"We shall no doubt enjoy it the more," observed Justin, "by the remembrance of my lord abbot's happy restoration to his appetite."

"It was compulsion - all compulsion!" quoth the priest; "I'll take the case to the diet—I'll write to the emperor about it. I will! I will!"

"And I, my lord abbot," said the baron, with much severity of manner, "and I, if you stir one step in the matter, shall write to the pope, and take the case to the court of Rome. Do as you list, my lord abbot."

The humbled ecclesiastic and his crest-fallen train returned to Appollonarisberg the same evening; and from thence, the next day, they departed for Siegburg. The baron never heard of any further proceedings on the part of the priest. The fair Sabina and her fond husband, Justin, together with their mother, Gertrude, lived thenceforward in the Castle of Aarburg, loving and beloved, honoured by their lord, and almost worshipped by his

servants.

It was said that the hypocritical Anselm broke his neck over the cellar stairs, and that the pander-chamberlain was suffocated in a butt of Liebfrauenmilch.

St. Appollonarisberg derives its name from a pious man bearing the same appellation, whose head—an invaluable relic in the estimation of the faithful-is there deposited, according to the best authorities on those subjects. This edifice, in times past, was the resort of thousands of pilgrims from the surrounding country, who came to pray for the intercession of the saint; and even to this day it is frequented for that purpose by many. But since the period of the first French Revolution there has been a considerable falling off in their numbers; and for a hundred that then sought its reliquary, there is now not more than one visitor with a similar object at its gates.

A droll story is told of an artist employed to paint the interior of the monastery, and of a rather incredible nature too; but it is so singularly illustrative of the beauty of the surrounding scenery, as well as of the enthusiasm of the German character, that it may not, with justice, be omitted here. This artist, whose

name is not preserved, became, says the tale, so enamoured with the surpassing loveliness of the view from the windows of the monastery, that he painted his own portrait high up on the outside of the walls, looking over the river, to the end that he might still seem to see for ever that most magnificent prospect of hill and dale, and wood and water, unparalleled, to his thinking, in the entire compass of the world.

The church of the monastery of St. Appollonarisberg is an elegant Gothic structure, the basement of which dates its construction from the eleventh century. The superstructure, however, is of a later era, and so likewise is the conventual edifice attached to it.

REMAGEN.

We now re-cross to the left bank of the Rhine, and take up the next point of interest on that noble river. That point is Remagen, or Rheinmagen, the Rigomagus of the Romans mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary. Remagen is certainly one of the oldest towns on this river. In the construction of a high road on its left shore, by the Elector, Charles Theodore of Treves, in the year 1768, several monuments, indicative of the abode of the Romans there at an early period, were dug up by those employed in its excavation. Among them there was one -a milestone, in a state of perfect preservation once set up on the high road which then ran from Mainz to Cologne, over the very same spot, by the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Claudius Verus,* under whose auspices that great public work had been constructed.

The modern road was rendered absolutely necessary, — the old one having gone to ruin in the lapse of ages,—by the dangerous condition of the vicinity at the time of its construction. "Before that period," says Schreiber, "the traveller ran numerous risks of losing his life while travelling this road, which was quite impassable when the Rhine had attained a certain height. Robbers often concealed themselves in the brambles

A.D. 180-192.

and clefts of rocks, and thence rushed out on passengers, whom they threw into the river after robbing them." The present noble highway was finished by the French in 1801, while they held possession of that shore of the Rhine and the adjacent country.

It

The tradition which follows is current in the neighbourhood. may well be termed a tale of

TRUTH AND TREASON.

When the episcopal throne of Cologne was vacated by the death of Conrad von Hochstetten, Engelbert the Second, his nephew, succeeded to it under the most favourable auspices. The history of the popular feuds which existed at this era has been already narrated,* so that it is only necessary to state here that Conrad had been long at open enmity with the burghers of that opulent and important city, and that his death was therefore hailed by them as a general blessing. At the time of his succession, Engelbert was provost of the collegiate church of St. Gereon, in Cologne. He then bore a high character for humanity and goodness, and was a great favourite with the burghers, as well as with the patricians or equestrian nobility, the two parts into which the council of the city was then divided. It has been seen how much he subsequently belied that character.

"God is my witness," would he say in confidence to the former, "God is my witness that I see with much sorrow the attempts at encroachment on your rights and privileges made daily by my poor, dear uncle. Would to Heaven that I had but the power, as I have the entire will, to put an end to them."

