To-day Metz is mostly a city of strategic fortifications; but this is but one aspect, and the seat of the renowned bishopric of Lorraine has in its cathedral church an ecclesiastical monument of almost supreme rank.
St. Stephen's Cathedral is a vast structure of quaint and almost grotesque outline, when seen from across the Moselle. Its chief distinction, at first glance, is its height, which[{121}] seems to dwarf all its other proportions; but in reality it is attenuated in none of its dimensions, and its clerestory is hugely impressive, where one so often finds this feature a mere range of shallow windows.
Among the great churches of Northern Europe, the cathedral of St. Stephen stands third, it being surpassed only by the cathedrals of Beauvais and Cologne.
This fact is frequently overlooked, and ordinarily Metz would be classed with that secondary group which includes Reims, Bourges, and Narbonne; but so accurate an authority as Professor Freeman vouches for the statement.
The clerestory, of a prodigious height, is borne aloft by a series of rather squat-looking pillars, but again figures demonstrate that the cathedral at Metz is truly one of the wonders of its kind.
There is a north tower which is, or was, a part of the civic establishment as well, in that it contained an alarm-bell, similar to those employed in the Netherlands, known as La Mutte. Twin towerlets straddle the nave of the cathedral in a quite unexplainable manner.
Altogether the building has a most remarkable[{122}] and not wholly beautiful sky-line, to which one must become accustomed before it is wholly loved.
Decidedly the least likable portion of the exterior of St. Stephen's is the west front, which is decidedly incongruous, whereas in most places it is the west front that shines and is truly brilliant. Certainly, in this respect Metz does not follow that French tradition which, in its Gothic churches, it otherwise obeys.
St. Stephen's really rises to almost a supreme height. It has been said to exceed that of Amiens and Beauvais, but this is manifestly not so, for, if the figures are correct, it is some seven feet lower than Amiens and twenty lower than Beauvais. Still, it rises to a daring height, and its "walls of glass," with their enormously tall clerestory windows, only accentuate its airiness and grace.
This last quality is remarkable in Gothic architecture of so early a period, the thirteenth century. At St. Ouen at Rouen, to which its openness may be compared, and perhaps to Gloucester in England, the work is of a much later date.