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Erchinold, the Mayor, erected a monastery near by for Scotch monks,
presided over by St. Fursy. Not a trace of this now remains. It is said
to have contained the tomb of Charles the Simple, who died of famine
at the hands of Hubert in a dungeon. When Philip d'Alsace, Count of
Vermandois, was killed in the Crusades (1199) the towns of Péronne and
St. Quentin were united to the crown of France, and so remained. Charles
V, in 1536 unsuccessfully besieged Péronne, and during this siege a
young woman named Marie Fourré performed prodigious deeds of heroism
which history records.
The great Ligue of 1577 was proclaimed here, following its announcement
at Paris. Until the Duke of Wellington captured it on his way to Paris'
after the battle of Waterloo, Péronne-la-Pucelle had never been taken by
an enemy.
In the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71, Péronne was sacked and burned after
a most memorable siege, in which many of the remarkable old buildings
were destroyed, but in 1910 the town, when I last saw it, was one of the
quaintest in all Picardy. There was a remarkable old church here, that
of St. Jean, which dated from the sixteenth century, which had a portal
of three Gothic arches and arcades surmounted by a great flamboyant
rose-window, the glass of which, though modern, was of fine quality
and workmanship. It had a tower flanked by a "tourelle" of beautiful
proportions, and in the interior the vaulting, pulpit, and the stained
glass windows were pronounced by experts to be well-nigh faultless.
This church, and the most singular and picturesque Hôtel de Ville
(sixteenth century), a sketch of which I made in 1910, the invaders took
great pains entirely to destroy in April, 1917, when they made their
celebrated "victorious retreat." The latest accounts say that not a
trace of these two remarkable monuments now exists, that for a week or
more before the retreat, the German engineers used tons of explosives to
destroy them.
The gray old square before the Hôtel de Ville is now a yawning pit,
bordered by shapeless piles of stone and ashes.
At this time we know not what other mischief the invader has committed
in this neighborhood. There are endless opportunities for destruction
and pillage, and we may be fully prepared for irreparable damage and
losses in all of this region before the Iconoclasts are driven back to
their last line of defenses.
All of Champagne, of Picardy,--all of Flanders were filled with
exquisite villages, towns, and cities, each of which was unique in works
of art and antiquity. These have shriveled like a garden of flowers
before a heavy frost. This great catastrophe has so stunned humanity,
that we are only beginning to realize what it means.
The invader says contemptuously that no cathedral is worth the life
of one German soldier. So Rheims has been destroyed; so St. Peter's of
Louvain; so--but why enumerate here?--The list is recorded in letters of
fire.