What is more familiar than the name of Cologne? What is more delicious than the perfume of the veritable Jean Maria Farina? What is more delightful than the receipt of a box, with the stereotyped picture on the cover of the Rhine lazily flowing under the bridges, of the cathedral looming up to the sky, of the houses clustering around it as though for protection?

No one need be ashamed to avow his or her love of it; it is acknowledged to be indispensable. Bishop or priest, sage or philosopher, can use it without being thought undignified. Imagine a pope, or cardinal, or bishop, or priest, or senator, or judge scented with “Mille Fleurs,” or “Jockey Club,” or “Bouquet de Nilsson”! The bare thought is revolting! To be sure, for some years, “Bouquet d'Afrique” has been the fashion among the “potent, grave, and reverend seigniors” at Washington who make our laws and amuse themselves by adding “Fifteenth Amendments” to the highly respectable and ever-to-be-respected Constitution of the United States.

But that will pass away with Time, the healer and destroyer; the reconstructionist will make all right; the “Fifteenth” will be amended with the “Sixteenth”; and, with the sway of lovely woman, Cologne, without which no well-bred, well-dressed woman's toilette is complete, will resume its reign over heads and hearts; and “Bouquet d'Afrique” will perhaps return to the hot and happy home where the indefatigable Stanley recently discovered the wandering, long-sought Livingstone—who did not care to be found, as he certainly appeared perfectly content among dusky dark-browed brothers and sisters, hunting lions and tigers, and imagining each little rivulet and lake the source of the Nile, or Congo, or Niger, or any other meandering [pg 616] river taking its rise in the great water-shed by the Mountains of the Moon.

If mothers are to be judged by the character of their sons, the mother of Nero, in whose honor Cologne was named, could not have been the mildest and gentlest of her sex. Says Lacordaire, “The education of the child is commenced in the womb of the mother, continued on her breast, completed at her knees.” Sweet must have been the reveries, refreshing the instructions, edifying the conduct of Julia Agrippina, who brought into the world the finished despot that drenched the soil of Rome with the blood of the Christian martyrs, who persecuted unto death the heroes of the faith that now people heaven.

Cologne owes its origin to a Roman camp established by Marcus Agrippa. The Emperor Claudius, at the request of his wife, Julia Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus and mother of Nero, sent a colony of Roman veterans, a.d. 50, named the town after her Colonia Agrippina, and it then became the capital of the Province of Germania Secunda. Vitellius was here proclaimed Emperor of Rome, a.d. 69; Trajan here received from Nerva the summons to share his throne; the usurper Sylvanus was also proclaimed emperor here in 353; a few years later Cologne was taken by the Franks; Childeric made it his residence in 464; and Clovis was here proclaimed king in 508.

During the reign of Pepin, it was the capital of the kingdoms of Neustria and Austrasia. Bruno, Duke of Lorraine, was the first of its archbishops who exercised the temporal power, with which he was invested by his brother, Otho the Great. From that time the town increased rapidly in wealth and splendor, and shortly after became one of the principal emporiums of the Hanseatic League; the commerce of the East was here concentrated, and direct communication with Italy constantly kept up. In 1259, the town acquired the privilege by which all vessels were compelled to unload here and reship their cargoes in Cologne bottoms.

At this period it had a population of 150,000, and could furnish 30,000 fighting men in time of war. In the XIIIth century, there was a mutiny among the weavers; 17,000 looms were destroyed; the rebellious workmen were banished from the city; and that, together with the expulsion of the Jews in 1349, did great injury to the town, the number of whose inhabitants was reduced in 1790 to 42,000, of whom nearly one-third were paupers. Then came the devastating wars which succeeded the maelstrom of the French Revolution, when in the general upheaval empires and kingdoms disappeared, new political combinations were made which changed the map of Europe, and the Rhine became the frontier of the French Empire.

Cologne was nominally French, but the hearts of the people were German—as German as the most ardent worshipper of the “New God,” as Von Bolanden calls the new Empire, the child of Bismarck and Von Moltke. After Waterloo, the Holy Alliance made another partition of the kingdoms and peoples, and Cologne shook off the French yoke, and returned to her national ways and customs. One great cause of its decay had been the closing of the navigation of the Rhine, which restriction was removed in 1837, and, since then, trade has greatly revived, and the town been much improved.

