As I take my way from the station and gradually approach the city--for there is a broad stretch between it and the railway unfilled by houses--I see the striking and impressive picture growing and enlarging. The jangling and the solemn occasional boom still go on: meant to give note that the day is opening. Nothing more awe-inspiring or poetical can be conceived than this 'c.o.c.k-crow' promenade. Here are little portals suddenly opening on the stage, with m.u.f.fled figures darting out, and worthy Belgians tripping from their houses--betimes, indeed--and hurrying away to ma.s.s. Thus to make the acquaintance of that grandest and most astonishing of old cathedrals, is to do so under the best and most suitable conditions: very different from the guide and cicerone business, which belongs to later hours of the day.

I stand in the open _place_, under its shadow, and lift my eyes with wonder to the amazing and crowded cl.u.s.ter of spires and towers: its antique air, and even look of shattered dilapidation showing that the restorer has not been at his work. There was no smugness or trimness, or spick-and-spanness, but an awful and reverent austerity. And with an antique appropriateness to its functions the Flemish women, crones and maidens, all in their becoming cashmere hoods, and cloaks, and neat frills, still hurry on to the old Dom. Near me rose the antique _beffroi_, from whose jaws still kept booming the old bell, with a fine clang, the same that had often pealed out to rouse the burghers to discord and tumult. It pealed on, hoa.r.s.e and even cracked, but persistently melodious, disregarding the contending clamours of its neighbours, just as some old baritone of the opera, reduced and broken down, will exhibit his 'phrasing'--all that is left to him. Quaint old burgher city, indeed, with the true flavour, though beshrew them for meddling with the fortifications!

That little scene in this _place_ of Tournay is always a pleasant, picturesque memory.

I entered with the others. Within the cathedral was the side chapel, with its black oak screen, and a tawny-cheeked Belgian priest at the altar beginning the ma.s.s. Scattered round and picturesquely grouped were the crones and maidens aforesaid, on their wicker-chairs. A few surviving lamps twinkled fitfully, and shadowy figures crossed as if on the stage. But aloft, what an overpowering immensity, all vaulted shadows, the huge pillars soaring upward to be lost in a Cimmerian gloom!

Around me I saw grouped picturesquely in scattered order, and kneeling on their _prie-dieux_, the honest burghers, women and men, the former arrayed in the comfortable and not unpicturesque black Flemish cloaks with the silk hoods--handsome and effective garments, and almost universal. The devotional rite of the ma.s.s, deeply impressive, was over in twenty minutes, and all trooped away to their daily work.

There was a suggestion here, in this modest, unpretending exercise, in contrast to the great fane itself, of the undeveloped power to expand, as it were, on Sundays and feast-days, when the cathedral would display all its resources, and its huge area be crowded to the doors with worshippers, and the great rites celebrated in all their full magnificence.

Behind the great altar I came upon an imposing monument, conceived after an original and comprehensive idea. It was to the memory of _all the bishops and canons_ of the cathedral! This wholesale idea may be commended to our chapters at home. It might save the too monotonous repet.i.tion of rec.u.mbent bishops, who, after being exhibited at the Academy, finally enc.u.mber valuable s.p.a.ce in their own cathedrals.

The suggestiveness of the great bell-tower, owing to the peculiar emphasis and purpose given to it, is constantly felt in the old Belgian cities. It still conveys its old antique purpose--the defence of the burghers, a watchful sentinel who, on the alarm, clanged out danger, the sound piercing from that eyry to the remotest lane, and bringing the valiant citizens rushing to the great central square. It is impossible to look up at one of these monuments, grim and solitary, without feeling the whole spirit of the Belgian history, and calling up Philip van Artevelde and the Ghentish troubles.

