e of real _eau
de Cologne_,--though doubtless they are deceived into buying a poor
imitation,--and wind up in a river-side concert-garden, with much music
and beer-drinking in the open.

This is all proper enough, but this book does not aim at recounting a
round of these delights. It deals, if not with the Teutonic emotions
themselves, at least with the expression of them in the magnificent and
picturesquely disposed churches of both banks of the Rhine, from its
source to the sea.

II

THE RHINE CITIES AND TOWNS

Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon all played their great parts in the
history of the Rhine, and, in later days, historians, poets, and
painters of all shades of ability and opinion have done their part to
perpetuate its glories.

The Rhine valley formed a part of three divisions of the ancient Gaul
conquered by the Romans: La Belgica, toward the coast of the North Sea;
Germanica I., with Moguntiacum (Mayence) as its capital; and Germanica
II., with Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) as its chief town. The Rhine was
the great barrier between the Romans and the German tribes, and, in the
time of Tiberius, eight legions guarded the frontier. The political and
economic influences which overflowed from the Rhine valley have been
most momentous.

The Rhine formed one of the great Roman highways to the north, and it
is interesting to note that the first description of it is Caesar's,
though he himself had little familiarity with it. He wrote of the
rapidity of its flow, and built, or caused to be built, a wooden bridge
over it, between Coblenz and Andernach.

In the history of the Rhine we have a history of Europe. A boundary of
the empire of Caesar, it afterward gave passage to the barbarian hordes
who overthrew imperial Rome. Charlemagne made it the outpost of his
power, and later the Church gained strength in the cities on its banks,
while monasteries and feudal strongholds rose up quickly one after
another. Orders of chivalry were established at Mayence; and knights of
the Teutonic order, of Rhodes, and of the Temple, appeared upon the
scene. The minnesinger and the troubadour praised its wines, told of its
contests, and celebrated its victories. The hills, the caves, the
forests, the stream, and the solid rocks themselves were tenanted by
superstition, by oreads, mermaids, gnomes, Black Huntsmen, and demons in
all imaginable fantastic shapes.

Meantime the towns were growing under the influence of tra