Part 19 (1/2)

Above all are six windows on a side, which in plan and proportions resemble those of the side aisles.

The choir is in effect a cul-de-four, and is lighted by five windows placed rather high up. Below are a series of niches, in which are placed modern statues, about as bad as can be imagined, even in these degenerate architectural times.

The gallery behind the second tier of columns is known as the _mannshaus_, being intended for the male portion of the congregation, the women sitting below.

The pulpit came from the old abbey of Laach.

On the left of the grand nave is the tomb of a knight of Lahnstein, who died in 1541.

There is another legend connected with Andernach which may well be recounted here.

One day, during the minority of the Emperor Henry IV., the tutors of the prince, the proud Archbishop Annon of Cologne and the Palatine, Henry the Furious, held a meeting with certain other seigneurs at Andernach.

The same day the inhabitants of Guls, a village near Coblenz, lodged a complaint before the Palatine concerning the exactions of the provost of their village. This last, himself, followed the deputies, magnificently clothed and mounted upon a richly caparisoned horse, counting upon his presence to counteract the impression they might make. Among the collection of wild beasts which had been gathered together for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the princes was a ferocious bear. When the provost pa.s.sed near him, the animal sprang upon him and tore him to pieces, whereupon it was supposed that the venerable archbishop had exercised a divine power, and delivered up the oppressor to the fury of a wild beast. Like most of the Rhine legends, it is astonis.h.i.+ngly simple in plot, and likewise has a religious turn to it, which shows the great respect of the ancient people of these regions toward their creed.

_Sinzig_

Between Andernach and Bonn is the tiny city of Sinzig, famous for two things,--its charmingly disposed parish church and the wines of a.s.smanhaus.

The town was the ancient Sentiac.u.m of the Romans, constructed in all probability by Sentius, one of the generals of Augustus.

The church at Sinzig, in company with St. Quirinus at Neuss, has some of the best mediaeval gla.s.s in Germany.

This small, but typically Rhenish, parish church has also a series of polychromatic decorations which completely cover its available wall s.p.a.ce.

There is a vividness about them which may be pleasing to some, but which will strike many as being distinctly unchurchly.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Sinzig_]

As a Christian edifice, the church at Sinzig, with its central tower and spire, is only remarkable as typifying the style of Romano-ogival architecture which developed so broadly in the Rhine valley at the expense of the purer Gothic.

XXII

TReVES

Southwesterly from Coblenz, between the Rhine and Metz, is Treves, known by the Germans as Trier. Situated at the southern end of a charming valley, which more or less closely follows the banks of the Moselle, it has the appearance of being a vast park with innumerable houses and edifices scattered here and there through the foliage. The city contains many churches, of which the cathedral of St. Pierre et Ste. Helene is the chief.

At one time the _Augusta Trevirorum_ of the Romans was ”the richest, the most fortunate, the most glorious, and the most eminent of all the cities north of the Alps,” said an enthusiastic local historian.

The claim may be disputed by another whose civic pride lies elsewhere, but all know that Treves, as the flouris.h.i.+ng capital of the _Gaulois belges_, actually rivalled Rome itself.

Augustus established a Roman colony here with its own Senate, and many of the Roman emperors of the long line which followed made it their residence during their sojourn in the north.

From the Augusta Trevirorum of the Romans, the city became in time, under the later Empire, Treviri, from which the present nomenclature of Treves and Trier comes. It was one of the sixty great towns which were taken from the Romans by the Franks and the Alemanni.

The Roman bridge over the Moselle, built probably by Agrippa, existed until the wars of Louis XIV., in 1669, when it was blown up; and all that now remains of the original work are the foundations of the piers, which were built upon anew in the eighteenth century.

As a bishopric, and later as an archbishopric, the see is the most ancient in Germany, having been founded in 327 by the Empress Helene.