A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany, with a Return Down the Rhine, Vol. 1 (of 2) / To Which Are Added Observations during a Tour to the Lakes of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland

by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Carlsruhe has the advantage of not being fortified; so that the inhabitants are not oppressed by a numerous garrison, and strangers pass through it, though so near the seat of war, without interruption. It is less than Manheim by at least half, and has no considerable public building, except the palace, from the spacious area before which, all the streets proceed as radii, till their furthest ends fill up the figure of a semicircle. The houses in the area, which immediately front the palace, are built over a piazza interrupted only by the commencement of the streets. The palace has, of course, an unexampled advantage in the mixture of town and rural scenery in its prospects, looking on one side through all the streets of the city, and on the other through thirty-two forest alleys, cut to various lengths of from ten to fifteen English miles each; few, however, of the latter prospects are now commanded except from the upper windows, the present Elector having entirely changed the style of the intervening gardens, and permitted them to be laid out in the English taste, without respect to the thirty-two intersections, that rendered them conformable with the forest.

We passed part of two days at Carlsruhe, and were chiefly in these gardens, which are of the most enchanting beauty and richness. The warmth of the climate draws up colours for the shrubs and plants, which we thought could not be equalled in more northern latitudes; two thousand and seven hundred orange and lemon trees, loaded with fruit and blossoms, perfumed the air; and choice shrubs, marked with the Linnean distinctions, composed the thickets. The gardens, being limited only by the forests, appear to unite with them; and the deep verdure and luxuriance of the latter are contrasted sweetly with the tender green of the lawns and plants, and with the variety of scarce and majestic trees, mingled with the garden groves.

The palace is a large and sumptuous, though not an elegant edifice, built of stone like all the rest of the city, and at the same period. The Margrave generally resides in it, and has rendered it a valuable home, by adding greatly to the library, filling an observatory with excellent instruments, and preserving the whole structure in a condition not usual in Germany. The spot, compared with the surrounding country, appeared like Milton's Eden—like Paradise opened in the wild.

Beyond Carlsruhe the road begins to approach the Rhine, which we had lost sight of near Manheim; and, though the river is never within view, the country is considered as a military frontier, being constantly patrolled by troops. Some of these were of the Prince of Condé's army of emigrants, who have no uniform, and are distinguished only by the white cockade, and by a bandage of white linen, impressed with black fleurs de lis, upon the right arm. They were chiefly on foot, and then wore only their swords, without fire-arms.

Near the road, a small party of Austrians were guarding a magazine, before a tent, marked, like their regimentals, with green upon white. Soon afterwards, our postillion drew up on one side, to permit a train of carriages to pass, and immediately announced the Prinz von Condé, who was in an open landau, followed by two covered waggons for his kitchen and laundry, and by a coach with attendants.

He appeared to be between fifty and sixty; tall, not corpulent, and of an air, which might have announced the French courtier, if his rank had been unknown. A star was embroidered upon his military surtout, but he had no guards, though travelling within the jurisdiction allotted to him as a general officer. So little was the road frequented at this period, that his was the second or third carriage we had met, except military waggons, since leaving Mentz; a distance of more than eighty English miles.

The road for the whole stage between Carlsruhe and Rastadt, about fifteen miles, is planted, as seems customary in Germany between the palaces of sovereigns, with lofty trees, of which the shade was extremely refreshing at this season; the clouds of sand, that rose from the road, would otherwise have made the heat intolerable.

The first house in Rastadt is the palace of the Margrave of Baden Baden, brother of the Margrave of Baden Durlach, whose residence is at Carlsruhe, a small and heavy building, that fronts the avenue, and is surrounded with stone walls. The interior is said to be splendidly decorated, and a chamber is preserved in the state, in which Prince Eugene and Marshal Villars left it in 1714, after concluding the peace between the Emperor and Louis the Fourteenth. The Prince of Baden, being then a general in the service of the Emperor, had not been able to escape the vengeance of Louis, whose troops in 1688 first plundered, and then burnt, the palace and city, and in the war of the Succession they had a camp on the adjoining plain. The Prince is therefore supposed to have lent the palace, which he had rebuilt, with the more readiness, that the Marshal might see how perfectly he could overcome his loss. The plunder of the city in 1688 had continued for five days, and it is mentioned in its history that the French carried away fifteen waggon loads of wine of the vintage of 1572.

Rastadt, like Carlsruhe, is built upon one plan, but is as inferior to it in beauty, as in size. The chief street is, however, uncommonly broad, so much so, that the upper end is used as a market-place, and the statue of the founder, Prince Louis, in the centre, is seen with all the advantages of space and perspective. There is, notwithstanding, little appearance of traffic, and the inhabitants seemed to be much less numerous than the emigrant corps, which was then stationed there, the head quarters of the Prince of Condé being established in the city. We passed an hour at an inn, which was nearly filled by part of this corps, and were compelled to witness the distress and disappointment, excited by intelligence just then received of the state of affairs in the Low Countries.

A small park of artillery was kept on the southern side of Rastadt, where there is a handsome stone bridge over the river Murg, that falls into the Rhine, at the distance of a league from the city. Soon after, the road passes by the groves of the Favorita, a summer palace built by a dowager Margravine. We now drew nearer to the mountains of the Bergstrasse, which had disappeared near Schwetzingen, and had risen again partially through the morning mists, soon after our quitting Carlsruhe. They are here of more awful height, and abrupt steepness than in the neighbourhood of Manheim, and, on their pointed brows, are frequently the ruins of castles, placed sometimes where it seems as if no human foot could climb. The nearer we approached these mountains the more we had occasion to admire the various tints of their granites. Sometimes the precipices were of a faint pink, then of a deep red, a dull purple, or a blush approaching to lilac, and sometimes gleams of a pale yellow mingled with the low shrubs, that grew upon their sides. The day was cloudless and bright, and we were too near these heights to be deceived by the illusions of aërial colouring; the real hues of their features were as beautiful, as their magnitude was sublime. The plains, that extend along their feet to the Rhine, are richly cultivated with corn, and, beyond the river, others, which appear to be equally fruitful, spread towards the mountains of Alsace, a corresponding chain with the Bergstrasse, vast and now blue with distance.