Among the treasures of the cathedral is a splendid ostensorium, one of the finest in the world, presented by some sovereign; another, not so handsome, sent by Pius IX.; and the cross and ring, given to the present archbishop by Kaiser William; both are of diamonds and emeralds, the ring, an immense emerald, surrounded by four circles of diamonds. The man who showed the church prided himself upon his English; would call the archbishops architects: “This is the statue of Engelbert, the first architect from Cologne.” And when we innocently inquired if the architects wore mitres and copes, he impressively repeated his remark; so we are still in doubt whether the archbishops built the cathedral or the architects dressed like bishops!
Wandering one day through the aisles of the cathedral, we paused for a while to gaze upon something beautiful that attracted our attention. It was behind the high altar; we were standing between it and the Chapel of the Magi, when, by chance, we looked down, and on the slab at our feet we saw in large letters, “Marie de' Medici”—no date, no epitaph. So much for human greatness! Under that stone, trodden daily by hundreds, was the heart of Marie de' Medici, one of the powerful family that gave to the church Leo X. and Clement VII., the descendant of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the widow of Henri Quatre, the mother of Louis XIII., the ex-Regent of France. Banished from France, the inexorable hostility of Richelieu pursued her wherever she sought refuge. No crowned head dared shelter her.
One heart was true, one man was found who remembered in her adversity that she had favored him in the days of her prosperity. When, in the zenith of her power, she built the Luxembourg, she sent for Rubens to adorn it with the creations of his genius; she loaded him with favors, sent him on diplomatic missions to restore peace between Philip IV. of Spain and Charles I. of England. Both monarchs responded to her wishes, showered honors upon the artist-diplomat, and Charles I. knighted him, and then presented him with the sword which had been used for the ceremony.
Genius is a power. Richelieu could command kings on their thrones, and the refugee queen was abandoned by all—by those who should have been bound to her by the ties of kindred, of position, by the claims of misfortune. England, Spain, Holland, refused her entrance; only in the free city of Cologne could she find sanctuary, and that sanctuary was the house of the noble, chivalric artist, Pierre Paul Rubens, whose brave heart quailed not before the wrath of the most powerful man of his age.
With loving care and respect he watched over her, soothed her in her dying agony, and held her in his arms when she breathed her last sigh. The house of Rubens still remains, and the room in which Marie de' Medici died is preserved with the greatest care. When we visited it, we felt as though we were treading on holy ground, as in a shrine made [pg 620] sacred by a noble deed; for what more royal, more heroic, more Christian, than the brave, grateful heart that dared power to shelter misfortune?
Meanwhile that Marie de' Medici lived and died in poverty in Cologne, Richelieu was at the apogee of his glory. King, nobles, courts, cowered beneath his glance. The conspiracy of Cinq-Mars was quelled; his head had paid the penalty of his youthful folly. Richelieu, satisfied and avenged, left Lyons for Paris, carried on the shoulders of his attendants in a kind of furnished room, for which the gates of the cities through which he passed were demolished if they were too narrow to admit it. But the triumph was short-lived. A few months after the death of Marie de' Medici, her relentless persecutor followed her to the tomb, and her poor wearied body was removed to France and buried in S. Denis; but the heart was left in the Cathedral of Cologne—a mausoleum sufficiently splendid for any mortal dust.
Soon after leaving the house of Rubens, we came to another famous in Cologne; a large building, where, from one of the windows of the third story, two stone horses were contemplating the busy scene in the Neumarkt below; and then we heard the legend of the horses. Once upon a time this house was the residence of the wealthy family d'Andocht. Richmodis, the wife of Herr Mengis d'Andocht, died during the plague of 1357, and was buried with great pomp in the Church of the Apostles on the Neumarkt.
Her dressing attracted the notice of the sexton. He fancied he would like to have some of the gold and silver adornments; so the night after she was put into the vault he descended into it, opened the coffin, and took off some of the jewels. One of the rings would not move. To make the task easier, he cut her finger; she was only in a trance, and this summary process restored her; she sat up; the man rushed off affrighted. She managed to get out of the coffin. In his haste he had left his lantern behind; with it she made her way out of the church, and reached her home near by.
She knocked at the door; a servant opened it, and scampered off half dead with terror. She went to her husband's room. He thought she was a ghost or devil; she told him she was his wife, as surely as that their horses would come up-stairs and jump out of the window. As she spoke, the horses galloped up-stairs, threw themselves out of the window; whereupon the husband acknowledged her to be his veritable wife. She soon recovered her health, lived for many years, and, to commemorate the wonderful event, the husband had the two horses done in stone and put in their respective panes of glass, where they have ever since remained, looking out of the window.
Now the house is a hospital, and we hope the patients are as much amused as we were at the effigies of the two well-bred, obedient horses, who were as good at vouching for identity as Dame Crump's little dog. In the Church of the Apostles, a faded Lent hanging is still preserved that was presented by Richmodis in gratitude for her wonderful deliverance from a living death.