Echternach was always the capital of St. Willibrord’s peaceful realm. There was his tomb; there rose convent and basilica, perpetual heralds of his great deeds. The convent was a city in itself, and the basilica is a most precious relic of eleventh-century architecture—a veritable pearl which alone would make the reputation of a town. I will not be drawn into further details, for fear of leaving my subject.[[173]] It suffices to remember that this wonderful monument, a victim of revolutionary vandalism, had been sold as national property, and was falling into decay, when the piety and patriotism of the people of Echternach snatched it from certain destruction. They formed, under the name of Willibrordus Verein, a society whose aim was to recover the basilica and restore it to worship. This society, founded in 1862 by a few citizens in a little town of four thousand souls, now numbers its members by hundreds. It has already devoted more than one hundred thousand francs to the basilica, and will soon crown its work by bringing back the shrine of the saint, now preserved in the parish church. All reverence to the intelligent Christian people who guard their honor so faithfully and understand so well the interests of their own glory! Inspired by the three-fold love of religion, country, and art, the Willibrordus Verein is one of the finest institutions that I know. It does honor to the whole of Luxembourg, and will leave a lasting memory. Of how many associations of our day can as much be said?
The entire town of Echternach has retained that stamp of antiquity so eagerly sought by artists, and so much despised by our petty, material generation. Surrounded by the fantastic hills that form the valley, whose strange summits look like crumbling castles; still enclosed by three-quarters of its ancient fortifications, with here and there a ruined tower, it strikes the beholder with a surprise which only increases as he penetrates to the interior of the town. Passing through crooked and narrow streets, where each house has an architecture of its own which is often very impressive, he reaches the public square, where stands the antique town-hall, known by the more ancient name of Dingsthal, an interesting building which rests on Gothic arcades. The parish church is equally worthy of attention for its old Romanic architecture and its beautiful position upon the summit of an eminence overlooking the town.
What especially tends to give to Echternach its peculiar character is the habits of its population, so in harmony with the tranquil, cheerful country and its mediæval monuments. Here more than elsewhere Catholic faith has impregnated the life of the people. All their actions reflect its powerful simplicity, its generous hardihood, its customs of ten or fifteen centuries back. The poetry of the past, that exquisite influence of ancient times which we inhale with delight, is here an incense ever ascending from this happy valley. In this respect nothing can equal the dancing procession of Echternach, which takes place always on Whit-Tuesday, in honor of St. Willibrord, and attracts those who come especially to invoke his aid for nervous diseases. This procession has taken place for more than five hundred years. It can be traced back to the fourteenth century, and may be perhaps of even earlier origin. The dance has been explained in various ways: sometimes as expressing the joy of a Christian people coming to venerate the relics of their patron saint; sometimes as a symbolical representation of nervous attacks, epilepsy, and other maladies of the kind, from which the country was delivered by St. Willibrord’s intercession in the fourteenth century.
It is this ceremony, whose original and picturesque character is quite unique in the Christian world, which I am about to describe to the reader.
II.
When Whit-Sunday comes an amazing animation rouses the little town from its habitual tranquillity, and the excitement only increases on the Monday. Hotels and private houses are thronged with guests; many travellers, unable to get lodgings, camp out in the neighboring villages or go back to die Kirch, to return by railway the next day. The streets are thronged with dusty tourists: gentlemen of leisure regarding everything with a patronizing smile, peasants in rustic garb, rich strangers arriving in spruce equipages, and respectable jaunting-cars with three rows of seats, conveying the opulent farmers of the neighborhood. Booths are planted everywhere, blocking up the streets and setting their backs against every available corner. Mountebanks and charlatans, who come to levy their tithe on public piety, stun with their piercing outcries the busy folk running about to look for lodgings. Religion preludes the imposing solemnities of the following morning. The faithful flock to religious offices and sermons. All day long they are at prayer before the sarcophagus where lies the body of the saint. There you will see the most fervent; and by their attitudes, the expression of their faces, and the ardor of their gaze, it is plain that they have some great favor to implore and hope not to go away unsatisfied. Prostrate before the altar, these rude laborers from the Eyfel and the Ardennes, with their great horny hands and tanned faces, opening their whole hearts to God and absorbed in prayer, are beautiful to look upon. They seem to symbolize the destiny of mankind, born to labor, to suffer, and to pray. It is pleasant to ponder and pray in the stillness of that little Romanic church, beside the greatest man of the country.
It was an humble church with vaulted roof,
The church we entered in,
Where for eight hundred years the sons of men
Had wept and prayed ’gainst sin.