[Illustration: 0039]
The old town was old, very old. There were of course some modern looking
white houses of stucco in which we were told some rich people live, and
there were large blank walled factories with tall chimneys, from which
heavy black smoke poured the livelong day. There were plate glass
windows here and there, too, in some of the shops, with _articles de
Paris_ exposed for sale, and there were occasionally smooth pavements
to be found, but mainly there were quaint old corners, high old yellow
fronted, narrow windowed houses, and old, old men and older women
passing to and fro in the narrow by streets.
In one corner of the market place sat an ancient dame in a wonderful lace
cap, who presided over a huge pile of pale green earthenware pots of
various sizes and fine shapes, who all unconsciously made for me a
picture in sunlight and shadow; brown wrinkled hands busy with knitting;
brown wrinkled face and bright shrewd greeny blue eyes, twinkling below
the flaps of her lace cap; all against a worn, old, rusty-hinged green
door! I could not resist the opportunity. So in a convenient doorway I
paused to make a note of it without attracting much attention from the
passers-by.
Entering the wide "place" (there were two of these) one was confronted
by an astonishing vista of quaintly gabled Flemish houses on either
hand, all built mainly after one model but presenting some variations of
minor detail. These led to the Hotel de Ville. The houses were furnished
with arcades below supported by monolithic sandstone columns. The Hotel
de Ville, built in the sixteenth century (not a vestige of which remains
at this writing, April, 1917), was one of the most ornate in France. Its
fine Gothic façade rose upon seven quaintly different arcades, in the
elaborate Renaissance style, pierced by ornate windows with Gothic
tracery in the best of taste and workmanship. Overhead rose the graceful
Belfry, terminating in a gilded ducal crown at the height of some two
hundred and fifty feet. The weekly market fair was in full progress,
and the old Grand' Place was swarming with carts, animals, booths, and
chattering peasants. Before the Revolution, the Chapelle des Ardents
and the spire of La Sainte-Chapelle on the Petit' Place commemorated the
deliverance of Arras in the twelfth century from the plague called the
"_mal des ardents_," when the Virgin is believed to have given a candle
to two fiddlers, declaring that "water into which a drop of its holy wax
had fallen would save all who drank it." *
Behind the dominating tower of the Hotel de Ville was the modern
Cathedral, formerly the abbey church of St. Vaast, with an unfinished
tower of 1735.
We found in the Chapel of the Virgin the tomb of Cardinal de la Tour
d' Auvergne-Lauraguais, and the twelfth century tombs of an abbot, of
Philippe de Torcy, a governor of Arras, and his wife. The treasury is
said to have contained the blood-stained "_rochet_" worn by Thomas à
Becket when he was murdered, but the sacristan refused to show it unless
he was first paid a fee of two francs, which we thought exorbitant.
* Hare's "Northeastern France."
Arras was the capital of the Gallic tribe "Atrebates," and even in the
dim fourth century was famous for the manufacture of woolen cloth, dyed
with the madder which grows luxuriously in the neighborhood. The wearing
of tapestry hangings gave Arras a high reputation, and examples are
preserved in the museums of France and England, where the name of the
town is used to identify them. The art has long since ceased to exist,
needless to say.
Briefly, the town followed the fortunes of the Pays d' Artois, of which
it was the capital, passing by marriage from the house of France to
Burgundy, Flanders, Burgundy again, Germany and Spain. After the battle
of Agincourt, the English and French signed the treaty of peace at
Arras. The town was finally incorporated with France in 1640.
According to legend one of the ancient gates, of which no trace now
remains, bore the proud distich=
```"Quand les souris prendront les chats,
```Le roi sera seigneur d'Arras."=
which is said to have so enraged Louis of France that he expelled the
whole population, abolishing even the name of Arras, which he changed to
that of Franchise.
Here was born the great Robespierre, but we were unable to find the
house, or even the street in which it was situated, nor could any of the
ecclesiastics to whom we applied for information enlighten us in regard
to the matter.
