town-hall was quarried. It is a curious feeling to be shown the house
in which Robespierre was born, which, for the benefit of the curious
it may be stated, is to be found in the Rue des Rapporteurs, close to
the theatre. Arras was a famous Jacobin centre, and from the balcony
of this theatre, Lebon, one of the Jacobins, directed the executions,
which took place abundantly on the pretty _place_.

[Illustration: BETHUNE.]

Thus much, then, for Arras, where one would have liked to linger, nay,
to stay a week or a few days. But this wishing to stay a week at a
picturesque place is often a dangerous pitfall, as the amiable
Charles Collins has shown in his own quaint style. Has anyone, he
asks, ever, 'on arriving at some place he has never visited before,
taken a sudden fancy to it, committed himself to apartments for a
month certain, gone on praising the locality and all that belongs to
it, ferreting out concealed attractions, attaching undue importance to
them, undervaluing obvious defects: has he gone on in this way for
three weeks,' or rather three days, 'out of his month, then suddenly
broken down, found out his mistake, and pined in secret for
deliverance?' So it would be, as I conceive, at Bruges, or perhaps at
St. Omer. There you indeed appreciate the dead-alive city 'in all its
quiddity.' But a few days in a 'dead-alive' city, were it the most
picturesque in the world, would be intolerable.

By noon, when the sun has grown oppressively hot, I find myself set
down at a sort of rural town, once flourishing, and of some
importance--Bethune. A mile's walk on a parched road led up the hill
to this languishing, decayed little place. It had its forlorn omnibus,
and altogether suggested the general desolation of, say, Peterborough.