Many of the old streets have been widened and paved, and a considerable [pg 617] portion of waste ground covered with new buildings. The opening of the railways to Paris, Antwerp, Ostend, Hamburg, and Berlin has greatly added to its commercial prosperity, and Cologne bids fair to resume its former position among the chief cities of Europe. Cologne was formerly called the “Holy Cologne,” and the “Rome of the North”—titles which she owed to the number of relics and churches she possessed.

At one time, the city contained 200 buildings devoted to religious uses. These gradually diminished, until in 1790 their number was reduced to 137. During the French Revolution, they were shamefully plundered, the convents suppressed, and their property confiscated; so that at present there are not more than twenty churches and seven or eight chapels; but many other ecclesiastical buildings still remain, used as warehouses and chapels.

Maria im Capitol, so named from its having been built on the site of the Roman capitol, stands on an eminence reached by a flight of steps. The Frankish kings had a palace close by, to which Plectruda, the wife of Pepin, retired in 696, having separated from her husband on account of his attachment to Alpais, the mother of Charles Martel. In 700, she pulled down the capitol, and erected a church on its site, to which she attached a chapter of canonesses. Until 1794, the senate and consuls repaired hither annually on S. John's day to assist at Mass, when the outgoing Burgomasters solemnly transferred the insignia of office to the newly elected, who were each presented with a bouquet of flowers by the abbess.

The convent no longer exists, but there is a large cloister of the XIth century at the west end of the church, which was restored a few years ago. In this church, there are mural paintings of the early Cologne school, representing the wise and foolish virgins, numberless saints, the raising of Lazarus, and the founders of the church with their children. As in duty bound, Plectruda is properly conspicuous; her effigy in basso-rilievo beneath the great east window is a very interesting work of the Xth century, and, on one of the towers, her sculptured figure appears between two angels, who are conducting her to her eternal home.

All the churches are more or less interesting, none more so than that of S. Gereon, founded in the IVth century. S. Gereon was the commander of a Roman legion, and he and his companions, 700 in number, were murdered by order of Diocletian upon the spot where the church was built by the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine.

The style is Byzantine, and very singular. The body of the church, preceded by a large portico, presents a vast decagonal shell, the pillars of whose internal angles are prolonged in ribs, which, centring in a summit, meet in one point and form a cupola, one of the latest examples known. A high wide flight of steps, rising opposite to the entrance, leads to an altar with an oblong choir behind it, from whence other steps again ascend to the sanctuary, a semicircular apse, belted, like the cupola, by an open gallery with small arches and pillars resting on a panelled balustrade.

The rotunda is surrounded by ten chapels, in which are the tombs of the martyrs. The walls are encrusted with their skulls, and, in the subterranean church, the pavement and walls are formed by the tomb-stones covering the holy dust. In the lower church is the tomb of S. Gereon, and in one of the chapels is a mosaic [pg 618] pavement laid in the time of the Empress Helena. Behind the stalls of the clergy are hangings of Gobelin tapestry, portraying the history of Joseph and his brethren.

The baptismal font of porphyry, immensely large, was a present from Charlemagne; and, as the lid is too ponderous for any one to lift, there is a little machine that takes it off when required. We remained a long while in this very delightful church, and, by the time we left, what with Helen and Constantine, Diocletian and Charlemagne, we felt quite like an animated verd-antique, so intensely Roman and Catholic had we become.

Afterwards we proceeded to S. Ursula's, where the cruel Roman emperor was exchanged for the barbarian Huns. S. Ursula's history was done in English by the old sexton, who finished every sentence by assuring us that S. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins met with their untimely fate from the barbarian Huns, who massacred them in cold blood. We made a stride of a few centuries, became Gothic, and extended our hatred to the barbarian Huns. As in S. Gereon, the bones of the martyrs are built in the walls for a space of two feet the whole extent.

In the Golden Chamber we saw the shrine of S. Ursula, the relics of S. Margaret, a thorn from the crown of Our Lord, and one of the vases used at the marriage feast of Cana, that witnessed the first miracle of the God-man. Link by link we were carried to the days when Our Lord was incarnate on the earth; we do not need such testimony to assure us of the truth of our holy faith, but, when we touch the vase that has been touched by Our Lord, our senses are awed by the thought of the God-like condescension of him who became man, who lived like us, who mingled in our joys and sorrows, that we might become greater than the angels.

