PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE TO STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.
down to 1870 it has been terribly unfortunate, having been burned, struck by lightning, shaken by earthquakes, and in 1870 it suffered terribly by the cannon balls of the German besiegers. In the first part of the siege of Strasburg, the Germans tried to force the surrender by the bombardment and partial destruction of the inner town. In the night of the 23d of August began for the frightened inhabitants the real time of terror; however, that night the rising conflagrations, for instance in St. Thomas’ Church, were quickly put out. But in the following night the new church, the library of the town, the museum of painting, and many of the finest houses, became a heap of ruins, and under the hail of shells all efforts to extinguish the fire were useless. For the cathedral the night from the 25th to the 26th of August was the worst. Towards midnight the flames broke out from the roof perforated by shells, and increased by the melting copper they rose to a fearful height beside the pyramid of the spire. The sight of this grand volume of flames, rising above the town, was indescribable and tinged the whole sky with its glowing reflection. And the guns went on thundering, and shattering parts of the stone ornaments which adorned the front and sides of the cathedral. The whole roof came down and the fire died out for want of fuel.
The following morning the interior was covered with ruins, and through the holes in the vault of the nave one could see the blue sky. The beautiful organ built by Silbermann was pierced by a shell, and the magnificent painted windows were in great part spoiled. On the 4th of September two shells hit the crown of the cathedral and hurled the stone masses to incredible distance; on the 15th a shot came even into the point below the cross, which was bent on one side, and had its threatened fall only prevented by the iron bars of the lightning conductor which held it.
After the entrance of the Germans into the reconquered town, the difficult and dangerous work of restoration of the point of the spire was begun at once and happily ended a few months after. They have now obliterated all traces of the ruin and devastation of that dreadful time.
ROYALTY.
This is war, and what was this war all about? Why, Louis Napoleon, who stole France and kept the French enslaved by amusing one-half of them that he might rob the other half, had to appeal to French patriotism and plunge France into a war to cover his Imperial thefts. On the other hand, the Kaiser William, and the iron-handed Bismarck, who had been grinding the people of Germany for years to prepare for war, were not slow to accept the challenge. What they wanted was to have more territory to plunder. There was no bad blood between the French and German people; it was the self-constituted rulers of the two peoples, who, for their own glory, set them to butchering each other. And so at it they went.
These kings and emperors respect neither God nor man, and so they sent their bombs hurtling through this wonderful temple dedicated to God.
Nothing to the gunners inspired by royalty was the delicate tracery, the genius-inspired proportions, the almost breathing statues, the wonderfully beautiful spire, that crystallized dream; nothing to them the magnificent organ, attuned to the sweetest worship of the Most High, nothing the recollections of the centuries that clustered about it, nothing the art treasures it held. It was Strasburg, and Strasburg must fall.