Here Abelard was imprisoned in a tower which was shown, to those who sought it out, by a lame old priest. This tower was surmounted by a small chapel; it contained nothing, however, which was identified with the prisoner. There was also to be seen the ancient Abbey of St. Jean des Vignes, in which Thomas à Becket "spent nine years." The chief and most interesting part of this was the west façade or "portail," in the style of the thirteenth century, and flanked by a great tower more than 200 feet high, some say 225 feet, which could be seen from a great distance.
The approach to the town by way of the river bank was all that could be desired for picturesqueness, and above the trees and the quaint red tiled roofs of the many gabled houses, the great tower of the venerable cathedral lifted its heavy gray mass against a fleecy sky. The river was full of quaintly fashioned barges, and heavily built boats with huge rudders painted with stripes of vivid green and red, something like those on the Maas in Holland. Here and there a small black steamer belched forth pungent sooty smoke, and there seemed to be a great deal of business going on all about, and an air of prosperity and alertness, entirely out of keeping in so venerable a town, and which one could not decide to be quite as it should be or not. There were modern shops also with windows dressed quite à la Paris, and a good hostelry, the Lion Rouge, where one was made extraordinarily comfortable for a rather small sum. The streets were filled with quaint and unusual characters, and now and again we saw costumes and some headdresses on the peasant women that we had not seen elsewhere.
An old traveler writing of Soissons said: "At a small inn, 'Des Trois Pucelles,' I had a noble salmon, that still excites emotions in me when I think of it. I have never met with its like since—and there was also venison, a whole haunch brought to table, and claret the like of which would grace the king's table."
I looked for "Des Trois Pucelles," but alas, it had been pulled down long since.
Cathedral: Soissons
[Original]
In this pleasant town, one might have lingered indefinitely and not lacked entertainment.
Soissons was called Augusta Suessionum under the early Empire. The town has great notoriety among historians for the great number of sieges it has undergone, down to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, when for three days it resisted all attempts to take it.