Vienna is one of the oldest cities of Europe. When St. Petersburg was a swamp, and Berlin a straggling village on a sandy plain, Vienna had been for centuries a powerful metropolis, standing as Moscow stands today,- a kind of frontier city, an eastern outpost of European civilization. Only two hundred years ago it was the principal bulwark of defense that checked the armies of the Moslems which had victoriously swept along the Danube, captured Belgrade and Budapest, and made of Hungary a Turkish province.

The Emperor Of Austria.

Vienna, therefore, at one extremity of Europe, and Tours at the other, mark the two points of the great Moslem crescent of invasion into Christian territory; and, as in France, upon the borders of the Loire, in 732, Charles Martel "hammered" the army of the Saracens and drove it southward into Spain, so on the banks of the Danube, in 1683, John Sobieski and his Polish army aided the Viennese to roll back the advancing wave of Turkish conquest.

A General View Of Vienna.

The history of Vienna reaches back, however, to times far more remote than these. The Romans, early in the Christian era, had established on this spot a settlement known as Vindobpna, and here it was, in the year 180, that Marcus Aurelius, the noblest of Rome's Emperors, breathed his last, having given from his death-bed as the password for the night the sublime expression, "Aeqnanimitas."

Panorama Of Vienna.

Vienna not only has the charm of an important history, it is also one of the most beautiful of European capitals, and has been called the Paris of Austria. There are, indeed, many points of similarity between the capitals of Austria and France. Both were once Roman settlements. In each a Caesar has resided: the Emperor Julian living in one; Marcus Aurelius dying in the other. Both are preeminently beautiful and brilliant, and both are located on prominent rivers which, nevertheless, flow in opposite directions. The Seine glides westward to the broad Atlantic, its current turned toward the New World. The Danube, on the contrary, rolls eastward,, to lose itself in that historic sea, which Xenophon's retreating thousands greeted with delight. This difference is significant; for not unlike their rivers are the capitals themselves. Paris in all its tendencies is Occidental, radical, and modern. Vienna - residence of an Emperor, who rules not only Austria, but Hungary as well, and has his hand outstretched to grasp the provinces between his kingdom and the Bosphorus-looks down the Danube toward the Orient, and has a trace of the conservatism and the languor of the East. Moreover, both these capitals have more than once been closely bound together in their history. Again and again have French and Austrian soldiers met in desperate conflict in Austria, Bavaria, Italy, France, and Switzerland. Yet from Vienna went forth, to be Queen of France, the beautiful and ill-fated Marie Antoinette ; and it was to Napoleon that the Austrian Emperor,Francis, gave in marriage his daughter, Marie Louise.

The Franz Joseph Fountain.

Vienna has greatly improved in appearance during the reign of the present Emperor, Franz Joseph. Less than half a century ago, high walls and a deep moat surrounded this old Austrian capital; but its increasing life and energy finally burst these barriers, and poured forth in a mighty flood on the adjoining plain. Its ramparts then were seen to be as useless and superfluous as an outgrown suit of armor. Accordingly, the moat was filled, and the broad battlements were either leveled to the ground or transformed into terraces and promenades, whence one obtains extensive and delightful views.

The first impression, therefore, that the traveler receives, as he drives through Vienna, is that of two concentric circles, the inner one reminding him of the Vienna of the past, the outer delighting him as the Vienna of the present; and the connecting link between them is a circular promenade constructed on the ancient fortifications, and now known as the Ringstrasse.