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.
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