The Hôtel de Ville a remarkable, and now almost ruinous old building, is said to occupy the site of the birth place of Charlemagne, and one of the lofty towers embedded in the building is ascribed to the Romans, whose bathing propensities found a thousand allurements in the hot springs of this beautiful valley. The interior contains a series of halls and saloons, in which congresses have been held, and treaties of peace negociated at various times, during the last century and the present, including that of 1818, when the allied armies were withdrawn from France. Its walls, covered with frescoes and its ceilings once richly stuccoed are now dropping into dust and decay, and the prestige of antiquity is destroyed by converting it into the bureau of the police, at the door of which a crowd of impatient English, were muttering “curses not loud but deep,” upon the vexations of the passport system.
In the little square opposite it, stands a fountain of stone, surmounted by the bronze statue of Charlemagne, which has afforded a model for so many of his portraits, standing in armour, crowned, and with the orb in one hand and his renowned falchion in the other. This work of art received as usual, the sterling mark of the French virtuosi, by performing the pilgrimage to the Louvre. On either side of the fountain are two pedestals each supporting a huge bronze eagle.
Aix, as a halting place for invalids, may be a sufficiently agreeable spot for a temporary stay, the air from its situation must be mild and healthful, and the views around it are in every way charming. The merits and virtues of its waters, whatever they are, are of course as salubrious now as before the revolution of fashion, and the hills around it abound in agreeable and healthful excursions. The obelisk on the Louisberg rising immediately above the city, which was raised by Napoleon to commemorate his victories, was upturned by the Cossacks in search of the coins which they understood it to be the custom to deposit in the foundation of such erections, but was restored by the King of Prussia, and its vaunting inscriptions obliterated. The little village of Borcette or Burscheid, at the foot of the hill opposite the Louisberg, and about half a mile from the city gates, is another cockneyfied lounge of the citizens and invalids, with mathematical flower-beds and gravel walks in right angles and parallels. At all these places are to be found the usual pastimes, theatres, music-bands, bazaars, cafés, dancing, and all the unmeaning petits jeus of a watering place.
Aix-la-Chapelle is the capital of the Trans-Rhenan provinces, conferred upon Prussia at the Congress of Vienna, when they were taken out of that symmetrical boundary, which Napoleon had taught France, to look to as the natural frontier of her dominions. If no other consideration weighed with the allied sovereigns in forming the kingdom of the Netherlands, than the erection of a controlling state upon the north of France; a glance at the map might suggest to geographical politicians the singularity of connecting Prussia by one straggling line, with France on the one hand and Prussia on the other, and the greater propriety of having added these provinces to augment the importance of the newly-erected state, to whose manufacturing interests, the boon of an additional million and a half of consumers, would have been an important acquisition. It is just probable that such a disposition might have given it greater permanence, though it would have been by establishing from the first a preponderance of the Roman Catholic party to the prejudice of the Dutch Protestants. As it is, however, the feelings of the people themselves, so far as my enquiries were accurately answered, are those of perfect contentment with their present position; and the firm but temperate resolution of the late King, Prussia has as yet been perfectly successful in satisfying them as to the nature of their real interests. The absurd and drunken riots I have alluded to in 1830, and the contumacious audacity of the Archbishop of Cologne two years back, are the only instances I have heard of disaffection or insubordination.
We stayed during our visit to Aix-la-Chapelle at an admirable hotel, the “Grand Monarque,” large enough to lodge a whole hospital of invalids, whether suffering from one or other of the “maladies Anglaises,” consumption or ennui. In the morning when we were to take our departure for Dusseldorff, we found, after waiting an hour for the arrival of our horses from the posting office, that the waiter over night had neglected his instructions to order them, when a delay of nearly an hour had to take place till our passports could be sent to the chief of the department and the error rectified.
An admirable regulation prevails throughout the entire of Germany with regard to posting, which might, with the best effect, be introduced in England, and without any government interference in the affair. Before starting, the post master, who is an officer of the crown, delivers to the traveller a printed form signed by himself, and specifying the items of every charge for the stage he is setting out upon, the distance, the number of horses, the mileage, and the tolls; this, if erroneous, is corrected on the spot, and the stranger is thus freed from all wrangling or apprehension of imposture. The posting tariff, at the same time, regulates the “trinkgelt,” the fee of the postillion, which is but five silver groschen, or six-pence for a German mile containing four and two-thirds English; but this the traveller is expected, though he must not be solicited to exceed, provided he is satisfied with the performance of his post-boy, and in general double the amount, or at the utmost three-half-pence per mile will excite a lively gratitude.
The face of the country, between Aix-la-Chapelle and the Rhine, without being picturesque in any degree, is proverbially rich and luxuriant, especially the ancient Duchy of Juliers, now extinguished, which surrounds the fortified city of the same name. Every town and village we passed through was but a congregation of agricultural dwellings—every building was converted into a barn—and even from the windows of some ruinous towers, we saw the projecting sheaves of the early harvest, which had been already gathered in.
Juliers, where we breakfasted, is a fortified city, built in the midst of an apparently swampy level, but so begirt and encompassed with ramparts and fosses, that it is said to be impregnable to every assault but that of starvation. We drove over drawbridges and under covered ways without end; the passage winding from side to side, till it seemed to issue in the opposite direction from that at which it entered the side of the fortification, and we halted for an excellent breakfast at a most unpromising inn, the “Drei Königen,” in the centre of the town, which as Juliers is the highway to Dusseldorff and Cologne, was beset by diligences and calèches of every conceivable shape and model. Juliers has no trade, and its sole support seems to be the regular victualling of a garrison of 3,000 Prussians, and the almost equally regular reception of twice as many English tourists on wing to the Rhine, or returning from it.
Between Juliers and Neuss, on the banks of the river, we scarcely saw an acre of pasture land or meadow, all seemed to be under cultivation, and the wonder is, where they find fodder for their cattle, unless they have been effectually weaned off all appreciation of grass or clover. Neuss is a bustling, industrious little community of some four or five thousand inhabitants, busily engaged in the manufacture of linen and woollen cloth, and having numerous mills for an operation that I am surprised is not attempted in Ireland, the crushing of vegetable oils. At a time when the capture of whales is said to be becoming most precarious, and the demand is increased beyond expectation by the augmentation of machinery and the increase of railroads, which seem to have more than counterbalanced the introduction of gas, it would surely be found as lucrative in the rich soil of Ireland as that of Flanders or the Rhine, to grow hemp and colza with a view to express the oil for the consumption. A windmill, such as one sees thousands of in Holland and Belgium, with all the machinery for this purpose, can be put up, I understand, for £150, or even less.
Neuss is mentioned by Tacitus as Novesium, and Drusus is said to have constructed a bridge across the Rhine above the town, at the same spot where there is now a swinging bridge to convey passengers to Dusseldorff. It has a very remarkable church, the steeple of which serves as a pedestal for a large and spirited statue of St. Quirinus, who with an unfurled flag in his hand, performs double duty as its patron and weather-cock. The building itself is of some Saxon or Norman architecture, closely resembling that of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, and underneath it is a singular crypt, with groined arches, supported by low truncated columns, and having altogether an air of the remotest antiquity.