FOR the last three years, after the close of the London season, many of those persons and families who have no estates of their own to retire to in England, have been in the habit of going down the Rhine, and sojourning during the autumn at Baden, which has been rendered so agreeable an excursion by means of the General Steam Navigation Company. It may, therefore, be desirable to devote a few paragraphs at this time of the year, to a description of the peculiarities of this place of migration, as they are detailed in the letter of a foreign correspondent.

Baden has been occasionally a favourite resort for invalids from the time of the Roman empire; within the last few years it has been a place particularly in fashion. This predilection is supposed to take its rise, from the town having been made the place of rendezvous for the refugees of the exiled court of Charles X. The neighbouring German barons, considering them sufferers in the cause of the aristocracy, endeavoured to make their abode as pleasant as possible: then poured in a great concourse of visiters in the cholera years, who were flying from pestilence or in search of health.

Latterly, the remnant of the London season has broken in upon the continental visiters; and as the English soon become discontented and raise the cry of vulgarity against any place where they meet each other, it is more than probable that the fashion of Baden is on the decline, notwithstanding the beauty of its natural features. On quitting Strasburgh and following the course of the Rhine, you soon enter the delicious district of Baden, where a luxuriant vegetation, a verdure which delights the eye, trees bending under the profusion of their fruit, and smiling industrious villages, remind the traveller of England. The difference between these villages and the neighbouring ones of France, is by no means a pleasing comparison to the French visitants. The landscape is bounded by a ramification of the mountainous chain, which is covered by the Black Forest, clothed to the summit with those beautiful pine-trees from which this celebrated

forest has taken its name. Travellers on this route are neither plagued by officers of the customs, nor by gendarmes demanding your passports; only when the cholera visited Metz, the Badois government required a certificate of health, signed by the authorities of Strasburgh. I leave it to the consideration of the reader, whether the facility of the government in receiving strangers without passports, tends to the advantage of the society at Baden; no doubt it has its conveniences, as well as its in

conveniences.

Baden is twelve leagues from Strasburgh. It is situated in a narrow valley, protected on all sides by mountains of the most picturesque form; fir-pines of an immense size clothe their sides and summits, and vines hang on the precipitous ridges during the whole route. Here and there jut out black crags and naked rocks. On the mountain of Mercuriusberg is seen the ruins of a Roman temple consecrated to Mercury, from which the mountain takes its name; and as you approach Baden, one of the highest of this chain of mountains presents to the view immense fragments of ruined walls, and an old tower half demolished, in which are trees growing and shooting forth their verdant boughs at the gothic apertures of the doors and windows. These ruins are monuments of the devastating wars of Louis XIV., who desolated with fire as well as sword the smiling banks of the Rhine. This mighty ruin was the ancient abode of the Margraves of Baden, who, from the heights of this fortress, dominated over the valley of the Rhine. The office of a margrave was nearly similar to the Lords Marchers of Wales and Scotland, and the neighbouring frontier of France was the adverse border, guarded by the lords of Baden, who were among the feudatories of the German empire. The Margrave of Baden is now called grand duke, and figures among the number of the thirty-nine potentates, who, under the sway of Austria or Prussia, exercise a nominal sovereignty over certain portions of the German people. This domination is little felt in the town of

Baden, which is, indeed, peopled entirely by strangers; it is a privileged place, where the sovereign dwells like any other visiter, and is not the proprietor of a foot of land within it, excepting what pertains to a private dwelling-house in the centre of the town. There is an ancient castle of the margraviate, but this, with the Baden estates, was settled on the grand duchess Stephanie, whose presence during the months of the Baden season constitutes part of the attractions of the place.

This lady was one of the parvenue magnates of the Bonaparte family connexion; she was Stephanie de la Pagerie, of a Creole family, and niece to Josephine. After the humiliation of the German princes, and the violation of the Baden border by the unjust seizure of the Duke d'Enghein from this town, the heir of Baden was glad to accept the hand of the pretty niece of the empress, and hold all his revenues at her will and pleasure; fortunately for him and his people, the Grand Duchess Stephanie possessed all the charms of mind and manners which rendered her aunt beloved through every change of fortune.

The entrance to Baden from the Strasburgh side is truly enchanting. You traverse a green and winding valley cultivated like an English garden; in the midst of this smiling scene appear the various public buildings, which are points of social attraction to the visiters. These are, a small but elegant theatre; a splendid ball-room, capable of containing three thousand guests; a restaurateur's, rival to the Café de Paris, and readingrooms, where we find, without exception or prohibition, French, English, and German periodicals, magazines, music, books, engravings and caricatures, political and otherwise. The façade of this vast bazaar, ornamented with the various coloured marble of the country, offers a shelter from the sun or rain to the promenaders, and is bordered by a turf rivalling in beauty that of England, which leads to shady alleys for those who prefer to walk beneath the trees. The pretty town of Baden, built in the form of an amphitheatre, rises on the opposite heights. The houses are small, in general, but regular and of elegant architecture. From their fronts project large balconies crowded with flowers. Here

are a score of hotels, most of them very excellent, and supplied with baths from the hot springs. Provisions are good and cheap, and the tables are served at least as well as the best in France. More than ten thousand visiters were accommodated at Baden in the autumn of 1832, and then there were very few English; but the increase has been great since Baden has been the rage in England. At that time the Grand Duchess Stephanie was suffering mortal grief, owing to the illness and subsequent death of the Duke of Reichstadt, which withdrew her for a time from society. It is her anxious endeavour to unite all par ties and all nations in the bonds of agreeable social intercourse. It is in an elegant pavilion on an eminence, in the centre of the town, built in the middle of an English garden, that the grand duchess receives her guests, and does the honours of Baden.

