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Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 101, October 17, 1891 by Various
page 22 of 46 (47%)
suddenly and all too soon lost, say there are few things more
regrettable than the tendency of the present age to review the actions
of great men, not lost but gone before, and to pass judgment upon them
without having enjoyed the opportunity of hearing what they might have
to say in justification or palliation of the proceedings challenged.

That is true and tersely put. Still I may observe that if C. lived
at this period and had his choice, say between Aix-la-Chapelle and
Homburg or Aix-les-Bains, it is doubtful whether he would have
built his cathedral here. Unlike the two latter watering-places,
Aix-la-Chapelle has other fish to boil besides the invalids who come
hither attracted by the fame of its hot springs. It is a manufacturing
town, and has all the characteristics of one. At Homburg or
Aix-les-Bains you walk up a street, turn a corner and find yourself
among pine-trees, or in a smiling valley with a blue lake blinking
at the sun. Here the baths are in the centre of the town, and, like
a certain starling, you feel you "can't get out."

But invalids musn't be choosers, and if RUSTEM ROOSE sends you
to Aix-la-Chapelle--he's always sending somebody somewhere--to
la-Chapelle you must carry your Aix, in the hope that you may leave
them there.

"I wonder," said the Member for SARK, who as usual is grumbling round,
"if the local female population was less unlovely in CHARLEMAGNE's
time? Probably, since he married with a frequency not excelled by our
HENRY VIII. But what was HILDEGARDE like--HILDEGARDE, his favourite
spouse? If she in any way resembled the women who throng the streets
of Aix-la-Chapelle to-day, C.'s lot was not a happy one. Never in any
city, in either hemisphere, have I suffered such a nightmare of ugly
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