In the smaller cities the presence of this significant landmark is almost invariable. There is ever the lone and lorn tower, belfry, or spire painted in dark sad colours, seen from afar off, rising from the decayed little town below; often of some antique, original shape that pleases, and yet with a gloomy misanthropical air, as of total abandonment. They are rusted and abrased. From their ancient jaws we hear the husky, jangling chimes, musical and melancholy, the disorderly rambling notes and tunes of a gigantic musical box. Towards the close of some summer evening, as the train flies on, we see the sun setting on the grim walls of some dead city, and on the cl.u.s.tered houses. Within the walls are the formal rows of trees planted in regimental order which fringe and shelter them; while rises the dark, copper-coloured tower, often unfinished and ragged, but solemn and funereal, or else capped by some quaint lantern, from whose jaws presently issue the m.u.f.fled tones of the chimes, halting and broken, and hoa.r.s.e and wheezy with centuries of work. Often we pa.s.s on; sometimes we descend, and walk up to the little town and wander through its deserted streets. We are struck with wonder at some vast and n.o.ble church, cathedral-like in its proportions, and nearly always original--such variety is there in these antique Belgian fanes--and facing it some rustic mouldering town-hall of surprising beauty. There are a few little shops, a few old houses, but the generality have their doors closed. There is hardly a soul to be seen, certainly not a cart. There are innumerable dead cities of this pattern.

Coming out, I find it broad day. A few natives with their baskets are hurrying to the train. I note, rising above the houses, two or three other solemn spires and grim churches, which have an inexpressibly sad and abandoned air, from their dark grimed tones which contrast with the bright gay hues of the modern houses that crowd upon them. There is one grave, imposing tower, with a hood like a monk's. Then I wander to the handsome triangle-shaped _place_, with its statue to Margaret of Parma--erst Governor of the Netherlands, and whose memory is regarded with affection. Here is the old belfry, which has been so clamorous, standing apart, like those of Ghent, Dunkirk, and a few other towns; an effective structure, though fitted by modern restorers with an entirely new 'head'--not, however, ineffective of its kind.

The day is now fairly opened. There is a goodly muster of market-women and labourers at the handsome station, which, like every station of the first rank in Belgium, bears its name 'writ large.' It is just striking five as we hurry away, and in some half an hour we arrive at ORCHIES--one of those new spick-and-span little towns, useful after their kind, but disagreeable to the aesthetic eye.

Everything here is of that meanest kind of brick, 'pointed,' as it is called, with staring white, such as it is seen in the smaller Belgian stations. Feeling somewhat degraded by this contact, I was glad to be hurried away, and within an hour find we are approaching one of the greater French cities.

VI.

_DOUAI._

Now begin to flit past us signs unmistakable of an approaching fortified town. Here are significant green banks and mounds cut to angles and geometrical patterns, soft and enticing, enriched with luxuriant trees, but treacherous--smiling on the confiding houses and gardens which one day may be levelled at a few hours' notice. Next come compact ma.s.ses of Vauban brick, ripe and ruddy, of beautiful, smooth workmanship; stately military gateways and drawbridges, with a patch of red trousering--a soldier on his fat Normandy 'punch' ambling lazily over; and the peaceful cart with its Flemish horses. The brick-work is sliced through, as with a cheese-knife, to admit the railway, giving a complete section of the work. We are, in short, at one of the great _places fortes_ of France, Douai, where the curious traveller had best avoid sketching, or taking notes--a serious offence. Here I lingered pleasantly for nearly three hours, and, having duly breakfasted, noted its air of snug comfort and prosperity. There is here a famous a.r.s.enal--ever busy--one of the most important in France, and it has besides some welcome bits of artistic architecture.

It was when wandering down a darkish street, that I came on a most original building, the old _Mairie_, enriched with a belfry of delightfully graceful pattern. It might be a problem how to combine a bell-tower with offices for munic.i.p.al work, and we know in our land how such a 'job' would be carried out by 'the architect to the Board.'

But all over Flemish France and Belgium proper we find an inexhaustible fancy and fertility in such designs. It is always difficult to describe architectural beauties. This had its tower in the centre, flanked by two short wings. Everything was original--the disposition of the windows, the air of s.p.a.ce and largeness. Yet the whole was small, I note that in all these Flemish bell-towers, the topmost portion invariably develops into something charmingly fantastic, into cupolas and short, little galleries and lanterns superimposed, the mixture of solidity and airiness being astonishing.

