bridge, which had been destroyed by the Austrians. The Nidda is a kind of river just made to obstruct an army, cutting its quiet way through deep loamy banks with bottomless mud at its bottom. The authorities escaping in order to avoid complying with this requisition, Kleber had the principal buildings of the castle set on fire and burnt down. From Vilbel a gradual ascent leads up to the watch-tower of Bergen, which is a conspicuous object from Frankfort and all the country round about, standing on a round rising ground in the middle of a vast corn-field. The town of Bergen itself is distant about half a mile from it, on the side where the hill slopes down into the valley of the Main. This simple watch-tower bears the date 1557 on it, and was made accessible by an external winding stair in 1844. It is far too inconsiderable for defensive purposes. If the watchers were in expectation of an enemy, they probably took refuge in the town, or drew up the ladder by which the door was entered.
The watch-towers round Frankfort have a court and walls which could have resisted an enemy for a considerable time, and held a garrison of fifty men at a pinch. The view from the Bergen tower is immense, considering the elevation of the hill on which it stands, which is about 600 feet over the sea, and it is the only point really commanding a beautiful view within easy walking distance of Frankfort. This view is said to comprise nearly 200 towns, villages and hamlets, with a setting of distant mountains, the Taunus being nearest. The Main winds like a silver serpent in the valley to the south-west. It strikes the visitor at once, like the field of Waterloo, as exactly the place for a battle. And a battle was fought here in 1759 in the seven years’ war, between Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, commander of the German allies, and the French under the Duc de Broglie. The Germans were the attacking party; the French had the advantage of position, and made it good. There appears to have been much loss of life on both sides, the advantage remaining with the French. The principal traces which the battle has left are balls which have been built into the walls of houses at Bergen. Bergen itself is half-lost among its fruit trees; and the slope below it has a good aspect for its vines. It is a perfect specimen of a little mediæval town, quadrilateral, walled all round, with towers at intervals. Two of these are more remarkable than the others: they have both little spires of masonry, and one is surrounded with a very picturesque frieze. One straight main street pierces the town, with old gates at each end. In the middle of the market-place there is a quaint old town-hall. The whole town is quaint, “bizarre” as the French call it; small in scale irregular, brown and yellow and black, oddly gabled, and swarming with dirty children. These last seem to abound in all the old towns of the Rhine land, where one does not see enough men and women to account for them. They look as if they had been hatched from the ancient dirt by the modern sunshine, after having been dormant in it for centuries.
Bergen was formerly the property of a family belonging to the imperial household in Frankfort, bearing the strange name of the Schelms, or Skinners of Bergen. The castle which belonged to them is of more modern date than the town and outside it, so that at first they lived in the town itself, as notices of them are as old as 1194. To account for so noble a family with so ignoble a name, there are several traditions. The word “Schelm,” which now means a rogue, signified in old German, “a corpse,” or “carrion,” then “a flayer,” or “skinner,” then “a hangman.” The Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, or the Red Beard, of glorious memory, once gave a promiscuous masked ball at his palace in Frankfort. His new Empress was very fond of dancing. A stately mask came up and asked for the honour of her hand. She accorded it gladly; for she recognised in the mask the comeliest shape and the best dancer of the evening. The partners pleased each other well. At last came the hour for unmasking, and who should the partner of the Empress be but the public hangman, who, from the odiousness of his office, was obliged to live out at Frankfort, at Bergen. The first impulse of the Emperor in the midst of the universal horror, was to order the executioner to instant execution. The latter, however, plucked up a spirit, and addressed the Emperor:—“Reverse the matter, Sir Kaiser, and we may be good friends. Instead of saying that the Empress has been dishonoured by touching me, say rather that I have become honourable by touching her.” The Emperor was touched likewise, and laughingly said, “You have too much wit for a hangman: rise up ennobled, Sir Schelm of Bergen.” The family died out in 1844; but the eastern end of the wood by Bergen still bears the names of Schelm’s Corner. Another story is, that the Emperor had lost his way, and missed his hunting company, in the forest near Dreieichenhain. He was thirsty and tired. Meeting a waggoner, he asked for a draught and a seat. The waggoner gave both. When the retinue came up, the gentlemen cried out in horror, “the Schelm of Bergen!” But the Emperor made him a knight under that name. Yet another account. Barbarossa had just finished his castle in Gelnhausen, beyond Hanau, whose ruins are still to be seen. He lay down to rest in his new stronghold, and pleased with the work, said: “Whoever it is who puts his foot first in the castle-yard to-morrow morning, shall be ennobled.” The first comer in the morning was the hangman of Bergen. But the Kaiser could not break his word, and gave a remarkable illustration of the German proverb—“The morning hour has gold in its mouth,” or its English counterpart—“The early bird picks up the corn,” by making the hangman of Bergen both rich and noble. And the Schelm of Bergen bore henceforward as his arms: on a field argent two bloody ribs, gules. It is an easy walk from Bergen to Frankfort, either by the edge of the hill through the interminable village of Bornheim, “the home of the springs,” or by the Friedberg watch-tower, through the gate of Friedberg, famous for the trophy commemorating the gallant resistance of the Hessians in the first French revolutionary war, and infamous for the murder of Auerswald and Lichnowsky by the mob, in 1848.
George C. Swayne.
