Part 18 (1/2)

In the fourteenth century the town was a ”free imperial city”; but, following upon political dissension with its neighbours, it was returned to the guardians.h.i.+p of the Archbishop of Treves.

Previously it would appear that the inhabitants had not been very religious, but the archbishop was able to induce them to build him a chateau here as a place of temporary residence; ”the first service,”

says the chronicle of the time, ”which we have rendered our gracious master.”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XX

LAACH AND STOLZENFELS

_Laach_

Back of Coblenz is the charming little lake of Laach, at the other end of which is the picturesque but deserted abbey of Laach, one of the most celebrated, architecturally and historically, of all the religious edifices along the Rhine.

Once a Benedictine convent, it was pillaged and its inmates dispersed during the overflow of the French Revolution, and is now naught but a ruin, though in many respects a grandly preserved one.

The abbey was founded in 1093 by Henry II. of Laach, Count Palatine of Lower Lorraine, and the first Count Palatine of the Rhine.

Its magnificent church, built in the most acceptable Gothic, contains the remains of its founder and many n.o.bles.

The monks of the abbey were, in the middle ages, greatly celebrated for their knowledge of the sciences and their hospitality. Their library was richly stored with bibliographical treasures, and they possessed a fine collection of paintings. To-day the abbey and its dependencies is but a shadow of its former self; its library and its picture-gallery have disappeared, and, early in the nineteenth century, the establishment was sold for a price so small that it would be a sacrilege to mention it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ABBEY _of_ LAACH _in the Olden Time_]

_Stolzenfels_

The mention of the castle of Stolzenfels hardly suggests anything churchly or devout, though those who know the history of this most picturesque of all Rhine castles (restored though it be) know also that it was an early foundation of Archbishop Arnold of Treves in the thirteenth century, and was, during the century following, the residence of his successors.

Placed high upon its ”_proud rock_,” the restored fabric to-day wonderfully resembles the castled-crag of one's imagination.

Archbishop Werner of Strasburg also made it his residence in turn, and later the English princess betrothed to the Emperor Frederick II. of the Hohenstaufen dynasty was entertained there.

The castle was nearly destroyed by the French in 1688, and in 1825 the ruin was made over to the then prince royal, afterward King of Prussia.

Within the reconstructed walls, topped with a series of crenelated battlements, after the true mediaeval manner, one finds an ample courtyard, from which lead the entrances to the various parts of the vast fortress.

Innumerable apartments open out one from the other, all forming a great museum filled with all manner of curios and relics.

In a corner of one great room was long kept (they may or may not be there yet; the writer does not know) the Austrian and Swiss standards taken in the Thirty Years' War.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STOLZENFELS]

There was also a cabinet containing the sabre of Murat, taken at Waterloo; the sabres of Blucher, of Poniatowski, and Sobieski; and the swords of the Duc d'Albe and De Tilly; and, incongruously enough, a knife and fork said to have belonged to Andreas Hofer, the hero of the Tyrol.

In the chamber of the king is a magnificent piece of ecclesiastical furniture in the form of a processional cross said to date from the eighth century.