There are a few good paintings and statues in the chapels, among which the statue of the Enfant Pleurant is well worthy of admiration. It is placed behind the high altar, and was erected to the memory of some former prior of the cathedral, but it is unfortunately damaged a little. The stained glass windows are also good and appropriate.
Amiens has been a regularly fortified town; but nothing now remains of its works except an old defenceless citadel, and its ruined ramparts. Strangers are however denied access to the citadel, as is generally the case in the fortified towns of France, although it merely serves at present for a barrack to the legion of the department. The ramparts, or boulevards, have been planted, and are a pretty promenade. Amiens is situated on the Somme, the stream of which, although small here, is very rapid, and turns several mills in the city and vicinity. It intersects the town in many parts, and affords more opportunities of cleanliness than the inhabitants take advantage of. I went twice to the theatre-once to the parterre for a franc; and another night took the gentleman on whom I was billeted to the boxes, paying two francs for each. The company is very good, and the house convenient and tastily decorated.
Here also is a place like our Exeter 'Change; but the goods there exposed are very far inferior to ours in every respect. The corn market is the only other building of note, besides an old hospital, the Hôtel Dieu.
After a week's residence at Amiens, I came on to St. Pol, and found my regiment quartered in its neighbourhood, in the most miserable dirty villages I suppose you ever knew; at one of which, from whence I now write, I took up my abode, with the requisite resignation to my lot, content with a good wood fire, a mattress or two, and a sound thatched roof.
On the 18th of March I set out for Cambray, through Arras and Douay, the two principal cities in this neighbourhood. Arras contains about 20,000 inhabitants, but is irregularly built, and badly paved. It possessed formerly a very handsome cathedral, which, I believe, with all its churches, except one, were demolished by the frenzy of the revolutionists, during the reign of terror, as it is now and then called. A new one in its place has been commenced, but has not been proceeded with for many years. When completed, it will be a very superb edifice, of Grecian architecture.
The library, which belonged to the clergy of the late cathedral, is still in good preservation, and in a very handsome building which formed part of the accompanying Abbey of St. Wast. Most of the books are theological; but there are also some good collections of prints and manuscripts. At one end there is a paltry museum of subjects in natural history, "an alligator stuffed," a comb which formerly formed part of the toilette of King Dagobert, one of the first race of French monarchs, and with which I arranged my dishevelled locks, an old queen's shoe, and a few other paltry antiquities not worthy notice.
The theatre at Arras is dirty, and the company bad; but there are occasionally very good concerts, at one of which I was much diverted with the attempt of an amateur to amuse the audience by his singing, which undoubtedly he did, but not in the manner his egregious vanity led him to suppose.
A Mademoiselle Noyen was the principal singer, and certainly of no mean talents. She was living at the same hotel where I chanced to be, and I had frequent opportunities of listening to her as she was practising her lesson for the evening.
Arras is one of the towns on which Marshal Vauban exercised his uncommon talents as an engineer. It is one of the largest fortresses in France, but, with the exception of the citadel, might easily be taken by the present mode of warfare. I was at least an hour walking round its ramparts, which are still kept in pretty good condition. In consequence of being formerly thought impregnable, one of the gates long bore this inscription:
"Quand les Français prendront Arras,