Donc je suis pauvre, je ne garde qu'une chose, La foi à laquelle s'unit la tienne: C'est elle, la puissance qui fait que je me montre fier, C'est elle qui saintement trempe mon amour. Mais si, partagée, cette foi est encore à moitié mienne Elle sérait tout entière perdu pour moi si elle venait à te manquer: Ainsi, c'est toi seul qui me donnes la force de te remercier Grâce à ta foi royale et sans défaillance."
We had great difficulty in making this translation and were far from satisfied with it. But there was no more time, the train was already slowing up to the station, we had reached. Munich--_München_!
Outside the station, the omnibus which we took for the hotel of _"Trois Rois Mages,"_ after going a short distance was obliged to stop before a military orchestra. Fine looking, fair-haired soldiers in sky-blue uniforms, were grouped about their leader, and were playing nothing else than the religious march from "_Lohengrin_!"
Later on, Wagner, in fun, tried to make us believe that we owed it to him that we had been "so religiously received."
What an amusing city is Munich, with its architectural follies! I do not know another outside of France which seems to me so attractive. Ludwig I. probably had a great love for memorials, and certainly, he hesitated at nothing. It was he who wished to reproduce and bring together in his capital, all the edifices which he had admired in the course of his travels; so this pretty city resembles the "Rue des Nations" of some universal exposition.
Do you love the Florentine style? Here is the library and its majestic marble staircase leading to the "loggia dei Lanzi," copied exactly from that of Florence; a little farther on, under the name of Königbau you will see a reproduction of the famous Pitti Palace. If you prefer Roman art, the arch of Constantine is close at hand, and you will also come across a fifteenth-century dome. If it is Greek art that attracts you, you may see the Propylæum of Athens, the Glyptothek in the Ionic style, or the palace of Fine Arts in the Corinthian style: or better still, near a consecrated wood, the Hall of Fame. If you dream of Venice, you have only to listen to the fluttering wings of the pigeons of Saint Mark's, who have, evidently, all migrated to Munich!