Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/410

362 stands on a pedestal, 78 feet high, and erected on a hill 740 feet above the level of the Rhine, and seems to guard the Fatherland by keeping an eternal watch over that historic river.

I made longer excursions also to other German towns situated on or near the Rhine; and among them Frankfort on Main is certainly historically the most interesting. A Roman military station, like Cologne, in the first century, Frankfort was a seat of royal residence under Charlemagne, and was in succeeding ages looked upon as the capital of the East Franconian Empire. And from the time of Frederick Barbarossa, Frankfort was the place of the election of the German Emperors for seven centuries, until the old empire was dissolved in 1806 by Napoleon Bonaparte. From 1815 to 1866 it was one of the free cities of Germany, and in 1866 it was taken by the Prussians. Frankfort, like Wiesbaden, is therefore now a portion of Prussia.

Venerable on account of its long and eventful history, Frankfort is now doubly interesting to the modern tourist as the birthplace of Goethe. In a century which has produced Byron and Scott, Schiller and Victor Hugo, Goethe stands foremost, as the greatest literary genius of the age! I visited the house in which he was