To the pretentious traveler his description of “Christ’s Inn,” which reminds us of our Swiss sign, “Hie zum Christkindli,” might serve as a little lesson in modesty. Thus he speaks about it in a Christmas sermon: “Look, how the two parents in a strange land in a strange city search in vain for good and hospitable friends. Even in the inns was no room, since the city at that time was so crowded. In a cow-stable they had to go and make the best of it as poor poor people! There was no couch, no linnen, no cushions, no feather-beds; on a bundle of straw they made their bed as close neighbours of the good cattle. There in a hard winter-night the noble blessed fruit was born, the dear child Jesus.” And in another Christmas sermon he says: “If you look at it with cow’s or swine’s eyes it was a miserable birth ... but if you open your spiritual eyes you will see countless thousands of angels, filling the heaven with their song and honouring not only the child but the manger too in which it lies.” Everything depends finally upon the way we look at it, if with cows’ eyes or with spiritual eyes. Only these will enable us to see in the poorest inn the angel of hospitality covering us at night with gentle wings. Till finally Mother Earth shall cover us softly in our last quiet “Deversorium” in which we have at least the hangman’s comfort: “You shall be called to no more payments, fear no more tavern bills which are often the sadness of parting as the procuring of mirth.” But we must not end without delivering a little sermon to the signs, too, that still glitter in the warm sunshine. To them, cocks, deer, bears, oxen, and horses, a church-tower cock, celebrated by the humorous clergyman poet Möricke of Schwabenland, gives this solemn warning:-- “You poor old iron things, Why should you be so vain? Who knows how many springs You will up there remain?” Bibliography 1. Petit dictionnaire critique et anecdotique des enseignes de Paris par un batteur de pavé 1826, in Balzac’s _Œuvres complètes_, tome XXI. 1879. 2. E. DE QUERIÈRE. Recherches historiques sur les enseignes, in the _Magazin pittoresque_, 1850-60. 3. BLAVIGNAC. Histoire des enseignes d’hôtelleries, d’auberges et de cabarets. Genève, 1879. 4. L. REUTTER. Les enseignes d’auberges du canton de Neuchâtel, avec notices par A. Bachelin. 1886. Neuchâtel. 5. MICHEL-FOURNIER. Histoire des Hôtelleries. Paris, 1851. 6. JOHN GRAND-CARTERET. L’enseigne, son histoire, sa philosophie, ses particularités à Lyon. Grenoble, 1902. 7. Journal du Voyage de MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE en Italie par la Suisse et l’Allemagne en 1580 et 1581. Rome, 1775. 8. TRISTAN LECLÈRE. Les Enseignes, in the _Revue Universelle_, 1905. 9. P. FROMAGEOT. Les Hôtelleries, cafés et cabarets de l’ancien Versailles. 1907. 10. EMILE CHATELAIN. Notes sur quelques tavernes fréquentées par l’université de Paris au XIV et XV siècles. Paris, 1898.