The spas of Germany / [A.B. Granville].

  • Granville, A. B. (Augustus Bozzi), 1783-1872
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The spas of Germany / [A.B. Granville]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sought health of body from the Springs, whilst, at the same time, they secured the safety of their souls through the intercession of the ghostly fathers. The reputation of Baden, however, did not spread generally in Europe, as affording efficacious means of curing disease, until the place became, by marriage or inheritance, the patrimony of the Margraves, about three hundred years ago. Many of these princes were excellent persons; while others proved egregiously the reverse. Some were willing to lend an ear to the Reformists of the Church of Rome; others were equally eager in maintain- ing the powers of the Pontiff in their dominions, for which pur- pose they imported, from whatever quarter they could be pro- cured, whole congregations of Jesuits. After a long season of tranquillity under the Margraves, French and imperial strifes once more desolated the Baden territory, in which the leaders of the Gallican forces suffered atrocities and horrors and profana- tions to be committed by their troops, such as even Attila, in his devastating progress through Germany, had never ventured to perpetrate. The tocsin of “ La St. Barthelemy” sounded even in this sequestered spot! In more modern times, Baden has been the theatre of dreadful vicissitudes. Revolutionary France spared it as little as the royal chiefs of that nation had done before; and it was not until after the celebrated congress which was held in the neighbouiing town of Rastadt in 1799, that Baden acquired that repose of which it stood so greatly in need, and that renown as a bathing- place which in latter years has been progressively increasing. Since that period Baden has passed from the rule of a sovereign prince, controlled by Napoleon, and consorted with an adopted daughter of that monarch, to that of a collateral member of the dynasty of the Margraves, now represented by Charles Leopold, who generally resides at Carlsruhe. Next to Aix-la-Chapelle, Baden is the most historical bathing-place in Europe. I am assured by Dr. Kramer, one of the resident physicians in Baden, and who for many years has been an inhabitant of the place, that its climate is exceedingly temperate, and one of the most healthy in Germany. The town is protected from the east winds by the hills called Grosse Stauffenberg Mercurius, and the smaller Stauffenberg. On the opposite side, the hill of bWerners- berg equally defends it from the westerly gales ; while, on the