Baden-Baden

Baden-Baden, a town in the grand-duchy of Baden, situated in the pleasant valley of the Oos, at the edge of the Black Forest, 8 miles from the Rhine, and 23 SSW. of Karlsruhe by rail. Pop. (1890) 13,884; but its visitors during the season, which is at its height in July and August, are often four times the number of the settled population. It is chiefly celebrated for its medicinal springs, which were known in the time of the Romans, Baden-Baden claiming to have been founded by Hadrian in the 2d century A.D. Numerous Roman antiquities have been found in the neighbourhood, and are preserved in a museum here, and remains of a vapour-bath and dungeons of the same period were discovered in laying the foundations of the new castle. Its 13 hot springs have a temperature of 115° to 150° F., are impregnated with iron, magnesia, and lime, with sulphuric and carbonic acids, and are especially recommended in chronic cutaneous diseases, gout, rheumatism, and stomach complaints. The chief spring (Ursprung) discharges in 24 hours about 4200 cubic feet of water. The reputation of Baden-Baden as a bad received an increase from the visit of a number of French emigrants in the end of the 18th century, and since 1804 the grand-ducal family have done everything possible to make the place more popular. So early as 1815 the annual guests numbered about 2500, and since then its fame as a fashionable resort has yearly assembled not only so many, but so good a class of guests from all parts of the world, that in wealth, gaiety, and luxury, Baden-Baden may vie with the capitals of Europe. The number of visitors reached in 1883 to over 50,000. The season lasts from May to September. Even the winter season, which was started in 1872, keeps quite a number of strangers there. The beauty of Baden-Baden has been largely due to its gaming-tables, once the most renowned in Europe, but closed with the rest of the licensed German gaming-houses in 1872; besides paying a rent of over £14,000, they used to devote a like sum yearly to the beautifying of the promenades and public gardens. To the tables was devoted part of the Conversationshaus (1824), now the principal resort of visitors, including magnificently decorated concert and ball rooms, and a restaurant. All around are carefully kept pleasure-grounds, leading on one side to the new Trinkhalle (1842), or pump-room, which contains some large frescoes by Götzenberger, representing legends of the Black Forest. The theatre (1862), the Friedrichsbad (1877), and the Villa Limbourg, occupied by Queen Victoria in 1872 and 1876, may also be noticed. The drives and walks around the town are beautiful. The picturesque ruins of the 'old castle' still crown the summit of the Schlossberg, and command a magnificent view of the Rhine valley from Spires to Strasburg. Lower down the hill, and directly overlooking the town, is the 'new castle' (1479), destroyed, like the old, by the French in 1689, but restored, and now the summer residence of the grand-duke. There is an English church in the town, built in 1868, and a Greek chapel for Russian visitors since 1882. See German works by Seefels (1872), Biermann (1872), Heiligenthal (1877); and Schnars (10th ed. 1884); and The Mineral Waters of Europe, by Tichbourne and Prosser James (1883).