Over the rose-window, but still in the compartment of the second tier, is a gallery furnished with the figures of the Apostles, and above them is placed Jesus-Christ holding in his hands a cross and banner. In the lateral towers, the same tier is taken up on each side by a high broad window in the shape of an ogee, before which rise very slender pillars. Exactly over these windows, on the third tier and also on each side, are three very high and narrow windows; the middle part, though wider, has but two, rather small ones, and surrounded by some statues. This very massive portion of the building betrays at first sight its later origin; when Erwin's plan was abandoned, this part was added to fill up the empty space between the two towers; these were already completed, and even have on the third tier their windows looking into the central porch, but which are at present hidden from the outside. That part of the middle porch is used as a belfry, four large bells are suspended in it, the largest of which, cast in 1427, weighs nine thousand kilogrammes, and serves to announce great festival days; it is also rung at the death of renowned personages, or in case of fire.
It was only in the year 1849 that the front was ornamented with statues representing the day of judgment. This group, consisting of fifteen gigantic figures, was made after the old drawings preserved in the archives of the Œuvre-Notre-Dame. Jesus-Christ, as judge, is in the middle, with Mary and John the Baptist on either side; they are surrounded by angels sounding the trumpet of Dooms-day, or bearing the instruments of our Saviour's passion; beneath are seen the Evangelists, having men's bodies surmounted by the heads of the four symbols which generally accompany them.
Above the middle porch and the southward tower, is the platform, very spacious and surrounded by a handsome balustrade; on it is built a small house for the guardians charged to strike the hours and ring the alarm bell in case of fire. From the top of this platform one enjoys a magnificent view; the wonderful panorama that unfolds itself from there, has been drawn with as much taste as accuracy by Mr. Frederic Piton, a zealous amateur of our local history. Towards the North, in the direction of the Wacken, an island near Strasburg, is seen on the horizon the mountain of the Pigeonnier (Scherhol in German), at the foot of which lies Wissemburg; to its right rise the peaks crowned by the ruins of Gutenberg and Trifels, and the famous Geisberg taken by storm in the war of 1870. On the other side of the Rhine, whose majestic stream the eye can easily trace, the long range of the mountains of the Black Forest limits the horizon. The first peak that is seen is that of the Eichelberg, at the opening of the valley of the Murg; then comes the Fremersberg, the Mount-Mercury, the mountain with the ruins of Yburg; all these names are known to those who have visited Baden. Beyond these summits is the high level ground of the Hornisgründe, on the other side of which is seen, in the midst of a forest, the dark lake named Mummelsee. Farther on, eastward, beyond the arsenal of Strasburg and the village of Kehl, you observe the castle of Schauenburg, near Oberkirch, where the valley of the Rench begins. After gliding over the ruin of Fürsteneck and Schauenburg, the eye rests on the stately buildings of Ortenberg, rebuilt after the middle age architecture, at the entrance of the valley of the Kinzig. Directing your eye more towards the South, you discover the mountains of Triberg, and close to them those of Lahr; then comes the loftiest peak of the Black Forest, the Feldberg, 1494 metres high. Farther on the eye may discover (if tine) the Ballon and the Blauen, behind the hills of the Kaiserstuhl; thence this ridge of mountains is lost sight of. In the plain, between the Rhine and the Vosges, a double row of poplars points out the Canal (from the Rhone to the Rhine). The first peak seen in the range of the Vosges towards the South-East is the Ballon of Sultz, 993 metres high; the eye then discovers in a western direction the ruins of the three castles of Egisheim, Haut-Hattstatt and Landsberg, the top of the Ballon of Gebwiller, 1426 metres high the Hoheneck, the ruins of the old castles of Kientzheim, Rappoltstein, Hoh- (High) Kœnigsburg, Ortenburg, Bernstein, Frankenburg and the summits of the Bressoir and Ungersberg. Looking in the direction of Saint-Thomas' church, at one glance the eye overlooks the country of the old Hohenburg, so picturesque and so rich in monuments and historical associations: the castle of Landsberg, the rock of the Mænnelstein, the convent of Sainte-Odile, behind which rises the level ground of the Champ-du-Feu; further on to the right, are the ruins of Girbaden, the peaks of the Donon and Schneeberg. Here the mountains are by degrees lost from sight in the distance; on the horizon one may however distinguish the towers of the castles of Geroldseck and Hoh- (High) Barr, in the vicinity of Zabern; then nothing more is seen but meadows, forests, fields, from the centre of which you see now and then the modest church-steeples of the numerous villages that cover the fine plain of Alsacia.
On the North side stands a tower of an octangular form, supporting the spire. This tower consists, as it were, but of strong buttresses adorned with small columns and statues, and having large apertures in which very high windows are set and take nearly the whole breadth on the four sides, where they are. Among the statues that face the platform, one must be noticed as being, according to tradition, that of Erwin of Steinbach. In the interior of this tower are the bells that strike the hours, that which is called the gates' bell (Thorglocke)[1] and also a clock made in 1786 by two clockmakers of Strasburg, Maybaum father and son. An inscription over the door leading to the platform recalls to mind the earthquake of 1728, so violent that the water was raised from the reservoirs and thrown to a distance of eighteen feet[2]. In front of the four principal sides of the octagon tower are turrets with winding stairs, and consisting but of a series of windows that rise in a spiral form. These elegant turrets seem hardly to rest on any thing; besides the gallery that covers them, they communicate with the principal 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 (flèche), 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 Gœthe, Herder, etc.
[3] Above the first tier of the turrets is seen around the spire (flèche) 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.