CHAPTER VII. COLOGNE.--THE TRACES OF THE ROMAN YOKE.--THE CHURCH OF ST.MARIA.--TREVYLYAN'S REFLECTIONS ON THE MONASTIC LIFE.--THE TOMB OF THETHREE KINGS.--AN EVENING EXCURSION ON THE RHINE.
ROME--magnificent Rome! wherever the pilgrim wends, the traces of thydominion greet his eyes. Still in the heart of the bold German race isgraven the print of the eagle's claws; and amidst the haunted regions ofthe Rhine we pause to wonder at the great monuments of the Italian yoke.
At Cologne our travellers rested for some days. They were in the cityto which the camp of Marcus Agrippa had given birth; that spot hadresounded with the armed tread of the legions of Trajan. In that city,Vitellius, Sylvanus, were proclaimed emperors. By that church did thelatter receive his death.
As they passed round the door they saw some peasants loitering on thesacred ground; and when they noted the delicate cheek of Gertrude theyuttered their salutations with more than common respect. Where they thenwere the building swept round in a circular form; and at its base it issupposed by tradition to retain something of the ancient Roman masonry.Just before them rose the spire of a plain and unadorned church,singularly contrasting the pomp of the old with the simplicity of theinnovating creed.
The church of St. Maria occupies the site of the Roman Capitol, and theplace retains the Roman name; and still something in the aspect of thepeople betrays the hereditary blood.
Gertrude, whose nature was strongly impressed with _the veneratingcharacter_, was fond of visiting the old Gothic churches, which, with soeloquent a moral, unite the living with the dead.
"Pause for a moment," said Trevylyan, before they entered the church ofSt. Maria. "What recollections crowd upon us! On the site of the RomanCapitol a Christian church and a convent are erected! By whom? Themother of Charles Martel,--the Conqueror of the Saracen, the arch-heroof Christendom itself! And to these scenes and calm retreats, to thecloisters of the convent once belonging to this church, fled the bruisedspirit of a royal sufferer,-the victim of Richelieu,--the unfortunateand ambitious Mary de Medicis. Alas! the cell and the convent are but avain emblem of that desire to fly to God which belongs to Distress; thesolitude soothes, but the monotony recalls, regret. And for my own partin my frequent tours through Catholic countries, I never saw the stillwalls in which monastic vanity hoped to shut out the world, but amelancholy came over me! What hearts at war with themselves! whatunceasing regrets! what pinings after the past! what long and beautifulyears devoted to a moral grave, by a momentary rashness, an impulse, adisappointment! But in these churches the lesson is more impressive andless sad. The weary heart has ceased to ache; the burning pulses arestill; the troubled spirit has flown to the only rest which is not adeceit. Power and love, hope and fear, avarice, ambition,--they arequenched at last! Death is the only monastery, the tomb is the onlycell."
"Your passion is ever for active life," said Gertrude. "You allow nocharm to solitude, and contemplation to you seems torture. If any greatsorrow ever come upon you, you will never retire to seclusion as itsbalm. You will plunge into the world, and lose your individual existencein the universal rush of life."
"Ah, talk not of sorrow!" said Trevylyan, wildly. "Let us enter thechurch."
They went afterwards to the celebrated cathedral, which is consideredone of the noblest of the architectural triumphs of Germany; but it isyet more worthy of notice from the Pilgrim of Romance than the searcherafter antiquity, for here, behind the grand altar, is the Tomb of theThree Kings of Cologne,--the three worshippers whom tradition humbled toour Saviour. Legend is rife with a thousand tales of the relics of thistomb. The Three Kings of Cologne are the tutelary names of that goldensuperstition which has often more votaries than the religion itself fromwhich it springs and to Gertrude the simple story of Lucille sufficedto make her for the moment credulous of the sanctity of the spot. Behindthe tomb three Gothic windows cast their "dim, religious light" over thetessellated pavement and along the Ionic pillars. They found some ofthe more credulous believers in the authenticity of the relics kneelingbefore the tomb, and they arrested their steps, fearful to disturb thesuperstition which is never without something of sanctity when contentedwith prayer and forgetful of persecution. The bones of the Magi arestill supposed to consecrate the tomb, and on the higher part ofthe monument the artist has delineated their adoration to the infantSaviour.
That evening came on with a still and tranquil beauty, and as the sunhastened to its close they launched their boat for an hour or two'sexcursion upon the Rhine. Gertrude was in that happy mood when the quietof nature is enjoyed like a bath for the soul, and the presence ofhim she so idolized deepened that stillness into a more delicious andsubduing calm. Little did she dream as the boat glided over the water,and the towers of Cologne rose in the blue air of evening, how few werethose hours that divided her from the tomb! But, in looking back to thelife of one we have loved, how dear is the thought that the latter dayswere the days of light, that the cloud never chilled the beauty of thesetting sun, and that if the years of existence were brief, all thatexistence has most tender, most sacred, was crowded into that space!Nothing dark, then, or bitter, rests with our remembrance of the lost:_we_ are the mourners, but pity is not for the mourned,--our grief ispurely selfish; when we turn to its object, the hues of happiness areround it, and that very love which is the parent of our woe was theconsolation, the triumph, of the departed!
The majestic Rhine was calm as a lake; the splashing of the oar onlybroke the stillness, and after a long pause in their conversation,Gertrude, putting her hand on Trevylyan's arm, reminded him of apromised story: for he too had moods of abstraction, from which, in herturn, she loved to lure him; and his voice to her had become a sort ofwant.
"Let it be," said she, "a tale suited to the hour; no fiercetradition,--nay, no grotesque fable, but of the tenderer dye ofsuperstition. Let it be of love, of woman's love,--of the love thatdefies the grave: for surely even after death it lives; and heaven wouldscarcely be heaven if memory were banished from its blessings."
"I recollect," said Trevylyan, after a slight pause, "a short Germanlegend, the simplicity of which touched me much when I heard it; but,"added he, with a slight smile, "so much more faithful appears in thelegend the love of the woman than that of the man, that _I_ at leastought scarcely to recite it."
"Nay," said Gertrude, tenderly, "the fault of the inconstant onlyheightens our gratitude to the faithful."
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