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C AUG. 1

at Aix-la-Chapelle were decorated with garlands & boughs of trees for some fete. Our luggage was very civilly passed by the Prussian douane; after dinner we sallied out to the Market place, where a bronze statue of Charlemagne surmounts a copious fountain. Where also is the Kalthaus or town hall, a large and imposing old building, in the grand salon of which have been held congresses & on its walls are representations thereof.

Thence to the Dom Kirche or Cathedral. A most excellent description of it is to be found in Murray’s handbook, its marvels would be too tedious for me to relate. The very pompous old sacristan had evidently shewed them so long that he at last came to believe all he told us of. The round dome shaped chapel in the centre of which is the vault of “Carolo magno” is high & handsome, but Barbarossa’s gift of a chandelier is such a one as an equestrian company at a fair would use being a large ring with candles all round it. The sarcophagus in one of the aisles, “the work of Greek artists has been sadly mutilated by the French during its removal to Paris”, the noses of all the figures having been wantonly knocked off. We could sympathise with the old sacristan in his lament at such practices, as well as the detention of some porphyry pillars omitted to be returned –

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