BOOK supplies many parts of France with excellent cheese; CXLVI. leaving it on the right, we may proceed to Dieppe, Department of Somme. a well-built city, in which there are six squares and not fewer than sixty-eight fountains, fed by a brick aqueduct more than a league in length. The harbour is safe and commodious, but the entrance is narrow; although the inhabitants clean it at regular intervals by opening the sluices of a basin which was built for the purpose, it is often encumbered with the gravel that the sea accumulates. The battle of Arques, in which Henry the Fourth defeated the duke of Mayenne was fought in the neighbourhood. The navigators that discovered Canada, and the first Frenchmen that founded commercial stations on the coasts of Africa, set sail from Dieppe. The department of lower Seine is one of the most commercial in France; the products of the fisheries are equivalent to five millions of franks or to more than L.208,300; the value of the cotton manufactures amounts to thirty-five millions or nearly L,1,500,000; all the other manufactures have been estimated at seventy millions or L.3,125,000.* As a proof that agriculture is in a very improved state, it may be mentioned that not more than a sixteenth part of all the arable land remains fallow. The chalky plains watered by the Somme and its feeders are covered with fruitful lands; corn, lint and hemp are cultivated, the inhabitants rear a great many cattle and sheep, a branch of industry that is neglected in many parts of France. The country, it must be admitted, is almost destitute of wood, but the vallies abound in peats, which make up in some measure for the deficiency of other combustibles. The small harbour of Saint Valery is situated at the mouth of the Somme; three or four hundred vessels enter it every year; it was there that William departed to conquer England with a fleet of eleven hundred sail, and a Abbeville. hundred thousand men. Abbeville rises on the same river about four leagues above Saint Valery; it is a strong town of the fourth class, it was fortified for the first time by Charlemagne. The houses are built of brick, but there are several fine old buildings, among others the church of See the Annuaire Statistique de la Seine Inferiure. Saint Vulfran, a Gothic edifice. The inhabitants boast of the poet Millevie, their townsman; some of them too have not forgotten that the chevalier de la Barre, a youth not more than fifteen years of age, was condemned at Abbeville to be beheaded, to have his right hand amputated, and his tongue torn from his body, because he sung licentious verses and remained uncovered during a religious procession. BOOK CXLVI. Amiens is situated at the distance of nine leagues above Amiens. Abbeville; it bore in ancient times the name of Samarobriva, which signifies a bridge on the Somme. It was the capital of the Ambiani, and one of the places in Gaul, in which good weapons were made. It was the principal city in the kingdom of the Franks under Clodion; it is at present a strong town of the third class; it carries on a considerable trade, the manufactures are linens, cottons and velvet. The cathedral is considered a model of Gothic architecture, and the public library is not inferior to the one at Rouen. Amiens has produced many great men, perhaps the most remarkable are Peter the Hermit, who persuaded the faithful to undertake the first crusade, the marshal d'Estrées, Voiture, Ducange, Gresset and the astronomer Delambre. It was united to France in the reign of Lewis the Eleventh, but the Spaniards gained it by stratagem in the time of Henry the Fourth. Some soldiers, clad as peasants, conducted a cart loaded with straw and nuts, as soon as they entered the town, the cart was purposely upset; while the burgesses were gathering the nuts, the disguised soldiers put them to death, and delivered Amiens to their companions without the gates. It is not in such a way that strong places are now taken, but six months had hardly elapsed before it was again in the possession of the French. The people of Peronne boast that Peronne. their town was never conquered; they repelled in 1563 a numerous and warlike army under the command of Henry of Nassau. The ramparts are now planted with trees, or changed into walks which the Somme serves to adorn. Montdidier is built on the summit of a hill above the Montsmall river Don; it need not be mentioned because it was didier. the residence of French kings during the twelfth century, BOOK CXLVI. Depart- Montreuil. but because it is the capital of a subprefecture, and the birthplace of Parmentier. Doulens on the left bank of the Authie, is not a place of greater importance; it carries on, however, a considerable trade in the coarse linens, that are manufactured in the district. A double citadel adds greatly to its strength; it possesses a large cotton manufactory and several oil mills. Boulonnais, Artois and part of Picardy make up the department which derives its name from the narrow branch of the sea that separates England and France. The soil is divided by a chain of hills into two regions, the southern and the northern. The first intersected by small vallies, slopes gently towards the banks of the Authie or the boundary between Pas de Calais and the department of Somme; the second inclines more perceptibly towards the north. Both regions are productive, the shores of the sea are covered with sandy hills or downs on which agriculture is making new conquests. Montreuil stands on a hill above the banks of the Canche; it was founded in the ninth century by the first count of Ponthieu; the houses are built of brick, and the town is defended by a citadel and ramparts. Hesdin is situated on the same river above Montreuil, it contains about four thousand inhabitants, it is encompassed with walls and ditches. But Boulogne must be considered a place of greater importance than either of the two last; it is also more ancient, arms and other articles evidently of Roman origin were discovered at so late a period as 1823. It was the Celtic Gesoriacum, a seaport of the Morini, whom Virgil calls the most remote inhabitants of the earth. Extremique hominum Morini, Rhenusque bicornis.