Cathedral Cities of France

There 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.

[Illustration: ST. MARTIN, LÂON]