The choir is sixty-seven feet wide, without side aisles, and is much lower than the nave.  It is impossible to speak of this choir without indignation.  My good friend—­the whole of this interior has recently undergone rather a martyrdom than a metamorphosis.  The sides are almost entirely covered with Grecian pilasters and pillars; and so are the ornaments about the altar.  What adds to the wretched effect of the whole, is, a coat of white-wash, which was liberally bestowed upon it some forty years ago; and which will require at least the lapse of another century to subdue its staring effect.  There are only three chapels in this cathedral.  Of altars there are not fewer than twelve:  the principal being in the chapels of St. Lawrence and St. Catharine.

It was near the chapel of St. Catharine, that, on the morning of our first visit, we witnessed a group of country people, apparently from the neighbourhood of Saverne—­from their huge, broad, flat hats—­engaged in devotion before the image of some favourite saint.  The rays of a bright sun darted through the windows, softened by the varied tints of the stained glass, upon their singular countenances and costumes; and the effect was irresistibly striking and interesting.

In the centre of the south transept, there rises a fine, slender, clustered column, reaching to its very summit.  On the exterior of this column—­placed one above another, but retreating or advancing, or in full view, according to the position of the spectator—­are several figures, chiefly females; probably five feet high, with labels or scrolls, upon each of which is an inscription.  I never saw any thing more elegant and more striking of its kind.  These figures reach a great way up the pillar—­probably to the top—­ but at this moment I cannot say decidedly.  It is here, too, that the famous Strasbourg Clock, (about which one Dasypodius hath published a Latin treatise in a slim quarto volume[211]) is placed.  This, and the tower, were called the two great wonders of Germany.  This clock may be described in few words:  premising, that it was preceded by a clock of very extraordinary workmanship, fabricated in the middle of the fourteenth century—­of which, the only existing portion is, a cock, upon the top of the left perpendicular ornament, which, upon the hourly chiming of the bells, used to flap his wings, stretch out his neck, and crow twice; but being struck by lightning in the year 1640, it lost its power of action and of sending forth sound.  No modern skill has been able to make this cock crow, or to shake his wings again.  The clock however is now wholly out of order, and should be placed elsewhere.  It is very lofty; perhaps twenty feet high:  is divided into three parts, of which the central part represents Our Saviour and Death, in the middle, each in the act as if to strike a bell.  When, in complete order, Death used to come forward to strike the quarters; and, having struck them, was instantly repelled by our Saviour.  When he came forward to strike the hour, our Saviour in turn retreated:—­ a whimsical and not very comprehensible arrangement.  But old clocks used to be full of these conceits.