* It was from the same harbour that the Roman fleets set sail to Great Britain; Constantine gave it at a later period the name of Bolonia, but the sea rose then to the highest part of the town, and rings to which the ancients used to attach their vessels, have been at different times discovered; the antiquity of the same quarter is attested by narrow, crooked and irregular streets; Virgil, Eneid. Lib. VIII. V. 727. BOOK the low town, on the contrary, is built with great regularity, it was originally a small suburb. Although the harbour CXLVI. was enlarged by Napoleon, it is still difficult of access; vessels are embedded in ooze during the reflux of the tide, they are lifted by the flux which raises the waters to the height of fourteen feet. While Napoleon menaced England with an invasion, the army assembled on the coast, resolved to erect a marble monument to their chief; but it was not finished until the restoration, and the purpose for which it was intended, was of course changed, it now records the arrival of the Bourbons in France. Calais at the northern extremity of the department, pos- Calais, sesses several advantages, it is a strong town of the first class, it has a convenient, although a small and shallow port, it is encompassed with ramparts that form agreeable wal the houses and streets are regular and well built. It may be remarked, on the other hand, that sand is constantly accumulating in the harbour, and the inhabitants have no other water than what is collected in cisterns. A tower of finished architecture serves as a belfry, is rises on the Place d'Armes near the large town-house. A column was erected on the port to commemorate the arrival of Lewis the Eighteenth in 1814. The coasts of England are seen from the pier, nay, it is said that Dover castle is also visible in clear weather. Calais, now so much frequented by strangers, and peopled by nine thousand individuals, was only a village in the thirteenth century, but it was so well fortified by Philip of France, count of Boulogne, that Edward the Third of England besieged it during thirteen months; the inhabitants did not capitulate until they were compelled to do so by famine, it was then that the six persons whose names history has recorded, presented themselves before an exasperated victor. A marshy country extends on the south of Calais to Guines, Guines, formerly a fortified city, and to the small town of Ardres, now watered by a canal to which it has given its name. It was in the same country that Francis the First and Henry the Eighth agreed to hold an interview in the year 1520, and the place where they met was decorated with so much magnificence that it still retains the name of the BOOK CXLVI. Arras. Depart ment of Nord. Champ du Drap d'Or.* The marshes of Aa near Saint Omer enclose several small islands, the town is fortified and well built; it dates from the seventh century, it was the birthplace of Suger, abbot of Saint Denis, and minister to Lewis the Young. The neat and strong city of Aire about four leagues from Saint Omer, contains nine thousand inhabitants, it counts Malebranche in the number of its townsmen. Bethune is built on a rock, and the fortifications that defend it, were planned by Vauban. The small town of Lens may recal the victory of Condé, a victory that put an end in 1648 to the war between France and Austria. Saint Pol is visited for its mineral waters; it is the capital of a district. Arras, a strong town of the third class, rises on a plain surrounded by hills, and watered by the Scarpe and the Crinchon; it is divided into four parts, the high and low town, the city and the citadel. Houses built of freestone, squares or courts encompassed with arcades, a Gothic cathedral remarkable for its bold architecture, a large townhouse in the same style, and spacious barracks render it one of the fine towns in France. Although not a place of great trade, it possesses some cotton and lace manufactories, beetroot sugar works and about twenty oil mills. It contains also a public library of thirty-four thousand volumes, a collection of paintings and antiquities, a botanical garden and two literary societies. It has given birth to several great and infamous men; in the one class may be mentioned Baudouin the historian, Lecluse the physician, and Palissot the botanist; in the other, Damien the fanatic, the two Robespierres and Joseph Lebon. Arras stands on the site of Nemetacum or Nemetocena, the capital of the Atrebantes; as it was taken by Cæsar, it must have been founded at least fifty years before the Christian era. If the department in which the capital is situated be excepted, no other is so wealthy or so populous as the department of Nord; were the population diffused throughout the whole kingdom in the same ratio, France might contain more than 85,000,000 of inhabitants. The same *The Field of the Cloth of Gold, |