It stood here in the year 1500; and the room is still shown, unchanged since then, in which the rich Count Fugger entertained Charles V. The chambers are nearly all immense.  That in which we are lodged is large enough for Queen Victoria; indeed, I am glad to say that her sleeping-room at St. Cloud was not half so spacious.  One feels either like a count, or very lonesome, to sit down in a lofty chamber, say thirty-five feet square, with little furniture, and historical and tragical life-size figures staring at one from the wall-paper.  One fears that they may come down in the deep night, and stand at the bedside,—­those narrow, canopied beds there in the distance, like the marble couches in the cathedral.  It must be a fearful thing to be a royal person, and dwell in a palace, with resounding rooms and naked, waxed, inlaid floors.  At the Three Moors one sees a visitors’ book, begun in 1800, which contains the names of many noble and great people, as well as poets and doctors and titled ladies, and much sentimental writing in French.  It is my impression, from an inspection of the book, that we are the first untitled visitors.

The traveler cannot but like Augsburg at once, for its quaint houses, colored so diversely and yet harmoniously.  Remains of its former brilliancy yet exist in the frescoes on the outside of the buildings, some of which are still bright in color, though partially defaced.  Those on the House of Fugger have been restored, and are very brave pictures.  These frescoes give great animation and life to the appearance of a street, and I am glad to see a taste for them reviving.  Augsburg must have been very gay with them two and three hundred years ago, when, also, it was the home of beautiful women of the middle class, who married princes.  We went to see the house in which lived the beautiful Agnes Bernauer, daughter of a barber, who married Duke Albert III. of Bavaria.  The house was nought, as old Samuel Pepys would say, only a high stone building, in a block of such; but it is enough to make a house attractive for centuries if a pretty woman once looks out of its latticed windows, as I have no doubt Agnes often did when the duke and his retinue rode by in clanking armor.

But there is no lack of reminders of old times.  The cathedral, which was begun before the Christian era could express its age with four figures, has two fine portals, with quaint carving, and bronze doors of very old work, whereon the story of Eve and the serpent is literally given,—­a representation of great theological, if of small artistic value.  And there is the old clock and watch tower, which for eight hundred years has enabled the Augsburgers to keep the time of day and to look out over the plain for the approach of an enemy.  The city is full of fine bronze fountains some of them of very elaborate design, and adding a convenience and a beauty to the town which American cities wholly want.  In one quarter of the town is the Fuggerei, a little city