The interior of St. Stephen's presents an equally marked effect of height and brilliancy,[{123}] with perhaps an exaggeration of the ample clerestory at the expense of the triforium.
There is a remarkable symmetry in the nave and its aisles; and its strong columns, with their shafting rising to the roof groins, show a method of construction so daring that modern builders certainly would not care to copy it.
The glass of the great clerestory windows in the choir dates only from the sixteenth century, and was designed by one Bousch of Strasburg.
The windows of the north and south transepts are exceedingly brilliant specimens of the mediæval glass-workers' art. There are some fragmentary remains, in the clerestory of the nave, of glass of a much earlier period than that in the choir, possibly contemporary with the fabric itself (thirteenth century). If this is so, it is of the utmost value, worthy to be admired with the gold and jewelled treasures of the cathedral's sacristy.
In the sacristy there used to be the ring of Arnulphe and the mantle of Charles the Great, but doubts have been cast upon the latter, and the former has disappeared.
There is, somewhere about the precincts of[{124}] the cathedral, a weird effigy of a monster known as the Grauly, which, like the Tarasque at Tarascon and the dragon of St. Bertrand de Comminges, is a made-up, theatrical property which even in its symbolism is ludicrous in its false sentiment.
Besides Metz's cathedral, there is the church of St. Vincent on an island in the river, which lacks orientation and faces almost due south. It is as distinctly a German type of church as the cathedral is French; but this is more as regards its outline than anything else, for its Gothic is very, very good. Its interior is dignified, but graceful, though it lacks a triforium.
St. Martin's is a smaller church, but is contemporary with St. Stephen's and St. Vincent's (thirteenth century).
St. Maximin's is a still smaller edifice, and would be called Romanesque if German did not suit it better. It resembles somewhat the parish churches seen in the country-side in England, and is in no way remarkable or highly interesting, if we except the tall central tower.
St. Eucharius's and St. Sagelone's complete the list of the unattached churches of Metz;[{125}] St. Clement's being but an attribute of the Jesuit college.