ted; but this
was like taking back a slander which had already been circulated. The
effect had been produced. Munich was to become a capital.

Bishop Otho's successor would gladly have destroyed the infant city and
the bridge which had been the making of it. In consequence, however, of
his early death, this beneficent purpose toward his see of Freising
remained unexecuted. The next successor continued the same policy. He
built a castle with the design of seizing the trading trains which
should take the road to Munich, perhaps deeming this the best way of
magnifying his office as a leader in the church militant. But before he
could achieve his purpose of cutting off all supplies from the rival
town, and turning trade and tribute all to his own place, a new defender
of the rising city had sprung up in the house of Wittelsbocher--the same
which still reigns over the kingdom of Bavaria,--and the matter of the
feud was finally adjusted by the quiet surrender of the bridge and the
tolls to the city.

The imperial decree, therefore, of 1158, must be regarded as having laid
the foundation of Munich as a city, and accordingly the seven hundredth
anniversary of its founding was celebrated in the year 1858. I shall
place a notice of this _fete_ at the head of the list of those which
occurred during my residence in that capital.

It was a part of the plan that the ceremony of laying the foundation of
a new bridge over the Isar should be performed by the king. This was
deemed specially appropriate, because the springing up of the city had
depended upon a bridge over the river to draw thither the trade which
had gone to the old Freising. This occurred on Sunday, and I did not see
it. I never heard, however, but that his majesty acquitted himself as
well in this stone mason's work as he does in the affairs of court or
state--just as well, perhaps, as one of our more democratic Chief
Magistrates, accustomed to splitting rails or other kinds of manual
labor, would have done. I took a walk with my children at evening, and
met the long line of court carriages returning, followed by a procession
on foot, the archbishop, with some church dignitaries, walking under a
canopy and distributing, by a wave of the hand at each step of his
progress, his blessing to the crowds which thronged both sides of the
broad street. Some, perhaps, prized this more than we did, but I do not
suppose that there was anything in the nature of the blessing or in