchedness and joy, when "the reveller is hastening to his wine, and the mourner is burying his friend." This was a procession of wounded French prisoners, chiefly boys, whose appearance had, indeed, led us to suspect their nation, before we saw the stamp of the _fasces_, and the words "_Republique Françoise_" upon the buttons of some, whom our driver had nearly overset. The few, that could raise themselves above the floor of their carts, shewed countenances yellow, or livid with sickness. They did not talk to their guards, nor did the latter shew any signs of exultation over them.