The letter was addressed, "the Count Louis de Marsanne, Chateau d'Ettenheim, à Bade," and thither I accordingly repaired, traveling over the Arlberg to Bregenz, and across the Lake of Constance to Freyburg. My passport contained a very few words in cipher, which always sufficed to afford me free transit and every attention from the authorities. I had left the southern Tyrol in the outburst of a glorious spring, but as I journeyed northward I found the rivers frozen, the roads encumbered with snow, and the fields untilled and dreary-looking. Like all countries which derive their charms from the elements of rural beauty, foliage, and verdure, Germany offers a sad-colored picture to the traveler in winter or wintry weather. It was thus then that the Grand Duchy, so celebrated for its picturesque beauty, struck me as a scene of dreary and desolate wildness, an impression which continued to increase with every mile I traveled from the high road. A long unbroken flat, intersected here and there by stunted willows, traversed by a narrow earth road, lay between the Rhine and the Taunus Mountains, in the midst of which stood the village of "Ettenheim." Outside the village, about half a mile off, and on the border of a vast pine forest, stood the Chateau. It was originally a hunting-seat of the dukes of Baden, but, from neglect and disuse, gradually fell into ruin, from which it was reclaimed, imperfectly enough, a year before, and now exhibited some remnants of its former taste, along with the evidences of a far less decorative spirit; the lower rooms being arranged as a stable, while the stair and entrance to the first story opened from a roomy coach-house. Here some four or five conveyances of rude construction were gathered together, splashed and unwashed as if from recent use; and at a small stove in a corner was seated a peasant in a blue frock smoking, as he affected to clean a bridle which he held before him. Without rising from his seat he saluted me, with true German phlegm, and gave me the "Guten Tag," with all the grave unconcern of a "Badener." I asked if the Count de Marsanne lived there. He said yes, but the "Graf" was out hunting. When would he be back? By nightfall.