While thus scheming, the Bishop perceived on the bank a number of men, who seemed armed, and awaiting his coming. Hastily, therefore, his lordship gave orders to quicken their pace; but suddenly a great shock threw Baldwin and many of his friends down on their knees. This was caused by the bow of the boat coming quickly against a strong chain, which was placed by the Countess’s orders just under the water, reaching from shore to shore. Before the Bishop and friends could recover their footing the Countess’s adherents were on them, and the whole party made prisoners and marched up to the Castle of Starkenburg.
The angry Bishop was led into the presence of the beautiful lady. At first the Prelate demanded that he should instantly be freed, and spoke of the rights of the Church, the shameless treachery of the whole proceeding, and the risk his captors ran of damnation.
At all this the lady but smiled, and the Bishop’s heart melted within him as he gazed on her beauty.
The days sped away, and the Archbishop Baldwin finding the beautiful Countess was not to be moved by his threats, nor yet won by his love, bethought him at length of his people, who pined for so gentle a shepherd; therefore he sent off to Trèves, asking his flock for a ransom, which the Countess insisted his lordship should pay before he set out, “as some slight compensation,” she said, “for the loss of his presence. Moreover,” her ladyship added, “that the Archbishop was something indebted for the use of her larder and cellar.”
The bill for eating and drinking proved heavy, and the amount for the loss of his pleasing society brought the sum total up to sufficient to pay for the building the strong castle, whose ruins now crumble over the good town of Trarbach: this castle proved an effectual barrier against the Archbishop’s encroachments.
At parting, the Prelate absolved the fair Countess of guilt, and took away the excommunication under which she had laboured; so there is probably no truth in the tale that her ladyship haunts the old ruin, and constantly weeps for her crime of incarcerating so holy a man.
This castle of Gräfinburg was a most important fortress, and capable of making a stout resistance, even in the days of cannon; for, in 1734, the Marquis of Belle-Isle was sent by Louis XIV., with a strong army, to ravage the territories of the Elector of Trèves, who escaped by flight to Ehrenbreitstein. The Marquis laid siege to Trarbach, and after a hard struggle, and enduring a fierce bombardment, the garrison capitulated, and marched out with all the honours of war: the castle was then rased to the ground by the Marquis, leaving only the portion engraved at the head of the preceding chapter.
The burning of Trarbach, which happened last autumn, was a splendid but melancholy sight; we chanced to be sleeping at Traben, a town on the opposite side of the river, and from our windows we saw the magnificent spectacle.