Let us now return to Brussels and enter the Wertz Museum. We find here a picture which is truly illustrative of Belgium hatred of Napoleon. It is a most wonderful picture. It represents Napoleon in hell. He is in the bottomless pit, clad in his uniform. A great number of worn and haggard widows and childless mothers, of ragged, weeping orphans, of old men crippled, maimed and halt, are crowding around Napoleon, scoffing, jeering, and grinning at him, holding up before his eyes and under his nose shattered hands and arms and feet and legs, and broken heads and bleeding hearts. The sulphurous flames are coiling up around the unfortunate victim, while on his face there is a double expression of agony and remorse. When asked if I believe this picture really represents Napoleon’s present condition, I reply: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”
One could write a volume about this splendid collection of pictures, but I will mention only two or three more. I am especially impressed with two companion pictures, twenty by thirty feet each. The first represents hell in revolt against Heaven. All the fiends of hell and all the powers of darkness are arrayed against Christ and His holy angels. Christ dismisses His angels; they fly away, leaving Him all alone. This emboldens the enemy, who rush on to the conflict. The second picture is “The Triumph of Christ.” He has hurled the fiends back headlong to their native hell. And yet in this moment of victory stands pitying His enemy rather than glorying in His own achievements. I can but think: “Surely, His ways are not our ways; neither are His thoughts our thoughts.”
Another picture that impresses me very much is “Age Offering the Things of the Present to the Man of the Future.” An old man is holding out to a young lad flags and sceptres representing Power and Dominion; also glittering diamonds, a golden harp, a name and a book, emblematic, respectively, of wealth, pleasure, fame and knowledge. He can take any one, but only one. I am so afraid that the inexperienced youth will make a wrong choice, that I want to whisper in his ear: “Take wisdom; take understanding; forget it not. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee; love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom. Exalt her, and she will promote thee, she will bring thee to honor.”
CHAPTER XVI.
FROM BELGIUM TO COLOGNE AND UP THE RHINE.
Brussels—Its Laces and Carpets—Belgium a Small Country—Cultivated like a Garden—Into Germany—Aix-La-Chapelle—Birthplace of Charlemagne—Capital of Holy Roman Empire—Cathedral Built by Charlemagne—A Strange Legend—Shrine of the Four Relics—A Pulpit Adorned with Ivory and Studded with Diamonds—Cologne—Its Inhabitants—Its Perfumery—Its Cathedral—A Ponderous Bell—A Church Built of Human Bones—Sailing up the Rhine—A River of Song—Bonn—Its University—Birthplace of Beethoven—Feudal Lords—The Bloody Rhine—Dragon’s Rock—A Combat with a Serpent—A Convent with a Love Story—Empress of the Night—Intoxicated—Coblentz—A Tramp-Trip through Germany—Sixteen Thousand Soldiers Engaged in Battle—Enchanted Region—Loreli—Son-in-Law of Augustus Caesar—Birthplace of Gutenberg, the Inventor of Printing.