THE EOBBER-CASTLES.

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six of the Rhenish towns entered into a league to put anend to tlie rapacious levies of the Count; but though theburghers besieged the Castle for fifteen months, they wereat length obliged to retire. This unsuccessful attempt, how-ever, was the principal cause of a still more extensive con-federation among the German towns, sixty of which unitedin the year 1256 for the same purpose, and raised so formid-able a body of troops that they laid waste, not only to Rhein-fels itself, but to many other of the bandit»castles along theRhine banks.*

The opposite Castles of " Mouse " (Maus), and " Katz,"appear to have been instituted for like honest purposes.Katz, we are told, was built by the descendants of thebrigand Count who originally constructed Rheinfels, andwas erected probably with a view of renovating the familyforces for plunder, after the attack of the confederated townsupon their raub-scldoss on the other side of the river.Moreover, many of the noble toll-leviers loved to build afortress on either bank, with the view of more effectuallysecuring their prey.f

" Mouse," the story runs, was so called in derision, by theproprietors of the neighbouring Castle of Katz. There is

* Rheinfels, after its surrender to the army of the Lea;ue, came into thepossession of the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, who spent a million of thalersupon the renewal and improvement of the fortifications, and, as we have said,it then held out against 24,000 French troops, under Marshai Taillard, whohesieged it in the year 1692 ; nor would it probably have been taken by thearmy of the Revolution, as it was a hunured years afterwards, without firinga shot, had it not been basely abandoned by the Hessian General, who retiredwith his troops, in the middle of the night, to the opposite shore, at thefirst appearance of the soldiers of the " Sambre- et-Meuse,"—an act whichcost the Hessian General his life. Thirty years subsequent to this, the fortresswas blown up and rendered useless by the French on quitting it. The ruinsare now the property of the Prinee of Prussia.

t " Katz" was destroyed in 1806; by a special Order, it is said, of theEmperor Napoleon.