St. Eucharius's stands near what we would call the German Gate,—locally known as Deutsches Thor, or the Porte des Allemands,—a mediæval gateway built into, or built around, rather, by the modern fortifications with which the city is protected.
The church is most lofty for its size. Its pier arches are of great proportions, and its clerestory, like St. Stephen's itself, is of more than ordinarily ample dimensions. There is no triforium.
St. Sagelone's remains practically a pure Gothic example of its time, rather later than the rest of its kind in Metz. It has some fine coloured glass, in spite of the fact that its antiquity cannot be very great.
St. Clement's is a dependency of the Jesuit installation, which reflects more credit upon that order than has usually been accorded them in the arts of church-building.
It is a more or less incongruous combination of the Italian and Gothic styles, but blended with such a consummate skill that the effect can but be admired.
In form St. Clement's is frankly a Hallenkirche, with the three naves of equal height.[{126}] In general the nave is late Gothic, with the marked tracery of its time in its fenestration.
The capitals of the piers, supporting the arches between the nave and its aisles, are stately but heavy, according to Gothic standards, and appear misplaced, luxurious though they undeniably are. St. Clement's is supposed to resemble the variety of Gothic which has been employed in Sicily, where Gothic of the best was known, but was used in conjunction with other details, which really added nothing to its value or beauty as a distinct style.
One leaves Metz with the memory full of visions of many churches and much soldiery of the conventional German type.
There is plenty, in all of these towns, to remind one of both France and Germany. In the geography of other times, Metz was Lotharingian; but French was very early the language of the city, and its prelates and churchmen, when they did not use Latin, spoke only the French tongue, and fell under French influences. Therefore it was but natural that the type of Metz's principal church should have favoured the French style, even though it developed German tendencies.[{127}]