It is appropriate and fitting that this grace should attend on what are the sweetest musical instruments conceivable. Mr. Haweis, who is the poet of Flemish bells, has let us into the secret. 'The fragment of aerial music,' he tells us, 'which floats like a heavenly sigh over the Belgian city and dies away every few minutes, seems to set all life and time to celestial music. It is full of sweet harmonies, and can be played in pianoforte score, treble and ba.s.s. After a week in a Belgian town, time seems dull without the music in the air that mingled so sweetly with all waking moods without disturbing them, and stole into our dreams without troubling our sleep. I do not say that such carillons would be a success in London. In Belgium the towers are high above the towns--Antwerp, Mechlin, Bruges--and partially isolated. The sound falls softly, and the population is not so dense as in London. Their habit and taste have accustomed the citizens to accept this music for ever floating in the upper air as part of the city's life--the most spiritual, poetical, and recreative part of it.

Nothing of the kind has ever been tried in London. The crashing peals of a dozen large bells banged violently with clapper instead of softly struck with hammer, the exasperating dong, or ding, dong, of the Ritualist temple over the way, or the hoa.r.s.e, gong-like roar of Big Ben--that is all we know about bells in London, and no form of church discipline could be more ferocious. Bell noise and bell music are two different things.' This fanciful tower had its four corner towerlets, suggesting the old burly Scotch pattern, which indeed came from France; while the vane on the top still characteristically flourishes the national Flemish lion.

Most bizarre, not to say extravagant, was the great cathedral, which was laid out on strange 'lines,' having a huge circular chapel or pavilion of immense height in front, whose round roof was capped by a vast bulbous spire, in shape something after the pattern of a gigantic mangel-wurzel! This astonishing decoration had a quaint and extraordinary effect, seen, as it was, from any part of the city. Next came the nave, whilst the transepts straggled about wildly, and a gigantic fortress-like tower reared itself from the middle. Correct judges will tell us that all this is debased work, and 'corrupt style;' but, nevertheless, I confess to being both astonished and pleased.

This was the great festival of the _Corpus Domini_, and, indeed, already all available bells in the place had been jangling noisily. It was now barely seven o'clock, yet on entering the vast nave I found that the 'Grand Ma.s.s' had begun, and the whole was full to the door, while in the great choir were ranged about a hundred young girls waiting to make their first Communion. A vast number of gala carriages were waiting at the doors to take the candidates home, and for the rest of the day they would promenade the city in their veils and flowers, receiving congratulations. There was a pleasant provincial simplicity in all this and in all that followed, which brought back certain old Sundays of a childhood spent on a hill overlooking Havre.

I liked to see the stout red-cheeked choristers perspiring with their work, and singing with a rough stentoriousness, just as I had seen them in the village church of Sanvic. And there was the organist playing away at his raised seat in the body of the church, as if in a pew, visible to the naked eye of all; while two cantors in copes clapped pieces of wood together as a signal for the congregation to kneel or rise. Most quaint of all were the surpliced instrumentalists with their braying ba.s.soon and ophicleide: not to forget the double-ba.s.s player who 'sawed' away for the bare life of him. The ever visible organist voluntarized ravishingly and in really fine style. I should like to have heard him at his own proper instrument, aloft, in the gallery yonder, quite an enormous structure of florid pipes in stories and groups, with angels blowing trumpets and flying saints.

It seemed like the stern of one of the Armada vessels. How he would have made the pillars quiver! how the ripe old notes would have _tw.a.n.ged_ and brayed into the darkest recesses!

The Ma.s.s being over, the Swiss, a tall, fierce fellow, arrayed in a feathered c.o.c.ked-hat, rich _scarlet_ regimentals and boots, now showed an extra restlessness. The Bishop of Douai, a smooth, polished prelate, began his sermon, which he delivered from a chair, in clear tones and good elocution. When the ceremonies were over, the whole congregation gathered at the door to see the young ladies taken away by their friends. Then I resumed my exploring.