The Cathedral of Cologne, the queen of pointed architecture, erected on the site of a church founded in 814 by Archbishop Hildebold, and more beautiful than even we could imagine it, familiar as we were with it by picture and description, was commenced in August, 1248, by Archbishop Conrad, of Hochstaden. The works were for some years pushed on with great activity under the direction of Master Gerard von Rile, a builder of whom nothing more is known than that he died before 1302.

In 1322, the choir was completed and consecrated; then the building went slowly on until 1357, when the works were discontinued for a long time. In 1796, the cathedral was converted by the French into a warehouse, and it had very nearly become a ruin in 1807, when the brothers Sulpice and Melchior BoisserÉe drew attention to it by their illustrated work on its history. In 1824, the work of restoration was commenced, but little progress was made until, in 1842, the idea of completing the cathedral was conceived, and an association was formed to collect subscriptions for this purpose; and now the entire edifice will soon be finished if the works are carried on as zealously as they have been of late.

The glorious roof, arching 150 feet in the air, is magnificent; every day new beauties are added; four hundred men are daily at work, the stones are all cut, and in ten years at least this triumph of genius will be ready to receive the homage of all true lovers of art. The shrine of the Three Kings is superb—gold adorned with precious stones. There are the heads of the three men who came in faith, and bowed in all their pride and majesty before the infant Jesus in the [pg 619] manger; their names, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, are encrusted in rubies above the crowns that encircle their brows. Their bodies were brought from S. Eustorgio, in Milan, by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, after the taking of that city, and presented by him to Archbishop Rainoldo, who deposited them in the ancient cathedral July 23, 1164; from whence they were removed into the present chapel in 1337.

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.

The Rathhaus or Town Hall is a curious building, erected at different periods; the Hansa-Saal is a fine room on the first floor, in which the meetings of that once powerful mercantile confederation were held; and at one end of it are nine statues holding escutcheons emblazoned with the arms of the Hanse Towns.

The MusÉe, a comparatively new [pg 621] creation, erected partly by the government, and partly by private subscription, contains many works of art. In the lower story are numerous Roman antiquities, found in or near Cologne; amongst them are busts of CÆsar, Germanicus, Agrippina, a statuette of Cleopatra, and a very fine head of Medusa, said to be larger and more beautiful than the Medusa Rondinini in the Glyptotheca at Munich. One gallery is filled with exquisite specimens of stained glass; the upper rooms are devoted to statuary and paintings, many of which are of the DÜsseldorf school.

We were particularly struck with one, the “Triumph of S. Michael over Lucifer.” S. Michael is radiant, his sword flaming; and Lucifer, who is sinking into darkness, is terrible. There he is—no horned demon, but the beautiful fallen archangel, majestic and powerful; profound despair and gloom on his noble features, as the darkness overshadows him, and hell opens to receive him.

The people of Cologne are gay and sociable; in the afternoons, the Zoological Gardens are filled with children and nurses admiring the giraffes, elephants, and every other kind of animal belonging to earth, air, or water. An immense lion was a particular object of interest, as he had distinguished himself the day before we had the pleasure of seeing him by devouring his keeper. The Flora or Winter Garden is charming—a crystal palace, filled with fragrant plants, green vines garlanding the sides and roof, fountains playing, beautiful music well rendered by a good orchestra, and hundreds of people drinking coffee and smoking, who don't bother themselves by receiving at home, but meet and gossip in the Flora, or the Opera House, to which they generally adjourn.

The Opera House is very pretty but miserably lighted, only two feeble gas-lights by the door. Prussian officers, however, abounded, and the glittering uniform shone in the clair-obscur like fire-flies in Florida on summer evenings. Perhaps it was to add to the effect of “La Dame Blanche,” which was the opera we chanced to hear, that we were kept in such gloomy darkness; but, as the music was well executed, the time passed pleasantly.

One extraordinary event must be chronicled—we did not buy one bottle of Cologne in Cologne; we left the city of Jean Maria Farina, and only saw the outside of his shop. What with Gothic churches and relics, Roman towers and antiquities, time flew, and we found ourselves also flying off from Cologne on an express train, without one drop of the veritable Eau-de-Cologne in our possession. Mirabile dictu!