The Cathedral, a romanesque structure, at an angle of the abbey
buildings, and approached by high stone steps broken by a platform, was
built in 1755. Perhaps if we had not seen it after having feasted our
eyes upon the exquisite details of the Hotel de Ville, it might have
seemed more impressive and interesting. It contained some good pictures,
including a "Descent from the Cross," and "The Entombment," attributed
to Rubens and Van Dyck respectively.
The high altar enshrined a notable bas-relief in gilt bronze. The
Abbatial buildings were occupied by the 'Evéche, Seminary, Library, and
the Musée, the latter containing a lot of modern paintings, badly hung,
and seemingly indifferent in quality.
In the cloisters, however, were rooms containing an archaeological
collection of sculptures and architectural fragments, and a small
collection of Flemish pictures by "Velvet" Breughel, Heemskerk, N. Maes
and others, and upstairs, a fine model of an antique ship, "offered"
by the States of Artois to the American Colonies in the War of
Independence. One wonders why it was never sent.
At the end of a quiet street which crossed the busy and crowded Rue St.
Aubert, we came upon the remains of a remarkable old town gate, and
the remains, too, of the ancient fortified walls, and farther on, the
dismantled citadel constructed by the great Vauban in 1670, and called
"La Belle Inutile." Here in this region, called the "cockpit of Europe,"
for ages incessant wars have been waged, covering the land with such a
network of evidences of bitterly fought rivalries as no other portion of
the earth can show, and when no foreign foe had to be baffled or beaten
off, then the internecine wars of clan against clan have flooded the
fair land with gore and ruin.
But all was peaceful here about this old town this bright morning in
July, 1910. There was no evidence of the red waves of the wars which
had rolled over and eddied about this very spot, save the old dismantled
Vauban tower and the remains of the ancient wall, in which we were only
mildly interested. It was the present day's wanderings which interested
us more; the lives of the peasants, their customs and their daily
occupations. Time seemed to stand still here without any consciousness
of backwardness. Nothing hurried at Arras, and change for the sake
of change had no attraction for it. The ways of the fathers were good
enough for the children.
There was a newspaper here, of course, but yet the town crier held his
own,--a strange looking old man in a long crinkly blue blouse, balloon
like trousers of velveteen corduroy, wooden shoes and a broad brimmed
felt hat. A drum hung suspended from his shoulder by a leather strap.
He was followed by a small procession of boys and girls. He stopped and
beat a vigorous tattoo on the drum; windows above and doors below were
filled with heads as if by magic. He produced a folded paper from his
pocket, glanced about him proudly conscious of the importance of the
occasion, and read in a loud voice some local news of interest, and then
announced the loss of something or other, with notice to hand whatever
it was to the commissaire de Police, and then marched off down the
street to repeat the performance at the next corner. The heads vanished
from the windows like the cuckoos of German clocks, and the street
was quiet again. Who could have believed that such a custom could have
survived in the days of telegraph and telephone, and in a city of, say,
thirty thousand inhabitants?
The old streets and highways about the town were indescribably
attractive, and beyond in the country, the shaded ways beneath large
trees offered charming vistas, and shelter from the sun. The people
seemed to have an intuitive feeling for harmony, and little or nothing
in or about the cottages, save an occasional odoriferous pig sty,
offended one.
Colors melted into half tones in the most seductive fashion, and there
was, too, an insistent harmony in the costumes of the peasants, the
stain of time on the buildings or the grayish greens of the landscape.
But of all this the peasant was most certainly unconscious. The glories
of nature and her marvelous harmonies were no more to him than to the
beast of the field. He was hard of heart, brutal of tongue and mean of
habit. Balzac has well described him in his "Sons of the Soil." Money
was his god, and greed his pursuit. Yet all about him nature bloomed and
fructified, while he toiled and schemed, his eyes ever bent earthwards.
The peasant had no sentiment. It was best therefore to view him
superficially, and as part of the picturesqueness of the country, like
the roofs and gables of the old town, say, without seeking out secrets
of the "menage" behind the walls.