On a cheerful-looking _place_, which, with its trees and kiosque, recalled the _Place Verte_ at Antwerp, I noticed a large building of the pattern so common in France for colleges and convents--a vast expanse of whiteness or blankness, and a yet vaster array of long windows. It appeared to be a cavalry barrack for soldiers. The bugles sounded through the archway, and orderlies were riding in and out.

This monotonous building, I found, had once been the English college for priests, where the celebrated Douai or Douay Bible had been translated. This rare book--a joy for the bibliophile--was published about 1608, and, as is well known, was the first Catholic version in English of the Scriptures. Here, then, was the cradle of millions of copies distributed over the face of the earth. It was a curious sensation to pa.s.s by this homely-looking edifice, with the adjoining chapel, as it appeared to be--now apparently a riding-school. I also came upon many a fine old Spanish house, and toiled down in the sun to the Rue des Foulons, where there were some elaborate specimens.

Short as had been my term of residence, I somehow seemed to know Douai very well. I had gathered what is called 'an idea of the place.' Its ways, manners, and customs seemed familiar to me. So I took my way from the old town with a sort of regret, having seen a great deal.

VII.

_ARRAS._

It is just eleven o'clock, and here we are coming to a charming town, which few travellers have probably visited, and of which that genial and experienced traveller, Charles d.i.c.kens, wrote in astonished delight, and where in 1862 he spent his birthday. 'Here I find,' he says, 'a grand _place_, so very remarkable and picturesque, that it is astonishing how people miss it.' This is old Arras; and I confess it alone seems worth a long day's, not to say night's, journey, to see.

It is fortified, and, as in such towns, we have to make our way to it from the station by an umbrageous country road; for it is fenced, as a gentleman's country seat might be, and strictly enclosed by the usual mounds, ditches, and walls, but all so picturesquely disguised in rich greenery as to be positively inviting. Even low down in the deep ditches grew symmetrical avenues of straight trees, abundant in their leaves and branches, which filled them quite up. The gates seem monumental works of art, and picturesque to a degree; while over the walls--and what n.o.ble specimens of brickwork, or tiling rather, are these old Vauban walls!--peep with curious mystery the upper stories and roofs of houses with an air of smiling security. I catch a glimpse of the elegant belfry, the embroidered spires, and mosque-like cupolas, all a little rusted, yet cheerful-looking. d.i.c.kens's _place_, or two _places_ rather--for there is the greater and the less--display to us a really lovely town-hall in the centre, the roof dotted over with rows of windows, while an airy lace-work spire, with a ducal crown as the finish, rises lightly. On to its sides are encrusted other buildings of Renaissance order, while behind is a mansion still more astonishingly embroidered in sculptured stone, with a colonnade of vast extent. Around the _place_ itself stretches a vast number of Spanish mansions, with the usual charmingly 'escalloped' roof, all resting on a prolonged colonnade or piazza, strange, old-fashioned, and original, running round to a vast extent, which the sensible town has decreed is never to be interfered with. A more pleasing, refreshing, and novel collection of objects for the ordinary traveller of artistic taste to see without trouble or expense, it would be impossible to conceive. Yet everyone hurries by to see the somewhat stale glories of Ghent and Brussels.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARRAS.]

There was a general fat contented air of _bourgeois_ comfort about the sleepy old-fashioned, handsome Prefecture--in short, a capital background for the old provincial life as described by Balzac. But the _place_, with its inimitable Spanish houses and colonnades--under which you can shop--and that most elegant of spires, sister to that of Antwerp, which it recalls, will never pa.s.s from the memory. A beautiful object of this kind, thus seen, is surely a present, and a valuable one too.

