Eginhard, the learned secretary. Scholars and soldiers are not the only heroes of these old tales. Holy bishops, miraculously conveyed on pious errands, and monks, too wily for the devil himself, duly make their appearance.
A learned professor from Aix-la-Chapelle has thought it worth his while to collect such of these legends as refer to his native city, and has added some historical facts to his sketches. Simple, racy, and vigorous in style, there is much of the charm of old ballad poetry about them. In the hope of retaining at least a part of this charm, some have been imitated rather than translated, and others pretty faithfully rendered.
THE FOUNDING OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE.
Charlemagne delighted in hunting. It was his solace and recreation in the few hours he could snatch from the manifold and weary cares of state. “The chase,” he used to say, “keeps up a man’s mettle and spirit, and makes him active and stalwart in body. It is the school where the champion fits himself for war, for, in one as in the other, he must have his wits about him when danger threatens, and thus know how to extricate himself.”
A favourite hunting-ground of his was the tract of land where Aix-la-Chapelle now stands. In those days there stretched, far and wide, forests of lofty oaks and beeches, with here and there tangled thickets, mixed with groves of saplings and evergreen pine woods. In other parts, marsh and moorland, and patches of stunted underwood, lay between hills whose shelving sides were beautiful with silver-stemmed birch trees, and glades of the greenest sward. The hand of man had left no trace in those wilds; their only inmates were the wolf and the crested boar, the stag and the roebuck, the badger and the fox, and all these dwelt within them in multitudes. Hence it was no wonder that Charlemagne often hunted there with a great following.
In one of these gatherings the dogs started a deer and a doe. The terrified creatures bounded through the forest side by side, the hounds in full cry on their track, and the Emperor pressing close behind. Suddenly burst on his sight an old and mouldering castle, called the ruins of Ephen, stately even in decay, and mirrored in the clear waters of a lake. On nearing the ruin, Charlemagne reined in his horse, when suddenly the noble steed shied, the ground gave way, and he sank past the fetlocks. Wild with terror, he plunged and struggled till he found safe footing. Charlemagne could not make out what had come over his charger, nor what was amiss with the ground, till he saw, a few paces off, a cloud of steam rising from the earth in the very spot the horse had just trampled. Then almost instantly a boiling spring bubbled up and overflowed. He sprang from the saddle, fell on his knees, and thanked God for the benefit He had granted him by the means of a brute beast. For, then and there, it flashed on his mind how these waters would be a blessing to men from generation unto generation. He then resolved to build a hunting seat on the site of the ruined fortress, and to erect a palace and a city near at hand. He also vowed to raise hard by his palace a stately temple in honour of the ever blessed Mother of God.
Then he rose from his knees, and wound his horn, admiring Haroun Al Raschid’s precious gift. His followers knew the mighty blast, and came flocking at his call, and the Emperor and his Paladins, down to the meanest of his train, rejoiced together at the good gift God had sent them.
Prompt and decisive in all things, Charlemagne no time in carrying out his plans. The hunting seat rose from the ruins of Ephen, and the foundations of a kingly palace, and of our Blessed Lady’s church, were laid without delay. Builders came from far and near, and a city was begun. Houses rose up on all sides. The desolate moorland vanished, at least in the neighbourhood of the new city. A canal carried off the superfluous waters, and while draining the ground, brought the warm medicinal stream to the bath-house Charlemagne had built. His Frankish warriors resorted thither in numbers to enjoy the luxury of the bath, or to test its healing powers, when worn out with toil or sickness.
Tradition still points to the very spot where Charlemagne used to bathe with his Paladins.
Thus was Aix-la Chapelle founded.
STANZAS WRITTEN IN DEJECTION.
FROM THE CHINESE OF LI-TAI-PÈ.
[This poet is considered by his countrymen, according to the Marquis D’Hervey St. Denys, their greatest poet. The admiration of the Chinese for him is so great that they have erected a temple in his honour, as the “Great Doctor,’ the “Prince of Poetry,” and, what to European ears savours of bathos, “The immortal given to drink.” He was born A.D. 702. He died at the age of 61, A.D. 763.—Ed. O. a W.]
I.
The sun of yesterday which leaves me,
No earthly skill can woo to stay,
To-day’s pale gloom which chills and grieves me,
No human arm can hold away:
The birds of passage, ever flying past,
In countless flocks stream down the autumn blast,
I mount my tower to gaze far off, and fast
Fill wine-cups from the waning jar.
II.
The mighty bards, long dead, seem rising
Around me in this lonely place,
I murmur through the old songs, prizing
Their matchless vigour, truth, and grace—
I too feel powers that will not be controlled,
But cannot rival here the great of old,
Till to pure skies up-soaring, I behold,
More closely, each unclouded star.
III.
Vainly our swords would cleave the river:
It keeps its ever-living flow;
Vainly in wine-cups, mantling ever,
We strive to drown the sense of woe—
Man, in this life, when stormy fate grows dark,
Must let her billows rock his wandering bark,
Give the wild waves their will, nor pause to mark
Too keenly how they foam afar.
