The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-10-08

the Rhine at Mayence, but his reverses came,
and the model alone was executed. Those
who remember when, refreshed by q dinner
glass of Hochheimer, strolling out TO see the
sunset view of the vineyards of Wiesbadeu,
the Rheingau and the Taunus bathed in a
flood of innocuous golden fire, will be glad
to have such pleasant memories aroused.
Close to Oppenheim, conspicuous by the
grand ruins of the castle of Lsndskron, is
Frfelden, where, in the winter of 1921, Gus
tavus Adolphus crossed the Rhine. The
sturdy Swedes rowed over, singing a psalm,
and there is a tradition that their king was
ferried over on a barn door. A ruinous
chapel in st. Catharine's church-yard is still
full of Spanish and Swedish skulls. The
beautiful church at Oppenheim was half
burned by the French during the war of the
PalatiDate.
Every Rhenish town has its sorrows to tell
of. Worms, that stately old walled town,
once the residence of the Frankish Carlovin-
gian Kings, was burned by Meluc in 1859, by
order of Louis XIV and of Louvois, aud that
shock it never recovered. Prankenthal, near
at hand, was held in 162223 by band of
English under Sir Horace We're, for the cleo
tor paatine, but Spinola and his Spaniards
besieged it, and the English surrendered.
Ludwigshafen, opposite Mannheim, was the
scene of many revolutionary fights, and here,
in 1914, the Russians, under General
Sacken, forced the passage of the Rhine. No
Rbenish town has been oftener fought over,
ombarded, and pillaged, than ''clean, plea
SAINT, friendly Mannheim" In 1859, when
the French took it, the burghers were given
twe1 ty days to raze their city to the ground;
but, as they were slow in beginning, the
French drove them out and set fire to the
houses The French bombarded it again in
1894, and in 1895 Wurmser and the Austrians
threw into it twenty-six thousand cannon
balls and seventeen hundred and eighty
bombs, SO that half the palace was burned
and only fourteen houses remained uniniured,
when the nine thousand seven hundred
French soldiers surrendered.
Spires, too, has had its trials. In 1859 the
French army of Louis XIV took the town,
and ordered al the citizens to start for Alsace,
Lorraine, or Burgundy within six days. The
French provost-marshal and forty execu-
TONERS then entered the town, laid and lighted
trains of combustibles, and set the forty
seven streets of Spires in blaze. Miners
also blew up the walls, fountains, and con-
vents, dismantled the cathedral, and burst
open the graves of the emperors. The cruel
confiagration lasted three days and three
nights. In 1894, Custine and his troops,
after six assaults took the town by storm and
repeated the cruelty of his predecessors. Be-
fore the siege of 1859 Spires boasted thir-
teen gates and sixty four towers defended by
artillery.
Nor would any summary of battles fought
upon the Rhine be complete without men
ton of beautiful Heidelberg, from whose
walls the great river can be seen by glitter
ing glimpses. This fair town, the capital of
the electors -palatine, has been five times
bombarded, twice burned, and three times
sacked. In the Thirty Years War red handed
lilly, after q months bombardment, gave it
up to three days pillage. The imperialists
held it for eleven years; and then came the
Swedes with fresh extortions. In 1858 Meluc,
French general, sterner even than Turenne,
and more savage than Tilly, burned the town,
slew all the Protestants, and committed q
thousand excesses.
But there is scarcely ruin on the Rhine
hut is the work of French or Swedish hands,
| and our space only allows us to touch on q
few points of Rhenish history.
From the heights above Caubt, near Ober-
weseI, Bluchers soldiers, about to cross the
| Rhine New Years night, 1910, seeing the
river open before them, fell on their knees
! Cike Xenophen's men at the sight of the sea-
and sh outed with ore heart and voice, "The
Rhine the Rhine!" That old love for the
river still continues warm in the centre of
every German heart. No foe must touch the
Rhine-no enemy must plant flag upon its
banks. 1t is pure and free, and so it must
remain. This is the chief article in the
| ere, Of united Germany and every victory
| the Prussians win over the French is a
stronger argument that the inviolable creed
il will remain.
| 'Flow on, fair Rhine-how free and proud,
| Or come the sun come the cloud;
| II for a time thou redder CLEAN,
| Purer hereafter runs thy stream