A spire is often the expression of the whole town. How much is suggested by the well-known, familiar cathedral spire at Antwerp, as, of some fresh morning, we come winding up the tortuous Scheldt, the sad, low-lying plains and boulders lying on either hand, monotonous and dispiriting, yet novel in their way; the cream-coloured, lace-worked spire rising ever before us in all its elegant grace, pointing the way, growing by degrees, never for an instant out of sight. It seems a fitting introduction to the n.o.ble, historical, and poetical city to which it belongs. It _is_ surely ANTWERP! We see Charles V., and Philip, and the exciting troubles of the Gueux, the Dutch, the Flemings, the argosies from all countries in the great days of its trade. Such is the mysterious power of a.s.sociation, which it ever exerts on the 'reminiscent.' How different, and how much more profitable, too, is this mode of approaching the place, than the other more vulgar one of the railway terminus, with the cabs and omnibuses waiting, and the convenient journey to the hotel.

These old cities--Lille, Douai, and Valenciennes--all boast their gateways, usually named after the city to which the road leads. Thus we have 'Porte de Paris,' 'Porte de Lille,' etc. I confess to a deep interest in all gateways of this kind; they have a sort of poetry or romance a.s.sociated with them; they are grim, yet hospitable, at times and seasons having a mysterious suggestion. There are towns where the traveller finds the gate obdurately closed between ten o'clock at night and six in the morning. These old gates have a state and flamboyant majesty about them, as, in Lille, the Porte de Paris is a.s.sociated with the glories of Louis XIV.; while in Douai there is one of an old pattern--it is said of the thirteenth century--with curious towers and spires. Even at Calais there is a fine and majestic structure, 'Porte de Richelieu,' on the town side, through which every market cart and carriage used to trundle. There are florid devices inscribed on it; but now that the walls on each side are levelled, this patriarchal monument has but a ludicrous effect, for it is left standing alone, unsupported and purposeless. The carts and tramcars find their way round by new and more convenient roads made on each side.

How pleasant is that careless wandering up through some strange and unfamiliar place, led by a sort of instinct which habit soon furnishes! In some of the French 'Guides,' minute directions are given for the explorer, who is bidden to take the street to right or to left, after leaving the station, etc. But there is a piquancy in this uncertainty as compared with the odious guidance of the _laquais de place_. I loathe the tribe. Here was to be clearly noted the languid, lazy French town where nothing seemed to be doing, but everyone appeared to be comfortable--'the fat, contented, stubble goose'--another type of town altogether from your thriving Lilles and Rouens.

The pleasure in surveying this extraordinary combination of beautiful objects, the richness and variety of the work, the long lines broken by the charming and, as they are called, 'escalloped' gables, the Spanish balconies, the pillars, light and shade, and shops, made it almost incredible that such a thing was to be found in a poor obscure French town, visited by but few travellers. On market-day, when the whole is filled up with country folks, their wares and their stalls sheltered from the sun by gaily-tinted awnings, the bustle and glinting colours, and general _va et vient_, impart a fitting dramatic air. Then are the old Spanish houses set off becomingly.

This old town has other curious things to exhibit, such as the enormous old Abbey of St. Vaast--with its huge expansive roof, which somehow seems to dominate the place, and thrusts forward some fragment or other--where a regiment might lodge. Its s.p.a.cious gardens are converted to secular uses. Then I find myself at the old-new cathedral, begun about a century ago, and finished about fifty years since--a 'poorish' heartless edifice in the bald Italian manner, and quite unsuited to these old Flemish cities. I come out on a terrace with a huge flight of steps which leads to a lower portion of the city. This, indeed, leads down from the _haute_ to the _ba.s.se ville_; and it is stated that a great portion of this upper town is supported upon catacombs or caves from which the white stone of the belfry and town-hall was quarried. It is a curious feeling to be shown the house in which Robespierre was born, which, for the benefit of the curious it may be stated, is to be found in the Rue des Rapporteurs, close to the theatre. Arras was a famous Jacobin centre, and from the balcony of this theatre, Lebon, one of the Jacobins, directed the executions, which took place abundantly on the pretty _place_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BETHUNE.]

