ALSACE-LORRAINE

By George Wharton Edwards

 “Section 13”

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Turckheim

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It was in the plain between Colmar and Tiirckheim that the great Turenne surprised and defeated the Imperial German army on the 5th of January, 1675. The German forces, anticipating no battle until spring, had gone into winter quarters here, and Turenne's strategic attack, delivered with all the forces at his command, drove the Germans across the Rhine and regained Alsace.

Turckheim is now a sleepy little old walled town of about twenty-five hundred inhabitants. The little town is fairly soused in wine, for one of the very best of the vintages of Alsace is produced from its vineyards. It has a remarkable old gateway named the "Porte Basse," a creamy old stone tower, with four corbel towers, one at each corner, and a conical red tiled roof, topped with a huge ragged stork's nest. The tower is ornamented with emblazoned shields and coats of arms done in vermilion and gold, and just over the arched entrance, bearing the dates 1313-1889, is the sprawled out heraldic black eagle of Prussia - an eyesore to the loyal French inhabitants. We had intended to make our headquarters at the "Deux Clefs," but when Lady Anne beheld this lovely old gate­

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way, with its gilded sun dial, and the quaint shadowed arch through which the peasants came and went, she decided to engage the upper room with the balcony shown at the left of my drawing. The house was named the "Storchen," and kept by a bright-eyed old lady whom I painted in the picture (frontispiece) called "Over the teacups." Those were sunny days we spent at Turckheim, under skies as blue and clear as an awakening infant's eyes, and each and every old spire and tower a beckoning and inviting point of light. We found no other such old town as this in our wanderings; never was perhaps such a strange medley of ancient walls and turrets, dim narrow lanes and streets, rambling between high walls, where old oaken doors led into peaceful gardens all trellised and vine­clad; ancient statued Saints, rippling fountains, and the sudden cold exhalations from cask-piled cellars. We roamed these tortuous streets between amorphous houses with their aged carven doors surmounted by strange old trade emblems. Some of the houses had overhanging stories, and there were odd little buildings on rough cobbled market places where old leaden fountains trickled and wept. There was an old hall, a "Dingstuhl," they called it, where market women called out their chickens and vegetables on market day. There was, too, a small "Hospice"; an age-worn haven of rest, the gift of Ermintrude to her Saint. The Sans Culottes spared it.

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Although it was unusual, the Mother Superior, a most charming and dignified lady, invited Lady Anne and the writer to visit it. Behind its ivied wall was a little row of hoary dwellings; a narrow courtyard, the sacrosanct; a tiny chapel, and some contented dotards dozing and blinking in the warm sun.

In the old church the place spirit speaks at once a perfect peace, and all about the hallowed spot is tender, exuberant green, drooping its soft mantle of leaves over thronging red-tiled roofs; beyond are gardens, pastures, vineyards, 'til the plains begin their gentle slope to where, along the jagged sky line, pine spires flaunt against the blue. Whatever curious beauty is in old gables, whatever charm one can find in valuing them, is here to be found to the last degree.

On the other side of the valley there is a charming little village called Winzenheim, above which is the ancient remains of the castle of Hohlandsburg, now consisting of little more than a vast heap of stones covered with beflowered vines. There is also, or was in 1910, a most delightful if somewhat down-at-heel Inn, mismanaged by one Monsieur Keeler-Beeler, who there calmly pursued the even tenor of his high-minded existence all unmoved by events, while the world rolled 'round, surveying all happenings whatsoever with untroubled mind, elevated brows and cynic eye; who shrugged his shoulders at the demands of the uniformed tax collector, yet

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handed over clinking coin unemotionally, at least as far as one could judge of his feelings. This cynic eye encompassed the writer seated on the vine-clad small balcony, the afternoon of our arrival by malle-post. After an interval of silent, bovine-like gaze which penetrated, passed through me and enveloped Lady Anne, who appeared in the window behind, - he removed his hat and asked: "Would 'Mossie,' and the Gracious Madame compliment him by tasting the famous 'Rangener?" ­ adding that its flavor is never to be forgotten. We would, and did. He was right, too.