And to the proud patricians he was wont to boast of his noble origin, which was in truth princely, if heraldic records might be credited; and to speak in terms of depreciation of their opponents, the men in trade, the shopkeepers, the manufacturers, the merchants, and the mass of the citizens. But this was all done in private; for the citizens had long had the upper hand, and perhaps would have succeeded in effectually barring his succession, if they had known his real sentiments, which these, as it afterwards turned out, undoubtedly were.

* Vide Cologne, "The Rath Haus," page 71, &c.

At the period of his accession to the archiepiscopal throne of Cologne, and for some time previously, the state prisons of the diocess were crowded with burghers unexpectedly arrested by order of the deceased prelate Conrad, for resistance to his designs on the liberties of their native city, or taken, mayhap, in some of the many popular outbreaks which occurred during his administration of that spiritual principality. The sentiments of the new archbishop being supposed to be known to all parties, his assumption of the throne was hailed with feelings of joy and hope by those poor captives, and by their friends and relatives; for they very naturally inferred that he who was so liberal in his political views as a simple priest, would be equally so as a dignified prelate of the church; and they thus fondly anticipated an immediate release from their captivity and an amnesty for the past, as one of the first gracious acts of his sovereign power. But this hope was only an idle vision, as will be seen in the sequel. They had calculated wrongly; because they had founded their calculations upon those most erroneous, because most erratic of all data, the operations of the human mind; and because they had entertained, even for a single moment, the belief that a political priest would prefer the claims of justice to the dictates of selfishness or expediency.

Engelbert was crowned elector at Cologne, and there installed in the archbishopric of that noble diocess, amidst the acclamations of the whole population. His first proceeding was to make a circuit of his dominions, in order to ascertain the state of popular opinion, and the means it possessed of making itself felt or feared by him. At Bonn, the favourite abode of the archbishops of Cologne, he was entertained with all the honours usually accorded to his station by the burghers and nobility; there too he received their allegiance, together with the customary surrender of their feofs or military tenures, the latter of which, according to established usage, he immediately returned them. From Bonn he proceeded to Ahr.

At this period eight worthy gentlemen, burghers of Cologne, had long pined in the dungeons of the castle of Ahr, and the time was thought a good time by their friends and relations to intercede with the archbishop for their release. Whereupon three gentlemen, of their nearest connexions, undertook, of their

own accord, to ride over from that city to this prelate, where he abode at Ahr, to beg at his hands the liberty of their friends and relatives. The names of these gentlemen were Herr Rutger Overstolz, Herr Daniel Jude, and Herr Kostin von Aducht, all three being of the oldest and noblest families in Cologne.*

*

They reached Ahr in due time; but, alas! instead of obtaining what they sought, they were themselves made prisoners too, by order of the false archbishop, and then cast also into the same dungeon with those whom they came to beg free from that bitter bondage. It would be vain for them to remonstrate with their captors - treachery never yet acknowledged the rules of reason and of right; still vainer would it have been for them to offer aught of resistance, for their oppressors were an army, and they were only three. Into that dark dungeon, then, they were rudely thrust; and there they were told to keep company with their friends in their great misery.

"God help us," quoth good Gerhard Overstolz, one of the older prisoners; "alas! our troubles seem but to increase rather than to diminish. We were but eight yesterday; we are now eleven. Capital work we'll make for the headsman, I ween !"

"Heaven be praised !" then up and spake Herr Daniel Jude, a godly as well as a humane and a brave gentleman; “ Heaven be praised! our fate will, at least, have one good result: it will serve as a warning to all others not to put their faith in priests more than they may in princes."

"It is idle to be faint-hearted," interposed on this Herr Kostin von Aducht, a worthy and a valiant gentleman likewise; "if God so wills it, we shall be free; if not, it is only our lot. Sorrow boots not; so let us even make ourselves content-and merry, too, if we can. After a storm comes a calm; and if it be the calm of the grave, why 'tis better even so, than to be for ever in such turmoil and tumult as we have passed through."

The other prisoners only answered with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulder; but still they strove manfully to dissipate their anxiety as well as they might, in the period which intervened

* The Overstolz family is one of the most ancient in Cologne, or perhaps in Europe. It claims descent from a Roman patrician, one of the original colonists of the city.