At the foot of the gardens of the grand duchess springs the great source of the waters of Baden. They were celebrated in the time of the Romans, whose legions were stationed on the side of the Rhine, The Grand Duke Charles has built here a sort of temple, constructed out of the numerous fragments of Roman antiquiquities which are profusely scattered on this spot. Here the bathers repair early in the morning to find health in the potations from these regenerating springs. A Parisian belle, who has been accustomed to remain at balls till three in the morning, finds that a five o'clock walk to the Baden springs, through a pure and bracing air, is a salutary change in her way of life; and it is no doubt a fine preparative for the salubrious effect of the waters, and the display of the medi cal skill of her physician. From this fountain the visiters not only find a copious supply, but it feeds, by means of canals, the baths of the public establishments, which are of a magnificent de scription; and those at the numerous hotels, which, by paying a slight remu neration to the grand duke, are all abundantly supplied with water hotter in temperature than the hand can bear. At its source the spring issues out at the heat of fifty degrees, but it is moderated according to the various prescriptions. Gout and spasms were in old times the diseases for which this spring was bene

ficial, and in an old book we find this homely but circumstantial description :"Baden derives its name from its hot baths, of which there are three hundred in the town. Some of the baths are scalding hot, and all of 'em running from rocks of brimstone, allum, and salt, unite those flavours. Out of that called the Kettle, the water boils at a wonderful rate, and smokes as if it were set over a furnace. They are sovereign against the gout and cramp, and some other distempers, and therefore much frequented. Kufer has given a learned description of 'em. The marquis (the margrave) has his palace here, it is well fortified, stands on a rising ground, and is the chief defence of the town. It lies five miles east from the Rhine, eighteen north-east from Strasburgh, and fifteen east from Fort Louis. Kheil, on the east side of the Rhine and over against Strasburgh, is a strong fortress belonging to this territory." This account was written before Louis the Fourteenth had demolished the castle of the Margraves of Baden.

The situation of the town on a bold rising ground, yet sheltered on all sides by magnificent forests, the salubrious emanations of the pine trees, all contribute to the efficacious influence of the springs. The environs on all sides offer enchanting views, and beautiful promenades and excursions. A wide and umbrageous alley is continued for more than half a league: on one side is seen the borders of a forest, and on the other a charming declivity of a valley. Every fine day a crowd, on horseback, on foot, or in carriages, repair to the neighbouring village of Lichtenthal, recalling, by the gaiety of their costumes, at the same time, the promenades of Longchamp and Hyde Park. At this village there is a convent of nuns, who have occupied, with the cultivation of music, the leisure moments afforded them from their duties of devotion and charity; they have attained a very high degree of perfection. Some sing, and others perform on divers instruments; some on the bass viol, others on the flute, the violin, and the clarionet; and for the Sunday mass it is scarcely possible to hear a finer orchestra. The public repair in crowds to the chapel where this female band is heard, but never seen; for the religious ladies are

carefully secluded behind the grilles and curtains of an elevated gallery. But it is not only with sacred music and the performances of the veiled St. Cecilias of this convent, that the musical tastes of the visiters of Baden are gratified; at all the tables-d'hôte during repasts are to be heard bands, which perform the best airs of the new operas with a degree of taste and perfection which astonishes every one, when it is known, that they are poor German artisans who labour at their vocations all the winter and spring, and go to Baden, and other German towns on the Rhine, during the season. They chiefly come from the district of Foulde. Baden is as well a favourite place of resort for some of the first composers of France and Germany.

Among other exhibitions there ought to be noticed a very charming one produced by female talent; many of our readers have heard of the celebrated copies on porcelain of Madame Jaquelot, who has reduced into beautiful miniature the finest pictures of the Italian school; many of her portraits and pieces are to be seen at Baden for the small price of two florins.

Among the numerous places for excursion, some visiters go to explore the ruins of the fortress; some to the cascade; others to see the country houses of the grand duke; or to the little picturesque bathing towns in the neighbourhood, each boasting its spring of peculiar virtue; some make an excursion to see Salsbach, and the spot where the great Turenne fell, where France has recently erected a monument of remembrance, the care of which is confided to a veteran of the grand army. Some visit Rastadt, celebrated for its congress and the assassination of the French plenipotentiaries; whilst the banks of the Rhine, and the prospects from the heights which command it, are an ever varying source of pleasure to the lovers of the picturesque.

It is a curious circumstance, that the unrestrained freedom of the place seems to deprive political discussion of half its bitterness and interest. At Baden there are neither walls nor barriers; public and private gardens are alike accessible to the wanderer's footsteps; there are neither gratings to the windows nor bars

to the doors, nor watch-dogs barking as if they wanted to devour the passers by; there is no political police, no gensd'armes are to be seen, and the presence of the sovereign is only indicated by the scarlet jackets of his two postilions. One may go and come at all hours of the night without any person troubling his head about you; in short, it is a vast caravanserai, where the strangers of Europe meet and greet each other, that is, during four months of the year, when the

residents and indigenous inhabitants retreat and give place to the influx of visiters, who hire their houses and fill their hotels. Baden, during its bathing season, is a sort of neutral ground for Europe, a confederation of all parties and ranks, where the curb is shaken off that Austria, Prussia, and Russia endeavour to impose on the rest of the Continent. Let the Holy Alliance raise its voice ever so high, the sound expires in a soft whisper at the foot of Mercuriusberg.