Passing onward down the nave and into the choir, you are again struck with the beauty and richness of the carvings both in the stalls in wood and in the stone screens and altars, all around you. The rose windows are glorious, and yet—you feel that you have dropped your sense of delightful satisfaction somewhere. What is it,—why? It is absurd to criticise such a temple, yet Amiens, notwithstanding its majestic interior, does not fascinate, is not so satisfying as the great churches of Rouen, and I think it is because there is too much light. There, all is subdued; here a glare of white light detracts from the majesty, if such a thing be possible. Certainly one shivers and is cold and fully realises that ancient coloured glass has a wonderfully beautifying effect in these old churches.
Amiens has her history also. Henry IV. from a seat up yonder watched the retreat of the Spaniards and Isabeau of Bavaria here married the idiot Charles VI.
There is nothing in the city to interest, save the cathedral, and I come again and again, and finally take a swirling view as my auto flashes around it, and off and away to the northward. As we move farther and farther afield, I turn again and again to look backward and each time the cathedral has risen higher and higher until it reigns supreme in a kingdom all its own,—a thing not made by man.
The route from Amiens to Boulogne is very unpleasant for France, narrow and badly marked, so that we several times go astray, especially before reaching Abbeville. The way is also crossed frequently by stone gutters which will in passing destroy the springs of the auto unless extreme caution be used. These should be changed, one does not find them south of Paris.
As it would be impossible to pass through Brussels without a thought of Waterloo so at Abbeville the mind wanders away from the noisy town and off to the neighbouring battlefield of Crécy whose forest we see at our right as we speed northward.
Reaching Boulogne at about three o'clock, we are almost blown backward by the winds off the Channel, and seek shelter in a draughty, desolate hotel. Yama thinks that we have come to the end of the world, and will be lost if we attempt to go out on that churning sea. He asks if England is five days off, and seems very doubtful of my truthfulness when I say it is but an hour's sail.
[CHAPTER XXIII]
THE RIDE TO BEAUVAIS—DEAD DOGS—GREAT CHURCHES—BEAUVAIS BY NIGHT—VAST WEALTH OF THE CHURCHES OF FRANCE—WONDERFUL TAPESTRIES