town at Frankfort, which retained for some time to come a right of entrance.
In the beginning of 1648, during the reign of Louis XIV., the French, under Turenne, occupied the town of Eppstein. They made the church into a stable, and warmed it by burning the seats. The inhabitants had taken refuge in the castle, but a fire breaking out in the town, the French called them out of the castle to assist in extinguishing it, probably having kindled it first as a means of drawing the townspeople into their power. The ruse, if ruse it was, was successful. In the beginning of the revolutionary war, the Prussians turned the castle into an hospital, which completed the ruin of a part of it, which it was soon afterwards judged expedient to pull down. That side which belonged formerly to the see of Mainz is still inhabited, and the catholic church adjoining is still used for divine service.
In 1803, the Diet assigned the territory to Nassau; the castle itself passed into the hands of some private gentleman, who held it on condition of taking care of it, and ornamenting its grounds with shrubs and flowers.
From Eppstein a road leads down to the beautiful valley of Lorsbach, whose sandstone hills are covered with fine beech and birch woods, past the town of Hofheim, over which is a chapel on a promontory of the Taunus, to the station of Hattersheim on the railway which leads to Frankfort. Hattersheim probably means the home of Hatto, which was the name of the notorious bishop of the mouse story. A man of the same name built the castle of Hattstein, whose antecedents appear to have been as bad as those of the Right Reverend Prelate, as it was the most noted nest of brigands in the neigbourhood. Vengeance, however, has overtaken it, for its site in the woods is somewhat hard to find now.
If, instead of returning to Frankfort, we stop at the Höchst station, a road as straight as if the Romans had made it leads up to Königstein. Whether it was originally a Roman road is not quite clear. There was a Roman station at Höchst, where the Nidda flows into the Main: and Höchst itself is thought to be a corruption of Ostium.
A little beyond Reiffenberg are the ruins of the castle of Hattstein. These ruins are overgrown with maple, and other trees, and even the remains of the ditch are nearly hidden by vegetation. The place is solitary, and “the path of the dead,” the name given to the foot-path by which the Hattsteiners brought their dead to Arnoldshain, is consistent with the general melancholy effect. Hatzicho, or Hatto, of Reiffenberg, is said to have built this castle in the latter half of the twelfth century, so that Reiffenberg, contrary to expectation, would be older, since so much more remains of Reiffenberg than of Hattstein. There was a chapel, dedicated to St. Anthony, in the meadows below, served by the brotherhood of Arnoldshain. But, notwithstanding their pious offices, Hattstein was the terror and pest of the whole neighbourhood. The first account of a siege of Hattstein dates from 1369, when it was taken by Cuno, Archbishop of Trêves, of the Falkenstein family, yet given up again to the original joint-heirs on payment probably of heavy damages and promise of future good behaviour. Five years afterwards, however, we find it besieged by the same prelate, in conjunction with Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Philip of Falkenstein, the Prince of Hanau, and the towns of Frankfort, Wetzlar, Friedberg, and Gelnhausen; and this time probably without success, for in July of the same year, 1374, we find a battle taking place at Rodheim, to the east of Homburg, which may have been occasioned by a retaliatory expedition of the Hattsteiners against Friedberg. In this battle several of the Hattstein family were taken prisoners, but released again on oath; which they, of course, took the first opportunity of breaking. Nothing is more surprising in reading the dry records of this time, than the extraordinary long-suffering of the poor Frankfurters, poor in one sense, though rich in another. These robber-knights seemed to have lived entirely upon them, and to have preyed on their commercial prosperity, like human vermin. Yet the number of times they were forgiven, would suggest the prevalence of an almost romantic charity among the burghers, did not subsequent events show that the mild measures were dictated by fear. All the robber knights in Germany, though in chronic feud with each other, would band together to take vengeance for any summary proceedings taken against any of their body. At last, one Dieterich, of Hattstein, made himself such a prodigious nuisance, by carrying off sheep, oxen, and pigs, belonging to Frankfort, and inflicting personal outrages on unoffending travellers, messengers, and even religious persons, that in 1432, the Frankfurters and their allies, one of the most powerful of whom was the Archbishop of Mainz, succeeded at last in storming the castle, and getting it into their own hands, with a store of arquebuses, cross-bows, and ammunition, which the Hattsteiners had not time to carry off. After their victory, they took measures for the arming and provisioning of the castle; which afterwards, the Hattsteiners and their friends made several vain attempts to recover, both by force and fraud. The castle was surprised and destroyed by Walter of Reiffenberg, in 1468, but restored again in 1494. Through a variety of complications, the castle came again into possession of the Hattstein family, whom we find living there during the thirty years’ war. At last it came into the exclusive possession of Canon Philip Ludwig of Reiffenberg, then it fell to Mainz, and was abandoned, and suffered to fall to ruin. But connexions of this man appear still to be the owners of the ruin, and the land about it. The Hattstein family became extinct in the male line in 1767, having lasted through little good and much ill report six hundred years. Their crest was a pair of eagle’s wings, so that they were connected with the Wing branch of the Cronberg family. To this day, on the feast of the Ascension, a popular festival, which dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century, is held near the lonely site of the castle. If the festival is prolonged to a late hour of the night, it is said that a white figure appears at one of the castle windows, ordering the people, with a cry thrice-repeated, to go home.