We were interested in the various occupations of these semi-Flemish
peasants, and the cries of the vendors in the streets in the early
morning. Most of these cries were unintelligible to us because of the
mixed patois, but it amused us to identify the cry of the vendor
of eels, which was most lugubrious--a veritable wail of distress,
seemingly. And when we saw her in the street below our windows, laden
with two heavy baskets containing her commodity, her fat rosy face
lifted to the sky, her appearance so belied the agonizing wail that we
laughed aloud--and then--she heard us! What vituperation did she not
address to us? Such a vocabulary, too! although we did not understand
more than a few words she made it very plain that she regarded us as
most contemptible beings.
"_Miserable espece de Mathieux_" she called up to us again and again.
Whatever that meant, whatever depths of infamy it denoted, we did not
know, nor did we ever find out. We were much more careful thereafter,
and kept away from the window, for setting down her baskets she planted
herself on the curb opposite and there presiding over the curious group
of market people whom she had collected about her, she raged and stormed
with uplifted fat red arms gesticulating at our windows, until the
crowd, wearying of her eloquence, gradually melted away. We never saw
her again.
There was also the seller of snails, whose cry was a series of ludicrous
barks and cackles. I don't know how else to describe the extraordinary
sounds he made. They quite fascinated us, for he varied them from
time to time, taking seemingly much enjoyment in the ingenuity of
his performance. His baskets, which hung by brass chains from a green
painted yoke on his shoulders, contained a collection of very large
snails, all, as he said, freshly boiled, and each shell being closed by
a seal of fresh yellow butter, sprinkled, I think, with parsley (I
never tasted them), and prettily reposing upon a bed of crisp pale green
lettuce leaves. These seem to be highly esteemed by the people.
Our chief search in Arras, after valuing the ancient halls and the
limited treasures of the museum, was for some examples of the wonderful
tapestries known far and near by the name of "Arras." In vain we sought
a specimen; there was none in the museum, nor in the town hall either.
Those whom we thought might be able to assist us in our search professed
ignorance of any such article, and the priest whom we met in the
cathedral, directed us to the local furniture shop for what he called
"_belle tapis_" So we gave it up, most reluctantly, however.
It is strange that not one example could be found in the town of this
most renowned tapestry, for this ancient town enjoyed a reputation
second to none in the low countries for art work of the loom. Cloth
and all manner of woolen stuffs were the principal articles of Flemish
production, but it was chiefly from England that Flanders drew her
supply of wool, the raw material of her industry, and England was her
great market as early as the middle of the twelfth century. There was a
great guild established in London called the Flemish "Hanse," to which
the merchants sent their manufacture. It was governed by a burgher of
Bruges who was styled "Count of the Hanse."
"The merchants of Arras became so prosperous and powerful, that (says a
chronicler), Marguerite II, called The Black, countess of Flanders
and Hainault, 1244 to 1280, was extremely rich, not only in lands but
furniture, jewels, and money; and, as is not customary with women, she
was right liberal and right sumptuous, not alone in her largesses, but
in her entertainments and whole manner of living; insomuch that she kept
up the state of a queen rather than a countess." (Kervyn de Lettenhove,
Histoire d' Flandre, t, ii. p. 300.)
To Arras, in common with the neighboring towns, came for exchange
the produce of the North and the South, the riches collected in the
pilgrimages to Novogorod, and those brought over by caravans from
Samarcand and Bagdad,--the pitch of Norway and oils of Andalusia, the
furs of Russia and dates from the Atlas, the metals from Hungary and
Bohemia, the figs of Granada, the honey of Portugal, the wax of Morocco
and the spices from Egypt: "Whereby" says the ancient manuscript, "no
land is to be compared in merchandise to this land."
And so, even if the guide books do dismiss Arras at the end of a few
curt details with the words "The Town is now given over to various
manufactures, and its few attractions may be exhausted between trains,"
Arras certainly did offer to the curious tourist many quaint vistas,
a Town Hall of great architectural individuality, and in her two
picturesque squares, the "Grand' Place" and the "Petit' Place," a
picture of antiquity not surpassed by any other town in Northern France.