LETTER XVI.
Aix-la-chapelle——The imperial city of Aix-la-Chapelle, by the Germans called Achen, lies at the distance of twenty-fix miles, nearly East, of Liege. As it was a moderate stage, the weather fine, and the face of the country around beautiful, I found my journey extremely pleasant, and entered that famous city in as good a disposition to be pleased with it, as circumstances and reflections so melancholy as mine (which, in spite of every effort, would intrude themselves) may be supposed to allow. It is certainly a very fine city, and well deserves the reputation it has in all parts of the world.
Perhaps no city in Germany has a fairer claim to antiquity than Aix-la-Chapelle; for it was famous, even in the time of the ancient Romans, for its waters, and was by them called Aquisgranum, or Urbs Aquensis. It was destroyed by the Huns, who, like the French now, destroyed and trampled under foot every vestige of refinement, wherever they carried their conquests; and it lay in ruins till it was rebuilt by Charlemagne, who made it the seat of his Empire on this side the Alps. By him it was ordained, that the Kings of the Romans should be crowned there: and it has been famous, since that time, for Councils and Treaties, particularly that famous one between France and Spain in 1663, and another lately between France and Great Britain.
Although there are many Protestants, both Lutherans and Calvinists, in this city, they are obliged to go to church two miles off, at a place called Vaels, in the Dutchy of Limburg; so that Popery prevails with some portion of its intolerance. Here, as in all other places subject to its power, it has raised the Gothic gloomy pile, accumulated enormous masses of wealth, and hoarded up treasures, under the gulling pretexts of religious paraphernalia: a golden casket, set with precious stones of inestimable value, is hoarded up, not for the actual value of the moveable, but as the only fit receptacle for a relique it contains——a curious one, too, of even its kind——a bit of earth!——A bit of earth? yes! a bit of earth, common earth!——only with this fortunate circumstance in addition, that a drop of the blood of Saint Stephen fell, or is said to have fallen, upon it, as he was stoned to death! think of that, master Frederick! Why, when those things occur to me, I feel myself agitated by a whimsical tumult of sensations, serious and ludicrous, sorrowful and merry, that it is impossible to describe——something like that state in which the spirits flutter when a person whimpers between a laugh and cry. But, to carry the matter farther, when we recollect that some of the wisest and brightest of Mankind, some of the bravest Warriors, sternest Philosophers, and ablest Statesmen, that ever existed, have been the dupes of those shallow artifices, and actually have knelt in devout homage to these bits of earth, bone, sticks and stone, &c. we must allow that it answers a great and noble end, by pointing out to us the infirmity of our nature, and shewing us, to use the words of one of our brightest luminaries, “what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!”
We have already had, and are likely yet to have, such a clumsy load of Cathedrals to attend to, that I should not mention that of Aix-la-Chapelle (a large, gloomy, dreary, old-fashioned, Gothic pile), were it not that it carries along with it some matters worthy of notice. What think you, then, of an Emperor, a Pope, and three hundred and sixty-five Bishops, in one company? Oh! precious assemblage! But where, I hear you ask——where, in the name of God, collect the Bishops? a Pope and Emperor are easily had! My dear Frederick, three hundred and sixty-five Bishops might easily be picked up in Christendom, and leave more behind, too, than would serve any useful purpose to the world.——Yes, the Emperor Charlemagne, and three hundred and sixty-five Bishops, were present at the Consecration of this Cathedral by Pope Leo the Third. That Emperor lies now in great state under the altar of the choir: Pope Leo rots in Rome; and for the Bishops, they are gone, perhaps, as Hamlet says, “to stop a beer barrel.”——
“Th’ imperial Cæsar, dead, and turn’d to clay,
Might stop a hole, to keep the wind away.”
From such a splendid and opulent attendance at the Consecration, one would naturally expect that this Cathedral would have been, at the very outset, enriched with costly and valuable trappings: but no——one image of that of Liege would purchase the whole. It should be recollected, however, that they were all, excepting the Emperor, Churchmen——a class, whose charity, generally speaking, has, like a ring, neither end nor beginning; or at least ends and begins in itself, where nobody can see it; or, according to the old proverb, begins at home.
To compensate, however, for those worldly, worthless vanities, gold, silver and jewels, His Holiness, and their three hundred and sixty-five Graces, presented the Cathedral with some exquisite pieces of relique, of more inestimable value, by their account, than the mines of Potosi or Golconda: the first, an old covering——it would be folly for me to say, whether gown, petticoat or shift——but they, that is to say, the Priests, say, and the Faithful believe them, that it was the shift worn by the Virgin Mary at the birth of Christ——how their Holinesses came by it, is hard to conjecture:——in the next place, a piece of coarse cloth, which, they also say, and are believed when they say, was girt about Christ on the Cross:——thirdly, a piece of cord, with which they say he was bound:——fourthly, some of the blood of Saint Stephen, now eighteen hundred years old:——and, fifthly, a picture of the Virgin and Child, embossed on a jasper, by Saint Luke. With all due deference to their Reverences’ knowledge, I should think a dozen statues in gold of the Apostles would be rather a more valuable gift, and more ornamental, than these rags and cords, which I dare say did not cost altogether six pence. We talk here of our blue ribbons, our red ribbons, and our stars, as great donations; but I think the presents of the Pope and three hundred and sixty-five Bishops to the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, beat them out of the field, whether, we consider the magnificence of the gift, or the generosity of the givers.
But that which, above all things, renders Aix-la-Chapelle worthy of notice, is the salubrity of its waters, which bring from England, and all other European Nations, a vast concourse of valetudinarians, who contribute at once to the gaiety and opulence of the city and adjacent country. Some of those waters are used for drinking, and others for bathing, resembling very much, in their quality, the virtues of those of Bath in Somersetshire, but that some of them are still hotter and stronger: they are unpleasant to the taste till use reconciles the palate to them, and most of them have a very offensive smell; but they are often powerful in effect and give relief in a great variety of maladies; and they are rendered still more palatable by the commodious neatness of the baths, the excellence of the accommodations, and the great plenty of provisions, which are at once good and reasonable in this city.
I staid so short a time at Aix-la-Chapelle, that I could not, without the aid of some of the miracles wrought by the Saints of the Romish Church, or Sir John Mandeville, acquire a sufficient knowledge of the People, to attempt a description of them, or their manners——but it and Spa are so well known, that you cannot have much trouble in finding a description of them already written.
As far as my observations enabled me to judge, there was nothing in the German character that had the power either to create interest, or excite great attention.——They are rather to be approved than admired; and, wanting those prominent features that so whimsically chequer other Nations with the extremes of bad and good, majestic and ridiculous, afford little subject to the traveller for the indulgence of sentimental reflection, or to the philosopher for the exercise of moral speculation.