26
WILDBAD.
CHAPT. II.
to fifteen hundred feet nbove tlie level of tlie valley, wliicb, itself, is 1335 feet above tlie sea-levcl. The high Street intersects tlie town in its vvbole lengtli, nntil it arrives at tlie Königsplalz, a parallelogram of small dimensions, enclosed on one side by tlie Royal Badliotel and tlie churcli,— on tlie otlier by tlie liotels of tlie Bear, tlie Hing of I Vürtemberg, and tlie cor de chasse (Post). — At tlie upper extremity of the Street you observe tlie Catherine asyluni, a governmcnt establishment, in wliicb cvery season 56 poor visitors of tlie spa, are lodged and treated “free, gratis, and for no- tliing.” A small bridge covered witli tin plates leads tlience to tlie stately pile of Hotel Bellevue, erected on the left bank of tlie Enz by Count Dillen, a w'ealthy Wurtemberg landowncr.
The batlis of Wildbad were early known and appre- ciated, if even we do not believe the account of the old chronicler Herold, who pretends tliat the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus founded them about the year 212 of the Christian era. The earliest written records we possess of Wildbad, go back as far as the year 1367, wlien Eberhard the Wrangler, Count of Wiirtemberg, visited Wildbad, and was therc surpriscd by a body of Schleglers (or strikers, — a leagne of Suabian knights), leil by the Count of Eberstein. Uhland, the celebrated master of the Suabian poetical school, bas comniemorated tliis event in a beautiful ballad, begin- ning as follows:
In balmy days of summer, by gentle breezes fanned,
When verdant are the forests, and blooming is the land,
There passed the gates of Stuttgart a hnight, beloved and feared, Count Eberhard, the Wrangler, surnamed the Rustling Beard.
Bot tvith a proud retinue he is tahing to the field,
Nor is it his intention the heavy sword to ivield;
To Wildbad goes his erraml, and to the healing spring,
That health to the diseased, and strength to age does bring.