Reverting from history to romance, we cannot leave the Seven Mountains without noticing the—
TREUENFELS; OR, THE ROCK OF FIDELITY.
(Legend the Fourth.)
In a lonely and desolate valley near the Rhine, some remains of a tomb are seen, with an inscription, of which the word “Liba” only is legible. Liba was the beautiful daughter of the Chevalier Balther, and betrothed to the brave and amiable Count de Grunstein, whom she loved. But, the “days of true love seldom do run smooth.” Balther owed a grudge to the pious but severe Englebert, Archbishop of Cologne, and instigated some of the prelate’s vassals, who were also indisposed to the Archbishop, to take away his life. Several of the malefactors were seized and executed; all confessing at the scaffold that Balther was the person who prompted them to the murder. These confessions induced the Emperor to order a troop of soldiers to burn the original conspirator’s castle and all within its walls. The order was duly executed, and, in the middle of a stormy night, the flames ascended to the apartments of Balther and Liba. The affectionate daughter, with the greatest difficulty, and with wonderful presence of mind, conducted her aged father through a subterranean passage, to the neighbourhood of the chateau; but not before the old man was dreadfully scorched by the fire. A cavern in the mountain’s side afforded them shelter from the vengeance of the Emperor, and the affectionate daughter sustained her parent by fruits and roots collected every night in the vicinity of their retreat. Meantime Balther’s eyes were entirely destroyed by the inflammation resulting from the flames of the castle; but he became reconciled, or at least resigned, to his afflictions and fate. One day, he begged to be conducted to the mouth of the cavern, where he might inhale the pure air, though he could no longer enjoy the cheerful light of Heaven. The dutiful Liba indulged the wish of her afflicted father, and, while they were sitting there, she espied, at no great distance, her faithful lover, Grunstein, leaning in melancholy mood against a tree, his javelin and dogs at his side. The first impulse of nature was to rush into his arms, and implore his assistance; but love and reason instantly checked her. She reflected that the asylum in Grunstein’s castle would only expose her betrothed lover to the persecution of the Emperor. At this moment, her father cried out that he saw the sun and the blue sky, though his eyes were entirely destroyed. The maiden looked around, and beheld a black speck in the heavens. She fell on her knees, and implored the mercy and forgiveness of the Almighty towards her parent. Balther joined in the prayer, and, at that instant, the thunder roared, and a flash of lightning reduced the father to a cinder, and the pious daughter to a corpse! Grunstein roused from his reverie, commenced his descent, and, in his way down into the valley, beheld the fair form of his betrothed Liba, apparently asleep—but totally lifeless! He erected a chapel on the spot, dedicated to “Notre Dame des Douleurs,” and a tomb in the rock for his Liba, where the name still remains legible.
MORAL.
The moral of this tale is two-fold. It illustrates the force of filial affection, and the certainty of retributive justice.
The artful instigations of Balther, which induced others to commit murder, evaded the law of the land, but did not escape the Eye of Heaven. The cruel and illegal steps of the Emperor, in burning the castle, thus involving the innocent with the guilty, cannot be too severely reprobated, though it was consonant with the tyranny of those dark ages. It may seem inconsistent with divine justice, that the innocent and affectionate daughter should have been struck down by the same thunderbolt that hurled vengeance on her father’s guilty head. But although “the ways of Providence are dark and intricate” in appearance, they are not, as the Roman philosopher asserts, “puzzled in mazes and perplexed with errors.” The amiable Liba may have escaped a life that might have been embittered by the memory of her father’s fate, and tainted, in the eyes of the world, by a father’s crime. She might have involved her faithful lover in ruin—and thus have made a bad exchange of easy death and eternal happiness, for a lingering existence of misery and degradation!
The fidelity of Liba, in this legend, is only a fair sample of that moral heroism and natural affection, that pervade the breasts of the daughter, the mother, and the wife, as compared with those of the son, the father, and the husband. The comparison is by no means flattering to the “stronger sex.”
At a very short distance from Nonnenwerth, we pass the town of Unkel on our left hand; and here the stream of the Rhine is narrowed by some remarkable basaltic rocks on the opposite side of the river. These ought to be observed by those who have not seen specimens of this production of volcanic fire. It is the same kind of rock as that which is seen at the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, and at Staffa in the Hebrides. These basaltic columns had so much obstructed the navigation of the river at this place, that some of them were obliged to be blown up, about forty or fifty years ago.