Digitised Manuscripts and Books

time I write of, transacted their affairs with the Frankfort merchants: while Frankfort owed its political importance to being a 'free and independent' town - virtually a republic -, and seat of the Bund, the German Confederation to which, under the Presidency of Austria, plenipotentiaries were accredited by all the European Powers.

It was a proud little city: proud of its wealth, which the Burgomasters and Corporation jealously guarded by decreeing that no paupers and none but Frankfort citizens should abide within its gates, denying the rights of citizenship even to the inhabitants of the nearest villages although they were within the territory of the republic; proud of its aristocracy, though most of its patricians had no handles to their names; proud of its history, for the Emperors of Germany had been crowned for centuries in its Cathedral amid a pomp and display, the recollection of which, when I was a child, still lingered in the memories of its older inhabitants; and last but not least, proud of having been the birthplace of Goethe.

The Main on which Frankfort lies, derives most of its scanty waters from an affluent, the Neckar, and soon pours them into the Rhine at Mayence. The river is too shallow to allow of much navigation, still the quays were lively enough for much of the trade came in barges and flatbottomed vessels, while small steamers like the Thames penny-boats plied between the city and the neighbouring townlets. Only one bridge – once lined with houses and shops like the old London Bridge – connected Frankfort with the townlet of Sachsenhausen on the opposite bank – a place renowned for the superlative ugliness of its dialect. In a small tower at the end of this bridge lived in olden times the public executioner, and though the tower had vanished long before my day the ghost of its dreaded tenant seemed to haunt the spot, and I never went by without a feeling of terror.

Formerly a fortified place, the ramparts and walls of Frankfort were demolished shortly after 1815, and the moat was filled up or converted into ponds. The watch-towers and gates alone remained, the latter being closed at night and guarded by sentinels. Gardens, or Promenades as they were called, were laid out on the site of the walls, on which looked snug little villas, beyond which market gardens extended into the country. In these Promenades Frankforters walked and drove, and the children were duly exercised upon them. Every day and in all seasons I had to march round the town with my two Sisters and their governess, or with my Brother and our tutor – a performance which it took us precisely an hour to accomplish.

The environs of Frankfort were, and still are, lovely, but now one has to journey a greater distance to reach its rural surroundings. On the left bank of the Main stretches out the Forest of Frankfort, which in point of extent, of the variety and grandeur of its timber, and the beauty of its