Thus much, then, for Arras, where one would have liked to linger, nay, to stay a week or a few days. But this wishing to stay a week at a picturesque place is often a dangerous pitfall, as the amiable Charles Collins has shown in his own quaint style. Has anyone, he asks, ever, 'on arriving at some place he has never visited before, taken a sudden fancy to it, committed himself to apartments for a month certain, gone on praising the locality and all that belongs to it, ferreting out concealed attractions, attaching undue importance to them, undervaluing obvious defects: has he gone on in this way for three weeks,' or rather three days, 'out of his month, then suddenly broken down, found out his mistake, and pined in secret for deliverance?' So it would be, as I conceive, at Bruges, or perhaps at St. Omer. There you indeed appreciate the dead-alive city 'in all its quiddity.' But a few days in a 'dead-alive' city, were it the most picturesque in the world, would be intolerable.

By noon, when the sun has grown oppressively hot, I find myself set down at a sort of rural town, once flourishing, and of some importance--Bethune. A mile's walk on a parched road led up the hill to this languishing, decayed little place. It had its forlorn omnibus, and altogether suggested the general desolation of, say, Peterborough.

Had it remained in Flemish hands, it would now have been flourishing.

I doubt if any English visitor ever troubles its stagnant repose. Yet it boasts its 'grand' _place_, imposing enough as a memorial of departed greatness, and, as usual, a Flemish relic, in the shape of a charming belfry and town-hall combined. It was really truly 'fantastical' from the airiness of its little cupolas and galleries, and was in tolerable order. Like the old Calais watch-tower, it was caked round by, and embedded in, old houses, and had its four curious gargoyles still doing work.

On this 'grand' _place_ I noticed an old house bearing date '1625,'

and some wonderful feats in the way of red-tiled roofing, of which there were enormous stretches, all narrow, sinuous, and suggesting Nuremberg. I confess to having spent a rather weary hour here, and sped away by the next train.

VIII.

_LILLE._

Two o'clock. We are on the road again; the sun is shining, and we are speeding on rapidly--changing from Flanders to France--which is but an hour or so away. Here the bright day is well forward. Now the welcome fat Flemish country takes military shape, for here comes the scarp, the angled ditch, the endless brick walling and embankment--a genuine fortified town of the first cla.s.s--LILLE. Here, too, many travellers give but a glance from the window and hurry on. Yet an interesting place in its way. Its bright main streets seem as gay and glittering as those of Paris, with the additional air of snug provincial comfort.

To one accustomed for months to the solemn sobriety of our English capital, with its work-a-day, not to say dingy look, nothing is more exhilarating or gay than one of these first-cla.s.s French provincial towns, such as Ma.r.s.eilles, Bordeaux, or this Lille. There is a glittering air of substantial opulence, with an attempt--and a successful one--at fine boulevards and fine trees.

The approach to Lille recalled the protracted approach to some great English manufacturing town, the tall chimneys flying by the carriage-windows a good quarter of an hour before the town was reached. A handsome, rich, and imposing city, though content to accept a cast-off station from Paris, as a poor relative would accept a cast-off suit of clothes. The fine facade was actually transported here stone by stone, and a much more imposing one erected in its place.

The prevailing one-horse tram-cars seem to suit the Flemish a.s.sociations. The Belgians have taken kindly and universally to them, and find them to be 'exactly in their way.' The fat Flemish horse ambles along lazily, his bells jingling. No matter how narrow or winding the street, the car threads its way. The old burgher of the Middle Ages might have relished it. The old disused town-hall is quaint enough with its elaborately-carved _facade_, with a high double roof and dormers, and a lantern surmounting all. A bit of true 'Low-Countries' work; but one often forgets that we are in French Flanders. Entertaining hours could be spent here with profit, simply in wandering from spot to spot, eschewing the 'town valet' and professional picture guide. It is an extraordinary craze, by the way, that our countrymen will want always 'to see the pictures,' as though that were the object of travelling.