Among the towns of the Empire Augsburg was easily first; its finest street was the finest street in Europe, with roofs of copper; Nuremburg ran it close in many ways but had nothing to show in comparison with that one street. The cause of Augsburg's preëminence was its being the home of the Fuggers, the greatest financiers of Europe, but with their decline one function of the town that meant much in the way of attracting wayfarers, that of being the General-Post-Office for correspondence between Italy and Central Europe, passed to Frankfurt. The frequency of the use of stone as house-building material in these towns of Upper Germany and the show of burnished pewter and brass that was the pride of each inhabitant of standing, who let his huge hall-door lie open all day to exhibit it, were details which the Average Tourist would not overlook if he was observing as he ought where the wealth and security prevailed that were valuable in an ally. Thus did Strassburg fix itself in De Rohan's recollections. Democracy, to him, was a barely credible superstition; yet nowhere was he more courteously treated, nowhere did he see completer preparations against a long siege, nor any better arsenal, a model of cleanliness, orderliness, and efficiency. Neither was it lost on him that amongst all their collection of cannon there was not one for siege purposes; their aim was defence, not offence. As little to be ignored as the others was Ulm. A feature of the age was the development of the methods of water-supply in towns; Ulm was the centre for this industry; even Augsburg's water-supply had been planned there. And it was equally the leader in woodwork.
Similar characteristics would be found repeated on a somewhat less striking scale among the Hansa towns, with Lübeck ranking first in pleasantness by general consent. A specially charming feature lay in the number of swans swimming in the moats, though no Englishman so much as mentions them; doubtless because the one town that excelled it in this respect was London. Going east, the various capitals would provide each its own object-lesson, and, collectively, would illustrate the absence of avarice among German rulers as contrasted with the princes of Italy. Saxony formed the only exception and Dresden showed it. In spite of it being the last big town that Hentzner visited, its armoury aroused more enthusiasm in him than anything except the gardens of Naples and the all-sufficiency of Milan; and Moryson confirms this, adding also that the stable was the finest he had seen, with its 136 horses, all foreigners (the German horses had another stable to themselves), each with a glazed window and a green curtain in front of his nose, a red cloth, an iron rack, a copper manger, a brass shower-bath, and a separate cupboard for his trappings.
No Protestant who reached Dresden would miss Wittenberg, but the contrast must have been painful; poor and very dirty; the dwellers therein mainly students, prostitutes, and pigs, recalling the verses in use concerning Angers—
Basse ville, hauts clochers,
Riches putaines, pauvres escoliers.
Leipzig was in favour for the purity of its German and Munich for pleasure, but Prague was another disappointment in spite of the Emperor living there; few stone houses and the wooden ones rough, and so filthy that the saying ran that the Turks would never take it despite the feebleness of its fortifications, because it was so well-guarded by its stenches; much as a Frenchman remarked at this time of Massa, between Genoa and Pisa, that it had a castle, but its chief defence was its fleas. Vienna was likewise far too well defended to attract visitors; a frontier-town against the Turks, always garrisoned by mercenaries and its streets unsafe in consequence.
To go on to the Spanish Netherlands, they were bound to be passed and re-passed in the course of the work of Europe, for geographical reasons, but still more so as a storm-centre of European politics. Nevertheless, the tourist, however serious, did not stay there long. The viceroy's business was generalship, and consequently there was no settled court: little to note, in fact, but the Spanish infantry at work and the effects of that; towns in ruins, dwindling trade. Yet the localisation of the war was intermittent enough not to interfere with the travellers from Upper Germany making a practice of reaching France through this district, according to Zinzerling, rather than direct, a habit resulting not only from the attractions that remained to Flemish towns, but still more from the direct route through Burgundy having become a highway of German mercenaries into France.
GATE OF ST. GEORGE, ANTWERP