Thursday, August 1.--Said mass at the Redemptorists. Le Père Van Held invited us all to breakfast, i.e., the Christies {295} and the priests, our new friends. I met there the Bishop's secretary, who gave me a letter to the Governor of Liege, Baron Van der Stein, who, happily, was come this morning into town, and gave me my passport. I then went on with my _vigilante_ to see the Miss Nicholls, who have been living two years at the Benedictine convent, Quai d'Avroy. I met them last at Boulogne, in 1838. They promised to be busy in getting prayers. I then visited the Jesuits' College, and Abbé Marsomme. Dined at 1 at the _table d'hôte_ with the Christies, whom Père Van Held had sent about sight-seeing with one of his priests. At 2.45 we took the convoy to Cologne, which we reached duly at 9¼, and went to the Hôtel du Douane, Gasthof zum Kölner Dom, close to the cathedral; we took a walk round the cathedral by moonlight after supper. Friday, August 2.--I went to say mass in the cathedral, which we then looked round. It gives a melancholy spectacle of what miserable times have been gone through while it remained thus unfinished so long; but it is a consolation to see the glorious restoration now going on. The most beautiful points of the decoration of the choir are the fresco paintings above the pillars, and the rich gilded diapering on the lower part of them round the choir, in which one column alone is finished; and beautiful figures under canopies on each column, half-way to the top. The building is surrounded with great masses of stones for the completing of it. It is expected that it will be finished, fit for consecration, in four years, but not quite complete till twenty years hence, please God, if we have peace. After breakfast we went to call on Professor Michel, at the Seminary. He could not come with us. We saw the Jesuits' church, and returned to assist at part of a requiem mass at the cathedral, the anniversary of the Archbishop Ferdinand. I spoke to the Vicar-General about England, then went home, wrote to M. Malou, dined alone; and at 1 set off by a steamboat on the Rhine for Koenigswinter, parting from the Christies in the boat. I had nothing very remarkable in the passage; reached Koenigswinter at 5. I took up my lodgings at the Hôtel de Berlin, where the Phillippses had been for twelve days. {296} They came in from a ride in the mountains about 6, and we went to tea with Count and Countess Kurtzrock. He is Mrs. Ambrose's second cousin. Their daughter Marie and her governess gave us music.