Felix von Hartmann, Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne, is dead. For a week he has lain in state in the crypt of the Gereonskirche, watched by day and by night by monks and nuns who pray unceasingly for the repose of his soul. Round the bier ablaze with candles pours a steady stream of spectators and mourners. The faithful have come in their thousands to bid farewell to the chief shepherd of the flock. For the Archbishop of Cologne is the greatest ecclesiastical dignitary in Germany. Cologne is the premier See, and in old days the rank of its Archbishop stood second only to that of the Emperor; Cardinal von Hartmann’s death must have stirred some painful memories in the breast of the Amerongen exile. Emperor and Cardinal, despite their differences of faith, were firm friends. Felix von Hartmann was a Prussian of the Prussians, and united by many personal ties to the Kaiser. Even in death the face had lost nothing of its pride and haughtiness. He looked every inch of a Prince of the Church and a ruler of men as he lay at the last on his bier. The gorgeous vestments, the pastoral staff, the great ring worn on the red gloves covering the nerveless hands: all this was impressive and dignified. But it was not a countenance even in the great calm of death which bore much trace of the milder Christian virtues. Cardinal von Hartmann took a violently pro-national line about the war. Race hatreds and animosities were fanned, not discouraged by him. His correspondence with Cardinal Mercier shows how perfunctory were his efforts as regards any alleviation of the lot of prisoners or the civilian victims of the struggle. Bitterly anti-English, the proud Prussian Cardinal must have suffered a full measure of humiliation when he lived to see his cathedral city in British Occupation. Some Tommies unacquainted with Catholic ritual, who saw him in the street one day wearing a mitre and greeted him as Father Christmas, roused his special ire. A man of war rather than a man of peace, the British authorities were under no obligations to him as regards any assistance with their task. Now he lies dead it falls to their lot, by an irony specially cruel in the Archbishop’s case, to keep order at his funeral.