Chapter XXIII: Bonn

Bonn in the popular mind is noteworthy chiefly for its famous university, and for being the birthplace of Beethoven.

The city was one of the fifty fortresses built by Drusus on the Rhine, and the only Rhenish city, with the exception of Cologne, which has kept its Roman appellation. It is mentioned by Tacitus both as _Bonna_ and _Bonensia castra_.

The cathedral is as famous as the university. It was funded by the mother of Constantine the Great, who, according to tradition, consecrated the primitive church here in 319.

Really, it is not a very stupendous pile, the present cathedral, but it looks far more imposing than it really is by reason of its massive central tower and steeple.

It is one of the most ancient and most remarkable of the cathedrals on the banks of the Rhine.

The effect of its five towers is that of a great pyramid rising skyward from a broad base.

In the main, it is a construction of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but it is known beyond doubt that the choir and the crypt were built in 1157. To-day there are visible no traces of even the foundations of the primitive church.

There are two polygonal apsides, more noticeable from without than within.

The main portal, or the most elaborate at least, is that of the north façade.

The interior is not as sombre and sad as is often the case with a very early church. To enter, one ascends eight steps to the pavement, when the rather shallow vista of the nave and choir opens out broadly.

There are a series of white marble statues representing the birth and baptism of Christ, and some paintings of notable merit, including an "Adoration."

In the crypt, already mentioned, are the bones of the martyrs, Cassius, Florentinus, and Malusius.

The chief interest of the interior, outside of the constructive elements of the fabric, centres in a great statue of St. Hélène in bronze, which is placed in the middle of the grand nave. It is a fine monument, and was cast in the seventeenth century as a somewhat tardy recognition of the founder of the church at Bonn.

At the western extremity of the nave is the Gothic tomb of Archbishop Englebert, and another of Archbishop Robert.

The choir is somewhat raised above the pavement of the nave, being placed upon the vaulting of the crypt. The walls of the choir are hung with gilded Cordovan leather, which is certainly rich and beautiful, though it has been criticized as being more suitable to a boudoir than a great church.

At the foot of the choir, to the right, is a tabernacle, a feature frequently met with in German churches. It is of Renaissance design and workmanship, and is ungainly and not in the best of taste.

Behind the great pillars of the choir are found, back to back, two imposing altars, to which access is had by mounting a dozen more steps, far above the pavement of the nave. They are most peculiarly disposed, and are again a Renaissance interpolation which might well have been omitted.

In this dimly lighted cathedral, as well as in many other churches of Germany, you may at times hear that hymn known as "Ratisbon," the words of which begin:

"_Jesus meine Zuversicht
Lebt, und ich soll mit ihm leben._"

There is a legend--or it may be a true tale--connecting these verses with a German soldier who died at the fateful battle of Jena.

Fleeing from the French, he had fallen into the waters of the Saale. Recovering himself, he crawled out, only to find his pursuers on the bank, their firearms levelled at his head. His first thought was to thank God for his safety from the flood, and, kneeling, he played upon his bugle the familiar air to which the hymn, "_Jesus meine Zuversicht_," is sung. Deeply moved, his pursuers dropped their guns, but, just as the last notes of the tune were dying away, another detachment came up, and one of its members fired a shot which ended the life of the devout Prussian.

There is heard here also a legend, of the time of the Crusades, concerning the Siebengebergen,--the Seven Mountains,--which lie just back of Bonn.

Stimulated by religious fervour, the overlord of a castle perched upon one of the Seven Mountains, enlisted in the army of the Crusaders, and fought gallantly in the very forefront of those who sought to plant the Cross upon the walls of the Holy City. After a prolonged absence, he returned to find that a rival had won the love of his lady, who, to escape his wrath, had fled to a convent.

The usurper of affections escaped, but the injured husband met near Godesberg, in his old age, a youth in whom he thought he recognized the likeness of his wife. Questioning the boy, he visited the sin of the mother upon the child, and slew him on the highroad, on the spot where the Hoch Kreuz now stands,--a monument which tradition says was erected to warn weak wives and faithless friends.

Drachenfels, whose fame to English ears has mostly been made by Byron's verses, lies not far south of Bonn. Byron's "peasant girls with deep blue eyes" are mostly engaged in husbandry to-day, instead of poetically and leisurely gathering "early flowers."

"The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,"

and is still one of the tourist sights of the Rhine, and as such it must be accorded its place.

Bonn was formerly the residence of the Electors of Cologne, after their removal from that city in 1268, at which time it was also the shelter of Archbishop Englebert, who had fled from Cologne.