The dog-star raged with all its fury, as we drove through the close and pent-up valleys that lie between Spa and Verviers. At the latter place we began to ascend, until finally we reached a broad and naked height, that overlooked a wide reach of country towards the east. This was the region that lies around the ancient capital of Charlemagne, and is now a part of what M. de Pradt has described "as a façade thrown before Europe," or the modern and disjointed kingdom of Prussia. We reached the frontier on the height of land, where, everything proving to be en règle, we met with no obstruction or delay.
While crossing the swell of land just mentioned, the wind changed with a suddenness that we are apt to think American, but which occurs more frequently in this hemisphere, or rather in this part of it, than in our own. The peculiarity of the American climate is its exaggeration rather than its fickleness; its passages from extreme heat to extreme cold, more than the frequency of its lesser transitions. One never thinks of an umbrella in America, with a cloudless sky; whereas, during the spring months in particular, there is no security against rain an hour at a time, near the western coast of Europe, more especially north of the Bay of Biscay. On the present occasion, we passed in a few minutes from the oven to the ice-house, and were travelling with cloaks about us, and closed windows, long before we reached Aix-la-Chapelle, at which ancient town we arrived about six. Unlike Spa, where we had the choice among a hundred furnished houses, Aix was so crowded that we got narrow lodgings, with great difficulty, in a second-rate hotel.
As a matter of course, although it was going over old ground with most of us, we could do no less than look at the sights. The environs of Aix, though exceedingly pretty, and well ornamented by country-houses, are less beautiful than those of Liege. Although Charlemagne has been buried near a thousand years, and there is no longer an Emperor of Germany, or a King of the Romans, Aix-la-Chapelle is still a town of more than 30,000 inhabitants. It is a crowded and not a particularly neat place, though material improvements are making, and we have been more pleased with it this year than we were last. The town-house is a very ancient structure, one of its towers being supposed to have been built by the Romans, and it is celebrated as having been the place of meeting of two European congresses; that of 1748, and that of our own times. It has a gallery of portraits of the different ambassadors, a big-wigged if a not big-witted set.
The cathedral, though imperfect, is a noble and a curious monument: the choir is modern, that is to say, of Gothic workmanship, and only five hundred years old, while the main body is an antique rotunda, that dates more than twice as far back, or as remotely as the reign of Charlemagne himself. There is a circular gallery in it, around which the thrones of the Emperor and Electors were formerly placed, at the ceremonies of coronations. Each of these thrones was flanked by small antique columns, brought from Rome, but which during the reign of Napoleon, in the spirit of monopoly and desecration[[23]] that marked the era, had been transferred to Paris, where some of them are still seen standing in the gallery of the Tuileries. A chair that was found in Charlemagne's tomb stands in this gallery, and was long used as a throne for the Emperors.
The cathedral is said to be rich in relics, and, among other things, it has some of the manna from the desert, and a bit of Aaron's rod! It has a window or two, in a retired chapel, which have a few panes of exquisitely painted glass that are much more precious than either.
At noon I sent my passport to the post-house for horses, and, in return, I had a visit from the postmaster in compliment to the republic of letters. We said a few flattering things to each other, much to the amusement of A——, when we took our departure.
The country, after quitting the valley of Aix,[[24]] became flat and monotonous, and it was in the midst of a vast level district that we found the town of Juliers, the capital of the ancient duchy, buried behind grassy ramparts, that were scarcely visible until we were actually passing them. It is a tame and insignificant place, at present. At Berghem, a post or two further, I had another visit from the postmaster and his clerk, who made no scruple in asking me if I was the man who wrote books! We talk a great deal of our national intelligence in America, and certainly with truth, when we compare ourselves with these people in many important particulars; but blocks are not colder, or can have less real reverence for letters, arts, or indeed cultivation of any kind, than the great bulk of the American people. There are a few among us who pretend to work themselves up into enthusiasm as respects the first, more especially if they can get a foreign name to idolize; but it is apparent, at a glance, that it is not enthusiasm of the pure water. For this, Germany is the land of sensations, whether music, poetry, arms, or the more material arts be their object. As for myself, I can boast of little in this way, beyond the homage of my two postmasters, which perhaps was more than properly fell to my share; but I shall never forget the feeling displayed by a young German, at Dresden, whom chance threw in my way. We had lodgings in a house directly opposite the one inhabited by Tieck, the celebrated novelist and dramatist. Having no proper means of introduction to this gentleman, and unwilling to obtrude myself anywhere, I never made his acquaintance, but it was impossible not to know, in so small a town, where so great a celebrity lived. Next door to us was a Swiss confectioner, with whom I occasionally took an ice. One day a young man entered for a similar purpose, and left the room with myself. At the door he inquired if I could tell him in which of the neighbouring hotels M. Tieck resided, I showed him the house and paused a moment to watch his manner, which was entirely free from pretension, but which preserved an indescribable expression of reverence. "Was it possible to get a glimpse of the person of M. Tieck?" "I feared not; some one had told me that he was gone to a watering-place." "Could I tell him which was the window of his room?" This I was able to do, as he had been pointed out to me at it a few days before. I left him gazing at the window, and it was near an hour before this quiet exhibition of heartfelt homage ceased by the departure of the young man. In my own case, I half suspect that my two postmasters expected to see a man of less European countenance than the one I happen to travel with.
It was near sunset when we reached the margin of the upper terrace, where we began to descend to the level of the borders of the Rhine. Here we had a view of the towers of Cologne, and of the broad plain that environs its walls. It was getting to be dark as we drove through the winding entrance, among bastions and half-moons, and across bridges, up to the gates of the place, which we reached just in season to be admitted without the extra formalities.