is almost an effort to tear ourselves away, and to set out on what is to us a new route, by Luxemburg, Metz, and Strassburg, to Lucerne. A railway journey always affords a few matters for reflection and for observation. Our line of march, we soon learn to call it, begins near Waterloo, and passes through Lorraine and Alsace-we should say ElsassLothringen and so takes us from the fall of the First Napoleon to that of the Third and last. But the military spirit is somewhat toned down into a more poetic and fitting frame of mind, as we wind through the intricacies of the Forest of Arden (Ardennes), and think, and indeed almost expect to catch a glimpse of the rural court of the banished duke and the melancholy Jaques. But railways are little in harmony with the scenes Shakespeare painted, though the trees and the river can never lose the characteristics of those sylvan days; and indeed in this case the train glides through the forest and beside the beautiful river as though it were a respectful visitor to the place, without any assertion of that fierce mastery which tunnels its way remorselessly through crowning heights, and draws its hard, straight lines where nature lives in curves. We do not pause at Namur, for we are familiar with the beautiful scenery of the Meuse, which lies between that city and Liége, but we would recommend that pleasant voyage to any leisurely traveller, who will be well repaid for his deviation from the ordinary route. Onward is our march through constantly improving scenery, until we suddenly come upon Luxemburg, which is correctly enough described as being "wedged in between high escarped rocks," We know no place like Luxemburg, but are told it resembles Jerusalem in its position. The upper town stands high above the lower one, and indeed can only be reached from it on most sides by flights of stairs or streets formed in zigzags. It has one junction only with its surroundings, and so may be called a lofty peninsula ; elsewhere it rises precipitously some two hundred feet of rock, which has been worked into fortifications; thus it stood towering above the beautiful passes below, domineering not only over the dwellings at its foot, but over the few approaches which'nature and art have made. No wonder it was taken and retaken over and over again; no wonder that Spaniards, Austrians, French and Dutch strove for its possession, and strenghtened its fortifications while they held it, until in 1867 its destruction was decreed. It was dismantled, and now, like nature's work where man has

inflicted wounds, it is recovering itself as far as civilization. will allow. Its grim ramparts and gaunt cliffs are smiling into beautiful gardens and terraces, fine mansions are rising where stern fortifications once stood; railway and other bridges span the vallies which open in beautiful vistas around, and the fierce old fortress-city is rapidly changing its aspect, the fortress is fading away, and the city is expanding, as though stretching its limbs with a first consciousness of freedom. Arriving late in the evening, we were scarcely conscious of the peculiar and insulated position of the city, so when the next morning we strolled along its streets and market-place, it was quite a revelation to turn aside in almost any direction and find that every cross street led us to a precipice which commanded fine views over the distant country and a bird's-eye view over the suburbs immediately below.

There is not much to be seen in Luxemburg, at least in the way of regular sights; the position of the place is its. chief charm; but we must not forget the quaint old church of Our Lady, which has a kind of national interest for us, inasmuch as it contains the mausoleum of that blind King John of Behemia whose death at Crecy is such a lasting picture in our minds, and whose crest and motto (Ich dien) are so familiar as those of our own Princes of Wales. The mausoleum is in truth but a cenotaph; for the body of the old warrior had been six times removed before, at the French Revolution, it was put in a museum, where it remained until the King of Prussia, in 1838, built a chapel for its reception in that wild cliff which overhangs the Saar some three miles from Saarburg, and there rests, after so many and strange wanderings, the body of him who fell nearly five hundred years ago. But when the railway carried us by this, the last resting-place of the old King, we thought of what the Church of Our Lady at Luxemburg contained, and almost wished for another removal and its return to its first resting-place, the mausoleum in the old border fortress.

From Luxemburg it is but a pleasant excursion to Trier, and thither we betake ourselves; for it has many claims to attention. Trier we call it, for it is German, and Trèves should depart with the French, who have it not. Indeed, it is but a restoration of the old English name Triers, by which it is spoken of by writers like Alban Butler, of the last century.

It is a city of wonderful antiquity, and as an inscrip

VOL. VI.

3 G

tion on the front of the old Townhall, now the Red House Hotel (Das Rothe Haus) records: "Ante Romam Treviris stetit annis MCCC.," which refers to the les end that Treves was founded by Trebeta, the son of the Assyrian monarch Ninus. Be this as it may, we know that Julius Cæsar (B.C. 58), as he tells us, found it the flourishing capital of the Treviri, and was glad to form an alliance with its people. So we look for some sigus of high antiquity when, leaving the railway station, we enter the city by one of its suburbs. But when do suburbs bear witness to antiquity, for, almost of necessity, they are the newest of the new; and so it is that by pleasant paths and under shady trees we approach the Augusta Trerirorum, as the Emperor Augustus called it when he established a Roman colony here, and gave it the highest colonial privileges. On we stroll amid the surroundings of a railway approach, until we turn a corner into a main street we have just reached, and there, without a word or sign of warning, stauds before us the Black Gate, the Roman Porta Nigra, the German Schwarzes Thor. Roman it certainly is, and to our unaided judgment of vast antiquity, for it is cyclopean in the dimensions of the stones of which it is built, some eight or nine feet long, and these heaped together without cement of any kind, and held by metal clamps, which have been extracted, to the no small damage of the mutilated rocks, which yet stand firm in spite of rough treatment.

