uncertainty as compared with the odious guidance of the _laquais de
place_. I loathe the tribe. Here was to be clearly noted the languid,
lazy French town where nothing seemed to be doing, but everyone
appeared to be comfortable--'the fat, contented, stubble
goose'--another type of town altogether from your thriving Lilles and
Rouens.

The pleasure in surveying this extraordinary combination of beautiful
objects, the richness and variety of the work, the long lines broken
by the charming and, as they are called, 'escalloped' gables, the
Spanish balconies, the pillars, light and shade, and shops, made it
almost incredible that such a thing was to be found in a poor obscure
French town, visited by but few travellers. On market-day, when the
whole is filled up with country folks, their wares and their stalls
sheltered from the sun by gaily-tinted awnings, the bustle and
glinting colours, and general _va et vient_, impart a fitting dramatic
air. Then are the old Spanish houses set off becomingly.

This old town has other curious things to exhibit, such as the
enormous old Abbey of St. Vaast--with its huge expansive roof, which
somehow seems to dominate the place, and thrusts forward some fragment
or other--where a regiment might lodge. Its spacious gardens are
converted to secular uses. Then I find myself at the old-new
cathedral, begun about a century ago, and finished about fifty years
since--a 'poorish' heartless edifice in the bald Italian manner, and
quite unsuited to these old Flemish cities. I come out on a terrace
with a huge flight of steps which leads to a lower portion of the
city. This, indeed, leads down from the _haute_ to the _basse ville_;
and it is stated that a great portion of this upper town is supported
upon catacombs or caves from which the white stone of the belfry and