FONTIBUS MATTIACIS, MDCCCX.
On entering the great door, I found myself at once in a saloon, or ball-room, 130 feet in length, 60 in breadth, and 50 in height, in which there is a gallery supported by 32 marble pillars of the Corinthian order; lustres are suspended from the ceiling, and, in niches in the wall, there are twelve white marble statues, which were originally intended for Letitia Bonaparte, and which the Wiesbaden people extol by saying that they cost about 1200l.
Branching from this great assembly-room, there are several smaller apartments, which in England would be called hells, or gambling-rooms.
The back of the Cursaal looks into a sort of parade, upon which, after dinner, hundreds of visiters sit in groups, to drink cheap coffee, listen to a band of most excellent cheap music, and admire, instead of swans, an immense number of snail-gobbling ducks and ducklings, which, swimming about a pond, shaded by weeping willows and acacias, come when they are called, and, ducklike, of course eat whatever is thrown to them.
Beyond this pond, which is within fifty yards of the Cursaal, there is a nice shrubbery, particularly pleasing to the stranger from the reflection, that at very great trouble, and at considerable expense, it has been planted, furnished with benches, and tastefully adorned by the inhabitants of Wiesbaden, for the gratification of their guests. From it a long shady walk, running by the side of a stream of water, extends for about two miles, to the ruins of the castle of Sonneburg.
Among the buildings of Wiesbaden, the principal ones, after the Cursaal and theatre, are the Schlosschen, containing a public library and museum, the hotels of the Four Seasons, the Eagle, the Rose, the Schutzenhof, and the Englischen Hof.
The churches are small, and seem adapted in size to the old, rather than to the new town. By far the greatest proportion of the inhabitants are Protestants, and their place of worship is scarcely big enough to hold them. At the southern extremity of the town there exists a huge pile of rubbish, with several high modern walls in ruins.
It appears that, a few years ago, the Catholics at Wiesbaden determined on building a church, which was to vie in magnificence with the Cursaal, and other gaudy specimens of the new town.
Eighty thousand florins were accordingly raised by subscription, and the huge edifice was actually finished, the priests were shaved, and everything was ready for the celebration of mass, when, à propos to nothing, “occidit una domus!” down it came thundering to the ground!
Whether it was blown up by subterranean heat, or burst by the action of frost,—whether it was the foundation, or the fine arched roof which gave way, are points which at Wiesbaden are still argued with acrimony and eagerness; and, to this day, men’s mouths are seen quite full of jagged consonants, as they condemn or defend the architect of the building—poor, unfortunate Mr. Schrumpf!