Certain restaurants preserve what they call the _traditions de la
cuisine francaise_, and in the municipal theatre a company of French
players come from Nancy three times a week in the winter season.

Metz, one of the three ancient bishoprics of imperial Lorraine, now
forms a part of Elsass-Lothringen, where the German Emperor reigns as
emperor and not merely as King of Prussia.

The churches of Metz show very little of Romanesque influences, though
it is indeed strong in churches dating from the thirteenth century
onward. Early Gothic in nearly every shade of excellence is to be found
in the churches of Metz, from the cathedral church of St. Stephen
downwards, and, because of this, it is the Continental city where the
development of the style can be most thoroughly studied and appreciated.

In many cases there are only fragments, at least, that which is to be
admired is more or less fragmentary; but, in spite of that, they are
none the less precious and valuable as a record.

Besides its churches, Metz has, in its ancient donjon or castle-keep, a
singularly impressive monument of its past greatness, which stands in
the _Geisbergstrasse_, or the _Rue de Chevremont_, as the street is
called by the French, for Metz, like Strasburg and the other cities and
towns of poor rent Alsace and Lorraine, is even yet a muddle of French
and German proper names.

This great pile was doubtless the former royal shelter of Theodoric and
others of his line.

To-day Metz is mostly a city of strategic fortifications; but this is
but one aspect, and the seat of the renowned bishopric of Lorraine has
in its cathedral church an ecclesiastical monument of almost supreme
rank.

St. Stephen's Cathedral is a vast structure of quaint and almost
grotesque outline, when seen from across the Moselle. Its chief
distinction, at first glance, is its height, which seems to dwarf all
its other proportions; but in reality it is attenuated in none of its
dimensions, and its clerestory is hugely impressive, where one so often
finds this feature a mere range of shallow windows.

Among the great churches of Northern Europe, the cathedral of St.
Stephen stands third, it being surpassed only by the cathedrals of
Beauvais and Cologne.

This fact is frequently overlooked, and ordinarily Metz would be classed
with that secondary group which includes Reims, Bourges, and Narbonne;
but so accurate an authority as Professor Freeman vouches for the
statement.