person it commemorates during his lifetime, since the date of his death has only the first two figures, namely, 14—. Here also is preserved a copper crucifix, of the twelfth century. The arrangement by which the Protestants have one half of the church for their service and the Catholics the other, is the same as that which obtains in the town church at Heidelberg. At the eastern angle of the church stands a chapel, dedicated to St. Michael, in which the niche representing the Crucifixion is chiefly conspicuous. It is mentioned as early as 1306; but the present building appears scarcely to represent the original one. All about Wetzlar are bits of old fortifications, remains of religious houses, and names of streets that suggest them. For instance, there is the “Blaue Nonnengasse” or Blue Ladies’ Lane, not far from the church. Those blue ladies are supposed to have been not regular nuns, but Beguines, who performed holy and charitable offices without being bound by irrevocable vows.
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Old Teutonic House, at Wetzlar.
From the square where the church stands a narrow street leads up to the Teutonic House, with its ample court-yard. As early as 1286 an old record mentions a house of the Teutonic Order in the town. It is now a school for poor children. The general effect of the building is gloomy and heavy: but the little house to the left of the court has a special interest, as it was that where the Amtmann Buff lived, and from the window of which the celebrated Lotte welcomed her friend Goëthe. He relates in a letter to Rästner how he fled from Wetzlar, and with what feelings he mounted early in the morning in the carriage at the Kronprinz, and how wistfully at the turn into the Schmidtgasse he looked at the old walls of the Teutonic house, and saw the four steps by which he had so often passed up to that interesting abode. The four steps are still there, but the inhabitants of that time are dispersed.
From the Silhöfer Gate a way leads up to the height of Kalsmunt. On Kalsmunt are the remains of the mediæval castle where the imperial governor resided, and in the midst of them a square tower ascribed to the Romans. It is supposed that a Roman military road led up the valley of the Lahn from Confluentia or Coblentz, and, as there was then, in all probability, no bridge, was connected with a ford on the shallow part of the Lahn below this castle. This may possibly have been connected with another Roman road passing nearly in the present direction of the Main-Weser railroad, and connecting this outpost with the settlements in the neighbourhood of Frankfort and Homburg. If we consult Spruner’s map of the “Roman Empire at its Greatest Extent,” we find that the frontier here runs into the territory of the Catti at an acute angle. In no case would the courses of the rivers, with their sinuosities, have been exactly followed, as the Romans regarded short-cuts as of more consequence than engineering facilities, and chose to go over the tops of the hills to avoid hostile ambuscades in the defiles. The place where the Lahn is ford-