At this Inn dwelt in amity a small coterie of painters who, we were told, came here year after year, for love of the region. I do not know anything of their industry in art,-they seemed not to toil, but they certainly were always promptly in their places when our host rang the dinner gong. Four francs fifty a day, everything included, held them here hugging their chains. Why not'? -when there were to be had such omelettes! such fish!­and occasionally a glass of the never to be forgotten "Rangener." Four days the spell held us, and Lady Anne skilfully extracted a legend of the mountain from the taciturn inn-keeper. It seems that high upon the top of the Mount, where sprawls the misshapen ruin of Hohlandsburg is, or was, a little old hermitage cut out of the solid rock. Once upon a time, in the days of the Romans, a certain holy eremite dwelt here in piety and

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poverty. His name was Postumius (or something like it), and for a companion he had a pet hare, to which he was devoted. With it he shared his frugal meals, and by night it lay beside him upon his poor bed of leaves and moss. In those days there was here in the valley a great .Monastery, presided over by a Holy Abbot. One dark and stormy night this Abbot sent for a young monk, and as penance for some infraction of the rules of the monastery, ordered him to climb the Hohlandsburg to the hermit's cave in all the wind and rain, and bring back with him the hermit's cord, worn about his waist, as evidence that he had accomplished the task. The young monk-he was hardly more than a novice -set out obediently, and after a long and wearisome toil, reached the hermit's cave after midnight. The holy man was absent upon some mission of mercy, but the door was open, and there, lying upon the rude pallet, was the pet hare. The young monk entered and sitting down on the pallet, snapped his fingers at the gentle beast, which confidingly went to him and climbed into his lap, thinking no evil of a young monk. The youth caressed it and it lay there contentedly. An hour passed, in which he twice trimmed the rude oil lamp that burned beside the pallet, casting flickering and wavering strangely shaped shadows on the earthen walls and rock ceiling of the cave. All was silent but the rush of the wind. All suddenly the Spirit of Evil entered into the young monk; he

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whipped out his knife and cut off one of the poor hare's soft paws, which the devil persuaded him was what the Abbot wished him to bring back to the monastery. Flinging the poor bleeding hare upon the pallet, he set off in the darkness down the winding, rocky and dangerous path to the valley below.-He was never seen after­wards.

When the holy hermit returned in the morning he found the poor hare sitting patiently upon the pallet, holding up a still bleeding stump. Filled with grief and great compassion, the hermit bound up the wound with simple herbs, after which he bade the animal go seek its missing paw. The hare limped away down the stony pathway to the valley, where it circled unceasingly about the great monastery walls, regularly appearing at the gateway and begging for admission, but although the watchman on the tower saw the small beast coming and going, and sitting up on its haunches holding the wounded paw so that it might be plainly seen, it never occurred to him that it was other than a tame hare strayed from the village, and he gave it no heed. So, unable to gain admittance, the poor animal limped away and returned to the hermit. But in the meantime that aged holy man, exhausted by his long vigils and his privations, had succumbed to the rigors of the stormy night, and lay dead upon the pallet of leaves in the cave. To him crept the poor hare, who, failing to rouse his beloved

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master, lay down beside him and died. Since then, these many hundred years, on one certain night of the year when it usually storms, and the rain beats down upon old Hohlandsburg, the poor hare may be seen by whomsoever is out on the road, limping along over the stony way, seeking her missing paw. "As for me," concluded the inn­keeper, "of course, I have not seen her myself, but many of the old inhabitants will tell Madame that they have of a surety seen the limping hare of Hohlandsburg, and who shall say that they are untruthful?"

This legend of the hare has several variations; here is another of perhaps greater picturesqueness: "In the tenth century, when the holy and learned Theofrid governed the abbey and by his example made all to venerate him, there dwelt in a vast cavern on the mountain top, the exact location of which is now unknown, a very terrible old magician and sorcerer of most dreadful mien, ca))ed Schlattzele or Spattzele, one or the other. His only purpose in life was to ill treat those who come near him. And should no one come near him, he would go in pursuit of a victim. He hated all men, but particularly monks and holy men, because Theofrid had regenerated the people throughout the region and saved their souls from perdition.

"Thus through this magician, misfortune fell upon one after the other of the God-fearing and industrious farmers of the region. Their cattle sickened and died;

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their crops, when ready for the harvest, were mysteriously attacked by blight, or when harvested laboriously, were burned in the night. The vineyards were ruined by avalanches of stones, which descended during storms and obliterated them. The bending fruit trees were uprooted by fierce windstorms and howling hurricanes, under cover of darkness, and the peaceful, winding river rose, bursting its banks, and flooded the level fields, sweeping away farmsteads and drowning the cattle. Fevers attacked the people, who died of them despite the simples and prayers of the monks. And finally appeared wild beasts and fierce bands of wolves, who devoured the sheep and even carried off women and children.

