It is pleasant to recall here that the council of Aix-la-Chapelle made laws, which Charlemagne himself encouraged, referring to the[{294}] treatment of pilgrims by the hospices which were so generally established throughout Charlemagne's realm in Carlovingian times.
To the ordinary fine for murder there was added sixty soldi more if the person killed were a pilgrim to or from a hospice. Any who denied food and shelter to a pilgrim was fined three soldi. These were the regulations put into effect through Charlemagne's dominions at the suggestion of Pepin II.
XXVIII
LIÈGE
The natural highway from Antwerp and Brussels to the Rhine lies through Liège and Aix-la-Chapelle, or Aachen, as the Germans call the latter.
Wordsworth, in his wonderful travel poem, wrote of the Meuse, which flows by Liège on its way to the Royal Ardennes, in a way which should induce many sated travellers to follow in his footsteps, and know something of the fascinating charm of this most fertile and perhaps the most picturesque of all the rivers of Europe.
"What lovelier home could gentle fancy choose?
In this the stream, whose cities, heights and plains,
War's favourite playground, are with crimson stains
Familiar, as the morn with pearly dews.
* * * * * * * * * *
"How sweet the prospect of yon watery glade,
With its gray locks clustering in pensive shade,
That, shap'd like old monastic turrets, rise,
From the smooth meadow ground serene and still."
[{296}]
As one journeys on to Liège, Roman influences have left many and visible remains.