Historical Sketch of the Cathedral of Strasburg | Page 9

tower but by means of flat stones that serve as an entrance into a gallery of the interior of the arch-roof, and which lie at a height of almost thirty metres. According to the old drawings, these turrets should have been surmounted by pyramidal spires. They terminate in a gallery that surrounds the tower, from whence one enjoys a most admirable view. It is from that spot that rises the spire (fl��che), which is an octangular pyramid of an extraordinary boldness, offering to the astonished gazer nothing of a massive construction. Six successive tiers of little turrets are thus pyramidically placed one above the other[3]. Eight winding stair-cases, narrow and of rich open carvings, lead the visitor to a massive spot commonly called the lantern; higher up is the crown[4], which is not reached without danger, by means of steps placed outside, and with no other protection than the wall to which they are fastened; above another widened place, called the rose, the spire is nothing but a column whence jut out horizontal branches to give it the aspect of a cross. The monument terminates in a knob being 0m .460 in diameter and to which ever since 1835 a lightning-conductor has been adapted; one may climb there but with the aid of iron bars to which you must cling with hands and feet. The total height of this stately building is 142m.
[1] So called because it was rung morning and night before the opening and closing of the city gates.
[2] In the interior of this tower and on the balustrade are seen a great many names of foreigners who have visited the Cathedral. Among these names are some of celebrated persons, as G[oe]the, Herder, etc.
[3] Above the first tier of the turrets is seen around the spire (fl��che) the following inscription:
Christus nos revocat. Christus gratis donat. Christus semper regnat. Christus imperat. Christus rex superat. Christus triumphat. Maria glorificat. Christus coronat.
[4] Besides some other inscriptions on the spire, you read round the first gallery of the crown these words:
Jesus Christus verbum caro factum est, Jesus Christus, et habitavit in nobis, Jesus Christus, et vidimus gloriam ejus, Jesus Christus, gloriam quasi unigeniti a Patre.
(S. John. 1. 14.)
[Illustration: The column of angels.]
The nave, decked with a copper roof, abounds no less in decoration than the front. It has large ogive windows adorned with rosaces; at the place where the buttresses, equally carved with rosaces, join the counterforts or pillars, they have at their tops fine clochetoons; a great many statues and grotesque figures of heads complete the ornaments of this part of the church. Two galleries, one under the windows, the other below the clochetoons of the counterforts, lead from the towers to the cross-aisle. This, as we have already said, is still byzantine in several parts of it. The southern porch, formed by two semi-circular doors made evidently at one of the remotest periods of the Cathedral, is adorned with bas-reliefs and statues; according to tradition, it is reported that two of these statues are the work of Sabina of Steinbach. One is a woman in a triumphal posture holding in her hands a communion cup and a cross; she is the symbol of the church that vanquished the synagogue; the other, a symbol of the latter, is a woman looking down, blindfolded and leaning with pain on a broken spear, whilst the laws of the twelve tables drop from her left hand. On the parvis before this porch is erected, on the left, the statue of Sabina herself, and on the right, the statue of Erwin of Steinbach, both due to the chisel of Mr. Grass.
The wall of the upper tier has openings for several windows of an ogive form, above which a gallery runs all along; two round-windows take up the third tier. The northern portion of the cross-aisle has more generally preserved the byzantine manner than that we have just spoken of; however, this intermixture with the gothic style denounces latter renovations. The ancient porch, the remains of very old constructions, is masked by a fore-front that belongs to the last period of the gothic art, and which was built in 1494 by James of Landshut; this new porch (porch of St. Laurence), though handsome in its ensemble, is wanting in that noble simplicity and purity of taste that distinguishes the other parts of the Cathedral; it is overloaded with ornaments, and its statues have a stiffness that is found nowhere else.
The octangular dome over the chancel is also of the byzantine era; however, it has been renewed in several parts. In the place of the deformed cupola, destroyed by the fire of 1870, a handsome pyramid has been erected in the year 1878, after the plans of Mr. Klotz, architect of the Cathedral.
Up to 1772 the lower