"So the people came to the abbey asking the holy Theofrid to intercede in their behalf, that they might be delivered from this terrible curse which had fallen upon them. So Theofrid prayed unto the Lord, not for himself, but for his people, that they might be delivered from the curse. And he named the name of the sorcerer. And the Lord harkened unto Theofrid, who did not pray for himself, or for his monks, but for his people. And He delivered the people from the curse of the sorcerer, so that they had peace thereafter. But the evil sorcerer did then tum his entire attention upon the holy Theofrid and did torment him grievously.

“All at once a great black, hairy animal, in form like unto a cat, haunted the cell of the holy man while he was

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at prayer. How it entered was impossible to say, but bolts and bars hindered it not. This beast would walk about the kneeling Theofrid, with tail erect, purring softly and often rubbing against the terrified man. He found it impossible to fix his mind upon his prayers, for the most terrible, and hideous, and sinful thoughts filled his mind. Even at holy mass the words he uttered were often not those of the sacred office, but diabolical chants and exorcisms took their place. And often in the middle of the night he heard the sound of rubbing and soft pushing against the barred door of his cell, so he was compelled to cover his ears that he might not hear, for he was strangely impelled to arise and open the door.

"He realized that he was being bewitched. For in the great chained book kept in the abbey, all fairly written by the monkish chronicler, was a tale of black art, and also the means of overcoming it. And he studied this book and mastered it, so that he knew it well, for Theofrid was a man of parts, and skill, and resource. Kneeling down one morning at daybreak in his cell, after a night spent in terror and resistance, he prayed unto the Lord for assistance, and then he rose from his knees in resolve. That night he fastened one end of a strong, fine cord into a cunning noose, and this he placed just out­side his door on the stone flagging and waited. In the middle of the night he heard again the sounds of purring and the rubbing of a soft body against the door. Theo­

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frid, reciting the exorcism, seized the cord and gave it a firm, quick pull; he felt the noose tighten and heard the "thud" of a heavy body. Then he gave a mighty pull at the cord and there came a horrid scream, and then another, sounding farther away; finally these cries ceased. Theofrid opened the door and there in the noose he found a bloody, hairy paw cut completely off above the joint. Theofrid built a huge fire, in which he burned the paw, and scattered the ashes to the winds, as was right and proper under such a circumstance. For the directions in books of magic specifically state that in case you mutilate a horrid magician or sorcerer, you must destroy the part with fire, for he cannot then by his black art get back his human form until you restore to him the part of which you deprived him, and thus he ever after remains in the guise which he assumed to do you ill. Of course then, ;Theofrid, knowing that, did as I have related, and the sorcerer, deprived of his power for evil doing, so it is said, in the form of a limping, glowering beast, still slinks about the mountain top, trying to find the bones of his missing foot." Here in this mountainous region all is different from the gentler southern hills and valleys, for these are the dim pine-clad forests, in which the sturdy peasantry fought the usurper for the right to be French and remain so. These old towns and villages cluster about the castle and abbey-crowned crags, embayed in the sweeping,

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faultless crescents of gleaming streams, and each approached from either side by long parabolas of lush green valley and meadow.

The peculiar charm of these Alsatian village nests lies in their curving, vine-clad, creamy-walled streets and lanes. In some of them the huddled houses lie in deep natural trenches below the castles' grim walls, and the streets curve naturally with the river's curve. From these walls one looks down upon the crescent of peaceful homesteads, from which blended sounds float upward to the ear; the tinkle of a smith's hammer, the chatter of birds, the soft lowing of distant oxen, all merged, as Lady Anne poetically expressed it, like unto the muffled melody in a sea shell. These towns and villages are draped monuments to the loyalty of the Alsace-Lorrainers. When the usurper annexed these provinces, he took instant measures to reduce the hapless inhabitants to a condition compared with which feudal vassalage had its advantages. Not only was personal liberty and opinion suppressed, but upon their sacred customs was imposed the shadow of the Prussian eagle. On these mountain slopes was enacted an agonizing drama. Families were uprooted and fled across the frontier, leaving comfort for penury and privation. Terrible stories of this period are still related by the peasants on both sides of the border. One Alsatian patriot of 1871 is said to have escaped

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to a forest, where he discovered a large hollow tree into which he descended. When after a period he fancied his pursuers gone, and the way clear, he tried to climb out, but found that the sides sloped upwards and there was nothing which offered purchase to hand or foot. There he remained famished. He shouted for help as loudly as he could, but no help came. When the peasants heard him they thought of evil spirits in the wood and hastened away from the spot in terror. For days, then, the unfortunate man must have shouted for the help that never came. "Only last year," said my informer, "the 'Schlitteurs' (wood cutters) cut down the great hollow tree and found huddled in the cavity at its base a mouldered skeleton, the fragments of a French gun, and a small sum of silver and copper money."

[End of Section 13]

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