We spent a night at Baden, the great Spa—the ex-gambling hell—the beautiful city that has risen from its degradation and put on robes of innocence. This is due to the efforts of the present and the preceding grand duke, both men of exceptionally noble characters, and warmly honored and loved. The former prosperity and popularity given by the seductions of the gambling bank have been succeeded and surpassed by attractions of a different and higher kind. Instead of the dreadful fascinations of the Cursall, the palatial Friedrichsbad, said to be the most complete bathing establishment in the world, offers the healing and luxury of its thermal and mineral baths. It takes its name from the reigning grand duke, who was its chief and most intensely interested projector. But his wise exertions and princely tastes have apparently known no restrictions. They have been shown in the erection of other magnificent buildings, in the laying out and exquisite adornment of public parks and promenades; indeed in doing everything possible to render Baden not only a delightful summer resort, but suitable for a permanent home.
It is provided with theaters, balls, fine music, scientific lectures, etc. The results justify his efforts and sagacious foresight. Wealthy families of rank all over Germany are making it a home. Do I seem to dwell on Baden and its grand duke? Well, I may as well admit, all the homage I am capable of is evoked by such a man and such a work. I have his photograph and many little pictures of his Baden! Have you ever read in a way that impressed you to remembrance of the beautiful situation of Baden? The highest compliment that can be bestowed, as the guide-book says, is this: “It vies with Hiedelberg.” It lies among picturesque wooded hills, at the entrance of the Black Forest, on the Oehlbach; it is on the right bank of the stream, and runs up “a slope of the Battert,” the summit of which is crowned by the New Schloss, one of the grand duke’s residences. It has a Saratoga look. Haven’t all watering places a close kin look? But it has its own foreign look too, and distinctive features, even from those of Weisbaden, its rival.
On the left bank of the Oos—“the well corrected Oos,” as I have seen it called somewhere, because it has been confined for some distance between high stone walls—are the pleasure grounds, the Conversationhaus (the old Cursaal), the Trinkhalle on one side of an open square, full of avenues of shade trees, and in one corner of which is the gay and fanciful “Music-Kiosk,” where the band plays, and the Lichtenthale Allee. This last is an avenue of “vanishing distances,” of lime trees, oaks, maples, flower-beds, shrubberies, fountains, and all kinds of ornamental seats scattered through it. The Oos, the most turbid, turbulent strip of a river, dashes along as if in a perfect fury at those confining walls. The walls themselves, though, are a special feature of the rare loveliness that meets the glance on every side; they are so festooned and draped with vines one can scarce more than guess at the stones so veiled. The Virginia creeper was so in excess the river seemed rushing between a running fire of crimson flames. It was indeed “exceeding beautiful.” In the evening we walked in the brilliantly lighted square, peering into the gay shop windows, stopping to listen to the band, mingling with the throngs of well-dressed people, and bringing up in the “great saloon” (fifty-four yards long and seventeen wide) of the Conversationhaus for a rest and a study of the novel scene. Finally we strolled through the two old gambling saloons (the Landscape and the Italian) and ever so many others, and lost ourselves in admiration of the beauty and comfort. The next day we spent in driving to the Old Schloss, six miles from town, on a high “berg,” and to all the points of most interest. The Old Schloss is a very romantic old ruin, and commands the finest views around Baden. From it we went to the New Schloss, and were shown through a number of handsome saloons and the apartment of the grand duke and duchess. It was such a perfect little gem of an apartment that I must give you a peep into it. A comparatively quite small oblong room, with two doors opposite each other and in the middle of each wall. One end of the oblong was a dead wall, the other a large bay window of the loveliest stained glass, in pictures of all the choicest points about Baden. Only the center pane was plain glass; it too, though, framing a lovely view of the scene outside. The doors were rather doorways, being, I should think, ten feet high by four wide, all apparently one solid magnificent mirror. As one steps across the threshold, himself or herself is beheld before, behind, on either hand, overhead, in infinite repetition. The French custodian made merry in showing off this ingenious and amusing trick of reflecting surfaces. After this came the Friedrichsbad, with its innumerable varieties of baths, the Trinkhalle and a glass of its steaming water, and—“and other things too numerous to make mention of,” to quote from our old town crier.
With decided reluctance we set our faces toward Strassburg, where, to be sure, we wished to go, but we did not feel ready to leave Baden.
We spent two days at Strassburg. You know there was the grand Cathedral, with its grander clock, to see, the fortifications, some fine public parks, and the immense Alsatian bows with the women attached, besides a lunch on the famous local dish, pates de foie gras. I circumnavigated the Cathedral, loitered through and through it, and finally sat down before the clock at the stroke of eleven, to watch it through the next hour. I saw the little boy come out and strike his quarter and disappear, the youth, the middle-aged man, the old man; and then the grand midday procession of puppets representing the Apostles, pass before another puppet representing Christ, making fitting reverence, all but that dreadful Judas, who turned his back on him. The cock, too, performed beautifully, flapped his wings and stretched out his neck, and crowed a sure-enough chanticleer crow, loud enough and cheerily enough to waken the soundest sleeper and make the laziest willing to creep out of bed. The little angel turned his hour-glass, the show was over, and I came away very much impressed with that wonder of mechanism which has been running and regulating itself ever since 1842, and is calculated to do this for an unlimited number of years. And don’t you think I did right to shut my ears and refuse to listen to a young Yankee “Paul Pry,” recently from a six months’ sojourn in Strassburg, who wished to make me believe there was a man behind performing a la—the organ-grinder! The Alsatian bows were a perpetual feast of fun, but as a feast of the palate once is often enough for me of the pates de foie gras.
From Strassburg through the Black Forest by rail was a run of 728 miles. We had a series of thirty-eight tunnels in succession. The very foundation rocks of the earth seem to have been blasted and dug through to make this admirable road; the round charms of which could not be summed up in a Summer day’s gossip.
L. G. C.
Munich, September 27, 1882.
