But by far the most magnificent church edifice in all France, is the
cathedral of Strasburg, a view of which is given in the cut, and which
is famous all over the world. Till the time of Louis XIV., Strasburg was
a free imperial city; but he seized, and the French have for one hundred
and fifty years held it, as a frontier fortress, and the key to Germany.
In the city there are many objects of interest, one of the most
conspicuous of which is a colossal bronze statue of John Guttenberg, who
here first practiced the art of printing; another is a colossal bronze
monument, in honor of General Kleber; and still another is a beautiful
monument to the memory of Marshal Saxe. But the wonder of the city is
the cathedral, the spire of which rises four hundred and seventy-four
feet above the pavement, which is nearly as high as the great pyramid of
Egypt, and one hundred and forty feet higher than St. Paul’s. Still,
owing to the large dimensions of the building, and the light and
graceful structure of the spire, it does not impress the observer as
being of this extraordinary altitude. The nave of the church is two
hundred and thirty feet high, and the round window at the end is
forty-eight feet in diameter. This wonderful structure was begun nearly
eight hundred years ago. The material is red sandstone, obtained in the
vicinity, which has proved very enduring; the church has therefore
suffered very little from time, and the chiseled and carved material,
after so many centuries of exposure to the weather, retains the
sharpness of outline which it had when first finished.
[Illustration: STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.]
The artist who designed this admirable masterpiece of airy open-work,
was Erwin, of Steinbach: his plans are still preserved in the town. He
died in 1318, when the work was only half finished: it was continued by
his son, and afterward by his daughter Sabina. The tower, begun 1277,
was not completed till 1439, long after their deaths, and four hundred
and twenty-four years after the church was commenced. It was then
finished by John Hültz, of Cologne, who was summoned to Strasburg for
this end. Had the original design been carried into execution, both the
towers would have been raised to the same hight. A doorway, in the south
side of the truncated tower, leads to the summit of the spire. On the
platform, about two-thirds of the way up, is a telegraph, and a station
for the watchmen, who are set to look out for fires. One of them will
accompany those who wish to mount the upper spire, and will unlock the
iron gate which closes the passage. There is no difficulty or danger in
the ascent, to a person of ordinary nerve or steadiness of head; but the
stone-work of the steeple is so completely open, and the pillars which
support it are so wide apart, and cut so thin, that they more nearly
resemble a collection of bars of iron or wood; so that at such a hight
one might almost fancy one’s self in a cage, high up, over the city,
rather than in the steeple of a church that has stood firm for ages.
The cathedral, as already said, was intended to have two towers, like
those of the cathedrals of York and Westminster, in England; but as the
expense is enormous, it is probable that the existing tower will remain
solitary. This deficiency gives the building a disfigured appearance,
especially as the unfinished tower, which is square, rises but half-way.
Externally, Strasburg cathedral is distinguished by a light and airy
gracefulness, both of structure and material; the sandstone is cut and
carved into a thousand forms, some of them, especially in the finished
tower, extremely delicate and beautiful. Even the statues and images,
which are very numerous, are chiseled out of sandstone, which has an
agreeable color of reddish gray. There is not an image of marble upon
the whole building. The number of images that cluster around the portal
and adhere to its walls is very great: they form a host of little
beings, in addition to the statues of full size. Indeed, the profusion
of these decorations appears to be extravagant both in point of taste
and economy, and some are quite out of place. In a temple, a building
devoted to religion, it is not easy to understand the propriety of
mounting men on horseback high up in the towers; for such aerial
equestrians are to be seen here, sentinel-like, in positions where
saints and angels would seem more appropriate ornaments. In the interior
of this cathedral there is a simple dignity and grandeur, a holy majesty
that is almost overpowering. The magnificent rows of columns of gigantic
dimensions and altitude, seen in long perspective, exceed in effect all
we can well imagine. The extreme richness of the windows, filled on both
sides with stained glass, commemorating, both historically and
allegorically, the events of the Bible, and the characters and
catastrophes of saints and martyrs, fills both the eye and the mind with
delight; and when we turn from gazing to the right and the left along
the extended line of lateral windows, and look upon the vast circle of
gorgeous light which streams down from the great picture luminary at the
end, (a circular window forty-eight feet in diameter, and presenting, in
radiating lines, more than the colors of the rainbow,) we are ready to
exclaim that Art has not fallen short of Nature in beauty, while she
excels her in the permanency of her hues, which have not here been
dimmed by the lapse of centuries; and if no violence is committed on
this temple, they will be equally brilliant after a thousand years more
shall have passed away.
There is in this cathedral a wonderful clock, which has been substituted
for an older one that has been removed. The present clock was
constructed by a man who is still living; it appears to be about fifty
feet high, and more than half that width; it was mute for fifty years,
but is now again a living chronometer. Among its many performances are
the following. It tells the hours, half-hours and quarter-hours, and the
bells which make the report of the flight of time, are struck by
automaton figures. A youth strikes the quarter, a mature man the
half-hour, and an old man, as the figure of Time, the full hour. This
clock tells also the times and seasons of ecclesiastical events, as far
as they are associated with astronomical phenomena, and it gives the
phases of the moon and the equation of time. At noon, a cock, mounted on
a pillar, crows thrice, when a procession of the apostles comes out, and
passes in view of the Saviour: among them is Peter, who, shrinking from
the eye of his Lord, shows, by his embarrassed demeanor, that he has
heard the crowing of the cock, and has fully understood its meaning.
Among the movements of its automatons, is that of a beautiful youth, who
turns an hour-glass every fifteen minutes. There is also a celestial
orrery, that shows the motions of the heavenly bodies with great
accuracy and beauty.