saw some abortive efforts toward completing the
structure, but in the end all came to nought.

In the eighteenth century the choir received its baptism of the
Renaissance, and certain incongruous Italian details were added. The
stone screens which surrounded the choir proper were demolished and the
painted glass of the triforium mysteriously disappeared.

During the French Revolution, Republican troops bivouacked within the
walls of Cologne's cathedral, and the chapter fled to Westphalia,
leaving behind valuable archives which were destroyed.

The very fact of its profanation may have been the cause which hastened
the restoration of the edifice.

Napoleon himself was deeply moved by the state of the "_ruine
pittoresque_," and, upon the advice of an agent of his government, made
a somewhat fitful attempt toward putting it in order. Thus the impetus
for the work of restoration and completion was given.

After Napoleon had restored the churches of Cologne to their rightful
guardians, he transferred the archbishopric to Aix-la-Chapelle, and
Bertholet, the new bishop, contemptuously told the people of Cologne to
beautify their ruin by planting trees on its site.

The neglect to which the choir had fallen was shocking, and it took an
immediate expenditure on the part of the citizens of over thirty
thousand marks to merely repair the leaks in its roof. Tom Hood, a
supposed humourist, but in reality a sad soul, wailed over Cologne's
cathedral when he saw it in the early years of the nineteenth century,
and called it "a broken promise to God"; and Wordsworth wrote of it
thus:

"Oh! for the help of angels to complete
This temple--Angels governed by a plan
Thus far pursued (how gloriously!) by man."

A rearrangement of the Catholic sees of Germany took place in 1821, and
the archbishopric of Cologne was refounded and Count Charles Spiegel zum
Desenburg was appointed archbishop.

At this time, also, was undertaken the repair and completion of the
cathedral, and thus what had long been a ruin and an unfinished thing
was in a fair way to be speedily completed.

The rebuilding of the choir stimulated the desire to carry the entire
work to a finish, and a sort of second foundation-stone was laid by
Frederick William IV. of Prussia on September 4, 1842, when the newly
restored choir was also reopened.

[Illustration: Cologne Cathedral in 1820 From and old Print]

In 1848 the nave had sufficiently progressed to