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HERE are in France to-day three distinct classes of cities—one might even add, of cathedral cities—and as the bishopric is a dignity far more usual in France than in England, “cathedral” may serve for the present as a term inclusive of many towns.

Firstly, there is the town whose local importance has remained unchanged through a succession of centuries and an eventful history, which has added a modern importance to that bequeathed to it by Time. Such towns are Le Mans, Angers, Amiens and Rouen. Secondly, we find the towns whose glory has departed, but who still preserve the outward semblance of that glory, though they remind us in passing through them of a body without a spirit, of an empty house, whose inhabitants are long dead and have left behind them only the echoes of their past footsteps. These towns are a picturesque group, and if we go back upon the centuries, we shall find in them the centre of much that has made history for our modern eyes to read. Look at Chartres and Bayeux, and Lâon and Troyes, for embodiments of this type. And lastly, there are the cities which exactly reverse the foregoing state of affairs, and owe their growth to the kindly fostering of a later age—an age which has learnt wisdom more quickly than its predecessors, and has learnt, moreover, to love the whirr of engines and the busy paths of commerce more than the safe keeping of ancient monuments and the reading of history in the worn greyness of their stones. Among these we may count Havre; but of this class it is more difficult to find examples in France, although in England the north country is thick with such mushroom cities.

ST. MARTIN, LÂON

The history of the growth of one Gaulish town may easily serve for that of another: later days decided its continued importance or its gradual decay, as the case might be; and, as Freeman points out in his essay upon French and English towns, “the map of Roman Gaul survives, with but few and those simple changes in the ecclesiastical map of France down to the great Revolution.” Thus the history of these cities affected themselves alone and not, to any great extent, the lands in which they stood. It is a salient testimony to the lasting influence of ancient Gaul that in most town-names some trace can be found of the old name, either of the tribe which inhabited it, or of the territory belonging to that tribe; and even under the Roman rule the Gallic forms did not entirely disappear. Later, when the Franks came from the East, one would suppose that they had names of their own for the conquered cities; but if this were the case, these names have not come down to us—all of which goes to show that the Frankish dominion, though it lasted on, and gave to the land her ablest dynasty of kings, had no real rooted influence in the country, and that France, as relating to ancient Gaul, is a formal and almost an empty title.

The Gallic cities owed their origin in the earliest times, naturally, to their situation. The roving tribes, looking for a settlement, would choose a camping ground either on a rocky hill, where they could safely entrench themselves against a possible enemy, or on an island in the midst of a river or marsh, where the surrounding fens would be an efficient safeguard; and it speaks well for their choice, that when the Romans came, skilled in the knowledge of war, offensive and defensive, they did not destroy the settlements of the conquered tribes, but rebuilt and fortified them according to the inimitable pattern of Rome, not effacing but improving what was already to hand. Instead of the rude Gallic huts, stately palaces rose up, with their marble baths; aqueducts threw a succession of arches to the nearest water source, theatres sloped up the hill-side, bridges crossed the river, and where the grottoes of the Druidic or other primitive faiths had been, rose the columns and friezes of splendid temples to Jupiter and Diana and Apollo. Certainly it was a change for the better; and the appearance of many of these towns under the Cæsars was probably much more imposing, though perhaps less picturesque, than that which they presented in mediæval days. In the later Roman era a new element introduces itself. From the early Christian Church at Rome come missionary saints; not saints in those days, but often the poorest and meanest of the brethren, charged with a message to Gaul—Hilary, Martin, Dionysius, and the others. Fierce conflicts follow, persecutions, burnings, martyrdoms—Dionysius bears witness at Lutetia, Savinian and Potentian at Sens—and at last the first church arises within the city, poor and meagre very often in comparison with the huge pagan temples which it replaces, but loved and venerated by the faithful few, and, best of all, the origin of the grand cathedrals which are now the glory of France. “The votaries of the new creed found a home within the walls of their seats of worship such as the votaries of the elder creed had never found within theirs. And around the church arose the dwellings of the bishop and his clergy, a class of men destined to play no small part in the history of the land.” In the Christian city, then, we can begin to trace the beginnings of the mediæval city. Other foundations sprang up in time within the walls—a baptistery was built, as at Aix and Poitiers, to meet the needs of the flocks of converts; other churches perpetuated the memory of some saint; among the river meadows some royal or saintly founder saw a fitting spot for a convent, and the abbey church arose, with its cloisters, dormitories and refectories, and all the other fair buildings in which the early brothers took such a loving pride. Then the bishop himself, with his dignity growing as the Christian faith advanced, must be housed as befitted a deputy of the Holy See; and forthwith sprang up those lordly évêchés which even now serve to remind us of their ancient beauty, though in some cases the civil arm has taken them over, and converted them into hôtels de ville. Then came the barbarian inroads, first of Vandals, Huns, Franks and the rest, next of Normans. These attacked, but could not destroy, or even permanently harm, the position of the city; and when the invaders had either gone their way or settled down in the land, new elements of strength and importance were added to the township: castles and strongholds were built up for the great men who had taken possession of the chief cities, and the great civil or feudal power of the dukes and counts began to exercise its jurisdiction side by side with the old-established influence of the Church. Then, as was notably the case at Le Mans and Troyes, the growing commercial importance of a town would force a communal charter from the seigneur; a burgher quarter would rise, quite as important as the quarter of the nobles and the clergy, and thus the city would become trebly strengthened, except, indeed, when, as was sometimes the case, one power resented the fancied encroachments of the other and made war upon its neighbours.

THE QUAYSIDE, AMIENS

This power within itself was undoubtedly all to the advantage of the city; but it was fatal to the unity of the kingdom, since it cut France up into a mass of separate states, any one of which could, on the occasion of a quarrel with the sovereign—and these quarrels were rather the rule than the exception—fortify itself by means of its count, its castle and its city walls, and defy the royal forces at its pleasure. While cathedral cities in England were drawing closer and closer to the king as their head, and thereby sinking their own strength in the unity of the Crown, those in France were striving at a power apart from the Crown, or, rather, striving to maintain a power which the Crown had never yet been able to incorporate with itself. Thus a city of France has a much more varied, a much more individual history than has the sister city in England; a story less bound up as part of the great whole of the history of the French kingdom, more concentrated within its own walls, and therefore more tangible, if it be desired to study it irrespective of that whole history. This, then, is the story of its growth from almost pre-historic days. Whether, as an individual city, it flourished after the Middle Ages had fortified and strengthened it, or whether it fell into a state of quiet, picturesque and peaceful decay, depended of course upon particular circumstances, but enough remains to make of the general history of the French city a fascinating though almost inexhaustible study, only surpassed by the study of each town in its separate case.

A STREET IN PÉRIGUEUX

Wars and revolutions have done their best to destroy what Time had kindly tried to preserve for our delight; nevertheless, a cathedral town in France of to-day is a very pleasant place, and offers exceptional opportunity for the study of French life in almost every aspect. Our business here, however, is with the cathedrals and the historical side of the town, rather than with the lighter points of view; and such things as every traveller will encounter in the course of his journeys, the crowd outside the cafés, the weekly markets, the festivals, civil and ecclesiastical, the quaint ways and speech of the peasant folk and the contretemps of hotel life have not only been described before, times without number, but are such as will be fairly obvious to the average observer, and, if he has never travelled before, will come all the more as a pleasant surprise if he is left to find them out for himself. If, as is more likely to be the case in this enlightened age, he is an experienced traveller, he will know them all by heart, and perhaps be inclined to cavil at having them set before him once again in a light which could not pretend to any novelty.