[Footnote A:  From “The Story of Nuremberg.”  Published by E.P.  Dutton & Co.]

III

OTHER BAVARIAN CITIES

MUNICH[A]

BY BAYARD TAYLOR

Art has done everything for Munich.  It lies on a large flat plain sixteen hundred feet above the sea and continually exposed to the cold winds from the Alps.  At the beginning of the present century it was but a third-rate city, and was rarely visited by foreigners; since that time its population and limits have been doubled and magnificent edifices in every style of architecture erected, rendering it scarcely secondary in this respect to any capital in Europe.[B] Every art that wealth or taste could devise seems to have been spent in its decoration.  Broad, spacious streets and squares have been laid out, churches, halls and colleges erected, and schools of painting and sculpture established which draw artists from all parts of the world.  All this was principally brought about by the taste of the present king, Ludwig I., who began twenty or thirty years ago, when he was crown-prince, to collect the best German artists around him and form plans for the execution of his grand design.  He can boast of having done more for the arts than any other living monarch; and if he had accomplished it all without oppressing his people, he would deserve an immortality of fame....

We went one morning to see the collection of paintings formerly belonging to Eugene Beauharnais, who was brother-in-law to the present King of Bavaria, in the palace of his son, the Duke of Leuchtenberg.  The first hall contains works principally by French artists, among which are two by Gerard—­a beautiful portrait of Josephine, and the blind Belisarius carrying his dead companion.  The boy’s head lies on the old man’s shoulder; but for the livid paleness of his limbs, he would seem to be only asleep, while a deep and settled sorrow marks the venerable features of the unfortunate emperor.  In the middle of the room are six pieces of statuary, among which Canova’s world-renowned group of the Graces at once attracts the eye.  There is also a kneeling Magdalen, lovely in her wo, by the same sculptor, and a very touching work of Schadow representing a shepherd-boy tenderly binding his sash around a lamb which he has accidentaly wounded with his arrow.

We have since seen in the St. Michael’s Church the monument to Eugene Beauharnais from the chisel of Thorwaldsen.  The noble, manly figure of the son of Josephine is represented in the Roman mantle, with his helmet and sword lying on the ground by him.  On one side sits History writing on a tablet; on the other stand the two brother-angels Death and Immortality.  They lean lovingly together, with arms around each other, but the sweet countenance of Death has a cast of sorrow as he stands with inverted torch and a wreath of poppies among his clustering locks.  Immortality, crowned with never-fading flowers, looks upward with a smile of triumph, and holds in one hand his blazing torch.  It is a beautiful idea, and Thorwaldsen has made the marble eloquent with feeling.