CHAPTER XX.

DUSSELDORF DESCRIBED- -ITS INHABITANTS--THE GRAND DUCAL COURT ANECDOTE OF MURAT A DOUBLE ENTENDRE-THE FLYING BRIDGE-COLOGNE-A CONTRABAND PEEP-THE CATHEDRAL-A › COLLECTION OF GODS—A BON MOT -PRIEŠTLY MUMMERY-ANECDOTE OF AN ARCHBISHOP OF COLOGNE ANECDOTE OF RUBENS AND OTHER DISTINGUISHED PERSONS-PRESENT STATE OF COLOGNE.

DUSSELDORF, so called from the little. river Dussel that waters its southern side, and Dhorpf which means village, is now the capital of the imperial duchy of Berg, under the new dynasty of the Buonaparte family: it formerly belonged to the German empire, and afterwards to the elector Palatine, who at one period made it his residence; this city owed the prosperity which it; long enjoyed, to the sagacity and liberality of the elector Joseph William, who enlarged it in 1709, by nobly offering its freedom, and an exemption from all taxes for thirty years, to every one who would build a house within its walls, and took every judicious advantage of its local adaptation to trade, and established universal toleration in religion; the benefit of measures so worthy of the Christian. and the ruler was speedily felt, and Dusseldorf, from a

petty village, soon became a flourishing city, and contained a population of 18,000 inhabitants.

Few towns have suffered more from the calamities of war than this: its streets, squares, and houses, denote its former consequence; it now resembles a mausoleum half in ruins. Early in the year 1795, the army of the Sambre and the Meuse suddenly crossed the Rhine, and summoned the city to surrender, which it refused to do; in consequence of which the French bombarded it, and set fire to one of its most beautiful churches, which was burnt to the ground; and the city palace, which contained many noble apartments, very nearly experienced the same fate; naked walls blackened with smoke, are all that remain of this splendid pile, except that part of it which contained the celebrated gallery of paintings, which were removed to Munich under a Prussian escort. The French: at length took the city by assault, the Austrians who were garrisoned within it having previously retired.. I was surprised to find that the French had spared the statue erected as a mark of public gratitude, in the centre of the court of the gallery, to the honor of the elector John William, who was its founder. He commenced it in the year 1710; but dying in 1716, the completion of this princely and public-spirited design was totally neg→

-lected by his successor Charles Phillip, who employed part of his treasure, and the whole of his taste, in improv ing the city of Manheim. Charles Theodore, his successor, finished this institution, established an academy of drawing and painting in Dusseldorf, and also erected a: public gallery of paintings at Manheim, which were open to every one, and every artist had permission to study and copy them.

The ruins of the palace have a melancholy appearance from the water, on which I made a sketch of the city, when I saw for the first time one of the Rhenish flyingbridges, the description of which I shall reserve for a few pages following, as I did not go on board of it. That famous gallery, which attracted men of taste from distant parts of Europe, occupied that part of the palace which stood close to the junction of the Rhine and the Dussel, and was divided into five very large and spacious apartments, one of which was wholly devoted to one picture of Gerard Douw, esteemed inestimable, and one of the finest he ever painted; the subject of it is uncommonly complicated, yet every figure in it is so exquisitely finished, that it will bear the closest inspection. Descriptions of paintings are seldom very interesting; but the subject of this renowned picture deserves to be record