CHARLEMAGNE AND I.
Aix-la-Chapelle, Monday.—I have always had a strange longing to know CHARLEMAGNE. To shake him by the hand, to have opportunity of inquiring after his health and that of his family, to hear his whispered reply—that indeed were bliss. But CHARLEMAGNE is dead, and desire must be curbed. The only thing open to an admirer is to visit the place of his last repose, and brood in spots his shade may yet haunt. CHARLEMAGNE was buried at Aix-la-Chapelle (German Aachen), but since my arrival in the town, I find great difficulty in discovering his tomb. The great soldier Emperor resembled an unfortunate and unskilful pickpocket in one respect. He was always being taken up. He died in the year 814, and was left undisturbed till the year 1000, when the Emperor OTTO THE THIRD opened his tomb, and, finding his great predecessor sitting on a marble chair, helped him down. The marble chair is on view in the Cathedral to this day (verger, I mark) to witness to the truth of this narrative. One hundred and sixty-five years later, FREDERICK BARBAROSSA opened the second tomb where OTHO had placed C., and transferred to a marble sarcophagus what, at this date, was left of him. In the following century C. was canonised. Whereupon nothing would satisfy FREDERICK THE SECOND but to go for the bones again. They were now growing scarce, and only a few fragments fill the reliquary in which at length all that is left of my revered friend (if after this lapse of time I may call him so) reposes.
I have been fortunate in securing a relic, not exactly of CAROLO, but of the time at or about which he lived. It is a piece of tapestry, on which fingers long since dust have worked a sketch of the Emperor going to his bath. Considering its age, the tapestry is in remarkably fresh condition. The old Hebrew trader, whom for a consideration I induced to part with it, said he would not charge any more on that account; which I thought very considerate. He also said he might be able to get me some more pieces. But this, I think, will do to go on with.
But if there be nothing left of CAROLO MAGNO, there still is the city he loved, in which he lived and died. Here is the Kaiserquelle, bubbling out of Büchel in which, centuries ago, he laved his lordly limbs. Going down into my bath this morning I observed in the dim light the imprint of a footstep on the marble stair.
"That might have been CHARLEMAGNE'S," I said to YAHKOB, my bath attendant.
"Ja wohl," said YAHKOB, nodding in his friendly way, and, going out, he presently returned with a hot towel.
That did not seem to follow naturally upon my observation, which was, indeed, born of idle fancy. (I know very well C.'s death eventuated long prior to the building of the stately colonnade that fronts the present baths, and that therefore the footprint is illusory.) I am growing used to a certain irrelevancy in YAHKOB's conversation. My German is of the date of CHARLEMAGNE, and is no more understood here than is the Greek of SOCRATES in the streets of Athens. YAHKOB was especially told off for my service because he thoroughly understood and talked English. He says, "Ye-es" and "Ver well." But when I offer a chance remark he, three times out of five, nods intelligently, bolts off and brings me something back—a comb and brush, a newspaper, but oftenest, a hot towel. Once, when I asked him whether there were two posts a day to London, he lugged in an arm-chair.
I get on better with WILLIAM. WILLIAM is a rubber—not of whist, bien entendu, but of men. In build WILLIAM is pear-shaped, the upper part of him, where you would expect to find the stalk, broadening out into a perpetual smile. He has lived in the Baths twenty-three years, and yet his gaiety is not eclipsed. If he has a foible it is his belief that he thoroughly understands London and its ways.
"A ver big place," he remarked this morning, "where dey kills de ladees."
This reference not being immediately clear, WILLIAM assisted dull comprehension by drawing his finger across his throat, and uttering a jovial "click!" But it was only when, his eyes brimming over with fun, he said, "YAK de Reeper," that I followed the drift of his remark.
It is gratifying to the citizen of London travelling abroad, to learn that in the mind of the foreigner the great Metropolis is primarily and chiefly associated with "JACK the Ripper" and his exploits.
"I rob you not hard," WILLIAM incidentally remarks, pounding at your chest as if it were a parquet flooring he was polishing; "but I strong so I can break a shentleman's ribs."
I make due acknowledgment of the prowess, being particularly careful to refrain from expressing doubt, or even surprise. WILLIAM, always smiling, repeats the assertion just as if I had contradicted him. Try to change subject.
"I wonder if CHARLEMAGNE had a massage man in his suite?" I say, "and who was his Doctor? Now if he had had Dr. BRANDIS, I believe he would have been alive at this day. But we cannot have everything. CHARLEMAGNE had the Iron Crown of Lombardy; we have Dr. BRANDIS."
"Y e e s," said WILLIAM, still gloating over his own train of thought; "eef I like I break a shentleman's ribs."
Sometimes WILLIAM'S smile, contracting, breaks into a whistle, horribly out of tune. He rather fancies his musical powers, and is proud of his intimate acquaintance with the fashionable chansons current in London to-day, or as he puts it, "Vat dey shings at de Carrelton Clob." Then he warbles a line of the happily long-forgotten "Champagne CHARLIE," with intervals of "Oh what a surprise!" He sings both to the same tune, and fortunately knows only two lines of one and a single line of the other.
Try to bring him back to CAROLO MAGNO.
"Wouldn't you," I ask "give all you are worth to have lived in the time of CHARLEMAGNE? Suppose some day you walked into this room and discovered him sitting on his marble throne as OTHO found him with the Iron Crown on his head and his right hand grasping the imperial sceptre, what would you do?"
"I would break hees ribs," said WILLIAM, his face illumined by a sudden flash of delighted anticipation.
Alack! we are thinking of two personages sundered by centuries. My mind dwells on CHARLEMAGNE, whilst WILLIAM is evidently thinking of Champagne CHARLIE.