Some learned critics tell us the Black Gate is of the days of Constantine the Great, and so must have been built less than sixteen centuries ago. But there are others who contend for a greater antiquity, and say that it existed before the Romans came. So perhaps after all our first impression is correct. Yet, with Constantine, it is pleasant to connect it, for in the cathedral we have the memory of his mother, St. Helena, perpetuated, and if the son built the gate, it was to lead up to and protect the shrine which the mother built. These memories haunt us as we traverse the street that connects the two, and suggests other venerable names more or less connected with this ancient city. For here St. Jerome studied when he fled (A.D 370) from the still Pagan Rome-pagan that is in its life and traditions-and sought safety for study and meditation in this northern capital, which was, in truth, so much more Christian. Here, too, St. Ambrose was born (A.D. 340), and though he was removed while yet an infant, when his father, the illustrious soldier, received an Italian command, yet, some

how, it is pleasant to combine his name with that of the other great Father and Doctor of the Church, and to think in Triers of Constantine and St. Helena, and of these other two, the one baptised, and the other hearing Mass in the grand cathedral, which the first Christian Emperor enabled and assisted his English mother to raise. So Triers has its strong claim upon our reverence as Catholics, to say nothing of national feelings, which are not less gratified.

But, we must pause awhile at the Black Gate, Forum of the Belge as some call it, or City Gate of Constantine as others maintain; be it which it may, or as we venture to suggest, very probably both, which would only imply an adaptation of an old building to a new purpose; as in mediaval times it was still further developed into a Christian Church, and, almost in our own day, restored to its earlier use. These various transformations have made it the strange relic that it is a puzzle to antiquaries and a fruitful source of endless controversy.

Thus we have the double archway, piercing a central passage through a lofty building 115 feet broad and 29 feet deep, of two stories, terminating on the one hand in semi-circular apses, 75 feet high, while on theother it rises 93 feet high into another storey, which was added in the eleventh century, when Archbishop Poppo converted that end into a Christian Church, or rather into a pile of three churches, standing one above the other. So it is that the architectural design has thus been confused into confusion worse confounded. Yet is the general effect all the more striking, and though no part is of a light order, the venerable cyclopean work of the most ancient part maintains its dignity and supremacy, and in its partial mutilation, by which, as we have said, its massive stones have been torn from their almost seamless junctions, and lacerated for the metal which bound them together, it still stands strong in its ancient strength, with scars that show only the impotence of its foes, defying all assailants of every age, from the earliest to the latest which was, of course, the First Napoleon, who plundered it of what he could utilize, and cast its weighty leaden roof into bullets. Prussia has taken it in hand, and that implies a careful sweeping away of all extraneous adaptations, including, unfortunately, the Church which so long dwelt under its roof and purged it from its paganism, as well as a watchful guardianship of the grand old gate, which shows, at least, a reverence for antiquity.

But, it is time we leave the Black Gate and our speculations thereon, and betake ourselves to the grand Cathedral which S. Helena founded, and which is now under her invocation, combined with that of S. Peter, to whom she originally dedicated it. Of course it has grown from age to age in size and grandeur from the work of S. Helena in the fourth century, until its completion in the twelfth. At first, and, indeed, for seven hundred years, it was as S. Helena built it. There was the usual circular Baptistery, and near it, but not of it, the Basilica, in form that of the Roman Court of Justice, with open atrium leading into the nave, which terminated in a small semi-circular apse. Often were the Basilicas, the Roman Courts, converted without any alteration of their main features, into churches, and, still oftener were they the designs after which the churches were built. In the eleventh century, Archbishop Poppo, who Christianized the Black Gate by building his pyramid of churches therein, laid no irreverent hands upon the primitive cathedral, but adapted it to the wants and the tastes of his day. The open atrium was roofed in, the brick columns of the nave were coated with stone, the nave itself was enlarged, and in true German fashion, a second apse was erected, at the west end. Still more had to be done, and the requirements or devotional spirit of the twelfth century enlarged still further the nave, and built a grander apse at the east end, which, however, did not replace, but embraced in its larger dimensions, the original one of S. Helena,

In this same century the Baptistery was pulled down' and in its place was raised that glorious Liebfrauenkirche, which is allowed to be the first perfect specimen of earliest Gothic architecture, and is perhaps as beautiful as any that has succeeded it. So it is we have what seems a natural growth, and as such a great work, brought in time to maturity, with far more than usual of the original work retained, and thereby the traditions preserved and respected of those early days which, somehow, seem to advance in interest as they recede in time.

Within the High Altar, we are told, is walled up the Holy Coat, which some of us may remember being exhibited in 1844 to a million of pilgrims. Few events of a similar character have created so much excitement throughout Europe. The newspapers were full of it, and wonderful doctrines were broached by these self-constituted theologians, many weak minds were sorely exercised, and many pon